de Burton, María Amparo Ruiz

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatrice Pita
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
American Woman ◽  
The United States ◽  
Literary Scholarship ◽  
Mexican American War ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Anglo American

The novels The Squatter and the Don (1885) and Who Would Have Thought It? (1872), written by María Amparo Ruiz de Burton (1832–1895), are the first novels written in English from the pen and perspective of a Mexican American woman. The author, born in Mexican Baja California, came to Northern California after the 1846–1848 Mexican American War, marrying US Army Captain Henry S. Burton. An extraordinarily talented woman, Ruiz de Burton addresses crucial issues of ethnicity, power, gender, class, and race in dialogue with a number of contemporary 19th-century discourses—political, juridical, economic, commercial, and literary—all to voice the bitter resentment of the Californios faced with despoliation and the onslaught of Anglo-American domination in the aftermath of annexation to the United States. Hers is a strong, distinctive—and notably—female voice with a critical Mexican American perspective; her novels have served to shift the benchmarks of US literature and 19th-century literary scholarship, moving it further away from an Anglo-centered, East Coast, and mostly male-centered canon. Her writings have been productive sites against which to reread both canonical and newly emerged texts. By addressing US government policies, and in that regard, racial, ethnic, and class formations, as well as foregrounding gender issues, Ruiz de Burton’s works have problematized and enriched the US literary and cultural landscape. Her rediscovered novels were republished (in 1992 and 1995, respectively) by Sánchez and Pita and have become key elements in better understanding US 19th-century literary history.

The US–Mexico War and American Literary History

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime Javier Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Popular Literature ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Mexican American Literature ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Us ◽  
Anglo American

The US–Mexico War produced a wide range of literature in the United States that exposed the provisional and contingent qualities of US nationalism, even while it also asserted the anti-Mexican racism and xenophobia that continues to shape cultural and political discourse in the early 21st century. Much of the popular literature produced in mass-market novelette form, for example, deployed a range of Mexican enemies that ran through a sequence from noble, chivalrous opponents, to fiendish enemies and terrorist bandits. This instability in how writers saw Mexico and Mexicans suggests that the war could paradoxically generate critical self-reflections that countered essentialist notions of manifest destiny. The eventual projection of the bandit figure as the prototypical Mexican villain reinforced Anglo-American national self-definitions of moral, cultural, and racial superiority as a response to the destabilizing energies resulting from the invasion of a neighboring American republic. For Mexican American writers, the war, although a major feature of Mexican American literature, nonetheless became an environment in which to explore conditions of non-national, liminal border identities, which became strikingly relevant as the 20th century turned into the 21st. In Mexico, the agonized response to the nation’s failure to stop the “Yankee” invader led instead to a confrontation with its own lack of a unifying national identity and forced writers and political intellectuals to ask hard questions about Mexico’s destiny.

Mexico and the Pacific

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward R. Slack
Keyword(s):  
Mexican American ◽  
Pacific Coast ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The South ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Porfirio Diaz ◽  
Mexican American War ◽  
The North ◽  
The Pacific

Called “Mar del Sur” [South Sea] when first spotted by Balboa in 1513 and dubbed “Mar Pacifíco” [Peaceful Calm Sea] by Ferdinand Magellan in 1520, the historical relationship between the Pacific Ocean and the people of Mexico is multilayered and dynamic. During the Spanish colonial era (1521–1821), the viceroyalty of New Spain (Nueva España) supervised the Asian and Polynesian colonies of the Philippines and Guam (and briefly Taiwan and the Spice island of Ternate) across the Pacific. Acapulco became a mythical emporium of exotic luxury supplied by the galleons from Manila that for 250 years tied Asia to the Iberian New World. Beyond this famous port, littoral native communities dotting the Pacific coast, from Oaxaca in the south to the forty-second parallel of Alta California in the north, gradually fell under Spanish secular and religious control. The enormous coastline measured approximately 5,400 miles, more than double the length of seaside territory facing the Gulf of Mexico. Following the War of Mexican Independence (1810–1821), the United Mexican States (Estados Unidos Mexicanos) emerged. For the next fifty years, Mexico experienced domestic political instability exacerbated by wars against the United States (Mexican-American War, 1846–1848) and France (1862–1867). When political order was finally established under the regime of Porfirio Díaz (1876–1910), regionalism was confronted by the centrifugal power of a modernizing, technocratic state. Despite losing 840 miles of California coastline, and a lucrative trade route with Manila, in the Mexican-American War, Mexico’s Pacific littoral in the south grew to incorporate the formerly Guatemalan territory of Chiapas, and a new shipping network evolved. Traditional research on pueblos, cities, or states along the Pacific coast emphasizes purely local or regional contexts within the colonial or independent Mexican state; or it is grouped thematically into studies about the galleon trade or California mission settlements. Recent scholarship is encouraging a more balanced approach, accentuating the many threads that wove a rich tapestry of Mexico’s unique relationship with the “Pacific World” (as opposed to the more popular “Atlantic World”); not only in a nationalist framework, but with inter-American and trans-Pacific or global dimensions.

scholarly journals Understanding Edward Muybridge: historical review of behavioral alterations after a 19th-century head injury and their multifactorial influence on human life and culture

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. E4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunil Manjila ◽  
Gagandeep Singh ◽  
Ayham M. Alkhachroum ◽  
Ciro Ramos-Estebanez
Keyword(s):  
Head Injury ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Historical Review ◽  
Human Locomotion ◽  
The United States ◽  
Clinical Neurology ◽  
Behavioral Alterations ◽  
Life Journey ◽  
Anglo American

Edward Muybridge was an Anglo-American photographer, well known for his pioneering contributions in photography and his invention of the “zoopraxiscope,” a forerunner of motion pictures. However, this 19th-century genius, with two original patents in photographic technology, made outstanding contributions in art and neurology alike, the latter being seldom acknowledged. A head injury that he sustained changed his behavior and artistic expression. The shift of his interests from animal motion photography to human locomotion and gait remains a pivotal milestone in our understanding of patterns in biomechanics and clinical neurology, while his own behavioral patterns, owing to an injury to the orbitofrontal cortex, remain a mystery even for cognitive neurologists. The behavioral changes he exhibited and the legal conundrum that followed, including a murder of which he was acquitted, all depict the complexities of his personality and impact of frontal lobe injuries. This article highlights the life journey of Muybridge, drawing parallels with Phineas Gage, whose penetrating head injury has been studied widely. The wide sojourn of Muybridge also illustrates the strong connections that he maintained with Stanford and Pennsylvania universities, which were later considered pinnacles of higher education on the two coasts of the United States.

scholarly journals The problem of the abolition of slavery and maritime rights on U.S. vessels with regards to British American relations in the first half of the 19th century

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-139
Author(s):  
Nguyen Van Sang ◽  
Jolanta A. Daszyńska
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Slave Rebellion ◽  
Special Cases ◽  
Border Dispute ◽  
Slave Ships ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Laws And Policies

The article analyses the struggle of Anglo-American relations connected to slaves and maritime rights on the sea from 1831 to 1842. The study is based on monographs, reports, treaties and correspondences between the two countries from the explosion of the Comet case in 1831 to the signing of the Webster–Ashburton treaty in 1842. This study focuses on three fundamental issues: the appearance of Comet, Encomium, Enterprise, Hermosa and Creole as international incidents with regards to British-American relations; the view of both countries on the abolition of slavery, maritime rights as well as the dispute over issues to resolve arising from these incidents; the results of British-American diplomacy to release slaves and maritime rights after the signing of the Webster–Ashburton treaty. The study found that the American slave ships were special cases in comparison with the previous controversies in bilateral relations. The American slave vessels sailed to the British colonies due to bad weather conditions and a slave rebellion on board. In fact, Great Britain and the United States had never dealt with a similar case, so both sides failed to find a unified view regarding the differences in the laws and policies of the two countries on slavery. The history of British-American relations demonstrated that under the pressures of the border dispute in Maine and New Brunswick, the affairs were not resolved. In addition, it could have had more of an impact on the relationship between the two countries, eventually p the two countries into a war. In that situation, the diplomatic and economic solutions given to the abolition of slavery and maritime rights were only temporary. However, the international affairs related to the American slave vessels paved the way for the settlement of maritime rights for British-American relations in the second half of 19th century.

scholarly journals Your True Colors

JCSCORE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-220
Author(s):  
Ana Guerin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Adult Life ◽  
American Woman ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Mexican American Woman ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
True Colors

This poem reflects the author’s heartbreak, disappointment, and the realization that people may not show who they truly are to one. The author describes feeling disappointment and a sense of guilt from a previous relationship. The person she thought she knew turned out to be someone who did not align with her values. The author is a Mexican American woman who immigrated to the United States as a teenager from Mexico. She found within herself to educate herself through her adult life seeking to erase internalized patriarchy and oppression. Living through such divisive political environment between 2017 and 2020, she began to realize people around her, in specific the relationship illustrated in the poem, were not who she thought they were. The author describes the end of the relationship with a play on words declaring that she does not want to see this person’s dull colors again.

Building the Mexican Borderlands

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Verónica Castillo-Muñoz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Baja California ◽  
Colorado River ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mexican American War ◽  
Northern Mexico

This chapter examines the migrations of Diegueño and Californio families from the United States to Baja California, a migration previously unknown to U.S. historians. It delves into the tumultuous aftermath of the Mexican–American War, especially how indigenous peoples living on the banks of the Colorado River dealt with U.S. expansion into northern Mexico. Writing about indigenous people was challenging since they left almost no written documents. Moreover, the cyclical destruction of Baja's Catholic missions meant that only a few church records survived. The author spent three years piecing together small vignettes of indigenous people from scattered government and company minutes located in three countries.

Indian Raids in Northern Mexico and the Construction of Mexican Sovereignty

2020 ◽  
pp. 153-174
Author(s):  
Marcela Terrazas y Basante
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Free Movement ◽  
American Population ◽  
Mexican American War ◽  
Northern Mexico ◽  
The U.S

This essay focuses on the borderlands of Mexico and the United States in the decades following the Mexican-American War. There, American, Apache, Comanche, and Mexican inhabitants came into contact with one another and their distinctive and sometimes conflicting understandings of sovereignty led to significant discord. In different ways, Mexico and the U.S. sought to assert control over part of these borderlands, which included restricting the movement of outsiders within their territory. Apache and Comanche peoples, on the contrary, regarded free movement across the region as “irrevocable.” The increasing American population both provided demand for livestock that drove indigenous raids into Mexico and curtailed access to land and resources, promoting migration across the border and making it exceedingly difficult for Mexico to assert sovereign control over northern territory.

The Mexican-American War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irving W. Levinson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Mexican American War ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
The Face ◽  
Socioeconomic Structure ◽  
Political Milieu

The Mexican-American War ranks among the most consequential events in the history of both nations. Although the casus belli for the United States’s May 12, 1846, declaration of war was the Mexican ambush of a U.S. Army patrol in the disputed Nueces Strip on April 25 of that year, two underlying causes rendered conflict inevitable. The dispute over Texas was the first, and the desire of both nations to control the Mexican provinces of Nuevo Mexico and California was the second. President James Knox Polk identified the acquisition of that territory as the principal objective of his administration. The conflict also remains noteworthy for the extent to which the political milieu in both countries proved as important as events on the battlefields. In México, a devastating war of independence (1810–1821), multiple violent overthrows of the federal government, the failure of two constitutions to produce a structure acceptable to both conservatives and liberals, and enmities generated by the socioeconomic structure severely limited México’s growth, tranquility, and potential for armed resistance to an invader. In the United States, the national unity evident at the outbreak of the war faded in the face of sectional rivalries, unexpectedly high casualties, and declining relations between the executive and legislative branches. The military phases of the war fall into two segments. In the first, forces considerably smaller than those deployed in later phases of the war fought in Texas and in the Mexican provinces of Nuevo Mexico, California, Tamaulipas, and Nuevo Leon. When United States victories in northern Mexico failed to produce the anticipated Mexican surrender, the second phase of the conflict began on March 9, 1847, with General Winfield Scott’s invasion of central Mexico and ended with his entrance in Mexico City on September 14, 1847. In the following seven months, both governments sought to obtain the best terms. A rising tide of violent rural rebellion in Mexico and a rising tide of Whig opposition to the Polk administration in Washington served as catalysts during the negotiations. Two agreements, the February 2, 1848, Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo and the March 6, 1848, Truce Agreement brought hostilities a close. Consequences of the conflict included the Mexico’s loss of 525,000 square miles of territory, the emergence of the United States as the dominant continental power, the dispossession of many Mexican citizens living in what had become U.S. territory, and the reestablishment of Mexican sovereignty over territories in rebellion.

Religion, Anti-Catholicism, and the Mexican-American War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Pinheiro
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mexican American War ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Protestant Christianity ◽  
Mormon Battalion ◽  
The U.S

The death and carnage that accompany war usually lead participants to seek transcendent meaning in their suffering as well as in their defeat or victory. This was especially true of the Mexican War, a conflict that deeply affected the growth of civil religion in the United States even as it tested the limits of religious pluralism. Religion gave Americans the most effective means of making sense out of their conflict with Mexico, even as it helped them solidify a national identity as a providentially blessed republic of Anglo-Saxon Protestants. The Mexican-American War of 1846–1848 was tremendously consequential for both countries. Its immediate cause lay in a dispute over territory claimed by both countries along the border of the newly annexed American state of Texas. Mexican and American troops clashed there on April 25, 1846. The U.S. Congress, though not without some grumbling, quickly responded to a request by President James K. Polk and declared war on Mexico. In the war, the U.S. Army invaded Mexico by land and sea, taking the capital on September 14, 1847. Other than a few skirmishes and scattered guerrilla attacks, the fighting war was over. In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the conflict, Mexico ceded nearly its entire northern frontier—one-third of its territory—to the United States. The war occurred on the heels of the Second Great Awakening and amid the westward migration of the new, much-persecuted Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons. At the same time, heavy Irish immigration had reawakened a latent anti-Catholicism, resulting in new political parties, fights over religion in public schools, and deadly anti-Catholic rioting. While evangelical Protestants got to work refining a civil-religious discourse that depended for its intelligibility on anti-Catholicism, nativist politicians began adopting Christian terminology. Thus, the war between the overwhelmingly Protestant United States and Catholic Mexico became the means by which anti-Catholicism emerged as integral to American identity and American belief in a God-given, special mission to the world: spreading liberty and republican government, along with their prerequisite, Protestant Christianity. Religion impacted the war in other important ways. The U.S. Army sponsored the Mormon Battalion, the only regular U.S. Army unit ever organized along religious lines. Religion also played a role in the formation by American deserters of the Mexican army brigade known as the San Patricios. And despite U.S. government policy to the contrary, a few U.S. soldiers, inspired by recruiters and derogatory descriptions of Mexican religion by American writers and preachers, vandalized and robbed Mexican churches and committed other atrocities. Meanwhile, the war challenged Protestant pacifists and abolitionists, who wondered whether an otherwise evil war could produce the good fruit of opening Mexico to Protestant missionaries or excising Catholicism from the continent. As a result of the brief but far-reaching Mexican-American War, Americans now possessed a civil religious sentiment and common identity that was intelligible only within a Protestant milieu and through a distinctively American anti-Catholic discourse.

Translating José María Heredia

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Luciani
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Travel Literature ◽  
The United States ◽  
Translation Process ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Relationship

The Cuban poet José María Heredia (1803–1839) spent twenty months exiled to the United States because of his involvement in pro-independence conspiracies. In that time, Heredia wrote a prodigious number of poems and letters, which are the subject of an ongoing scholarly project undertaken by Frederick Luciani of Colgate University. Luciani’s work involves more than translating these poems and letters into English—it examines Heredia’s stay in North America against the background of political and historical events, and traces the matrices of his connections with key figures, literary and otherwise, in Cuba and the United States. Questions that have surfaced through the translation process and scrutiny of this period of Heredia’s life include the relationship between Heredia’s poetry and his letters; the value of his letters as a form of travel literature; the contradictions inherent in his exilic condition; the ambiguity of his political sentiments; the nature of the networks that joined 19th-century Anglo-American and Hispanic writers, translators, and scholars; and the challenges and opportunities that Heredia’s life and work pose for readers, translators, and scholars today.

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