Acomparison_of_the_Squatter_and_the_Don_and_We_Fed_Them_Cactus

Marcos Alvarez Professor Villanueva 10/28/10 English 47 A Contrast and Comparison Between The Squatter and the Don and We Fed Them Cactus We Fed Them Cactus is a biographical social protest memoir about a young aristocratic Spaniard girl forced to assimilate into the American culture after the great period of western migration following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This same event inspired Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton, a woman with similar upbringing, to write The Squatter and the Don. Though while Ruiz de Burton’s The Squatter and the Don practically shouts about the political and legislative injustices and lack of morals in this era of American history, We Fed Them Cactus is a much more eloquently and poetically written social protest memoir that aims at recording and memorializing the age of Spanish feudalism The themes within these two books mirror one another in that they explore the topics of loss, resistance, and the importance of preserving history and culture. I will also explain the differences in what they are trying to immortalize in history, how they differ on the political and social resistance of their themes, and I will defend my opinion that Cabeza de Vaca’s story gives a better insight as to the complexity between accommodation and resistance that exists in the Mexican community today. Let me begin by first talking about the themes of loss, resistance, and the end of an era. The themes of loss and resistance are the predominant theme these two books; this includes the loss of land, culture, and society. In The Squatter and the Don one can hear Ruiz de Burton’s strong voice coming through and protesting the loss of her land and culture in her novel in conversations between characters. For instance, when Don Mariano was talking to Clarence about his land case, he stated, “I don’t find it in my heart to blame those people for taking my land as much as I blame the legislators who turned them loose upon me” (Don 141). You can hear her making her case for her stolen land on the basis of morality. Burton sets morals by having wise characters in her book quote philosophers such as Herbert Spencer’s The Duties of Lawgivers: “Legislative deductions must be based upon fundamental morality”(Don 141), and then she throws it in the face of the American people and legislature. Cabeza de Vaca takes a less outspoken rebellious approach and instead decides to rebel against the loss of her land and culture mostly by naming names, recalling beautiful cultural details, and by glorifying the Spanish people and culture. The list of names is a very important part of this book. As Diana Rebolledo says in the introduction To We Fed Them Cactus “In the margin of one copy in the University of New Mexico someone has written names, names, names!!! (Cactus xxiii). Cabeza de Vaca’s first long list began on page 66 with “The Hispano has almost vanished from the land and most of the chapels are nonexistent but the names of hills, rivers arroyos, canyons, and defunct plazas linger as monuments to a people who pioneered into the land of buffalo and Comanche” (Cactus 66) and continues along naming until page 88, two chapters later. She does this on purpose because she is recording, mourning, and protesting the loss of her land by remembering the names of landmarks, cities, ranches, and the names of people connected to those places. We hear her cite examples of like “Tierra Blanca, or white earth has been shortened to Blanca” (Cactus 67), and this “town took its name from the patron saint of the church” (Cactus 76). If taken at face value, one might at first be put off by the long lists of names and facts. When taken in a more symbolic approach, the lists of names are a litany of those people and places that no longer exist in current society but whose names still touch our tongues. She did this both out of nostalgia and out of rebellion to her assimilation. She was saying though you modify our names and our change our culture we will always have the imprint and the history of a past era that can help define our identity. The loss of a golden era of feudalism is another major subtheme under the greater theme of loss present in both books. The very fact that both books were written in English is both a rebellion and an accommodation to the assimilation by American culture over their Spanish colonialism. One it’s a rebellion in the Squatter and the Don Because Ruiz de Burton wants the American people and legislature to know what their immorality has cost their culture. In the Following statement she uses Gabriel, Mercedes’ brother, to exemplify how much their stature and wealth their culture has lost “In that hod full of bricks…the entire history of the native Californians of Spanish descent was epitomized…Gabriel carrying his hod up a steep ladder…the natives of Spanish origins, having lost all their property must henceforth be hod carriers” (Don 351). She writes in English so that her target audience, the American citizens and Legislature from that point until people stop reading her book can be confronted with what the U.S. immorality has cost their society. Cabeza de Baca uses English not to shout at the American establishment but for a dual purpose, to concede to the dominant culture in acknowledging that a new age has come to be, and also to prove to the dominant culture that though the Spanish territory and power might have been absorbed, Spanish history and culture lives on and touches us every day. Baca does not shout at the top of her lungs like Burton, instead hidden among the litany of names are little “whispers” of resistance as Rebolledo quotes Padilla saying in the introduction. These whispers include “When the transition came replacing old with the new” (Cactus pg 76) and “before the American occupation” (Cactus 76) these little whispers giving clue as to the reason behind the list of names that began on page 66 and did not end until page 88. She writes as a poet giving a eulogy to the death of an era, she is not so much concentrated on what took her culture away, she is concentrated on the void that the loss of that culture has left. By doing this she is stating that even though Spanish colonialism is gone it still has an imprint in English culture. It is a statement made by Baca that though Spanish had been “relegated to the private sphere” (Cactus xx) her view of history has lived on in her memory and in her book. This writing down of history in Cabeza de Vaca’s elegant poetic eulogy is another comparison to Burton’s righteously angry work of historical fiction. Both of these women took great care to “write in the history books” so to speak. “Ruiz de Burton’s eye accurately captured events on a grand scale and the smallest domestic level” (Don intro) and so did Cabeza de Vaca. Vaca undertook a great feat of research to form her novel; she consulted her cultural storytellers for actual stories of the Llano and cross referenced those stories against church records, Spanish archives, and Mexican history. This accurate recreation in history is another way to for these women to rebel against the destruction of their culture and to immortalize that culture in words. By taking all these similarities and differences into account between The Squatter and the Don and We Fed Them Cactus I can now explain why The Don is a more political protest novel and We Fed Them Cactus is more of a social protest. It is evident by Burton’s political rhetoric by continually quoting Herbert Spencer’s theories that say legislators ”should never enact laws that are not founded upon moral rectitude” (Don 141) that we can safely say that The Squatter and the Don is primarily a political protest novel . This book is mostly about the immorality of a corrupt government. If Burton would have wanted to further analyze her morals she should have realized that Spencer also came up with the economic theory of survival of the fittest, which parallel Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection. Spence’s theory states that in an economic and political environment, like in a natural environment, only the strong will survive. This undermines Burton’s political point but seems to coincide with Cabeza de Baca’s theory of passive resistance. Cabeza de Baca seems to understand that she cannot fight the wave of assimilation and conquest but she can ride the wave and gather the stories of her people so that they will not be lost to the ravages of time. By doing this she preserved a section of history for her descendants and for scholars that are fortunate enough to pick up her book. Instead of quoting morals, Baca goes on to recall El Cuates story of the ciboleros, the buffalo hunters “With wagons loaded we were a happy bunch of ciboleros, saying adios, hasta el ano venidero….but there came a day when we did not return because the wonderful sport had vanished” (Cactus 43). She seems to say “look I cannot stop the destruction of my culture but I can collect it and save it for a future generation.” Cabeza de Vaca’s intent on glorifying her society is her protest to the destruction of it. This resistance to the obliteration of her society is the difference from the political dissent of Burton’s novel. In my opinion It is these political and social differences that explain why Cabeza de Vaca’s novel is more relevant today. Yes, Ruiz took a more outspoken voice in her novel. Like Ana Castillo said in the introductory essay “The woman had cojones” (Don xxvi), she loudly proclaimed the injustices of the American government. And yes this is relevant today because government continues to be corrupt and corporations continue to buy influence. All of us as American citizens have the obligation to fight for our rights like Burton was doing by writing the Squatter and the Don. However all Hispanos, Latinos, and Mexicanos can take a great lesson from Cabeza de Vaca. Through her life and memoir she proved that in the face of a tornado a reed has to bend with the wind or else the reed would break. The tornado that was the “American Invasion” seemed to have broken Burton because no matter how strongly she fought against it, and no matter how strongly she debated her position, in the end America still had its way. Cabeza de Vaca however angry, nostalgic, and defiant she might have been, wrote with the realization that what was occurring was inevitable. Instead of shouting the injustices at the top of her literary voice, she recalls, memorializes, eulogizes, and preserves her culture within herself. This want of preserving culture in the face of assimilation reflects the situation that all Mexican people are living in today. Some of us are first generation American’s, like myself. I was born in Guadalajara so that makes me a Tapatio. I am very proud of my homeland’s rich culture. I realize that I am first and foremost an American. I have studied in American schools, voted in American elections and served in the American military. Like Cabeza de Vaca I was forced to assimilate, and like her, I realize that assimilation does not mean that my culture has been erased. This is the complexity that exists between accommodation and resistance in Mexican-American culture. Instead of violently resisting and speaking against the law or the government From a one sided, cultural standpoint like Burton did, we should strive to become better people and become models for what Mexican-Americans are supposed to be. It is in this way that we can empower and distinguish ourselves in the face of an accommodating society. In conclusion, these two novels had much in common like the themes of resistance and loss and the glorification of an era, however they were written in very different styles. In my opinion We Fed Them Cactus has a more resounding message for Latino, Hispanic, and Mexican culture today