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UCC Library and UCC researchers have made this item openly available. Please let us know how this has helped you. Thanks! Title Diverse heritage: exploring literary identity in the American Southwest Author(s) Costello, Lisa Publication date 2013 Original citation Costello, L. 2013. Diverse heritage: exploring literary identity in the American Southwest. PhD Thesis, University College Cork. Type of publication Doctoral thesis Rights © 2013, Lisa Costello http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Embargo information No embargo required Item downloaded http://hdl.handle.net/10468/1155 from Downloaded on 2021-10-04T05:40:54Z Table of Contents Page Introduction The Spirit of Place: Writing New Mexico........................................................................ 2 Chapter One Oliver La Farge: Prefiguring a Borderlands Paradigm ………………………………… 28 Chapter Two ‘A once and future Eden’: Mabel Dodge Luhan’s Southwest …………………......... 62 Chapter Three Opera Singers, Professors and Archbishops: A New Perspective on Willa Cather’s Southwestern Trilogy…………………………………………………… 91 Chapter Four Beyond Borders: Leslie Marmon Silko’s Re-appropriation of Southwestern Spaces ...... 122 Chapter Five Re-telling and Re-interpreting from Colonised Spaces: Simon Ortiz’s Revision of Southwestern Literary Identity……………………………………………………………………………… 155 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………. 185 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………. 193 1 Introduction The Spirit of Place: Writing New Mexico In her landmark text The American Rhythm, published in 1923, Mary Austin analysed the emergence and development of cultural forms in America and presented poetry as an organic entity, one which stemmed from and was irrevocably influenced by close contact with the natural landscape. Analysing the close connection Native Americans shared with the natural environment Austin hailed her reinterpretation of poetic verse as “the very pulse of emerging American consciousness” (11). A closer examination of The American Rhythm in light of emerging theoretical models in contemporary scholarship places Austin at the fore of an influential field in modern literary studies. Austin’s work bears significant relevance to theories of place-based identity which have been productively developed in the work of Tom Lynch and other theorists. Such theories propose that inhabitants of a particular area are influenced by geographic and cultural aspects of that region and thus exhibit an identity unique to that landscape. Paradigms of place-based consciousness offer significant insights into the literary history of regions such as New Mexico and help to account for the distinctive cultural identity evident in this landscape today. Since the age of colonisation, the territory of New Mexico has been exposed to a diversity of cultural influence. Early representations of the Southwest have been defined as “strategies of negotiation” between Anglo, Hispanic and Native populations, strategies that are particularly evident in the territory of northern New Mexico (Goodman xv). Throughout recorded history, Spanish, Mexican and Anglo forces have battled for control of this territory, resulting in a continuous redefinition of its political, geographic and economic boundaries. Historical events from the Mexican- American War to the rise of tourism have had a significant influence on the geographic and cultural identity of this region and have contributed to the cultural hybridity, the Anglo, Hispanic and Native mix which makes 2 New Mexico a unique space in the geography of the Americas. The existence of such a hybrid culture within the geographic parameters of the United States challenges perceived definitions of national and regional identity. As this thesis will illustrate, the contemporary identity of regions such as northern New Mexico have destabilised the notion of what constitutes racial purity in regions which are defined by diversity. Literature was one of the first mediums to address this diversity and as a result occupies a distinctive place in New Mexico’s cultural history. An analysis of Anglo and Native writers from northern New Mexico will illustrate that these racial groups were influenced by the same geographic landscape. As such, their writing displays many characteristics unique to the region. In providing a comparative analysis of Native and Anglo authors from northern New Mexico, this thesis seeks to demonstrate commonalities of theme, structure and content. In doing so this research encourages a new perspective on New Mexico writing one which effectively de-centres contemporary notions of what the American canon should be. Despite its location within U.S. national borders, the American Southwest has long been characterised by its foreignness, defined by its remoteness to the nation state. Since the era of colonisation the geographic and cultural parameters of this region have continuously altered and evolved, with the result that the Southwest remains an uncertain place even in the twenty- first century imagination. Scholars have long sought to define the region’s geographical parameters and characterise its cultural identity. As James Byrkit asserts, “Nearly everybody who writes about ‘the Southwest’ appears to feel compelled, even obliged, to define it” (258). For early Anglo writers like Charles Fletcher Lummis and Erna Fergusson, this region was characterised by its difference to and alienation from Anglo American society. Lummis, in particular, identified the Southwest as “the United States which is not the United States” (1). For these writers, this region was defined along racial lines, with both Lummis and Fergusson prioritising a Native and Hispanic presence in the region. 3 Indeed in The Land of Poco Tiempo, published in 1893, Lummis all but omits any reference to an Anglo presence in the Southwest, instead choosing to focus on ‘native’ cultural groups like the Pueblos, Navajos and Mexicans, to whom he refers as “the real autochthones” of the region (5). This problem of definition remains no less problematic for contemporary writers. D.W. Meinig characterises the Southwest as “a distinctive place to the American mind but a somewhat blurred place on American maps, which is to say that everyone knows that there is a Southwest, but there is little agreement as to where it is” (qtd. in Lynch, 381). To Richard Francaviglia, the Southwest can be defined as the region where “three major cultures- Native American, Hispanic and Anglo American- have interacted, and been in considerable conflict, for more than five hundred years” (qtd in Goodman xvi). According to Leah Dilworth, it is “not simply a place. It is a region of the imagination…on which Americans have long focused their fantasies of renewal and authenticity” (2). For Eric Gary Anderson, the Southwest represents “a home place…for a rich variety of Indians and non Indians, but is also stands restlessly and paradoxically as a place where alien, migratory cultures have been encountering each other and competing against each other for a very long time” (3). We have, then, a plurality of Southwests; multiple constructs of the same geographic landscape. This thesis examines the cultural construct of northern New Mexico in order to ascertain how geographic location, and the history of a specific region, influences cultural production. In choosing to examine authors of both Anglo and Native descent, this dissertation identifies shared characteristics in their writing, characteristics which not only establish connections between diverse racial groups, but also identify distinguishing features of Southwestern writing, thus supporting the notion that this literature should be recognised as an autonomous body of writing. 1 1 In choosing to focus solely on Native and Anglo writing from this region, this research does not seek to undervalue or ignore the contribution which Hispanic literature makes to Southwestern writing. Rather, by focusing specifically on 4 From Colonisation to Tourism: Regional forces at work in New Mexico The unique history of northern New Mexico sets it apart from other Southwestern regions and from the rest of the American continent. Historical events, such as the Treaty of Guadalupe- Hidalgo and the rise of the tourist spectacle, account for the distinct cultural identity evident in New Mexico today. The treaty, which was signed in 1848, was instrumental in shaping the international and domestic histories of the United States and Mexico and played a particular role in shaping both the geographic territory and unique tri-ethnic identity of modern New Mexico. Under the treaty, Mexico ceded geographical territories to the U.S. in return for monetary compensation and the assurance of pre- existing property rights to all Mexicans in the conquered territories. The U.S. victory over Mexico also relocated the Texas border beyond the Rio Grande, resulting in the creation of a new international boundary. The re- drawing of these boundary lines had a significant influence on the racial identity of the region. Prior to the Mexican-American war, Mexicans living in the Southwest enjoyed superior racial status to the Native Indians they had subdued during the era of colonisation. However, the lands forfeited by Mexico in the treaty comprised almost half of its northern territories and Mexicans, who were granted U.S. citizenship after the Treaty, were suddenly relegated to the lower ranks of society as an Anglo presence in the region increased. Also, as the United States attained dominance in the newly acquired