Refusing the Favor: The Spanish-Mexican Women of Santa Fe, 1820-1880

Rating:
Summary: Essential Read on Spanish-Mexican Women
Review: Deena González's "Refusing the Favor: The Spanish-Mexican Women of Santa (1820-1880)" interrogates how the lives of Spanish-Mexican women in Santa Fe were affected when the United States colonized northern Mexico between the early and late 19th century. The author's premise is challenging a canonized United States history that has largely written the U.S. Conquest as "painless" and beneficial to Spanish-Mexicans in Santa Fe. González's primary motive in writing Spanish-Mexican women into the history of U.S. Conquest is to discuss the means of how the women were affected and how they accommodated to challenging systems that reshaped their lives as racially, gendered and class-ed subjects in a new capitalist Euro-American system in Santa Fe.

González's methodology utilizes social history, feminist history and theories on race, sexism and heterosexism to explain how Spanish-Mexican women who, despite being disempowered by a new Euro-American system in Santa Fe, accommodated and resisted new systems of power imported by Anglo-American migration into Sante Fe during the 19th century. More specifically, the author uses court cases to demonstrate how women, either poor or wealthy, dealt with property rights that inevitably led them to courts where, in turn, they were supported by family witnesses attending to their defense. Whether or not the women were supported by family (support largely signifying economic strength), González highlights how the women were nonconformist amidst knowing they were caught in the nexus of economic, social and political struggles. González also uses census reports to argue that merchant capitalism placed Spanish-Mexican women at a low class position relative to daily work wages after 1848. Whether marked by class or as gendered subjects, Spanish-Mexican women also dealt with being racialized by a new Anglo-American ideology. For example, González examines travel literature by Anglo-American writers to argue that "La Tules," a well known Spanish-Mexican woman business woman became a stereotyped object who symbolized Mexican decadence and "loose morals."

González's use of archival documents, census reports and different schools of thought inform her effective argument about women redefining their lives when accommodating and resisting political, economic and social structures within an imposing capitalist system. González's multidisciplinary perspective foregrounds cases where women have a degree of political and economic autonomy before and after U.S. conquest. Thus, the author's writing of "La Tules" into history makes it the most important contribution to Chicana/Mexicana history and Women's History.

In sum, González challenges a canonized portrait of the U.S. Conquest by writing about how Santa Fe women accommodate or resist the changes relative to colonization and assimilation during a dramatic period of economic and social change. Though the negative aspects of conquest are present, González cuts through the historical record and writes gendered subjects as working within and against power systems in 19th century Santa Fe, New Mexico. González's topic, argument and methodology usher in an entire reframing of Chicana/Mexicana history in the United States.

González's book is ideal for courses in early Chicana/o History, Women's History, History of Gender and early American History.

Rating:
Summary: Essential Read on Spanish-Mexican Women
Review: Deena González's "Refusing the Favor: The Spanish-Mexican Women of Santa (1820-1880)" interrogates how the lives of Spanish-Mexican women in Santa Fe were affected when the United States colonized northern Mexico between the early and late 19th century. The author's premise is challenging a canonized United States history that has largely written the U.S. Conquest as "painless" and beneficial to Spanish-Mexicans in Santa Fe. González's primary motive in writing Spanish-Mexican women into the history of U.S. Conquest is to discuss the means of how the women were affected and how they accommodated to challenging systems that reshaped their lives as racially, gendered and class-ed subjects in a new capitalist Euro-American system in Santa Fe.

González's methodology utilizes social history, feminist history and theories on race, sexism and heterosexism to explain how Spanish-Mexican women who, despite being disempowered by a new Euro-American system in Santa Fe, accommodated and resisted new systems of power imported by Anglo-American migration into Sante Fe during the 19th century. More specifically, the author uses court cases to demonstrate how women, either poor or wealthy, dealt with property rights that inevitably led them to courts where, in turn, they were supported by family witnesses attending to their defense. Whether or not the women were supported by family (support largely signifying economic strength), González highlights how the women were nonconformist amidst knowing they were caught in the nexus of economic, social and political struggles. González also uses census reports to argue that merchant capitalism placed Spanish-Mexican women at a low class position relative to daily work wages after 1848. Whether marked by class or as gendered subjects, Spanish-Mexican women also dealt with being racialized by a new Anglo-American ideology. For example, González examines travel literature by Anglo-American writers to argue that "La Tules," a well known Spanish-Mexican woman business woman became a stereotyped object who symbolized Mexican decadence and "loose morals."

González's use of archival documents, census reports and different schools of thought inform her effective argument about women redefining their lives when accommodating and resisting political, economic and social structures within an imposing capitalist system. González's multidisciplinary perspective foregrounds cases where women have a degree of political and economic autonomy before and after U.S. conquest. Thus, the author's writing of "La Tules" into history makes it the most important contribution to Chicana/Mexicana history and Women's History.

In sum, González challenges a canonized portrait of the U.S. Conquest by writing about how Santa Fe women accommodate or resist the changes relative to colonization and assimilation during a dramatic period of economic and social change. Though the negative aspects of conquest are present, González cuts through the historical record and writes gendered subjects as working within and against power systems in 19th century Santa Fe, New Mexico. González's topic, argument and methodology usher in an entire reframing of Chicana/Mexicana history in the United States.

González's book is ideal for courses in early Chicana/o History, Women's History, History of Gender and early American History.

Rating:
Summary: Cherish our ancestral grandmothers
Review: In this book, Deena Gonzalez made women like my ancestral grandmothers come alive. I used what I learned from Dr. Gonzalez's book to annotate a speaker presentation that I developed and an academic article that I wrote. The subject women's courage and strength made me proud to know more about my Spanish-Mexican grandmothers and to claim my own ethnic identity. The study that Dr. Gonzalez conducted tells how the women of that time in Santa Fe suffered and their loss in status after the American take over. I highly recommend this book for students and anyone who wants to know more about the women of the period.

Rating:
Summary: Cherish our ancestral grandmothers
Review: In this book, Deena Gonzalez made women like my ancestral grandmothers come alive. I used what I learned from Dr. Gonzalez's book to annotate a speaker presentation that I developed and an academic article that I wrote. The subject women's courage and strength made me proud to know more about my Spanish-Mexican grandmothers and to claim my own ethnic identity. The study that Dr. Gonzalez conducted tells how the women of that time in Santa Fe suffered and their loss in status after the American take over. I highly recommend this book for students and anyone who wants to know more about the women of the period.