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Nation, race, and heterogeneity in the literature of the Americas

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Nation, race, and heterogeneity in the literature of the Americas

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Content INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UME films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely afreet reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. NATION, RACE, AND HETEROGENEITY IN THE LITERATURE OF THE AMERICAS by Juan Enrique de Castro A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy (Comparative Literature) August 1998 Copyright 1998 Juan Enrique de Castro R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. UMI Number: 9919029 UMI Microform 9919029 Copyright 1999, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA 90007 This dissertation, written by J u a n De C a s t r o under the direction of h .Sf. Dissertation Committee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by The Graduate School in partial fulfillment of re quirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY or Graduate Studies D / r h . July 2 4 » 1998 DISSERTATION COMMITTEE R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission 1 1 Acknowledgements There are numerous people who with their knowledge, patience, and encouragement have helped make the writing cf this dissertation possible First I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Professor Lucille Kerr, the director of my dissertation I cannot exaggerate the positive influence of her input on my work Her brilliance as a critic and reader has not only made this study much better than what it would have been otherwise, but has also taught me what a true scholar should be like I am also grateful to Professor Roberto Ignacio Diaz for generously sharing his profound knowledge of Latin American literature and, especially, his friendship and support Despite being busy as the Chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of California, Los Angeles, Professor Randal Johnson was always willing to set time aside to advise me on matters pertaining to Brazilian Literature (and attend the necessary departmental exams) Professor Anthony Kemp showed an interest m my work greater than that required by the position of an outside member on a dissertation committee, and I am grateful for his always interesting suggestions Needless to say, I am exclusively responsible for the mistakes that still remain m the text Finally, I would like to thank my wife Magdalena for her support during the writing of this dissertation R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. "Nation, Race, and Heterogeneity in the Literature of the Americas" The dissertation "Nation, Race, and Heterogeneity in the Literature of the Americas" is an inquiry into the discourse of national identity in the racially and culturally heterogeneous societies of the Americas, specifically mestizaje in Spanish America, mestiyagem in Brazil, and multiculturalism in the United States. This dissertation examines diverse texts-fictional, essayist! c, and sodological-that reflect and reconfigure the problem of reconciling identity and heterogeneity. The study of Spanish American mestizaje focuses on the Peruvian authors Ricardo Palma, Jos6 Carlos Mari£tegui, and Jos6 Maria Arguedas. These writers resort to mestizaje. understood as the creation of a national culture out of Indian and Spanish elements, in order to imagine one nation composed out of a heterogeneous population; but, despite these intentions, the opposition between the dominant criollo and subaltern Indian populations reappears as fissures in these narratives of identity. The dissertation also explores how the Brazilian writers Jos6 de AlencaPs and Qlberto Freyre's use of mestiyagem is marked by contradiction; even as they celebrate the miscegenation of Indians, Portuguese, and-in the case of Freyre- - Africans, the new nation is mostly predicated on the cultural preponderance of European elements. Finally, the dissertation investigates the traces of Mexican mestizaje in Gloria Anzaldtia’ s and Richard Rodriguez’ s versions of U.S. multiculturalism, as well as the tension in their writings between the claim to an exclusive group identity and the need to establish a common- even national-ground capable of permitting communication and exchange among different ethnic groups. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. T A B L E OF C O N T E N T S INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 6 CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSION WORKS CITED Nation, Race and Heterogeneity m the the Americas I Ricardo Palma's Tradiciones peruanas The Limits of Mestizaje 41 Jose de Alencar's Iracema Mesticagem as Translation 71 Gilberto Freyre s Casa-Grande e Senzala Mesticagem as a Family Affair 10 7 Jose Carlos Manategui Marxist Mestizaje 144 Jose Maria Argueaas's Yavar fiesta The Impasse of Mestizaje 191 Gloria Anzaldua s Border lands/La Front era Mestizaje m the Age of Multiculturalism (I) 220 Richard Rodriguez Mestizaje m the Age o Multiculturalism (II) 249 Mestizaje, Multiculturalism, and the Latin Americanization of :U S ; American. Cu11 u r e 2 7 5 291 R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 Introduc t ion Nation, Race, and Heterogeneity in the Americas Although it would seem possible to separate the concepts of race and nation (the former referring principally to the sharing of genetic characteristics by a human group, the latter to the sharing of a political and geographical identification), one cannot ignore the fact that any attempt to define a nation, or to establish a "national identity-, " inevitably becomes entangled with the question of race. The imbrication of these two concepts is evident in the attempts at national definition with which we are familiar in Europe and in the Americas. Since the interrelationship of these two words is already present in their etymologies and semantics the connection between one concept and the other is not surprising. The source for nation and its cognates is the Latin verb nasci. literally "to be born." But already in Latin the derived noun natio was used for "species" or "race" (Ayto 361) . The word nation was introduced into the English language in the late thirteenth century and maintained its Latin meaning of "racial group” (Williams 213). The etymology of race is, however, not as clearly understood.1 It was not until the sixteenth century that the term, with the 1 According to both Raymond Williams and John Ayto, “race" derives from the French word "race” which in turn derives from the Italian "razza," both words having approximately the same meaning of "line of descent“but the origins of these earlier cognates are unknown (Williams 248; Ayto 428) . R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. sense of of a shared "line of descent," was adopted into. English from the French; by 1600 its meaning was "extended from traceable specific offspring to much wider social, cultural and national groups" (Williams 248-49). The conceptual interrelationship between "nation" and "race" has continued until the present day. In fact, the modern definitions and theories of the nation, nationality, and nationalism date back to the late nineteenth century, a period, as we know, when racialist thought was hegemonic.2 The fact that both concepts were defined in the nineteenth century led to a further muddling of the already confused relationship between race and nation, because both racialism and nationalism not only connected both concepts at an intellectual level, but based their popular appeal on the emotional response to this linkage. In its application of racist beliefs to the biological and social sciences, the racialism of the second half of the nineteenth century implied a paradigm shift in Western thought. We recall that, whether for theological reasons (such as the belief in the Adamic origin of humanity), or for biological reasons (such as the fertility of miscegenated individuals) , most earlier thinking had accepted the unity of humanity. Even the persecution of the Jews and Moriscos in Spain during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth 2 On the rise of the modern definitions and theories of the nation see Anderson 4; Williams 213. Following Reginald Horsman, I am using the term "racialist" rather than racist for the pseudo-scieritific "racial" theorizations developed during the nineteenth century (305 note 1). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 3 centuries, characterized by a preoccupation with "blood purity" ("limpieza de sangre") that can be interpreted as anticipating racialism, did not deny this theoretical equality.3 Clearly, this theoretical egalitarianism did not hinder, or even contradict, the rise of colonialism in late Renaissance Europe. Even the radical version of egalitarianism prevalent during the Enlightenment saw the unity of humanity as one of potentiality rather than actuality.4 Colonialism could thus be justified by its assumed pedagogic function: that of creating an environment where non-Western individuals could become acquainted with Western civilization and progressively assimilate the culture of their European "tutors," who were in principle taken to exemplify the fullest development of human potential.'1 According to Enlightenment thought, until equality between Europeans and non-Europeans was achieved, colonialism could be justified. The racialism of the nineteenth century denied this traditional equality of different human groups. Scientific racialism, basing itself on new sciences, such as phrenology, ’ The Moriscos were the descendants of the Moorish settlers of Spain. As Lea notes the discriminatory laws given in Spain were directed against both the Jews and Moriscos (12). Nevertheless, popular antipathy was first directed against the Jews, who were persecuted by the Inquisition and finally expelled in 1492. The expulsion of the Moriscos had to wait until 1609. On Spanish anti-semitism, see Nicholls (267). On the events that led to the discrimination, persecution, and expulsion of the Moriscos, see Lea. 4 On the prevalent egalitarianism of the Enlightenment, see Kahn 26-27; Young 32-33. 5 See Young 32-34. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 4 and in the reinterpretation of established disciplines in the natural and social sciences, gave scientific credence to the idea that behavioral differences among human groups had genetic rather than environmental origins. This pseudo science, which became the scientific orthodoxy of the day, proclaimed a hierarchy among the different "races," and these "races" were considered by some to constitute different and discrete species/ The logical consequence of this new mode of thinking was to define the unequal relationships between different human groups not as a temporary situation, but as a necessarily permanent and natural reflection of an intrinsic inequality among the races. In its most extreme and virulent versions, scientific racialism could lead to a complete denial of the humanity of non-white "races," since, not surprisingly, the white race was considered by these "scientists" to be superior to all others, and definitive of what it meant to be human.7 Louis Agassiz, one of the most noted scientists of the nineteenth century, wrote: "With reference to their offspring, the races of men stand . . . to one another in the same relation as different species among animals; and the word races, in its present significance, needs only to be retained till the number of human species is definitely ascertained and their true characteristics fully understood. I am satisfied that, unless it can be shown that the differences between the Indian, negro, and white races are unstable and transient, it is not in keeping with the facts to affirm a community of origin for all the varieties of the human family, nor in keeping with scientific principles to make a difference between human races and animal species in a systematic point of view" (297). For a history of the rise of scientific racialism see Horsman 116-57; Young 6-19. 7 Theodor Waitz one of the few contemporary critics of scientific racialism made explicit the logical consequences of this new scientific doctrine: "If there be various species of mankind, there must be a natural aristocracy among them, a dominant white species as opposed to the lower races who by their origin are destined to serve the nobility R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 5 Nineteenth century racialism, as well as nationalism, was not grounded exclusively in theories developed in the natural sciences, but also in the theories of language and language studies of the period, what later came to be known as philology. We recall that, already in the late eighteenth century, Johann Gottfried von Herder, although a staunch believer in idea of the unity of the species, had described language as the expression of the national spirit. Language, for him, was not a neutral means of communication: "it is through the language of the parents that a given mode of thinking is perpetuated" (163).x Since, for Herder, language is even more a national than an individual phenomenon, language and nationality do not imply merely geographical accidents or secondary facts, but a difference in the way people think and interpret reality.1 ' Simplifying to the extreme, it could be argued that in Herder’s thinking language is privileged as one of the origins of what could be called national difference.10 Although Herder was far from being a rigid nationalist, Eurocentric, or racialist thinker, his emphasis on the importance of linguistic and national of mankind, and may be tamed, trained, and used like domestic animals, or may, according to circumstances be fattened or used for physiological or other experiments without any compunctions (qtd. in Young 7). “ Also see Herder 146-48. , } The importance of the nation in Herder's thinking is exemplified in the following: "Since the whole human race is not one single homogeneous group, it does not speak one and the same language. The formation of diverse national languages, therefore, is a natural corollary of human diversity" (165). 1 ( 1 On Herder see Anderson 67-68; Horsman 27; Kahn 28-30; Kristeva 177- 80. Young provides a slightly different reading of Herder centered on the tensions between the localist and cosmopolitan strains in his thought (36-43). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 6 difference contributed to the privileging of the national that was developing within European thought from the end of the eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth century.1 1 Ideas of nation and race were also reified by the discovery that the majority of European languages belonged to the same Indo-European family.12 That Europe was one cultural community was believed Co be discernible not only from its common linguistic heritage, but also from the "national" or "racial" heritage common to all European countries. It was reasoned that, if an original European language had in fact existed, there also had to have been a group of people that spoke that language. That original group of people was understood to be a race. Considering the progressively hegemonic position of racialism in the nineteenth century, it is not surprising that it soon became common to credit this Indo-European "race" with a central civilizing role in history as they travelled from Asia to Europe.13 Such a belief in the superiority of the Indo-European stock allowed for, if not demanded, an identification between race and nation. The closer to the Indo-European origin a language was thought to be, the closer the people were believed to be 1 1 Herder denies any difference in ability or intelligence among different human groups, he rather sees culture as originating from the "inter-national transmission of social cultures" (174). Nevertheless, his stress on national difference, linked to locality and language, as implying profound psychological and behavioral differences among human group seems to overlap with racialism. See Young 39-40. 12 See Horsman 3 3-37. " ". . . what was best in Europe and the world was increasingly ascribed to that people, soon generally to be called Aryan, who had pressed westward out of central Asia to revitalize the Roman Empire and eventually dominate Europe and the world" (Horsman 36). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 7 to the original Indo-European race considered to be the source of all European achievements. Nineteenth century philology thereby allowed for the establishment of racial and national hierarchies,14 and for the complete identification between language, race, and nation. To a nation corresponded one race and one language, and it was this tripartite identity (nation-race-language) that justified national projects--that is, the move to political integration and autonomy.15 The relationship between race and nation, as well as that between racism and nationalism, rests on more than linguistic and historical factors. Race and nation serve not only to classify conceptually human groups, but also lend themselves to the reification of human difference. The exclusionary thinking behind these concepts almost always leads to the establishment of hierarchies. The idea of the nation establishes a hierarchy between "the national" and "the foreign," the former, by definition, superior to the latter. Hierarchy and exclusion are likewise present in the idea of race: nineteenth century racialism only actualized what was implicit in the concept. After all, if in the classification of human groups physical characteristics are 14 For the debate about whether Germany or England was closer to the Indo-European origin, and, therefore, superior to other nations, see Horsman 35-39. 15 Although, today one would be quick to point out the degree of linguistic and ethnic, heterogeneity present in these European countries, what is important is not the reality of the claim to homogeneity, but the fact that it was believed by a sufficient number of people to give a political and social basis to "national" claims. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 8 assigned a central role, it is not surprising that non physical characteristics are synecdochally associated with the physical, and that a hierarchical order among the groups is proposed. If this identification between race, nation, and language seemed to obtain in Europe, 16 it did not, or could not, in the Americas. Although, as has been pointed out, the American nation states (both North and South) were the prototypes that inspired European nationalist action and thought, the situation of the Americas differed in significant ways from that of Europe.17 Without exception, the American nation states were made up of heterogeneous "racial" and linguistic groups, and, thus, the European formula for constructing nationality could not serve as a model for the national projects of the Americas. In the case of the United States, there was a variety of national, linguistic, and ethnic groups present at the time of independence. The (U.S) American population consisted of settlers of British and other European descent, together with significant numbers of blacks and Amerindians. These last two groups were in principle excluded from any conceptualization of the nation because the majority of 16 Emphasis has Co be put in the word "seemed." Even in Europe, nations were made up of profoundly heterogeneous populations. Cases like those of the Welsh in Great Britain or the Bretons in France are far from being exceptional. 17 Anderson writes about the newly independent American nations: "For not only were they historically the first such states to emerge on the world stage, and therefore the first real models of what such states should 'look like’ . . .” (46). Also see Anderson xiii, 47-65; Quijano “Modernidad, identidad y utopia en America Latina” 18. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 9 blacks were slaves and Amerindians were routinely expelled or exterminated as their land was taken by the colonizers. It was within this framework that the notion of the "melting pot'* developed. The "melting pot" simply meant that all citizens were expected to assimilate into the mainstream society of the United States and follow the cultural, social, economic, and political standards and behaviors characteristic of the descendants of the English colonizers (i.e.,the English language, economic liberalism, etc). As immigrants began to arrive in the United States, this form of assimilationism proved very successful in creating a unified nation out of individuals of diverse European national origins. Nevertheless, hidden in the apparently neutral standards and behaviors of the melting pot was a racial and cultural hierarchy that privileged white European groups.IX The melting pot permitted a nation of immigrants to reproduce the European "national" formula: one language (English), one "race" (white).19 It is only in the twentieth century, with the refusal of Native-American, African-American, Hispanic, and Asian-American groups to occupy subordinate positions in society, and with the increase in immigration from non- European countries, that the Eurocentric assimilationism of IH "Downplaying the effects of racial marking, assimilationism ignores the way supposedly neutral institutions are pro-white" (Gordon and Newfield "Multiculturalism's Unfinished Business" 81). It is important to keep in mind that this "formula" was itself a fiction since, as we have seen, the European nations were actually made up of heterogeneous cultural, linguistic, and, even, "racial" groups as the examples of the Catalans in Spain, the Welsh in Great Britain, or the Jewish communities throughout Europe clearly demonstrate. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 0 the melting pot has proven inadequate as a policy for incorporating immigrants into the national society. The case of the Latin American countries is much more complex than that of the United States. Unlike the United States, in Latin America the colonial population comprised Amerindian, black, and miscegenated majorities, as well as the "white" ruling elites, who, in fact, were in most cases only nominally white. In 1933, Gilberto Freyre, the Brazilian anthropologist and sociologist, described the Brazilian colonial elites as "brancos e brancaroes" (xlix; "whites and light-skinned mu lattoes," xxix),20 while the Peruvian intellectual, Manuel Gonzalez Prada, claimed to find all races throughout the nation, even in the most aristocratic salons of late nineteenth century Lima.'1 However, such miscegenation was anathema for the scientific racialism of the nineteenth century. Because scientific racialist thinkers believed that each race constituted a distinct and separate species, and hybrids'are known in nature to be incapable of reproducing their own species, many held that miscegenation led to infertility. ’"Gilberco Freyre’s most important work Casa-Grande e Senzala is studied in detail in chapter four. 21 "Todo el que en Lima entre a un salon aristocratico donde se hallen reunidas unas diez o doce personas, puede exclamar sin riesgo de enganarse: 'Saludo a todas las razas y a todas las castas1” (“Nuestra aristocracia" 290; "In Lima, anyone who enters an aristocratic salon where at least ten or twelve people can be found can exclaim, without risk of self-deception, 'greetings to all races and castes’"). (In this study, I have attempted to use existing translations of the texts quoted whenever possible, and whenever these translations have proven to be faithful to the original texts. I have provided page numbers for the quotations from existing translations. Where no page number is provided, the translation is my own). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 1 Since this belief in the infertility of the miscegenated individual contradicted reality, scientific racialists proposed that hybrid populations only became infertile after several generations of continued miscegenation (Young 16). It was also held that miscegenation led to the degeneration of any beneficial qualities present in the original races (Young 16). Given its "racial" plurality, Latin America became the privileged example of the supposed evils of miscegenation, as theorized by these "scientific" thinkers. The following statement about Brazil by Louis Agassiz, professor of zoology at Harvard, former protege of Alexander von Humboldt and Louis Cuvier, and one of the most respected figures in nineteenth-century natural sciences, is paradigmatic of the evaluation of Latin America and of miscegenation by scientific racialism: Let any one who doubts the evil of this mixture of races, and is inclined, from a mistaken philanthropy to break down all barriers between them, come to Brazil. He cannot deny the deterioration consequent upon the amalgamation of races more widespread here than any other country in the world, and which is rapidly effacing the best qualities of the white man, the Negro, and the Indian, leaving a mongrel nondescript type, deficient in physical and mental energy. (293) Therefore, scientific racialism considered the miscegenated populations of Latin America to be inferior even to the races this pseudo-science classified as primitive--such as blacks and Indians. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 2 The reaction of the Latin American elites to scientific racialism was complex. On the one hand, scientific racialism provided a ready made explanation for the social and economic failures of Latin America during the nineteenth century, which the elites could ascribe to the presence of black, Amerindian, and miscegenated populations. Moreover, by declaring themselves to be "white," the Latin American oligarchies could claim a "scientific" justification for. their exploitation of the darker, and supposedly inferior, Indian, black, and miscegenated masses. Seen from the perspective of scientific racialism, the inequality between the "white" elites and the "dark" majority, one of the characteristics of Latin America in the nineteenth century (and beyond), became a natural and unavoidable social condition.22 Moreover, scientific racialism was fully congruent with the notion of an opposition between "civilization"--associated with the "white" urban elites--and "barbarism"--represented by the mostly mestizo, Indian, and black rural populations--originally proposed by the Argentinean intellectual Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. The spread of scientific racialism, therefore, reinforced the separation, even opposition, between the putative "white" national elites and the "dark" majority of the population. 22 Jose Carlos Mariategui (in collaboration with Hugo Pesce) wrote about the Latin American elites: "El prejuicio de la inferioridad de la raza indigena, le consiente una explotacion maxima de los trabajos de esta raza" (“El problema de las razas en la America Latina 25; "The belief in the inferiority of the Indian race permits the exploitation of this race to the utmost"). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 3 There was, however, another side to scientific racialism that could not easily be assimilated by the Latin American elites. Scientific racialism, with its pessimistic evaluation of the consequences of miscegenation and its belief in the inferiority of non-white races, condemned the Latin American nations to occupy subordinate positions in relation to Europe and the United States. The Mexican- American War, justified in the (U.S.) American press on racialist grounds, exemplified from a Latin American perspective the dangerous uses that could be made of this new "scientific" point of view (Horsman 208-15). Moreover, since Latin American elites’ "whiteness” was often more fiction than fact, those elites were consequently positioned by scientific racialism as inferior to Europeans and (U.S.) Americans. Influenced by scientific racialism, Latin American elites attempted to "whiten" their national populations. Although the extermination of Amerindian populations already had a long history which dated back to colonial days in the "frontier” areas of Chile, Argentina, and Brazil, racialism provided an added justification for their annihilation. For instance, it is not accidental that in Argentina the so- called "Conquest of the Desert,” the war of extermination waged against the Indians, was begun in 1879, during the heyday of racialism (Helg 44).2' On the generalized racism of the Argentinean population during the second half of the nineteenth century, see Helg 37-44. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 4 Central to the different national elites’ attempts at "whitening" the population of the Latin American countries was the promotion of immigration from Europe. The idea was for large numbers of European immigrants to intermarry with the "dark" native populations, and, ultimately, through the dilution of the "inferior" genetic element and the overwhelming presence of white immigrants, "whiten" the population.24 Both aspects of the Latin American elites' attempts at "whitening" Latin America’s racial makeup-- annihilation and immigration--did not contradict each other. In fact, it was the genocide of the Amerindian population in Argentina that opened up the countryside to agriculture, and lured European immigrants who were, in large proportion, farmers (Helg 44). In other Latin American countries the number of immigrants fell short of the expectations of the elites, and massive miscegenation of the immigrants with blacks and Amerindians did not take place.25 Given this failure of "whitening," as a project to "improve” the "quality” of Latin America's predominantly miscegenated, black, and Amerindian population, it became necessary for Latin American intellectuals to fashion a new response to the problems of race and nation. By the first decades of the twentieth century Latin American intellectuals 24 See Skidmore 24, 64-65; Mariategui and Pesce "El problema de las razas en America Latina” 25. 25 Even in the case of Brazil, which received a sizable number of immigrants--3.5 million--the so called "whitening" or "bleaching" process never materialized. See Burns 314-16; Skidmore 136-44. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 5 began to propose that mestizaie26 (miscegenation) be viewed not as a flaw to be corrected by immigration, but as that characteristic that would constitute the nation as such.27 The appropriation of the word and concept of mestizaje28 to denote in a positive manner the process by which the national populations of Latin American countries, and Latin America as a whole, were constituted as a specific race and culture implied the modification of the word's connotations. Mestizaje and mestizo derive from an older Spanish word mesto. which in turn originated from the Latin mixtus, used in agriculture to denote several type of hybrid plants (Moliner 402). Mestizo was used in agriculture and animal husbandry to name a hybrid animal or plant (Moliner 402) . It 26 It is particularly difficult to assign intellectual priority regarding this re-semantization of mestizaje to any particular thinker in Latin America. In "Racism, Revolution, and Indigenismo: Mexico, 1910-1940“ Knight singles out Andres Molina Enriquez (1909) and Manuel Gamio (1916), although he admits that nineteenth century Mexican thinkers such as Fray Servando and Justo Sierra had "hinted at" a positive revaluation of the mestizo (85). And one could, of course, mention Jose Marti as a writer who in his anti-racialism and celebration of the indigenous elements in his essays, particularly "Nuestra America,” clearly prefigured this positive interpretation of mestizaje. In the case of Peru, the first major figure to propose Peru as a mestizo country was Jose de la Riva-Agiiero, on whom more below. *' Although unlike mestizaje, the Portuguese cognate mesticagem has not fully acquired the nationalist connotations characteristic of the Spanish word, it, together with the concept of "racial democracy, " has become central to conceptualizations of the nation that parallel those proposed in Spanish America. Thus, with some differences that will be discussed later in this study, the discussion about mestizaje presented above is relevant to that country's intellectual history. One must keep in mind, however, that mesticagem. as a concept if not as a word, was proposed earlier in Brazil than in Spanish America. In fact, in an influential essay published in Brazil the German scholar Martius proposed the notion of a multi-racial Brazil as early as 1848. Later in this study I will address the Brazilian versions of mesticagem in depth. 28 Given that it is a central concept in this study, the Spanish word mestizaje will no longer be underlined in the text. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 6 is only during the establishment of the Spanish viceroyalties in America that the words mestizo and mestizaje were extended to the new populations that arose out of the sexual relationship between Spanish conquistadors and Indian women. Because mestizos, as well as mulattos, were frequently the product of rape or adultery, the colonial authorities looked down on them, and the places they could live and the jobs they could hold were severely restricted (Alvarez 967) . To use mestizaje in a positive national context implied not only rejecting the dogmas of scientific racialism, but also disregarding the negative connotations and uses that had been associated with the word and its cognates in Spanish. In fact, the cognate mestizar is still defined as "adulterar la pureza de una raza por el cruce con otras" a meaning fully compatible with racialism (Moliner 402; "adulterate the purity of a race by crossing it with others"). Within the Latin American context, then, mestizaje acquires meanings that are very different from those attached to miscegenation. If miscegenation was seen as leading to the degeneration of the species, and also to infertility, mestizaje became (as a concept, if not as a proposed practice) the means through which to imagine the construction of a unified nation. Mestizaje permitted Latin American thinkers to claim for their countries the racial unity of the nation as conceived by European thought.29 Mestizaje became a 29 The following quotation from the early twentieth century Peruvian historian Jose de la Riva-Agiiero illustrates the manner in which a R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 7 way for the three numerically principal races living in the Americas--White, Amerindian, and Black--to become incorporated into the same national project: they would commingle to form a new mestizo race, in which the constitutive qualities of each original race would contribute to and form a new and different whole.10 Since such a fusion was only partial, a fact evidenced by the persistence of separate and distinct races in Latin America, nationality became a project only incompletely achieved, bound to become fully realized in the future as the "convivencia y cruce de las razas" continued (Riva-Agiiero 117; "coexistence and crossing of the races"). Mestizaje, as a conceptualization of the nation, thus stands, in some respects, in profound opposition to scientific racialism: where racialism saw degeneration, mestizaje saw development and national consolidation; where racialism saw the national failure of the Latin American states, mestizaje saw the grounding possibility of the nation as such. Nevertheless, despite the tenets that clearly situated mestizaje as an "opposing" theory, it can also be understood as a continuation of scientific racialism. Mestizaje, in its earlier versions, still maintained the idea of race as miscegenated racial unity becomes the basis for a conception of a unified nationality: "el proceso de nuestra unidad fue el callado efecto de la convivencia y el cruce de razas" (Paisaies peruanns 117; “the process of our unity was based on the coexistence and crossing of the races”) . ! ° "The Spanish Americans . . . advocate racial tolerance, or better yet, miscegenation, because they assume that the different races will contribute different perceptions of reality and different styles of 'expressive behavior'" (Grana 170). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. central to its proposals, and assigned permanent and 1 8 hereditary characteristics to each race. In fact, not only are the characteristics assigned to blacks and Amerindians by the proponents of mestizaje reminiscent of the stereotypes present in racialist writings, but frequently the same racial hierarchy is maintained.}' It is not accidental that mestizaje became an important national, and regional, ideology in the early twentieth century, precisely the period during which criticism of the doctrines of scientific racialism began not only in Europe and the United States, but also in Latin America. Starting in the late nineteenth century Latin American intellectuals 1 1 Jose Vasconcelos‘s essays illustrate the persistence of racialist values and ideas in much writing about mestizaje. Writing about the “raza cdsmica," a culturally and racially superior version of humanity- produced by the miscegenation of all racial groups, he casually notes that: “Los tipos bajos de la especie seran absorbidos por el tipo superior. De esta suerta podria reaimirse, por ejemplo, el negro, y poco a poco, por extincion voiuntaria, las estirpes mas feas ir cediendo el paso a las mas hermosas. Las razas inferiores, al educarse. se harian menos prolificas, y los mejores especimenes Iran ascendiendc en una escala de mejoramiento etnico .... El indio, por medio del injerto en la raza afin, daria el salto de los millares de af.os que median de la Atlantida a nuestra epoca, y en unas cuantas decadas de eugenesia estetica podria desaparecer el negro junto con los tipos que el libre instinto de hermosura vaya senaiando como fundamentalrnente recesivos e indignos, por lo mismo, de perpetuacion" (108; “The lower types of the species will be absorbed by the superior type. In this manner, for instance, blacks could be redeemed, and, progressively, through voluntary extinction, the uglier breeds would give way to the more beautiful. The inferior races will become less prolific through education, and the best specimens will rise in the scale of ethnic improvement . . . The Indian by means of the insertion in the compatible race will make the temporal jump from Atlantis to our time, and, in a few decades of aesthetic eugenics, so will blacks, together with the types that the free instinct of beauty will point out as recessive and. therefore, unworthy of preservation"). Although Vasconcelos will add that "El mestizo y el indio, aun el negro, superan al bianco er. ir.a infinidad de capacidades propiamente espirituales"(“Mestizos and Indians, even blacks, are superior to whites in an infinity of properly spiritual capacities"), it is quite clear in his text that he accepts the notion of racial hierarchy, and that in this hierarchy it is the "white" race that is closer to his "cosmic" ideal. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 9 such as the Peruvian Manuel Gonzalez Prada and the Brazilian Manoel Bomfim emphasized the non-scientific and imperialist nature of scientific racialism, and thus helped to create an intellectual climate less dominated by the dogmas of racialism.12 By the end of the nineteenth century, culture slowly began to replace race as the principal classificacory concept of human difference. Because this process of substitution was far from concluded when the first writings proposing mestizaje as the basis for Latin American nationalities were produced, there is a confusing conceptualization of race and culture in these works. Moreover since both race and culture are markers of difference, there is a conceptual overlap between these concepts.'''1 Mestizaje, therefore, became not only a racial but also a cultural concept. In the cultural 'z The following quotation from Gonzalez Prada is exemplary: "Admitida la division de la Humanidad en razas superiores y razas inferiores, reconocida la superioridad de los blancos y por consiguiente su dere^r. a monopolizar el gobierno del Planeta, nada mas natural que la supres del negro en Africa, el piel roja en Estados Unidos. del tagalo en Filipinas, del indio en el Peru" (“Nuestros iuaios 332; "If the division of humanity into superior and inferior races is admitted, if the superiority of whites and, therefore, their right to govern the planet is recognized, the suppression of African blacks, of the redskin in "he United States, of the tagalo in the Philippines, of the Indian P^r^, is a natural consequence"). Manoel Bomfin made a similar analysis of racism in 3razil. See A America Latina: Males de Orioem 27 8. ” The overlap between race and culture is not only significant in the analysis of mestizaje, but also in that of racist ideas. As Young points out: ''although it no longer finds a place within a general theory of racial difference and inequality, the twentieth-century anthropological notion of culture as determining still operates a notion of difference that works within an implicit hierarchy, overarched by the divide between the West and the non-West“ (50). Thus the break between race and culture as markers of difference, although important, is not as sharp as it may seem at first. In fact, as Kahn points out, contemporary European "racism" uses culture as the principal criteria by which immigrant groups are considered to be inferior. On contemporary "cultural" racism, see Kahn 6-7, 125-26. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 20 version of mestizaje, the fusion is not seen as necessarily, or even primarily, biological, but rather as cultural: out of the interrelationships among Amerindians, Spaniards (or Portuguese), and blacks, a new national culture that would retain what is of value in each of its three constitutive cultural traditions has begun to be created. Just as race and culture overlap, cultural and racial versions of mestizaje have in practice tended to blend into one another. The writings of the Peruvian historian Riva- Aguero during the 1910s and 20s illustrate the difficulty that proponents of mestizaje encounter in separating concepts of race and culture. He prefaces his description of the "Indian race" with the following words: "Si existe una verdad comprobada por la Historia, es la de que las razas humanas no poseen cualidades psicologicas inmutables, sino a lo mas propensiones, de diversisimos resultados segun las circunstancias" (Paisaies peruanos 187; "If there is a truth proven by history it is that the human races do not possess immutable psychological traits, but instead have tendencies that lead to diverse results according to circumstance") . Rather than writing about the inheritance of fixed and specific genetic traits, which are central to any true racial thinking, Riva-Agiiero writes about tendencies that result in an unpredictable array of attitudes and behaviors. In his formulation, the concept of race has lost any descriptive or predictive value. Therefore, his description of the customs, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 1 attitudes, and traditions of the "Indian race" can be read as much as an analysis of culture as of race (187-89). There is also a frequent slippage from the concept of culture back to that of race among proponents of cultural mestizaje. For instance, Jose Carlos Mariategui, who throughout his works declared race invalid as an analytical concept, frequently resorts to racial stereotypes in his descriptions of human behavior.3 4 In many Latin American texts that attempt to use mestizaje to define the nation, the slippage back and forth between culture and race remains a constant.1' Definitions of nationality that seem to propose racial versions of mestizaje frequently define racial characteristics as dependent on environmental, including cultural, factors. On the other hand, proponents of cultural mestizaje frequently resort to racial stereotypes. Therefore, in the Latin American discourse of mestizaje the difference between racial and cultural versions tends to disappear. Nevertheless, the ambiguity present in the terms used to define the nation is only a weakness from a critical perspective. If these texts are analyzed as national projects, that is, as texts that ,4 Mariategui's ambiguous relationship to racialism will be studied in chapter 4. It is important to note that critics have found a similar slippage between race and culture in Mexican post-revolutionary " indigenista mestizaje,'* see Knight 36-95. 15 Another example of this slippage can be found in Gilberto Freyre's work. As Cesar Grafia has pointed out , while Freyre claims to be emancipated from"racial explanations" of behavior, he resorts to these in his descriptions of the ethnic groups that made up Brazil '.165 note; . (The problematic relationship of Freyre's thought with racialism will oe studied in chapter four). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. attempt to provide a definition of the nation with which their diverse readers can identify, this ambiguity can be taken as a strength. In the twentieth century, Latin American nations have been founded discursively around an ambiguity between culture and race. Since racial and cultural versions of mestizaje are frequently indistinguishable, this ambiguity provides intellectuals with a common language, and even, at least in appearance, a common perspective regardless of whether they propose a cultural or a racial version of mestizaje. The similarities between these variants are, after all, much greater than their differences: in both versions of mestizaje, the objective heterogeneity, both racial and cultural, is reconciled with a unitary conceptualization of the nation that reproduces the European formula for nationality. Thus, as a concept, mestizaje, lends itself to widely variant interpretations-- from racial to cultural, from politically conservative to Marxist, from discriminatory to egalitarian. Mestizaje creates a common semantic field in which discourse about the nation can be grounded. The fact that mestizaje informs the works of thinkers as diverse as the conservatives Jose de la Riva-Aguero and Gilberto Freyre, the "radical" Jose Vasconcelos of the 20s, or the Marxist Jose Carlos Mariategui, exemplifies the success of the concept. In Latin America, mestizaje established the parameters within which different political and ideological proposals were made, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. because it has provided, until recently, the only way to conceptualize the creation of a unitary nation from a heterogeneous population. The plasticity of mestizaje, the ease with which it can be molded to fit conservative, liberal, or radical ideologies led to its hegemony in the 1920s.'6 It is only when the notion of a unitary race or culture as a precondition for the conceptualization and constitution of a nation is abandoned that the ideology of mestizaje comes under attack from within Latin America. Mestizaje, both cultural and racial, is problematic in another sense. Although mestizaje proposes to ground the nation in either a racial or cultural unity that can be achieved by the fusion of the white, Amerindian, and black populations, the national "culture" is in fact defined as corresponding to that of the ruling criollo'' classes. " In 'h After the 1920s, mestizaje became the semi-official ideology in much of Latin America. The hegemony of mestizaje as an ideology can be verified by the fact that it is a central aspect of several c: the ,<ey works of the time, such as Vasconcelos’s La raza cosmica (1925), Mariategui's Siete ensavos (1927), and Victor Raul Haya de la Torre's, Por la emancipacion de America Latina (1926). In the case of Brazil, i was the work of Gilberto Freyre, Casa Grande e Senzala (1933), that brought to the cultural forefront the contribution of Amerindians, and especially blacks to Brazilian nationality. According to E. Bradford Burns: "The new enthusiasm for the study of the African Brazilians reached a peak during the celebrations in 1938 marking the golden anniversary of the abolition of slavery" (330) . ,7 Although the term criollo originally referred to the racially "pure" descendants of the Spanish conquerors and colonizers, it is also used t designate a sense of cultural continuity with Spain. It is in this second meaning that it is used in this study. Moreover, since it is a term that is used throughout this essay, it will henceforth not be underlined. ■ ’* That a criollo culture is proposed even in racial mestizaje is made evident by the fact that almost invariably the Spanish language is proposed as the national language , and that in Peru, the Inca Garni las de la Vega, the mestizo cronista, who spent most of his life in Spam : proposed as the national prototype, " el precursor magnifico de nuescra R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. spite of the discussion about cultural or racial fusion, there is no doubt in the minds of many of the proponents of mestizaje that Spanish is the nation's language, and, in the writings of the more conservative theorists, Catholicism its religion. Even in the writings of Jose Maria Arguedas, who is arguably the Latin American writer most knowledgeable about and closest to Indian cultures, criollo culture is frequently still privileged. Arguedas defines his intellectual project as:"volcar en la corriente de la sabiduria y el arte del Peru criollo el caudal del arte y la sabiduria" of the Amerindian cultures of Peru ("No soy un aculturado" 256; "to deposit in criollo Peru's current of wisdom the flow of art and wisdom. . . .”) . Thus Arguedas, in this passage, establishes a hierarchical relationship between the "national," understood as "criollo," and the Amerindian cultures, the former being enriched by the latter. The fact that the national culture is implicitly identified with that of the elites has led some critics to claim that mestizaje is simply a facade that permits the oppression of Amerindian, and also black, groups under the banner of their incorporation into the national community, and that mestizaje verdadera nacionalidad" (Riva-Aguero “El Inca Garcilaso” 62; "the magnificent precursor of our true nationality" ) . ' ' ' One must keep in mind, however, that Arguedas' s "No soy un aculturado" is amuch more complicated, contradictory, and rich text than what the statement quoted above indicates. ’ ’No soy un aculturado" can also be interpreted as implying a revision of mestizaje. In the “Conclusion” of this study, I deal more in depth with “No soy un aculturado." R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. is simply a cover up for ethnocide.40 For these critics, cultural or racial mestizaje permits the elites to talk about a "nation" common to all "national" ethnic groups while continuing to exploit the Amerindian and black populations. Moreover, since the best features of Amerindian or black cultures are claimed to have already been incorporated, or to be in the process of being incorporated, into the national culture, mestizaje can be used to justify the destruction of these cultures. In other words, since the "nation” is formed by the incorporation of Amerindian and black "races” or cultures into the criollo "mainstream," the process of acculturation into the Western criollo culture of these ethnic groups is practically identical to that of "mestizaje." Moreover, by rhetorically claiming that the best features of these "oppressed" cultures have been, or are being, incorporated into the "national" culture, mestizaje eliminates much of the intellectual justification for Amerindian or black resistance to the "national culture.” The success of mestizaje as a national ideology is far from accidental. Indeed, as the very authors who proposed it pointed out, mestizaje, as a discourse of national or proto national identity, has a lengthy "pre-history" in Latin America.41 From colonial times until the wars of independence, it had been customary for the criollo elites to use the figure of the Amerindian as a symbol of an identity 4 , 1 See Kahn 19; Portocarrero 9-10; 41 See Riva-Agtiero Paisaies oeruanos 116. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 6 separate and different from that of the metropolis in terms that clearly prefigured the ideology of mestizaje. Octavio Paz writes about this use of the figure of the Amerindian by the criollos of New Spain: En el siglo XVII la singularidad criolla-- para no ocupar esa equivoca palabra: nacionalismo--se expreso en creaciones artisticas y en especulaciones filosoficas y religiosas en las cuales aparece, mas o menos velada, la imagen de la Nueva Espana como la Otra Espana. Confusamente, el criollo se sentia heredero de dos Imperios: el espanol y el indio. Con el mismo fervor contradictorio con que exaltaba al Imperio hispanico y aborrecia a los espaholes, glorifica al pasado indio y despreciaba a los indios. (57; emphasis in the original) [In the seventeenth century criollo identity--to avoid the equivocal word "nationalism"--was expressed in artistic creation and philosophical and religious speculations in which the image of New Spain appears, more or less veiled, as the Other Spain. With some confusion, the criollo felt he was heir to two empires, Spanish and Indian. With the same contradictory fervor with which he exalted the Hispanic Empire and detested the Spanish, he glorified the Indian past and disdained the Indians. (36)j This quotation from Paz establishes certain peculiarities about the use of the figure of the Amerindian by the colonial criollo elites. On the one hand, by asserting their rhetorical community with the Amerindian, the colonial elites created a discourse of American difference from Spain. The criollos see themselves as "other" from Spain, as Paz points out. Moreover, it must be remembered that the Amerindian is not only an autochthonous presence in the Americas, but also a figure of resistance to Spain. Therefore by presenting R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. themselves as inheritors of the Amerindian cultures, the criollo elites managed to give historical density to their desire for autonomy and, later, independence.42 Not surprisingly, this rhetorical fraternity with the Amerindian reached a climax during the struggle for Independence.44 Probably the most famous literary example of this imaginary continuity between the Amerindian and the nineteenth-century criollo is Jose Joaquin de Olmedo's "La victoria de Junin” (1825). There the Inca Huayna Capac addresses Bolivar as "Hijo y Amigo y Vengador del Inca" ("son and friend and avenger of the Inca"), and the new American nations as "Oh pueblos, que formais un pueblo solo y una familia, y codes sois mis hijos" (20; "Oh peoples that form one single people and family and are all my children"). Although, unlike the colonial criollos described by Paz, the identification with the Spanish Empire is not present in Olmedo's poem, the figure of the Amerindian is still central to the assertion of independence from Spain. Needless to say, as is implied in the quotation from Paz, this identification with the Amerindian did not affect the hierarchical relations between criollos and Indians. It did, however, leave a significant imprint on Latin American literature, perhaps most importantly on two central nineteenth-century writers: the Peruvian Ricardo Palma (1833-1919) and the Brazilian novelist 4: On the similar use of the Amerindian in Brazil, see Brookshaw 33-34; Haberly 16. 41 See Riva-Aguero Paisaies peruanos 116. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 8 Jose de Alencar (1829-1877), who anticipate in their literary- work much of the ideology of mestizaje which would only become articulated "theoretically" around the turn of the century.44 Mestizaje is in many ways a continuation of this earlier criollo rhetorical tradition. Although the theorists of both cultural and racial mestizaje claim to ground their reflections on what were then the latest trends in Western- scientific thought (i.e. Riva-Aguero on Positivism, Mariategui on Marxism), in their theories, the Amerindian continues to serve as a historical origin, one used to create a sense of historical depth. That is, by discursively incorporating the Amerindian into the nation, mestizaje makes it possible to claim for the national society a history independent from that of Spain or Portugal. Proposed in abstract terms, mestizaje as a theory of the nation can be seen as accepting ethnic or cultural difference insofar as that difference can be reconciled with what is defined as constituting the national identity. The collecting of folk songs, an activity frequently encouraged by twentieth-century Latin American nationalist governments, can serve as an example of the manner in which difference is 44 In the case of Alencar, it is possible to read his postscript to his 1865 novel Iracema as a very early theorization of mestizaje/mestigagem. But it must be noted that the emphasis of Alencar's essay is still principally literary. However, it is possible to find implications for a mestico conceptualization of the nation in his prescriptions for a Brazilian literature. Alencar's postscript, as well as the novel Iracema. are studied at length in the third chapter of this study. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 9 reconciled with the national.4S These songs are instances of a cultural difference that is quickly converted into a national symbol. If a song is of Amerindian origin, it becomes an example of the indigenous heritage that is claimed to have been incorporated into the nation, a living fossil as it were. If the song shows evidence of European influence, it is presented as proof that the fusion between the Amerindians (and/or blacks) and the Spanish or Portuguese that supposedly defines the nation as a whole also characterizes the nation’s constitutive regions (from which the folk songs originate). Ethnic or regional difference is therefore incorporated within the idea of the national. Mestizaje is frequently symbolized by a "national" folk song or dance that illustrates in an easily accessible manner the kind of cultural fusion that is claimed to characterize the nation as a whole. (Examples of national songs are the corrido in Mexico, the marinera in Peru, and the cueca in Chile) .4 f t However, there are limits to the capacity of mestizaje to accept difference. For example, since language is central 45 On the role of collecting as part of the creation of a cultural identity, see Clifford 51-52. 4 f > Writing about Mexican post-Revolutionary nationalism, Carlos Monsivais notes that: "Vasconcelos, ministro de Obregon, patroci.na murales, artesanias, una corriente musical. Y la miciativa privada contribuye fomentando la cancion 'tipica' (XEW y RCA Victor)" (196; "Vasconcelos, Obregon's minister, promotes the paintings of murals, handcrafts, and a musical current. And private enterprise collaborates promoting 'typical' songs"). Later, on the same page he adds that "el nacionalismo se origina en los corridos" ("nationalism originates in the corridos"). In this manner, the corrido, a Mexican folk song, is taken over by a nationalist government and proposed as a national symbol. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 3 0 Co the definition of the nation, linguistic difference is frequently considered to be unassimilable. The emphasis put on teaching Spanish to Amerindian groups in Spanish America illustrates the degree to which linguistic difference is seen as a threat to national unity. In fact, the promotion of literacy in Spanish among Amerindians was proposed in the Congreso Indigenista Interamericano in Patzcuaro, Mexico, in 1940, not only as an official national goal for the different Latin American countries, but as the most urgent measure to be undertaken on behalf of the Amerindians. Although framed originally as an attempt to "help" the Amerindians of the Americas, the resolutions of the Congress were fully congruent with the ideology of mestizaje, which proposes the integration of the Amerindian populations into their respective national societies rather than the preservation of their "original" cultures. Not surprisingly, the measures proposed by the Congress were quickly ratified by the countries with large Amerindian populations: Mexico (1941), Ecuador (1942), Peru (1943), and Bolivia (1945) (Saintoul 20) . Unlike in Latin America, in the United States the concern with incorporating heterogeneous (non-white) populations into a conceptualization of the nation is a recent phenomenon. The "melting pot," as we know, permitted the incorporation of white immigrants, who constituted the great majority of the population, into the nation. But the R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 3 1 numerical growth and politization of minorities, as well as their partial incorporation into positions of leadership in the nation as a whole, from the 1960s on has led co the production of new versions of the nation that take into account this cultural and ethnic diversity. Thus the emergence of the concept of multiculturalism in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s echoes in numerous ways the discussions surrounding mestizaje in Latin America. While multiculturalism, like mestizaje, is a far from uniform intellectual movement or position, it can be divided into two basic tendencies. "Liberal pluralist," "critical," or "weak" multiculturalism stresses the formation of a common inclusive national culture. On the other hand, "hard left, " "difference," or "hard" multiculturalism emphasizes group identity over any sense of national commonality.'’ What cnese two positions share is a common rejection of the Eurocentric basis of the melting pot. All multiculturalism believes in the need to incorporate and celebrate the best achievements of the different ethnic, racial, and cultural groups that make up the population of the United States. Despite the diversity of the proposals associated with the label, multiculturalism can also be interpreted as an attempt to define the nation while acknowledging the heterogeneity of the country's population. It raises some of 11 Gates 105; Turner 408; Goldberg 16. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 3 2 the very same questions that informed the discussions about mestizaje (and mesticaaem) in Latin America. The central question concerning multiculturalism is, arguably, whether this concept is capable of reconciling heterogeneity and nationality without subordinating difference to the national. We recall that, the nineteenth century European formulation of the nation proposed an identity between race (later culture), language, and nacion. By denying this triple identification, multiculturalism apparently destroys the traditional definition of the nacion. Nevertheless, the nation seems to reappear frequently within the varied discourse of multiculturalism. We have already seen how one variant of multicultural proposals believes in the need for an expansive and inclusive "core" American culture as a way of grounding multiculturalism within the national (Gordon and Newfield "Introduction" 4-10). Indeed, in this variant of multiculturalism what seems to be proposed is an alternative political vision, rather than the disappearance of the nation. Even in the case of "hard left" or "difference" multiculturalism that is not explicitly concerned with the problem of a national commonality, one can argue that a "national” discursive space is frequently reconstructed by the assumption of a common linguistic and cultural ground between reader and author. In fact, it is the existence of a linguistic and cultural common ground among the different ethnic and cultural groups that makes it R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 3 3 possible for this variant of multiculturalism to disregard the problem of commonality. Unlike many of the proponents of mestizaje who had to imagine how to conceptualize a homogeneous nation out of a population not only heterogeneous but actually divided by culture and language,' I ! < the problem facing proponents of "difference” or "hard" multiculturalism is the possibility of assimilation, that is, of the loss of cultural of minority groups' cultural specificity However, unlike mestizaje, the rise of multiculturalism is directly related to a change in the composition of the elites of the United States. In its different variants, multiculturalism bears traces of the Civil Rights struggle of the sixties. Whether multicultural proposals attempt to continue that period's emphasis on race or not, they are- all marked by, indeed, are a consequence of, the denuding of the limitations of the implicitly "white" assimilationism of the "melting pot" produced by the Civil Rights movement. This dissertation is an analysis of a number of central Latin American and North American texts that either propose mestizaje (in the case of Brazil mesticaaem111) as the basis for a conceptualization of national identity, or maintain JS Peru is a case in point. Not only was there a cultural and even racial division between the Spanish speaking coast and the Quechua speaking highlands, but it was only m the 1920s that a system of roads linking the Andes with the coast was built. 4 , ) The problematics of assimilation in multicultural thought will be studied in more detail in the chapters on Gloria Anzaldua and Richard Rodriguez. 50 Since mesticaaem is a word and concept that will be repeated throughout this essay, it will henceforth no longer be underlined. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 5 4 close links to this intellectual tradition. While the texts chosen in this study form a rough chronology of conceptualizations of national (or group) identity based on the incorporation, the main purpose of my analysis is not to provide a history of the way alterity has been treated in national texts in the Americas. Rather, this study is an analysis of the logic present in the proposals of mestizaje, mestigagem, and, to a lesser degree, multiculturalism--that is, of the rhetorical figures that characterize these versions of identity based on incorporation, the recurring contradictions that characterize the attempt to reconcile a homogeneous national identity and a heterogeneous population, and, particularly, the conceptual limits within which national identity based on incorporation is developed. This analysis can only be achieved through a study that respects the specificity of each text treated. In fact, the texts and authors chosen, while all linked to the traditions of mestizaje and mestigagem, are far from homogeneous. These texts range from the writings of the first major Latin American Marxist critic (Jose Carlos Mariategui) to those of a Brazilian anthropologist who celebrated the contributions of both Portuguese and blacks to the constitution of Brazilian culture (Gilberto Freyre); they include the first novel of Peru's foremost indigenista51 writer (Jose Maria Arguedas), the essays of a (U.S.) American opponent of 51 Indigenista is used to describe novels with the Indian written principally in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia, in the 1930s and 40s. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. bilingual education and affirmative action (Richard Rodriguez) , a mystical, mythical, manifesto by a Chicana Lesbian critic (Gloria Anzaldua) , and a short poetic indianist novel by a nineteenth-century Brazilian novelist and conservative politician (Jose de Alencar). And the first text studied is the simultaneously patriotic, critical, and nostalgic Tradiciones peruanas. written by the nineteenth- century Peruvian author Ricardo Palma. These are texts separated by time--the earliest, Alencar's Iracema. was published in 1865, and the most recent, Richard Rodriguez's essay "The New Native Americans" was posted on the internet in 1995. They differ in genre, political position, language, and in the national tradition to which they belong. But the heterogeneity of the texts is precisely what makes their study relevant to this study. It is precisely because mestizaje and mestigagem can inform such widely divergent texts, that the study of these Latin American conceptualizations of identity becomes significant for students of the social sciences, Latin American history, and literature. Moreover, since Rodriguez's and Anzaldua's works participate in current (U.S.) American debates on identity, the relevance of the analysis of mestizaje and mestigagem is not limited to the boundaries of Latin America, but is, on the contrary, of significance both as an influence on and as a precedent for current (U.S.) American debates on national culture. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 3 6 The texts studied are separated by language and national tradition. They were published in three countries--Brazil, Peru, and the United States--that represent the three (numerically) principal languages, and the corresponding literary and cultural traditions, of the Americas: Portuguese, Spanish, and English. Moreover, Brazil, Peru, and the United States exemplify the three basic modes in which colonizing processes took place in the Americas. The colonization of the United States was characterized by the physical exclusion of the Amerindian inhabitants from the European settlements (even by their extermination, if necessary), and by the importation of black slaves into the country. In Brazil, on the other hand, while Amerindians were also exterminated, there was widespread miscegenation among the hegemonic Portuguese and the subaltern Indians and blacks. If the histories of both Brazil and the United . States are characterized by the construction of a national state based on the disappearance of the Amerindian population and the ambiguous and contradictory incorporation of the black population, Peru presents a different situation altogether. While the mestizo population was significant, in Peru colonization did not lead to the disappearance of the Amerindian groups. On the contrary, the Andean Quechua and Aymara Indians managed to survive the brutal Spanish Conquest and retain important elements of their traditional cultures. Moreover, their numerically significant presence explains why R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 3 7 these Amerindian groups have historically constituted the basis of the Peruvian labor force. My first chapter studies Ricardo Palma's Tradiciones peruanas (1872-1915),52 arguably, the first major Spanish American text that presents a vision of the nation not only linked rhetorically to a grandiose Indian past, but also culturally and politically constituted by the contributions of a racially heterogeneous population. Palma's vision of an inclusive nation not only anticipates mestizaje, but given his celebration of Peru's heterogeneity, can even be read as prefiguring multiculturalism. Since the tradiciones analyzed were written in the 1870s, decades before mestizaje was proposed as the basis for a Peruvian and Latin American identity, Palma's works can serve as an example of the capacity of literature to anticipate theoretical formulations. While Palma's "mestizaje" or "multiculturalism" is not without contradictions, his writings contrast with positions--such as that of scientific racialism, or that which proposes the dichotomy "civilization and barbarism”-- that were hegemonic at the time he wrote the Tradiciones. The second text analyzed is Jose de Alencar's Iracema (1865). Alencar's novel--one of the most popular texts in all of Brazilian literature--is a fictionalization of the archetypal story of mestigagem and mestizaje: the encounter 52 The Tradiciones peruanas were published in series from 1872-1899, but Palma published several additional tradiciones up to 1915, the year before his death. Moreover, his first tradin'on was published in 1854. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. between the European male colonizer and the Indian woman. But Iracema is of additional interest because in its "postscript," the "Carta ao Dr. Jaguaribe,” Alencar analyzes what he considers to be the necessary relationship between an independent Brazilian literature and Indian topics and, even, culture. Iracema is, therefore, not only an early novelistic representation of mestigagem as the foundation of Brazil," but one of the first theoretical reflections on the relationship between Brazilian nationality and the country’s Indian past. My study of Gilberto Freyre analyzes the manner in which his Casa-Grande e Senzala (1933), arguably the most influential of all studies on race and Brazilian identity, both continues and modifies the basic patterns of mestigagem established in Iracema. For, as I will argue, Freyre’s thought is a politically conservative revision of the intellectual possibilities implicit in mestigagem (and mestizaje). However, Freyre's work also implies a taking into account of the black contribution to Brazil, a significant fact, given both the intense anti-black bias characteristic of racialism and the numerical significance of the black and mulatto population in Brazil. If Freyre's is a conservative interpretation of mestigagem, Jose Carlos Mariategui’s writings (1925-30) v’ Alencar is Che author of another early, and popular, fictionalization of mestizaje, O Guarani (1857). This novel will be briefly studied in the chapter on Iracema. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 3 9 attempt to create a Latin American Marxism opposed to what he designates as the "colonial mentality" characteristic of the region's republican elites. However, unwittingly, Mariategui’s work ends up reproducing many of the central characteristics of the conceptualization of the nation based on mestizaje that was being developed by those same elites he opposed. Mariategui's work can be taken both as an example of the plasticity of mestizaje--the ability of mestizaje (and mestigagem) to encompass both conservative and radical conceptualizations of the nation--and of the capacity of mestizaje (and mestigagem) to incorporate even those discourses that claim to be in opposition to it. Jose Maria Arguedas's works test the limits of mestizaje as the basis of the Peruvian nation. Unlike earlier Peruvian writers, Arguedas had a deep experiential knowledge of the Quechua population, and believed in the importance of their contribution to the Peruvian nation. Arguedas’s work can be read, therefore, as both a continuation of the tradition of mestizaje and as a criticism of its criollo basis. For this study, I analyze Arguedas's first novel Yawar fiesta, a particularly problematical text in that it does not resolve its criticism of the Peruvian nation through a reconceptualization of mestizaje. It becomes possible, therefore, to read Yawar fiesta both as an acknowledgment of the depth of the cultural and biological miscegenation that characterizes Andean Peru, and as a fictionalization of the R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 4 0 class and ethnic contradictions that mestizaje denies in the attempt to reconcile a homogeneous conception of the nation with the cultural, ethnic, and economic heterogeneity of its population. The last two chapters deal with the appropriations of mestizaje (particularly its Mexican versions) by two radically dissimilar Mexican-American writers: Gloria Anzaldua and Richard Rodriguez. Anzaldua ' s work can be interpreted as a radicalization of traditional Chicano versions of identity based on mestizaje in a manner compatible with current "hard" or "difference" multiculturalism. Rodriguez, on the other hand, has made his reputation as a critic of the Chicano movement, particularly of the movement's main achievements: bilingual education and affirmative action. However, despite his opposition to some of the basic political proposals associated with the Chicano movement, Rodriguez's writings, as a whole, show a concern with reconciling mestizaje, particularly as presented in the works of Jose Vasconcelos, with a version of "weak” or "liberal pluralist" multiculturalism. Despite their differences both Anzaldua's and Rodriguez's works can be interpreted as transmutations of Mexican mestizaje that make explicit the basic compatibility between mestizaje and the multiculturalism of the 80s and 90s with which these writers can be aligned. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 4 1 Chapter 1 Ricardo Palma's Tradiciones peruanas: the Limits of Mestizaje If the defeat of the Spanish colonial armies in the battle of Ayacucho (1824) marked the moment when political independence was finally achieved in Peru, and in Spanish America as a whole, the corresponding cultural and intellectual autonomy was to prove more elusive. The difficulty implicit in the creation of an autonomous national project in countries that prior to the battle of Ayacucho had been politically and culturally dependent on the Spanish metropolis was sharper in the case of Peru. The country had been for most of the colonial period the political and cultural center of Spanish South America, and Spanish mores and cultural patterns were deeply ingrained in the country's elite. Moreover, the nation’s first two decades of independence were marked by political and military unrest.'4 It was only in the 1840s that the political stability needed for the development of a sustained literary and intellectual production was finally achieved in the country.'5 Ricardo Palma, the first major author of independent Peru, describes the work of the writers of this period of ,4 The viceroyalty of Peru included all of Spanish South America until the viceroyalties of New Granada and La Plata, constituted by the mainland Caribbean and Rio de la Plata area respectively, were formed in 1739 and 1776 respectively. 55 See Losada 42, 47-51; Ricardo Palma “La bohemia de mi tiempo” 1293. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. political consolidation as consisting in the development of a cultural independence from Spain: Tocome pertenecer al pequeno grupo literario del Peru, despues de su independencia. Nacidos bajo la sombra del pabellon de la Republica, cumplianos romper con el amaneramiento de los escritores de la epoca del coloniaje, y nos lanzamos audazmente a la empresa. Y soldados de una nueva y ardorosa generacion los revolucionarios bohemios de 1848 a 1860 luchamos con fe, y el exito no fue desdenoso para con nosotros. ("La bohemia de mi tiempo" 1321) [I belonged to the small group of writers of Peru after the country's independence. Born under the shadow of the republic's flag, it was our obligation to break with the mannerisms of colonial writers, and we boldly set out to fulfill this enterprise. And soldiers of a new and passionate generation, we, the bohemian revolutionaries, fought with faith and success from 1848 to I860.] Palma's laudatory words seem to exaggerate the achievements of his contemporaries, since elsewhere in "La bohemia de mi tiempo" his evaluation of their work is much less enthusiastic.’6 However, this statement is significant because of its comparison between the work of these early writers of a post-colonial Peru and the armies that had previously achieved independence in the battlefields (for example, the writers are described as "soldiers," "revolutionaries," etc.). Despite his rather modest description of what these writers actually did--Palma praises them for merely breaking with colonial literary mannerisms-- the comparison itself seems to allude to the much greater ^ See Palma 1298, 1300, 1302, 1303, 1321. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 4 3 feat of achieving literary and even cultural independence from Spain. We might use these same words of Palma to describe the most important work, produced by any member of that literary generation--that is, his own Tradiciones peruanas (1872-1915).'7 Moreover, Tradiciones peruanas can be read as the most significant attempt by any member of this generation of "literary soldiers" to achieve independence from Spanish literary and cultural models. The creation of a literature and national identity independent of Spain was particularly difficult in Spanish America. Criollo Spanish-Americans were clearly the linguistic, cultural, "racial," and even administrative (the new countries followed roughly the boundaries of the colonial viceroyalties and captainships) inheritors of Spain. The profound links of the criollos with Spain explains the need felt by Spanish-American writers to find a cultural source that would not be subordinated to that of the metropolis; and, since colonial times, it was in Amerindian history and culture that such an independent basis for identity was found.58 Nevertheless, with independence such foundational use of the Indian became more problematic--especially in the case of Peru. Since a great majority of the Peruvian population was of indigenous origin,and Amerindian cultures ,7 1872 is the date of the publication of the first Tradiciones ir. book form, but the earliest "tradiciones" were first published in magazines starting in 1854. Therefore, Palma's Tradirriones have their beginning within the period between 1848 and 1860, which he designated as that of the “bohemios." See my "Introduction" 23-26. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 4 4 were still a vital reality, any true national project had to deal explicitly with the manner in which the Amerindian was to be incorporated within the conceptualization of the nation.59 Indian culture was not only that which differentiated Peru from other "national" cultures, but also an impediment to any Peruvian claim to nationhood because of the Andean Indian population's continuing cultural autonomy and physical isolation from the criollo coast. After all, national identity is predicated on the existence of a criterion--whether racial, linguistic, or cultural--according to which the population in question may be seen as internally homogeneous and at the same time distinct from its neighbors. Therefore, the problem faced by any Peruvian national project, whether literary or political, was to propose a conceptualization of the nation as homogeneous in spite of the cultural, linguistic, and "racial" divide between a coastal region descended from Spain and a predominantly Quechua and Aymara Indian Andean region. As a national text, Palma's Tradiciones had to both represent a Peru that was autonomous from Spain and, at the same time, to bridge the obvious cultural, linguistic, and "racial" divisions that threatened to tear the nation asunder. There is a national dimension even in the Tradiciones1 formal features. For instance, the Tradiciones deviated from 5‘ ’ In the 1920s Jose Carlos Mariategui would consistently speak of Indians as comprising four-fifths of the population. See Siete ensavos 28; "Indigenismo y socialismo" 217. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 4 5 colonial literary "mannerisms" at the level of genre. By inventing a new genre--the tradicion60 itself --Palma reaffirms in formal literary terms the country’s independence from Spain. Palma's creation of the tradicion implied that colonial "mannerisms” and genres were no longer capable of representing an independent Spanish America. A new American genre was required to represent adequately a new American reality. Technically, thematically, and, perhaps also, linguistically heterogeneous, the tradicion is a genre that defies definition. While some of Palma’s tradiciones are written in verse, most are written in prose and are similar to what we know as short stories, and still others, also in prose, are more akin to essays. Although, because of this heterogeneity, the tradiciones cannot be subsumed by conventional definitions, for our purposes they can be described as brief, humorous, prose narratives that explain the origins of words and proverbs or narrate obscure historical facts.61 Palma's tradiciones are, therefore, concerned with the origin of Peruvian and American identity and difference. Paradoxically, these culturally heterogeneous (they are of Indian, Spanish, criollo, and black provenance) h < l Given that there is no adequate English translation for tradicion. m its meaning as a literary genre, and that, therefore, this wore: ahd ; • c plural tradiciones will be used repeatedly throughout this essay, they will henceforth not be underlined. ^ Most attempts at defining the tradiciones as a genre have not been much more than extended descriptions. For examples of these "definitions'' see Compton 25-35; Oviedo 145-68. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 4 6 "origins" are used by the Tradiciones to establish the necessarily homogeneous Peruvian, and even American, frame. Palma's “generic" titular phrase already tells much about the text's thematic focus and contexts. His work is not only characterized by its historical subject matter, buc this history is described as being both plural--tne title is tradiciones not tradicion--and Peruvian. The Tradiciones peruanas assume the cultural and ethnic plurality that characterizes both Peru and America in order to propose a national identity that subsumes this plurality. Therefore, the apparent cultural plurality of the Tradiciones does not contradict the creation of a unitary and homogeneous national history and identity. On the contrary, in the characteristic gesture of mestizaje, Palma represents Peruvian and American history as beginning not with the colony but with the Indian past. Moreover, the Republic is presented not only as descended from both the Inca and the colonial past, but also as a later stage in the nation's development when these contradictory moments in the nation's history--as well as the Amerindian and Spanish populations hegemonic during those periods--are, at least potentially, reconciled. Palma's representation of the nation in the Tradiciones peruanas thereby prefigures the later theorizations of mestizaje. Like the theoretical mestizaje of the early twentieth- century, the Tradiciones present the nation as based on the fusion and reconciliation of the Spanish and the Amerindian R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. populations and their cultural elements. Palma's affinity with the later mestizaje was implicitly acknowledged by the Peruvian historian and early proponent of mestizaje Jose de la Riva-Aguero. During Palma's later years, in a ceremony in honor of the tradicionista. Riva-Aguero described him as "uno de los mas principales y eficaces agentes en la formacion del sentimiento de nuestra nacionalidad"("La gran velada en honor de D. Ricardo Palma" 359; one of the principal and most efficient agents in the formation of our nationality"). Later critics have echoed Riva-Aguero's characterization of Palma as a central figure in the building of an independent national identity in Peru, and have extended his influence to other parts of Spanish America.62 Among his Tradiciones. "El corregidor de Tinta," published in 1874, demonstrates best how Palma's conceptualization of the nation incorporated Indian history and population. This tradicion narrates the failed revolt against Spanish authority that took place from 1780 to 1781 under the leadership of an Inca noble, Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui, better known as Tupac Amaru II. The rebellion concluded with the torture and execution of the leader's family and the death by dismemberment of Tupac Amaru. Generally acknowledged by historians as the most significant of all Indian rebellions,63 its scope was such that, as Palma 62 See Flor Maria Rodriguez-Arenas 381; Fernando Unzueca 503-04. 61 Daniel Valcarcel calls Tupac Amaru's rebellion "la mas famosa rebelion que cierra americana viera hasca entonces" (10;"the most famous rebellion seen in American soil till then"). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 4 8 writes, "Poquisimo falto para que entonces hubiese quedado realizada la obra de la Independencia" (687; "independence was almost achieved"). When Palma identifies the goals of Tupac Amaru’s rebellion with those of his criollo "successors,” he clearly equates the Indian leader with the later revolutionaries. Moreover, the description of Tupac Amaru II emphasizes his assimilation of criollo/"Western" manners and customs since he is described as knowledgeable about the rules of etiquette appropriate to a meal celebrating the birthday of the Spanish King Carlos III (685). In fact, Palma contrasts the behavior of the "noble indio" with the impolite behavior of the technically noble Spanish functionary Antonio Arriaga, who takes Tupac Amaru's seat during the celebration (685). Ironically, it is the Indian who is shown as exemplifying Western models of courtesy and nobility by graciously ignoring Arriaga's rudeness, while the Spaniard is presented as willfully breaking them. While "El corregidor de Tinta" refers to the exploitation of the Amerindians as one of the causes of Tupac Amaru's rebellion, the tradicion also emphasizes the negative effect on the rest of the Peruvian population of Arriaga's abuses and, by extension, the Spanish colonial despotism that makes the actions of the correcridor possible (685) .h4 “El 64 According to the tradicion Arriaga "despotizaba, por plebeyos, a europeos y criollos" (685; "abused of Europeans and criollos whom he considered to be plebeians"); as well as being "cruel para con los indios de la mita" (685; "cruel towards the Indians of the mita"). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 4 9 corregidor de Tinta" situates not the Indian, but the Spanish colonial authorities as an "outside" element with respect to the nation. Arriaga is cast as an extraneous element that imposes itself on a community that, in its multi-ethnic and multi-racial composition, seems to figure the Peruvian population. Thus, the rebels who begin the revolt by executing the "foreign” functionary Arriaga include Indians, blacks, criollos and perhaps even Spanish settlers--since these are the peoples who have been described as exploited by Arriaga (686).This tradicion not only incorporates Indians and blacks within its representation of the nation; it also assigns to Amerindians, through the figure of Tupac Amaru, and to blacks, through the figure of Arriaga's slave (who is his master's executioner), a central role in national history. Although the tradicion presents detailed information about the racial or national origin only of Tupac Amaru, Arriaga, and the black slave, the figure of a table around which the "national" elements participate as equals (Indians, as well as criollos, and perhaps also some Spaniards) can be taken as representative of the conceptualization of the nation implicit in Palma's Tradiciones. This deeply democratic, even precociously multicultural,66 representation of the different ethnic and The tradicion describes those present during the celebration as “ los mas notables vecinos de la parroquia” (684; “the most notable neighbors of the parish”). Therefore, it is logical to assume that the group may include criollos and even Spaniards. 66 I describe Palma's work as "multicultural" in the sense that he is R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 5 0 racial groups that make up Peru is characteristic of many of the Tradiciones. Although the description of Tupac Amaru as not only participating in "national" society but actually becoming its representative leader reflects the "heroic" dimension of the character, throughout Palma's Tradiciones other less exalted Amerindian and black characters are also presented as participants in an egalitarian representation of the nation.67 However, "El corregidor de Tinta"'s democratic representation of the nation is achieved by a refusal to address the central problem faced by any conceptualization of the Peruvian nation: the existence of a profound cultural, linguistic, and racial division between a criollo coast and an Indian Andes. In this tradicion, Palma achieves an egalitarian representation of Peru by ignoring the social and racial inequalities and linguistic and cultural divisions that in reality threaten the nation. For instance, though Tupac Amaru's rebellion was an Amerindian movement, in the tradicion it is not identified as such. Tupac Amaru, after not only concerned with incorporating the Indian (or black) population into his representation, of the nation, describing Peru as the conjunction of Indian and criollo cultures and "races,” or even establishing national difference vis a vis the metropolis, but also celebrates the cultural, racial, and ethnic diversity present in Peru. However, as I will analyze later in this study, there are numerous points of contact between (U.S.) American multiculturalism and mestizaje. 67 For further examples of Palma’s egalitarian treatment of Indian' characters, see his portrayal of Catalina Huanca in "Los tesoros de Catalina Huanca" (384-87), and that of Carmen in “El justicia mayor de Laycacota" (420-24). For a significant example of Palma's egalitarian treatment of black characters, see ”Un negro en el si lion presiden.c ial" (1075-76). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 51 all, did not attempt to found a criollo republic, but rather aimed to re-establish the Inca Empire, or at least a modified version of it.68 Moreover, Palma's egalitarian representation is in profound contradiction with the reality of the criollos' exploitation of and discrimination against Indians and blacks. In order to be able to produce a verisimilar presentation of Peru, Palma needed to address the bi-cultural and bilingual reality that not only differentiates the country from the former metropolis, but also threatens its constitution as a nation. Therefore, any version of mestizaje in Peru must be capable of reconciling the existence of a dual cultural and linguistic tradition (Indian and Spanish/criollo) with a homogeneous conception of the nation. The tradicion that addresses this problematic most fully is "Carta canta" (1875). However, the simultaneous representation of the Indian as the origin of national difference, and of the exploitation of the Indian as the economic basis of the nation, lead this tradicion to collapse into a series of contradictory statements and positions. But since the reconciliation of the rhetorically privileged position of the Indian as the "originator" of the nation with the actual exploitation of the Amerindian population is one of the central problems faced by proposals of mestizaje, 68 For a study of Tupac Amaru's rebellion that analyses it as an Amerindian movement, see Flores Galindo's Buscando un Inca 120-70. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 5 2 "Carta canta" is a text through which one can also begin the analysis of mestizaje as a whole. "Carta canta" gains additional interest in that it is possible to identify the narrator with Ricardo Palma. The tradicion is presented as a lexicological investigation into the origins of the saying carta canta. that gives the tradicion its name. Not only was Palma well known for his interest in the origins of American and Peruvian sayings and words, as illustrated by his well-known essay "Neologismos y americanismos," but he actually proposed that carta canta be included in the Diccionario de la Real Academia de la Lenaua. as a oeruanismo (Chang-Rodriguez 434). This tradicion narrates a story of which there are different versions in several of the cronicas (historical narratives of the conquest).64 In Palma's version, two Indians, who worked as part of an encomienda in the conquistador Antonio Solar’s farm, are ordered by an overseer to take ten melons and a letter to the encomendero in Lima.70 The Indians, for whom this fruit is a novelty, decide to taste the fruit and stop on the road to eat two of the melons. Since they believe that the letter is capable of reporting on their actions, the Indians place the letter. h' ' The best known version of this story is found in the Inca Garciiaso de la Vega's Comentarios reales 422-23. For a list of the cror.icas that present versions of this story, see Juan Jose Arrom 155 note 60. 70 The encomendero was a conquistador who was assigned an encomienda--a group of Indians--by the Spanish crown. The stated purpose of the encomienda was the spiritual edification of the Indians--for whose evangelization the encomendero was responsible. In practice, the encomienda was a hidden form of slavery. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 5 3 behind a fence so that their actions are hidden from it. When they arrive at Solar's house, he receives the melons, but when he reads the letter he realizes that two are missing. He then punishes the Indians, who in response to their beating exclaim, carta canta (letter sings/tells) . Solar hears their exclamation and repeats it to his friends. The exclamation becomes a saying known throughout the Spanish speaking world. Since "Carta canta" is presented primarily as a lexicological investigation, one might attempt to connect the linguistic aspects of the text with the Tradiciones' concern with creating a unified conceptualization of the Peruvian nation. Antonio Cornejo Polar has followed precisely this analytical path in a suggestive study that rightly emphasizes the manner in which this text manages to create a homogeneous representation of the heterogeneous and divided reality of Peru.71 For him, it is through the analysis of the linguistic aspects of "Carta canta” that it is possible to discern the manner in which this tradicion "produce un espacio lingiiistico . . . ameno, casi paradis iaco, donde la nacion puede leerse a si misma--y sin conflictos--como tal" (112; "produces a linguistic space . . . pleasant, almost paradisiacal, where the nation can read itself--without conflicts as such"). 71 See Escribir en el aire 107-12. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 5 4 In his analysis Cornejo emphasizes the subtle movement from Quechua to Spanish that characterizes the development of the phrase carta canta in this tradicion. He points out that at the beginning of the story, when the Indians decide to eat the melons, the tradicion clearly states that they talk in "dialecto indigena" --that is, Quechua (148; "in indigenous dialect'')- Nevertheless, at the tradicion's conclusion the Indians speak in Spanish and originate a Spanish saying: carta canta (148) . Cornejo argues that ”Se produce asi, casi insensiblemente, un desplazamiento del quechua hacia el espanol y el correlativo borramiento de aquel" (109; "In this manner, there is an almost imperceptible displacement from Quechua to Spanish, and the correlated erasure of the former"). According to this analysis, the Amerindian cultural and linguistic difference which is the source of the phrase carta canta is transmuted into a homogeneous "national" difference once the saying is incorporated into the "national" language.'2 The erasure of Quechua and its replacement by Spanish, according to Cornejo, can also be read as implying the existence of a linguistic hierarchy in which the European language is situated above that of the Indians. In "Carta canta,” this implied hierarchy is evidenced by the narrator’s 72 “De hecho, cuando Palma casi subrepticiamence desplaza al quechua y lo convierte en espanol esta produciendo un espacio homogeneo sin fisuras justamente donde se rompe con mayor riezgo la comunidad national" (111; "in fact, when Palma almost subreptitiously displaces Quechua and transforms it into Spanish, he is producing a homogeneous space, without fissures, precisely where the most dangerous fissures divides the national community"). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 5 5 use of the information provided in the tradicion as historical support to claim to the Academia de la Lengua in Madrid that the phrase carta canta is of Peruvian origin^- which Palma himself did. According to Cornejo, it is thus possible to see in "Carta canta" a process by which "el quechua cede ante el espanol, la oralidad ante la escritura y todo ante la autoridad de la Academia [de la Lengua]" (110; "Quechua submits to Spanish, oral to written language, and all to the authority of the Academy"). Moreover, since in Cornejo's analysis the linguistic is a sign for the social, the presence of a linguistic hierarchy implies that the national homogeneity achieved in "Carta canta," and the Tradiciones as a whole, is characterized by the existence of a hierarchy in which the criollos occupy a position superior to that of the Indians (112). The relevance of Cornejo's analysis resides in that it is not only the most complete study attempted of this tradicion,71 but that, in its paradoxes, Cornejo's text reflects the contradictions and ambiguity that characterize "Carta canta." For Cornejo, "Carta canta" figures the elimination of the cultural, racial, and linguistic divisions of the country through the subordination of the Amerindian to the "criollos." The validation of this homogeneous version 77 The other important study of this tradicion, Raquel C’ nang-Rodriguer ' = ”Elaboracion de fuentes en 'Carta canta' y 'Papelito jabla lengua; " although particularly lucid, is principally a comparison among Palma's and Alvaro de la Iglesias's tradiciones, as well as the source story found in the Inca Garcilaso's Comentarios reales. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 5 6 of the nation is, paradoxically, described by Cornejo as resting, at least partly, in Spain (as represented by the authority of the Real Academia). In this analysis, homogeneity is achieved through a reinstatement of the cultural subordination of the nation to Spain. Therefore, in "Carta canta" Palma would have betrayed the search for cultural independence which is in fact one of the underlying aims of the Tradiciones. Given that, according to Cornejo's analysis, "Carta canta” presents a vision of Peru as hierarchically structured, with the Indians positioned as inferior to the criollos and the Spanish, he seems to contradict his own reading which finds in "Carta canta" a description of the nation as a virtual paradise. After all, what kind of paradise is founded on inequality? That "Carta canta" can be read, as Cornejo briefly observes, as part of "un justo proceso de reivindicacion de los americanismos" is not insignificant (110; "a just process of vindication of americanismos"). Palma's text not only valorizes the words and phrases that originally derive from Peru and America, but also presents a claim to a Spanish language that would no longer be exclusively Iberian in origin. "Carta canta," as well as the Tradiciones as a whole, can be read as an attempt to "nationalize" (from a Peruvian perspective) the Spanish language, as part of a project to make the use of the language of the metropolis compatible with the claims for national and continental R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 5 7 independence so dear to Palma and his generation. 4 If language and nation were profoundly imbricated in nineteenth century thought, the attempt to "nationalize" the Spanish language was a necessary part of any Spanish American national project. Even the reference to the Real Academia de la Lengua (in the tradicion and in Palma’s "real life" linguistic proposal) is not necessarily incompatible with national independence, since Palma's conception of the role of the Academia was extremely democratic--he stresses the sovereignty of popular use and the positioning of all the Spanish speaking nations on an equal plane ("Neologismos y americanismos" 1379).7S There is nonetheless an ambiguity contained within the national project that is virtually put forth in this tradicion. This ambiguity originates in the complex nature of Spanish-American national identity and especially in the way that such identity was proposed in the nineteenth- century. It was--and frequently still is--common for a national identity to be complemented with a "continental” American one.7 f l But especially in the nineteenth-century a 74 The “nationalizing" of the metropolitan tongue was not limited to Spanish America, but in fact was developed in a much more conscious and radical manner among Brazilian writers, especially in Jose de Aler.car' i work. ' "Las Academias equivalen a los Congresos, y deben dictar sus constituciones y leyes (digo sus diccionarios y gramaticas) teniendo er. cuenta las costumbres del pueblo, el natural espiritu de progreso, y sobre todo el uso general" ("Neologismos y americanos 1379; stressed m the original;"The Academies are like Congresses, and must write their constitutions and laws (I mean their dictionaries and grammars) taking into account the customs of the people, the natural spirit of progress, and, above all, common usage"). 76 There are some lucid, though brief, comments on the relationship R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 5 8 "Hispanic" identity manifested in a strong sense of connection to and identification with Spain was also common, even among writers such as Palma, whose work: was centered precisely in developing an independent national project. However, Palma's staunch support of Peruvian independence is manifested in his historical study of his generation "La bohemia de mi tiempo, " and in the tradicion "El corregidor de Tinta,” as well as in numerous other texts, which stand as proof of the his unflagging devotion to an autonomous and independent Peru and America.78 Nevertheless, the tension between the sense of identification with Spain and the desire for national autonomy can be taken as a sign of the contradictory relationship between the criollos' attempt to establish a national identity independent from Spain and their position as the linguistic, cultural, and even economic inheritors of the colony. While one can read ’ ’Carta canta" as figuring the displacement of Quechua by Spanish, it is also possible to see a different relation between these languages staged by this tradicion. It is impossible to know which is the between national and "continental" identity in Anderson 62-63. 7 The following text makes the relationship between Palma's national and Hispanic allegiance: " Pero si amo a Espaha, y si mi gratitud como cultivador de las letras esta obligada para con ella, amo mas a la patria en que naci”(1477; "But if I love Spain, and if I am grateful to her as a writer, I love the country in which I was born even more" j ("Refutacion a un texto de historia”). 78 Among these numerous texts one can single out the previously mentioned "Refutacion a un texto de historia"--Palma' s severe criticism of a Hispanophile version of Peruvian history(1476-89 ) , and “Neologismos y americanismos” - -his defense of the use of American colloquialism ir. literature and speech and criticism of the Real Academia de la Lengua' s disregard for the Spanish spoken and written in America (1377-8 3) . R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 5 9 language in which the discursive exchange between Aguilar and the two Indians takes place. (The text does not indicate whether the Indians speak Spanish or Aguilar understands Quechua) . However, what is relevant is not the language spoken by the Indians, but rather that the tradicion presents a situation in which there is a fluid flow of information between two radically dissimilar cultural and linguistic groups: the Spaniards and the Quechua Indians. "Carta canta," therefore, can be read as presenting a narrative world characterized by perfect translatability. If, like Cornejo, one can claim for "Carta canta," and for the Tradiciones as a whole, the status of a linguistic utopia, such a utopia exists precisely in the possibility of words and phrases moving from Quechua to Spanish, and, in principle, from Spanish to Quechua, without any loss of meaning. It is precisely the possibility of words and, by extension, cultural products moving from the Amerindian to the criollo "poles" of the Peruvian nation without any loss in meaning that legitimates the use of the Indian as an origin of national difference. The fiction of perfect translatability permits the "mestizo" culture of the criollos to be posited as the inheritor of what is best in Indian traditions and culture. The criollos can therefore present themselves as descendants of the Indian cultures, not as their destroyers. The lexicological story narrated in "Carta canta" exemplifies the process by which Indian culture and R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 6 0 language are appropriated by the criollo elites as a source of national difference: the phrase carta canta originates among the Amerindians, is quickly incorporated by the conquistadors, who, following Cornejo, can be taken as representing the criollo society, and finally becomes both a Peruvian contribution to the Spanish language and, as a "peruanismo," a sign of national difference. However, both the emphasis on the role of the Indian as the origin of national difference, and the fiction of perfect translatability, which makes such use of the Indian language and culture possible, are based on the suppression of a crucial fact implicit in the diegesis but never made explicit by the narrator: the meaning of the phrase carta canta is not the same throughout the tradicion. For the Indians in "Carta canta" written language has magical qualities: "Creian, no que las letras eran signos convencionales, sino espiritus, que no solo funcionaban como mensajeros, sino tambien como atalayas o espias" (148; "They believed not that letters were conventional signs, but spirits that not only functioned as messengers, but also as outlooks or spies"). When the Indians invent the saying carta canta. it refers to what they believe to be the supernatural power of written language and reaffirms the Indians' magical world-view.'4 However, the narrator and his contemporaries use the phrase carta canta 7i> Although "world view" is an undeniably inexact and vague term, it is still used in this essay as a general and approximate marker of the cultural difference of the Indians from the Spanish and the criollo. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 6 1 with a completely different meaning: "en la acepcion de que tal o cual hecho es referido en epistolas" (146; "with the meaning that this or that fact is mentioned in letters"). Thus for the narrator and his readers, the phrase carta canca is a reaffirmation of the superior precision of writing over the vagaries of the spoken word. This emphasis on the written over the spoken word is consistent with the need for reliable commercial contracts and jurisprudence characteristic of a (semi) capitalistic society such as the one in which the tradicion was written. Moreover, if, for the Indians, the magical properties of the written word permit what is written to change according to circumstance, the "modern" interpretation insists on the unalterability of writing. Mediating between both meanings of the phrase is the figure of the conquistador Aguilar. His first use of the phrase reaffirms the "original" meaning, but uses the "magical" interpretation of writing implicit in the phrase for his own benefit. Addressing the Indians, who after their punishment have just coined the phrase carta canta. Aguilar exclaims: "Si bribonazos, y cuidado con otra, que ya saben ustedes que carta canta" (148; "Rogues beware of doing it again. Now you know that letter tells"). Aguilar uses the Indian's belief in the magical properties of writing as a means of social control. He takes an aspect of Indian culture and uses it to acquire power over the Indians. The R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 62 Indians are admonished to follow the orders of the conquistador because the "letter" may inform him of any future disobedience. Yet he also originates the "modern" interpretation of the phrase:”Y don Antonio refirio el caso a sus tertulios, y la frase se generalizo y paso el mar" (148; "And don Antonio mentioned the case to his friends, and the saying became well known, even crossing the ocean”). Through him the phrase spoken by the Indians becomes a saying known throughout the Spanish speaking world, the affirmation of the magical property of the written word becomes a statement of its immutability. Aguilar's position in the "history” of the phrase carta canta is thus ambiguous. Like the proverbial translator, he is both a conduit for the phrase from Quechua to Spanish and a manipulator of its meaning. The representation of Aguilar and the conquistadors as a group in "Carta canta" is also ambiguous. If one concentrates on the descriptions of the conquistadors presented in the tradicion rather than on the lexicological history of the phrase carta canta it is possible to read "Carta canta" as a critique of the conquest.so With subtlety and irony, throughout the tradicion the narrator emphasizes Solar's and, as a group, the conquistadors’ oppressive role in the new colony. In five brief paragraphs, it is stated 80 The following analysis of the representation of colonial violence and exploitation in "Carta canta" draws on Chang-Rodriguez brief comments in her essay "Elaboracion de fuentes en "Carta canta' y 'Papeiito jabia lengua'.” Chang-Rodriguez's essay, as the title indicates, is a study of the sources of those two texts rather than a detailed analysis of either one. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 6 3 that Solar was rewarded with vast lands in spite of the fact that he arrived after the military conquest was over;*1 that the greed of the conquistadors led them to attempt to seize "tierras cuantas veas y puedas" (147; "lands as far as can be seen and got”); and that, consistent with this description, the Indians interpreted the conquistadors' importation of oxen as another sign of their refusal to do any work themselves (147).But the critique of the conquistadors is not limited to their "laziness" or "greed." In fact, "Carta canta" portrays the colonial order as based on the exploitation of and violence against the Indian. The representation of violence done to the Amerindian in "Carta canta" is framed, strangely enough, by the "discourse of plenty" which praises the fertility of American soil and the abundance of American agricultural production: "Algunas de las nuevas semillas dieron en el Peru mas abundance y mejor fruto que en Espana; . . . en el valle de Azapa, jurisdiccion de Arica, se produjo un rabano tan colosal, que no alcanzaba un hombre a rodearlo con los brazos" (147; "Some of the new seeds gave in Peru a larger and more abundant fruit that in Spain; . . . in the valley of Azapa, in Arica, a beet grew so large that a man could not put his arms around Sl Referring to Solar, the narrator states that: "Aunque no estuvo entre los companeros de Pizarro en Cajamarca, llego a tiempo para que en la repartition de la conquista le tocase un buena partija" (147; "Although he was not among Pizarro's companions in Cajamarca, he arrived in time to receive a good portion in the division of goods of the conquest"). *■ According to the narrator, the Indians claimed that the Spaniards “de haraganes por no trabajar, empleaban aquelios grandes animales" (147;"used those large animals because of their laziness, so as not to have to work"). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. it"). However, the narrator brings into sharp relief the difference between the effects of this fertility and plenty on the conquistadors and on the Indians. While for the Spaniards the fertility of the land is a source of wonder and, as the new owners of the land, wealth; the new produce is described as deadly to the Indians. Melons, lemons, apples, cherries, are all described--without any attempt at scientific or logical explanation--as killing the Indians who eat them in large numbers (148). In fact, the oepino is singled out as being so deadly that "un siglo despues [after the introduction of the oepino from Europe to America] . . . se publico un bando que los curas leian a sus feligreses despues de la misa dominical, prohibiendo a los indios comer pepinos, fruta llamada por sus fatales efectos mataserrano" (148; stress in the original; "a century later . . . a bull was published that the priests read to their parishioners after Sunday mass prohibiting Indians from eating pepinos. a type of fruit called, because of its lethal effects, Indian killer"). But the violence against the Amerindian is not limited in "Carta canta" to the field of agriculture, since this violence is implicit in the colonial legal institutions described in the tradicion. Solar is described as an encomendero. We recall that the encomienda was a colonial institution under which Indians would work for a conquistador in exchange for instruction in the Christian faith (147). In R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. practice, this institution was a kind of slavery since it permitted the unrestricted exploitation of the Indian work force. The violent nature of the encomienda is presented in this tradicion when Solar punishes his Indian "wards" (148). Moreover, by mentioning Solar's violent opposition to Viceroy Blasco Nunez de Vela's "mision reformadora" ("reforming mission") of the encomienda. Palma emphasizes the conquistador's refusal to accept the placement of any limits on his "legal" right to exploit the Indians (147) .10 "Carta canta" therefore makes explicit the conquistadors parasitic relation to Peruvian society. Indeed the contribution to Peruvian society attributed to them is the importation of new agricultural products, an achievement that, as we have seen, did not benefit the Indians. In fact, it is possible to read "Carta canta" as narrating two acts of stealing: that of the theft of the fruit by the Amerindians, and that of the appropriation of America by the conquistadors, surely a more serious crime.''4 "Carta canta" Palma in "Refutacion a un texto de historia, “ characterizes the encomienda and the resistance of the conquistadors against Blasco Nunez de Vela's attempt at enforcing the Leves de India with the following words: "Tan insoportables debieron ser las encomiendas y las mitas, y a tal punto llevaron el abuso y la crueldad los encomenderos, que alarmado el rey con las continuas reclamaciones que desde aqui le enviaran algunos hombres de bien, mando al virrey Blasco Nunez para que pudiese en vigencia ordenanzas que, rechazadas por los encomenderos, produjeron las revueltas de Gonzalo y de Giron" (1481-82; “So unbearable must have been the encomiendas and the mitas. and to such extremes taken the encomenderos their abuses and cruelty, that the King, alarmed by the continuous complaints sent from here by men of goodwill, sent the viceroy Blasco Nunez to enforce regulations that the encomenderos refused to obey, instead rebelling under Gonzalo and Giron"). X' 1 " iComo puede el advenedizo Antonio solar, cuyos bienes son de dudosa procedencia y cuya conducta ha desafiado la autoridad, increpar ahora a los indios llamandolos 'ladronzuelos' y 'bribonazos'? Con su simple R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 66 not only represents a homogeneous national virtual-paradise but also emphasizes the class, racial, cultural and economic divisions that have their origin in the Spanish conquest and colonization of Amerindian lands and peoples. However, unlike earlier pro-Indian works such Las Casas Brevisima relacion de la destruccion de las Indias. or some of the later indiaenista85 novels such as Cesar Vallejo's El tunasteno or Ciro Alegrxa's El mundo es ancho v aieno, "Carta canta” insinuates rather than represents the brutality of the oppression of the Indian. An example of the text’s indirect representation of the conquest's genocide is the displacement of violence from the conquistadors to the European agricultural products they bring. And the central, even generative--since it originates the saying that is the subject of the text-- moment of violence in "Carta canta,” Solar’s beating of the Indians, is not directly represented either: the narrator mentions Solar's decision to punish the Indians, then describes their conversation after their ordeal (148). Even the violence of the Indians' punishment, a clear example of the injustices of the colonial order, is itself aportacion de datos y una sencilla caracterizacion, Palma ubica a dor. Antonio y a los aborigenes en el mismo nivel" (Chang-Rodriguez 4 34; "How can the latecomer Antonio Solar, whose property had such dubious origin and whose conduct had defied authority, chastise his Indians calling them 'thieves' and 'rogues'? Palma, by giving information and with a simple characterization, places don Antonio and the aborigines at the same level" 434). 85 Indicrenista is the term used to describe the Spanish American novels, written principally in the 1930s and 40s, that describe the exploitation suffered by the Indians. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. diluted by the manner in which the Indians are represented. Their "magical" interpretation of writing and their inability to recognize the manipulative use of their beliefs by Solar mark the two Indians as childlike characters. Moreover, the Indians are described as placing themselves in a childlike position: they address Solar with the Quechua word "taitai," a well known peruanismo for father (148). Instead of being presented as an egregious example of the abuses characteristic of the encomenderos and of the colony as a whole, the beating of the Indians is presented in terms reminiscent of the punishment of children, an act long deemed as socially acceptable due to its supposed pedagogic function. Such a characterization of Indians as children poses an important problem for the construction of a national space. The idea of the nation is based precisely on the theoretical equality among its members, since nationality overrides or renders irrelevant any other characteristic that does not pertain to the nation. This national equality does not imply that there are no inequalities among the members of the nation; after all, poverty and exploitation were far from eradicated by the nationalist theories of the nineteenth century. Rather what this notion of national equality meant was that only those differences that were related to the nation had any meaning for nationalistic thinking. Thus, depending on the conceptualization of the nation that was R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 68 proposed, race, culture, or language would become the privileged criterion on which this equality was based. And, in fact, nationalism was in principle opposed to establishing any conceptual hierarchy among those groups that were classified as belonging to the nation. (Slavery could be justified as long as the racial groups in question were seen as external to the nation). Thus, by classifying the Indians as children--that is as individuals not qualified to participate in the national space and by presenting them as adhering to specific cultural values alien to the "national" culture, "Carta canta" excludes the Amerindians from the nation. "Carta canta" is, therefore, susceptible to mutually exclusive readings. If in one reading the Indians are the originators of national difference, in the other they are excluded from the nation. Paradoxically, "Carta canta" grounds the nation in that which it also excludes from the national space. The Indian, as the source of difference from Spain and origin of national history, is the privileged origin of the nation, but at the same time is situated by this text in a hierarchically inferior position to the Spanish conquerors, who are, in turn, represented as brutal interlopers in the nation, and, simultaneously, described by the narrator as "nuestros abuelos" (147; "our grandparents"). In Palma’s text, then, the country is shown to have a double origin. The conquistadors and the Indians are both the R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 6 9 source of the nation: Spaniards as genealogical origin ("our grandparents"), the Indians as historical and cultural origin of Peru's difference from other countries. However, Palma's representation of the Indian as the origin of Peruvian difference is further complicated by the mediating role assigned to the Spanish conquerors. Not only is Aguilar the mediator between the Indian originators of carta canta and other Spanish speakers, but the narrator claims that it was "leyendo al jesuita Acosta" that he discovered the story of the Indians and the letter that he retells in the tradicion (147; reading the Jesuit Acosta). Moreover, given the fact that one can identify the narrator with the historical Palma, it is possible to extend the mediating role of the Spanish from the tradicion into the figure of the real-life Palma. Paradoxically, Palma's attempt in his Tradiciones to achieve Peruvian and American cultural independence depends on the conquistadors' sketchy and biased representations of the conquest of the Amerindian and of colonial society. "Carta canta"'s contradictions are representative of those that will be found in later texts based on mestizaje. The tension between the rhetorical use of the Indian--or black--as the origin of national difference and the role played by mestizaje as a national ideology of nations governed by criollos is a constant in the texts examined in this study. But this contradiction is not limited to Spanish R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 70 America; it is alsc the constitutive feature of Brazilian mestigagem and "racial democracy." R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 7 1 Chapter 2 Jose de Alencar's Iracema: Mestigagem as Translation How can a new nation imagine an identity for itself independent from the metropolis with which it has identified, perhaps for centuries? How can populations that descend linguistically and culturally, if not "racially,” from European colonizers avoid establishing an identity that is not merely epigonal with respect to the former metropolis? How can a history of subordination to the metropolis become the basis for a new, independent cultural identity? These questions, which as we have seen were central to Ricardo Palma's writing of his Tradiciones oeruanas. were also in the forefront of the intellectual production in Brazil, the other major cultural and linguistic area of South America. In fact, the search for an independent identity was, if anything, faced in a much more explicit manner in Brazil than in Spanish America. In 1847, for instance, under the auspices of the young Emperor Pedro II, the Instituto Historico e Geografico Brasileiro held a contest on "How the History of Brazil Should be Written," which participated in the country's elusive search for a national identity. A similar preoccupation with establishing and defining Brazilian nationality was present in the literary production of independent Brazil. Jose de Alencar (1829-77), now regarded as the central figure in the establishment of a literary representation of Brazil, underscored in his essays. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. and also in the prefaces and post-scripts to his novels, the intimate links between national identity and literature. In fact, Alencar's preoccupation with the role played by literature in the development of an independent national identity has led some critics to assign him a canonical position in the development of Brazilian literature. As the Brazilian critic Luis Fernando Valente has noted: Alencar ocupa no panorama literario brasileiro uma posiqao semelhante a de urn Balzac na literatura francesa, de um Shakespeare na literatura inglesa, de um Dante na literatura italiana, de um Camoes na literatura portuguesa e de um Cervantes na literatura espanhola, escritores cujas obras representam conspicuos marcos divisorios em suas respectivas tradigoes literarias. (64) [Alencar holds a position in the field of Brazilian literature similar to that of a Balzac in French literature, of a Shakespeare in English literature, of a Dante in Italian literature, of a Camoes in Portuguese literature, and of a Cervantes in Spanish literature, writers whose works represent watersheds in their respective literary traditions.] However, the first major theorization of Brazilian national identity was formulated not by Alencar, nor by any other Brazilian intellectual, but, curiously, by a foreigner, Phillip von Martius, who was the winner of the contest sponsored by the Instituto Historico e Geografico. Martius wrote an essay claiming that the uniqueness of Brazil consisted in the presence and mixture of three cultural traditions and peoples: Portuguese, Indian, and Afro- R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 7 3 Brazilian.86 While not without traces of paternalism, or even racism, Martius’s essay foreshadowed the most common and influential answer to the problems of identity in Brazil: mestigagem conceptualized as a racial democracy in which the three foundational groups--originating in Europe, America and Africa--are seen as contributors to the establishment of a new Brazilian culture and race.8' The works of Jose de Alencar follow in the theoretical footsteps of Martius by postulating mestigagem as the basis of Brazilian national identity. But, unlike the German scholar, Alencar does not take the African contribution into account, a glaring omission given Brazil's cultural make-up.88 His concern with creating a national literature leads him, like his near contemporary Palma, to cover much of the history and geography of the country in his novels.84 However, it is principally in his so-called indianist novels- -O Guarani (1857), Ubiraiara (1874),and especially Iracema S < 1 The following passage from Marcias's essay illuscraces his approach Co Brazilian hisCory and idencicy: "Anyone who undercakes co wrice che hiscory of Brazil, a councry which promises so much, should never lose sighc of Che elements which concribuced co che developmenc of man chere. These diverse elemencs come from che chree races, namely: che copper- colored, or American; Che whice or Caucasian; and che black, or Echiopian. Because of che reciprocal and changing relacions of che chree races, Che present population consists of a novel mixture, whose history therefore has a particular stamp" (23). 87 See Doris Sommer 151. 88 The exclusion of blacks from Alencar' s novels has been attribuced co his own politically conservative and pro-slavery position; see Sommer 156-61. 8 , ) Alfredo Bosi writes about the imporcance given by Alencar co "cobrir com a sua obra narrativa passado e presence, cidaae e campc, litoral e sertao, e compor uma especie de suma romanesca do Brasil” (51; emphasis in che original; "co cover in his narrative works che past and present, country and town, che coast and che backlands, and compose a type of suma romanesca of Brasil"). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 74 (1865)--that Alencar most fully fictionalizes the problem of establishing a national identity independent and different from that of Portugal.90 Of these three novels, critical and popular opinion has singled out Iracema as Alencar's most successful fictionalization of the problematics of the Brazilian nation.91 Its story of a love affair between Iracema, an Indian priestess, and Martim, a Portuguese soldier, is more than a tragic story of forbidden love between the races. Iracema is actually the most complete nineteenth century literary version of the archetypal story of mestigagem (as well as Spanish American mestizaje)--the union of the European man and the Indian woman, from which a new race and nation are created. Iracema can be read as providing a story of the origin of Brazil that, while including the metropolis, does not see the country merely as Portugal's continuation. The central role assigned to the character of Iracema in this foundational narrative--the novel, after all, is named after ‘ , l > "In most of his novels and plays Alencar fictionalizes the present or the recent past of the nation, in the city or the backiands, but in the three Indian novels--Q Guarani. Iracema. and Ubiraiara--1he question of nationality occupies a central position" (Wasserman 190). 1 , 1 Alencar's works have had great popular success. In fact, Iracema. with over 100 editions, is probably the most popular book in Brazilian history (Schwamborn 172). Brazilian critics, while admitting the importance of his work, generally compare Alencar's novels unfavorably with the extremely sophisticated narratives of his friend and admirer Machado de Assis. Iracema is, however, the exception to this rule. Even critics who complain of Alencar‘s lack of psychological perception or conservative politics, like Alfredo Bosi or Ria Lemaire, describe Iracema as a masterpiece. See Sommer 140-42; Valente 142-43; Bosi 143- 55; Lemaire 59. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 7 5 her--serves to emphasize the difference between Brazil and Portugal that is thematized in Alencar's novel. Moreover, while fictional--the novel is subtitled a "lenda" (legend)-- Alencar's narrative is characterized by a subtle blurring of the boundaries between fiction and historical fact. For instance, the foundation of the state of Ceara, a true historical event, becomes the conclusion of Alencar's narrative,92 and two of the main characters in the novel-- Martim and Poti--are named after and identified with the historical Martim Moreno and Poti (Antonio Felipe Camarao), two of the key players in the Portuguese opposition to the establishment of a Dutch colony in the seventeenth century. And in a non-ironical pre-Borgesian gesture, Alencar substantiates every single innovation in style or story with numerous linguistic footnotes and a lengthy "Argumento historico." This parallel text--etymologies of geographical names, translations of Indian names, as well as the historical justification for the plot--creates a proliferation of historical and factual details that establishes the fictional elements of Iracema as compatible with history. But Alencar is ultimately a novelist and his awareness of the centrality of literature to the issue of national ‘ ,2 As Alencar himself admits in his "Argumento historico" --a lengthy footnote in the novel--it was Pero Coelho who actually founded Ceara in 1603. But since this first settlement was abandoned, Alencar proposes Martim Moreno's second foundation of Ceara in 1611 as the fictional origin of the state. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 7 6 identity helps make Iracema more than just the fictionalization of mestiqagem. In his postscript to the novel, "Carta ao Dr. Jaguaribe," Alencar presents Iracema as an example of his ideas on how a national literature should be created, assigning, therefore, a prescriptive role to his own practice of writing and, particularly, to Iracema (91}. In the novel's postscript, the author makes explicit his belief that a truly national Brazilian literature can only be established by assigning a central position to "Brazilian" Indians. They are to be regarded not only as the proper subject matter for, but also as the linguistic and stylistic source of a national literature, a corpus created by means of a translational process from "as ideias . . . dos indios" (89; the ideas . . . of the Indians") By coupling mestigagem with linguistic permutation, the theoretical and practical questions associated with translation become linked to the establishment of national identity. One can see in this explicit imbrication of the nation and its indigenous past an awareness of the contributions made by Indians to the foundation of Brazil's culture, "race," and identity as differentiated from those of Portugal. Alencar's project, however, could just as easily be seen as a colonizing gesture. By linking the construction of an authentic Brazilian literature--and, by implication, an ‘ M Isabel Burton's nineteenth-century English version of Iracema does not include the theoretical postscript to the novel. Therefore, all translations of this essay are mine. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 77 authentic Brazilian identity--with translation, Alencar unwittingly foregrounds the ambiguity implicit in the use of the figure of the Amerindian as the source of national difference. Translation has often been associated with colonial projects, having frequently served as an instrument of Empire.94 The association of translation with colonialism is especially problematic in a Latin American country such as Brazil, since all the regions with significant Indian populations were subjected to a process of linguistic colonization and homogenization. Moreover, the translational recourse to the Indian raises the problem of originality, that is, the existence, or non existence, of a hierarchical relation between the source and target text. My analysis of Iracema as a national text studies two interrelated facets of the novel: the fictionalization of mestigagem and the foregrounding of translation as a means to achieve national difference. This essay, therefore, is divided into two sections. First I will examine the thematic development of the story of Iracema and will focus on the relations between Indians and Portuguese and on those between male and female characters. In other words, I will analyze the manner in which hierarchical classifications of race and gender are presented and subverted in Alencar’s narrative. For a brief analysis of the problem both of originality and of Empire in translation, see Spitta 14-15. For an in depth study of the use of translation as a means of colonization in sixteenth century Mexico, which bears notable parallels to the case of Brazil in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, see Klor 143-62. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 7 8 The emphasis here will be on the implications these relationships have for the conceptualization of the nation and its history through the possibility of mestigagem. Second, I will focus on the issue of translation as presented implicitly in the textual body of the novel and explicitly in the post-script to the novel, the "Carta ao Dr. Jaguaribe." Iracema complicates the archetypal story of mestigagem by placing Iracema's and Martim’s love affair within the turmoil of northeastern Brazil in the early seventeenth century. This epoch is portrayed by Alencar as a period of warfare among the separate but culturally homogeneous Tupi Indians. This inter-ethnic violence originates in the opposition between the rival French or Portuguese colonizers with whom each Tupi tribe was allied. Iracema, who belongs to the Tabajara Tupis allied with the French, is the daughter and assistant of an Indian priest. Her romance with Martim forces her, therefore, to violate religious taboos--her religious function obliges her to remain a virgin--and rejec^ political alliances--Martim, who is Portuguese, actually fights together with the Pitiguara Tupis against the Tabajaras After Martim is seduced by Iracema when he is under the influence of the hallucinatory jurema potion--the preparation and dispensation of which are part of Iracema's religious functions--the lovers escape from the highlands 1 , 5 This aspect of Iracema's plot follows popular Romantic story lines exemplified by the novels of Chateaubriand and Bernardin de Saint- Pierre, and, in opera, by Bellini's Norma. See Campos 16; Sommer 361 note 38; Wasserman 18 8. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 7 9 where the Tabajara live to the coastal areas under Pitiguara control. At first, Iracema and Martim are content with their life together, but, after seeing a French ship, which he mistakes for a Portuguese vessel, Martim becomes nostalgic for his homeland. Later, when informed by Poti, Martim's Pitiguara friend, that the ship brought supplies and French soldiers, he decides to resume fighting with the Pitiguara. Not even Iracema' s pregnancy manages to keep him at her side. Depressed and alone, she gives birth to Moacir, "filho do sofrimento” (79; "child of suffering")/'6 and manages to stay alive until Martim returns. Martim leaves with che infant Moacir for Portugal. But at the novel's end, Martim returns to the area where he once lived with Iracema and founds Ceara. Poti joins his friend, converts to Catholicism, and vows fidelity to the Portuguese crown. Iracema's fictionalization of the archetypal story of mestigagem can be interpreted as privileging the Portuguese elements in the country's formation. The death of Iracema, as well as Poti's embrace of a Portuguese identity in politics and religion, can be read as implying the elimination of cultural diversity in Alencar's fictional- foundation of Brazil. Moacir, the first Brazilian mestico. is described by the narrator as "o primeiro filho que o sangue da raga branca gerou nessa terra da liberdade (79; "the first son born to this land of Liberty begotten by the Burton's translation render this phrase, somewhat melodramatically, as “the fruit of my anguish" (90). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 30 blood of che white race, 90), thereby emphasizing the white filiation of the child. Moreover, Moacir is raised exclusively by his Portuguese father (79).4 The Indian past is thus demoted to Brazil’s pre-history, while the fictional Brazil founded by Martim, if racially inclusive as evidenced by Poti’s incorporation into the new colony, is culturally Portuguese.9S However, a closer examination of the novel reveals that its representation of mestigagem as the origin of the Brazilian nation is more ambivalent than the previous analysis suggests. In fact, Iracema oscillates between privileging the Amerindian and Portuguese "poles" of the story, and, within its narrative gaps, it denudes some of the contradictions at the heart of Brazilian mestigagem. The text may be viewed as consisting of two halves. The first part of the novel is dominated by Iracema. From their first meeting in which she shoots an arrow at Martim, through their first sexual encounter, when she takes advantage of Martim’s jurema-induced hallucination to seduce him, Iracema initiates and controls their sexual relationship. The sexual freedom and agency accorded to Iracema as a character clearly contradicts the image of women in nineteenth-century literature as sexually and socially subordinated to men.1 ' 1 ' 1 , 7 Ria Lemaire describes Moacir's face from chis perspective: "The child--her child--has been educated by non-Indians; he has lose che memory of his mother and of his origins" (63). Also see Haberly 50. ‘ , ! t See Burns 506; Lemaire 70-71; Zilberman 142-43, 143. " Iracema's 'savage condition' freed Alencar from his conservative inhibitions and from the prejudices of his epoch, allowing him to <~rea~- R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 31 Moreover, since Martim is Portuguese and Iracema is Indian, the inversion of the traditional hierarchical relationship between men and women can be interpreted as a parallel modification of racial hierarchies. This inversion is explicitly thematized in the passage where Martim decides to adopt the Tupi as his people, a decision that is presented as a change of allegiance from Portugal to indigenous Brazil: "0 guerreiro branco nao quer mais outra patria, senao a patria de seu filho e de seu coraqao" (66; "The white warrior no longer desires any other country save the land of his son and of his heart," 73). In order to be accepted as a Tupi, Martim participates in a ceremony in which, after the colors of the tribe are painted on the prospective member, the warriors, according to the narrator, "write" their achievements on the initiate's skin: "Depois variaram os cores, e muitos guerreiros costumaram escrever os emblemas de seus feitos" (67; "They also varied the colors, and many warriors used to write the emblems of their deeds") .100 As befits Iracema's active role in the first part of the novel, she also participates in this ceremony: "Iracema tomou a rama da pena e pintou uma abelha sobre folha de arvore" (67; "Iracema then took the feather- a female figure capable of amorous initiatives and sexual realizations . . . " (Campos 17 footnote 6). m" I have provided my own translation of this passage because Burton's version eliminates the word and image of "writing," present in the original, from her version: "They also varied the colours, and many warriors were covered with emblems of their deeds" (74). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 92 vane, and painted a leaf with a bee upon it," 75) .1 , 1 1 The ceremony concludes with Iracema giving Martim a Tupi name: Cotiabo--he who has been painted (67). Here, the novel has virtually reversed the traditional pattern of assimilation at the heart of national conceptualizations based on mestigagem (as well as mestizaje) . Rather than the Amerindian being assimilated into Luso-Brazilian culture, it is the European colonizer who is incorporated into that of the Tupis; rather than giving a European name to the indigenous elements, it is the European who is newly baptized. Redefining his identity, Martim abandons his European past for an Amerindian present. He even changes his name and declares loyalty to "Indo- Brazil." Moreover, the "writing" ceremony underscores the emphasis on Amerindian agency typical of the first half of the novel: Martin is completely passive, while Iracema and Poti "write" on his body. In fact, if we accept Rene Jara's and Nicholas Spadaccini's association of inscription with "penetration" and of the writing surface with the female Indian body, it could be argued that this "writing" ceremony implies a complete reversal of the male and female, as well as European and Indian, roles and agency characteristic of the conquest of America.102 "" I have kept the Brazilian spelling of Iracema in the quotations from Burton's version of Iracema. Throughout her translation. Burton uses modified spellings of the characters' names. For instance, Iracema becomes Iracema, Moacir, Moacyr, etc,. 102 See Jara and Spadaccini (17) . R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 8 3 Yet, precisely at the moment when Iracema threatens to subvert the Eurocentric and patriarchal basis of Brazilian identity by extolling the superiority and seductiveness of Amerindian culture, the narrative takes a turn that restores traditional hierarchical relations between Indians and Portuguese, as well as between men and women. The second half of the novel begins when Martim sees a ship in the distance and "a saudade da patria apertou-lhe no seio" (69; "the Saudade of his country wrung his heart," 76) .'< ) , Predictably, Martim's remembrance of his Portuguese identity is linked to his assumption of an active role in his relationship with Iracema, who is relegated to a subordinate position. Iracema's handing over of Moacir and her subsequent death can be interpreted as the logical conclusion of her gradual loss of agency and power in the narrative.1"4 At the end of the novel, when Martim returns to Ceara, his brief adoption of a Tupi identity as Cotiabo is completely forgotten. He establishes a Portuguese settlement and brings with him a Catholic priest. The ending is It is significant that this reaffirmation of Martim's Portuguese identity is linked to the presence of the word 'saudade.' As is well known, this word is frequently considered to signify the characteristic feeling of Portuguese and Brazilians, and is frequently considered to be untranslatable, a fact that Burton's version seems to reaffirm. Caetar.o Veloso has described "saudade” as "um emblema da lingua portuguesa, pois, alem de ser um acidente etimologico inexplicado, cobre um campo semantico revelador de algo peculiar em nosso modo de ser” (227; "an emblem of the Portuguese language because, not only is it an unexplained etymological accident, it also covers a semantic field that reveals something peculiar to the way we are"). (Nevertheless, this unique word belongs to a similar semantic field as the English word nostalgia). ", ' 1 Lemaire writes: "Thus, reduced to passivity (to waiting) and to mutedness, i.e., put to death mentally and culturally, Iracema has to die physically as well (63). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 34 particularly significant in that it is, in fact, nothing less than the reversal of the writing ceremony. If, in the first ceremony Martim changes his name and becomes Tupi--even if only temporarily--the ending shows Poti converting to Catholicism and changing his name forever: "Poti foi o primeiro que ajoelhou aos pes do sagrado lenho" (87; "Poti was the first who knelt at the foot of the Sacred Wood," 100). And later in the same episode: "Ele recebeu com o batismo o nome do santo [Antonio], cujo era o dia; e o do rei [Felipe], a quem ia servir, e sobre os dous o seu na lingua dos novos irmaos [Camarao] (87; "He received in baptism the name of the Saint whose day it was, and of the King he was about to serve; besides these two his own translated into the tongue of his new brethren," 100). "I 0 : ' Poti, who is a chief of the Pitiguaras and Martim’s "brother,” as he repeatedly describes himself,106 becomes a subject of the Portuguese king and a member of the Catholic Church. However, in a utopian gesture, the text describes Poti’s position in the new "Luso-Brazil" as that of an equal with the Portuguese settlers: he is still described as an "irmao" (87). And, as the text mentions in the "Argumento historico," Poti is the Indian name of Felipe Camarao, who with the historical Martim Soares Moreno was one of the heroes "que libertaram o Brasil 1 1 , 5 The novel does not actually give Poti’s Portuguese name in the text. However, it is mentioned in the “Argumento historico." Moreover Antonio Filipe Camarao, better known as Felipe Camarao, is a well-known historical figure. See Burns 52. See 41, 49, 62, 77, 87. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 8 5 da invasao holandesa" (12 "Argumento historico"; "delivered Brazil from the Hollander invasion," vi). But in spite of this apparently egalitarian description of Poti's role in Brazilian history, it is necessary to underscore that Poti has to give up his identity as a Pitiguara, as well as his religion, culture, and political power, and assume the culture of a Portuguese subject in order to become assimilated into the newly founded "Brazil” and become one of its first heroes. Iracema. therefore, implicitly accepts Amerindians, but only if they exchange their Indian identity for a Luso-Brazilian one. But this Luso-Brazilian identity has among its requirements both a religious submission--Poti kneels before the cross--and a political yielding--Poti vows to serve the Portuguese King. Unlike the horizontal and egalitarian relationships characteristic of the Tupi Indian tribes, and of Martim with the Indians, the newly founded Brazil is shown to be both egalitarian (as implied in the "brotherhood" of the members of the nation) and, paradoxically, hierarchical (as exemplified in the establishment of religious and political institutions based on the subordination of its members) . Moreover, unassimilated Indians, such as Iracema, who are shown to be fully identified with "Indo-Brazil, ” are tellingly kept outside the new "country.” The foundation of the Brazilian nation is, therefore, predicated on the establishment of the conventional relations R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 8 6 between the sexes and races, which had been subverted in the first half of Iracema. Claims to hegemonic completion are, however, denied by the nostalgia that informs the novel. The text begins with Martim’s tearful gaze at the land where Iracema's grave lies, and it ends with Martim walking on the same land, which is now under Portuguese control, "no peito a agra saudade" (87; "the bitter Saudade in his heart" 101). This nostalgic tone, which in a first reading may seem disconcerting in "a epopeia nacional brasileira” (Schwamborn 191; "the Brazilian national epic"), is the trace of the historical reality on which Brazil is constructed: the genocide of the Brazilian Indian. Instead of gently dying like Iracema, the great majority of Indians were killed or brutally overworked by the Portuguese colonizers and their descendants.107 The usurpation of Indian land and the exploitation of their labor became the basis for colonial prosperity until the decrease in numbers of the indigenous population forced the Portuguese to import Africans as an alternative slave labor force. Iracema. however, transmutes this "foundational" historical genocide into the tragic story of a woman dying for love, into a story of nostalgia--"a agra saudade"--and into the name Moacir, "child of suffering" (79). Iracema's death, and the sense of loss it infuses into the narrative, thus becomes both a sign of the genocide that is never mentioned in the novel, and an example of how "'7 According to John Hemming the Amerindian population decreased from 2,431,000 in 1500 to 100,000 in 1978 (492). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 87 Alencar attempts to eliminate the historical conflict between the Portuguese and Indians in his fiction. Critics have read the elimination of historical conflict in Iracema as part of the creation of a myth narrating the origin of Brazilian nationality. It is precisely the substitution of a "timeless" love story for the brutal historical fact of the genocide of the Brazilian Amerindian that not only makes Iracema1s national myth palatable to large sectors of Brazil's multi-ethnic population, but also allows the novel to function as an agent of cohesion in the construction of Brazilian nationality. But there is in Iracema. as a national text, a tension between its mythic value and its "historical" function. ■ If the novel's mythic story creates a national origin palatable to all readers, its historical function must ensure that this origin is compatible with historical facts. This tension becomes visible in Alencar's apparent need to buttress this love story set in an Eden-like space with historical and factual footnotes and with the "Argumento historico." A particularly significant moment of such tension between the footnotes' historical and factual narrative and the fiction’s mythical story is in the passage in which Martim and Poti visit Poti's grandfather, Maranguab (62-63). Maranguab was once the greatest of all Pitiguara warriors, ", s The mythic aspect of the narrative is already present in Alencar' s subtitle for the novel: "Lenda do Ceara." Among the several critics who have emphasized Iracema * s mythic aspects, one can single out Zilbermar. 148-52; Lemaire 60-61; and Haberly 48-49. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 88 but at the time of Poti's and Martim's visit, he is living alone far from the rest of his tribe. In the passage where he receives Martim and Poti, Maranguab declares that "Tupa quis que estes olhos vissem antes de se apagarem, o gaviao branco junto da narceja" (63; "Tupan wills that these eyes should see, before being quenched, the White Hawk side by side with the Narseja," 68). While Maranguab's statement seems to present a figure of harmony in which the European ("gaviao branco/white hawk) peacefully stands beside the Indigenous ("narceja"/snipe) , "109 Alencar inserts a footnote that emphasizes the contradiction, even violence, implicit in the metaphor. Alencar's footnote explains Maranguab's juxtaposition of the snipe and the hawk as a prophecy of "a destruigao de sua raga pela raga branca" (63; "the destruction of his race by the whites," 68). The historical extermination of the Amerindians at the hands of the Europeans is thus introduced into a novel whose narrative attempts to eliminate, or at least minimize, the violence between these two groups. But the mention of the genocide of the Brazilian Indian is displaced outside the body of the narrative text into Iracema's historical and linguistic footnotes. Moreover, in a second (temporal) displacement, the genocide of the Indian is presented as a "prophecy" to be fulfilled beyond the time frame of the narrative. 11 , 9 Burton in her version of Alencar's footnote--studied below in the text-- identifies the "narseja” with the ’snipe" (68 note 4). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 39 The tension between myth and history can also be seen in the development of the novel's story, which begins, as we have seen, in a pre-historical--or perhaps a-historical--Eder. where Indians and whites live, if not in perfect harmony (since the Pitiguara battle the Tabajara), at least in a world devoid of hierarchies. The Portuguese Martim is constantly described as an "irmao, " that is, as neither superior nor inferior to his Pitiguara allies. In fact, Martim's brief adoption of an "Indo-Brazilian" identity does not affect the way he is treated by his Pitiguara friends. His position among and treatment by the Indians is the same before and after the "writing" ceremony. The novel concludes, however, in a historical world where hierarchical differentiation between the Amerindian and the Portuguese has been established, since it is the cultural values of che latter group that exclusively define national identity.11" Therefore, unlike Martim's voluntary "Tupi conversion," Poti’s incorporation into the Portuguese colony implies not only a shift in his allegiance and culture, but the acceptance of a rigid hierarchical religious and social organization. The text's nostalgic tone is itself testimony to the sense of loss caused not only by the genocide of the Indian but by the passing of this "Edenic" state, an 1 1 , 1 Iracema reverses the structure of 0 Guarani. where the bulk of the narrative takes place in a historical world marked by the opposition between the Portuguese and the Aimore Indians, but concludes with a mythic flood that permits Peri and Cecilia to become a Brazilian Adam and Eve. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 9 0 occurrence that is itself the necessary condition for the founding of Brazil. Iracema is a foundational myth in which the foundation of Brazil is also seen as implying a profound and much lamented loss. Brazil is founded, but the price paid is the disappearance of its truly aboriginal cultures, as well as the egalitarian way of life characteristic of those cultures. It is this loss, not only the fictional Iracema's painful childbirth, that explains why the first Brazilian is called "child of sorrow" (79). Moacir is the product of a genocide that leaves a void for which not even the genetic survival of the Indian implied in mestigagem can fully compensate. The elimination, or at least understatement, of the central historical conflict between Indians and Portuguese is typical of Alencar's "indianista" novels as a group. In fact, if one looks at these novels chronologically, the conflict between the Portuguese and the Indians is progressively eliminated from Alencar's representations of the founding of Brazil. In O Guarani (1857), the story of the Guarani chief Peri's platonic love for the Portuguese woman Cecilia Mariz is framed by the story of the armed struggle between the noble Portuguese Mariz family and the Aimores, an Indian tribe who, unlike the Guarani, are described in sub-human terms.11' In Iracema (1865), as we 111 In O Guarani the enmity between the Aimores and the Mariz family originates in Dom Diogo de Mariz's murder of a woman of the tribe. His father, Dom Antonio, punishes Diogo by sending him to Rio de Janeiro. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. have seen, the only explicit violence presented is between Indians, and the genocide of the Amerindians is transmuted into the tragic story of Iracema's ill-fated love. In fact, the elimination of historical contradictions from Alencar's novels reaches its logical conclusion in his final indianista novel, Ubiraiara (1874), in which the Portuguese are excluded altogether from the foundational story. In Ubiraiara. Alencar presents a narrative of mestigagem that occurs exclusively among Amerindian tribes. This novel displaces the Portuguese to the role of yet another additional tribe, the future "caramurus," who will in turn be assimilated into a Brazil characterized by a mestigagem which includes, but also predates, the Portuguese presence (144). It is only in the footnotes, which, as in Iracema. Alencar uses to supplement the narrative with historical and linguistic information, that the Portuguese presence is discussed. Of course, while in Ubiraiara Alencar successfully eliminates the violence of the conquest, he no longer provides a verisimilar foundational narrative for a Brazilian society clearly defined by Portuguese colonization, This presentation of Brazil as founded on a non-violent conquest marks a central difference between Brazilian mestigagem and many Spanish American versions of mestizaje. 11: The following quotation from Ricardo Palma's Tradiciones peruanas is exemplary of the intense condemnation of the conquistadors that one can on occasion find among Spanish American writers: ”Fecundisimo en crimenes y en malvados fue para el Peru el siglo XVI. No parece sino que Espana hubiera abierto las puertas de los presidios y que, escapados sus moradores, se dieron cita para estas regiones. Los horrores de La R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 9 2 While in some of Ubiraiara's historical footnotes Alencar criticizes the treatment of the Indians by the Portuguese,1 the bulk of his writings, as well as the ideological position he takes in them present the conquest as a moment of positive cultural and sexual encounter rather than as a period of conflict and extermination, even if it is possible to find traces of the genocide of the Brazilian Indians in Iracema. This take on the historical conflict between the Indians and the Portuguese is a characteristic trait of Brazilian mestigagem generally. Later theorists of the nation such as Gilberto Freyre--in Casa-Grande e Senzala (1933)--and Sergio Buarque de Hollanda--in Raizes do Brasil (1936)--present the colonization of Brazil as based on the harmonious collaboration among Portuguese, Amerindians, and even black slaves. One possible explanation for this difference between Spanish American mestizaje and Brazilian mestigagem regarding the representation of Indian and European conflict may be conquista, las guerras de pizarristas y alraagriscas, y las vilezas de Godines, en las revueltas de Potosi, reflejan, sobre los cres siglos que han pasado como creaciones de una fantasia calenturienta. El espiritu se resiste a aceptar el testimonio de la historia" ("Lope de Aguirre, el traidor" 74; "Extremely prolific in crimes and evildoers was the sixteenth century in Peru. It seems as if Spain had opened the doors of of its prisons and that its inmates had escaped to these regions. The horrors of the conquest, the wars between followers of Pizarro and Almagro, and the evil deeds of Godines during the revolts in Potosi, give the impression, after three centuries, to be the creations of a febrile imagination") . m For instance, Alencar criticizes colonial descriptions of Amerindian life by pointing out that "a raga invasora buscava justificar suas cruezas rebaixando os aborigines a cor.digao de feras, qu t r r c i n ■ > r c o s o montear" (168 note 53; “the invading race attempted to justify their cruelty by lowering the aborigenes to the condition of beasts that it was necessary to hunt"). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 9 3 found in the relations of these two cultural areas with their metropoli. Spanish America achieved independence only after a bloody and protracted struggle that, beginning with the first successful revolutionary government in 1810, lasted for 14 years (Bushnell and Macaulay 18).114 Brazilian independence, on the other hand, lacked a significant military struggle against the former metropolis. In fact, Brazilian independence is arguably defined by a sense of continuity with the colonial past. Not only was the first emperor, Pedro I, the son of the Portuguese monarch, but in 1831 he actually succeeded to the European throne, even after having ruled Brazil for nine years. Alencar's non-representation of violence between his Amerindian and Portuguese protagonists thus parallels the absence of a significant historical enmity between the Brazilian elite and Portugal. While the Spanish American criollos also had close ties with Spain, they were the inheritors of a history of antagonism between the colony and the metropolis. The condemnation of the conquest, so ingrained, for instance, in Ricardo Palma’s writings, implies an attempt at separating the criollos from the Spanish and to obscure the obvious links between the two groups. Alencar and, generally speaking, the Brazilian tradition of mestigagem do not obfuscate the links between the Brazilian 114 In fact, it can be argued that the war actually lasted longer, since there were significant rebellions that predated 1810 and the last Spanish soldier actually surrendered in 1826. See Bushnell and Macauley 18. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 9 4 elites and their Portuguese ancestors, but on the contrary will try to displace the foundational violence of the extermination of the Indian and the later exploitation of blacks from the version of history developed by the elites. Mestizaje and mestigagem, while becoming in both cultural areas the ideological basis of the nation, thus reflect the particular histories of Spanish America and Brazil. Both Alencar*s mestigagem and Spanish American mestizaje, however, have in common the use of the Indian as the source of national difference."5 In Alencar, as in Spanish American mestizaje, the Indian is presented as the principal, if not the exclusive, source of biological and cultural difference from Europe. But this use of the figure of the Indian is understated in the narrative of Iracema. Alencar's emphasis on the miscegenation between the Indian and the Portuguese as the origin of the national "race" implies the equal biological contribution of both groups. The novel's conclusion, which fictionalizes the foundation of a multiethnic but still Portuguese based Brazil, also obscures the role assigned to the Amerindian as the privileged origin of the nation. Nevertheless, the Amerindian's role as the source of national difference is made explicit in Alencar's postscript to the novel which- both defends the text's literary choices and presents a manifesto for an autonomous Brazilian literature. 115 The centrality of the figure of the Indian is a characteristic of Alencar’s mestigagem that is not maintained by all of his continuators. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 9 5 In the "Carta ao Dr. Jaguaribe,” Alencar stresses the need for Brazilian literature to base itself on Amerindian language and culture: Sem duvida que o poeta brasileiro tern de traduzir em sua lingua as ideias, embora rudes e grosseiras, dos indios; e preciso que a lingua civilizada se molde quanto possa a singeleza primitiva da lingua barbara; e nao represente as imagens e pensamentos indigenas senao por termos e frases que ao leitor paregam naturais na boca do selvagem. (89) [Without doubt the Brazilian poet must translate into his language the ideas of the Indians, even though they are coarse and unrefined; . . . it is necessary that the civilized language mold itself as much as possible to the primitive innocence of the barbarian language; and not represent Indian images and thoughts except by phrases and expressions that seem to the reader natural in the mouth of savages.] Alencar presents Iracema. if not as a direct translation of any particular aboriginal "text," then, at least as an attempt to incorporate into the nineteenth century novel Amerindian modes of thinking and expression. Alencar's proposal for creating a Tupi-influenced literary language can also be seen as an attempt to create a Brazilian version of Portuguese that would linguistically justify political independence. And, despite the witticism of Alencar's contemporary* who, upon hearing of Iracema's translation into English, criticized the novel's style by commenting that "Se eu fosse o autor do poema, vertia-o em portugues" (qtd. in Schwamborn 98; "If I were the author of R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 9 6 the poem, I would translate it into Portuguese"), linguistic difference is a major aspect of nineteenth century conceptualizations of the nation.116 Alencar, therefore, attempts to create a national Portuguese language--some have called it Brazilian--that would help reproduce the equation of one language/one nation characteristic of contemporary theories of the nation.117 As noted above, Alencar believes that the creation of a truly national language must be based on the translation of Tupi words, phrases, and even concepts. In the "Carta," Tupi is therefore accorded the status of a linguistic prototype, an example to be followed by a new Brazilian Portuguese. The following quotation can serve as a first example of Alencar's translational method: "No centro estao os guerreiros do fogo, que trazem o raio" (78; "In the middle are the fire warriors, who carry the lightning," 89). In this sentence, "Guerreiros do fogo" replaces "white soldiers" or "Portuguese soldiers," and "o raio" takes the place of "muskets." The following phrase directed by Iracema to her newly born son can serve as a complementary example: "Quando teu filho deixar o seio de Iracema, ela morrera, como o abati depois que deu seu fruto" (76; "When the White Warrior's son has left the bosom of Iracema she will die, like the Abaty after it has yielded its fruit," 86). The presence of what seems to be a figure l l f t See above 5-6; 54. 117 On Alencar as linguistic emancipator, see Sommer 155; and Campos, especially 14-19. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 9 7 compatible with Tupi ideas--the comparison made by Iracema between herself and what the footnotes describe as a kind of wild rice, the abati--helps give the passage its Tupi "flavor," as does the presence of an untranslated Tupi word in the passage. In other occasions, Alencar incorporates the translation of the Tupi word into the main text of the novel. The phrase "Iracema, a virgem dos labios de mel” (14; "Iragema, the virgin with the honey lips,” 3), which includes both the Tupi name and its translation "virgem de mel," is an example of this aspect of Alencar's translational practice. One of the consequences of this emphasis on the "the molding" of Portuguese to the "primitive language" is that, at times, Alencar's language gives the impression not only of translating Tupi words, but even of recreating the "savage thought” of the Tupi.lls An instance of this apparent recreation of Tupi modes of thought can be found in the final chapter, which begins with a description of the time that has elapsed between Martim's departure from Ceara to his return to establish a colony: "0 cajueiro floresceu quatro vezes depois que Martim partiu das praias" (86; "The Cajueiro flowered four times since Martim had left the shores of Ceara," 99). Rather than using Western units of time, Alencar uses a "natural" unit of time, the flowering of the cashew tree. This passage virtually moves the text away from a Western perspective and assimilates it to the perspective IIS See Campos 23. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 9 8 of the Tupi for whom time could apparently be measured by how often a tree has flowered. The consequence of Alencar's modifications of literary Portuguese is that if, on the one hand, the text is perfectly legible, on the other, it has been made strange by the incorporation of "Amerindian” words, images, and concepts. In fact, it is possible to see in all of these practices not only an early example of current translational theories that prescribe the submission of the target to the source language as the characteristic gesture of translation, but also a linguistic expression of Alencar's mestigagem.110 By creating a national literary language that is influenced by Tupi, Alencar reproduces, at the level of style, the thematic fusion of Amerindian and Portuguese elements represented genetically by Moacir. Alencar's style, with its elegant Portuguese submitting to the "Tupi paradigm,"120 appears to achieve a fully egalitarian fusion between both linguistic and cultural "paradigms," a fusion that is only partially achieved in the novel's story. Therefore, one could argue that in Iracema the Amerindian becomes the basis for a Brazilian literature and, by extension, Brazilian nationality which, while expressed in Portuguese, has successfully incorporated the best features of Tupi language and culture. Alencar’s creation of a 114 The principal source of current translational theories is Walter Benjamin's "The Task of the Translator." 120 Campos describes Alencar's Tupi influenced language as the result of the "influx of the Tupi paradigm" (15). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 9 9 mestico literary style and language has been hailed not cr.iy as his greatest achievement, but as setting the basis for both a literature and language independent from Portugal.121 Nevertheless, Alencar's assimilation of "Amerindian" language and motifs--the "Tupi paradigm"--is not free from the ambiguities and contradictions that, as we have seen, characterize both mestigagem and mestizaje. Alencar, like all writers and scholars of his time, depended on colonial sources for his information regarding the Tupi. Although when he was writing Amerindian groups belonging to the Tupi- Guarani family were still extant, the incipient ethnological and anthropological research in the nineteenth century limited the use of these groups as a source of linguistic and cultural information. Despite the fact that Alencar documented his representation of Tupi life, drawing from an unusually wide range of sources,122 his vision of the Tupi is ultimately shaped by colonial writers.123 Therefore, Alencar's representation of the Indian is mediated by Portuguese and European colonizers. Even Alencar's direct use of the Tupi language is not unproblematic. After all, it could be argued that the Tupi 121 See Campos 21, 22-23 ; Sommer 155; 122 Among his sources is the seventeenth century French chronicle of his life among the Brazilian Indians by Jean de Lery. As Wasserman points out, later in Ubiraiara Alencar "conducts a running argument with earlier historians and chroniclers of Indian customs” about their distorted and demeaning representation of the Amerindian (215). Nevertheless,- the fact is that even his disagreements with colonial representations of the Amerindian are ultimately based on these same colonial sources. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 100 language, renamed "lingua geral" by the Jesuit missionaries, was very much a colonial construct that played a central role in the subordination of the Amerindians to the Portuguese. In fact, the homogeneous Tupi of the "lingua geral" was the reduction of what had originally been a heterogeneous family of related languages to a unitary tongue made to conform co the strict rules of classical grammar. It was the "lingua geral," and its introduction and propagation in the Indian population, that allowed the Jesuits to translate and disseminate religious texts and practices that were the principal ideological tools in the conquest of Brazil.124 Since Alencar drew his linguistic information on Amerindian languages from the "lingua geral" Tupi created by the Jesuits, he, again, unwittingly assigned a mediating function to the Portuguese colonizers even when he attempted to assert Brazil's linguistic and literary independence from Portugal. Alencar's apparent fidelity to the Tupi language is- further problematized by the fact that, according to some critics, the Tupi words used in Alencar' s novel are "invented" (Campos 19) . Moreover, the emphasis placed by Alencar on the reader's linguistic expectations regarding Tupi--what in his "Carta” he calls "the terms and phrases that seem to the reader natural in the mouth of savages 124 On the Jesuit role in the conversion of the Brazilian Indian, see Burns 33-34. On the "lingua geral,” see Burns 16. The use of a standardized Indian language as a tool in the colonization of Amerindian populations was not exclusive to Brazil. On a parallel use of Nahuarl in colonial Mexico, see Klor. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 101 subordinates actual Tupi linguistic and cultural practices to the readers’ uninformed expectations about them. This lack of "authenticity" may not invalidate Alencar’s aesthetic project, but it further undermines the privileged position given to Tupi language and culture in Iracema. In fact, the name Iracema can serve as an example of how Alencar's apparent privileging of Tupi language as the source of a national language and literary style can be compatible with the subordination of Tupi to the need for the conceptualization of an independent national identity. Although Alencar provides a Tupi etymology for Iracema-- "lips of honey”--it is also an anagram for America.i:' While it is fitting for the word America to be the origin of the name of a character that represents the Indian elements in the formation of Brazil, the fact that Iracema is an anagram for America undermines the putative fidelity to Tupi proclaimed in the "Carta." Moreover, the fact that Iracema is simply a disguised version of the word America also shows the manner in which the apparent fidelity to Tupi becomes but a cover for the traditional power of the colonizing language to rename at will what has already been named by the colonized language.126 Nevertheless, the name Iracema sounds Tupi to the Portuguese (or English) speaking reader. Alencar therefore provides a representation of Amerindian culture and l2^ See Wasserman 206. 126 An additional irony is that the word America is itself European, created in honor of Amerigo Vespucci, who, as we know, may never have even visited the continent named after him. See Todorov 100. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 102 language mediated not only by his Portuguese colonial sources, but also by the expectations of his Luso-Brazilian readers. His representation of the Tupi is, arguably, also determined by the national expectations of the Brazilian population and, therefore, exemplifies the imbrication of the literary and national projects in Iracema. at the same time that it puts into question the apparently privileged position assigned to the Amerindian in the formation of an independent Brazilian identity. The manner in which the "Carta" describes Alencar's linguistic and translational project is also contradictory. While he declares Tupi to be the origin of a true Brazilian expression--"a fonte que deve beber o poeta brasileiro" ("the source from which the Brazilian poet must drink)--he also declares it a "lingua barbara" ("barbarian tongue), and describes Amerindian ideas as "rudes e grosseiras" ("coarse and unrefined") (89). Thus, Alencar proposes simultaneously the superiority of Tupi as the necessary origin of Brazilian literature--and by extension, the origin of nationality--and condemns the language as "coarse and unrefined" thereby granting to Portuguese a position of superiority as a "civilized language." In his "Carta,” Alencar attempts to resolve this contradiction through the comparison of the Tupi language and images to flowers that have to be cultivated: "Se a investigagao laboriosa das belezas nativas, feita sobre ■ R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 103 imperfeitos e espurios diccionarios, exauria o espirito; a satisfagao de cultivar essas flores agrestes da poesia brasileira, deleitava" (89; "If the laborious investigation of native beauties made by means of imperfect and spurious dictionaries tired the spirit, the satisfaction of cultivating those wild flowers of Brazilian poetry was delightful”). The likening of the creation of a national literature to an agricultural process implies the conversion of a "natural" process into a cultural, even artificial, one, and the transformation of a natural wilderness into a garden. In fact, it is possible to see in this image a clear correspondence with the story of Iracema. which shows the replacement of the "natural" Amerindian societies with the Brazilian nation. In the same way that Poti must assume a new identity in order to be accepted into the newly-founded Brazil, Amerindian words, and by extension culture, must be "cultivated," in other words, assimilated and aligned with the language and culture of the Brazilian elite. Alencar's apparently radical incorporation of Tupi linguistic and cultural elements paradoxically implies the lack of agency of the Amerindian population in the construction of the national literature and language. Amerindian language and culture are described as passively providing elements that are selected, "cultivated," and used by Luso-Brazilians. Like all versions of mestizaje and mestigagem, that of Alencar ultimately presents the Amerindian language and culture as a source for R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 104 national difference, but, it is still a source to be subordinated to a European-based national culture and identity. It is possible, therefore, to establish a homology between Iracema's fictionalization of mestigagem and its linguistic and literary proposal. The novel hesitates between privileging Amerindian or Portuguese elements, before deciding in favor of the latter in the construction of a Brazilian national identity. Nevertheless, the novel ultimately depends on the Amerindian as a source of difference. After all, it is Iracema's presence in the genetic configuration of Moacir that marks him as a Brazilian; likewise, it is the use of Tupi words and images, no matter how distorted, that allows Alencar's Portuguese to be perceived as Brazilian. Thus, in spite of Alencar's explicit final privileging of European elements in his vision of Brazil, the tension between the Portuguese and the Tupi as the defining element of the nation is ultimately never resolved. The contradiction in Alencar, as in mestizaje/mestigagem in general, originates in his use of the Amerindian as the conceptual basis of a nation that is ultimately a Luso-Brazilian (or, in the case of Spanish America, criollo) construct. Later Brazilian theorists of the nation will attempt to resolve Alencar's contradictions. (As would Alencar himself in his final narrative of national origins, Ubiraiara. which. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 0 5 as we have seen, excludes the European elements from his allegorical version of Brazil). However, while Alencar's emphasis on the heterogeneous origin of the nation will be continued by later writers, the reduction, even the practical elimination, of the Amerindian as a formative element becomes the solution to the contradiction between the Tupi and Portuguese elements in his conceptualization of the nation. As we shall see, Gilberto Freyre, perhaps the most influential national theorist in twentieth century Brazil, proposes a version of a nation that, while accepting Amerindian and especially black cultural elements, privileges the Portuguese as the formative element of the nation. Yet Alencar's indianista novels have also given rise to a more literary, and less conservative, progeny. For instance, it is widely acknowledged that works such as Mario de Andrade's Macunaima and Oswald de Andrade's "Manifesto antropofago" imply both a continuation-even in the case of Oswald de Andrade, who lampoons Alencar-- and a radicalization of Alencar's work.127 And, in both cases, it is precisely the figure of the Indian that is at the center of their attempts to reconfigure Brazilian nationality. Furthermore, if one moves outside the borders of Brazil into Spanish America, one can find in Alencar's writings an anticipation of a literary practice that would later be called "transcultural" by Angel Rama and "heterogeneous" by 117 See Valence 142-43, 146-47. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Antonio Cornejo Polar, and praised by both as being representative of Latin American societies split into traditional--frequently indigenous--and modern sectors.1 : , H But Alencar' s work is not only of historical relevance as a central influence in Brazilian literary and intellectual history. Alencar is, in fact, frequently still seen as the obligatory starting point for reflections on Brazilian nationality as well as on its national literature.12‘ ’ It is precisely Alencar's narrative and theoretical contradictions, his translational hesitation between privileging the Tupi source or the Portuguese, that not only make his work of vital interest to students of Brazilian literature, but permit the appropriation of aspects of his narrative and thought even by today's thinkers. 128 See Cornejo’s "El indigenismo y las liceracuras hecerogeneas: su doble estatuto socio cultural" 88; Rama Transculturacion narraciva 122- 23 . 129 For a summary of some of the more significant contemporary arguments about Alencar see Wasserman 190-95. In fact, Wasserman's study on Alencar "The Indian Novels of Alencar" and Sommer's "O Guarani and Iracema: Brazil’s Two Faced Indigenism" are two current examples of the relevance of Alencar's works to contemporary analyses of Brazilian national literature. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 10 Chapter 3 Gilberto Freyre’s Casa-Grande e Senzala: Mestigagem as a Family Affair Ever since its publication in 1933, Gilberto Freyre"s historico-anthropological study Casa-Grande e Senzala' has occupied a central position in the Brazilian imagination. Unlike earlier commentators, Freyre presented an optimistic vision of Brazil. This optimism was based in Freyre’s anti- racialist stance, which rightfully has been seen as a revolutionary departure from the monotonous and pessimistic repetitions of pseudo-scientific platitudes about inferior races and the degenerative effects of miscegenation characteristic of most previous writings about the country. Moreover, the influence of Casa-Grande e Senzala quickly went beyond the sphere of the social sciences, and its basic premises soon became the point of departure for the work of numerous authors and artists from Freyre1s time on. The statements of intellectuals and artists as diverse as Jorge Amado, Antonio Candido, Darcy Ribeiro, and Nelson Pereira dos Santos exemplify Freyre1s widespread and lasting influence on Brazilian culture.1'1 Freyre * s influence has even reached 1 , 1 1 Casa-Grande e Senzala. which literal translaced would be "The Plantation House and the Slave Quarters," appeared in English as The Masters and the Slaves. m Amado wrote the following about Casa-Grande e Senzala: “Nenhum iivro sacudieu o Brasil como esse primeiro de Gilberto Freyre, nenhuma obra abalou tao profundamente a opiniao e tanto concorreu para que se escrevesse e se lesse em nossa patria. Foi urn despertar e urn abrir de caminhos” (qtd. in Coutinho 14; "No book shook Brazil like Gilberto Freyre1s first, no work influenced public opinion so profoundly, nor contributed to the development of Brazilian writing and reading”). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Brazil's general population. One of the highlights of the 1962 carnival in Rio de Janeiro was the presentation by the popular "samba school” Mangueira of a pageant inspired in Casa-Grande e Senzala (Freyre xxviii). Casa-Grande e Senzala1s emphasis on the contribution of Afro-Brazilians to the formation of a national identity lies at the center of Freyre’s continuing influence. Unlike Jose de Alencar, who described a Brazil founded by the love affairs between Portuguese and Indians and peopled by those two groups and their descendants, Freyre also emphasizes the contribution of Brazilian blacks to the national culture. This new stress on the participation of blacks in Brazilian history and culture corresponded much more closely than did Alencar's indianism to the make up of the Brazilian population.132 For instance, according to the census figures of 1940, seven years after the publication of Casa-Grande e Senzala. forty percent of the population claimed to be of African descent (Skidmore 45). This figure may, in fact, underrepresent the black and mulatto population of Brazil. In Latin America census figures are considered to be Antonio Candido has written about the " forca revoluc icr.ar -.a, : .:npar; ^ libertador que teve este grande livro" ("O significado de Raizes do Brasil” 10; "the revolutionary force and the liberating impact of this great book"). Darcy Ribeiro considers Freyre to be as great an influence on Brazil "no piano cultural tal como Cervantes a Espanha, Camoes a Lusitania, Tolstoi a Russia, Sartre a Franga" (110-11; "in the cultural field as Cervantes in Spain, Camoes in Lusitania, Tolstoy in Russia, Sartre in France"). The filmmaker Nelson Pereira dos Santos recently declared that "Costumo dizer que o Brasil tem dois fundadores: Gilberto Freyre e Jorge Amado" (qtd. in Rangel n.p.; "I usually say that Brazil has two founders: Gilberto Freyre and Jorge Amado"). 132 By the end of the seventeenth century black slaves already outnumbered the Portuguese colonists (Skidmore 40). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 0 9 unreliable regarding "racial" classifications. In Brazil, as in most of Latin America, individuals who are perceived to be "white”--regardless of family background--have a social and economic advantage. Moreover, "race" is only one of the criteria by which "whiteness" is defined. Economic position and education are other significant attributes associated with "racial" classifications.111 Therefore, Freyre ' s emphasis on the importance of the cultural contributions of Afro-Brazilians had "urn impacto revolucionario" on Brazilian readers who until then had been accustomed to texts that, at best, denied the importance of the country's large black and mulatto population (Candido 10; "a revolutionary impact"). But the question remains why blacks, despite their numerical significance and concomitant cultural influence, had been ignored in discourse about the nation. Alencar's works may serve as a starting point to answer this question. Alencar's exclusion of blacks from his representation of Brazil has either been explained by referring to his own politically conservative and pro-slavery position,1'4 or allegorical readings of his novels have been proposed in which the Indian characters are read as representing black slaves.115 While there are elements of truth in both 1,1 On Brazilian racial categorizations see Skidmore 39-44; Stam 45-46. For a balanced--and brief--description of Alencar-s political activities and their relationship to his exclusion of black characters from his "foundational" novels, see Sommer 156-61. 1,5 Sommer writes about Alencar's "sliding between one racial category and another, substituting Indians for blacks" (160). There is textual basis for this interpretation. In O Guarani. Peri, the Indian protagonist, is described as "um escravo amigo" (280; "a friendly R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 110 explanation of Alencar's exclusion of blacks from his representation of his country, these readings of his novels do not take into account the ideological values associated with the different racial groups in nineteenth century Brazil. Alencar's emphasis on the Indian, and his concomitant marginalization of blacks, might also be read as part of an attempt--however contradictory--to establish a sense of national specificity grounded in a source both independent from Portugal and native to America. Unlike Indians, blacks were frequently seen as indissolubly linked to the Portuguese who brought them to Brazil as slaves. Furthermore, it was common for slave owners and their intellectual allies to claim that blacks were servile by nature.1’6 This characterization of blacks as submissive was not modified even by the proliferation of quilombos (settlements of escaped slaves) or the heroic resistance to the colonial armies by the largest of these settlements--Palmares--during much of the seventeenth century. n ' Moreover, by Alencar's time, as cultural others the Indians were conveniently distant from Brazilian urban centers and thus easily celebrated by writers who did not have to consider the exploitation of indigenous groups. Blacks, however, were the daily companions of the Portuguese, slave"). "6 Stain describes this common stereotype of blacks as "narcissistic projections of whites . . . these emblems of happy servility represent the slaves as the masters desired them to be" (331) . 1,7 Palmares was a quilombo with a population of approximately twenty thousand people. On Palmares, see Burns 46-47. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. and later Brazilian, elites. They were the elites' cooks, nannies, servants, and often, as Brazilian writers have been fond of stressing, their sexual partners. This exclusion of blacks from writings about the nation was reinforced by the practical emphasis placed by scientific racialism and its popularizers on the absolute inferiority of blacks. However, by the first decades of the twentieth century, the dogmas of racialism had begun to be challenged and contradicted by scientists and intellectuals in the Americas and in Europe. An intellectual climate was, therefore, created in Brazil in which not only mestigagem could become the dominant ideological basis for the conceptualization of the nation, but the conceptual incorporation of blacks into the nation could be contemplated.11* Moreover, because the slaves in Brazil had been liberated in 1888, there were no longer any economic interests opposing the inclusion of blacks into the nation. It is in this new ideological climate that Gilberto Freyre--a former student of Franz Boaz, one of the principal debunkers of racialism in the United States--is able to propose a new version of mestigagem that not only includes blacks, but seems to privilege their role in the foundation of nationality.1'4 In Casa-Grande e Senzala Freyre presents a historical vision of Brazil where Portuguese, Indian, and blacks are 1 ,s See "Introduction" 13-15.. For a brief and lucid analysis of the influence of Boas on Freyre. see Ribeiro 126-28. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 112 contributors--though not necessarily in equal terms--to the formation of a national ethos. The starting point for Freyre's version of the historical formation of Brazil is the fact that there were few women among the Portuguese who colonized the country. Therefore, the Portuguese conquerors and colonizers had to take Indian or black women as sexual partners, lovers, and eventually wives. According to Freyre, the consequence of this social and sexual intercourse among Portuguese men and Indian and black women was that the relationship between hegemonic and subaltern groups "adogaram-se . . . com a necessidade experimentada por muitos colonos de constituxrem familia dentro dessas circunstancias e sobre essa base" (1; "mitigated by the need that was felt by many colonists of founding a family under such circumstances and upon such a basis as this, " xxix) . For Freyre, it was the "oleo lubrico da profunda miscegenacao" that helped ease the social tensions among the three racial groups present during the Portuguese colonization of Brazil (160; "the lubricating oil of deep-going miscegenation," 182) . Despite the relationship between these three "founding" groups being based on the exploitation, by the Portuguese, of the conquered Indians and enslaved blacks, Freyre believed that the miscegenation between Portuguese men and Indian and black women had a profoundly egalitarian effect: Hibrida desde o inicio, a sociedade brasileira e de todas de America a que se R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. constituiu mais harmoniosamente quanto as relagoes de raga: dentro de urn ambiente de quase reciprocidade cultural que resultou no maximo de aproveitamento dos valores e experiencias dos povos atrasados pelo adiantado; no maximo de contemporizagao da cultura adventicia com a nativa, da do conquistador com a do conquistado. (91) [Hybrid from the beginning, Brazilian society is, of all those in the Americas, the one most harmoniously constituted so far as racial relations are concerned, within the environment of a practical cultural reciprocity that results in the advanced people deriving the maximum of profit from the values and experiences of the backward ones, and in a maximum of conformity between the foreign and the native cultures, that of the conqueror and that of the conquered. (83) ] According to Freyre, it was the presence of Indian and, later, black women within Portuguese households that ensured the incorporation of indigenous and African customs and cultural products into Brazilian colonial society. Since Africans and Indians were adapted to the tropics, the incorporation of these customs and products favored the development of a new Portuguese based culture in che new environment. Moreover, this contact between Portuguese, Indians, and blacks ultimately led to the formation of a national culture that was common to all three groups regardless of their position in the social structure. But the subversion of cultural hierarchies was not the only consequence of mestigagem. Even economic and social divisions are described by Freyre as being affected by the "oleo lubrico" of sexual interaction. A plantation economy. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 1 4 such as Chat of colonial and imperial Brazil, implies the oppression of a large number of black slaves by a small aristocracy of white landowners and the near elimination of an intermediate class of free farmers or artisans. Mestigagem, however, is described by Freyre as creating a racially mixed intermediate group that acts both as a buffer between the two opposing social groups, and, by creating cultural bonds between them, as an agent of cultural change for progressively more egalitarian relations among them. Thus, for Freyre, the social polarization of plantation owners and oppressed slaves: foi em grande parte contrariado pelos afeitos sociais da miscegenagao. A india e a negra-mina a principio, depois a mulata, a cabrocha, a quadrona, a oitavona, tornando-se caseiras, concubinas e ate esposas legitimas dos senhores brancos, agiram poderosamente no sentido de democratizagao social no Brasil. (1) [was in good part offset by the social effects of miscegenation. The Indian woman and the "mina, " or Negro woman, in the beginning, and later the mulatto, the cabrocha, the quadroon, and the octoroon, becoming domestics, concubines, and even the lawful wives of their white masters, exerted a powerful influence for social democracy in Brazil. (xxx)] Mestigagem is also an influence in the development of egalitarian patterns of land ownership in Brazil. According to Freyre, by having their numerous mulatto sons--both legitimate and illegitimate--inherit land, the landowners unwittingly promoted the progressive partition of the plantations (1). Thus, mestigagem, in this analysis, also R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. il5 becomes an egalitarian and democratic influence in the economic formation of Brazil. Despite Freyre's frequent emphasis on the importance of the distinction between race and culture, which he learned from Boas,140 his analysis depends on the idea of both cultural and biological mestigagem. In fact, both culture and race ultimately become identified with each other, since it is the miscegenation between biologically diverse white, black, and indigenous groups that is seen as the source of the parallel cultural fusion. Freyre's dependence on the concept of race is manifested in his belief that races have hereditary biological and psychological adaptations to the environment.141 Thus, in his analysis, the explanation for the adaptation to the tropical environment of Brazil by the mestizo, mulatto, as well as by the nominally white but still mixed, populations originates in the miscegenation of the Portuguese and the Indians and blacks (13).142 1 4 , 1 Freyre himself emphasized the importance of Boas m his theoretical differentiation between race and culture: "Foi o estudo de Antropologia sob a orientagao do Professor Boas que primeiro me reveiou o negro e t mulato no seu justo valor--separados dos tragos de raca os efeitos do ambiente ou da experiencia cultural. Aprendi a considerar fundamental a diferenga entre raga e cultura; a discriminar er.r.re os efeitos de relagoes puramente geneticas e os de influencias sociais, de heranca cultural e de meio” (xlvii-xlviii; "It was my studies in anthropology under the direction of Professor Boas that first revealed to me the Negro and the mulatto for what they are--with the effects of environment or cultural experience separated from racial characteristics. I learned to regard as fundamental the difference between race and culture, to discriminate between the effects of purely genetic relationships and those resulting from social influences, the cultural heritage, and the milieu,” xxvii). 141 See Casa-Grande e Senzala 286-89. 142 A recent critic of Freyre, Ricardo Benzaquen de Araujo has correctly noted that the concept of race present in Casa-Grande e Senzala differs substantially from the essentialist concepts of race handled by R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 1 6 While his emphasis on race is another example of the slippage between race and culture that is characteristic of much writing about mestizaje and mestigagem, Freyre’s use of racial classifications often leads him to reintroduce racial hierarchizations that supposedly have been eliminated from his analysis. For example, in Casa-Grande e Senzala he states that the cultural superiority of the slaves brought to Brazil implies that "ter sido o Brasil beneficiado com um elemento melhor de colonizagao africana que outros paises de America. Que os Estados LJnidos, por exemplo" (304; "Brazil benefitted from a better type of colonist from the 'dark continent’ than did other countries of America. The United States for example," 306). Freyre explicitly establishes a hierarchical classification of the African population in which some groups are seen as "better” and, therefore, superior to others. Equally problematic are the anti-semitic statements scattered throughout Casa-Grande e Senzala: scientific racialism. As Araujo points out: “Gilberto trabalha com uma definigao fundamentalmente neolamarckiana de raga, isto e, uma defimgao que baseando-se na ilimitada aptidao dos seres humanos para se adapter as mais diferentes condiqoes ambientais, enfatiza acima de tudo a sua capacidade de incorporar, transmitir e herdar as caracteristicas adquiridas na sua--variada, discreta e localizada--inceragao com o meio fisico" (39; stress in the original; "Gilberto works with a fundamentally neo-Lamarckian definition of race, that is, a definition that based on humanity's unlimited ability to adapt to the most different environmental conditions, emphasizes humanity's capacity to incorporate, transmit, and inherit the characteristics acquired through the varied, discrete, and localized interaction with the physical environment"). Although Araujo’s interpretation of the conceptualization of race in Casa-Grande e Senzala is correct, the fact remains that Freyre still establishes racial hierarchies. On the persistence of racial categories in Freyre's work, also see Medeiros 32- 33; Mota 61-62, 65-68. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 1 7 Tecnicos da usura, tais se tornaram os judeus em quase toda parte por um proceso de especializagao quase biologica que lhes parece ter agugado o perfil no de ave de rapina, a mimica em constantes gestos de aquisigao e de posse, as maos em garras incapazes de semear e de criar. Capazes so de amealhar. (226) [The Jews became technicians in usury, thanks to a quasi-biologicai process of specialization that seems to have sharpened their faces to resemble that of a bird of prey, their gestures mimicking those of acquisition and taking possession, their hands becoming claws incapable of sowing or creating. They are capable only of hoarding.]141 In spite of the qualification "quase,” it is difficult not to align the above statement with the worst stereotypes of racialism. By associating Jews exclusively with money lending and by describing them in animalistic terms, Freyre echoes contemporary European anti-semitic discourse. (Casa- Grande e Senzala was published the same year Hitler reached power). Although both Freyre's hierarchization of the African population and his anti-semitism are tangential to his basic argument that claims to celebrate black contributions to Brazil, his occasional racialism is symptomatic of the limits of his egalitarian arguments. 141 It is significant that this virulently racist passage has not been included in Samuel Putnam's English translation. Symptomaticaiiy, the place in the text where it should have been included is marked by a footnote that defends Freyre's representation of the Jews by emphasizing his sporadic criticisms of the Portuguese and the Jesuits (230 note 5) . This footnote also compares Freyre favorably with Marx in regards to their statements about the Jews. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 118 Freyre implicitly establishes a similar hierarchization of the different races that make up the Brazilian population. Freyre considers Indians to be inferior physically and culturally to the African (284-90), and their contribution to be less significant than that of the Africans or the Portuguese in the formation of the nation.144 In a passage quoted above, Freyre presents a brief history of mesticagem in which the Indian woman is present only in the first moment of colonization, and is almost immediately replaced by the African woman and her descendants: "A india e a negra-mina a principio" (1; "The Indian woman and the ’mina,' or Negro woman in the beginning," xxx). Casa-Grande e Senzala privileges the role of Afro-Brazilians over that of the Indian in the formation of a national identity, and, therefore, provides an alternative foundational narrative to that of Alencar (which, in other respects, Freyre continues). Freyre1s celebration of the black contribution to Brazilian society created a significant impetus for the study of Afro- Brazilian culture, as well as for the rise of a literature, such as that of Jorge Amado, centered on black characters and traditions.145 But simultaneous with the emphasis on the Afro-Brazilian contributions to Brazilian identity, Casa-Grande e Senzala 144 Ribeiro has criticized the marginalization of Indian achievements, particularly in agriculture, as well as the reduction of the Indian to stereotypes, in Casa-Grande e Senzala (141-46). 145 Freyre himself was the organizer of the first "Congresso Afro- Brasileiro” (Casa-Grande e Senzala xi). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 1 9 presents a vision of history clearly compatible with the ideology of whitening. Freyre presents a summary of the history of miscegenation in which the "negra mina" is succeeded by the "mulata," "cabrocha," "quadrona," and "oitavona, ” that is, by progressively "whiter" descendants of blacks.146 Therefore, Casa-Grande e Senzala arguably achieved the apparently impossible feat of being both a landmark in the acceptance and valorization of black Brazilians, and also a more sophisticated version of "whitening" compatible, if not with racialism as a totalizing ideology, at least with many racist beliefs and assumptions.147 Despite the presence of racialism in Freyre's analysis of Brazilian history, Casa-Grande e Senzala gained acceptance as a re-conceptualization of Brazilian identity. Mestigagem became synonymous with a racial democracy that presented- a historical version of Brazil formed by the contributions of its three constitutive races--Indian, black, and white/Portuguese and, thus, implied the validation and acceptance of the three originating racial and cultural groups (even if, as we have seen, the Indian cultural contribution is undervalued by Freyre). Moreover, Freyre's work presented a conceptualization of Brazil more concordant l4h On "whitening,” see above 12-13. 147 Skidmore claims that the effect of Casa-Grande e Senzala "was to reinforce the whitening ideal by showing graphically that the (primarily white) elite had gained valuable cultural traits from their intimate contact with the African (and Indian to a lesser extent)" (192). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 120 with the actual make-up of the population than earlier versions of the nation, such as that of Alencar. Even opponents of Freyre have read Casa-Grande e Senzala as presenting an idyllic vision of racial relations in colonial Brazil. Whether criticizing his work for its obfuscation of class differences,148 or finding in Casa-Grande e Senzala a myth of racial harmony that serves to deny existing discrimination against blacks, l4‘ , critics continue to read Freyre's study as a description of Brazil as a harmonious racial democracy. But if there is strong textual basis for seeing in Casa- Grande e Senzala an optimistic vision of Brazil and its history, there is also a solid basis for reading it as a chronicle of the violence and exploitation of slaves and Amerindians that characterized Brazil's colonial past and its plantation economy.150 In fact, Freyre is well aware that the wealth of the casa-grande originated "a custa do trabalho escravo" (17; "at the expense of slave labor," 24), and that "O suor e as vezes o sangue dos negros foi o oleo que mais do que o de baleia ajudou a dar aos alicerces das casas-grandes sua consistencia quase de fortaleza" (lvii; "The sweat and at times the blood of Negroes was the oil, rather than that of the whale, that helped to give the Big House foundations their fortress-like consistency," xxxv). Moreover, Casa- ux See Medeiros 30; Mota 57, u<) See Nascimento 109-10. 1 5 1 1 See Araujo 48-57; Coutinho 20. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 12 Grande e Senzala gives numerous examples of the brutality with which the plantation owners--as a class--frequently treated their slaves: female slaves forced into prostitution by their owners (449) ; young slave boys physically and sexually abused by the pubescent sons of the plantation owners (50); etc. And Freyre’s description of the relationship between the Portuguese and the Indians shows a similar awareness of the violence that characterized both the conquest of the land and the enslavement of its aboriginal inhabitants. Freyre even points out the economic nature of the extermination of the Indians through overwork in the sugar plantations: "O agucar matou o indio" (157; "It was sugar that killed the Indian," 179).1,1 Freyre contradicts his central vision of mestipagem as a harmonious coupling of Portuguese men and Amerindian and black women by pointing out that the relationships described in Casa-Grande e Sensala do not originate in the union of equals, but rather are predicated on the power and control held by the Portuguese conquerors over their Indian subjects and African slaves: "O furor femeeiro do portugues se tera exercido sobre vitimas nem sempre confraternizantes no gozo" (50; "The furious lust of the Portuguese men must have been exercised on victims who were not always partners in pleasure").152 In fact, one cannot but come to the conclusion 1,1 For Freyre’s description of the extermination of the Indian slave, see 153-57. 152 Putnam translates this passage differently: "The furious passions of the Portuguese must have been vented upon victims who did not always R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 122 that the origin of the cultural and biological mestigagem so valued by Freyre depends on this inequality of power between Portuguese men and Indian or black women, rather than on the specious attribution of heightened sexual desire to Indian women and Portuguese men, which is also proposed in the text as an alternative explanation for miscegenation. 1'* Moreover, even miscegenation, the central concept organizing his argument and the basis for Freyre*s optimistic evaluation of Brazilian history and society, is shown to have a profoundly negative aspect: a permanent and generalized epidemic of syphilis. The importance of syphilis in Freyre1s analysis cannot be overstated.IS4 In spite of his optimistic evaluation of the Brazilian population as adapted to the country's tropical climate, there persists in Freyre1s analysis a malaise about what he believes to be the genetic and physical deterioration and inferiority of this miscegenated people. In the introduction to the first edition, Freyre describes Casa- Grande e Senzala as originating in his own doubts about the human value of Brazil's racially mixed population: "E dos share his sexual tastes" (75). IV' The following two quotations can serve as examples of Freyre's attribution to both Portuguese men and Indian women of a heightened sexual desire: "O ambiente em que comeqou a vida brasileira foi de quase intoxicaqao sexual" (93; "The milieu in which Brazilian life began was one of sexual intoxication," 85). And later in the same page: " O europeu saltava em terra escorregando em india nua" ("No sooner had the European leaped ashore than he found his feet slipping among the naked Indian women"). I5' 1 The importance given by Freyre to syphilis has, however, not been studied in the depth it requires. For brief analyses of syphilis in Casa-Grande e Senzala. see Arroyo 3 9-40; Araujo 62. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 2 3 problemas brasileiros, nenhum que me inquitasse tanto como o da miscigenagao" (xlvii; "And of all the problems confronting Brazil there was none that gave so much anxiety as that of miscegenation," xxvi). He even describes Brazilian mulattoes and mestizos as "caricaturas de homens" (xlvii; "caricatures of men," xxvii) .‘ However, Freyre is able to propose the generalized epidemic of syphilis among the Brazilian population as the origin of and explanation for the supposed inferiority of Brazilians when compared to "unmixed" individuals (47). Thus, for him, "A vantagem da miscigenacao correspondeu no Brasil a desvantagem tremenda da sifiiizagao. Comegaram juntas, uma a formar o brasileiro--talvez o tipo ideal do homem moderno para os tropicos . . . outra, a deforma-lo" (47; "The advantage of miscegenation in Brazil ran parallel to the tremendous disadvantage of syphilis. These two factors began operating at the same time: one to form the Brazilian, the ideal type of the tropics, a European l,s The complete quotation is as follows: "E dos problemas brasileiros, nenhum que me inquietasse tanto como o da miscigenagao. Vi uma vez, depois de mais de tres anos macigos de ausencia do Brasil, urn bar.dc de marinheiros nacionais--mulatos e cafuzos--descendo nao me lembro se dc Sao Paulo o do Minas pela neve mole de Brooklyn. Derara-me a impressac de caricaturas de homens. E veio-me a lembranga a frase de urn livro de viajante americano que acabara de ler sobre o Brasil: 'the fearfully mongrel aspect of most of the population'' (xlvii; "And of ail the problems confronting Brazil there was none that gave me so mucr. anxiety as that of miscegenation. Once upon a time, after three scraigr.t years of absence from my country, I caught sight of a group of Brazilian seamen--mulattoes and cafusos--crossing Brooklyn Bridge. I no longer remember whether they were from Sao Paulo or from Minas, but I know that they impressed me as being caricatures of men, and there came to mind a phrase from a book on Brazil written by an American traveler: 'the fearfully mongrel aspect of the population." xxvi-xxvii, emphasis in thcr translation). (The elimination of "most" from Freyre's quotation from the "American traveler" is in Putnam's translation). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 2 4 with Negro or Indian blood to revive his energy; the other to deform him," 71). "Sifiiizagao" is, paradoxically, the condition that permits Freyre to present his optimistic vision of miscegenation and mestigagem. Freyre’s historical theory of a generalized and permanent epidemic of syphilis in Brazil permits him to deny the validity of the racialist dogma of the degeneration of the "hybrid" as the explanation for the supposed inferiority of the Brazilian population. Therefore, syphilis and, to a lesser degree, malnutrition,1' * ’ permit Freyre to reject, at least nominally, racialism. Freyre’s attribution of Brazilian physical "degeneration" to malnutrition and syphilis permits him to be optimistic about the future of Brazil. Since both syphilis and malnutrition are treatable, Brazilian "inferiority" can be overcome by public health measures. However, even if syphilis and inequality are seen as the conditions that permit Freyre to theorize mestigagem and valorize the contributions of blacks, Indians, mestizos, and mulattoes, must one conclude that disease and injustice have 156 "Ja se tenta hoje retificar a antropogeografia dos que, esquecer.do os regimes alimentares, tudo atribuem aos fatores Raga e Clima; nesse movimento de retificagao deve ser incluida a sociedade brasileira, exemplo de que tanto se servem os alarmistas da mistura de ragas ou da malignidade dos tropicos a favor da sua tese de degeneragao do homem por efeito do clima ou da miscigenagao" (41-42; "An attempt today is being made to rectify the anthropo-geography of those who, oblivious of diet, would attribute everything to the factors of race and climate; and in this work of rectification Brazilian society must be included, for it is the example of which alarmists make so much use in crying about the mixture of races and the malignity of the tropics in support of their thesis that man’s degeneration is the effect of climate or miscegenation, " 60) . R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 125 a positive value? Moreover, while Freyre claims to find explanations of and even solutions for the presumed inferiority of the Brazilian population, the fact is that his analysis accepts this reputed racial inferiority as one of its starting points. And one must also explain the fact that Casa-Grande e Senzala. in spite of its descriptions of the injustices of slavery, has generally been read as presenting an optimistic and harmonious vision of Brazilian history. ' Despite Freyre’s awareness of the racial and class contradictions in Brazilian society, it is possible to read Casa-Grande e Senzala as a narrative of racial harmony because the contradictions of the text are "domesticated, " though not eliminated, by the central characteristic of Freyre’s analysis of Brazilian history and society: the synechdochal reduction of the Brazilian population to the patriarchal colonial family. In other words, the "excess" generated by the text's numerous contradictions is contained by the fact that Casa-Grande e Senzala is, as its subtitle indicates, a historical narrative of the "formagao da famxlia brasileira" ("formation of the Brazilian family").1'' 3y 15 Ricardo Benzaquen de Araujo in Guerra e Paz. his analysis of Casa - Grande e Senzala. has proposed a reading that emphasizes the contradictions in Freyre ’ s text. For Araujo, Casa-Grande e Ser.-ala is characterized by "antagonismos en equilibrio" ("antagonisms in equilibrium") that is, by the presence of apparently contradictory elements that ultimately permit the textual representation of the profoundly contradictory society of colonial Brazil (58-59). However, what Araujo's analysis does not explain is why non-problematic readings of Freyre' s text have been so prevalent. 1,8 The English version of Freyre's text. The Masters and the Slaves, has as its subtitle “A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization." R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 2 6 presenting Brazilian history as a "family saga," Freyre implicitly establishes limits for the racial and class contradictions described in his text. In Casa-Grande e Senzala. class and racial strife become family squabbles. While the title of Casa-Grande e Senzala implies the structural division of Brazilian society into two oppositional spaces and groups--the plantation house, populated by the elite Portuguese/white family, and the slave quarters, where the oppressed Africans lived--the text does not stress the racial and economic contradictions between the two spaces and the two groups.1'4 Instead, it places an almost exclusive emphasis on the "casa-grande," while mentioning the "senzala" only sporadically. It is important to note, however, that the emphasis placed on the plantation house does not imply the exclusion of the Afro-Brazilian from Freyre's analysis. On the contrary, Freyre not only incorporates blacks, both slave and free, into the casa- grande, but also describes them as constitutive members of the patriarchal family. However, by doing so, he ignores the brutal exploitation of the field slaves--both male and female--who live in the slave quarters. Freyre’s description of mestigagem, as previously noted, has as its foundational moment the sexual union of the Portuguese man and the Indian (later the black) woman. According to Freyre, it is precisely as sexual partners that i s * ) critics have already noted Freyre' s tendency to propose binary oppositions and then void them of any meaning (Mota 68). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 2 7 Indian and especially black women are originally brought into the casa-grande. As he notes, "Raras sao as familias no Brasil tropical que se tern mantido brancas ou quase brancas" (255; "the families in tropical Brazil that have remained white or almost white are few in number," 267).l ( ’ ° Freyre' s narrative continues the story of inter-racial romance found in Iracema. but, in Casa-Grande e Senzala. the Indian (or black) woman survives and establishes a permanent relationship with the Portuguese man. However, the incorporation of the Indian or black woman into the "foundational" Brazilian family described by Freyre does not imply the elimination of slavery, since the patriarchal family is described as having a fundamentally different constitution from that of the modern nuclear family. The incorporation of the Indian and, principally, the black woman into Freyre's foundational Brazilian family has a number of important consequences, especially because Casa- Grande e Senzala reads Brazilian history almost exclusively through the patriarchal family. Since for Freyre "A historia social da casa-grande e a historia intima de quase todo brasileiro" (lxv; "The social history of the Big House is the intimate history of practically every Brazilian," xliii), his analysis of the colonial family can be read as descriptive of the Brazilian nation as a whole. Given that the traditional 160 The reference to Brazil as tropical originates in the contrast established in the text between Portuguese and British colonization in the Americas (255). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 128 family structure appears to be both a "natural" institution and one based on the existence of hierarchical relations among its members, the use of the family to represent Brazil implies the apparent naturalization of social inequalities.i < ’1 Moreover, by analyzing slavery within a domestic setting, rather than as an economic and social institution, Casa- Grande e Senzala transforms economic exploitation into a familial relationship. Thus, one of the consequences of the modular role assigned by Freyre to the patriarchal family is that the social dimension of the relationship between classes and races is transmuted into the psychological. The structural violence that has its origin in the economic exploitation that defines the relationship between master and slave is reduced in Freyre' s analyses to emotional and psychological anomalies such as sadism (in the case of the Brazilian landowners) and masochism (in the case of the slaves) .it>2 The representation of blacks and Indians exclusively as female sexual partners is another important consequence of Freyre' s use of the family as a figure for the nation. By limiting his analysis to the black or Indian woman, Freyre l f t l It is important to note that Freyre is aware of "o fato , ligado naturalmente a circunstancia economica da nossa formacao patriarcal, da mulher ser tantas vezes no Brasil vitima inerme do dominio ou abuso do homem" (51; "a fact that appears to me linked naturally to the economic circumstances that shaped our patriarchal society; the fact that the woman in Brazil is so often the helpless victim of the male's domination or abuse," 76). This awareness does not inhibit the frequently celebratory tone used in the descriptions of the patriarchal family. I t , : The use of psychological explanations for social situations has been pointed out by Medeiros. See 58-60. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 2 9 mirrors one of the characteristic tropes of racialism that identified "savagery" with a "feminized state of childhood"' and the "civilized” European with "full manly adulthood" (Young 94). It is therefore not surprising that, apart from women, the only other non-white character incorporated into the casa-grande is the "moleque," the slave child who serves as playmate for and victim of the white plantation owner’s child (336). Freyre acknowledges the role played by Indian women during the early colonial period, describing them as "a base fisica da familia brasileira" (94; "the physical basis of the Brazilian family," 87). He also claims that, as a consequence of their long interaction with the Moors, Portuguese men prefer "dark" women (9-10) . However, in his descriptions of the colonial family, the "mother" and "wife" is always Portuguese. Black and mulatto women (Indian women disappear from Freyre's analysis after the first period of colonization) are assigned subordinate positions and fulfill functions not unlike those of mother and wife. Black and mulatto women are wet-nurses, nannies, and, of course, mistresses. Freyre describes them in the following passage; trazemos quase todos a marca da influencia negra. Da escrava ou sinhama que nos embalou. Que nos deu de mamar. Que nos deu 161 Freyre's descriptions of Indian and black male sexuality are fully concordant with this feminization of both races. He emphasizes the "fraqueza" (weakness) of sexual desire among Indian men and even believes that they possess smaller sexual organs than average (100, 102). Freyre gives a very similar description of Black male sexuality: "gigantes enormes, mas pirocas de menino pequeno" (429; "enormous giants who had the penis of a small boy" (428)]. Also see 316. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 13 de comer, ela propria amolengando na mao o bolao de comida. Da negra velha que nos contou as primeiras historias de bicho e de mal-assombrado. Da mulata que nos tirou o primeiro bicho-de-pe de uma coeira tao boa. Da que nos iniciou no amor fisico e nos transmitiu, ao ranger da cama-de-vento, a primeira sensagao completa de homem (283). [almost all of us bear the mark of that (black) influence. Of the female slave or "mammy" who rocked us to sleep. Who suckled us. Who fed us, mashing our food with her own hands. The influence of the old woman who told us our first tales of ghost and bicho. Of the mulatto girl who relieved us of our first bicho de oe. of a pruriency that was so enjoyable. Who initiated us into physical love and, to the creaking of a canvas cot, gave us our first sensation of beina a man. (278)] This passage is probably the best example in Casa-Grande e Senzala of the manner in which Freyre occasionally moves from the objective and even formulaic use of the first person plural, to a dynamic, fluid first person that includes the reader, the narrator (Freyre), as well as the social group being described in its experiences: it is a "we,"not a "they,” who are raised and cared for by black and mulatto women.164 In fact, this sporadic extension of the first person plural to include the reader serves to emphasize the paradigmatic character assigned by Freyre to the colonial family in Brazilian history. Freyre's narrative is not presented as dealing with a long dead past, but rather as l f t ' ‘ It is important to note that Freyre ’ s first person plural assumes that the reader is "white" and male. This significant aspect of Freyre's narrative strategy will be analyzed below. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 3 1 describing still existing traits relevant to any interpretation of contemporary Brazilian society. In this passage Freyre assigns a central role to black women in the physical and emotional development of white children (a group that includes the author and, by extension, the reader). White children are fed, tended, and entertained by black women, and their sexual maturation, significanttiy described as "a primeira sensaqao completa de homem, ” depends directly on the mulatto woman. While socially inferior to the white mother, black and mulatto women are the central and privileged element in the libidinal and emotional economy of Freyre’s patriarchal family. However, by stressing in his narrative the emotional centrality of black and mulatto women, Freyre obscures the social inequality which forces them to be servants or slaves, to care for white children, or to become the white boys’ first sexual partners. Freyre differentiates between black and mulatto women regarding the functions fulfilled within the patriarchal family. He describes black women as raising the children: "Muito menino brasileiro do tempo da escravidao, foi criado inteiramente pelas mucamas. Raro o que fiao foi amamentado por negra. Que nao aprendeu a falar mais com a escrava do que com o pai ou a mae" (350; "It was a rare case in which a Brazilian lad was not sucked by a Negro nurse and did not become more accustomed to talking to her than to his own father and mother," 366). While, as slaves, mulatto women R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 3 2 also help take care of the (obviously white) "menino brasileiro," Freyre consistently emphasizes the physical and sexual aspect of their relationship with the white child and, later, man. It is the mulatto woman who gives the growing child "a sensagao completa de homem" (283), and who becomes the lover of the plantation owner (and the victim of the white wife's jealousy) (338). Freyre's division of the female role in the patriarchal family among black, mulatto, and white women exemplifies a popular, and racist, Brazilian saying: "a branca para casar, a mulata para fornicar, a negra para trabalhar" ("the white woman for marriage, the mulatto woman for sex, the black woman for work"). Therefore, in Casa-Grande e Senzala. the colonial patriarchal family is described as having a rather unusual structure. While there is no doubt that the Portuguese man is the father, the "mother function" seems to be divided between white, black, and mulatto women. While the white woman is the biological mother and the legal wife, the black woman fulfills the function of "mother" regarding the white child's emotional needs, and the mulatto woman is the sexual partner of the Portuguese man (and pubescent child). The division of the mother/wife functions in this archetypal patriarchal family in Casa-Grande e Senzala limits the text's apparent celebration of mestigagem. On the one hand, there is a constant emphasis on the profound cultural, emotional, and psychological influence of black culture on R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 13 the white child/man through the role of the black "mother" and mulatto "sexual partner." On the other, Casa-Grande e Senzala traces biological descent exclusively through the white mother. Despite Freyre's emphasis on mesticagem, his description of the patriarchal family as constituted by a white father and a white mother implies that miscegenation only takes place outside the family. Miscegenation is, therefore, described as taking place during the murky historical origins of this "white" family--when the Portuguese man took as his sexual partner the available Indian or black woman--or at the margins of the family, as the "father" procreates a "grossa multidao de filhos ilegitimos" (443; "great multitude of illegitimate offspring," 446), who are sometimes incorporated into the casa-grande. The use of the first person plural in the passage that describes the childhood experiences of the white child also illustrates the manner in which Freyre simultaneously privileges miscegenation as the origin of Brazilian society and relegates it to the margins of the patriarchal family. While nominally addressing "todo brasileiro" (283), by using the first person plural the narrator assumes that the reader is male and racially white.16-’ Like the narrator/Freyre, the l h < i In spite of Freyre' s awareness of the exploitation of women in the patriarchal family, his text reproduces, by assigning the male gender t the reader, the same hierarchical relationship between the sexes that h ascribes to the colonial family. This identification of the reader wit the white male has been noted, in passing, by Doris Sommer (364 note 59) . R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 3 4 reader is assumed to have been nursed, raised, and initiated sexually by a black woman. In no moment in that passage is there any indication that the reader may be female, or descend from the "grossa muitidao de filhos ilegitimos" or from the slaves. Although the majority of the Brazilian population is neither white nor male, and does not descend from slave owners, the text implicitly describes the reader as a white male child raised by black and mulatto women. The peculiar constitution of the patriarchal family--its division of the maternal function--is incorporated into Freyre's use of the first person plural and, implicitly, places the reader in the position of a "legitimate” white male descendant of this family. The consequence of Freyre1s assumption of a male white reader is that, while thematically Casa-Grande e Senzala celebrates cultural and biological mestigagem, the text rhetorically undermines this celebration. If neither the reader nor the narrator descends from blacks or Indians, it is only the "other" who is racially mixed. While Casa-Grande e Senzala presents a divided, even contradictory, image of the "mother" in the colonial family, the figure of the father is clearly described and, unequivocally, assigned to the Portuguese. Unlike the emasculated and feminized black and Indian males described in Casa-Grande e Senzala. 166 the Portuguese/white father is 166 see note 161 above. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 135 presented as the only procreator, as "o membrum virile1 ' from whom all Brazilians descend (429; emphasis in the original;. Unlike Iracema and most of the writings of Spanish- American mestizaje which found national specificity in the representation of the Indian and Indian cultures, Freyre's narrative tends to obscure Brazilian difference from Portugal. For instance, Freyre’s description of Portugal and the Portuguese resembles, in its emphasis on cultural and racial hybridity, his description of Brazil. Like Brazil, Portugal is described as being culturally and racially influenced by "uma energica infusao de sangue mouro e negro que persistiriam ate hoje no povo portugues e no seu carater" (211; "an energetic infusion of Moorish and Negro blood, the effects of which persist to this day in the Portuguese people and the Portuguese character," 211). Moreover, as in colonial Brazil, slavery is described as an institution ”de que sempre se serviu a economia portuguesa" (252; "of which Portuguese economy has always made use," 262). But for Freyre, there is an even more significant similarity between Brazil and Portugal: Portugal acusa em sua antropologia, tanto quanto em sua cultura, uma grande variedade de antagonismos, uns em equilibrio, outros em conflito. Esses antagonismos em conflito sao apenas a parte indigesta da formagao portuguesa: a parte maior se mostra harmoniosa nos seus contrast.es, formando urn todo social plastico, que e o carateristicamente portugues. (201) [Portugal in its anthropology as in its culture displays a great variety of R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 3 6 antagonisms, some of them in a state of equilibrium, others in conflict. These latter are merely the undigested portion of its history; the major part is seen to be harmonious in its contrasts, forming a social whole that, in its plastic qualities, is characteristically Portuguese. (200)] As in his characterization of colonial Brazil, Freyre's description of Portuguese society also emphasizes the lack of friction between classes and races. The question arises about what constitutes, then, the difference between Brazil and Portugal. After all, every trait ascribed by Freyre to Brazil corresponds to a similar characteristic in his analysis of Portugal. However, Brazil is not only described in terms of the accentuation of Portugal's characteristics, but even as the fulfillment of what is only potentially present in Portugal. If Portugal was influenced by Africa, Brazil has an even stronger African influence; if Portugal has a miscegenated population, Brazil's population is even more so; if Portugal is characterized overall by racial and class harmony, Brazil is more harmonious; etc. As Freyre was to emphasize in a later book symptomatically titled 0 mundo crue o Portugues criou: o ponto de vista do autor seja sempre o da unidade de sentimento e da cultura formada por Portugal e pelas varias areas de colonizagao portuguesa na America, na Africa, na Asia, nas ilhas, os elementos principalmente visados sao estes: Portugal, criador de tantos povos, hoje essencialmente portugueses em seus estilos de vida mais caracteristicos, e o Brasil, pais onde esse processo de alongamento de uma cultura antiga R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. J. J / numa nova, e mais vasta que a materna, attingiu su maior intensidade.Ih7 (32) [the point of view of the author will always be that in Portugal and the various areas colonized by Portugal in America, Africa, Asia, and the islands there will always be a unity of feeling and culture. The central element for this point of view is that Portugal created many peoples that are today essentially Portuguese in their most characteristic life styles, and that it is in Brazil where this continuation of an older culture in a new one, more vast than the original, reached its highest intensity.] Freyre's emphasis on "the unity of culture and feeling” between Portugal and Brazil in this later text (1940) is perfectly compatible with his analysis of the similarities between both countries in Casa-Grande e Senzala. As the phrases "processo de alongamento” and "maior intensidade,” used to describe the relationship between Portugal and Brazil in O mundo oue o Portucrues criou. illustrate, for Freyre the difference between both countries is one of degree, not of kind. Casa-Grande e Senzala does not attempt to define a national identity different from that of Portugal. Freyre's lack of interest in national specificity establishes a significant difference from his predecessor Jose de Alencar. Although in Alencar the colony is presented as the foundational moment when Indians and Portuguese create Brazil, he does not imply a basic similarity between Brazil and Portugal. In Iracema. Moacir, the first Brazilian, l f t 7 The unusual orthography used in this quotation is found in the original. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 3 8 cannot be exclusively defined by his Portuguese heritage, and, therefore, Brazil is not merely the "alongamento" of Portugal. Freyre's lack of interest in the development of a Brazilian identity differentiated from that of Portugal is directly related to the historical moment in which his work is produced. Unlike Alencar, who belonged to the first generation of writers born after political independence and who were concerned with establishing a homologous cultural autonomy regarding the former metropolis, Freyre writes during a period that, while still preoccupied with problems of national identity, is no longer threatened by Brazil's links with Portugal. The implicit point of reference in much Casa-Grande e Senzala is not Portugal but the United States, the new cultural, political, and economic metropolis. Freyre’s preoccupation with the comparison between Brazil and the United States is not found in the few explicit references to (U.S.) American society and history in Casa-Grande e Senzala,16* but in his representation of Brazil as a "racial democracy." His emphasis on the beneficial virtues of miscegenation have as their tacit counterpart the supposedly more radical exclusion of blacks and Indians from the "white" society of the United States. It is important to note that Freyre's emphasis on the Portuguese filiation of Brazil is echoed by other noted l < ’ 8 See 11-12; 376-78. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 Brazilian authors of his time. The other classic interpretation of Brazilian nationality produced in the 1930s, Sergio Buarque de Holanda's Raizes do Brasil (1936), also emphasizes the Portuguese origin of Brazil (while marginalizing, more than Freyre, the Indian and black influence): Nem o contato e a mistura com ragas indigenas ou adventicias fizeram-nos tao differentes dos nossos avos de alem-mar como as vezes gostariamos de se-lo. No caso brasileiro, a verdade, por menos sedutora que possa parecer a alguns dos nossos patriotas, e que ainda nos associa a peninsula Iberica, a Portugal especialmente, uma tradigao longa e viva, bastante viva para nutrir, ate hoje, uma alma comum, a despeito de tudo quanto nos separa. (40) [Neither the contact nor the mixture with indigenous or foreign races has made us as different from our grandparents from beyond the sea as we would, on occasion, like to think. In the Brazilian case, the truth, no matter how unappealing to some of our patriots, is that we are still linked by a long and vibrant tradition to the Iberian peninsula, and to Portugal in particular. This tradition is vibrant enough to feed a common soul between Brazil and Portugal despite all our differences.] For Holanda, as for Freyre, Brazilian national identity is a continuation of that of Portugal. Despite Freyre's emphasis on the Portuguese filiation o Brazil, Casa-Grande e Senzala emphasizes the importance of mestigagem, both biological and cultural, in the development of the country. But Freyre's version of mestigagem stresses in particular the role played by Africans in transforming Portuguese cultural inheritance into a Brazilian culture. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 4 0 The Africanization of the Portuguese language, which is described as being the central modification of the European language in Brazil, can serve as an example of the importance assigned by Freyre to mestigagem as the constitutive crait of a national identity. "A nossa lingua nacional resulta da interpenetragao das duas tendencias [Portuguese and African]" (334; "It was from the interpenetration of the two tendencies that our national tongue resulted," 347). Not surprisingly, Freyre gives principal credit in the creation of Brazilian Portuguese to African women, who "fez muitas vezes com as palavras o mesmo que com a comida: machucou-as, tirou-lhes as espinhas, os ossos as durezas" (331; "did very often with words what she did with food; she mashed them, removed the bones, took away their hardness," 343). However, as we have seen, this Brazilian specificity is shown to be simply the continuation, often the realization, of what was already present, even if in an embryonic form, in Portuguese identity. Freyre's privileging of Portugal in the formation of Brazilian identity thereby becomes compatible with his belief on the importance of mestigagem and black culture for the construction of the Brazilian nation. Freyre's emphasis on the homology between Portugal and Brazil becomes, therefore, another means by which contradictory elements in the text are reconciled. Together with the reduction of the Brazilian population to the patriarchal family of the casa-grande, and the rhetorical R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 4 1 identification of the narrator and reader with the "white" son of the same family, the near identification of Brazil with Portugal helps domesticate the contradictions that characterize the text. In fact, one can argue that these three centripetal (in the sense that they help hold the text together) characteristics are intimately connected. By reducing the Brazilian population to the patriarchal family and assigning a semi-maternal role to blacks and Indians; by identifying the reader (and narrator) with the male white child; and, finally, by identifying the father as Portuguese and privileging his foundational role, all potential contradictions are eliminated from the text. Freyre manages simultaneously to be an anti-racist and defend traditional hierarchies and even colonialism.164 Anti-racism and colonialism are both compatible with defense of the black "mother" and the Portuguese father in Casa-Grande e Senzala. Yet a price has been paid in creating a text that reconciles all social contradictions. Not only has the traditional function of both mestizaje and mestigagem (as attempts to ground a national identity independent from that of the metropolis) been left aside--and therefore any anti colonial potential eliminated from this mode of thinking--but sizeable sectors of the population are eliminated from the 160 Freyre's own political career managed to reconcile anti-racism and a defense of colonialism. From an anti-racist and anti-fascist with links to the "Esquerda Democratica" in his youth, he became in the 1960s and 70s a defender of Portuguese colonialism in Africa and of the military dictatorship in Brazil. See Coutinho 7-8; Mota 70-73. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 142 narrative of the nation. Casa-Grande e Senzala ultimately becomes a defense of mestigagem directed not only to the population of "brancos e brancaroes"170 of Brazil but even more so to the male sector of that group. While nominally incorporating blacks, Indians, mestizos and mulattoes, as well as white women, Casa-Grande e Senzala actually excludes these sectors of the population from its discourse. Not only is the text presented as a conversation among white males, but no role is ultimately assigned to blacks, mulattoes or Indians (except to the Indian, black, and mulatto women described as slaves and servants). And even in the case of female Indians or blacks, their role is clearly relegated to that of helping realize more fully the characteristics of harmony and hybridity already present among the Portuguese. But by excluding (or subordinating to the Portuguese) the Brazilian non-white majority of the population in Casa-Grande e Senzala's representation of the nation, Freyre actualizes the conservative potential in both mestigagem and mestizaje that is frequently hidden in the radical rhetoric. We have already seen how mestizaje/mestigagem almost always implies the incorporation of the Indian and black within a nation that is clearly the continuation of the colony. Mestizaje/mestigagem, therefore, implies the abandonment of most non-European cultural traits as the precondition for this incorporation into the nation. Casa-Grande e Senzala 1 7 , 1 Casa-Grande e Senzala xlix. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 4 3 follows this characteristic pattern. Its genius is, however, to present the clear subordination of the non-white majority to a white minority as the celebration of Afro-Brazil iar. culture. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Chapter 4 Jose Carlos Mariategui: Marxist Mestizaje Jose Carlos Mariategui's critical fortune seems to defy historical odds and critical fashions. While soon after his death he became a marginal figure out of favor with the Stalinist orthodoxy that quickly took control of the Peruvian Socialist movement which he had formed, |7‘ today he is readily described as "el mas grande de los marxistas latinoamericanos" (Quijano "Modernidad, identidad y utopia en America Latina" 21; "the greatest of Latin American Marxists"). What makes this turn in the valuation of his work by the Latin American and "Latin Americanist" critical establishment particularly significant is that it seems to challenge the undeniable decline in the importance of Marxism in contemporary Spanish American political and intellectual life. If it is understandable that Mariategui's brand of iconoclastic and potentially anti-Stalinist Marxism172 would resonate with the new left of the 1960s and 70s, who found in 171 See Flores Galindo's La aoonia de Mariategui 106-08. The phrase "potentially anti-Stalinist Marxism" may require some further explanation. It is important to note that in spite of the evident unorthodoxy of Mariategui's work when seen from the perspective of Stalinism, Mariategui never broke with the Comintern (Russian led Communist International). In fact, Mariategui even praised Stalin, though with moderation, in some of his journalism as an "esiavo pure" (sic) identified with the Russian nation ("Trotsky y la oposicion communista" 216-17; "El exilio de Trotsky" 31). [There is an English translation of the latter essay in The Heroic and Creative Meaning of Socialism). Nonetheless, Mariategui's own relationship with the Comintern was marked by profound conflicts that culminated in the marginalization of his works and political proposals after his death. On Mariategui's conflictive relationship, as well as theoretical and political differences, with the Comintern see Flores Galindo's La aoonia de Mariategui. especially 17-35; 71-90. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 4 5 him a Latin American equivalent to Antonio Gramsci,171 one can’t help being puzzled by the exponential growth of interest in the Peruvian thinker since that time.1 4 Part of the reason for the continued relevance of Mariategui's works in the face of the radical changes in intellectual orientation that have taken place in the last two decades can be found in the heterodox nature of his thought. Not bound by the Stalinist intellectual straightjacket, Mariategui was interested in the European and North American intellectual production of his time, and was influenced by Marxist and non-Marxist authors. Not only figures that are still central to the intellectual climate of the 1990s (e.g., Friedrich Nietzche175 or Sigmund Freud176) but even lesser known thinkers (e.g., the French syndicalist 1'* It was in 1970 that Robert Paris's seminal dissertation--published :r. book form as La formacion ideologxca de Jose Carlos Mariategui in 19*= 1 - - that established the importance of Mariategui's stay in Europe from 1919-1923 in his intellectual development. Paris singles out the importance of Italy where he met Benedetto Croce and frequented the Marxist circles of the Ordine Novo (to which belonged Gramsci). Gee Paris, especially 100-15. 174 According to the Worldcat online data base, out of a total of 3 33 books written on Mariategui, 39 have been published since 1994, the year of the centenary of his birth. And a similar statistic can be found if one analyses the number of articles published in literary journals: according to the MLA out of a total of 73 articles on Mariategui, 24 have been published since 1994.. (This information was researched on July 1, 1997) . 175 Mariategui's Siete ensavos de interpretation de la realidad peruana, his most celebrated work, begins with an epigraph from Nietzche. For a study of the relationship between Nietzche and Mariategui see Ofelia Schutte's Cultural identity and Social Liberation in Latin American Thought. especially 27-29 and 41-49. ,7h Mariategui published an early translation of Freud in his magazine Amauta and referred to psychoanalytical concepts in his Defensa del marxismo. On Mariategui's interest in Freud see Flores Galindo’s “Uchuraccay: el psicoanalisis como metafora" 180-82; and La agon 3 a de Mariategui 101. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 146 theorist Georges Sorel177) exercised profound influence on Mariategui's interpretation of Marxism. Moreover, instead of the mere application of the formulas imposed by the Comintern (the Russian dominated Communist International) or the reproduction of the analyses of the Marxist classics, Mariategui saw Marxism as, to use his own words, "una creacion heroica” ("Aniversario y balance" 249; "a heroic creation," "Anniversary and Balance Sheet" 89). But if Mariategui was intellectually atuned to the European intellectual production in philosophy, the social sciences, and literature, he was also very much a part of the Latin American intellectual tradition. It is therefore possible to see in his theoretical innovations not only the influence of European thought, but the continuation of characteristically Latin American modes of thinking within a very different intellectual set of coordinates--those of Marxism. It is precisely the juxtaposition and articulation of such dissimilar intellectual discourses as those of Marxism and Latin American mestizaje thac are the cornerstone of Mariategui's effort to move beyond the dichotomies that have traditionally characterized Latin American thought and literature. It is his Marxist version of mestizaje that permits him to go beyond the binary oppositions between the indigenous and the Hispanic, the nativist and the 177 Sorel's influence on Mariategui will be briefly analyzed later in this essay. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 4 7 cosmopolitan, or the national and the international, so prevalent in Latin American cultural production.17* While it has been customary for critics rightly to emphasize his work as a major watershed in Peruvian and Latin American thought, in order to understand his innovations it is also necessary to analyze the less evident continuity between his work and that of earlier Latin American thinkers.179 The analysis of Mariategui's writings as part of a Latin American tradition of thinking about mestizaje, understood as the creation of a national culture or race out of Indian and Spanish elements, leads to a fuller understanding of his works-- and of the continuing interest « in them. It is, after all, his integration of European and Latin American intellectual traditions that is at the core of the continuing critical interest in his work. Mariategui's continuing appeal is grounded not only in the possibility suggested in his writings of creating a Latin American Marxism, but also in the conjunction of European modernity |7S The ending of his Siete ensavos illustrates his attempt to go beyond these dichotomies: "Por los caminos universales, ecumenicos, que canto se nos reprochan, nos vamos acercando cada vez mas a nosotros mrsmos" (350; ”T’ ne universal, ecumenical roads we have chosen to travel, and for which we are reproached, take us ever closer to ourselves,” (287). I 7 , ) The exclusive emphasis on the Marxist filiation of Mariategui's thought leads to the evaluation of his work as constituting a theoretical break from earlier Latin American intellectual production. Since there are no important Marxist intellectuals in Peru or Latin America before Mariategui, his work, by definition, is seen as something new. Thus, whether Mariategui is described as an orthodox or a heretical Marxist, the link with earlier Latin American thought is either denied or obscured. An exception to this critical approach in studies on Mariategui is Elizabeth Garrels's Mariategui v la Argentina: Un caso de lentes aienos. although it analyzes his writings from a perspective different from the one proposed m this study. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. : 4fi and the revalorization of Amerindian cultures characteristic of his thinking and political proposals. Mariategui therefore is a prototype for later intellectuals who will attempt to find versions of modernity compatible with Latin American cultural specificity. Mariategui was highly critical of Peruvian criollo society and its intellectuals. For him, the criollo republic was the continuation of the colony, and the republican elites the offspring of the colonial aristocracy. In his writings, he argues that during the republic "La aristocracia latifundista de la Colonia, duena del poder, conservo intactos sus derechos feudales sobre la tierra y, por consiguiente, sobre el indio" (Siete ensavos 46; "The landowning aristocracy of the colony, holder of power, maintained intact its feudal rights over the land and, therefore, over the Indian").1X0 Mariategui believes that the continuation and flourishing of colonial social and economic structures in the republic paralleled the persistence of colonial modes of thinking. In "El proceso de la literatura," the seventh chapter of his Siete ensavos in which he reviews the Peruvian literary "canon" as it was understood in the 1920s, Mariategui designates as "colonial" all Peruvian literature written by his predecessors. mo English version of Mariategui’s Siete ensavos follows the original 1928 edition which does not include this passage which is part of a section titled “Sumaria revision historica. Originally published in the well-known (U.S.) American magazine The Nation in 1929, this passage was only included in the Siete ensavos in the posthumous 1943 second edition of the work. See Siete ensavos 44 editors' note. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 4 9 Unwittingly echoing Ricardo Palma’s statements about the "bohemios, "181 for Mariategui, it was only with the writers of his generation--the socially conscious intellectuals who began writing in the 1920s--that colonial modes of thinking were left behind: "En la historia de nuestra liceratura, la Colonia termina ahora. El Peru hasta esta generacion, no se habia aun independizado de la Metropoli" (350; "In the history of our literature, it is not until this generation that the colony ends and Peru finally becomes independent of the mother country," 287).182 Mariategui's evaluations of non-literary intellectual figures continue his criticism of "Colonialism" and "Hispanism. " Jose de la Riva-Agiiero, the most important Peruvian intellectual of the first two decades of the century, exemplifies for Mariategui the nostalgia for the colony typical of Peruvian thought in the republic. He describes Riva-Agiiero as a "descendiente de la Conquista, . . . un heredero de la Colonia" (242; "descendant: of the conquest, . . . heir to the colony”),18' and presents him as the paradigmatic example of Peruvian intellectual production (242). For Mariategui, the survival of colonial characteristics in the republic's society, culture, and 1X1 See chapter on Palma in this study 39-40. lx~ It is important to note that in the body o£ the essay "El procesc de la literature, " Mariategui made several significant exceptions to his apparently complete rejection of previous Peruvian intellectuals. The authors rescued from Mariategui's condemnation are Mariano Melgar, Ricardo Palma, Manuel Gonzales Prada, and Federico More. Ix’ I have provided my own translation for this passage from the Si ere ensavos because the English translation is in plural: "descendants of the conquest, the heirs to the colony" (193). The use of plural in the translation is not invalid since Riva-Agiiero is presented as exemplifying the attitude of a whole class. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 150 politics implies the exclusion of the Amerindians--who comprised four fifths of the Peruvian population--from political and cultural participation, as well as the continuation of economic structures based on the exploitation of the Indians.184 Given this negative evaluation of the Peru of his time, Mariategui believed that it was necessary to reject the colonial (and by extension criollo) social and cultural "heritage" of Peru, reconceptualize the nation from a new perspective, and transform this new conceptualizacion of the nation into an alternative political, social, and cultural project. He identifies three different but, for him, related intellectual traditions on which to found this reconceptualization of Peru. The first one is the Marxist tradition, which Mariategui discovered during his stay in Europe between 1919 and 1923.IXS The second one is the national, Latin American, and international literary and cultural "vanguardia" (vanguard) movements, which, according to him, provided an alternative to the cultural tradition of the criollo republic.1X6 The third one is the Amerindian tradition. For Mariategui, Amerindian culture is characterized by the persistence of autonomous "socialist" 1X4 Mariategui constantly referred to the Peruvian population as being four fifths Amerindian. See 28; "Indigenismo y socialismo" 217. , 8 < i This is made clear in his frequently quoted statement about his European stay: "Residi dos anos en Italia, donde despose una mujer y algunas ideas” ("I lived for two years in Italy, where I acquired a wife and some ideas"). This statement comes from a letter reproduced in the inside cover of the Amauta edition of the Siete ensavos. 186 See Siete ensavos 348-50. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 5 1 traditions and institutions among the Amerindians. In addition to the tradition of mutual help he found among the Amerindians, Mariategui singled out the avllu. the Quechua and Aymara agrarian community, as particularly compatible with "modern" socialism and, therefore as a central institution in an alternative conceptualization of Peru. In spite of the critical agreement about the importance given to these three intellectual traditions by Mariategui, the manner in which Marxism, the vanguard/ "avant-garde, " and the Amerindian cultural tradition are defined and articulated in his proposal of a Latin American Marxism is still a matter of controversy. Nevertheless, as numerous statements in his works, some of which will be examined below, make clear,. Mariategui believed that these three intellectual traditions were profoundly interrelated and permitted the creation of a conceptualization of the nation as an alternative to the one proposed by the criollo intellectuals and politicians. If Marxism is a central aspect of Mariategui’s intellectual project, what he means by this term is far from established.187 Despite Mariategui's often affirmed allegiance to, and admiration for, the Russian Revolution, it A wide ranging, though older, compilation of the different interpretations given to Mariategui's thought, from an identification with Marxism-Leninism, or the Apra party, to an emphasis on his parallels with Gramsci can be found in Mariategui v los oriaenes del marxismo latinoamericano. edited by Jose Arico. For a more recent survey of the different interpretations of Mariategui's Marxism see Jose Carlos Mariategui v Eurooa: El otro aspecto del descubrimiento. A critical evaluation of interpretations of Mariategui up to 1980 can be found in Jorge Gaete Avaria 25-40. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 5 2 is difficult to characterize him intellectually and ideologically as a "Marxist-Leninist." One of the peculiarities of Mariategui’s Marxism is precisely its deviance from the models proposed by the Communist International. If Marxism-Leninism is understood theoretically as constituted by dialectical and historical materialism, as well as pragmatically prescribing a specific political and revolutionary praxis, Mariategui’s Marxism represented the rejection of all of these aspects of Leninism. Dialectical Materialism, ISS a fully comprehensive philosophical interpretation of nature and social reality, is implicitly rejected by Mariategui's refusal to see Marxism as a self-sufficient philosophy. Instead, Mariategui believes Marxism requires to be kept up to date by the incorporation of all important philosophical or scientific innovations: "Vitalismo, activismo, pragmatismo, relativismo, ninguna de estas corrientes filosoficas, en lo que podian aportar a la Revolucion, han quedado al margen del movimiento intelectual marxista" (Defensa del marxismo 44; "Vitalism, activism, pragmatism, relativism: none of these philosophical currents, insofar as they can bring something to the revolution, have 1 1 , 8 According to Edgley, dialectical materialism is defined by three fundamental laws: ’ ’(1) the law of the transformation of quantity into quality, according to which gradual quantitative changes give rise to revolutionary qualitative changes; (2) the law of the unity of opposites, which holds that the unity of concrete reality is a unity of opposites or contradictions; (3) the law of the negation of the negation, which claims that in the clash of opposites one opposite negates another and is in its turn negated by a higher level of historical development that preserves something of both negated terms" (121) . R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 15 remained marginal to the Marxist intellectual movement, " "Modem Philosophy and Marxism" 151).l' s‘ ' Moreover, Mariategui adopts Georges Sorel1s concept of "myth" (an idea accepted in a non-rational form and capable of guiding action) as a central notion in his own conception of Marxism.1 1 , 0 In fact, Mariategui was not only interested in anti-rational modes of thought, such as those of Henri Bergson, William James, or Sorel, but also had a keen appreciation of religion. If one remembers the anti- religious fervor characteristic of Marxism-Leninism, Mariategui's emphasis not only on the importance of religion as a historical phenomenon but on the religious nature of Marxism as a political "faith" exemplifies his divergence from communist orthodoxy. It is impossible to imagine a major Marxist thinker in the 1920s other than Mariategui stating that "El comunismo es esencialmente religioso” (Siete ensavos 264; "Communism is essentially religious, "212) . ‘‘ M Historical materialism, with its abstract analysis of history as a succession of modes of production which in implacable order evolve from primitive communism to slavery, then into feudalism, then into capitalism, and finally into socialism, was profoundly at odds with Mariategui's concern for "la realidad peruana" ("Peruvian reality”) and the "t ‘ ' There is no complete translation of of Defensa del marxismo. but selections from this text form part of the English collection of Mariategui *s essays titled The Heroic and Creative Meaning of Socialism 190 See Siete ensavos 192-93; Defensa del marxismo 42-44; "El hombre y el mito" 23-28). |,M Also see 162-93; esp. 92-93. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 5 4 specificity of Peruvian and Latin American societies and history.192 Mariategui would state that "No queremos, ciertamente, que el socialismo sea en America calco y copia. Debe ser creacion heroica. Tenemos que dar vida, con nuestra propia realidad, en nuestro propio lenguaje, al socialismo indoamericano” ("Aniversario y balance" 249; "We certainly do not wish socialism in America to be a copy and imitation. It must be a heroic creation. We must give life to an Indo- American socialism reflecting our own reality and in our own language," "Anniversary and Balance Sheet" 89). Rather than the mechanical reproduction and application of the abstract formulas of international Communism, Mariategui proposes the re-creation of Marxism in Peruvian and Latin American terms. One of Mariategui’s principal innovations is the attribution of a revolutionary potential to the Quechua and Aymara Amerindians of the Peruvian Andes. In order to evaluate how heterodox Mariategui's position actually was it is necessary to remember that according to Marx and Engels "Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeois today, the proletariat alone is a really Flores Galindo comments on the abstract analysis of Latin America made by the Communist International: “para la Komintern solo existian parses 1 semi-coloniales' , definidos por una especifica relacion de dependencia al capital imperialista, y era esta condicion . . . la que permitxa trazar una tactica y una estrategia definidas a nivel continental. No existian las especificidades nacionales. El Peru era igual que Mexico o la Argentina" (La aoonia de Mariatecrui 28; "for the Komintern there were only 'semi-colonial1 countries, defined by a specific relationship of dependency to imperialist capital, and it was this condition . . . that permitted the development of tactics and strategies defined at a continental level. There were no specifically national traits. Peru was the same as Mexico or Argentina"). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 5 5 revolutionary class" (75). The exclusive position of the proletariat as a revolutionary class, a basic tenet of Marxism as a whole and of historical materialism in particular, seemed to be at odds with Mariategui's belief in the necessity of a socialist transformation of Peruvian reality. Although the 1920s were a period of accelerated capitalist development and rapid radicalization of workers in Peru and Latin America, the Peruvian working class was numerically small and still had not become fully separated from its artisan origins (Flores Galindo La aaonia de Mariategui 30) . Thus, in order to establish socialism in the Peru of his time, Mariategui believes it is necessary and possible to see the Quechua and Aymara peasants as a supplementary revolutionary class.143 But for Mariategui not only are the Andean Amerindians as a group potential revolutionaries, their institutions, and especially the ayllu, also have the potential to become the central institutions in a socialist Peru. Mariategui's belief in the revolutionary capacity of the Amerindian is also based on his analysis of Peruvian reality. This belief has its roots in the numerous cycles of Indian rebellions that had marked the Andes since the conquest, but that, as a reaction to the |,M "Una conciencia revolucionaria indigena tardara quizas en formarse, pero una vez que el indio haya hecho suya la idea socialists, la servira con una disciplina, una tenacidad y una fuerza, en la que pocos proletaries de otros medios podran aventajarlo" (217; "El problems de las razas en America latina" 84-85; "An Indian revolutionary conscience will take time to develop, but once Indians have made theirs the socialist idea, they will serve it with a discipline, tenacity, and strength that few proletarians from other lands will equal"). Also see "Indigenismo y socialismo" (217). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 5 6 expansion of the latifundios, reached a particularly violent peak during the years between 1919 and 1923.| 1 > 4 This violent resistance by the Andean Amerindians signalled, for Mariategui, a revolutionary potential among the Quechua and Aymara population that only needed to be directed toward socialism. Mariategui's discovery of this revolutionary possibility in the peasantry and in peasant institutions contradicted Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy. Marx and Engels in The Communist Manifesto not only declared the proletariat the sole revolutionary class, but specifically singled out the peasantry as the most retrograde element in society, and wrote about the "idiocy of rural life" (65) . Although one can question Marx's and Engels's evaluation of the peasantry, this view is perfectly consistent with the dogmas of historical materialism. After all, historical materialism is rooted in a firm belief in historical progress. From this historical perspective, capitalism is not only described as chronologically posterior to feudalism, which was the characteristically agrarian mode of production in nineteenth 1 , ( 4 Mariategui made explicit the importance of Amerindian rebellions as a proof of the revolutionary potential of the Indian:” Cuando se habla de la actitud del indio frente a sus explotadores se suscribe generalmente la impresion de que, envilecido, deprimido, el indio es incapaz de toda lucha, de toda resistencia. La larga historia de insurrecciones y asonadas indigenas y de las masacres y represiones consiguientes, basta, por si sola, para desmentir esta impresion" ("El problema de las razas" 75; "When one speaks about the attitude of the Indian towards his exploiters one generally accepts the opinion that, coarsened and depressed, the Indian is incapable of any resistance or struggle. The long history of Indian rebellions and revolts should suffice, by itself, to correct this impression"). Also see Flores Galindo, Buscando un inca 308-24. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. i57 century Europe, but is judged to be "better" (more efficient, capable of producing more "goods, " and inexorably creating the conditions necessary for the appearance of socialism). In a similar manner, historical materialism declares socialism to be "superior" to the earlier capitalism. Mariategui’s attempt to develop a version of socialism which privileges the Amerindian peasant implies a rejection of the hierarchical and progressive succession of the modes of production proposed by historical materialism According to Mariategui’s iconoclastic Marxism, it is possible to make the jump from the "primitive” communism of the ayllu (Andean peasant communities) to "modern" socialism: "El ’ayllu,' celula del Estado incaico, sobreviviente hasta ahora, a pesar de los ataques de la feudal idad y del gamonalismo, acusa aun vitalidad bastante para convertirse, gradualmente, en la celula de un Estado socialista y moderno" ("Principios de politica agraria nacional" 110; "The 'ayllu,' the basic unit of the Incan state that still survives despite the attacks of feudalism and gamonalismo, summons yet enough vitality to gradually convert itself into the basic unit of a modern socialist state,” "Principles of National Agrarian Policy” 86). This belief in the possibility of transforming the ayllu into the central institution of a future socialist Peru, even if unthinkable within the strict framework of Marxism-Leninism, had an important precedent in the Marxist See Quijano Introduccion a Mariategui 82. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 5 8 tradition. In a non-"Eurocentric" moment, years after the writing of the Manifesto. Marx himself speculated about the possibility of creating a Russian socialism based on the obschina, the village community ("Preface to the Russian Edition of 1882" 124). |y6 Mariategui was undoubtedly aware of Marx's speculations, since they are quoted by Sorel.IV7 This revaluing of the revolutionary potential of the Amerindian also implies a modification, if not rejection, of the political organization and strategies characteristic of a Leninist Communist party. Although individual peasants were not excluded from the Communist Party, not only were the peasants as a class seen as lacking in revolutionary potential, but the Party's strategy, in accordance with historical materialism, was to promote the "bourgeois" revolution in a Latin America characterized as primarily feudal.Mariategui's emphasis on the revolutionary potential of the Amerindian not only implies a modification of the configuration of the revolutionary classes--which now , , , f t According to Quijano, Lenin himself had speculated on the possibility of a peasant society moving directly to the communist state without a capitalist period (Introduccion 86). Although Quijano quotes from a report given by Lenin to the Comintern in 1920, one has to question the importance of this statement when compared to the bulk of Lenin's political and theoretical statements. It must be remembered that one of Lenin's main concerns before the Russian Revolution was the rebuttal of the Russian Populists whose basic argument was precisely that of the possibility of using the peasant commune as a means to by-pass capitalism (Alavi 381). 1,7 See Reflections on Violence 281, note 10. There Sorel quotes from the "Preface to the Russian Edition of 1882." Thus, Quijano's statement that Mariategui was unaware of these "canonical" precedents for his belief in the the possibility of basing socialism on the peasant community is inexact (Introduccion 87). m See La agonfa 30-31. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 5 9 also include the peasant--but also permits him to claim the possibility of achieving socialism in Peru without necessarily going through a previous "bourgeois" revolution. After all, for Mariategui, capitalism was already present in Peru, even if in an underdeveloped form, and, rather than eliminating the landowners of the latifundio, the bourgeoisie had found a modus vivendi convenient for both classes.1' 1 ' 1 This "discovery" of the "modernity" of the Amerindian as a potential revolutionary and as the creator of a "socialist" institution in the ayllu parallels the "discovery" of the "primitive" as a source of modernity by many artists in the first decades of the twentieth century. Pablo Picasso's use of African masks in his celebrated painting "Les demoiselles d'Avignon" (1907), or the presence of jazz--misinterpreted as a "primitive" art--in Darius Milhaud's La creacion du monde (1923) and Kurt Weill's and Berthold Brecht's Three Penny Opera (1928) illustrate the belief that in the art and culture of those populations believed to be untouched, or at least little influenced, by "Western civilization" could be found a model for a modern aesthetic. Thus, Mariategui is able not only to find in the Quechua and Aymara Indians a source of political modernity, but by analogy can also propose a literary and cultural practice centered on the figure of the Amerindian that does not necessarily follow nineteenth century realist aesthetics. For Mariategui, | , , , , See Siete ensavos 24-29, 34. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 6 0 indiaenismo.200 understood as the vindication of Amerindian culture and its values, and vancruardismo. the Latin American equivalent of the European and North American avant-garde and modernism, are thus perfectly compatible terms.201 "Esta corriente," Mariategui writes about indigenismo, "encuentra un estimulo en la asimilacion por nuestra cultura de elementos de cosmopolitismo" (Siete ensavos 329; "This current is encouraged by the assimilation of cosmopolitan elements by our culture").202 Indeed, Mariategui seems to imply that, unlike the European "vanguard" that had only a rhetorical relation with its primitive subject, indigenismo is much more justified in its reliance on Amerindian themes and forms because of the actual physical and historical presence and influence of the Amerindian in Peruvian society: "El indigenismo . . . tiene raices vivas en el presente. Extrae su inspiracion de la protesta de millones de hombres" (335; "Indigenism . . . has its roots in the present; it :' m Since the word indiaenismo is used throughout this essay, it will henceforth not be underlined. Cornejo Polar describes Mariategui's literary proposal as "indigenismo vanguardista" (Escribir en el a ire 193; "vanguard indigenismo"). Mariategui himself used the term in both a political and social context ("Indigenismo y socialismo" 217) . I have provided my own translation for this passage. The version presented in the English version of the Siete ensavos is as follows: "This current, moreover, is encouraged by the elements of cosmopolitanism that have been assimilated into our literature" (269). The English version of Mariategui's text changes "cultura" into "literature,” thereby modifying the meaning of the original text. The translation also presents the assimilation of "cosmopolitanism" as predating the development of indigenismo while the Spanish original can be interpreted as presenting these two cultural developments as simultaneous. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 6 1 finds its inspiration in the protests of millions of men," 274) .: ,M The main example used by Mariategui to illustrate his belief in the possibility of a vanguard indigenismo is the work of the Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo. According to Mariategui, with Vallejo's first poetry collection, Los heraldos necrros (1918), "principia acaso la poesia peruana. (Peruana [sic], en el sentido de indigena)" (Siete ensavos 309; "probably mark the beginning of Peruvian, in the sense of indigenous, poetry," 251). According to Mariategui, Vallejo is a mestizo who expresses in his poetry the emotional ties he maintains with his Amerindian heritage (308). Thus, Mariategui claims to find what he considers to be distinctive Amerindian characteristics, such as pessimism and nostalgia, in Vallejo's poetry (311-14). In Mariategui's analysis, the Amerindian characteristics are precisely those 2 1 1 1 Mariategui’s notion that the vanguard indigenismo had roots m national reality seems to echo the Brazilian “modernismo” artistic movement of the 1920’s. According to Antonio Candido, at the core of the Brazilian modernismo was the realization that: "As terriveis ousadias de um Picasso, um Brancusi, um Max Jacob, urn Tristan Tzara, eram, no fundo mais coerentes con a nossa heranga cultural do que com a deles. O habito em que estavamos do fetichismo negro, dos calungas, dos ex-votos, da poesia folclorica, nos predispunha a aceitar e assimilar processos artisticos que na Europa representavam ruptura profunda com o meio social e as tradigoes espirituais ” (Literatura e cultura 145: "The tremendous innovations of a Picasso, a Brancusi, a Max Jacob, a Tristan Tzara, were, in their roots, more consistent with our cultural inheritance than theirs. Our tradition of black fetishism, of religious idols, of votive offerings, of folk poetry, predisposed us to accept and assimilate artistic processes that in Europe represented a profound rupture with their social environment and spiritual traditions"). One could argue that the main difference between the Peruvian thinker and the Brazilian modernistas was that while the modernistas used the Amerindian merely as a rhetorical figure representative of their "national" difference in respect to Europe, Mariategui attempted to incorporate the Amerindian as a protagonist of a cultural and political project. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 6 2 that determine Vallejo's modernity. For instance, the symbolist filiation of Vallejo's early writings, which could be attributed to the influence of the European poetic school, becomes, instead, for Mariategui additional proof of the persistence in Vallejo of his Amerindian heritage: "El simbolismo . . . se presta mejor que ningun otro estilo a la interpretacion del espiritu indigena. El indio, por animista y por bucolico, tiende a expresarse en sxmbolos e imagenes antropomorficas o campesinas" (310; "The symbolist style is better suited than any other to interpret the indigenous spirit. Being animist and rustic, the Indian tends to express himself in anthropomorphic or pastoral images," 251- 52). Likewise, Mariategui interprets the emphasis in Vallejo's poetry on the "human condition" over the expression of the individual emotions and experiences of the poetic persona as a link with both modernity and the Amerindian: El romanticismo del siglo XIX fue esencialmente individualista; el romanticismo del novecientos es, en cambio, espontanea y logicamente socialista, unanimista. Vallejo, desde este punto de vista, no solo pertenece a su raza, pertenece tambien a su siglo, a su e v o . (315) The romanticism of the nineteenth century was basically individualistic; the romanticism of the 1900's is, on the other hand, spontaneous and logically socialist, unanimist. Vallejo from this point of view, belongs not only to his race but also to his century, to his era. (256) For Mariategui, Vallejo proves that modernity and indigenismo are not only compatible, but that in the context of Peru they R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 163 are also necessarily linked. As Mariategui writes about nationalism and literature:"Lo mas nacional en la literatura es siempre lo mas hondamente revolucionario” ("Nacionalismo y vanguardismo” 76; "The most national in any literature is always the most profoundly revolutionary, ” "Nationalism and Vanguardism" 72). In Mariategui's writings, the national element in literature, redefined as centered around the Amerindian tradition, and the "revolutionary" element, which includes the European and North American avantgarde as well as the literature inspired by radical politics, become fused. Mariategui's analysis of indigenismo, as both a socio political and artistic movement, exemplifies the fusion of the political and the literary, and of the national and the revolutionary, typical of his work. He emphasizes indigenismo's particularly important political role since it leads to the supersession of the "colonialist" culture, which, according to him, characterized the Peru of his time: "El 'indigenismo,' como hemos visto, esta extirpando, poco a poco, desde sus raices, al ' colonialismo'" (Siete ensavos 3 50; "Indigenism, as we have seen, is gradually uprooting colonialism, 287). By helping to destroy the "colonialist" criollo culture and literature, which functioned as the ideological justification for the political system that exploited the Amerindian, indigenismo fulfills an important and even revolutionary political function. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 6 4 In Mariategui's thought, artistic revolution, political revolution, and the vindication of the Amerindian end up becoming, if not identical to, at least profoundly imbricated in each other. It is not accidental that his important essay "Nacionalismo y vanguardismo" is divided into separate studies that analyze the relationship of both "nationalism" and the "vanguard" first with the politics and then with the arts of Peru. But even when Mariategui separates the analysis of the aesthetic from the political, he implicitly emphasizes their interrelationship when he includes the two studies as sections of the same essay. The cornerstone in Mariategui's intellectual edifice is the Andean Amerindian. Mariategui's thought assigns the Andean Amerindian a central role in the political, economic, aesthetic, and cultural proposals with which the Peruvian thinker attempts to replace the existing structures and institutions of the Peru of his time. In Mariategui's political proposals, the Amerindian is the principal revolutionary agent. In the aesthetic field, Mariategui proposes the Amerindian not only as the subject matter of literary and artistic works, but, because of the compatibility established between Indian culture and the international vanguard, also as a formal influence on the creation of modem works of art. The bringing of Andean Amerindian cultural values to the forefront also implies, according to Mariategui, the undermining of the "colonialist" R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 6 5 ideology Chat is the underlying basis of the unjust social and economic structures in Peru. Furthermore, since Mariategui believes that Andean Amerindian institutions, such as the avllu (agrarian commune), possess the potential to become important elements of a future "modern" socialist nation, his version of Marxism can be interpreted as a radical version of social indigenismo. In sum, the importance of the Andean Amerindian in Mariategui’s work is such that it appears to imply a change from earlier conceptualizations of Peru as a criollo nation to one centered around the Amerindian tradition. Nevertheless, when proposing the centrality of Amerindian traditions, Mariategui repeats many of the arguments of earlier non-revolutionary theories of mestizaje.204 For instance, Mariategui sees Peruvian nationality as an unfinished project grounded in the Amerindian: sabemos definitivamente, en cuanto al Peru, que ya este concepto [nationality] no se creara sinel indio. El pasado incaico ha entrado en nuestra historia, reinvindicado no por los tradicionalistas sino por los revolucionarios. En esto consiste la derrota del colonialismo, sobreviviente aun, en parte, como estado social--feudalidad, gamonalismo--, pero batido para siempre como espiritu. La 2 1 1 4 Jose de la Riva-Agiiero, frequently the target of Mariategui's criticism, exemplifies earlier versions of mestizaje. Riva-Agiiero wrote about the Andes and its Indian population as "el verdadero Peru" (Paisaies peruanos 185; "the true Peru"). He also believed that "la suerte del Peru es inseparable de la del Indio, se hunde o se redime con el, pero no le es dado abandonarlo sin suicidarse" (187; "the destiny of Peru is linked to that of the Indian, the country drowns or is redeemed with him, but it cannot abandon him without committing suicide"). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 16 revolucion ha reivindicado nuestra mas antigua tradicion. ("La tradicion nacional" 121) [We definitely know that, regarding Peru, this concept (nationality) will not be created without the Indian. The Inca past has been incorporated into our history vindicated not by the traditionalists but by the revolutionaries. In this consists the defeat of a colonialism that still survives, in part, as a social situation--feudalism, latifundism--but is defeated for ever in spirit. The revolution has vindicated our oldest tradition.] Mariategui adds an important modification to this characteristic use of the Indian: the same gesture that grounds the nation also grounds socialism.20' 1 By identifying Amerindian culture as socialist, Mariategui describes the future Peruvian socialism not only as compatible with Andean Amerindian values, but even as based, at least in part, on those same values. ■( ) ( ’ For instance, Indian institutions such as the ayllu would play a major role in a socialist future that would include, as one of its central measures, a land reform intended to reinforce Andean agrarian socialism (Siete ensavos 30-31; "El problems primario del Peru" (30-34). Indeed, Mariategui establishes a clear continuity between national past and future, since the Inca Empire and a socialist Peru are defined as based on Amerindian institutions. But he also establishes a similar continuity 205 On the "nationalization" of socialism in Mariategui's thought, see Cornejo Polar Escribir en el aire 188 . Mariategui believed that "El indio a pesar de las leyes de cien anos de regimen republicano no se ha hecho individualista” (Siete ensavos 83 "The Indian, in spite of one hundred years of republican legislation, has not become an individualist," 57). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 6 7 between socialism and the "true" Peruvian nation since both are to be built around the Quechua and Aymara "socialist" cultural traditions. The Spanish colony and the criollo republic appear in this conceptualization as a brief "foreign" interlude in a national and cultural continuity that stretches back hundreds of years, if not more, before the conquest and looks forward to a socialist future that, one assumes, is also expected to endure. In spite of the undeniable originality of Mariategui's conjunction of socialism and the nation, his innovations have to be seen as personal appropriations of modes of thinking linked with mestizaje. After all, conceptualizations of the nation based on mestizaje frequently see the colonial period as a moment of foreign domination that divided a national Indian period from a national republican one.: < ) 7 . Mariategui's Uniting of socialism and the nation is probably one of his major contributions to a Latin American 1 1 , 7 Occavio Paz has complained of a popular version of Mexican history that "puede reducirse a lo siguiente: Mexico nace con el Estado azteca c aun antes; pierde su independencia en el siglo xvi y la recobra en 1^21. Segun esta idea, entre el Mexico azteca y el moderno no solo hay continuidad sino identidad; se trata de la misma nacion y por eso se dice que Mexico recobra su independencia en 1321. Nueva Espafia es un interregno, un parentesis historico, una zona vacia en que apenas si algo sucede. Es el periodo de cautiveric de la nacion mexicana" fSor Juana Ines de la Cruz 25; stress in the original; "Mexico was born with the Aztec state, or even earlier; it lost its independence in the sixteenth century and recovered it in 1821. According to this idea, between Aztec and modern Mexico there is not only continuity but identity; both are the same nation, which is why we say that Mexico recovered her independence in 1821. New Spain was an interregnum, a historical parenthesis, a vacuum in which nothing of importance occurred. It was the period of the Mexican nation's bondage," 11). The similarities between this popular mestizo history of Mexico and Mariategui's analysis of Peruvian history and future is evident. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 168 Marxism that: has often equated revolution with nationalism. The imbrication of socialism and the nation implies, however, another major departure from Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy. Marx and Engels had unambiguously declared that: "The workingmen have no country" (90). They also believed that capitalism was quickly erasing national differences, and that economic and cultural internationalization would accelerate under the "supremacy of the proletariat" (90). In 1913 Joseph Stalin, writing under Lenin's direction, produced the classic Marxist-Leninist study of the problem of nationalism: "Marxism and the National Question."2”8 While Stalin, in this text, deviated from most previous Marxist thought by emphasizing the importance of the nation and nationalism, he conditioned the response of the Communist movement towards the national aspirations of specific groups on the "interests of the toiling masses" (39). For Stalin there was no immutable rule to be applied to national claims; and the Communist Party was to evaluate each individual "national" case and decide whether to support or oppose autonomy, federation, or separation based on the Party's own revolutionary interests (39). Despite some superficial similarities between their analyses of nationalism, Mariategui's position differs substantially from Stalin’s. Although, like Stalin, Mariategui also emphasizes the relative nature of national 2 l , H See Kiernan 348. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 6 9 claims, for him there is a clear difference between nationalism in the developed world, where it is linked to the political right and to imperialism, and that of the "colonial" nations where "el nacionalismo es revolucionario y, por ende, concluye con el socialismo" ("Replica a Luis Alberto Sanchez" 221; "nationalism is revolutionary, and, therefore, concludes in socialism").201' Mariategui identifies nationalism and revolution with one another in the "colonial nations" because he believes that only socialism is anti- imperialist and capable of successfully struggling to eliminate colonial oppression. Non-revolutionary "nationalisms" are ultimately coopted by the possibility of higher wages for "white collar workers" provided by "transnational" corporations ("Punto de vista anti- imperialista" 94-95) . This identification between nationalism and socialism in the so-called Third World contradicts the clear differentiation established by Stalin between national and revolutionary movements (Stalin 88-96). In fact, the Comintern, acting on the behalf of the "toiling masses," had already decided that the Quechua and Aymara Amerindian groups in the Andean countries constituted a separate nation (La aaonia de Mariatecrui 31-32) . Not surprisingly, Mariategui opposed this decision because, for him, the achievement of Indian national claims would only lead to the reproduction of capitalist relations in the new 2 1 1 9 Also see "Nacionalismo y vanguardismo" 75. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Amerindian nation.110 However, one can safely conclude that the fact that these claims contradict his conceptualizations of the nation and of socialism is of equal importance. Although Mariategui’s dualist analysis of a Peruvian society divided between a criollo coastal minority and an Andean Indian majority is compatible with claims of nationhood for the Andean populations, his vision of the Peruvian nation and of socialism as being based on the Amerindian made it necessary for him to oppose the division of the country. If Mariategui accepted the notion of an autonomous national and political project for the Andean Amerindian, the articulation he made between socialism and the Peruvian national tradition would become invalid. Mariategui can propose that nationalism and socialism are to be considered not only as compatible, but as virtually synonymous, precisely because both the nation and the socialist future are based on the Indian. After all, Mariategui's thought can be interpreted as an extension of mestizaje from the field of national identity and history into that of socialism and intellectual production. Mariategui proposes a mestizo socialism and vanguardism, as well as nation. But if mestizaje has been shown to conclude in a series of aporias, such as that between the purported assimilation of the Amerindians and their effective marginalization,"1 1 one *MI See his essay written with Hugo Pesce ” El problems de las razas en la America Latina" 80-81. See above 14-15, 21-23. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 7 1 must question whether the same is true of Mariategui ’ s socialist version of mestizaje. If one takes Mariategui's conjunction of the Amerindian tradition, socialism, and "vanguardism," as the central characteristic of this thought, it becomes necessary to examine the way in which each of these terms is conceptualized in his work, and whether there is a hidden hierarchy structuring the relations among these terms. Such an analysis is particularly important in the case of socialism and the Amerindian, since these two terms are central to Mariategui's political proposal. Despite Mariategui's emphasis on the revolutionary potential of Andean Amerindian culture and population, his evaluation of other Amerindian groups is much less positive. In fact, he establishes a hierarchy among Amerindian groups in which, with the possible exception of the "Aztec" Amerindians of Mexico and Central America, the Andean Quechua and Aymara are seen as superior to other Indian groups ("El problema de las razas en America Latina 4 9 ) . For instance, in his Defensa del marxismo. Mariategui analyzes the colonization of North America in terms that differ substantially from his characteristic criticism of the Spanish colony and that imply a negative evaluation of the North American Indian: "Sobre la tierra virginal de America, de donde borraron toda huella indigena, los colonizadores 212 Elizabeth Garrels's Mariategui v la Argentina: 'Jn raso de ie.ntes aienos has been particularly helpful for the discussion of Mariategui’s contradictions in his writings about the Amerindian. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 172 anglosajones echaron desde su arribo los cimientos del orden capitalista" (148; "On the virginal land of America, from which they erased all Indian tracks, the Anglo-Saxon colonizers set the basis of the capitalistic order from their arrival"). What is of interest in this passage is the contradictory notion of a land that is virginal--that is untouched by humanity--and, at the same time, bears the "footprints" or "tracks" (two possible translations of "huella”) of its Amerindian population. In fact, if one defines "tierra virgen” as one that has been neither explored nor cultivated,21' Mariategui’s misrepresentation of North American Indians becomes obvious. After all, it was the Amerindians' knowledge of the geography of North America and their mastery of the kind of agriculture adequate to the different climates of the continent that made possible both the English colonization and the, later, (U.S.) American expansion towards the Pacific. There is also a demeaning sexual connotation in the use of the word "virgin" to describe the land since it implies that the Amerindian was incapable of possessing--one could even say "deflowering"-- the North American land. The sexual connotation of this passage becomes clearer when one compares it with Mariategui's description of the establishment of the English 213 According to the Peouefio Larrouse ilustrado 1990 two of the acceptations of "virgen" are: “selva virgen, la todavia sin explorar" and "tierra virgen la que nunca ha sido cultivada" ("virgin jungle that has not been explored; and "virgin land that has never been cultivated"). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 7 3 colonies made in the Siete ensavos. In this earlier text, Mariategui described the colonization of North America in the following words: "El colonizador anglosajon no encontro en el territorio norteamericano ni una cultura avanzada ni ana poblacion potente" (163; "The Anglo-Saxon colonizer did not find in North America an advanced culture or a powerful population, " 125) 14 The use of another word laden with sexual connotations like potente to emphasize the low number of the population--which one can assume is itself a consequence of this implied "lack of potency"--as well as the supposed Indian lack of power, vigor, and ability to act is significant. In this earlier quotation a reason is given for the North American land’s immaculate state: the North American Indian's "impotence.” Moreover, this "impotence,” and its concomitant low population and inability to modify or "mark" the natural environment, appears in both passages to validate the colonization of North America by the "Anglo- Saxons" who are described as rapidly building a new and superior society. In fact, repeating one of the characteristic images found in colonialist texts, there are passages from the Siete ensavos where the Amerindian presence disappears altogether from Mariategui's description of North America, and the British colonization is presented as the simple taking over of an empty land. For Mariategui, the :M While powerful is a valid translation of "potente," it loses the sexual connotation present in the Spanish word. Probably "potent" would have been a better choice. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 7 4 English colonizer "No tenia que conquistar una cultura y un pueblo sino un territorio" (Siete ensavos 183; "A territory, rather than a culture and a people, had to be conquered,” 143). It is symptomatic of his positive appraisals of North American industrial civilization that Mariategui, who so eloquently criticized the conquest of Peru as a "tremenda carniceria" (Siete ensavos 44; "tremendous butchery"),-1' describes the genocide of the North American Indian as a- gentle "erasing of prints" or "marks," if not as the taking over of a unpopulated territory. Mariategui’s brief references to the Amerindians of the Amazon are similar to those made about the North American Indians. In Mariategui1s analysis the jungle area of Peru, populated by "primitive" Amerindian groups, is also described as empty. He writes about the Peruvian population as divided exclusively between those living on the coast and those living in the Andean regions (Siete ensavos 204-05). In fact, no mention is made of the Amazonian Amerindians in the Siete ensavos.:ih In a later essay written together with Hugo 215 This passage is pare, of the essay first; published in The Nation ir. 1929. See note 175. -, f ’ Mariategui ’ s belief in the "emptiness" of the lands peopled by "primitive" populations had already been manifested in an earlier essay. "El paisaje italiano": "El paisaje barbaro no tiene vestigios de civilizaciones pasadas, ni huellas de acaecimientos historicos, ni recuerdos de personajes magnos. Nada que lo complique, nada que lo envejezca, nada que lo deforme. Nada que impida poseerlo, conocerlo, gozarlo, sin apriorismo, sin prejuicio, desde el primer contacto" (81; "The barbaric landscape has no traces of past civilizations or historical events, no memories of great historical characters. It has nothing that makes it complicated or older. Nothing deforms it. Nothing obstructs its unprejudiced and unmediated knowledge or enjoyment starting with the first contact"). It is evident that Mariategui's evaluations of the "rights" of primitive people to their habitats R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 7 5 Pesce, "El problems de las razas en America Latina," the Amazonian Amerindians are characterized in their nomadism and primitivism as "opuestos a los de los indios incasicos” (50; "opposed to the Incaic Indians"). Moreover, when studying the "racial problem" in Brazil, Mariategui describes the Amazonian Indians as being unassimilable into the socialist movement (52).217 One can conclude that for Mariategui the numerically few and technologically primitive Indians of the Amazon, like those of North America, are incapable of "marking the land," and therefore exist outside history.21' ' Of all the descriptions of racial and ethnic groups in Mariategui's works none is more consistently negative than the description of blacks. Unlike the Andean Indians whom Mariategui identifies with socialism, blacks are equated by Mariategui with what he identifies as the most anti-national and politically and culturally retrograde period in the nation's history, the colony: "El negro, el mulato, el 'zambo' representan en nuestro pasado elementos coloniales" (Siete ensavos 333; "The black, mulatto, and zambo represent coincides with that of imperialist explorers and conquerors. ■' The Guaranis, and other Amazonian Amerindians incorporated into the national economy, are described in terms similar to the Andean and "Aztec" Amerindians (52) . :i" Elizabeth Garrels has pointed out that Mariategui's identification with Sarmiento, made explicit in his "Advertencia" to the Siete ensavos. implies that Mariategui actually believed in an ”anti-indigenismo" that excluded only the Incas and the Aztecs (50). Because of Mariategui's partial "anti-indigenismo," "el antiindigenismo de Facundo. por ejemplo, tal vez hirio menos la sensibilidad de Mariategui por estar limitado a los indios del territorio argentino" (50; “the anti-indigenism of Facundo. for instance, probably did not offend Mariategui's sensibilities because it was limited to the Indians of the Argentinean territory"), who, like the North American and Amazonian Indians, were nomads. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 7 6 colonial elements in our past").219 In fact, Mariategui’s statements about blacks repeat the stereotypes of nineteenth century racialism.- he describes blacks as "submissive, ” "morbid," "oversexed," and "of tropical and hoc blood" (334) ,220 Mariategui's dismissive descriptions of blacks, non- Andean Amerindians, and Chinese,221 raises the disturbing question of whether he was a racist. 222 In order to consider Mariategui's possible racism one must take into account the :I‘ ' I have provided my own translation for this passage because the English version of Mariategui's text fuses this sentence with a previous one. Zambo in Peruvian Spanish has two meanings. One is simply a synonym of black. The other meaning, used by Mariategui, refers to the offspring of black and Indian parents. ■'< l A lucid description of Mariategui's negative portrayal of Peruvian blacks can be found in Guido Podesta's essay "La dialectica de la alqueria y la usina," particularly pages 273-75. The Chinese are described as bringing to Peru, "el fatalismo, la apatia, las taras del Oriente decrepito" (341; “the fatalism, apathy, and defects of the decrepit orient,“ 279). Mariategui's use of the word and concept or "race" has Deer, defended recently by Quijano. He claims that during Mariategui's timela . idea de 'raza', no era exactamence recusada pero habia liegado a ser en algunos medios intelectuales y politicos europeos de entonces, suficientemente equivoca como para admitir, si no una equivalencia si una vecindad o un parentezco con la idea de civilizacion" ("'P.aza, ' 'etnia,' y 'nacion' en Mariategui: cuestiones abiertas" (192; "the idea of 'race.' had not been rejected but had managed to be, in some intellectual and political circles of the Europe of the time, sufficiently ambiguous to admit, if not an equivalence with the idea of civilization, at least an affinity or resemblance" ) , - and that "el termino estaba en pleno auge en el debate europeo de ese periodo, aun no habia sido apropiado . . . como bandera ideologica de las corrientes politicas mas perversas como el razismo [sic] [nazismo?]'' ("the word was very much in favor in the European discourse of the time, not having been yet appropriated . . . as ideological banner by the most perverse political factions such as razism [sic]”). These statements are clearly erroneous. Race in its etymology is already imbricated with the concepts of nation, culture, and, therefore, civilization. Moreover, Mariategui, as his frequent, but incomplete, denunciations of racism show, was fully aware of the problematic nature of the concept of race, which had been previously criticized not only by Manuel Gonzales Prada, but by European and North American thinkers such as Emile Durkheim and Franz Boaz. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. fragmentary character of much of his writing. Mariategui’s works consist mostly of quickly written journalistic essays that, with the exceptions of Siete ensavos and La escena contemporanea. were not collected into books in his own lifetime.2:3 Thus, although one can find passages in his writings that repeat the stereotypes of racialist thinking, the totality of his work implies a rebuttal of racialism. In fact, in his writings he explicitly rejects racialism, and is aware that "El concepto de las razas inferiores sirvio al Occidente bianco para su obra de expansion y conquista" (40; "The concept of inferior races was useful to the white man's West for purposes of expansion and conquest," 25). * " ' * Mariategui, however, still classifies human groups in a hierarchical manner but using a cultural rather than racial basis: El prejuicio de las razas ha decaido; pero la nocion de las diferencias y desigualdades en la evolucion de los pueblos se han ensanchado y enriquecido, en virtud del progreso de la sociologia y la historia. La inferioridad de las razas de color no es ya uno de los dogmas de que se alimenta el maltrecho orgullo bianco. Pero todo el 2“’ Even in the case of these two books Mariategui claimed in the "Advertencia” to the Siete ensavos that they were not "organic” books, but rather were written "espontanea e inadvertidamente" (11; "spontaneously and without premeditation," xxxv). Mariategui prepared, but did not publish during his lifetime Defensa del rnarxismo. and wrote an "organic" book that unfortunately was lost for unknown reasons, Ideolocria v politica. (A collection of essays and political writings has been published with the same name of Ideoloaia v oolitica but should not be confused with the lost work). On Mariategui’s lost book see Flores Galindo's La aaonia 101-04. 224 Other passages in Mariategui's works that explicitly reject racialism are: Siete ensavos 40, 342-43; "El problema de las razas en America Latina" 29-30. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 7 8 relativismo de la hora no es bascante para abolir la inferioridad de cultura. (342) [Racial prejudice has diminished; but the progress of sociology and history has broadened and strengthened the idea that there are differences and inequalities in the evolution of people. Although the inferiority of colored races is no longer one of the dogmas that sustain a battered white pride, all of the relativism of today does not suffice to abolish cultural inferiority. (280)] Thus, in spite of occasional racist remarks, Mariategui's discriminatory comments are ultimately grounded in cultural considerations. Culture becomes for Mariategui the ultimate criterion by which social, ethnic, or racial groups are evaluated. But Mariategui's emphasis on culture as a determinant of human behavior also implies that a change in the cultural environment may result in a modification of che characteristics of human groups. For instance, according, to Mariategui, blacks, whom he had described as retrograde elements in society, can become productive members of society by embracing socialism that "despertando en el [the black person] conciencia clasista, es capaz de conducirlo a la ruptura con los ultimos rezagos de espiritu colonial" (334; "awakening in him class consciousness can lead him to break with the last traces of colonial spirit").225 For Mariategui, the cultural change implied in the adoption of socialism leads to a modification in a person’s behavior and modes of 225 The English version differs substantially from the Spanish original: "The Negro and mulatto can be redeemed only through a social and economic revolution that will turn them into workers and thereby gradually extirpate their slave mentality" (273). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 7 9 thinking. In a similar manner, Mariategui, who does not value the cultural contributions of Chinese immigrants to Peru, has great admiration for the achievements of the Asian countries of his time: "Los pueblos asiaticos, a los cuales no es inferior en un apice el pueblo indio, han asimilado admirablemente la cultura occidental, en lo que tiene de mas dinamico y creador, sin transfusiones de sangre europea" (40; "The people of Asia, who are in no way superior to the Indians, have not needed any transfusion of European blood in order to assimilate the most dynamic and creative aspects of Western culture," 25). In Mariategui’s reasoning, Asians, therefore, are not permanently an "inferior” group, but, because of the modernization of Asian nations, can also be presented as an example to be followed by Peru. In fact, as this passage makes clear, the success of Asians in adopting Western culture is used by Mariategui as an argument against racial determinism. Nevertheless, there are numerous echoes of racialism in Mariategui's thought. Although Mariategui's use of racial categories and stereotypes is not fully concordant with his emphasis on the influence on human behavior of economic and cultural factors, this contradictory presence of race in his arguments helps to illustrate the slippage between culture and race that is characteristic of writings about mestizaje. While Mariategui's arguments imply the possibility of changing "human nature" through the modification of cultural R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 130 and economic environment, in his writings he also claims to believe in "race" as a secondary but still relevant factor for the explanation of human behavior.226 In fact, Mariategui frequently juxtaposes in his writings an egalitarian argument with a racial stereotype or vice versa, although racial considerations are not only marginal to his core arguments, but actually contradict them. But Mariategui’s work is also of interest because it makes explicit the underlying racialism present in much thinking about culture from the 1920s to the present. There are even passages in Mariategui’s works where one can find both the espousal and the rebuttal of racialism next to each other.2' In fact, it is possible to see in aspects of Mariategui's writings an early, and undeniably unwilling, precedent for the "cultural racism" of much of the current European right.22* An important example of Mariategui's contradictions and his oscillations between racialism and what could be called culturalism can be found in his analysis of Jose Vasconcelos's theory of the "raza cosmica” (Siete ensavos 339-46) . Mariategui bases his evaluation of the notion of 2 2 , 1 Following Vilfredo Pareto, Mariategui believes that: "La raza es apenas uno de los elementos que determinan la forma de una sociedad" (342; “Race is only one of the elements that determine the structure of society," 280). Among the other elements mentioned are geography and climate, "external factors," and “internal factors" among which race ;s included ( 342) . 227 For instance, his negative evaluation of the influence of Blacks in Peru concludes with a condemnation of racism as “razonamientos zootecnicos" (Siete ensavos 341-43). (The English version of Mariategui's text translates "razonamientos zootecnicos," strangely enough, as "zoological conditions" [281]. A literal and more exact translation would be "zootechnical reasonings"). 2 2 1 1 On contemporary "cultural racism," see Kahn 6-7, 125-26. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 8 1 the "raza cosmica" on his interpretation of the history of mestizaje in Peru. In spite of the similarity between Mariategui's "Latin American Marxism" and theories of the nation based on mestizaje, he is very pessimistic about the contributions that the different ethnic groups have made--and can make--to Peruvian society. Mariategui finds the contribution of blacks and Chinese to Peruvian society co be negative since, for him, both groups possess cultures too primitive to contribute anything of value to the country (342-44) . He also finds the contribution of the mestizos to be negligible: "En el mestizo no se prolonga la tradicion del bianco ni del indio: ambas se esterilizan y contrastan” (344; "Neither European nor Indian tradition is perpetuated in the mestizo; they sterilize each other,” 282). Unlike racialist thinkers Mariategui does not attribute this declension of the mestizo to biological degeneration, but rather to the stifling characteristics of Peruvian society: "En el latifundio feudal, en el burgo retardado, el mestizaje carece de elementos de ascension" (344; "In the lethargy of the feudal latifundium and the backward town, the virtues and values of racial intermixture are nullified and replaced by debilitating superstitions," 282). Not surprisingly, Mariategui excludes Quechua and Aymara Amerindians from this negative evaluation of ethnic groups in Peru. As we know, Mariategui valued Andean Amerindian traditions for their compatibility, if not identification. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 8 2 with socialism, but, in the following passage, he adds an additional reason for their importance: Andean Amerindian culture is described as "organic." While the blacks and Chinese, who were brought to Peru as slaves or indentured peasants, are seen as being an extraneous presence in the national society, Mariategui describes the Quechua and Aymara Amerindians as constituting "un tipo organico de sociedad" fully integrated with their environment, and possessing a continuous and autonomous history (345; "organic type of society," 283). And for Mariategui it is precisely this "organic" characteristic of a society that makes possible the assimilation of modernity, which, as we shall see, is of central importance to his thought.220 Of particular significance is the persistence of the traditional Western racial and cultural hierarchy in Mariategui's analysis of mestizaje. Although he barely mentions the Spanish or criollo presence in Peru in his discussion of mestizaje, "white" Europe and North America are presented as the norm against which Peru--and its heterogeneous population--is measured. Since Europe is described in terms of technological and industrial modernity, Mariategui reintroduces in his arguments the valorization of progress that in other aspects of his thought he apparently had rejected.230 In Mariategui, criollo and Spanish culture See 345. ■ > “Lo que importa, por consiguiente, en el estudio sociologico de los estratos indio y mestizo, no es la medida en que el mestizo hereda las cualidades o los defectos de las razas progenitoras, sino su aptitud R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 183 are criticized precisely for their inability to create a modern, developed, and industrial nation. Unlike criollo Peru, with its latifundios and "retarded" cities, Europe is described as "una civilizacion maquinista, asombrosamente dotada para el dominio de la naturaleza" (344; "a mechanized civilization that is amazingly equipped to dominate nature," 282). Moreover, Mariategui privileges Western European civilization by presenting it as the necessary condition for the construction of a unified Peruvian nation out of the country’s heterogeneous population: "Pero este proceso de asimilacion o incorporacion se cumple prontamente solo en un medio en el cual actuan vigorosamente las energias de la cultura industrial" (344; "But this process of assimilation and incorporation is quickly accomplished only within a vigorous industrial culture," 282). The positive revaluation of the Amerindian, rightfully seen as one of Mariategui’s major achievements, is also problematized by his privileging of European and North American industrial civilization. In fact, Mariategui values Andean Indian culture because it resembles, in its organic quality, Asian countries such as Japan, Turkey, and China, which, in Mariategui's view: para evolucionar, con mas facilidad que el indio, hacia el estado social, o el tipo de civilizacion del bianco" (343; "What is important, therefore, in a sociological study of the Indian and mestizo strata is not the degree to which the mestizo inherits the qualities or defects of the progenitor races, but his ability to evolve with more ease than the Indian toward the white man's social state or type of civilization" (281). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 184 han probado como una sociedad autoctona, aun despues de un largo colapso, puede encontrar por sus propios pasos, y en muy poco tiempo, la via de la civilizacion moderna y traducir. a su propia lengua, las lecciones de los pueblos de Occidente. (345-46) [(have) proved to us that even after a long period of collapse,an autochthonous society can rapidly find its own way to modern civilization and translate into its own tongue the lessons of the West. (283)] Surprisingly, the Quechua and Aymara Amerindian cultures are valued because in their "organicity“ they permit the reproduction of Western industry and culture, even if modified by a "translational process." In other words, the Amerindian is valued for being potentially a "version" of che European or North American. Thus, the goal for Mariategui is the transformation of Peru into a "national"--that is, Amerindian--version of Europe or the United States. Despite Mariategui's rightful claim to being a Marxist and a socialist, his version of socialism privileges European and North American industrial society as a goal to be achieved by Peru and Latin America.2,1 For Mariategui, the failure of the Peruvian bourgeoisie to achieve liberal modernization justifies socialism. Throughout his writings he emphasizes the collusion of the Peruvian bourgeoisie with the landowner class, 2*2 and the subordination of both to North 2,1 It is Mariategui's privileging of modernity that explains his admiration for Sarmiento and his followers. Mariategui mistakenly,believed that Argentina was the one Latin American example o f a modern nation, and Sarmiento responsible for its success. See Siete ensavos 12; "Punto de vista anti-imperialista" 89. 212 Siete ensavos 24, 28-30. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 8 5 American and English capital,^ as the reasons why capitalism in Peru is structurally incapable of modernizing the country. Socialism becomes, therefore, the only means Peru has to achieve a version of industrial civilization. Because the structural deficiencies of the Peruvian economy, described by Mariategui as a stable articulation of capitalistic and pre- capitalistic elements, made the elimination of the semi-- feudal agrarian structure impossible, socialism becomes the only feasible alternative for modernizing the country.2'4 The goal, in Mariategui's work, frequently seems to be a socialist industrial, rather than merely a socialist, society. In fact, modernity can be interpreted as the unifying factor behind the importance given to "vanguardism," socialism, and the Quechua cultural tradition in Mariategui's thought. These three elements are valued, according to Mariategui, because they are modern or, in the case of Quechua culture, because they have the pocential to become modern. Mariategui's emphasis on modernity becomes particularly problematic in the case of the Amerindian. If in earlier versions of mestizaje Amerindians are valued precisely for being potentially "national," in Mariategui's analysis it is their potential modernity that determines their importance. For Mariategui, by being a proto socialist, the Amerindian not only grounds the nation and 2" Siete ensavos 99. 2,4 Siete ensavos 3 6-38 note 1. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. socialism, but also makes modernity possible. Mariategui reproduces a characteristic aporia of mestizaje as a national ideology: the use of the Indian in a national project defined by the criollo elites. Mariategui differs from these earlier versions of mestizaje in that both socialism and modernity are included in his definition of the nation. In fact, the possibility of the nation seems to depend on the achievement of modernity while the possibility of modernity depends, in turn, on socialism. If, for Mariategui, the past "dispersa, aisla, separa, diferencia demasiado los elementos de la nacionalidad" ("Pasadismo y futurismo" 24; "disperses, isolates, separates, differentiates in excess the elements of nationality"), the future industrial civilization leads to the "asimilacion o incorporacion" of the different ethnic and racial groups (Siete ensavos 344; "assimilation or incorporation") . Mariategui's criticism of criollo Peru is therefore linked to the nation's inability to develop the modern industrial society necessary to incorporate all ethnic groups. Because Amerindians are seen as proto-socialist, and therefore proto-modern, Mariategui sees in them the possibility of conceiving a nation that, by being both modern and socialist, is able to include all Peruvian ethnic groups within the same national project. The Quechua and Aymara Amerindians are valued not for their specific cultural 2,5 The English version mistakenly translates “assimilation and incorporation" (282). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. values, but for the possibility they present, according to Mariategui, for a future constitution of the nation. Despite Mariategui's privileging of the Amerindian, it is possible to find further examples of the Eurocentrism frequently present in his thought. Even though the Amerindian is privileged in his conceptualization of the nation, he does not break completely with the criollo tradition. While Mariategui proposes Amerindian institutions, customs, and people as central to a new Peru, he still believes in the hegemony of the Spanish language and culture: "La literatura nacional es en el Peru, como la nacionalidad misma, de irrenunciable filiacion espanola" (Siete ensavos 23 5; "National literature in Peru, like Peruvian nationality itself, cannot renounce its Spanish ties 187). Although this passage contradicts his numerous statements that proclaim the priority of Amerindian traditions and population, it is clearly symptomatic of the tension between the Amerindian and the Western and between the Eurocentric and the autochthonous in Mariategui’s thought. Therefore, the binary oppositions characteristic of Latin American thought--e.g. , the indigenous versus the Hispanic, the nativist versus the cosmopolitan--reappear the moment they seem to have been left behind. Mariategui's political and cultural proposals thus both echo and contradict earlier conceptualizations of the nation based on mestizaje. In fact, Mariategui is critical of the R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 188 effects of racial or even cultural mestizaje. He believes that the actual results of the miscegenation of the Peruvian population has not had any positive results. Nor does he present the mestizo as an example of "Peruvianness." Nevertheless, in his attempts to ground socialism within Peruvian history and population, Mariategui resorts to the Amerindian in a manner reminiscent of earlier writings on mestizaje. Mariategui thus becomes a prime example of the power of the Latin American tradition of mestizaje to capture even those who claim to be in opposition to it. In spite of its contradictory aspects, Mariategui's thought implies a profound innovation in Peruvian intellectual production. Unlike earlier proposals of mestizaje that were principally concerned with establishing an independent historical basis for the nation, Mariategui's thought emphasizes the contributions of the contemporary Andean Indians.2’ 0 He found in the proto-socialist cultural values and institutions of the Andean Amerindians, such as the ayllu, central contributions to a future Peruvian socialism. Even if marked by Eurocentrism, Mariategui's reflections on the possibility of an alternative road to modernity have played a pioneering role in Latin American 2,6 "Esta, pues, esclarecido que de la civilizacion inkaica, mas que lo que ha muerto nos preocupa lo que ha quedado. El problems de nnes~: tiempo no esta en saber como ha sido el Peru. Esta mas bien en saber como es el Peru" (Siete ensavos 335; "It is clear that we are concerned less with what is dead than what has survived of the Inca civilization. Peru's past interests us to the extent that it can explain Pern's present,” 274). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 139 thought. In the 1920s Mariategui discovered the inability of underdeveloped capitalism to create equitable societies, and he attempted to find an alternative. One could argue, in fact, that elements of Eurocentrism are implicit in any attempt at finding an "alternative" modernity: and that underlying the search for an alternative route for economic and cultural modernization is a hierarchy that privileges the European and North American societies, where modernity originated, over traditional ones. Traditional cultures, at best, are presented as possessing elements that may be able to supplement modernity or ameliorate modernization's undesirable consequences. In its contradictions and achievements, Mariategui's work can thus be read as an early and influential precursor to later attempts at conceiving alternative versions of modernity that have been formulated by those dissatisfied with the social and cultural results of capitalism in Latin America. And, thus we arrive at another reason for Mariategui's relevance to today's intellectual climate. If Mariategui's identification of socialism, modernity, and nationalism--that is his proposal of socialism as a means to achieve a modern, industrial and integrated nation--is taken as his principal contribution to Latin American thought, his emphasis on contemporary Amerindian institutions becomes his central legacy to Peruvian literature and R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. thought. It is not accidental that the major indiaenista-' novels of Cesar Vallejo, Ciro Alegria or Jose Maria Arguedas would follow Mariategui's lead by concentrating on the relationship between Amerindian culture and modernity. Like Mariategui, these later writers will concentrate on the avllu and its possibilities of survival in a hostile environment. In fact, it is Jose Maria Arguedas who in his novels and anthropological essays will continue, extend, and problematize Mariategui’s central ideas. :t These were novels about Indian life written principally m twentieth century Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Usually didactic, they attempt to raise the consciousness of urban dwellers about the exploitation of the rural Indian populations at the hands of latifundists, political authorities, or priests. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 9 1 Chapter 5 Jose Maria Arguedas’s Yawar fiesta: The Impasse of Mestizaje Though deeply influenced by Mariategui, :*s Jose Maria Arguedas developed in a direction that took, him far from the intellectual parameters of his predecessor's writings. If it is possible to read Arguedas1s short story collection Aaua (1935), with its representation of the struggles between peasants and landowners in the Andes, as an illustration of Mariategui's re-interpretation of the class struggle, by his second publication, the novel Yawar fiesta (1941), Arguedas has begun to problematize the analysis and the political proposals of the Peruvian Marxist.2*4 Nevertheless, Mariategui's work is the starting point for Arguedas's fictional representation of the social structure of an Andean town, Puquio. For Yawar fiesta still identifies the conflict between Indians and landowners as the principal class opposition in the Peruvian Andes. However, unlike Acrua. Yawar fiesta does not limit its analysis of class interactions to the opposition between peasants and landowners. On the contrary, Yawar fiesta places an equal emphasis on the cooperation between peasants and landowners 2i l t Arguedas would even state that "sin Amauta, la revista dirigida por Mariategui, no seria nada" (Alegria, et. al. 235; "without Amauta. the magazine directed by Mariategui I would be nothing”). Also see "Mo soy un aculturado" 257. 2 , , ) The influence of Mariategui on Aaua is a frequent topic in writings about Arguedas. See, Munoz 2, 107; Cornejo Polar Cos universes narrativos 25-28. Munoz has written on Yawar fiesta as a criticism or Mariategui and Marxism in general, see 137. Also see Rowe 33. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. i9_ that makes Andean society function. One could well argue that through its simultaneous stress on contradiction, and cooperation, on exploitation and community, and on class difference and common identity, Yawar fiesta makes explicit: the tensions hidden in mestizaje. Yawar fiesta is set in Puquio, a small provincial capital in Ayacucho, in the 1930s. Arguedas's novel narrates the reaction of the inhabitants of the town to the government's ban on amateur bullfighting, which is the principal event in the celebration of Peru's national holiday in the Andes. In order to implement the ban, the government attempts to substitute the Andean bullfight with a "Spanish style" one. In the vawar punchav2 4 11 (Andean bullfight) , the Quechua Indians fight the bulls with their ponchos, and kill the animals using dynamite. The novel underscores the unanimous appreciation of all citizens--both Indian and misti241 (white) landowners--for the yawar punchay, despite the numerous Indians who are injured and even die while fighting the bulls. Therefore, all Puquian social groups are, at first, opposed to the ban. This unanimity is short lived as the class interest of the mistis lead them to give their half-hearted support to the government. The return to the town of a small group of Puquians settled in Lima complicates the city's class structure. The migrants see in 240 Since the phrase vawar punchav will be repeated throughout cnis essay, I will no longer underline it. 241 Since the word misti is repeated throughout this essay, I will henceforth not be underlined. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 19 the ban an excuse for attacking the landowners. In fact, the prohibition of the yawar punchay sets in motions a struggle for power among mistis, migrants, Indians, and the government officials who attempt to enforce the ban. Yawar fiesta thus becomes the study of both the collaboration and opposition between ethnicities, races, and classes in a small Andean city. However, given that the novel foregrounds the interrelationship of Puquio and the rest of the country, and that the bullfight significantly takes place during Peru’s independence day, it is possible to read Yawar fiesta as referring to the problematic of the nation. In Yawar fiesta, class, race, and culture are profoundly entwined. In the novel, racial classifications are described as depending as much on culture and economic status as on biology. For instance, the mistis are described as "white," to a large degree, because of their economic and social position. Likewise, characters, who are described as being phenotypically Indian, are described as mestizo if they show signs of being influenced by "Western"/criollo culture. The town's priest is an example of the flexible "racial” classification presented in the novel. As he declares: "he sido indio Karwank1 a. El santo obispo de Ayacucho me recogio por caridad y me llevo al seminario. Pero en mi corazon sigo queriendo a los indios como si fueran hermanos" (72; "I have been a Karwank'a Indian. The saintly Bishop of Ayacucho took me in as an act of charity and sent me to the Seminary. But R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. l*J 1 9 4 in my heart I go on loving the Indians like brothers," 45). By belonging to the ruling class, the priest's Indian origin- -while not fully erased--is consigned to his personal past. The priest's importance in the social structure of Puquio underlies his classification as a misti regardless of his "racial" origin. Similarly, the migrants are classified as mestizo basically because they have lefc their peasant origins behind. Yawar fiesta begins by stressing the centrality of the Indian population of Puquio. The novel, quoting unspecified travellers, describes Puquio as a "pueblo indio" (20-21; "Indian town," 1). The mistis only arrived in the city in the seventeenth century looking for sources of income with which to replace the then recently exhausted silver mines: "Los mas de los mistis cayeron sobre Puquio, porque era pueblo grande, con muchos indios para la servidumbre, con cuatro acequias de agua, una por ayllu, para regar las sementeras" (25; "Most of the mistis fell upon Puquio, because it was a big town, with plenty of Indians for servants, with four irrigation ditches, one for each ayllu, to bring water for their crops," 6) . The mistis rapidly become landowners by forcibly ousting the Indians from parts of the land which, until then, had belonged exclusively to the four ayllus242 (Indian agrarian communes) in Puquio: Pichk’achuri, K'ayau, Chaupi, Kollana. This is only the 242 Since the word ayllu is repeated throughout this essay, I will no longer underline it. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 195 first of many aggressions suffered by the Indian agrarian communities at the hands of the mistis; a similar appropriation of communal lands is described as taking place much later during republican times when the mistis, reacting to the demand for beef in Lima, take over much of the pasture land belonging to the ayllus (32). Therefore, Yawar fiesta seems to reproduce the characteristic structure of indiaenista novels. It explicitly presents life before the arrival of the Spanish or criollos as an idyllic period of social justice, while the bulk of the narrative focuses on the struggle of the Indians to maintain their institutions and way of life against the aggression of the misti invaders.24' (This struggle, in most indiaenista novels, concludes with the disappearance of the Indian community and its way of life). However, the novel does more than merely fictionalize the exploitation of the Indian. Although the ayllus suffer the appropriation of much their land by the mistis--and two of the ayllus eventually lose all of their lands--Yawar fiesta narrates the survival of the Indians as a significant cultural, economic, and, arguably, political presence in Puquio. Rather than describing the Indians as passive victims, Arguedas emphasizes their ability to adapt to new circumstances. The novel gives two examples of the Indians' capacity for :4’ On the characteristic structure of "indigenista" novels, see Corne.-'. Polar "La novela indigenista: una desgarraaa conciencia de la historia" 98-99. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 9 6 learning to struggle successfully against the landowners. First the ayllus learn to manipulate the legal system: "De tan to entrar a los despachos, de tanto corretear por causa de los papeles con que les quitaban las chacras, los puquios aprendieron a defender los pleitos, comprando a los jueces, a los escribanos y a los notarios" (25; "From so much going into offices, from so much running to and fro about the documents with which their lands were being taken away, the Puquios learned to defend themselves in lawsuits, buying judges, court clerks, and notaries," 6). Even more important for the survival of the ayllus is that they manage to maintain control of the distribution of water, a great source of power in an agrarian area such as Puquio. Moreover, the Indians successfully defend this prerogative by means of what can only be described as passive resistance. An anonymous Indian character describes the rationale behind the use of this "modern" political tactic by the Indians: "cAcaso misti sabe regar? ^Acaso misti sabe deshierbar los trigales? <f.Acaso misti arregla camino, hace tejas, adobes, degtiella carnero?" (27; "You think the misti knows how to irrigate? You think misti knows how to put up a wall? You think misti can weed wheat fields," 8) . The misti landowners find themselves forced to take into account the reaction of the ayllus: "Entonces los mistis se humillaban primero. Lloraban de rabia en su conciencia, pero sacaban canazo de todas las tiendas y rogaban con eso a los R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 9 7 varayok's, a los taitas" (27; "The mistis would be the first to humble themselves. In their minds they were really weeping with rage, but they'd get cane liquor from all the stores and with that they’d plead with the staffbearers and the elders, " 8) . The success of the ayllus leads to improvements in the lives of their members. In fact, many of the Indians who are dispossessed by the landlords recover economically and, sometimes, even prosper: Pero muchos punarunas, trabajando bien, protegidos por el ayllu, entrando, primero a servir de ' lacayos ' y ‘ concertados ' er. las casas de los mistis, para juntar 'poco plata', y consiguiendo despues tierras de sembrio para trabajar al partir, lograban levantar cabeza. (37) [But many of the puna people, by working hard, with the protection of the avllus. first taking service as lackeys and hired hands in the mistis’s houses to get together a little money, and later by getting a little cropland to work on shares, managed to lift their heads. (16)] But this economic recovery does not lead to the amelioration of class antagonisms. On the contrary, the enmity between the Indian peasants and the landlords is heightened: "ese 'endio' que llego con los ojos asustados, ahora, de comunero chaupi, k’ollana o k'ayau, tenia mas valor para mirar frente a frente, con rabia, a los vecinos [mistis] que entraban a los ayllus a pedir favor” (37; "that "endian” who had come down with fear in his eyes, once he became a Chaupi, K'ollana, or K'ayau comunero. was emboldened to look directly R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 198 into the eyes of the townsmen who came into the Indian communities to ask a favor," 16) . Yawar fiesta can therefore be read as subverting the traditional structure of the indigenista novel. Arguedas's novel maintains the temporal division, characteristic of the indiaenista genre, between an idyllic Indian past and a later period in which Indian agrarian communities are attacked by landlords. But Yawar fiesta, unlike other indigenista novels, does not conclude with the disappearance of the Indian way of life. While a typical indigenista novel, such as Ciro Alegrxa1s El mundo es ancho v aieno (1941), concludes with the massacre of the Indians and the physical destruction of their agrarian community, in Yawar fiesta, the ayllus survive despite entrenched social injustice. The capacity of the Indian population to resist the attempts by the mistis to take over their lands, and, additionally, their ability to learn how to manipulate the legal system and their autonomous discovery of passive resistance as a method of social struggle, imply that Indian institutions can adapt to changing circumstances. Such emphasis on the adaptability of the Andean Indians and their ayllus is certainly compatible with Mariategui's belief that Amerindian institutions can become the basis for a modern Peru. In fact, Arguedas himself argued that in Yawar fiesta "describi el poder del pueblo indigena" (Alegrxa 237; "I described the power of the indigenous people"). This vision R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 9 9 of the Indians and their institutions as reacting to changing circumstances implies that Quechua culture is no longer "pure" but is hybrid and, therefore, mestizo. However, Yawar fiesta's parallel emphasis on the coexistence of, even cooperation among, Indians and mistis differs substantially from Mariategui's more circumscribed vision of class relationships in the Andes.244 Puquian society, in Yawar fiesta. is the product of a stalemate in the class struggle between mistis and Indians. The mistis lack the strength fully to subdue the Indians, while the Indians are unable fully to defend their property, or to eliminate the exploitation and abuses they suffer at the hands of the mistis. This equilibrium does not imply a situation of equality nor of justice between mistis and Indians.24' After all, the dispossession of the ayllus is the necessary condition for the existence of the mistis as a group. Equilibrium stems, rather, from the establishment of limits beyond which the mistis are unable to exploit the Indians. The result of this equilibrium among both groups is the creation of a fully-functioning society based on interaction and collaboration between Indians and mistis. It is the 244 However, Arguedas's interpretation of his own novel presented in the "Primer encuentro" seems to simplify Yawar fiesta, as well as his u:he: novels, in order to make them compatible with the radical Marxism in vogue during the 1960s (the time of the "Primer encuentro"). For an analysis of the contradictions between Arguedas's own texts and his reductionist interpretations, see Vargas Llosa's La utopia area lea 13- 46. ■4* Arguedas described it as "equilibrio de entraha horrible" ("La novels y el problema de la expresion literaria en el Peru" 11; "equilibrium with a horrible essence"). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. nr-r cooperation between mistis and Indians, who control the distribution of water and simultaneously work as peons, that makes agriculture possible in Puquio. An unnamed misti character perhaps describes best the relationship between both groups: "Ahora nos llevamos entre bien y mal" (57; "Now we more or less get along with each other," 33). The coexistence of mistis and Indians is reinforced by Arguedas's representation of Andean life as a cultural continuum. Despite the numerous cultural, not to speak of class, differences between mistis and Indians, the core of their commonality resides in the use of the Quechua language. (For instance, the wealthiest and most prominent of the mistis, Julian Arangilena, speaks in Quechua to the Indians [75-76]). But this cultural continuum is not limited to language. The pleasure that both mistis and Indians obtain from the amateur bullfights is one telling sign of the cultural links between the two groups. Non-Andean spectators, on the other hand, are repulsed by the sport’s violence and bloodshed. The opinion of the Judge and the Police Captain, who are both from the coast, illustrates the reaction of non-Andeans to the bullfight: ”Es una saivajada, . . . . Y mas es lo que uno se asquea de lo que hacen estos indios brutos que lo que uno se distrae” (59; "It’s a savage custom, .... And what those dumb Indians do is more disgusting than amusing," 35). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 201 One further sign of the cultural community established between Indians and mistis is their common appreciation of Tankayllu, a "danzak" (ritual dancer) whose presentations are characterized by daring acrobatics. While for the mistis and the Indians, Tankayllu is "un artista" (54; "an arils:." 3 0;, for the coastal observer he is just "un indio sucio como todos" (59; "a filthy Indian like all the rest of them," 35' . The common cultural traits shared by Indians and mistis are, therefore, predominantly Quechua, even if Quechua culture is regarded by Arguedas as intrinsically mestizo. The cultural dominance of the Indians is so conspicuous that for non- native observers, as we have seen, Puquio is indeed an Indian town. Nevertheless, just as the economic coexistence of the mistis and Indians is born of both class struggle and cooperation, the cultural continuum in Yawar fiesta rests on both opposition and identification. In Puquio cultural commonality coexists with racism towards the Indians among the mistis. Moreover, these racist beliefs are fully congruent with the mistis' economic position. The mistis' social and economic hegemony in Puquio originates in the success of their specious claims to the ayllus' lands in the Peruvian courts; a legal success that can only be explained as the result of the institutionalization of racism. In the novel, an unnamed misti expresses the racism that characterizes, in part, their feelings towards the Indians: R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. "Bien hicieron los yankis en exterminar a los pielrojas" (69; "The Yankees did well Co exterminate the redskins," 43) . But if the mistis as a class have their foundation in the institutionalization of racism, their cultural identity is based precisely on the Indians they consider their inferiors. The outcome of these cultural links with the Indians is a surprising admiration for the Indians: "Nuestros indios son resueltos. No crea usted que son como esos indiecitos de otros pueblos," an unnamed misti exclaims in the novel (57; "Our Indians are determined. Don't think that they're like those little Indians from the other towns," 33). The mistis, paradoxically, admire those they consider their inferiors, and identify with those they exploit. Puquio is, therefore, depicted in an ambivalent manner. If for the external observer the town appears to be homogeneousun pueblo indio"--for a local observer Puquio appears as profoundly divided along class and racial lines. For a misti or an Indian in Puquio, the traits they share seem negligible, while their differences are all important and constitute the source of conflict. And yet the relationship between Indians and mistis is not limited to opposition. In fact, Puquio is able to function as a community precisely because there is also a degree of community and identification between Indians and mistis. One finds in Yawar fiesta, then, a representation of mestizaje in R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 20 which an ambiguous cultural commonality and a limited economic opposition exist side by side. The novel's representation of the social structure of Puquio is complicated by the town's relationship with coastal Peru, the traditional site of the "national" culture and society. While the misti landlords clearly participate in Puquio's "continuum of mestizaje":4' 1 and in Andean culture as a whole, the novel also stresses their links with Peru’s criollo culture, to which they are connected by "race," wealth, and language (they are all proficient in Spanish). In fact, several of the misti characters are part-time residents of Lima (89). Precisely because they are described as bilingual and bi-cultural, the mistis perform a mediatory, even translational, role between the coastal authorities and the ayllus. For instance, when the authorities decree the ban on the vawar punchav. the mistis serve as translators between the Indians and the government. The misti mayor, the priest (who though "racially" Indian, is socially a misti), and the landlord Julian Arangiiena--all Quechua speakers --try to communicate the ban to the Indians (79, 129, 73-75). Rather than being an isolated town in the Andes, free of any external influence, Puquio is depicted as integrated into and affected by the politics, culture, and economy of the nation as a whole. The presidential ban on the amateur - • » < > phrase "continuum of mestizaje" is used by Sptcta to descri.be Arguedas's representation of Andean life in his later novel Todas Las sanares (153) . R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 204 bullfight is but the latest instance in a historical process by which Puquio is progressively integrated into the national economy and political system. If the mistis arrive in Puquio in the seventeenth century as a consequence of a regional event (the depletion of the silver mines [25]), the later expropriation of the communal pasture lands held by the ayllus originates in a "national" event (the rise in the demand for meat on the coast [32]). But if the mistis are shown to be more clearly integrated into the "national" fabric than are the Indians, their power on the national level is far from equal to that of the coastal oligarchy. One can see in the mistis' translational role a reflection of their position in the national hierarchy. The mistis serve as intermediaries between the government and the Indians because the mistis are socially inferior to the coastal elites and superior to the Indians. The mistis, though powerful in Puquio, are less important in the nation as a whole; it is ultimately the government in Lima, representing the coastal economic elites, which creates laws that the mistis must obey and communicate to the Indians. The mistis' in-betweeness is exemplified, again, by the role they play in the prohibition of the amateur bullfight. Despite their enjoyment of the yawar punchay, the mistis are forced by the subprefect to accept the responsibility of informing the Indians about the ban. However, fearing the Indians' reaction, the mistis postpone R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. informing them until it is too late to stop the amateur bullfight (70-76) . Their behavior is, therefore, influenced by the government, coastal elites, and even the Indians. Even in the economic sphere, the mistis are in a position subordinate to that of the coastal oligarchy. The hierarchical relationship between mistis and Indians is, therefore, in part replicated by that between the coastal elites and the mistis, and by extension between the coast and the Andes. However, the mistis, though subordinated to, are not exploited by, the coastal elites. For instance, while the mistis have no control over the demand for beef on the coast, they are able to benefit economically from its increase by appropriating the pasture lands of the ayllus and raising more cattle. When faced with this "national" event, the Indians, on the other hand, are only able to act defensively in order to survive culturally and institutionally. The mistis, who are powerful locally, are, at the national level, a sort of junior partner forced to adapt to the decisions taken by the dominant coastal elements. While the mistis are shown to have enough power to benefit from the decisions taken at the level of the nation, they are not presented as able to originate or even influence those decisions. In its attempt at fully representing the connections among the different areas of the country, Yawar fiesta introduces a new character into Peruvian literature: that of R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 206 the Andean migrant to Lima. In Lima, migrants from the same province organize in clubs. In one of his essays, Arguedas states that these clubs "Mantienen en constante vinculacion con sus pueblos, se aferran a sus costumbres y tradiciones maternas" ("El complejo cultural en el Peru 5; "They stay in contact with their native towns, they hold on to their customs and traditions"). In Yawar fiesta, the migrants from Lucanas, the province where Puquio is located, form the Centro Union Lucanas. Migrants use these clubs or "centros" to organize politically in favor of social change in their native provinces and cities.247 The attempt by the Puquian migrants in Yawar fiesta to influence the politics of their native city by defending the ban illustrates the political aspect of these associations. Yawar fiesta stresses the influence of Mariategui on the members of the Centro Union Lucanas. Escobar, the leader of the Centro, addresses the photo of Mariategui hanging in his room, "como si fuera otro de los socios del Centro Union Lucanas" (107; "as if the picture were one member of the Lucanas Union Center," 73), promising "nosotros vamos a cumplir lo que has dicho" (107; "we're going to put into practice what you have preached," 73) . Critics have interpreted these mestizo migrants as representing Mariategui's political theories not only because 24, In his essay "El complejo cultural en el Peru," Arguedas briefly narrates the case of the "colonia de Sanaica" that in four years collected enough money to build a modern school in their hometown .5). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. the reference to the Peruvian thinker as "otro de los socios" seems to identify him with the migrants, but also because the mestizo migrants can be read as exemplifying Mariategui’s method for socialist proselytizing among the Indians.24" According to Mariategui, the dissemination of socialism was going to be achieved by those Indians who had become politicized by their contact with capitalism: "la vanguardia obrera dispone de aquellos elementos militantes de raza india que, en las minas o los centros urbanos, particularmente en los ultimos, entran en contacto con el movimiento sindical y politico" ("El problema de las razas en America Latina" 44; "The Indian vanguard has at its disposal those militant elements of the Indian race that in mines or particularly in cities enter into contact with the labor and political movement"). These militants were the key to the successful spread of socialism among the Indians because "solo militantes salidos del medio indigena pueden, por la mentalidad y el idioma, conseguir un ascendiente eficaz e inmediato sobre sus companeros" (45; "only militants coming from an Indian background can, because of their mentality and language, achieve successful and immediate influence over their comrades"). 24K The two critics who have examined this aspect of the novel, Mur.cz and Rowe, differ in their interpretation of the references to Mariategui made in Yawar fiesta. For Munoz, the members of the Centro Union Lucanas are identified with Mariategui's revolutionary strategy, and their political failure in the novel implies a dismissal of the Peruvian politician's theories and strategies (136-3"7). Rowe interprets the references to Mariategui more as a criticism of the Communist party, and its unsuccessful attempts at proselytizing among the Indian masses, than as a direct attack on him (33-40). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 20 Mariategui clearly assigned to politicized Indians the function of propagating the new political doctrines in the countryside. But, given the cultural and economic representation of race in Yawar fiesta, it is possible to identify the migrants with Mariategui's proposed Indian revolutionary agents. While most of the members of the Centro Union Lucanas are mestizo and are fully integrated into criollo society--Escobar is a university student and other members are drivers, clerical workers, etc.,--they still maintain their identification with Quechua culture and the ayllus (27-28); moreover two of the members are "former" Indians.249 In fact, when the members of the Club Union Lucanas meet the members of the ayllus, who bring a captured wild bull for the amateur bullfight, the migrants identity the ayllus to which they belonged (169) . The migrants are even described as sharing in the pantheistic appreciation of nature that the novel describes as characteristic of the Indians, but not of the mistis.2M' By supporting the ayllus and opposing the latifundios, the migrants defend Mariategui's political proposals (103) . For the migrants, the prohibition of the bullfight is a means of furthering their opposition to the mistis, since they rightly interpret the vawar punchav (bullfight) as an excuse 24‘ ’ Rodriguez, a ticket collector in a bus, belongs to the ayllu Chacralla (which is not mentioned as being part of Puquio, but one can safely assume is located in the province of Lucanas). Martinez, a bus (?) driver, belongs to ayllu K'ollana (107. 166) . *50 On the Indian's relationship with nature contrasted with that of the mistis, see 29. On the migrants relationship with nature, see 16?. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 0 9 for the mistis to enjoy the spectacle of Indians being killed by bulls (105). By hiring a "Western" bullfighter and taking him to Puquio, they believe they are protecting the Indians from the mistis. Despite the novel's emphasis on the identification of the migrants with the Indians and ayllus, it also marks clear limits between the two groups. By presenting themselves as models to be emulated by the Indians, the migrants exhibit a sense of difference from the Indians: "el dia en que se conviertan en lo que nosotros somos ahora, en 'chalos renegados' . . . llevaremos este pais a una gloria que r.adie calcula" (166; "the day they become what we are now--renegade 'chalos' . .. we shall lead this country to a glory no one can imagine," 121). The migrants are, therefore, torn between reason and emotion. They tend to react as "Indians -they feel linked to nature, they joyfully join the "parade" leading the captured bull to the bullring--but intellectually they have clearly abandoned Indian cultural values for the Western rationality of Marxism. Their incorporation into the parade taking the bull is an example of this tension between Indian and Western aspects of their personalities. If they celebrate the capture of Misitu, the wild bull, they are also opposed to the bullfight and support the ban. Even the migrant's interpretation of Marxism is torn between Western rationality and Indian attitudes. While the policies they support--such as the ban on the bullfight, or the elimination R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. of the latifundio--are consistent with Marxist analysis, their behavior is tinged with non-Western, non-rationai attitudes: they speak and sing to Mariategui’s photograph as if he were physically present (107-08). Rather than an ideal fusion of Western and Indian values, they present a kind of cultural schizophrenia in which Indian and Western elements exist in opposition. The migrants ultimate failure to stop the bullfight is paralleled by their identification with the coastal authorities who unsuccessfully attempt to impose the ban. The alliance between the migrants and the authorities is principally one of convenience, since both groups are interested in stopping the amateur bullfight. The migrants, as we have seen, oppose the bullfight because they want to protect the Indians from the mistis. The political authorities are simply following the Presidential decree. However, it is possible to argue that the migrants and the political authorities have more in common than their shared interest in enforcing the ban of the yawar punchay. Although the migrants, unlike the subprefect, are described as sincere in their opposition to the bullfight, both are united in their hatred of the mistis. If the migrants' hate the mistis because of the landowners' exploitation of the Indians (106- 07), the subprefect, the principal political authority in Puquio, dislikes the mistis' brutality towards the Indians: Unas veces me dan ganas de rajarlos a vergazos. Roban,chupan, engordan, desuellan R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 211 a la indiada; y vienen al despacho, ;Ay, sefior Supre! ' . Con la cara de lloriqueo, de misericordia. Y si pudieran matarlo a uno icon ansias lo harian! ;Que vaina es esta! (79) [Sometimes I feel like cracking their heads with a whip. They steal, chew coca, get fat, and skin the Indians alive; and then they come into my office saying 1 Ai . Sefior Subpre ! " Looking so pitiful and sniveling. And if they could kill a person, how eagerly they'd do it! What a mess this is! (50) I*'1 Moreover, the ban on the yawar punchay can be read as an attempt by the coastal authorities to modernize Puquio and incorporate the Andes into the "modern civilization" of the coast. But the authorities are not the only group interested in modernizing the Andes. The activities of the migrants can also be interpreted as attempts at modernizing Puquio and, by extension, the Andes. Despite their Marxist ideology, the migrants' opposition to the latifundio, and their belief in the need for the Indians to abandon their traditions, are proof of a mindset not much different from that of the political authorities. It is possible to see in the radical The subprefect's description of the mistis closely mirrors Indian stereotypes current among criollos at the time. For instance, lopet Albujar, in his "Sobre la psicologia del indio" (1926), originally published in Mariategui's journal Amauta. declares that the Indian “cuando besa una mano es cuando mas cerca esta de morderla” (17; “when he/she kisses a hand is when he/she is closest to biting it"); and: " Es un gran actor. Frente al hombre de otras razas Simula, solemne e insuperable, la comedia de la humildad y la tragedia de la servidumbre" (18; “Is a great actor. Facing a person of another race, he/she simulates, with insuperable solemnity, the comedy of humility and the tragedy of serfdom”). When seen by an outsider, the behavior of the mistis gives the impression of following Indian stereotypes. Therefore, Yawar fiesta reinforces its early description--also assigned to a visitor to the city--of Puquio as a “puebio indio” in which, to the "outside gaze," the commonality between mistis and Indians overshadows any sense of difference between the two social and ethnic groups. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. position of the migrants and the reformism of the government examples of the tradition that in Peru equates modernization with the achievement of a fully homogeneous and integrated nation where racial and regional differences eventually become insignificant.2,2 Moreover, if the migrants are concerned with the defense of the Indians, the government, in spite of its hypocrisy, racism, and collaboration with the mistis, actually protects the Indians. The positive influence of the government on the life of the Indians in Puquio is illustrated in the passage in which Julian Aranguena, one of the principal landowners, restrains himself from killing his Indian assistant Fermin (115). While Aranguena gives religion as his justification for not killing Fermin (115), the narrator adds that "ya no podia tan facil en estos tiempos" (115; "it was no longer so easy to do in those days," 80). The narrator's statement implies a change in society linked to the possibility of government prosecution for the crime of killing an Indian. The amateur bullfight, the yawar punchay, is itself pivotal in revealing the manner in which these different social groups (Indians, mistis, mestizo migrants, coastal authorities) are articulated in the novel. As mentioned above, the bulls are fought by drunken Indians who use their ponchos as capes. Numerous Indians are injured or killed. Although the facts of the novel are "true," that is, they are 252 See the chapter "Jose Carlos Mariategui: Marxist Mestizaje,“ especially 167-78. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 213 taken from the real history of Puquio--there was a ban on the Andean bullfight, there was a real person named Escobar, etc. /'’--one of the more brutal characteristics of the bullfight, the use of dynamite, is invented.''4 Ironically, the "real yawar punchay”,^ as the bullfight is described in the novel, is actually Arguedas’s fictional construct. In the novel, the yawar punchay is a paradox. If the yawar punchay is the central symbol for a mestizo Puquian identity centered on the Indian, the direct consequence of the amateur bullfight is the death of numerous Indians. Moreover, the yawar punchay leads, indirectly, to the preservation of the unjust social equilibrium between the classes/races in Puquio. The amateur bullfight is the cornerstone of an emotional economy which underlies the social and economic equilibrium established between mistis and Indians. The yawar punchay permits both groups to fully express the simultaneous aggression and identification that characterizes their relationship. The yawar punchay, for See Rodrigo Montoya's essay “Una lectura ar.tropologica de Yawar fiesta." ’,4 "Conviene precisar que la muerte del toro por el estallido de un cartucho de dinamita lanzado por un torero indio, es una pura y simple ficcion. Nunca, en ninguna parte de los Andes peruanos, existio esa costumbre" (Montoya 59; “It is convenient to make clear that the killing of a bull by means of a stick of dynamite thrown by ar. Indian bullfighter, is simply fiction. In no part of the Andes has this custom ever existed"). "<£.Ve usted, sefior Subprefecto? Estas son nuestras corridas. ; SI yawar punchay verdadero! --le decia el Alcalde al oido de la authoridad" (198; "'You see, Sefior Subprefect? This is how our bullfights are. The real vawar punchau!' the Mayor said into the official's ear," 147). (For some unexplained reason, the translation changes the original spelling of punchay to punchau. and makes the subprefect into an anonymous official). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 214 instance, permits the mistis to enjoy the sight of Indians being killed.256 The mistis, who are forced by their economic interest to coexist peacefully with the Indians during the rest of the year, are purged of their aggression towards the Indian during the bullfight. On the other hand, by fighting the bulls, the Indians establish in their own minds their superiority over the mistis. This sense of superiority is exemplified by the. reaction of the "varayok" (mayor) of the Indian commune of Pichk'achuri to the migrants' suggestion that Indian bullfighters be substituted by the professional matador, Ibarito: ;Que entren werak'ochas si hay valor! --contesto en voz alta el varayok' alcalde de Pichk'achuri--. <;C6ino trayendo contrata de extranguero para que capee por misti? ;Nu, taita! ;Ante juez, con escribano habra apoderadito, en plaza nu'hay! <f.Acaso K'ayau manda apoderado? Raura entrara, Tobias, Wallpa; por ayllu Pichk'achuri parara K'encho, "Honrao" Rojas .... (177). [''Let the werak' ochas go in themselves if there's courage!" Pichak ' ac'nuri ' s Chief Staffbearer answered loudly. "How come bringing in hireling from foreign land to bullfight for misti? No, tavta! Before Judge, with court clerk, a little substitute'll25 7 be sworn in to go into bullring? None of that! You think Kayau sends in substitute? Raura'11 go in, Tobias, Wallpa; for Pichk'achuri community K'encho will stand up, Honrao Rojas . . . . " (130)] 256 The mistis' descriptions of the yawar punchay emphasize its brutality as the bullfight's central appeal (56-57). 257 The Spanish word translated as substitute, apoderado has additional legal connotations. Apoderado is a legal representative. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Courage is the criterion by which the Indians establish their superiority over the mistis. Moreover, the passage establishes a direct link between the bullfight and the legal courts. If in the legal courts the Indians have frequently been defeated by the "representatives" of the landowners (at least until the ayllus learned to manipulate the legal system) , in the bullring the Indians believe they achieve victory over the landowners. In the Indians' minds moral superiority compensates for economic inferiority. In Yawar fiesta. the bullfight is the necessary complement to the unjust social and economic equilibrium that characterizes Puquian society. By permitting the satisfaction of social contradictions within limits that do not threaten the stability of society as a whole, the yawar punchay makes the social and economic functioning of Puquio possible. The yawar punchay makes explicit the ethnic and class contradictions present in the "continuum of mestizaje" that is Puquio (and by extension Peru). In this celebration the mistis and Indians achieve a moment of unity. However, such ■5S The novel narrates the role played by the legal system in the expropriation of the land of the ayllus: “Ano tras ano, los principales fueron sacando papeles, documentos de toda clase, dicienao que eran duenos de este manantial, de ese echadero, de las pampas mas buenas de pasto y mas proximas al pueblo. De repente aparecian en la puna, per cualquier camino, en gran cabalgata. . . . Con los mistis venian el yu<r.: de Primera Instancia, el subprefecto, el capitan Jefe Provincial y algunos gendarmes” (32-33; "Year after year, the important people would draw up papers, all kinds of documents, swearing that they were the owners of this spring, of that grazing land, of the fields with the best pastures, nearest the town. They would appear suddenly on the puna, by any road, in a great cavalcade. . . . With the mistis came the Judge the Court of First Instance, the Subprefect, the Provincial Chief of Police; and some local policemen," 12). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 1 6 unity is characterized by the simultaneous presence and erasure of the oppositions and contradictions between both groups. (The Indians and mistis are united in their enjoyment of the bullfight, but are profoundly divided in the social reasons why they enjoy it) . In the same manner, it is possible, as we have seen, to find in the apparent discourse of unity characteristic of mestizaje, racial, ethnic, class, and even regional discrimination. Like the apparent unity between Indians and mistis fostered by the vawar punchay. mestizaje can justify the exploitation and even extermination of the Amerindians. But if Yawar fiesta shows mestizaje— as an ideology and a social process--to be compatible with injustice, does the novel propose any alternative? Can one read Yawar fiesta as, at least, intimating a solution to the contradictions the novel uncovers in mestizaje as a discourse and social process? The representation of the migrants and the political authorities can be read as implying an evaluation of Marxism and reformism as alternatives to the unjust society of Puquio. The failure of the migrants to stop the yawar punchay can be read as a criticism of Communism. The migrants are incapable of thinking in truly egalitarian terms. Despite their identification with the ayllus, the migrants clearly set themselves as superior to the Indians. The migrants see themselves--and their ideas--as models not R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 217 only Co be followed but, as evidenced by their support of the ban on the bullfight, to be imposed, if necessary, on the unwilling Indians. Therefore, Communism--at least as it existed at the time the novel was written--is shown to be incapable of improving the lives of the Indians, or of leading to a truly egalitarian conceptualization of the nation. It is also possible to read the failure of the government's actions as a criticism of the reformism implied in the notion of government intervention as a means to solve social problems. Corrupt and colluded with the mistis. sharing in their racist ideology, the government, though in some aspects a positive influence in Puquio, is shown only capable to provide superficial change. The government is clearly unwilling to support social reforms in favor of the Indians it clearly does not understand. In Yawar fiesta, neither neither radicalism nor reformism are able to provide a solution to the brutality of the yawar punchay and by extension to the contradictions found in mestizaje and the nation mestizaje is supposed to create. Yawar fiesta thus leads to an intellectual impasse. The consequence of mestizaje (the cultural fusion between mistis and Indians) is shown to be the continuation of the exploitation of the Indians. By supporting the bullfight, the ayllus, idealized as proto-modern/socialist institutions by Mariategui, participate in their own exploitation. The R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 1 8 migrant groups, despite their emotional identification with the ayllus, and their ties with Indian culture, are depicted as incapable of influencing Andean society in a progressive direction. The government is shown to be colluded with the mistis. Marxism is described as alien to the Indians, and thus incapable of changing their lives. Therefore, it is not surprising that the novel has an open ending. The refusal to produce the closure of a traditional ending is directly linked to the impossibility of achieving a realistic solution to the contradictions created by the divergent interests and needs of the ethnic, class, regional, and political groups and positions presented in the diegesis. But this impasse has been reached only after Arguedas's novel has carefully examined the manner in which these class and racial contradictions are compatible with cooperation. Yawar fiesta, therefore, becomes the limit case that makes evident what is otherwise hidden in writings about the nation. For Arguedas shows, in this novel, how it is possible for the nation, as well as a national identity, to be based on class and racial exploitation. If Marxism has generally emphasized class difference over national identity, Arguedas shows the manner in which national identity is not incompatible with exploitation. If mestizaje has denied class and racial difference in its vision of a coherent national culture (or race) based on the fusion of Indian and criollo, Arguedas presents cultural commonality as compatible R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 219 with the class struggle. But, given the novel's emphasis on the brutality of the yawar punchay, there is no doubt that Yawar fiesta refuses to accept this reality as satisfactory. The novel's open ending is, in its ambiguity, in its refusal to achieve a unitary or clear meaning, the "message" of Yawar fiestaYawar fiesta ultimately presents a problem--the coexistence of cultural commonality with class exploitation-- but is unable to present a solution. But or.e could well argue that Yawar fiesta, through its simultaneous stress on contradiction and community, poses questions about the conceptualization of the nation that Arguedas's later essays and novels will attempt to answer. "<v Arguedas himself made a similar point in his essay "La noveia y el problema de la expresion literaria en el Peru. In this essay, after describing the three social groups he describes in the novel--mestizos, mistis, and Indians--Arguedas asks “^Quien alterara este 'equiiibrio' social que ya lleva siglos--equilibrio de entrana horrible--y lo desgarrara para que el pais pueda rodar mas libremente, hasta alcanzar a algunos otros que teniendo su misma edad aunque menos virtualidad humana ya han dejado atras tan vergonzoso tiempo” (11; “Who will alter this 'social equilibrium' that has lasted centuries--an equilibrium with a horrible gut--and will tear it off it so that the country can move in greater freedom, until it can equal other countries that have its same age, though less human possibility, have already left behind such a shameful epoch"). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 22 0 Chapter 6 Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera: Mestizaje in the Age of Multiculturalism (I) Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza is a text that defies generic classifications. It is as much a collection of poetry as a history of the Chicanos; it is also as much Anzaldua's autobiography as an attempt to translate into theoretical terms the experiences of the minority and marginal populations of the United States.'0" Moreover, Borderlands/La Frontera is the rare example of a bilingual text that ideally seems to require the reader to be fluent in both English and Spanish if it is to be read and comprehended fully.261 But the text's violation of convention has not led to its critical marginalization. On the contrary, Borderlands/La Frontera is, arguably, the first catalytic text in the development of a theory of and from the "borderlands" that has slowly started to supplant previous conceptualizations of Chicano identity.202 Paradoxically, a text that situates itself formally and thematically in an undefined, even marginal, "borderland"--between genres. :' , < l The heterogeneity of Anzaldua’s text has been frequently remarked. See Spitta 198, 201-02; Smith 203-05. :hl Although the text is primarily written ir. English, there are passages and principally poems in Spanish, several of which are untranslated. (The untranslated poems are found on pages 121-23, 136-38, 142, 144, 146-47, 160-63, 170, 180-81, 188-89, 192-93). 2h~ Rebolledo, for instance, has written about the "positionality"'of Anzaldua's work, and of it opening a theoretical field that has beer, mined by other authors such as those collaborating in the collections o: critical essays edited by Adelaida Del Castillo, Between Borders: Essays on Mexicana/Chicana History (1990), and Hector Calderon and Jose David Saldivar, Criticism in the Borderlands (1991) (2, 103). Also see Spitta 196. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 221 languages, and nations--has come to occupy a central position in a new critical and intellectual tradition. However, Borderlands/La Frontera1s influence is not limited to Chicano or Latino studies and literature, for Anzaldua’s text has been embraced by scholars outside these areas of study.-'" But given the intertextual relationship between Borderlands/La Frontera and the writings of key Mexican authors--such as Jose Vasconcelos and Octavio Paz--it is also possible to see in Anzaldua1s writings the continuation of Latin American, particularly Mexican, mestizaje, within the (U.S.) American multicultural and feminist intellectual environment. The study of Anzaldua’s writings, therefore, permits one to analyze the possible relationship between (U.S.) American multiculturalism and the Latin American intellectual tradition of mestizaje/mestigagem. Borderlands/La Frontera breaks with earlier definitions of Chicano identity and cultural productions as an extension of Mexico or as the clearly differentiable population of a United States Southwest identified with Aztlan, the mythical land where the Aztecs claimed to have originated. However, by emphasizing an undefinable and somewhat abstract “in- betweenness" rather than the fusion and/or collusion between specific Mexican or “Anglo" cultural traits or traditions, the concept of the "borderlands" blurs the differences For instance, "mainstream" feminist theoreticians, such as Teresa de Lauretis and Judith Newton, find in Anzaldua a prominent "feminist of color." See de Lauretis 61; Newton 24 note 14. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. between Chicanos and other so-called minority groups. After all, one could easily argue that the descendants of other immigrant groups also participate in a "borderland” experience. Critical emphasis on the "borderlands" is, therefore, fully compatible with, even a part of, the heterogeneous and contradictory multiculturalism so prevalent in the 1990s. But the frequent multicultural emphasis on the commonality between cultures at the expense of contradiction has led some critics--including, surprisingly, Anzaldua herself--to argue that multiculturalism is "a euphemism for the imperializing and now defunct 'melting pot'" ("Hacienda caras, una entrada" xxii). Anzaldua's criticism of multiculturalism is paradoxical, however, only in appearance. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza is a text not only characterized by, but, in part, articulated around the tension between a multicultural emphasis on an abstract "borderland experience" and a more traditional historical vision of Chicano identity. The text's dual perspective is clearly prefigured in the title of Anzaldua's work. Although the title seems to present "borderlands" as synonymous with "la frontera," as merely the translation of the English word into Spanish, an analysis of the meanings of the words problematizes this apparent relationship. While "borderland" has among its meanings that of "an area without clear bounds"264 (Anzaldua herself 264 The New Lexicon Websters Dictionary of the English Lanmiaap. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 222 describes it as "a vague and undetermined place" [3] ) , - frontera, defined as "confin de un Estado” ("limits of a state" )'fo implies clear demarcations between areas, territories and, of course, nations. If "borderland" is exclusively a theoretical construct, one can interpret "frontera" as referring to a clearly marked geographic space that is determined, in Anzaldua' s and the Chicanos' case, by the specific history of the Mexican, American, and Mexican- American border populations.266 Borderlands/La Frontera is a text that plays with the tension between the two words in its title. In her analysis, Anzaldua not only attempts to define the "vague" and "undetermined" "borderlands," but also to generalize the insights originating in the concrete experiences of the "frontera" to all individuals regardless of background or experience. In fact, the tension between these two ways of conceptualizing identity--theoretical and historical— is present even in "Haciendo caras, una entrada," the text in which Anzaldua's criticizes multiculturalism; the introductory essay to Making Face. Making Soul: Haciendo Caras. an anthology of writings by "women-of-color,” attempts : ' , s Peoueno Larrouse Ilustrado. It is important to note that I am not proposing an exclusionary relationship between history and theory. All historical reconstructions imply a theoretical position, and theory is, of course, always marked by the historical context in which it is produced. However what I am interested is in pointing out the tension in Anzaldua’s text between ar. abstract analysis of bi-cultural experience that is not dependent or. the history of any specific ethnic, racial, or cultural group, and her historically determined study of Chicano and Chicane identity. It this tension between theory and history in her work that I find represented in the problematic relationship between "borderlands" and "la frontera." R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 224 to formulate a theory applicable to this multicultural group (xxv) .267 The subtitle of Anzaldua's essay, "The New Mestiza," also displays a similar tension or ambiguity. The term "mestiza" is a clear, explicit, reference to mestizaje which, as we have seen, celebrates the "multicultural" and "multiracial" composition of Latin American nations while at the same time identifying a homogeneous national identity born from the conjunction of these diverse groups. Earlier versions of Chicano identity, such as those linked to the myth of Aztlan, can be read as appropriations and adaptations of the discourse of mestizaje for the purpose of developing a specific group identity within a U.S. American society in which "Anglo" cultural patterns and values are hegemonic. In fact, mestizaje and the myth of Aztlan remain as central components of Anzaldua’s reflections. However, as this subtitle indicates, she attempts to establish a separation between earlier versions of Chicano identity and her own theorizations. She speaks, after all, of a "new" mestiza and, therefore, of a new mestizaje. Moreover, since the discourse of mestizaje is clearly homologous with much of the discourse of multiculturalism (both emphasize heterogeneity but only, as Anzaldua argues, in order to "melt" that 167 Anzaldua contradictory relationship with multiculturalism is shared by other intellectuals. For instance, Guillermo Gomez-Pena's criticism of multiculturalism--"This is a dangerous notion that strongly resembles the bankrupt concept of the melting pot with its familiar connotations of integration, homogenization, and neutralization" (27)--is likewise presented within an article that celebrates multiculturalism as "a paradigm shift” (16) . R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 22 heterogeneity into a new homogeneity) it is not surprising that her identification of the subject of her discourse, and of herself, as a new mestiza implies simultaneously a continuity with and a separation from mestizaje. In fact, one of the characteristic gestures of much Latin American thinking about mestizaje--that is, the appropriation and use of Indian cultures and history for the purpose of symbolically and rhetorically grounding national identity--is a central feature of Anzaldua’s Borderlands/La Frontera. Anzaldua's reflections begin with what has become a traditional topic in Chicano literature and thought: the myth of Aztlan. The first part of the prose section of Borderlands/La Frontera. which contains her theoretical reflections, is, significantly enough, titled "The Homeland, Aztlan/El Otro Mexico. , , 2 f > 8 and includes a retelling of the story of Aztlan that explicitly proposes the myth's historicity. According to this well-known myth, Aztlan is the Edenic space from which the ancestors of the Aztecs departed and began their journey to found Tenochtitlan.:f,y Despite the centrality given by many Chicano writers-- including Anzaldua--to the story of Aztlan, this myth only became a component of Chicano versions of identity in 1969. In that year, "El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan," which became the manifesto of the Chicano movement, was approved by a 268 Anzaldua consistently emphasizes those words and phrases she keeps i Spanish. Therefore, in my quotations I will not mention this fact. 2t,i) The information concerning the myth of Aztlan is drawn from Leal's essay “En busca de Aztlan." R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 226 congress of militant Chicano youths. Although most scholars believe the myth situates Aztlan in the north of Mexico, "El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan” identified the U.S. Southwest with Aztlan. The relocation of Aztlan in the region in which the majority of the Chicano population lives had important political and rhetorical consequences. In the Chicano movement, Aztlan became a symbol that permitted the conceptualization of Chicano identity in spatial terms, justifying, therefore, the creation of a Chicano "nationalism" distinct and independent from that of Mexico. As the "Plan" states, "Nationalism is the common denominator that all members of La Raza can agree upon" (404) . :7° The myth of Aztlan clearly continues the discourse of mestizaje, since the identity of the Chicano is grounded in an ancestral proto-national Indian population and territory in the United States. Furthermore, the Mexican-American appropriation of the myth of Aztlan refutes accusations, frequently made by Mexican intellectuals, that Chicanos have lost their ties to Mexican culture and values. For instance, Octavio Paz in El laberinto de la soledad. the most celebrated study of Mexican identity, describes Chicanos as people "que apenas si hablan el idioma de sus antepasados y para quienes esas secretas raices que atan al hombre con su cultura se han secado casi por completo" (17; "who can hardly speak the language of 2711 While Anzaldua does not emphasize the nationalistic aspects of Chicano identity, they are not completely absent from her work. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. their forebears, and whose secret roots, those that connect a man with his culture, have almost withered away," 18). 3y identifying themselves with the "Aztecas del norte" (Borderlands 1), Chicano intellectuals, among them Anzaldua, place Chicanos at the origin of Aztec culture, and, according to the logic of mestizaje, at the origin of Mexico itself. But the myth of Aztlan also helps ground the immigrants' experience in history. As Anzaldua writes: "We have a tradition of migration, a tradition of long walks. Today we are witnessing la miaracion de los pueblos mexicanos. the return odyssey to the historical/mythological Aztlan. This time the traffic is from south to north" (11). The myth of Aztlan also becomes the basis, even a justification, for a Chicano identity predicated on migration. The myth of Aztlan reflects faithfully the dual origins of the Chicano population. As the home of the "Aztecas del Norte," Aztlan parallels the experiences of the Chicano population--among them Anzaldua and her family--that descends from the inhabitants of the North of Mexico conquered by the United States in the nineteenth century, and can claim historical precedence in the region. And as we have seen, the myth of Aztlan is also a myth of migration, therefore reflecting the second, probably majority, origin of the Chicano community. In both cases, the myth of Aztlan uses the Indian as the historical ground for contemporary Chicano identity and experience, even as it mounts an ideological R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 228 defense against both Mexican charges of deculturat.ion and (U.S.) American anti-immigrant rhetoric.2'1 Aztlan, understood as the U.S. Southwest, is the main historical meaning assigned by Anzaldua to che ambiguous and shifting signifier "borderlands." The myth of Aztlan is not the only example of the role assigned to the discourse of mestizaje as an organizing element in Borderlands/La Frontera. In fact, one of the central aspects of Anzaldua’s analysis, her emphasis on Chicano identity as being primarily racial, is clearly derived from the Spanish American tradition of biological mestizaje, particularly from the writings of the Mexican thinker Jose Vasconcelos. In spite of the fact that many of Vasconcelos’s writings deploy a profoundly anti-Indian rhetoric,272 even as they extoll the virtues of miscegenation, this Mexican thinker has been extremely influential among Chicanos, who have drawn on the concept of "La Raza,” which originates, at least in part, in Vasconcelos1s motto for the Mexican university system: ”Por mi Raza hablara el Espiritu" ("The Spirit will speak through my race")27’ In fact, "La Raza,” or "Raza,” is a name commonly used by Chicanos to 2,1 Anzaldua describes Chicanos as "originally and secondarily indigenous to the Southwest" (5). 272 On Vasconcelos ’ s racialism see note 31. 27 ’ Vasconcelos1s influence on Anzaldua, which as we will see is not limited to her racial definition of Chicano identity, is characteristic of Chicano thought in general. Dernersesian, for instance, has written about "Chicana/o discourse where revisionist notions of Jose Vasconcelos1s La Raza Cosmica [sic] dominate" (292 note 13 > . R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. designate themselves (Villanueva 15).: 4 The concept of "La Raza"--that is, the idea of the existence of an essentially homogeneous Mexican race--is a traditional tenet of Chicano identity discourse and it is central to Borderlands/La Frontera. Anzaldua's dependence on racial conceptualizations of identity is evident in her claim that "by mexicanos we do not mean citizens of Mexico; we do not mean a national identity, but a racial one" (62). And, repeating the basic narrative of mestizaje, she states that: ”En 1521.nacio [sic] una nueva raza. el mestizo, el mexicano (people of mixed Indian and Spanish blood), a race that never existed before. Chicanos, Mexican-Americans, are the offspring of those first matings" (5). In this statement, however, race is described as being both synonymous with and the ground for nationality. "La Raza" does not originate in the miscegenation of Indians and Spaniards, but in only that of Mexican Indians and Spaniards. By emphasizing the "Mexican" identity of the Indians claimed as ancestors, Anzaldua differentiates Mexican identity from that of other mestizo Spanish American groups. But in doing so, Anzaldua includes what is being defined-- Mexican and Chicano identity--in the definition. The Chicano emphasis on "La Raza" has likely been influenced by the modular role played by African-American groups in the struggles for Civil Rights. As is well known, racial considerations have played a central role in African- 274 Anzaldua reminisces that "I identified as •Raza' before I ever identified as 'mexicana' or 'Chicana' (62). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 230 American discourses of identity. However, the Chicano concept of "La Raza" also reproduces the narrative of certain Spanish American versions of mestizaje and can, therefore, be seen as the continuation of a Spanish American intellectual concept that is consistent with the frequent emphasis on racial difference that is characteristic of much (U.S.) American discourse on identity, including some perspectives identified as multicultural. In the case of Chicanos it is possible to argue that the emphasis on racial identity helps to compensate for the difficulty presented by possible alternative conceptualizations of identity based on language and/or culture. While Anzaldua claims that "Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity--! am my language" (59), to define Chicano identity as based on language is particularly problematic. Not only is there a plurality of Chicano languages--Anzaldua herself lists eight "languages" from Standard English to Pachuco (55)--but the possibility that English will gradually become the sole language of Chicanos makes Spanish an unstable ground in which to anchor Chicano identity. As Anzaldua points out, "By the end of this century English, and not Spanish, will be the mother tongue of most Chicanos and Latinos" (59). To ground Chicano identity in language or culture is, according to her analysis, to base this identity on a shifting, even evanescent, ground. To define Chicano identity as based on R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. race is to guard against the likely future history that Anzaldua envisions when she concludes that the Spanish language, and one could add the concomitant cultural difference, is bound to disappear as Chicanos become fully assimilated into "Anglo" culture and society. Anzaldua’s racial definition of Chicano identity necessarily ignores the obvious "racial" heterogeneity chat is present among the Chicano, as well as Mexican, population. Therefore, Anzaldua, who is also interested in including other racial and ethnic groups in her analysis, attempts to preempt the logical exclusion of these groups that is implicit in her racial definition of Chicano identity. There are, for instance, references to West African deities such as Yemaya (3), to Afro-Cuban santeria (69), to "the Black in all of us" (84) and to "our afro-mestisaie" (sic) (86) . But, given the emphasis on the mestizo definition of Mexico as being based exclusively on the miscegenation of Indians and Spaniards, and of Anzaldua's dependence on this racial definition for conceptualizing a future for the Chicano as an identifiable ethnic group, there is some contradiction in 275 In face, one could well argue chat the strong interference or EngL-st in Anzaldua' s Spanish, as well as the many orthographical and grammatical "mistakes" that are found in her written English, are proof of her own fears that Spanish is losing ground among Chicanos. Anzaldua uses unidiomatic cognates of English words such as "centurias" instead of the more common and appropriate "siglos" (80); uses English grammatical forms instead of Spanish ones, as in her dedication of the book "a todos mexicanos" instead of the grammatically correct “a todos los mexicanos"; makes numerous mistakes in spelling and in placing written accents in her own writing, and in her quotations from Spanish American sources, for instance, her quotation from Silvio Rodriguez's well-known song "Sueno con serpientes" (25). At the same time, Anzaldua's English stays within the parameters of academic writing. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 232 Anzaldua’s attempts to include other ethnic groups within her analysis of Chicanos. But this contradiction is another example of the tension that originates in her attempt to produce a text that is an analysis of both the concrete "Chicano condition" and a theoretical "borderland" experience. Moreover, it is possible to argue that, by defining Chicano and Mexican identity in racial terms, Anzaldua's analysis paradoxically manages to de-emphasize the relationship between the two cultures. In spite of its dedication--"a todos mexicanos [sic] on both sides of the border"--the focus in Borderlands/La Frontera is clearly on Chicanos. It is ultimately the Chicanos, and especially the Chicanas, who are presented as the prototypes of the "new mestiza." However, if "Mexicanness" is defined as racial, any difference between Chicanos and Mexicans, who are seen as belonging to the same "race," loses its significance. Ultimately, Anzaldua' s use of race permits her to erase Mexico and Mexicans, even as she emphasizes the "Mexicanness" of Chicanos.276 (In fact, her dedication "a todos mexicanos," which uses Spanish words but follows English syntax, may already imply the privileging of the Chicanos for whom such a grammatical construction is not unusual). :7h Dernersesian writes about "the strategy of multicultural paradigms that speak to a Mexican ancestry only as a way of figuring a distant past from the position of the United States" (280) . And: "Ail too ofte:. the Mexican disappears quickly once the Chicana/o emerges within the annals of Chicana/o history" (280-81). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 23 As mentioned above, Chicano writers frequently emphasize the Indian origins of their identity. According to Anzaldua, "La cultura chicana identifies with the mother (Indian) rather than with the father (Spanish)" (30). But Anzaldua takes this identification one step further in her attempts to use the Indian as the ground on which to anchor her owr. identity as a Chicana lesbian feminist. For instance, her claim that "My Chicana identity is grounded in the Indian women's rites of resistance" (21) is representative of her attempt to ground her individual identity in a personal reinterpretation of Indian history and mythology. If traditional Mexican historiography has branded Malinche-- Cortes's Indian translator--as a traitor and, at least in part, as responsible for the Spanish conquest, for Anzaldua, on the contrary, "the Aztec nation fell not because Ma1ina1i (la Chinaada) [Malinche] interpreted for and slept with Cortes, but because the ruling elite had subverted the solidarity between men and women and between noble and commoner" (34). Although feminism is presented as an actempt to resolve the basic flaw Anzaldua finds in Mexican and Chicano culture--the prevalent "machismo" that mutilates the female psyche by branding as negative its active aspects, damages men by linking violence and aggression with masculinity, and classifies women as inferior to men (84)— feminism is also linked to Indian history. For Anzaldua feminism is an attempt to recover the cultural, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 234 psychological, and sociological balance between men and women, and between classes, that supposedly characterized the earliest moments of Aztec culture (32). Anzaldua modifies the discourse of mestizaje in order to make it compatible with the intellectual problematics prevalent in the United States of the nineties. While Latin American thinkers have concerned themselves with the identification of national identities differentiated from Europe and the United States, and have, in general, ignored the individual, Anzaldua, like many current (U.S.) American thinkers concerned with identity, emphasizes traits such as gender or sexual orientation. Anzaldua's revision of Aztec history from a feminist perspective appropriates the rhetoric characteristic of the discourse of mestizaje in order to provide, within the parameters of Chicano discourse on identity, a space within which her own feminist and lesbian identities can be theorized. Anzaldua's interpretation of Aztec history is complemented by a revision of Aztec myths. These myths are of great importance for Anzaldua's analyses because they provide the archetypes that Anzaldua, following Octavio Paz ’ s example in El laberinto de la soledad.'' uses to study the 111 Paz, in El laberinto de la soledad extracts his archetypes from history rather than from myth: "La extrana permanencia de Cortes y de la Malinche en la imaginacion y en la sensibilidad de los mexicanos actuales revela que son algo mas que figuras historicas, simbolos de un conflicto secreto, que aun no hemos resuelto" (78; "The strange permanence of Cortes and La Malinche in the Mexican's imagination and sensibilities reveals that they are more than historical figures: they are symbols of a secret conflict that we have still not resolved,” 87). While Cortes is not a significant figure in Anzaldua's analyses. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 235 "Mexican psyche."-7* Anzaldua•s analysis privileges, as an archetype, Coatlicue, the Aztec Indian goddess that is described as possessing both light and dark, as well as masculine and feminine, elements. For Anzaldua Coatlicue represents the integrated woman before later patriarchal dominated Aztec and Spanish cultures began the mutilation of the female psyche. The presence of the archetype of Coatlicue in Anzaldua's analysis can therefore be seen as another instance of her attempt at grounding feminism--a movement that can be partly defined as an attempt at recovering the female wholeness mutilated by patriarchy-- in Aztec culture. Moreover, the fact that the wholeness associated with Coatlicue implies the co-existance of masculine and feminine elements links the archetype directly with Anzaldua' s lesbianism. Like the goddess, she also can claim to possess male and female traits, to be "two in one body, both male and female" (19) . However, unlike Paz's use of archetypes in El laberinto de la soledad. Anzaldua not only uses Coatlicue to analyze Mexican and Chicano history and psychology, but also as part of a personal story of spiritual, even religious, illumination that she explains by referring to Aztec beliefs. Anzaldua describes the "Coatlicue state" in terms that Malinche, as in El laberinto. identified with la chinaada. becomes one of the many faces of Coatlicue, the central Aztec female deity. : 7 i t Instead of pointing out the influence of Paz' s methodology on her analysis, Anzaldua underscores the influence of James Hillman's Jur.giar. study Re-Visioning Psychology on her analysis, especially on "the presences of gods and goddesses in the psyche" (95 note 6). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 236 describe a personal spiritual, physical, and even orgasmic experience: A light is all around me--so intense it could be white or black or at that juncture where extremes turn into their opposites. It passes through my body and comes out of the other side. I collapse into myself--a delicious caving into myself--imploding, the walls like matchsticks softly folding inward in slow motion. (51) By presenting the Coatlicue state's restoration of the female psyche not only as a means for Chicano culture to correct the flaws identified by her but also as a narration of a personal mystical experience, Anzaldua presents herself as an example, even as a prototype, of the "new mestiza." This identification of the Chicano, particularly the Chicana, experience with Anzaldua's own is one of the characteristics of Borderlands/La Frontera. As she states in the preface, "This book, then, speaks of my existence" (n.p). This identification of the self with the identity of a group or nation implies a profound innovation regarding Latin American constructions of identity. Anzaldua's biography becomes in Borderlands/The Frontera the paradigmatic example of the Chicano experience: the loss of property and status experienced by her and her family at the hands of the "Anglo" authorities and settlers represents the experience of Chicanos as a whole (6-8). In Anzaldua's text, biography is identified with history, and her psychological/mystical experiences with a proposal for cultural and social renovation. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 237 The correlation between the personal and the social is underscored by the identification Anzaldua makes between her mystical/psychological experiences in the "Coatlicue state” and the history of the Chicano. The search for the "Coatlicue state” is described by Anzaldua in terms that recall the migrations from Aztlan to Mexico and back to Aztlan that are central to her definitions of Chicano identity: "Every increment of consciousness, every step forward is a travesia. a crossing. I am again an alien in new territory" (48). While the Coatlicue state is described as the achievement of a psychic wholeness--she describes herself as "Completa" (51)--it does not imply psychic unity but rather an opening to contradiction and ambivalence: "Coatlicue depicts the contradictory" (47). It is precisely because the completeness of the Coatlicue state does not lead to a unified and non- contradictory identity that it resembles the experiences of Chicanos when they combine elements from both Mexican and "Anglo" cultures and societies as they attempt to adapt to their new environment. While the equivalences between "chicanismo," feminism, and lesbianism established by Anzaldua in her description of the Coatlicue state permit her analysis to be relevant outside the Chicano community, these equivalences contradict the historical narrative that grounds her writings. For no matter how problematic Anzaldua's belief in the historical validity of the myth of Aztlan and in the existence of a R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 238 Mexican/Chicano race formed by the miscegenation between Spaniards and Mexican Indians may seem, the fact is that their historicity is one of the central aspects of her analysis of the Chicano experience. However, the "Coatlicue state," as the internalization of contradictions into the psyche, has no logical relationship with actual Chicano/Mexican history or experience. Therefore, Anzaldua's description and analysis of the "Coatlicue state" is the most important example of the tendency present throughout her text to identify the "borderlands," with an ahistorical psychological state.2™ By such psychologizing, Anzaldua establishes a number of correlations between social and ethnic groups who, because of their marginal social position, are forced to share in this psychological "condition." Near the beginning of her text, and immediately after writing about the "U.S.-Mexican border," she defines the "borderland" in terms that de-historize it: A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. . . .The prohibited and forbidden are its inhabitants. Los atravesados live here: the squint-eyed, the perverse, the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel, the mulato [sic], the half-breed, the half-dead; in short, those who cross over, pass over, or go through the confines of the 'normal'. (3) : 7 < ) While an emphasis on psychology is not necessarily opposed to one on history--for example, by emphasizing the links of specific psychological traits to the socio-historical conditions in which the individual is placed--in Anzaldua's analysis psychology becomes the means by which historically determined psychological R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 239 While it is possible to identify some of the groups mentioned in this list--homosexuals, mestizos, mulattos--others such as " los atravesados, " the "squint eyed,” or the "half-dead" are more metaphoric than real. However, these metaphoric groups are fit inhabitants of a "borderland" defined as the spatialization of a clearly psychological and ahistorical "emotional residue." However, later in the same paragraph, she lists three additional identifiable groups to the list: Chicanos, Indians and Blacks (3), who are later described, along with homosexuals, as united in their "Ambivalence and unrest" (4). Despite the vagueness of Anzaldua's descriptions, it is clear that she is identifying the "borderlands" with marginality. It is the "marginal"--when seem from an assumedly "Anglo," economically rich, politically powerful, heterosexual, and probably male center--who inhabit Anzaldua1 s "borderlands." However, if the "borderlands" are described as a psychological "location," there is no logical reason why a similar ambivalence may not be experienced by "whites." Anzaldua, therefore, reverses this exclusion at a later moment in her analysis: "The struggle is inner: Chicano, indio, American Indian, moiado. mexicanp, immigrant Latino, Anglo in power, working class Anglo, Black, Asian-- our psyches resemble the bordertowns and are populated by the same people" (87) . By situating individuals from all classes and ethnic/racial groups within this psychological R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. "borderlands," Anzaldua’s analysis leads naturally to the deemphasis, even elimination, of the historical identities constructed by her use of the discourse of (biological) mestizaje and the historization of the myth of Aztlan.'Ml Adopting Jose Vasconcelos's notion of a "cosmic race" born out of the miscegenation of all previous races,"'1 Anzaldua imagines a future in which the psychological ambivalence of the "new mestiza" will be dominant in world society: En unas pocas centurias. the future will belong to the mestiza. Because the future depends on the breaking down of paradigms, it depends on the straddling of two or more cultures. By creating a new mythos--that is, a change in the way we perceive reality, the way we see ourselves, and the ways we behave--la mestiza creates a new consciousness. (80) If the "Anglo in power" is, at least potentially, a new mestiza, if it is a matter of time before the "new consciousness" becomes the dominant "consciousness," the margins have become the center. The "Coatlicue state" ■s" Her text frequently moves from an emphasis on history to one on psychology even within the same paragraph. For instance, her description of the borderland as "a vague and undetermined place" is placed in a paragraph that begins with a description of the "U.S.- Mexican border" as "una herida abierta" (3; stress in the original) . 2SI Vasconcelos, as is the case with many Chicano writers, is a central influence on Anzaldua’s thought. One of the few critics to point out the obvious links between Vasconcelos and Anzaldua is Judith Raiskin. However, she misreads Vasconcelos as being exclusively a Mexican nationalist, forgetting his even more relevant visionary streak. Vasconcelos was more a utopian and mystical thinker--or at least couch his "theories" in mystical terms--than a theorist of Mexican nationality. While there are obvious thematic, conceptual, and formal differences between Vasconcelos and Anzaldua, his La raza cosmica car. also be seen as providing a model for Borderlands/La Frontera in its combination of analysis, mysticism and utopianism. See Raiskin, especially 161-62. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. becomes not only a model for the reconfiguration of Chicano culture and society, but also a description, as well as a prediction, of a new planetary consciousness. Therefore, Anzaldua's analysis and description of the "Coatlicue state" is more than a proposal for a feminist reconstitution of Chicano identity and culture freed from homophobia and machismo; the "Coatlicue state" is more char. the mere description of a psychological acceptance and incorporation of contradiction; in fact, the "Coatlicue state" prefigures an utopian solution for all the social problems that characterize modern society: The answer to the problem between the white race and the colored, between males and females, lies in healing the split that originates in the very foundation of our lives, our culture, our languages, our thoughts. A massive uprooting of dualistic thinking in the individual and collective consciousness is the beginning of a long struggle, but one that could, in our best hopes, bring us to the end of rape, of violence, of war. (80) The two positions, analyses, and approaches present in Borderlands/La Frontera lead ultimately to contradictory conclusions. On the one hand, Anzaldua based on the discourse of biological mestizaje and of the myth of Aztlan justifies her belief in the future conservation of Chicano specificity, in spite of the homogenizing influence of "Anglo" culture. This belief in the future of the Chicano as a group is stated in a unmistakable terms in the poem that R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 24- closes the book, "No se raie. chicanita (para Missi Anzaldua) "/'"Don' t Give In, Chicanita (para Missy Anzaldua;”: "Si se me hace que en unos cuantos anos o siglos la Raza se levantara, lengua intacta / cargando lo mejor de todas las culturas " (201; "Yes, in a few years or centuries / la Raza will rise up, tongue intact / carrying the best of all the cultures," 203). But, on the other hand, the psychological/mystical Coatlicue state leads to the opposite conclusion: as the characteristic traits of the "new mestiza” become generalized, differences between ethnic, racial, and cultural groups disappear. As we have seen. Borderlands/La Frontera links Anzaldua's historical version of Mexican and Chicano mestizaje with the "Coatlicue state" through her use of Indian history and myths. But if the presentation of Anzaldua's mystical experiences and the "Coatlicue state,"like her version of the discourse of mestizaje, resorts to Indian myths, the definition of the "Coatlicue state" as the acceptance of contradictions does not require any supernatural trappings. In fact, Anzaldua's description of the "Coatlicue state" is fully congruent with the questioning of the unitary self characteristic of much contemporary psychology. Moreover, if the references to Aztec gods are eliminated from Anzaldua's analysis, the homology established by Anzaldua between a mestizo Chicano identity centered on the Indian and the "Coatlicue state" R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 4 3 disappears. Her psychologizing of Che "borderlands," and her inclusion of other "minority," and even non-minority groups, in her analysis, implies that the relation established between her psychological and historical analyses is arbitrary. Anyone can dwell in the "borderlands.” It is a historical accident if the spiritual experience of the Coatlicue state mirrors Chicano history, or if the Coatlicue state is linked to Aztec spirituality. Furthermore, Anzaldua*s racial definition of Chicano identity necessarily implies the genetic transmission of "Chicanoness" or "Mexicanness, " however these terms may be defined, and, therefore, the existence of an essential difference between Chicanos and other "racial” groups. The fact that Anzaldua herself does not emphasize the exclusive character of her conceptualization of Chicano (and Mexican) identity in racial terms, and ultimately attempts to include other ethnic/racial groups within her definition of a "new mestiza, " is ultimately irrelevant. To define a group in racial terms is assume that there is an "essence" or a specific set of inheritable and defining traits that are linked biologically to the group. To define Chicanos in racial and, therefore, exclusive terms, contradicts Anzaldua's extension of her experience as a Chicana, and her analysis of Chicano identity and history, to other ethnic groups. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 244 Another of the paradoxes of Borderlands/La Frontera is its identification of the Coatlicue state with Anzaldua' s purported mystical experiences . " ' s‘ It is difficult to know whether to read these experiences as referential or allegorical. While she insists throughout her descriptions on the "reality" of these mystical experiences--"Like many Indians and Mexicans, I did not deem my psychic experiences as real" (36)--and of her acceptance of their reality being part of her spiritual growth, these mystical experiences defy rationality. However, she also writes about the "new mestiza" and, therefore, about herself in terms that put into question the reality of these same experiences. For the new mestiza "reinterprets history and, using new symbols, she shapes new myths" (82). It becomes, therefore, possible to read these experiences as allegories for the "border" psychological experience. Read from a logical and rational perspective Borderlands/La Frontera is a profoundly contradictory text. However, this perspective is external to the text. Anzaldua is dismissive of what she denominates "white rationality" 2s" Anzaldua's use of Aztec mythology has puzzled at least one other critic. Spitta, in her highly laudatory study of Borderlands. wonders "what connection does a Chicana from the Rio Grande have (really) to pre-Hispanic Mexican deities?” (212) . The obvious answer is of course that the link between Anzaldua and Coatlicue is experiential. As we have seen, throughout Borderlands Anzaldua recounts her experiences with serpents--an animal which she declares to her "tono." that is, to be spiritually related to her--which are associated with Coatlicue, as well as her mystical experiences of the "Coatlicue state." However, can one actually accept Anzaldua’s descriptions as being literally true' (A question that is probably implicit in the “really" used by Spitta in the passage above). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 245 that she identifies with the objectivization of people and things that underlies the control and exploitation of non- Westem people (36-37) . Moreover, as we have seen, Anzaldua explicitly presents her writings as "mythic," that is as ■ ) v ^ bypassing and resisting rational analysis." Like the "Coatlicue state," Borderlands/La Frontera embraces contradiction. This is an anti-rational text that attempts to theorize the Chicano condition. This is a text written in both English and Spanish, and directed to both Chicano and "multicultural" readers. And ultimately. Borderlands/La Frontera attempts to be both a reaffirmation of Chicano identity and a prediction of a multicultural utopia. But despite, probably because of, its contradictions it has become influential among scholars from disparate backgrounds and interests. But an additional reason for the relevance of Anzaldua's text is that the central tension between her emphasis on a specific Chicano identity and a more generalized "borderland" or new mestiza/o identity, mirrors the contradictions and debates within "multiculturalism" itself. Whether one identifies multiculturalism's two main tendencies as "hard left" and "liberal pluralist," or "difference" and "critical," or "hard" and "weak,"284 the fact is that it is possible to divide the proponents of multiculturalism between :8> In this, as in many other aspects, Anzaldua is a true disciple of Vasconcelos who also couched his reflections in mythic and non-rational terms, and who successfully created the "myth" of the "cosmic race." 284 Gates 205; Turner 408; Goldberg 16. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 246 those who emphasize ethnic and racial identity over commonality, and those who stress the modification of the public culture so as to include the best elements, values, and achievements of "people of color. " However, this common public culture is--due to the hegemony of "Anglo" American culture throughout the United States and the influence of European and "Anglo" culture throughout the world--at its core mainly of European origin. (The centrality of "Anglo" culture is evidenced, in Anzaldua's case, by the evident superiority of her English over her Spanish). But in fact, "Anglo" cultural hegemony is precisely the necessary condition for the rise of "hard" or "difference" multiculturalism. It is precisely because minority identities are threatened by the pressure to assimilate fully that "difference" multicultural ism arises. But this centrality of "Anglo” culture is but a sign of the solidity of the United States as a nation that is paradoxically reflected in multicultural ism's frequent lack of concern with national identity. Unlike Latin American intellectuals that often had to imagine their nations in the face of what must have seemed nearly insurmountable divisions, multiculturalism has developed within a political, cultural, and social environment in which the existence of a : i i 5 Henry Louis Gates, himself a noted proponent of " liberal puralist " multiculturalism, describes the goal of this position, in the following words: "the challenge facing America in the next century will be the shaping, at long last, of a truly common public culture, one responsive to the long-silenced cultures of color" (205) . R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. relatively unified United States is an undeniable fact. Therefore, in the context in which the diverse multicultural proposals are presented, an emphasis in group identity no longer contradicts the nation. Underlying the different factions in which multiculturalism is divided is the presence of an implicit "Anglo" national commonality regardless of the explicit positions presented. In fact, there is one moment in which the national dimension of Anzaldua's analysis becomes evident. In a particularly surprising passage, Anzaldua addresses a presumed "Anglo” reader: "Admit that Mexico is your double, that she exists in the shadow of this country, that we are irrevocably tied to her. Gringo, accept the doppelganger in your psyche. By taking back your collective shadow the intracultural split will heal" (86). Even if Anzaldua's definition of a new (U.S.) American psyche is, in appearance, a denial of national autonomy--since Mexico is described as being part of this new psyche--this quotation illustrates the degree to which Anzaldua's variant of multiculturalism tacitly incorporates the specific social situation of the United States into its proposals. In fact, this passage can be interpreted as proposing a new definition of the United States one in which Chicano and "Anglo" can find a common national ground by healing the "intracultural split." Borderlands/La Frontera not only predicts a future global utopia based on the incorporation of cultural alterity, but R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 248 also proposes a new definition of what it means to be (U.S.) American. Needless to say, by incorporating alterity, by healing the intracultural split, this new version of the nation would reconcile heterogeneity and national identity in a manner that reminds one of mestizaje. And the question that arises is whether this "healing" can be achieved without privileging the majority "Anglo" culture. Borderlands/La Frontera is, therefore, a complex and contradictory example of the manner in which the discourse of mestizaje, and the problematics associated it with, survive even in the "age of multiculturalism." But Anzaldua's writings are far from being the only instance of the intersection between mestizaje and multiculturalism. For the writings of Richard Rodriguez, a very different "Mexican- American" intellectual, provide another example of the manner in which mestizaje may serve as a starting point for the interpretation of the multicultural and transnational reality of the late twentieth century. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 249 Chapter 7 Richard Rodriguez: Mestizaje in the Age of Multiculturalism (II) Richard Rodriguez286 is a dissident from the Chicano intellectual tradition. In the eyes of some, he has made his reputation by criticizing the policies that the Chicano movement fought for--such as bilingual education and affirmative action--and the "racial” basis that underlies much Chicano identity thinking. Moreover while many Chicano or Mexican-American intellectuals are critical of the treatment of minorities in the United States and of the (U.S.) American foreign policy towards Latin America and Mexico, Rodriguez generally celebrates the society and history of the United States. For Rodriguez, as he states in his essay the "The New Native Americans," "The United States is the preeminent world power, undisputed cultural force, the inventor, the tongue, the glamour of the world" (n.p.). Given Rodriguez's break with the Mexican-American intellectual tradition, there is a certain measure of irony in the fact that he has become one of the best known Mexican American writers at the century's end. In fact, one could describe Rodriguez as the first Mexican American intellectual of the multimedia age, writing books--such as Hunger of Memory:The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982) and Days of Obligation: An Argument with mv Mexican Father (1992)-- 2Sh Throughout the essay I use the author's own unaccented spelling of his name. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 250 presenting television essays on PBS's Newshour with Jim Lehrer. and disseminating his essays not only in major magazines and newspapers, but also in cyberspace. An additional irony can be found in the fact that Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982) has rapidly become a central work in what could be termed the U.S. Latino literary canon.2X7 Not only has Rodriguez become recognized as a significant Mexican-American intellectual while arguably rejecting most of the tenets that characterize Mexican- American and Chicano thought, but Rodriguez's autobiography has become a major text in Chicano and U.S. Latino literature despite the fact that it explicitly denies the validity of the concept of ethnic identity that underlies the creation of alternative canons. Throughout Hunger of Memory. Rodriguez, rather than defining himself as "Chicano" or even "Mexican- American, describes himself as a "middle-class American 's' The following quotation from Gustavo Perez-Firmat ’ s ''Richard Rodriguez [sic] and the Art of Abstraction" makes the same point: "In the decade and a half since its publication, this small volume has become a fixture in course syllabi and ethnic anthologies" (255) . "! ! S The distinction between Chicano and Mexican-American as names used oy or applied to the population in the United States having Mexican ancestors is an important topic among Chicano intellectuals. According to Tino Villanueva, the use of the term Chicano “supone tanto una ruptura con la mentalidad de generaciones pasadas como un desafio a las designaciones estatales y clasificaciones oficialistas de Washington que a lo largo del siglo XX se les venian aplicando a dichos ciudadanos: Latin Americans. Spanish Americans, o bien Spanish-speaking (hispanoparlantes), Spanish surnamed (de apellido espanoi) o Mexican Americans" (16; “implies a rupture with the mentality of previous generations as well as a challenge to the state designations and official classifications of Washington that throughout the twentieth century have been applied to these citizens: Latin Americans. Spanish Americans. Spanish-soeakina. Spanish surnamed. or Mexican Americans" ; ) . And Gloria Anzaldua notes that "We call ourselves Mexican-American to signify we are neither Mexican nor American, but more the noun R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 251 man" (3). Rather than celebrating the achievements, values, and experiences that define the Chicano and Mexican-American experience, Rodriguez celebrates the much disparaged notion of assimilation. The opposition between Rodriguez and the majority of Chicano intellectuals and activists is, however, much less clear-cut in his essays written after Hunger of Memory. While Rodriguez does not waver in his opposition to bilingual education and affirmative action, nor does he abandon his belief in the benefits of full assimilation into mainstream "Anglo" American society and culture, these later essays show significant points of contact with traditional Chicano perspectives. Rodriguez's writings after Hunger of Memory recuperate topics associated with the Chicano conceptualization of the "raza” and with Spanish-American American mestizaje that underlies much Mexican American thought. In fact, it is possible to argue that Rodriguez’s writings have evolved from the rejection of mestizaje, and the Latino/Mexican/Chicano identities which it grounds, in Hunger of Memory, to an original and surprising appropriation of Latin American, Mexican, and Chicano intellectual traditions in the essays written after his autobiography. But even in his first and most assimilationist text, Hunger of Memory, there are passages that contradict his stated identification as a non-ethnic middle class American. 'American' than the adjective 'Mexican' (and when copping out)" (62). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. In fact, Rodriguez's sense of difference from the middle class America celebrated throughout his autobiography is indirectly stated in the first sentences of the book: "I have taken Caliban’s advice. I have stolen their books. I will have a run of this isle" (3). In this passage, Rodriguez, frequently considered to be a conservative writer, repeats the appropriation of and identification with the figure of Caliban practiced by radical Latin American writers such as Roberto Fernandez Retamar, the director of the Casa de las Americas and the "official” voice of the Cuban revolution in cultural matters. :8 l > Rodriguez's assumption of a "calibanesque" identity can also be read, however, as representing a lingering sense of difference between himself and a middle class America implicitly equated with Prospero. Unlike his putative "middle class American, " Rodriguez describes (U.S.) American books and, implicitly, culture, as "their[s]" rather than "our[s].“ In this passage he describes his relationship to (U.S.) American culture as theft, that is as based on the appropriation by force or cunning of what is not rightfully his. The significance of Rodriguez's inability to claim the rightful property of "American books" becomes even more poignant if one considers the role literature plays throughout his autobiography. In Hunger of Memory. Rodriguez’s assimilation into the (U.S.) American middle class is based on his contact with the Critics have noted the paradoxical nature of Rodriguez's temporary identification with Caliban. See Saldivar 26; Perez Firmat 257. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 253 "Western canon" as prescribed by his elementary school teachers.21,0 "Books were going to make me 'educated'" he declares (61). And within the context of Rodriguez's autobiography, to become "educated" is to become assimilated. It is not accidental that Hunger of Memory, a text that can be read as a defense of assimilation, is subtitled The Education of Richard Rodriguez. ! However, Rodriguez's identification with Caliban and his inability to see (U.S.) American books as properly his can be read as representing a lingering difference from "middle class" America that still haunts Rodriguez in Hunger of Memory, despite his claims to being perfectly "educated" and, therefore, assimilated. He even provides Che reader with a list of books provided by his elementary school teachers and read with fervor by the young Rodriguez: " So I read and I read and I read: Great Expectations; all the short stories of Kipling; The Babe Ruth Storv; the entire first volume of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica (A-Anstey) ; the Iliad: Mobv Dick: Gone with the Wind; The Good Earth, - Ramona; Forever Amber; The Lives of the Saints ; Crime and Punishment; The Pearl . . " (61). The subtitle is an obvious reference to a classic in (U.S.) American literature: The Education of Henrv Adams (1907). While one can interpret this intertextual reference to an '•American” canonical w o r . - - . Rodriguez's part as a sign of his assimilation, this is clearly a polysemic gesture. It is equally valid to see in Rodriguez's se 1 f - comparison to Henry Adams's work an ironic touch that foregrounds m s own distance from the (U.S.) American identity he explicitly celebrates. Rodriguez, unlike Adams, does not belong to the most distinguished family in (U.S.) American history, but is the children of Mexican migrants. It is impossible to imagine someone like Adams having "hunger of memory.” Furthermore, while Rodriguez presents his life story as a (contradictory) story of success--if Hunger of Memory is not a "rags t_ riches” story, it is a Spanish to English one--The Education of Henrv Adams presents the protagonist and, through himself, "American civilization,” even humanity as a whole, as a "failure." (It is not accidental that Adams well-known chapter “A Dynamic Theory of History" -- an attempt at recounting humankind's story--concludes with the image of a modern "man of science” "as bewildered and helpless" [958]) . However, the fact that throughout Hunger of Memory's celebration of assimilation there is a parallel sense of loss that culminates in Rodriguez's alienation from his family may indicate that the reference to Adam's work was chosen precisely because of the different and contradictory meanings that could be assigned to the relationship between both works. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 254 But in Rodriguez's essays written after Hunger of Memory the sense of difference from middle class America intermittently present in his autobiography becomes much more marked. He discovers Mexico as a land central to his identity, and assumes a Mexican-American and even an Indian identity. Also, he discovers the Spanish-American intellectual tradition of mestizaje. While this transformation should not be seen as originating in a conversion on Rodriguez's part to the Chicano discourse of Aztlan and "La Raza," it is significant that mestizaje should play a role in his attempt to understand the increasing plurality of cultures and ethnicities present in the United States. If Hunger of Memory is a narrative of assimilation into a culturally homogeneous "middle class America,” Rodriguez's essays written after Hunger of Memory present a United States that is changing as it assimilates large numbers of immigrants from Latin America and Asia. And there is no doubt that Rodriguez ascribes great significance to this moment of cultural change; "We are facing in the United States," Rodriguez claims, "a moment as epic as that in 1492 when the Indian spied the European galleons on the horizon" ("The New Native Americans" n.p.). Out of the tradition of Spanish American mestizaje, Rodriguez singles out Jose Vasconcelos's concept of the "cosmic race.”292 According to Vasconcelos the "mission" of 292 Given Rodriguez's celebration of the United States, his interest in Vasconcelos is rather surprising. The Mexican's writings are basically R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 255 Latin America was to give birth to the synthesis of all races, the "cosmic race": En la America espahola ya no repetira la naturaleza uno de sus ensayos parciales lo que va a salir es la raza definitiva, la raza sintesis o raza integral, hecha con el genio y con la sangre de todos los pueblos y, por lo mismo, mas capaz de verdadera fraternidad y de vision realmente universal. (98-99) [In Spanish America, nature will not repeat one of its partial experiments . . . what will arise is the definitive race, the synthesis of all races, the integrated race, built out of the genius and the blood of all people and, therefore, capable of true fraternity and universal vision.] While Vasconcelos sees in Mexico and Latin America the seedlings of this cosmic race--because of the presence of white, Indian, black, and even Asian, groups--he is describing, even prophesying, a future utopia where miscegenation becomes the biological basis of a universal fraternity.293 "anti-North American, “ along the lines of the Uruguayan essayist Jose Enrique Rodo who believed in the spiritual superiority of Spanish America over the material wealth of the United States. Ir. Vasconcelos' s version of this criticism, the superiority of Spanish .America is based on the openness of the Spanish Conquerors and their descendants - t : > . Amerindian and black populations. It is important to note that Vasconcelos has frequently been interpreted by Mexican American intellectuals as a theorist of national mestizaje. Even Richard Rodriguez writes, in Davs of Obligation. “In Mexico the European and the Indian consorted. The ravishment of fabulous Tenochtitlan ended in a marriage of blood--a 'cosmic race.' the Mexican philosopher Jose Vasconcelos has called it" (13). Another example of this Mexican American misreading of Vasconcelos's cosmic race can be found in the article by Henry Staten "Ethnic Authenticity, Class, and Autobiography: The Case of Hunger of Memory" (105). One of the peculiar ironies of this Mexican American interpretation of Vasconcelos's work is that the population actually singled out by the Mexican writer as best prefiguring what the cosmic race would be is that of Brazil (La raza cosmica 101-02). La raza cosmica is, after all, not only a mystical vision into the future of Latin America, but also a record of Vasconcelos's travels in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. In his essays written after Hunger of Memory. Rodriguez finds in Vasconcelos' s "cosmic race” a theoretical framework, within which to explain contemporary (U.S.) American reality. In his essay "Native Americans," there is a clear exposition of Vasconcelos’s relevance to the analysis of the United States of the nineties. "It was Jose Vasconcelos, the Mexican philosopher, who celebrated the Mexican as 'la raza cosmica,' the prophetic achievement of the Americas. In California now it is happening. Africa is meeting Asia. America is discovering the Americas" (n.p.) A meeting between areas of the world that is not seen by Rodriguez as being exclusively cultural--although, as we will see, Rodriguez gives great importance to intercultural connection--but also biological: "Everywhere. . . there are signs of a new world forming. Children are being born in Los Angeles, of two, three, four, races who look exactly like none of their grandparents. They are beautiful children" ("The New Native Americans" n.p.). Among these beautiful "cosmic" children, he mentions Keanu Reeves and Tiger Woods. Needless to say, the above is a literal description of Vasconcelos's "cosmic race," presented, however, not as a prophecy to be fulfilled, but as a reality taking place before our eyes. Rodriguez, therefore, resorts to Vasconcelos precisely because, according to the Mexican-American writer, the reality of the United States not only repeats the racial and cultural history of mestizaje of Mexico and Latin America, but because R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 257 the United States has the potential of taking mestizaje further to its "cosmic" stage by bringing together even more diverse populations. It is therefore not accidental that after Hunger of Memory--particularly in Davs of Obligation-- Mexican society, culture and history become the focus of many of Rodriguez’s essays. For Mexico--and to a lesser degree Latin America as a whole--becomes, as Rodriguez is fond of saying, a "prophetic example" (Davs of Obligation 24) .‘‘ M As Rodriguez states in Davs of Obligation. "Mexico initiated the task of the twenty first century--the renewal of the old, the known world through miscegenation" (24-25). For Rodriguez, what Mexico is, the United States is becoming. But if Mexico is the "prophetic example," what is this example like? What aspects of Mexican history and society are relevant to Rodriguez's analysis of the contemporary society of the United States? What is surprising is that Rodriguez's version of Mexican history presents mestizaje as the victory of the Indian in the encounter with the Spanish. In Davs of Obligation. Rodriguez describes Mexico in terms that make clear this triumph of the Indian: "Mexico is littered with the shells and skulls of Spain, cathedrals, poems, and the limbs of orange trees. But everywhere you look in this great museum of Spain you see living Indians. Where are the conquistadores?" (23). Therefore, Mexico becomes for Rodriguez synonymous with the Indian. Despite : ‘ 14 Rodriguez makes a similar reference to Mexico in "The New Native Americans” as “the prophetic nation of the Americas" (n.p.). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 258 his opposition to "chicanismo," one can find in Rodriguez's idea of a a racially uniform Mexico an uncanny parallel with the Chicano notion of "la raza," that is of the existence of a clearly distinguishable Mexican race. But Rodriguez not only describes Indians as the victors in their encounter with the Spanish, a surprising interpretation given the well-known history of brutality that characterized the conquest of the New World, he also describes Indians as the initiators of the contact with the Europeans: In October 1492, the day Columbus arrived, imagining himself to be in the Orient Indians approached. It is true that from their contact with the European, the tribe of Indians that greeted Columbus would die of the plague. . . . But do not miss the point: the Indian was curious, unafraid of the future. ("The New Native Americans" n.p.) In Rodriguez's historical narrative, it is the openness of the Indians to the new, their curiosity--whether expressed in sexual desire for the European colonizers, or in the appropriation of European culture and religion--that explain the mestizo culture and population of Mexico. For Rodriguez the Indian through miscegenation absorbs the European, not the other way around. By emphasizing the agency of the Indian, Rodriguez contradicts most versions of Mexico’s history--a fact he is well aware off. 295 In El laberinto de la soledad. for :' , s In Davs of Obligation Rodriguez notes: "El fatalismo del Indio :s dr. important Mexican philosophical theme; the phrase is trusted to conjure the quality of Indian passivity as well as to initiate debate about R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 5 9 instance, Octavio Paz describes Marina/Malinche, identified with the mythical "La Chingada,” as "abject passivity" (77) .296 But in Rodriguez's version of this archetypal story of Mexican mestizaje, Marina/Malinche is the seducer of Spain, not a victim or stooge (Davs of Obligation 23). It is this Indian capacity and desire for assimilation and incorporation that becomes central in Rodriguez's analyses. Moreover, the Indian does not belong to a mythical space or historical past, but, on the contrary constitutes for Rodriguez the great majority of the Mexican population, a population that is still open to the new, still assimilating into and incorporating modernity not only in Mexico but also in the United States: The Indian stands in the same relationship to modernity as she did to Spain--willing to marry, to breed, to disappear in order to ensure her inclusion in time, refusing to absent herself from the future. The Indian has chosen to survive, to consort with the living, to live in the city, to crawl on her hands and knees, if need be, to Mexico City or L.A. (Davs of Obligation 24) In what some may view as a paradoxical gesture, Rodriguez, the staunch defender of assimilation, identifies strongly with the Indian: "I take it as an Indian achievement that I am alive, that I am Catholic, that I speak English, that I am an American. My life began, it did not end, in the sixteenth century" (24). Mexico's reluctant progress toward modernization” (2). 2‘ > f t Comparing "La Chingada" with the Virgin of Guadalupe, Paz states: "La Chingada es aun mas pasiva. Su pasividad es abyecta" (77; "The Chingada is even more passive. Her passivity is abject," 85). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 260 Rodriguez's identification with the Indian can also be interpreted as a development of the temporary identification with Caliban in his autobiography.: 4 7 In Hunger of Memory. Rodriguez masquerading as Shakespeare's Indian appropriates European culture, while in Davs of Obligation. Indians are described as having made theirs the Catholic religion and language (20, 24). However, if Caliban's appropriation of "Prospero's books" is described as theft, that is as illegal ownership, the Indians in Davs of Obligation have fully naturalized their assimilation of European culture. Significantly, the Indian described and praised in Rodriguez's work is not the sophisticated and powerful Aztec who built great pyramids, nor the mythic population of Aztlan--the reputed origin of the Aztecs--but rather the anonymous, even modest, survivor of the Spanish Colonial days and of the present. It is characteristic of Rodriguez's disdain for the mythological and mythicized Indian of traditional historiography that the only "historical" Indians studied in any detail in Davs of Obligation--apart from the archetypal Malinche--are the anonymous builders and almost forgotten "pupils" of the California Missions. In Davs of Obligation he refers to the archaeological remains of Pre- ~'n Rodriguez again mentions The Tempest in Davs of Obligation: "European vocabularies do not have a silence rich enough to describe the force within Indian contemplation. Only Shakespeare understood that Indians have eyes. Shakespeare saw Caliban eyeing his master's books--well, why not his master as well? The same dumb lust" (23). In this passage Rodriguez again underscores the relationship between cultural assimilation--or appropriation, for him both terms seem synonymous--and sexual desire that is present in his use of Vasconcelos's "cosmic race." R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 6 1 Columbian Civilizations as "the suffocating debris of the Ancients" (12). However, while Rodriguez has assigned historical agency to the Indian--uniike many of the writers of the Spanish American tradition--this privileging of the Indian has been achieved precisely by presenting a version of history freed from class, ethnic, or cultural contradiction. As we have seen, Rodriguez's version of the Spanish conquest of Mexico avoids any mention of brutality or even opposition between Indians and Spaniards. There are no oppressed or oppressors in Rodriguez's view of the world. A similar non-problematic version of social events is present in Rodriguez's analysis of contemporary attitudes toward immigration when he designates illegal immigrants (whom he calls Indians) with the new "conquistadors," and of "Anglo" or native born (U.S.) Americans with the "new native Americans": "In this new pageant of history, the blond becomes the new Native American; the Indian plays the part of the conquistador, the stranger" ("The New Native Americans" n.p.). For unlike the "old" conquistadors who quickly took control of the Indian civilizations by force, illegal immigrants lack any type of political power in the United States and belong economically to the lowest strata of society. While Rodriguez by designating illegal immigrants as conquistadors is stressing the fact that a multicultural and multiethnic society is inevitably replacing the R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 262 previously Anglo dominant (U.S.) American society, he is also obscuring the economic and social inequality between these groups. One can interpret Rodriguez’s essays written after Hunger of Memory, particularly Davs of Obligation, as the discovery of the "memory" Rodriguez had both rejected and desired in his autobiography, and which he replaced by the assimilation of (U.S.) American middle class values. One can equate this memory with a sense of identity grounded in a specific group, as well as individual, history linked not only to the figure of the Indian but also to the country he identifies with the Indian: Mexico. Davs of Obligation, therefore, shows Rodriguez moving from the rejection of a Mexican ethnic identity that characterized Hunger of Memory to an ambiguous identification of the country and its culture with his own personal background: "If I were to show you Mexico, I would take you home; with the greatest reluctance I would take you home, where family snapshots crowd upon the mantel" (55). It is not accidental that the man who in Hunger of Memory had denied any value to ethnicity, reluctantly, critically, describes himself in Davs of Obligation as being Mexican-American: “I end up arguing about bilingualism with other Mexican Americans, middle class like myself. As I am. my father's son, I am skeptical, like Mexico; I play the heavy, which is to say I play America" (67). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 26 This passage, one of several in which Rodriguez displays his uneasy identification as a Mexican-American, is representative of the manner in which identity is presented in his essays written after Hunger of Memory. While he accepts the Mexican aspects of his identity this is not seen as a rejection of his American identity: he can be "like Mexico" and "play America.” Moreover, the phrase "I am skeptical like Mexico" presents Rodriguez as sharing traits which he associates with the country of his ancestors. However, there is also present in this phrase an implied distance: Rodriguez is "like Mexico," he is not "Mexican." And the phrase "like Mexico" can also be seen as describing Rodriguez's Mexican-American identity. Rodriguez, while he now accepts his Mexican background as relevant to a definition of who he is, still believes in an "American" commonality capable of including ethnic difference. However, his description of himself "playing America" marks a similar distance from his native country. Rodriguez is not "America" or "American" but rather plays, one could even say performs, at being America or American. Paradoxically, one can find in this "performance" an echo of "Mexicanness." For, according to Paz's El laberinto de la soledad, "Viejo o adolescente, criollo o mestizo, general, obrero o licenciado, el mexicano se me parece como un ser que se encierra y se preserva: mascara el rostro y mascara la sonrisa" (26; "The Mexican, whether young or old, criollo or R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. mestizo, general or laborer, seems to me to be a person who shuts himself away to protect himself: his face is a mask and so is his smile," 29). According to Paz's reflections, by donning the masks of "America" (and Mexico), Rodriguez is also exhibiting "mexicanidad” defined in terms of "masks,” performance, simulation, and mimicry.2‘ , s Ultimately, in Rodriguez’s writings there is no contradiction between "Mexico" and "America." His assumption of a Mexican- American identity is described as being based on the possibility of moving from one to the other "national" pole--"like Mexico," "play America." But the compatibility of the United States and Mexico is also grounded in Rodriguez's "Indian" identity. For Rodriguez, unlike most Chicano intellectuals, the assumption of the "Indianness" which underlies Mexico implies the justification of assimilation. One must remember that he describes the fact that he is an "American” and speaks English as an "Indian triumph." Therefore, the "memory" that is reclaimed in Rodriguez’s writings after Hunger of Memory is precisely a history of biological and cultural mestizaje that is equated with the capacity for survival by assimilation. Mexican and Indian history validate Rodriguez's personal choices and political beliefs. If the Chicana intellectual Gloria Anzaldua claims that her identity was based on the Indian 2"8 The influence of Paz's El laberinto de la soledad on the self- representation of Rodriguez in Hunger of Memory has been analyzed by Tomas Rivera (10) and Perez Firmat (262). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 6 5 women's history of resistance (21), Rodriguez could claim that his identity is based on the Indian's history of assimilation. Ultimately, it is he who is being authentically Mexican/Indian by emphasizing the need to assimilate, while the proponents of Chicanismo are merely the imitators of black activists: "Mexican-American political activists . . . insisted on a rough similarity between the two societies--black , Chicano--ignoring any complex factor of history or race that might disqualify the equation” (65) . By forgetting history--to be more exact, Rodriguez's version of history--Mexican American political activists are described as implicitly betraying their vaunted "Mexicanness,” for one must remember that, according to Rodriguez, "Mexico is memory" (73). Therefore, mestizaje, in Rodriguez's later writings, fulfills its traditional function of providing a sense of identity. However, in Rodriguez's case, this identity is primarily individual, as mestizaje and the Indian are used to justify his own position within the Mexican American/Chicano community, as well as his political proposals. But, by equating the Indian with assimilation, Rodriguez has turned the traditional discourse of mestizaje on its head. For if the use of mestizaje in Spanish American thought originates, in part, in the capacity of the figure of the Indian to ground national and group identities constructed as independent from those of the former metropolis, Rodriguez R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 6 6 defines the Indian in terms of complementarity to Spain and the United States. The history of the Indian, rather than being seen as that of a resistance to colonialism, becomes that of an embrace of the foreign and of survival by means of that embrace. Mestizaje becomes, therefore, in Rodriguez’s writings, fully compatible with an (U.S) American identity described-- like mestizaje, like the Indian--as capable of accepting and incorporating even the most extreme diversity: "To argue for a common culture is not to propose an exclusionary culture or a static culture. The classroom is always adding to the common text, because America is a dynamic society" (170) . Moreover: "There is a discernible culture, a river, a thread, connecting Thomas Jefferson to Lucille Ball to Malcolm X to Sitting Bull” (172). Mestizaje in Rodriguez's version makes explicit this "cultural connection" providing an intellectual framework within which the new social realities facing (U.S.) American culture and identity can be understood and assimilated. Mestizaje is compatible with the evolution of (U.S.) America, not its subversion. For Rodriguez the cultural modification of (U.S.) American culture is linked to a parallel change in the racial composition of the country. For Rodriguez, a true and permanent cultural assimilation is linked at its core to miscegenation, to mestizaje. As he states in his essay "The Fear of Losing a Culture" about the relationship between R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. "Hispanic Americans" and "Anglo Americans": "Expect marriage. We will change America even as we will be changed. We will disappear with you into a new miscegenation" (474). But in the majority of Rodriguez's essays this "future" has actually begun. Rodriguez believes, therefore, in a present in which the "cosmic race” is making racial classifications obsolete and in which a common, but dynamic (U.S.) American culture, is incorporating and assimilating the best of the different ethnic cultures into itself; a national culture that while still linked to its "Anglo” American roots has been open to modification. It is possible to interpret Rodriguez's writings after Hunger of Memory as presenting a version of what has been called "liberal pluralist," ’ ’critical," or "weak" multiculturalism.2'^. For what defines this variant of multiculturalism is its belief that it is possible to achieve a common national culture based on the integration of cultural elements from the diverse groups present in the "American" population. Rodriguez's belief in a flexible and inclusive culture capable of encompassing such dissimilar figures as Lucille Ball and Sitting Bull is a clear example of this aspect of multicultural thought. However, what Rodriguez's work also exemplifies is the congruency between some variants of multiculturalism and mestizaje. Both "liberal pluralist" multiculturalism and Spanish American 2 ‘ , “ See above 28-29, 218. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 268 mestizaje, after all, emphasize che need to create a common culture out of heterogeneity. This position, needless to say, is fully consistent with Rodriguez's opposition to bilingual education and affirmative action. Mesclzaje, iz can be argued, proposes the fusion of the different ethnic groups, not the perpetuation of their sense of difference. However, a price is paid in order to propose a unified national culture out of what were different even antagonistic groups. The price is the simplification of historical fact and the elimination of antagonism from history. Only by emptying history of its contradictions can Sitting Bull, an Indian leader whose life was spent resisting the encroachment of the United States on Sioux territory, and who was killed by the (U.S.) American Army for refusing to acquiesce to the loss of Indian lands, become an example of the inclusiveness of (U.S.) American culture. Of course, this complete misrepresentation of Sitting Bull's historical role is fully consistent with Rodriguez's identification of Indians with assimilation.3 00 We have already seen how Rodriguez's analysis of the There are some mentions of unassimiiated Indians in Rodriguez's works, but they are without exception presented as negative. For instance, Rodriguez seems to claim that the Indian was given two choices in the "early post-Columbian centuries": "retreat (the reservation model) or engagement with history" ("The New Native Americans" n.p.i. Rodriguez goes on to praise the choice of Mexican Indians to survive by learning Spanish, becoming Catholic, marrying with the Spanish, and ultimately "conquering." On the other hand, the "reservation model" seems to lead, in Rodriguez's writings, not only to a dead end, but to the virtual disappearance of Indians. Rodriguez writes about the “dead Indian" being celebrated by Hollywood and environmentalists ("The Mew Native Americans"). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. "Conquest of Mexico" subordinates the story of the military, economic, and cultural struggle between the Indian and the Spaniard to one of assimilation and mestizaje. In Rodriguez's interpretation of history, the Spanish are described almost exclusively as passive source of cultural material, while the Indian becomes a representation of social plasticity, of the capacity of social groups to assimilate new ideas and change in response to new social conditions. Moreover, Rodriguez practically excludes from his writings the unassimilated Indian, except for the brief mention of the "reservation model” as the other option to "engagement with history" offered to the Indian in post-Columbian years ("The New Native Americans" n.p.), or the mention of the presumed fact that "In New England the European and the Indian drew apart to regard each other with suspicion over centuries" (Davs of Obligation 13). (Needless to say these passages, again, exhibit Rodriguez frictionless vision of history. It is the Indians, who exercising their free will, decide whether to accept or refuse Western culture). From his perspective, the unassimilated Indian is a contradiction in terms. The non-assimilated Indian is even described as the "dead Indian" "sentimentalized" by Hollywood and the "environmentalists"("The New Native Americans n.p.),'"' or, as we have seen in the case of Sitting Bull, assimilated post mortem in Rodriguez’s analysis. sin ■■'Today Hollywood sentimentalizes the dead Indian. Environmentalists have turned the dead Indian into a mascot” (“The New Native Americans"). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 27C But not only is the Indian equated with assimilation and the acceptance of change. There is an element of abstraction in Rodriguez's conceptualization of the Indian, who almost becomes a floating signifier to which he assigns different meanings in his writings. If Rodriguez criticizes Chicano intellectuals for their essentializing of race, in his work race and ethnicity have no stable meaning. As his constant descriptions of the Mexican population as Indian make clear, for Rodriguez, the mestizo is described as Indian. And, as we have seen, the Indian represents assimilation and modernity. But, on occasion, he also equates the Amerindian with the Asian Indian: "The Indian is forever implicated in the roundness of the world. America was the false India, the mistaken India, and yet veritable India, for all that . . ." (Davs of Obligation 7) . And: "What was India, I pondered, but another Mexico. Indians in both places" (226). It is symptomatic of Rodriguez's peculiar identification of the Amerindian with the Asian Indian and of Mexico with India, that the first chapter of Davs of Obligation, which deals with his first impressions of Mexico, is titled "India." Rodriguez's equation of Mexico with India, and of the Amerindian with the Asian Indian, links Mexico with the otherness frequently associated with India (and Asia as a whole) by "Orientalist" discourse. While Rodriguez is perfectly aware of the arbitrariness of the identification of the Indian (both Asian and American) with an "otherness" that R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. is to be found only "in the European descriptions of Indians" (7), the topic of Mexican and Indian (both American and Asian) "otherness" is a thematic thread that runs through Davs of Obligation. According to Rodriguez, to the traditionally individualistic (U.S.) American society "Hispanics and Asians represent . . . the alternatives of communal cultures at a time when Americans are demoralized" (171). (And one must remember that a majority of "Hispanics" are Mexican or Mexican-American and, therefore, Indians). Similarly, Mexico is not only the land where the Indian assimilated, practiced mestizaje, and survived. It is also an abstraction: "tragedy,” the knowledge that "old men know more than young men; that life will break your heart; that death finally is the vantage point from which a life must be seen" (xvi). On the other hand, the United States for Rodriguez is "comedy" in the sense of "a world where youth is not a fruitless metaphor; where it is possible to start anew" (xvi). Rodriguez's evolution from an exclusively (U.S.) American identity to a Mexican American one, is, in Davs of Obligation. presented as an evolution in his ora personal vision from seeing life from an optimistic, "comedic," point of view to having a darker, more pessimistic, perspective: "The youth of my life was defined by Protestant optimism. Now that I am middle-aged, I incline more toward the Mexican point of view, though some part of me continues to resist the cynical conclusions of Mexico" (xvii). (But "tragedy" and R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2^2 "comedy" are also dramatic genres, "masks" that Richard Rodriguez puts on as he "plays” at being [U.S.] America or Mexico). Davs of Obligation is, however, more than an analysis of Mexico or the United States. Rodriguez’s text also narrates the author's search for a personal identity. It can, therefore, be read as a continuation of his autobiography. Hunger of Memory. What is significant is that this search ultimately resorts to mestizaje and specifically to the Indian as the ground on which a history which justifies and shapes personal identity is based. And, as we have seen, it is in his individualism that Rodriguez, like other Mexican American writers, modifies the tradition of mestizaje that in most Spanish American writers tends to ground principally the creation of national or group identities. Rodriguez uses an interpretation of history based on mestizaje in order to justify his own personal choices and positions. Despite the importance in his writings and thought of his analyses of Mexican history, there is in Rodriguez's writings little interest in providing specific definitions of Chicano or Mexican-American identity as distinct from (U.S.) American or, for that matter, Mexican populations. In fact, Rodriguez's emphasis on the Indians' assimilationism precludes the postulation of any differentiated identity. For Rodriguez, the Indians' identity is precisely the R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 7 3 infinite capacity to adapt and change; in other words, their identity is precisely the absence of any fixed identity. However, this lack of interest in separate group identities, does not imply a parallel disinterest in contemporary social and political reality. On the contrary, his own personal identity, grounded in his interpretation of Mexican and Indian history, becomes the basis for his later analyses of contemporary social reality. If Rodriguez justifies his own assimilationism on the supposed Indian history of assimilation, his own criticism of anti-immigrant politics, cultural nativism, and fear of miscegenation in the contemporary United States is grounded in his interpretation of Vasconcelos's "cosmic race." Rodriguez's works, therefore, update the discourse of racial and cultural mestizaje. Moreover, his linking of mestizaje with an inclusive (U.S.) American culture help, to emphasize the basic compatibility between the discourse of mestizaje and that of multiculturalism in its "liberal pluralist" vein.'1 1 2 In other words, Rodriguez's works make clear that multiculturalism, when it attempts to conceptualize a national communality among the different ethnic and cultural groups that make up the population of the United States, repeats many of the topics proposed by the earlier Latin American mestizaje. The question that remains , l , : But we have also seen that "difference" or “hard left” multiculturalism is also compatible with mestizaje. The relationship between multiculturalism, in all its forms, and mestizaje will be further developed in the conclusion of this study. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. is whether multiculturalism is able to avoid the same kind cultural and historical simplifications, even distortions, that have characterized the discourse of mestizaje. The elimination of historical oppositions that characterizes Rodriguez's interpretations of history and society seems to indicate that the answer to this question is negative. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 275 Conclusion Mestizaje, Multiculturalism, and The Latin Americanization of (U.S) American Culture Throughout this study I have argued that there are significant parallels between Spanish American mestizaje. Brazilian mestigagem, and (U.S.) American multiculturalism. The similarities among these Latin American conceptualizations of the nation and multiculturalism explain the ease with which Gloria Anzaldua and Richard Rodriguez incorporate significant elements of mestizaje into their divergent versions of multiculturalism--which, in fact, could just as easily be identified as versions of mestizaje. But similarity does not mean identity. It becomes necessary, therefore, to examine not only the manner in which mestizaje/mestigagem prefigures multiculturalism, and in which multiculturalism repeats mestizaje/mestigagem, but also the ways in which multiculturalism diverges from its Latin American predecessors. In fact, the most obvious proof of the affinity between multiculturalism and mestizaje can be found in the writings of Jose Maria Arguedas. While Yawar fiesta can be read as a problematization of mestizaje, this novel is only the first stage in the Peruvian author's attempt to reconceptualize the nation and mestizaje. Arguedas's search for a concept of the nation capable of reconciling the antithetical elements present in Peru's historical past and social present-- R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 276 modernity and Indian tradition, the coast and the Andes, Spanish and Quechua--reaches its conclusion in his posthumous novel El zorro de arriba v el zorro de aba-io. and in the essay that he wished to have appear as the prologue to this novel, "No soy un aculturado."'0' Paradoxically, Arguedas ' s reinterpretation of mestizaje and the Peruvian nation culminated in the revalorization of a social element criticized in Yawar fiesta, the mestizo. If in his first novel mestizos are shown to be culturally schizophrenic, and, ultimately, incapable of being truly modern or faithful to Indian traditions, in his later work they are described not only as defining what ideally constitutes Peruvian nationality, but as representing the best and only hope for the reconciliation of the antinomies that had threatened the future of Peru.’ '04 For, in Arguedas' s later work, the mestizos are praised precisely for their ability to adapt to the modernity of the coast without breaking their ties with Indian tradition. They are described by Arguedas as ”celulas irradiantes de la cultura andina" in the modern coastal cities ("El complejo cultural en el Peru" 5; "radiating cells of Andean culture"). For Arguedas, the future of Peru as a culturally autonomous nation depends on the combination of Arguedas's request that "No soy un aculturado" serve as the prologue to El zorro de arriba v el zorro de abaio has not been fulfilled in all editions of the work. In the edition I have used, "No soy un aculturado" appears at the end of the novel. Arguedas expressed this wish in a letter written to the editor of the novel Gonzalo Losada. This letter is reproduced in the Archivos Edition of the novel (260)._ ,IM Angel Rama has noted the emphasis placed by Arguedas on the mestizo in his later novels. See his "Introduccion" xvii. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. the core of Indian traditions with the modernity represented by the coast and criollo culture. This reconciliation between Indian and criollo Peru is given two different--but not necessarily incompatible--interpretations in Arguedas's writings after Yawar fiesta. Arguedas's celebration of the mestizo and mestizaje can be read as proposing the formation, of a unified nation and culture that combines Indian and criollo elements into a new and superior synthesis; however, given the inequality between the two groups, this proposal seems to imply the hegemony of the criollos and their "modern" culture. We might recall that Arguedas seems on occasion to interpret mestizaje in this manner. For instance, Arguedas states in his essay "La novela y el problema de la expresion literaria en el Peru": "Uno solo podia ser un [sic] fin: el Castellano como medio de expresion legitimo del mundo peruano en los Andes" (16-17; "Only one could be the conclusion: Spanish as the legitimate means of expression of the Peruvian world of the Andes") . Mestizaje becomes the means to incorporate the Indian, and Andean culture as a whole, into a Spanish speaking criollo nation. Arguedas's proposal becomes, therefore, but the repetition of earlier "conventional" versions of mestizaje. In his later works, however, a second definition of mestizaje is also proposed; one that elevates the mestizo's bi-cultural condition into the defining trait of the nation. "No soy un aculturado" oscillates between versions of R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 278 mestizaje as the incorporation of the Indian populations into a criollo conceptualization of the nation'0' 1 and a conceptualization of the nation consistent with the most radical versions of (U.S.) American difference multiculturalism. In what we have seen is a characteristic gesture of (U.S.) American multiculturalism, Arguedas uses his own experience as a bi-cultural Peruvian as the basis for his redefinition of the nation'"h : "Yo no soy un aculturado yo soy un peruano que orgullosamente, como un demonio feliz habla en cristiano y en indio, en espanol y en quechua” (257,- "I am not acculturated; I am a Peruvian who, like a happy demon, speaks in Christian and Indian, in Spanish and Quechua"). In this passage Arguedas defines "Peruvianness" as the bi-cultural capacity of speaking, and, therefore, "being," "cristiano" and "indio," Spanish and Quechua at the same time. But a definition of the nation in terms of bi or multicultural identity is nothing but the radicalization of what was always implicit in the definition of the nation as mestizo--that is, as founded on bi or multicultural populations. But the privileging of a nation's cultural and linguistic heterogeneity is not incompatible with a belief in the necessity of national unity. For, Arguedas's intellectual development is actually fueled by a passionate sense of patriotism. Arguedas's version of difference multiculturalism is not the denial of definitions of the ,05 See "Introduction" 22. ,06 See above 219-20, 252-55. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. '*79 nation, but one possible consequence of an attempt to reconcile nation and heterogeneity. In fact, it could be argued that any national proposal celebrating heterogeneity necessarily postulates also homogeneity. It is only because at some level a national or quasi-national unity is accepted that difference multiculturalism does not break down into a defense of a new "homogeneity" predicated on the separation-- even independence--of the "different" group. Therefore, Arguedas's patriotism, one of the constant characteristics of his writings, is not incompatible with his defense of bi- culturality in El zorro de arriba v el zorro de abaio.''1 In Arguedas's writings, bi-culturality is the definition of "Peruvianness," it is not a threat to the nation. Moreover, an emphasis on a bi-cultural present does not necessarily contradict a belief in an ultimate cultural and/or racial fusion. We recall that one of the criticisms of mestizaje has been that it has frequently served as a cover for the acculturation of indigenous groups into Western/criollo culture. By postulating a generalized bi- culturality, by defining Peruvianness as the capacity to be cognizant of both criollo and Quechua traditions and 1 ( 1 7 In his "(-.Ultimo diario?," part of £1 zorro de arriba v el zorro de abaio. Arguedas repeats many of the topics that he had stated in his earlier speech "No soy un aculturado." In this text he claims that “sentia el Peru en quechua y en castellano" (246). In the same page, he also defines Peru as the locus of plurality: "Todas las naturalezas del mundo en su territorio, casi todas las clases de hombres.“ And: "Despidan en mi a un tiempo del Peru cuyas raices estaran siempre chupando jugo de la tierra para alimentar a los que viven en nuestra patria, en las que cualquier hombre no engrilletado y embrutecido por el egoismo puede vivir, feliz, todas las patrias.“ R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 8 0 language, Arguedas is also proposing a future homogeneity where both Indian and criollo traditions would be in equilibrium. But Arguedas does not only propose, he also predicts. His definition of a bi-cultural Peru is based not only on his own experience, but also on an increasing migration of the Indian peasants from the Andes to the cities in the coast, especially to Lima. The nation, and the national culture, into which the Indians are assimilated are being changed by the mass migration of the Indian. In Arguedas's El zorro de arriba v el zorro de abaio and "No soy un aculturado” bi-culturality becomes the condition that permits mestizaje to avoid becoming synonymous with "acculturation. ”,os Moreover, Arguedas is not the only Latin American author whose work is compatible with the multiculturalism of the nineties. As we have also seen, less radical variants of t l , x It should be noted that in El zorro de arriba v el zorro de aba~o. together with this optimistic interpretation of social change in Peru, there is a parallel concern with the failure of mestizaje to preserve Indian values. This is an aspect of Arguedas's last novel that has been noted by numerous critics. For instance, Roland Forgues has noted that in El zorro de arriba "La comunicacior. entre la sierra y ia costa sole se da ahora a traves del mito, porque el mestizaje ha perdido todo alcance real para convertirse en una referencia ideal e idealista sir. relacion alguna con la realidad concreta’ (309) . However, I would argue that this text--which includes not only a fictional “section" narrating the life of (mostly) Andean migrants in Chimbote, but also a "diary" where Arguedas records his struggle to avoid suicide and finish his novel and his speech “No soy un aculturado"--oscillates between the "optimistic" vision of Peru's potential to become a truly mestizo nation, and a more pessimistic interpretation of Peruvian reality as based on the disappearance of Indian tradition and values. In fact, while this "optimistic" version of mestizaje is present in his speech and diaries, his fictional narrative seems to present Peru's development as the acculturation of the Indian masses to what can only be described as a degraded version of modernity. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 231 multiculturalism such as liberal pluralist or weak multiculturalism, have always been implicit in writings that can be associated with mestizaje. Palma's representation of a Peru constituted by Indians, Spaniards, mestizos, and criollos, whose different "traditions" are all parts of a national history, is a case in point. For, it could be argued, a tradicion such as "El corregidor de Tinta'1 is compatible with liberal pluralist multicultural premises, that is, the presentation of the nation as constituted by a heterogeneous population and traditions . However, the fact that multiculturalism is compatible with mestizaje and mestigagem--and has been anticipated by Latin American writers--does not explain why many intellectuals in the United States have abandoned conceptualizations of the nation based on the notion of the "melting pot."310 Underlying the rise of multiculturalism is what could be called the "Latin Americanization"’1 1 of the United States. A "Latin Americanization" that, as we saw in the discussion of Richard Rodriguez, is both literal and figurative. It is literal in that Latin Americans and their descendants constitute the fastest growing minority in the United States. !0‘ ’ See above 45-47. ,l" See "Introduction 45-47. 111 Different terms have been used to describe this phenomenon. For instance, Stam writes about the "Latinization" of the United States (15). However, I prefer the term "Latin Americanization" which is used by critics such as Roberto Schwarz. (Although Schwarz uses it exclusively in reference to the rise of post-modern and multicultural theories). See Schwarz 27 0. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. But this "Latin Americanization" is also figurative in chat the term becomes a code name for the break down of the hegemony of a mono-cultural and mono-racial white United States. (Though, paradoxically, [U.S.] America's "whiteness" was predicated on the simultaneous inclusion of African Americans as a permanent contrast to "Anglo" identity within conceptualizations of the nation, and of their exclusion as racial and cultural "others"). This breakdown is manifested not only in the growing importance of minorities in (U.S.) American cultural production and politics, but also in the elimination of the barriers between the different "racial" groups. As Rodriguez has frequently pointed out, hybridity in culture and "race" is one of the most significant consequences of this "Latin Americanization" of the United States. '1' It could be argued, therefore, that the heterogeneous and contradictory critical proposals that are grouped under the name multiculturalism are nothing more than the theoretical expression of this changed social reality; a critical "Latin Americanization" that reflects a social M: However, miscegenation is still a problematic concept within multicultural thought. Racial definitions of identity frequently micro scientific racialism in order to eliminate miscegenation, from publi- discussion in the United States. Thus, "racially mixed" individuals ar classified and taught to identify exclusively with the non-white race. And mixed individuals with a black parent, are classified as black, regardless of the other parent's "race.” Nevertheless, even Pat Buchanan, probably the most conservative "mainstream" politician in the United States, has acknowledged this process of hybridization when he warned the public about the potential for the United States to oecume the "Brazil of North America” (qtd. in Stam 15). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 8 3 "Latin Americanization."'1' However, what must be kept in mind is that it is precisely because voices of minority writers are now heard that it becomes necessary to redefine the notion of the "melting pot," which until recently had been at the center of conceptualizations of (U.S.) American identity. For, the cultural miscegenation that underlies multiculturalism is far from a new phenomenon. For example, American popular culture has always been eminently "mulatto," or "mestizo." If rock or pop can be described as fusions of black and "Western” musical traditions,'14 so can Jazz or Ragtime. And even linguistically and politically many characteristic traits associated with the ("Anglo") United States have their origins in "minorities." For instance, historians have discovered the influence of Iroquois political traditions on the legal and political foundations of the United States.'1' Analysts of the nation now notice what was once silenced or simply not taken into account. "The very term 'multiculturalism' itself represents a "Latiniza": or 'Brazilianization' of Nortn-American self-conceptua1ization. in tha* it opts out of the binary black-white model in order to insist, :n the Latin American manner, on ethnic multiplicity. . . . as the United States becomes increasingly multiracial, mestico Brazil might well represent the demographic as well as the cultural future of the United States“ (15). 'I4 “'Cultural mulattoes,' such as Prince, Madonna, Michael Boulton, Michael Jackson, and Maria [sic] Carey, are at the cutting edge of American pop culture" (Stam 352). "5 "The Iroquois' law and custom upheld freedom of expression in political and religious matters, and it forbade the unauthorized entry of homes. It provided for the political participation by women and the relatively equitable distribution of wealth. These distinctly democratic tendencies sound familiar in light of subsequent American political history--yet few people today (other than American Indians and students of their heritage) know that a republic existed on our soil before anyone here had ever heard of John Locke, or Cato, the Maona R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 34 Therefore, what has changed is the way this originally and always hybrid reality is analyzed. This change in perspective is, to a great degree, a consequence of the success of the struggle for Civil Rights. However, it is also the result of a process of social incorporation of minorities into positions of leadership that, while predating Civil Rights, was accelerated by the fight for equality.'1 * In other words, it is because the "multiversity's leadership class,” to use Rodriguez's words (Hunger of Memory 151), begins to incorporate people of diverse origins that the "melting pot," with its implicit emphasis on "whiteness," becomes obsolete. Given that there is now a sizeable number of people of minority backgrounds incorporated into leadership positions in politics, academia, and the mass- media, it is not surprising that (U.S.) American conceptualizations of national identity begin to reflect the diversity of the national population.31' Multiculturalism, like the earlier "melting pot," is a product of elite intellectuals. What has changed is the composition of the elites. But, of course, this incorporation of minorities Charta, Rousseau, Franklin, or Jefferson" (Johansen xiv). Also see Johansen 98-113. !|h Speaking about the current "unease" that he sees behind the attempt at reconfigurating conceptualizations about the United States, Sheldon Hackney states: "we have yet to come to terms with, or to integrate completely, the changes that occurred in the 1960s. Groups that previously were marginalized and discriminated against have now movea into the mainstream, however incomplete the social-justice movements actually have been, and they are not going to be rolled back" (quoted m Parker M3). "7 My analysis of the incorporation of non-whites into academia is influenced not only by Rodriguez’s comments but also by Louis Menand‘s essay "Diversity." R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 8 5 into "positions of leadership" would have been impossible without the mass social struggle and pressure of the Civil Rights, as well as the Chicano movement. The rise of multiculturalism is, therefore, linked to what could be called the success, no matter how limited, of meritocracy, that is, of a societal decision to incorporate into positions of influence elements from all "races" and backgrounds based on an individual's abiiicy.''1 ' But the face that multiculturalism is a product of the incorporation of minorities into the intellectual elites of the United States can also help to explain one of the central differences between multiculturalism and mestizaje/mestigagem--the fact that the national dimension of multicultural discourse is frequently understated. While there are important "multicuituralists" concerned with the problematic of national identity (e.g., Rodriguez and Gates) , "< ) many are much more preoccupied with group or racial identity (e.g., Anzaldua). Therefore, multiculturalism is a conceptualization of the nation that often does not mention the nation. This fact is only paradoxical in appearance. 1 , 1 1 Referring to the statistical fact that 55 percent of college students are women and 20 percent are nonwhite or "Hispanic,” Menand states: "People calling themselves meritocrats have complained that the integration of American higher education has been achieved in violation of the spirit of meritocracy; but they're mistaken. This is precisely the way, in meritocratic theory, higher education is supposed to look: a faithful mirror of social diversity” (344). Sheldon Hackney’s program "A National Conversation" --sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts--that attempted to bring people from different backgrounds into a debate about "race and what it means to ne an American" can be included as an example of a multiculturalism preoccupied with the explicit conceptualization of national identity (Parker M3). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 86 For if one takes as the central, even original, fact of multiculturalism that its proponents have all been the product of (U.S.) American education, it becomes obvious that the common cultural and linguistic base so often seen as the necessary condition for the existence of a national identity is already an established fact for these writers. The nation is implicit in all truly multicultural proposals/20 However, multiculturalism is also a reaction to the possibility of the disappearance of ethnic group identities. The fear of loss of specific group identity helps to explain the persistence of racial definitions of identity even among versions of multiculturalism proposed by authors belonging to groups for whom race is a problematic basis for identity (e.g., Mexican-Americans). Race survives in multiculturalism because many believe that it is an identity, even an essence, that can survive the disappearance of either cultural or linguistic difference. Paradoxically, the persistence of racial definitions of identity in multiculturalism mirrors some versions of racialist thought. In multiculturalism, as in racialism, the presence of "minority" "racial" inheritance ' : i 1 The above statement should not be construed as denying the ex: s :er/v of trends that may in the medium or long range threaten the nation. However, the fact is that at the moment there is no immediate threat tw the stability of the (U.S.) American nation. Even the process of economic globalization does not imply the disappearance of the nation, only the establishment of limits to the nation's capacity to legislate on economic and industrial matters. Moreover, one can argue that this loss of national authority over economic matters is itself a central aspect of the “Latin Americanization" of the United States. Given Latin America's economic dependence, first on English, then on (U.S.) American capital, lack of a full authority over its economic destiny has always been a central trait of the area. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 287 is frequently seen as determining an individual's identity regardless of any other "racial" ancestry. This belief in racial identity has led to the exclusion of miscegenation from most discussions of multiculturalism. Unlike mestizaje, where miscegenation is often the basis for a national identity based on cultural hybridity, multiculturalism tends to exclude any reference to biological hybridity. (The emphasis on miscegenation in Richard Rodriguez's writings is both an exception to this majority trend and proof of his links with the Latin American tradition). This stress on "race" as the basis of group difference does not contradict the basic fact that, in the social context in which multiculturalism is proposed, group identities--or, for that matter, a concern with individual identity--no longer contradict the nation. It is precisely because the danger to (U.S.) American national hegemony and unity posed by the heroic resistance of Native Americans no longer exists that Rodriguez can include Sitting Bull in his pantheon of American personalities. Mestizaje/mestigagem, on the other hand, originated in a very different social and national context. When faced by a national reality not only heterogeneous, but profoundly divided by culture, race, language, and even geography, a writer such as Palma had to imagine a homogeneous Peruvian identity Thus, in Palma the national dimension is always explicitly present. The difficulties posed to the R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 233 constitution of a unified Peru by the nation's heterogeneity did not appear to be solved until after the first half of the twentieth century. As we know, as late as the 1920s, Mariategui had to struggle against the Comintern's proposal to found a Quechua nation built out of part of Peru. Even Brazilian writers, such as Alencar and Freyre, who wrote in a more solidly established national environment than the Peruvian authors, were concerned with reaffirming national identity in the face of a history of colonial dependence (Alencar) and (U.S.) American influence (Freyre). Proponents of multiculturalism take, therefore, the (U.S.) American nation and several of the cultural characteristics of the country--including the English language and "democratic" political traditions--as starting points for their attempt to reformulate what constitutes the United States and its cultural tradition. It is in the common wish to modify U.S. American culture and its institutions rather than in any attempt at destroying communality that the key to understanding multicuiLuraiism-- whether liberal pluralist or difference--can be found. Henry Louis Gates' definition of multiculturalism as "the shaping, at long last, of a common public culture, one responsive to the long-silenced cultures of color" is relevant to both liberal pluralist and difference multiculturalist proposals (even if in the case of the latter, as Anzaldua's example shows, this concern with commonality may contradict R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 289 difference multiculturalism’s emphasis on group identity) (205). The only true alternative to Gates's definition of multiculturalism would be one that would propose cultural separation and, in political terms, secession. Multiculturalism is at its core if not a conservative movement (since in the United States political conservatism frequently espouses racialist or quasi-racialist beliefs in the superiority of the white race and "Anglo" culture) at least a movement concerned with adapting conceptualizations of the nation to a hybrid and multiple reality, which can no longer be denied. The preservation, rather than the destruction, of the United States is implied in multiculturalism. This study of Peruvian, Brazilian, and Mexican American writers has been intended as a study of the manner in which national discourses based on incorporation are shaped by historical contexts and themselves shape literary and theoretical responses to those historical realities. I would argue, moreover, that the affinity among the national proposals analyzed can be taken as the basis for conceptualizing a literature of the Americas. It is because American writers, in the continental sense of the word, have had to face the problem of reconciling national identity with a heterogeneous reality that it becomes possible to find' an affinity among the diverse literary traditions of the Americas. Mestizaje, mestigagem, and multiculturalism are R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 9 0 ultimately the names for an American commonality that does not deny regional and national difference, but: rather finds a common ground for the literary, critical, and theoretical writings of the continent. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 291 Works Cited Adams, Henry. "From The Education of Henrv Adams. ” Anthology of American Literature: Realism to the Present. Ed. George Me Michael. New York: Macmillan, 1989. 920-59. Agassiz, Louis, and Elizabeth Cary Agassiz. A Journey in- Brazil . Boston: Houghton, 1886. Alavi, Hamza. "Populism." A Dictionary of Marxist Thought. Ed. Tom Bottomore. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1983. 380- 82. Alegria, Ciro, et al. Primer encuentro de narradores oeruanos. 1969. Lima: Latinoamericana Editores, 1986. Alencar, Jose de. O Guarani. Sao Paulo: Editora Atica, 1994. . Iracema: The Honev Lips: a Legend of Brazil. Trans. Isabel Burton. 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Creator De Castro, Juan Enrique (author)

Core Title Nation, race, and heterogeneity in the literature of the Americas

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Comparative Literature

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag comparative literature,literature, American,Literature, Latin American,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c17-378738

Unique identifier UC11353439

Identifier 9919029.pdf (filename),usctheses-c17-378738 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 9919029.pdf

Dmrecord 378738

Document Type Dissertation

Rights De Castro, Juan Enrique

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA