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With his Underpants on Inside Out: Cultural Economy and Patriarchy in Pablo de la Guerra's Letters to Josefa Moreno de la Guerra, 1851-1872 Loyola Marymount University August 1999 Authors Note: I would like to thank Dr. Antonia I. Castreda for her guidance and commitment to the development of this project and to those of other Chicano/a graduate students. I am especially grateful that she guided the first graduate seminar in the Department of Chicano/a Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. I am further indebted to the Chicano/a graduate students in that seminar who provided valuable feedback on this project. I am also indebted to Dr. Zaragosa Vargas, my dissertation advisor, who provided valuable intellectual guidance and who read and commented on this essay extensively. Finally, my wife, Monica Armendariz, and our children, Gabriel, Heneani, Yaneli, and Izel Anahi inspired me to search for ways to better understand the subject matter contained in this essay.
About the Author: Gabriel Gutierrez Gabriel Gutierrez was born and raised in the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles, Calif. After graduating from Cathedral High School, he Completed his BA (Chicano/a Studies and Political Science), MA (Latin American and U.S. History), and Ph.D. (Chicano/a History) degrees at UCSB. He is currently an assistant Professor in the Department of Chicano/a Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. His research projects are in the Areas of Chicano/a history, 19th California history, Intellectual history, Chicano(a)/Latino(a) youth studies, and critical race theory.
SUGGESTED CITATION Gutierrez, Gabriel "Con Sus Calzones al Reves, With His Underpants on Inside Out: Cultural Economy and Patriarchy in Pablo de la Guerra's Letters to Josefa Moreno de la Guerra, 1851-1872." JSRI Occasional Paper #60. The Julian Samora Research Institute, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, 1999.
Con Sus Calzones Al Reves, With his Underpants on Inside Out:
Table Of Contents
When he wrote the passage above to his wife, Josefa Moreno, Pablo de la Guerra probably did not expect that more than a century later historians would be mulling over the more personal and earthly realities of his much celebrated public life. A politician whose career spanned the Mexican and Euroamerican periods in Alta, Calif., he is the subject of a number of articles and one dissertation. Most of these studies deal with his civic contributions and those of the de la Guerra family. Indeed, de la Guerra's letters to Josefa Moreno de la Guerra provide a rare window through which one can explore the microcosm of family, gender, and generational relations within the context of political, economic, and cultural turbulence, which followed the American conquest and annexation of California. Because of his role as a statesman, Pablo was an absentee husband, father, and businessman who heavily relied on Josefa in order to complete his socially constructed and expected duties as a patriarch. However, three scholars have looked into the private, domestic life Pablo shared with his family, and Josefa in particular.1 Still, little is known about Josefa. Santa Barbara Mission Archivist and Franciscan historian Maynard Geiger wrote that Santa Barbarans should be interested in Pablo's letters to Josefa because "they concern a well-known and highly esteemed citizen of a famous family."2 The belief by traditional historians that only writers make history is apparent in Geiger's depiction of Josefa as "not a letter writer." He describes Pablo as "a devoted husband and father who would have much preferred to spend his time at home with his family." Like other traditional historians, Geiger devotes his own brief text to a chronology of Pablo's life while implying that Josefa plays three roles as recipient of Pablo's letters: wife, mother, and daughter. These roles, those of wife and daughter in particular, are marginalized by Geiger's failure to elaborate on Josefa's contributions as a historical actor. Thus, we learn little about her, her life choices, or her decision to forego written communication with Pablo. This conventional interpretation refers to Pablo and "his children," but does not mention Josefa as the mother.3 While it is understood that she mothered their children, discussion by Geiger of Josefa's motherhood is non-existent outside of Pablo's letters, which referred to Josefa caring for their children. Thus, Josefa's subjective historical agency, as expressed through her contributions as a household and business manager, is neglected. Historian Joseph Cassidy remarks, "Though Pablo is remembered mainly for his public life, no account could be complete without some aspects of his private life."4 Yet, he proceeds to devote only the last three and a half pages of his study to it. According to Cassidy, the letters "never referred to political affairs. Rather, he [Pablo] wrote only of family and household matters."5 Thus, Cassidy concludes that Pablo's public and private affairs were mutually exclusive. He describes Josefa as a woman who, "from the time she left her San Juan Bautista home to marry Pablo, knew only the sheltered comfortable life in the large de la Guerra household."6 Cassidy presumes that the "sheltered" Josefa was neither willing nor capable of interacting in social affairs because she "spoke only Spanish. Consequently, she viewed a stay in Los Angeles, with [Pablo] in court most of the time, as too abrupt a change for her."7 Thus, Cassidy attempts to define what he perceives as Josefa's lack of historical agency by merely guessing that she was passive and even frightful of public interaction.8 On at least one occasion, Pablo wrote, "Next Sunday the last function will take place at the theater. Oh, if you could come next Friday, we could see a performance in Spanish together."9 While not exploring other possible motives, which caused Josefa to stay in Santa Barbara or at other nearby family ranches, Cassidy assumes that Los Angeles was thoroughly Anglicized just 15 years after the conquest. An examination of cultural ramifications of the conquest may have alleviated this misinterpretation. A Master's thesis by historian Helen Louise Pubols sketches the de la Guerra home life, but does not thoroughly examine the life that Pablo and Josefa shared. Pubols does not examine the dynamics of Pablo and Josefa's relationship as depicted in the letters. Her study was intended to be used as a reference work for the Santa Barbara Trust for Historical Preservation and examined the 106 years in which the de la Guerra family possessed the Casa de la Guerra.10 Her interpretation of this relationship partially accepts those of earlier studies. Like Geiger, she writes that Josefa was "not a great letter writer."11 Thus, the dependence on the written record by these historians accepts Pablo's descriptions of Josefa and renders her a deficient historical actor. This characterization notwithstanding, Pubols devotes an appendix and a portion of her text to a case regarding the murder of one Indian servant by another in the de la Guerra kitchen. The court transcript describes Josefa's capture of the murderer as she "ran and caught him by the hair and threw him down and shut the door" so that another servant could further restrain him.12 In this sequence of events, Josefa, like women and men of her time, responded to daily activities and situations and in the process created history. This is a departure from Geiger and Cassidy's interpretations. Pubols argues that since its establishment, the Casa de la Guerra served as a symbol of the cultural vanguard in Santa Barbara until the Casa's steady decline in the last quarter of the 19th Century. She writes that in the pre-Euroamerican conquest year, the de la Guerras placed themselves at the forefront of cultural transformation "with a display of foreign goods from Hispanic America, Europe, and Asia," while in post-conquest California, "the cultural leaders surrounded themselves with the latest in American Victoriana."13 According to Pubols, the women of the family, more so than the men, acted as cultural transformers through their tastes for external or otherwise foreign goods. She describes the consumption chain in the post-conquest era as a "clumsy" arrangement in which Josefa or her brother-in-law Antonio Mar°a made long distance requests for commodities from Pablo, and he in turn would either misunderstand these requests or simply not find the items. She writes that whether these items were acquired or not was not as significant as the family "want[ing] these fashions in the first place."14 Thus, Pubols portrays Pablo as a bumbling incompetent who was incapable or unable to facilitate the family's desire to "Americanize" itself. In this respect, Pubols maintains that the de la Guerra household stood as a symbol for cultural adaptation, and thus Americanization. While Pubols suggests that Pablo was incapable of handling Americanization and that the family were uncritical consumers, I argue that Pablo and Josefa's relationship demonstrated a combination of cultural adaptation and cultural production as a response to Euroamerican influences. The ongoing negotiation for power and social positionality between Pablo and Josefa was a reactionary and pro-active dialogue that depended on their respective adjustments to external economic and political conditions. The fluctuating economy, which affected the de la Guerra consumer demands, also helped to produce cultural behavior by Pablo and Josefa different from what has heretofore been perceived. This study is an attempt to break from the Geiger, Cassidy, and Pubols' studies, which interpret Pablo's letters as a historical monologue in which there existed limited reciprocal complimentary and contradictory behavior between Pablo and Josefa. I examine the cultural economy of patriarchy as an interplay of a variety of themes, which are addressed in five sections. The first section addresses cultural economy, patriarchy,
and the family. It is concerned primarily with secondary sources
and deals with definitions of terms and concepts that contextualize
discussion for the following sections. The third section, entitled "Demystifying the Male Provider Role," attempts to demystify the illusions of economic dependency by Josefa and their children on Pablo by examining shifting consumption patterns and a fluctuating economy, which at times dictated which physiological, social, and cultural needs were to be nourished. The fourth section, "The Patriarch of Manipulation, Guilting, and Pleading," addresses Pablo's passive-aggressive attempts to assert patriarchal privilege. Thus, patriarchy is examined as a process which is domineering, but also less confrontational at times. Patriarchy's lasting characteristic is understood in this section to be the ability to affect and instill particular patterns of behavior. Finally, "The Intersection of 'Public' and 'Private' Space" re-examines the alleged separation of 'public' and 'private' spheres into male and female domains, as described by earlier scholars. It addresses Pablo's sexualization and devaluation of the experiences he shared concerning his 'public' life with Josefa. Moreover, this section re-examines the intersection of public and private space in Pablo and Josefa's relationship. My approach is both thematic and chronological. In many cases, certain passages address interwoven themes and appear in more than one section. I examine these manifestations of patriarchy through an analysis of the inner-cultural attitudes and behavior toward gender and generational roles as well as consumption practices by and between Pablo, Josefa, and their children. Thus, while I recognize the establishment of Euroamerican hegemony during this post-conquest period, my discussion centralizes Pablo and Josefa as cultural mediators, not only with regard to external factors, but with one another. Before examining the letters some definitions are in order. Cultural Economy, Patriarchy, and the Family This study examines what could be called the cultural economy of patriarchy in the discourse of Pablo's letters to Josefa. While culture is multidimensional and the concept of "culture" has been addressed by cultural theorists with varying conclusions resulting, it is understood in this essay as the currency of ideology which manifests itself within the parameters of socially constructed behavioral expectations set by ideals and values of a given society. These socially constructed expectations espouse principles, ideals, and values which privilege the status quo and simultaneously marginalize the subaltern, resulting in what Antonio Gramsci called cultural hegemony.15 Moreover, cultural economy denotes a departure from the reliance by critical race and feminist theorists on "tangible" categories of analysis that include race, class, and gender. While cultural economy embraces the structural consequences of physical (race), material (class) and biological (gender) analytic considerations, it builds on these to include intangible historical considerations, such as cultural behavior and ideological manifestations. Considering these intangible factors, one can determine how cultural behavior, however fluid and complex, functions as a manifestation of ideological constructs. Assessing such intangibles reconstructs the human agency of historical actors. The notion that cultural behavior functions as the currency of ideology implies that a marketplace of ideals and ideology exists. However, such a marketplace was and remains devoid of the application of principles of laissez faire. The marketplace of ideals has been highly regulated and often contested and negotiated by competing elites who form the status quo.16 Occasionally, marginal subjects in society venture into the mainstream to voice their position, complex and diverse as these are. Yet, as bell hooks reminds us, "to be in the margin is to be part of the whole but outside the main body."17 Patriarch is one of several venues in which power is derived and negotiated when not contested. It positions adult men in privilege in relations to women and children. Patriarchy is manifested along gender and generational considerations, and is both, cultural and universal but by no means static. In this particular case, the overbearing presence of patriarchal imperative in the letters selected for discussion reveal that patriarchal ideals and expectations, like the fluidity of currency in a system of economic market exchange, were negotiated when not contested. While historians Geiger, Cassidy, and Pubols interpret Pablo's letters to Josefa as honorable expressions of one man's concern for family welfare, I interpret them as a forum in which patriarchy took many forms that ranged from socially constructed ideals and expectations to manipulation. Thus, the flexibility of patriarchal behavior denotes a response to others' written, spoken, or behavioral discourses. Patriarchy was not at all times an overtly domineering process. The fact that Pablo was the author of these letters should not suggest that he always remained the "initiator," and thus, the only historical agent. Some of Pablo's patriarchal characteristics depended on the initiation of dialogue by presumably invisible "others." The allusions of patriarchy and lived experiences described in these letters reveal that culture was both an adaptive [reactive] and productive [pro-active] rejoinder to economic and political transformation on Pablo and Josefa's parts. The idea of cultural economy further attempts to shift from the standard analysis of "resistance and accommodation" to colonial forces, and localizes human interaction by emphasizing that conquered individuals in a colonizing process face not only their conqueror, but one another in the native hierarchical social order. More specifically, they face each other as collaborators and obstacles of social and cultural change and exchange. Thus, culture takes on economic functions through cultural interaction and negotiation for power. This is not an attempt to replace resistance and accommodation as strategies of response with conquest and domination or with categories of analysis, but is, instead, an effort to better understand individual choices by emphasizing intra-cultural behavior, particularly how and why it fluctuates along race, class, and gender lines. Historians and literary critics grapple with questions of cultural transformation and its relation to economic and political imperialism.18 In her introduction to The New Cultural History, historian Lynn Hunt states that by becoming increasingly interested in the history of culture, Marxists and Annalistes have been confronted with the notion that "economic and social relations are not prior to or determining of cultural ones; they are themselves fields of cultural practice and cultural production."19 Thus, the new cultural history is an infusion of what French scholars call mentalites, which refers to the analysis of behavior, attitudes, and consciousness that when combined challenge earlier conclusions suggesting that a structuralist political economy provoked individual action. Similarly, literary critic Edward Said writes that the process of imperialism occurred "beyond the level of economic laws and political decisions, and by predisposition, by the authority of recognizable cultural formations, by continuing consolidation within education, literature, and the visual and musical arts - were manifested at another very significant level (that of the national culture) which we have tended to sanitize as a realm of unchanging intellectual monuments, free from worldly affiliations."20 Thus, Said speaks about how political decisions and economic laws were both initiated and consolidated by "cultural formation" in the process of imperialism. In this sense, culture functions in a manner which determines and monitors expectations for social behavior according to one's race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. Further, Said admonishes the acquiescence of scholars and others toward this "national culture" of "unchanging intellectual monuments [which are] free from worldly affiliations."21 By remaining trivial, ideas become regurgitated and stagnant rather than critical and constantly changing. Put another way, social psychologist Gloria Romero reminds us that "students are encouraged, taught, and rewarded to expect the expected."22 Moreover, by compiling non-critical pronouncements on the de la Guerras upon one another, Geiger, Cassidy, and Pubols, among others, simultaneously construct, reinforce, and resurrect Eurocentric ideals of male domination. Non-traditionalist scholars have sought to remedy such short comings. Central to many of the various approaches by these scholars has been the study of a primary institution of cultural formation and socialization - the family. Methods and approaches to Chicano/a family research have (with few exceptions) remained ahistorical. Studies of Chicano/a families initially sought to dispel negative stereotypes and to challenge their depiction as homogenous and static institutions.23 Lea Ybarra's essay "Empirical and Theoretical Developments in the Study of Chicano/a Families" outlined the progress of these works. She examined studies of Chicano/a families up to the 1970's. According to Ybarra, these studies attributed sexual power imbalances to male domination, which resulted from what was perceived as an overpowering Chicano macho and a submissive and subordinate Chicana counterpart.24 Further, by not examining bi-racial Chicano/a families, these studies thrived on the cultural deficiency model, explaining negative aspects as results of cultural problems, rather than examining in comparative fashion the universality of male domination. These studies depict Chicano behavior as central to the family, while Chicanas' behavioral practices were considered peripheral and were attributed to instinctive responses to male centrality. Ybarra attributes these generalizations and myths to the absence of analysis which considered factors such as socio-economic status, educational attainment and demographics.25 Ybarra refers to "reactive literature" of the late 1960's and early 1970's as the second stage in the development of Chicano family research. This stage includes a body of literature which was written predominately by Chicanos/as who challenged existing male-centered, ethnocentric works, yet did not provide new theoretical or methodological models.26 Hence, in spite of its criticisms, this analysis was confined to paradigms set by predominately male Euroamerican scholars. This scholarship also includes community studies by historians, which sought to couch the Chicano experience within an "American context." These studies are limited to a periodization which commences with the Euroamerican conquest and occupation of northern Mexico.27 By creating such a context, these scholars perpetuate the proverbial Euroamerican gauge which measures the adaptation, accommodation, acculturation, assimilation, and "progress" of Chicano/a families. Concerned with presenting Chicanos/as as active historical participants, these historians portrayed men and women as wage earners who contributed to Euroamerica's industrialization and as reformist activists or philanthropists who sought to remedy social ills wrought by the irony of their proletarianization. In Desert Immigrants, historian Mario T. Garcia offers a brief discussion of the cultural ramifications that industrialization had on gender relations. He writes that women, especially daughters, by becoming wage earners to augment family income, were "Americanized." By the 1920's, "besides acquiring some new material and cultural tastes... young Mexican working women appear to have begun to exhibit a desire for greater independence from strict family practices."28 Thus, Garcia equates "Americanization" with materialist accumulation and "greater independence" from a presumably rigid family structure. Relying on the earlier work of economist Paul S. Taylor, Garcia accepted the notion that expectations and demonstrations of independence during this period were a benchmark in historical gender relations. According to Garcia, this resulted in a challenge to the "traditional male-dominated Mexican family structure."29 Thus, industrial capitalism, while suppressing a male and female work force, is made to appear as a liberating agent for Mexican women who grew less dependent on men economically. In short, this supposed liberation came in the form of entrance to a consumer market. Increased capacity for consumption was equated with liberation, while an increasing rate of repression among women wage earners and credit-based consumption were left unscrutinized. Historian Alex Saragosa's essay, "The Conceptualization of the History of the Chicano Family," also discusses the Chicano/a family within the context of industrializing capitalism. He concludes that the changing economy shifted power determinants between men and women, and parents and children, from the family to forces outside the family. However, such a conclusion neglects the significance of the church, state, and "community sanctions" as external facilitator's of patriarchy prior to industrialization and capitalism.30 According to Saragosa, Mexicans and Chicanos/as were caught in an industrializing world while maintaining agrarian ideals. Industrial ideals, which affected non-whites, the working class, and women, profoundly made headway through socialization processes such as education, mass consumption, and popular culture.31 While Saragosa argues that the history of the Chicano/a family must be understood and examined within the context of industrial capitalism, it should be noted that patriarchy and other forces which reinforce power imbalances date to pre-industrial capitalism. Historian Richard Griswold del Castillo in La Familia: Chicano Families in the Urban Southwest, 1848 to the Present acknowledges that socially acceptable ways existed in which women, "particularly those of the upper classes," could act outside the limits placed by the patriarchal family. However, like Saragosa and Garcia, Griswold del Castillo concludes that increased economic opportunity after the conquest contributed to the "significant erosion" of patriarchy. He writes that for working class families, men migrated to find jobs and women became employed outside the home at an increased rate.32 Thus, according to Griswold del Castillo, the economic dislocations and reordering of a household economy suggest that both opportunity and burden best characterize ramifications of the changing economy. However, the notion that patriarchy eroded during the industrial era and into the 20th Century is challenged by anthropologist Patricia Zavella, who argues that industrialization resulted in capitalist patriarchy that she defines as "a system in which the control of wage labor by capital, and men's control over women's labor power and sexuality in the home are connected."33 In her study Cannery Women, Cannery Lives, historian Vicki L. Ruiz, provides a thorough investigation which demonstrates that occupational space in the early 20th Century exposed women to new ideals regarding their situations at home as well as in the work place.34 While she utilizes Taylor's studies to reveal changes in consumption practices among wage earning women, Ruiz also points to other expressions of independence which included young women moving out of their homes and renting apartments with co-workers. Defiance of chaperonage, which was "reinforced by informal community sanctions," was also an indication that those women who took part in this phenomenon challenged not only parental authority, but community expectations as well.35 Thus, Ruiz argues, patriarchy was not relegated exclusively to the family, but was socially constructed as well. A host of scholars, primarily historians, have successfully demonstrated that patriarchy was not static in the pre-industrial Southwest.36 Historian Ram¢n Gutierrez in his work When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away argues that the concept of honor attributed to male authority was undermined in early 19th Century New Mexico by young adults who began to select their own marriage partners in defiance of paternal expectations.37 Chicana feminist historian Antonia I. Castaneda in her award-winning essay "Women of Color and Western History: The Discourse, Politics, and Decolonization of History," writes that "understanding the nature of gender systems and experiences before contact is critical to understanding how those experiences changed with conquest and colonialism and why women responded and acted the way they did in intercultural settings and relationships."38 This is an all too important statement that due to time, space, and contextual constraints will not be addressed here. However, the limitations placed on this paper serve to recognize that the subject treated is part of a larger and much longer historical process of race, class, gender, and cultural inter- and intra-action in 19th Century Alta California. Castaneda's statement on the poverty of diversity in Western history, and Western women's history in particular, points to the need to examine gender relationships and to understand how women of color "maintained, adapted, and transformed their own cultural forms while resisting, adopting, adapting, and affecting those of other groups."39 It is this resisting, adopting, adapting, and ultimately affecting that I invoke with the term "negotiation," referring to Pablo and Josefa's husband/wife relationship. More than a representation of acts, these constitute a process by which behavior, the process of the act, is arbitrated. Thus, I am concerned with the means as much as with the ends in order to examine what motivated people to behave in the ways they did. This needs to be understood within a larger framework which examines reciprocal and complimentary gender relations. This type of history, according to Castaneda, is a departure from the principle tenets of Western feminism, "including the universality of male dominance and the dichotomy between public and private acts."40 Historian Deena J. Gonzalez's portrayal of Dona Gertrudis Barcel¢, as an entrepreneur, disputes earlier misconceptions and romanticizations about sexualized public and private space. Moreover, Gonzalez demonstrates the dangers of racist, sexist, and classist bias in historical interpretation, when she points out that the ostensibly "disparaged" behavior of running a gambling salon emerges as a result of assumptions made by reporters of Barcel¢'s time, 19th Century novelists, and even professional historians today, which in fact, are value-ridden and condemning.41 The reliance on and the lack of critical analysis of the historical record presented by 19th Century Euroamericans and by contemporary historians has recently been challenged by Castaneda and Gonzalez among others.42 Gonzalez points out that 19th Century Euroamerican writers "mourned the seemingly wasted opportunity presented by land still in the possession of Spanish Mexicans" best exemplified by Richard Henry Dana's proclamation, "In the hands of an enterprising people, what a country this might be!"43 Castaneda similarly points out that the literature of the 19th Century "was generally written by middle-class, Anglo males who interpreted women's experiences from their own gender and class perspective of women's proper roles. These authors created sexist and unidimensional portrayals of women," and in the process constructed the literary canon in the field.44 In the same fashion, but with different results, the discourse in Pablo de la Guerra's letters to Josefa Moreno was interpreted by Geiger, Cassidy, and Pubols, as a manifestation of Pablo's chivalry, honor, and integrity; wherein, providing for the family and maintaining attachments to them in spite of physical separation was done with great sentimentalism.45 That Pablo was chivalrous, honorable, and honest is not debatable, nor were his sincere intentions to contribute to family welfare and the estate. However, these characteristics were not the only ones Pablo manifested. As the letters under review demonstrate, Pablo was also a scolding, shifty-tempered, and at times, a manipulative man. Thus, I re-examine Pablo's discourse by attempting to reconstruct and portray Josefa differently. In reconstructing a dialogue from a previously perceived historical monologue, one needs to study how cultural change and production manifested themselves through gender roles and consumption practices between these two historical actors. Specifically, one needs to consider how Pablo's discourse was affected by Josefa's presence and her historical contribution. Selected Letters of Pablo de la Guerra to Josefa Moreno, 1851-1872 Maynard Geiger notes that only two of Josefa's letters survive in the de la Guerra collection at the Santa Barbara Mission Archives Library, believed to be the most extensive collection on the de la Guerras; although, "internal evidence of Pablo's letters indicates there were more."46 Whether more of Josefa's writings are scattered through different repositories is unknown. Antonia Castaneda and literary critics Genaro Padilla and Rosaura Sanchez demonstrate that individual Californians left behind personal testimonies and literary works, which are housed at the Bancroft Library and only recently have been examined.47 Josefa was not among them. Geiger was aware of the potential to study Josefa as a historical subject by examining the "internal evidence" in Pablo's letters, yet opted to stay away from such analysis and allow the written record to "speak for itself." In light of this, alternative interpretations and considerations provide an avenue through which critical readings of theretofore exclusionary perspectives can become more inclusive. For instance, what Geiger refers to as "internal evidence" of Josefa's activities in Pablo's writings confirm her subjectivity as an active historical agent and need to be supplemented by theoretical approaches and socio-historical contexts in order to begin to reconstruct a more balanced and, therefore, more accurate historical interpretation. Other sources and methods also need be applied in order to provide the fullest picture possible. With this in mind, the following section examines the social and familial context in which Pablo wrote. Paternity, Maternity, Childrearing, and Household Management In her essay "Hispano Mexican Childrearing Practices
in Pre-American Santa Barbara," historian Gloria E. Miranda
writes that several factors contributed to moderate family sizes
prior to 1848. These included the following: infant mortality,
miscarriages, infertility by either spouse, absentee husbands
who, for economic motives, left their families to seek work,
marital discord, and personal choice of family size. Prenatal
and postpartum activities were altered by food cravings and the
building of baby furniture and toys by women and men, respectively.48
No doubt the lives of parents were altered from conception through
adulthood, as the raising of children became a priority. In the
case of Pablo and Josefa, the factors discussed by Miranda were
evident in three forms: choice of family size, infant mortality
and an absentee husband. This section examines how patriarchy
in the form of paternalism was interwoven with maternalism and
the sometimes unforeseen twists and turns of childbearing and
childrearing. On another occasion, Pablo wrote "lo unico que me consuela es leer tus cartas pero tu te olvidas mucho del hombre que mas te ama, pero cuando te vea me las has de pagar. Acuerdate lo que hicimos cuando llegue de Los Angeles, pues ahora ya que tu lo quieres, sera la cosa mucho mejor. Pienso que sabras lo que te quiero dec°r,"50 [the only thing that consoles me is to read your letters, but you forget many times the man who loves you the most, but when I see you you will pay for it. Remember what we did when I arrived from Los Angeles, well now that you want it, it should be much better. I think you know what I am talking about]. There is no reference here to conceiving nor bearing children. References to sexual relations in his letters, while he was a judge in Los Angeles, were not as evident as they were in those written from Sacramento. Thus, proximity to the household and to Josefa suggests that conjugal visits between them were more frequent. Josefa visited Pablo in Los Angeles on occasion and Pablo stopped on his way to San Luis Obispo, where he sometimes presided over court.51 Josefa and Pablo parented seven children. Due to his absence, Pablo did not share the birth experiences of several of them. Miranda notes that the absence of medical facilities in California resulted in midwives and other women assisting with the birthing process. On occasion, male doctors were called in to assist deliveries. In 1861 Pablo's brother, Antonio Mar°a, wrote to inform him of his daughter Delfina's birth and the stillbirth of her twin brother. Two doctors were present at the birth due to complications which Antonio described, "It was a case of life or death, but Providence helped us, since a day later we wouldn't have been able to find any doctors and then you would have been a widower."52 The potential for maternal fatality is evident in Pablo's discussion of his sister's daughter Manuelita to Josefa, "supongo que ya sabras la muerte de Manuelita que fue causada dicen por haber comido naranjas pocos d°as despues de haber parido,"53 [I suppose that you have already heard of Manuelita's death, which they say was caused by her eating oranges only a few days after giving birth]. Pubols attributed Manuela's death to cholera.54 Alfred Sully, Manuela's husband related to his sister says that,
Dona Angustias nursed her own grandchild as a result of Manuela's death, but the tragedy of infant mortality did not escape her efforts. The demands of childrearing are evident in Angustias' attempt to nurse the newborn prior to falling asleep. Whether this occurred at night or nap time is not clear, but the implications are that she fell asleep in the process of feeding him. A possible factor may have been fatigue since in addition to housework, she took care of her own children, including the toddler who was approximately one year old at the time.56 The demands of childrearing on Josefa and Pablo were at times complicated by tragedies they experienced. Infant mortality claimed the life of Pablo and Josefa's daughter Cristina Francisca, who died shortly after her birth in 1848. Five months after the stillbirth of Delfina's twin, their daughter Mar°a Paulina, who was six years old, passed away.57 Paulina's death was evidently painful to Pablo who wrote to Josefa, "Conque Dios N.S. Se ha acordado de nosotros privandonos de nuestra hijita! ¡Cuan doloroso es esto querida mía!... Ayer como hombre llore a m° hija y hoy como Cristiano estoy conforme con la voluntad de Dios y ofrezco m° dolor por la gloria de m° hija. Yo espero que tu hagas lo mismo y no te entregues de todo al llanto,"58 [so God Our Father has remembered us depriving us of our daughter! How painful this is my love! ... Yesterday I cried to my daughter like a man, and today like a Christian, I am in compliance with God's will and offer my pain for my daughter's glory. I hope that you do the same, but don't submit yourself completely to mourning]. Josefa's experience of Paulina's illness and death must have been horrifying as she witnessed "The attack [which] was so strong that from the first moment when she began to feel bad, she was unable to talk and her mouth became black." Paulina's sudden death concluded a 40-hour fever of unknown origins.59 Miranda states that during this period, cause of death among infants, children, and adults was not usually recorded although the most frequently cited illnesses included pleurisy, numerous viruses, intestinal disorders, and small pox.60 Although doctors and midwives assisted the family and community at times, the women of the house took care to provide medicinal herbs for the sick.61 Pablo and Josefa's surviving children included Francisca and Carlos, born in 1849 and 1852 respectively, and Delfina and Herminia, born in 1861 and 1862, respectively. Francisca resided in the house in 1860, but, by 1870, only Carlos, Delfina and Herminia resided in the house with Pablo and Josefa.62 Pubols writes that infants and children were taken care of by family and servants, but informs that "It could be that some of these attendants were older cousins."63 One can also suspect that the foreigners' accounts she relied on may have mistaken older siblings for servants as well. For instance, on one occasion Pablo cautioned against the neglect of the younger children should his daughter Francisca visit him, "puede que Francisca quiera venir pero no se como tener aqu° tres mujeres y ademas alguna debe de quedarse con los chiquillos; pero en esto obra como creas mas justo y conveniente."64 [It's possible that Francisca wants to come, but I don't know what to do with three women here and besides one should stay with the children; but work it out as you see just and convenient]. As well as suggesting Pablo's unwillingness to have "too many" women around, this reflects Josefa's authority as a mother to decide, manage, and delegate child care and other household duties to her daughters and other younger women. The de la Guerra household was large and according to various sources full of activity. Francisca recalled that the de la Guerra home was "patriarchal" and that "several families lived there happily together."65 Indeed, the patriarch Jose and his wife Mar°a Antonia de la Guerra (Pablo's parents) had 13 children, and 54 grandchildren.66 Census data from 1850 to 1870 indicates that married sons, their families, and unwed daughters of the family resided in the Casa de la Guerra during that time. In 1850, 16 members of the family resided in the 9-room house including the families of Francisco and Concepci¢n Sepulveda de la Guerra and Pablo and Josefa de la Guerra.67 Ten years later, 23 people including 12 adults, seven school-aged children, three children who did not attend school that year, and one 7-year-old "servant" by the name of Helena shared space there.68 In addition to marriages and births, this number included two of Francisco's children from his first of two mistresses, Mar°a del Rosario Lorenzana.69 The census data for 1850 and 1860 describe the men and their adult sons as "stock raisers/rancheros," while women and younger children are listed as "keeps house" or "at home." The actual running of the family ranches and other enterprises suggests that these job descriptions could be misleading. Joseph A. Thompson, the historian and grandson of Jose and Mar°a Antonia de la Guerra, writes that the de la Guerra ranchos were spread through the present-day counties of Marin, Monterey, Sacramento, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura during the Mexican and Euroamerican periods.70 Part and parcel to running the family enterprises was landownership by certain women of the family, including the youngest daughter Mar°a Antonia de la Guerra Lataillade who in her lifetime owned at least four different ranchos with a combined total of 88,800.7 acres. The two ranchos she was granted were of substantially less acreage than the ones she acquired upon her husband's death.71 Acreage of other land grants and ranchos also indicates that there was a disparity between the amount of land granted to Mar°a Antonia Lataillade and her brothers.72 Land and resource management was meticulously over seen by employees along race, class, and gender lines. Hired servants and artisans helped to ease many of the obligations which the de la Guerras had to undertake. These working class women and men were described by Mar°a Antonia Jimeno de Arata, a granddaughter of Jose and Maria Antonia, as mostly semi-skilled and skilled workers. She refers to a list of employees which provides a description of work activities. These include the following:
Such records were kept until 1858, the year of Jose de la Guerra's death and provides insight to the distribution of work and the race/ethnic backgrounds of employees. The job descriptions above were distributed among 90 employees, the majority of whom were Indian. Several Mexicans, one Spaniard, a Basque, one Black, an Irishman, a Peruvian, and a Chinese were also employed. Besides the enterprises established by Jose de la Guerra in his house, he also managed a store on Chapala street, where he sold general merchandise such as bread, sugar, panocha, soap, cigarettes, cigars, and liquor.74 Thus, these employees were family servants and employees of the family businesses who manufactured consumer goods for local markets. Pablo's brother Francisco, who owned Rancho Sim°, was also listed in the 1870 census as a "viniculturalist." This land was a vineyard "especially noted for its vinos and brandies" and sheep pasturing. Thompson makes the general statement that the "daughters of the Casa were taught home management, each taking a week's turn about as mistress."75 Pubols concludes that "although Jose was nominally the head of the house, it was the women of the family who held the real responsibility for its smooth functioning." She points out that "as daughters of the house married and moved to their husbands' homes, daughters-in-law moved in to take up the role of mistress."76 The court testimony over the murder of an Indian cook by another Indian servant suggests that Josefa shared household space with and perhaps overlooked household servants. On the evening of Nov. 2, 1853, an Indian servant by the name of Domingo, who had served in the de la Guerra house for seven or eight years, was apparently drunk and had fired a gun outside. After he left, the Sheriff went to the house in search of him. Upon his return, Domingo was confronted by two Indian servants by the names of Juan Bautista and Prospero about the sheriff's visit. When the two servants called him a fool for shooting the gun, Domingo became indignant and stabbed and killed Bautista. Jose confronted Domingo and was attacked and stabbed as well. To intercede, the maid Rosaria and Josefa each grabbed Jose by the coat and "hauled him off." After struggling with Prospero, Domingo headed for the door, but was unable to get out because Josefa, who had already shut the door, "ran and caught him by the hair and threw him down and shut the door," so that Prospero could further restrain him.77 Josefa recalled that she was "two or three feet" from Juan Bautista when he fell to the ground, thus indicating that she was in the kitchen at the time of the murder. However, she testified during trial that she had just entered the kitchen when Domingo "got up and gave the blows."78 It is not certain why Josefa entered the kitchen though she seems to have entered unsolicited by events in the kitchen at that moment. Apparently, she was not drawn to it by the noise resulting from the argument that preceded the stabbing. She testified on two separate occasions that she "saw no fight or quarrel prior to [the act of murder]," and that she "did not hear the conversation which passed between the accused and the deceased."79 This incident occurred as Jose and several children ate in one of the dining rooms. The fact that Juan Bautista was cutting meat at the time of his murder, and that Prospero was by his own estimation 12 feet away performing an unspecified task suggests that they were preparing dinner for the rest of the family. The maid Rosaria testified that the murder occurred at about 6:15 or 6:30 p.m. and that "the lights were burning." She continued, "I know that Don Jose was taking soup in the dining room and perhaps some children." Thus, her uncertainty of children "taking soup" at the moment suggests that she probably was not serving them, and that like the two men, she was performing an unspecified task in preparation for dinner. She continued that she "did not know how many persons were in the house at the time." Court testimony suggests that Antonio Mar°a was the only other adult in the house at the time. Given the testimony, Josefa's presence in the kitchen suggests among other things that she oversaw the servants, served those who ate, or served herself. Part of Pablo and Josefa's parenting included overseeing their children's education. Miranda writes that "girls received at best rudimentary education commensurate with their future role as wives and mothers."80 Women taught daughters to read and write as the sons were usually away at school. On at least one occasion, Pablo and his niece Cleotilda went to inquire about Francisca's enrollment at a convent school run by the Sisters of Charity in Los Angeles.81 The opening of a convent in San Jose and Hartnell's school in northern California served the educational needs of the children as well. While much of the responsibility to oversee the children's educational progress fell on women, and Josefa in particular, Pablo requested updates on their progress. He wrote, "I do not wish that you allow Carlos to go out much or that you allow him to join with other boys. Be careful of this matter and tell him not to go out, but to study and review what he has studies." Thus, Pablo's instructions imply that maternal and paternal control over social behavior had to be mediated by education. He also asked Josefa to "tell Francisca and Elena that they should have the girls read every day..." Pablo attempted to position Josefa as the middle person cautioning, "if I return and find them not advanced, they will have to pay for their neglect."82 It is possible that Pablo referred to Elena, the servant who
lived with the family in 1860, since there was no record of another
Elena during this time. Her race is listed as White, and by the
time of this letter, she was approximately 14 years old. Her
service as a tutor suggests that she was literate, perhaps having
been educated by women of the family, since census records indicate
that she lived in the house from the age of seven. In this case,
Josefa oversaw her children's education by delegating that authority
to an older daughter and a servant. Pablo's letters imply a hierarchical
chain of command based on gender, age, and class. While he asked
Josefa to make sure that their children were excelling academically,
he reminded her to keep a watchful eye for their well-being either
by her own direct actions or by delegating that authority to
others. At times the provision of material goods brought out a paternalism characterized by his desire to compensate for his absence. He wrote, "como estan nuestros hijitos: escribeme y dime que les hace falta,"84 [How are our children (the diminutive hijitos' is used as a term of endearment and thus is not literally translated as little children'): write and tell me what they need]. Although Pablo offered to provide things for the children and other members of the family, economic fluctuations, the availability of such provisions, and the limits of his own schedule did not allow him to be successful all the time. He wrote, "te dije que no habia podido hallar en San Francisco el juego para la Pancha pero otra vez que vuelva dare otra recorrida a ver si lo hallo y entonces te mandare el colch¢n porque al mandarlo desde aqu° saldria muy caro,"85 [I told you that I could not find the bedroom for Pancha in San Francisco, but upon my next return, I shall look again to see if I find it and then I shall send you the mattress because it would be too expensive to send it from here (Sacramento)].86 In 1866 he wrote, "I am forwarding two pieces of clothing, one for each [of their daughters]. I do not know if they will arrive in good condition, but I believe you know now to fix them up."87 Pablo's concern that shipping costs were too exorbitant and his sending damaged goods suggests that he economized when providing non-food items during the period of economic decline. Indeed, Albert Camarillo describes the period, in which these letters were written, as the "proletarianization" of Mexicans in California.88 The following section discusses two factors, the economy and Josefa, which served to demystify the functionalist perspective of the male provider role. Demystifying the Male Provider Role Prior to their marriage on March 7, 1847, Pablo was the customs official in Monterey. His political career included stints as U.S. Marshal, State Senator, Lieutenant Governor, and District Judge. Pablo's physical detachment and seclusion from his family and home were the most noteworthy themes in his letters to Josefa. The manner in which this projected itself onto his demeanor toward Josefa and how she responded are pieces of evidence that help to define and gauge the degree and nature of patriarchy in Pablo's discourse. These letters reveal a man with varied temperaments, and a woman with equally assorted qualities. The cynicism, humor, frustration, and warmth in Pablo's discourse demonstrate the complexities, and at times, conflicts between Josefa and himself. Historian Cynthia Orozco writes that functionalists have argued that the family serves as a refuge in which Chicanos/as "can escape racism and domination and within this 'harmonious' unit, all members act out their designated roles: men as 'providers' and women as homemakers."89 Pablo's letters and Josefa's responses, as he interpreted them, serve to demystify the functionalist perception of gender roles within the de la Guerra family. The privileges granted to male providers have stereotypically included positions of authority over those for whom they provide. Traditional historians depict male providers as being granted service and general submission by the provided, in exchange for their material and non-material provisions. Studies of 19th and 20th Century Chicano/a families challenge these notions and present family relationships based on mutuality and reciprocity.90 It has been suggested that Pablo's perceived role as male provider, and the illusion of his patriarchal authority often resulted in his directive discourse. This discourse was exemplified by the many demands and expectations he placed on Josefa and their children. Josefa's responses, as Pablo perceived or interpreted them, sometimes caused a shift in his tone to a more placating one; while failure to respond to his liking, often caused him to scold her. The presence of patriarchy remains a dominant consideration in these more recent studies in that they examine gender and generational-based resistance. Several factors challenge the functionalist portrayal of the assumed male-provider role. Shifts in the sometimes uncertain economy resulted in changing consumption practices. While the economy fluctuated, consumer demand on the part of the de la Guerra family shifted as well. During lucrative economic times, consumption of luxury goods, as evident in Pablo's letters, was in abundance. At times of economic depression, and after 1862 in particular, consumption became selective and based on subsistence goods. Thus, the market economy and consumer demands helped to determine the particular quality of Pablo's patriarchal discourse and the family's cultural agency. Whether in northern California or Los Angeles, Pablo sent luxury goods and food products to Santa Barbara. On occasion, he entrusted it to his compadre Alfred Robinson to deliver to Josefa, writing, "te mando cien pesos para que compres lo que necesites,"91 [I am sending 100 pesos so that you can buy what you need]. This indicates that not everything was provided for by the de la Guerra house and the ranches, and that Josefa needed to purchase goods which may have been in short supply at local markets. However, the difference between want and need presented a dilemma, which Pablo and Josefa experienced as consumers. This dilemma was present in the choices they made while responding to the conditions of markets around them. Historian Joseph Thompson points to these markets when he discusses furniture, musical instruments, and other luxury goods which found their way to California on merchant ships from Boston, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Manila, and China.92 Pubols refers to photographs of the house, which display decorative art and furniture from China and included a carved chair, a screen with a dragon motif, a painted scroll, and a vase.93 The economic function of Pablo's patriarchal role of provider is suspect, because during good economic times, he did not provide the essentials for survival and even luxury goods were, at times resisted, or flat out rejected by Josefa. On one occasion, Josefa showed a dislike for a cape Pablo bought for her claiming that it was not the color she had requested. Although it was the color and not the style or fashion of the cape she renounced, he responded, "when I chose it, I regarded rather its utility than its showiness. This is what I believe people like yourself ought to obtain - things that are useful, not primarily pretty. But now I see that, although you may be old in years, you do not wish to be so in taste."94 Josefa was approximately 37 years old when Pablo wrote this. Whatever the intentions of this statement, it reveals that patriarchy was not exclusively an economic function. Thus, economic dependency by Josefa on Pablo in and of itself did not constitute patriarchy. Pablo's statement that Josefa was "too old" for things that are more "pretty" than they are "useful" suggests that the cultural economy of patriarch (in this case) resorted to Pablo's attempt to restrict Josefa's autonomy as a cultural and social practitioner. While she complained about the cape, Pablo's perception of his own role as a cultural and social provider and agent was violated. Thus, his discourse was affected and even determined by the incoherence between expected behavior and actual behavior. Part of her functions as a cultural and social facilitator, as Pablo perceived it, included Josefa's role as hostess to visiting acquaintances and family members.95 Josefa's hosting signified a transgression between private and public spheres, and was related in many ways to the purchase of art and taste for other luxury goods. That these were purchased for entertainment and decorative purposes as well as for their fashionable facade suggests that consumer demand was couched in class considerations. While some of the de la Guerra men held public office, the women entertained people who visited for both public and private purposes. Pubols writes that the de la Guerra house "was a neutral ground for sanctuary, where community members could seek assistance, resolve disputes or obtain official approval for their actions."96 The upkeep and presence of the house took on great significance. Still, the interaction between men and women who filled these roles was a collaborative, but not always a consensual one. In addressing the interior decoration of the house Pablo wrote, "te mando los cuadros que son bastantes y bonitos y tambien te mando semilla de repollo y varias de flores para que tengas bonita a guerta (huerta) cuando yo vaya, y la sala bien compuesta. Los cuadros grandes son para la sala y los medianos para alg£n cuarto,"97 [I send you the paintings that are plenty and pretty and I also send you seeds for cabbage and various flowers so that you can have the garden beautiful when I arrive, and the living room well kept. The big paintings are for the living room and the medium ones for some other room]. He not only sent the paintings, but instructed Josefa where to place them. His reference to planting flowers in the garden and having the living room well kept for his pending return suggests that gender specific tasks were central to maintaining an acceptable demeanor and thus to his expected appeasement. As with the cape, Josefa did not find the paintings to her liking. Pablo wrote, "yo no se que clase de cuadros querias y yo pensaba que los que te mande te iban a gustar mucho porque son los que estan en boga en San Francisco y aqu° [Sacramento],"98 [I don't know what type of paintings you wanted and I thought that you would really like the ones I sent because they are en vogue in San Francisco and here (Sacramento)]. This passage reveals that Josefa requested the paintings, though she did not like the ones Pablo sent. His insisting that they were en boga suggests that his selection of the paintings was market induced. That is, because they were en vogue, paintings were perhaps limited to those styles which he purchased whether he liked them or not. Moreover, Pablo's attempt to rationalize his purchase of the paintings, by claiming that they were in style, contradicts the very same criticism he made of Josefa regarding in contrast to Pubols' conclusion that the women of the de la Guerra house "surrounded themselves with the latest in American Victoriana." However, this contradicts Pubols' assessment that women (more so than the men) were cultural transformers in that it is Pablo, and not Josefa, who refers to fashion trends. Evidently cultural transformation was an ongoing negotiation. What's more, Pubols describes this arrangement as "clumsy" and, by implication, Pablo as a bumbling incompetent.99 By managing the interior design of the house, Josefa affirmed her tastes for goods which were in contrast to Pablo's, indicating that Pubols' conclusion did not consider the complexities of Pablo and Josefa's relationship. On several occasions, Pablo requested information from Josefa to purchase luxury goods for her. Sometimes this consumption was unsolicited and resulted in unfavorable circumstances. The letters reveal that Josefa and the children solicited goods, and at times, Pablo initiated consumption. He once wrote "mandame a la subida del vapor... un zapato tuyo para llevarte algunos s° encuentro buenos y s° no puedes mandarme un zapato, mandame aunque sea una medida dentro de la carta que me escribas del largo y grueso de tu pie,"100 [Send me one of your shoes aboard the next steamer so that I can take you some if I find some good ones, and if you can not send me a shoe, send at least a measurement of the length and width of your foot inside the letter that you write me]. Thus, he attempted to encourage her to write to him by combining letter writing with the purchase of shoes. This was not successful however. Fifteen days later, he chided Josefa, "te ped° en una carta anterior medida para buscarte zapatos pero n° siquiera me la has mandado, demodo que la culpa sera tuya si no te los llevo,"101 [In a previous letter, I requested your shoe size, but you have not even sent it, it will be your fault if I do not take them to you]. Pablo's volunteering to buy Josefa shoes resulted in her noncompliance, perhaps because she did not need nor want shoes, or perhaps because she was too preoccupied with managing the household to be able to write him back. In either case, he blamed her for sabotaging his efforts to buy her shoes, which she may never have requested in the first place. The purchase of paintings and shoes were not crucial to subsistence. However, they demonstrate that other practices, crucial to maintaining a particular ambiance and demeanor, were important to the sustenance of the de la Guerra image as social elites. Subsequently, Josefa's complaints of the paintings imply a partnership with Pablo in sustaining that image. Her lack of response to Pablo's request for her shoe size demonstrates that Pablo's role of provider (in this case) was less one of providing essentials for subsistence to the family and more one of providing items the family could do without. The example of Pablo sending money did not seem to draw protest. Depending on the purpose of consumption, the cultural economy of patriarchy in Pablo's discourse was at times dictated by the decision to fulfill social needs more than biological ones. In times of economic depression or distress, money use and consumption patterns by the de la Guerras were selective. After Jose de la Guerra's death, his general stores either were no longer functioning or were not patronized by members of his family. According to historian Albert Camarillo, the late 1850's saw the gradual decline of the pastoral economy due to a variety of issues. Among them, land squatting was so severe that in June 1850, the land agent Drury P. Baldwin encouraged Pablo to sell land at an undisclosed location advising to "send all the papers requested together with a power of attorney," as well as instructions of whether he should sell "in small tracts or large or the whole as it stands."102 Baldwin attributed the inevitability of land loss to squatters who came seeking gold, but found they had to turn to other means. This resulted in an increasingly diversified economy about which Baldwin warned, "as all persons must live and all can't live by mining, a large portion will necessarily turn thus to agriculture."103 Such implications resulted in the growing demand for land beyond the direct proximity of mining regions. By September of 1850, the establishment of a new ship line connecting California with San Blas and Mazatlan, along with the already established ship lines, increased access for farmers and others to prospective markets outside their immediate locality. The regularity of a stagecoach through California, though at times on a bi-monthly basis, also provided transportation for taking goods to market. Although more research is needed to determine the extent to which these prospects encouraged investment in non-mining industries by Euroamericans and other miners, Juan Antonio Aguirre from San Diego remarked of "...la facilidad que presenta la nueva linea de vapores [the ease that the new line of steam boats presents]" for nonmining industries.104 The loss of range land was complimented in part by the decreased demand for California range beef and the substitution of Texas cattle. Camarillo states that 1862 was a watershed in the intensified depression of the economy. The market forces, which resulted in decline of the industry, were further complicated by the extensive flooding in the winter of 1862 which destroyed property and drowned cattle. These floods were followed by prolonged drought which resulted in the decline of cattle in Santa Barbara County from 300,000 before 1862 to just 7,000 by 1865.105 The de la Guerra holdings decreased from 152,000 acres in 1861 to 24,000 acres in 1871.106 The impact on the household life was inescapable. In 1862, Pablo wrote to Josefa, "problablemente tendran que acostumbrarse a beber pura leche por que el azucar, cha, cafe, y todo comestible esta tan caro como jamas se ha visto en California,"107 [You will probably have to get used to drinking solely milk because sugar, tea, coffee, and everything edible is so expensive like we've never seen in California]. The changing economic circumstances in California during these years thus resulted in a shift in patriarchal practice, which manifested itself in a modified consumer culture and the unintelligible role of the male provider in particular. Pablo instructed Josefa and their family to become more conservative and did not offer to send money. Although from a distance, Pablo's reference to the expensive nature of edible products signified his attempt to play a hand in determining the family diet. Judging from letters after 1862, the absence of Pablo's references to Josefa's dislike for products as in earlier times of economic prosperity suggests that the changing economy assisted in bringing about a more cohesive relationship between Pablo and Josefa, where consumer choice was concerned. In February of 1865, Pablo wrote two letters which accompanied and described edible goods. In the first he wrote, "con Miguel que llegar* alla mañana mando 1/2 lb. azucar, 1 cajeta de higos, 1 bolsita de confites de los que daras sú porción * José pues me dio con que le comprara, y 2 repollos. ...Las naranjas iran en la diligencia del viernes,"108 [with Miguel, who shall arrive tomorrow, I send 1/2 lb. sugar, 1 box of fig jam, 1 small bag of sweets of which you should give José his portion, since he gave me money to buy him some, and two cabbages. ...The oranges should arrive in Friday's stagecoach.] Twelve days later, he addressed a shortage of citrus in Santa Barbara by writing, "he mandado por la Diligencia 2 cajones de naranjas sin contar con las que llevó Miguel... Yo les hubiera mandado verdura mas, pero la diligencia no quiere llevar. Dile a la Guila que con Cuchichito va otro caj¢n con naranjas para los puros chiquitos, pues los grandes ya estaran hartas, y que en el van los limones que me encarg¢,"109 [I sent two boxes of oranges by stagecoach without counting the ones that Miguel took... I would have sent more vegetables, but the stagecoach would not take them. Tell Guila that with Cuchichito I am sending another box of oranges just for the children, since the grown-ups must be fed up, and in it are the lemons she asked for]. What this shortage was attributed to is uncertain. One would almost have to rule out foul weather as a reason, since Pablo sent this produce from nearby Los Angeles. If bad weather was a factor in this shortage, then one must assume that the Los Angeles port or other mercantile centers provided this fruit from another place. Another possibility was that the de la Guerra house did not grow such fruits and vegetables or had already exhausted them. If this was the case, it might point to a decline in household employees and perhaps further economic decline. Josefa provided Pablo and others with goods on occasion. She wrote to Pablo during a time which he was ill, "you can see then it will be very good if I give you payliano. I'm glad that this [medicine] will help you with your cold, but it is necessary that the visits that you do until midnight should be done earlier... [and] you must not get tired writing letters."110 Hence, Josefa responded to Pablo's nagging about a perceived lack of writing on her part, by warning him that writing too much would worsen his condition. Pablo referred to her sending him cider, though he gave it away to his aunt, the wife of his t°o Vallejo.111 On a different occasion Pablo wrote, "te agradezgo el envio de las aceitunas a m° compadre quien dices te mando las gracias,"112 [I am grateful to you for sending the olives to my compadre whom you say sent you thanks]. This along with Pablo's request for underwear indicates that Josefa provided goods and services for Pablo as well as others. Pablo's role as male provider, as he depicted it in his discourse, was at least a part of an exchange between Josefa and himself. Pablo and Josefa's relationship was an on-going negotiation between patriarchal ideals and life experiences. In response to Pablo's request for underwear, Josefa instructed him to send the materials necessary in order to include bottoms. She wrote, "I sent you two pairs of underwear and I didn't send more because... the underwear doesn't have bottoms because I don't have (the materials to make them). Send me what I need so I can send you another two."113 Pablo responded to Josefa, "I am sending [this letter] together with the items you ordered, sashes, silk, broaches, hooks, and eyes, and matches. Buttons are not among the items, for they are for my underwear and you can sew them when here, but if they are to be used on some other items, I do not know what particular kind you want."114 In spite of Pablo's and Josefa's separation and his underwear being "tan mugrosos que me dan asco" [so filthy they disgust me], Pablo preferred to wash his last pair until Josefa could make him more rather than visiting a local tailor. Historian Richard Griswold del Castillo in The Los Angeles Barrio points out that tailors and launderers, who could have tended to Pablo's needs, were abundant in Los Angeles at the time he wrote this particular letter.115 The date of this letter [1865], the implications of Pablo's requests, and Josefa's compliance suggests that gender tasks and patriarchal expectations were couched in economic considerations on both their parts. In spite of their separation, Josefa continued to perform and Pablo continued to expect what could be considered a household task at a time when the de la Guerra fortune was quickly diminishing. The letters discussed in this section reveal that consumption patterns were affected by the economy, consumer tastes, and the degree to which certain goods were accessible in the different markets. Prior to 1862, when the cycles of drought and floods decimated what remained of the pastoral economy, Pablo's letters addressed the consumption of luxury goods. Thus, patriarchy was associated with provisions for the maintenance of an elite social status. After the winter of 1862, his letters described the consumption of edible subsistence goods while discussion of luxury goods declined, becoming virtually non-existent. Josefa's responses to Pablo reveal that challenges to patriarchy occurred more regularly during good economic times than in bad ones. The lack of such complaints in Pablo's discourse after 1862, accompanied with the shift toward consumption of subsistence goods, suggests that economic decline resulted in a more harmonious interaction between Pablo and Josefa, so far as consumption was concerned. Another point to consider is that Pablo was in Los Angeles as a district judge after 1862, while he was in the more distant Sacramento legislature prior to 1862. Hence, the semblance of a "harmonious" relationship needs to be examined in economic as well as geographic terms. However, proximity alone did not account for harmony between Pablo and Josefa. The letters I examined did not reveal much about the de la Guerras' concern with projecting a public image in the post 1862 years, as they did in previous ones. The births of daughters Delfina and Herminia in 1861 and 1862 respectively suggest that childrearing took precedence to hosting for Josefa as well. Because much of the parenting was deferred to Josefa, household management was delegated by Josefa to younger daughters and others. Josefa grappled with managing household activities through pregnancies, childbearing, and childrearing. This occupied much of her energy and time to the point that she was unable to write as often as Pablo would have liked her to. Pablo consistently chided her as an ingrate for not responding to what he perceived as his loving devotion to her. This often resulted in another form of patriarchy, which took on the form of manipulation. The following section examines the patriarchy of "guilting" and "pleading," as Pablo often turned to these as tactics to persuade Josefa to write him and to affect other responses from her. The Patriarchy of Manipulation, Guilting, and Pleading According to Maria Linda Apodaca, patriarchy has been understood as a forceful, assertive, and often imposing experience by predominately white liberal feminists for whom "the primary antagonism is seen as that between women and men."116 Antonia Castaneda writes that most women of color "who research and write the history of women of color look not to the women's liberation movement, but to third-world liberation movements."117 Still, she reminds us that women of color "also struggled against the internal gender oppression of their own families, organizations, and communities and against a historical sexual exploitation rooted in the intersection of their gender with race and class."118 With very few exceptions, the study of gender has focused on the experiences of women, their historical agency, and their articulations. Men who have studied gender have for the most part not moved beyond that central focus.119 The critical analysis of men and patriarchy is necessary to better understand the complexities of imbalanced gender and sexual relations. Far from a reactionary, "men's rights" taxonomy, a critical men's studies field, would allow for further investigation into not only what men do to effect the privileges bestowed on them by birth and the socialization of both men and women, but also how and why this gender imbalance exists. The recent publication of the anthology Muy Macho: Latino Men Confront Their Manhood centralizes Latino men and their perceptions of the social constructions of their gendered lives.120 However, it remains a literary text and provides no historical contexts for its musings. Moreover, while it claims to be "the first book by Latino male writers to address how they see themselves within the concept of what it means to be 'macho'"; it fails to critically assess the ethnocentric, if not racist, connotations of "machismo." While many of the essays in this collection provide sharp criticism and heart felt reflections on manhood, few examine the universality of male chauvinism, deferring instead to the cultural deficiency model which encapsulates machismo as a predominant Latino endeavor. Because our general understanding of machismo is relegated to an overbearing Latino male who overtly expresses and acts on his socially constructed privilege, we fail to see the more subtle and at times misleading ways in which patriarchy is manifested. These intangible cultural behavioral patterns of patriarchal privilege, I would argue, reflect the universal experience of male privilege. Thus, this section and the one that follows attempt to critically assess, and thus centralize, Pablo's manifestations of patriarchy - of what he demonstrated as his understanding of his own manhood. Specifically, I examine the manner in which his discursive tone shifted from domineering to inculpating and subsequently to pleading, in efforts to solicit the type of response he wished to receive from his counterparts. Whereas the previous section addressed the functionalist perspective of the male provider role and the presumptions of privilege that are associated with it, and whereas childrearing practices and household management, as discussed in the first section, suggest that patriarchy was a dialogue between Pablo and Josefa that proved more elaborate than the "dominant-male/submissive-female" bi-polarity, the remaining two sections examine Pablo's behavioral impulses amidst conflict, contestation, and resistance from Josefa and their children. Power, and patriarchal power in this case, was illustrated in Pablo and Josefa's relationship by the frequent incompatibility between socio-cultural ideals and actual behavior. A major theme of Pablo's letters was his constant complaint regarding what he perceived to be Josefa's failure to answer his letters. As Geiger writes, "internal evidence" in Pablo's letters demonstrates that Josefa did write to Pablo. One of the consequences of patriarchy, as shown by Pablo's discourse, was his attempt to assert a perceived social domination over Josefa and their children through the use of manipulatives such as "guilting" and "pleading." "Guilting" refers to Pablo's attempt to shame Josefa by implying that he was more committed to their relationship than she was. "Pleading" refers to Pablo's favorable responses to his patriarchal discourse. In these letters, Pablo's appeal fell short of supplication. Thus, patriarchy did not always present itself through a forceful demeanor, but included attempts to induce guilt and pity in order to stimulate the responses Pablo seemed concerned about, namely, receiving letters from his family and attempting to effect behavioral responses that were favorable to him. Pablo's shift from a directive tone to one of pleading exemplifies his efforts to affect Josefa's behavior first by demanding, then by soliciting her attention and response. Nonetheless, as much as he tried to affect Josefa's behavior, her actions affected Pablo's written tone as well. Pablo's accommodations for his family (Josefa in particular), and the sense of neglect he perceived in return resulted in his constantly nagging at Josefa's infrequent writing. Gieger and Cassidy portray Josefa as Pablo did. She appears as an unappreciative, lazy, and generally dysfunctional wife. While Pubols does describe Josefa as an agent and an active participant in history, she does not analyze the sex-gender power dynamics in Josefa's relationship with Pablo. She describes Josefa as "not a letter writer." On the lack of letters by Josefa, Geiger writes, "[Josefa] was not a letter writer, a fact that irked [Pablo] much, for nothing pleased him more than to be the recipient of her letters."121 Geiger and Cassidy present Pablo as an unappreciated, overworked, and lonely husband. However, this reading of the situation depends on taking entirely at face value Pablo's constant complaints regarding his perception of Josefa's disregard for him, and his repeatedly expressed undying devotion to her. But closer analysis of these exchanges often reveal a manipulative, rather than devoted husband. On one occasion, Pablo chided, "por fortuna tuya lleg¢ t£ carta en momentos antes de comprometerme a casarme con una joven, p£es te consideraba muerta,"122 [fortunately for you, your letter arrived moments before I was to commit myself to marry a young woman, well I considered you dead.] On her Saint's day in 1851, Pablo wished Josefa well while suggesting that he cared more for her than she cared for him. He attributed this to her perceived laziness and unwillingness to make sacrifices. On this occasion, he toasted to her health, writing:
Josefa's household management, which included childrearing and overseeing chores, has already been discussed and revelas much of the daily activity which impeded her correspondence. In spite of his criticism of Josefa for not writing him, Pablo's own discourse addressed Josefa's occupations. Antonio Mar°a, Pablo's brother, advised Pablo of Josefa's pregnancy and that as of April 10, 1857, "no hab°a habido a£n aumento en la familia,"124 [there had not been an addition to the family]. Several years later, Pablo noted, "por Antonio Mar°a se que t£ panza te impedia escribirme, pobre vieja, cuan gorda debes de estar!, [through Antonio Mar°a I know that your stomach impeded you from writing me, poor old lady, how fat you must be!] Pablo suggested to Josefa that he too was not feeling well, yet he was still able to write her, "yo tambien estoy sufriendo mucho del estomago pues hace mas de veinte d°as que nada puedo comer s°n agriarseme demodo que lo que a t° te sobra a m° me falta porque con tanta dieta estoy desbarrigado," [I also suffer a lot from my stomach, well it has been 20 days that I can not eat anything without it turning sour in such a way that what you have in excess, I lack because with such a diet I am bellyless]. In her absence, Pablo relied on other women to care for his medical needs. He wrote, "pobre yo estoy muy desmayado y nada agusto, quizas cuando vea juntas a m°s comadres puede que me reponga con el caldo. ®No crees que me aliviare con eso?"125 [poor me, I am very faint and uncomfortable, perhaps when I see my comadres I will get better with their soup. Don't you think I could get better with that?] Thus, Pablo addressed his discontent with her inability to write by relaying his own writing in spite of discomforts. It can be concluded that in doing this he attempted to induce guilt on Josefa for not having done the same. Pablo was clearly unsympathetic to Josefa's plight at times. In February 1857, Pablo wrote that through a letter from Antonio Mar°a he was made aware that Josefa had not written him because their daughter Paulina was sick. Still, Pablo chastised Josefa for not writing regarding Paulina's condition. In spite of his daughter's illness, Pablo complained, "al paso que yo deseo ver t£s letras mas que cualesquiera otras, siempre es m° desgracia el que t£ tienes alguna causa que te impide hacerlo,"126 [at the rate I long to see your letters more than any others, it is always my misfortune that you have an excuse that impedes you from writing them]. Pablo's dismissal of Paulina's illness as an excuse for Josefa's lack of correspondence sought to place his misery in the center of a much more complex situation: he demonstrated a lack of consideration for Paulina and Josefa's own misery. On another occasion, his lack of compassion and understanding for Josefa's laborious childrearing was evident. When daughters Erminia and Deflina were approximately three and two years of age, he wrote, "siento muchos los malos ratos que te han dado Erminia y Delfina pero como ya estan sanas tu estaras descansada pero yo no tengo aquí descanso casi ni de noche... cuando te vea que sera a fines de este mes o principios del que entra te contare un lance que hace tres d°as me paso con una muy linda moza,"127 [I sympathize that you have endured bad times with Erminia and Delfina, but now that they are healthy you should be well rested while I don't get any rest, not even at night... When I see you, which should be at the end of this month or the beginning of next, I shall tell you of an event that I had with a very pretty young woman about three days ago]. Because he did not witness Josefa's work or perhaps because he underestimated its value, Pablo was certain that he worked harder than her. He wrote that he could not even get rest at night, while not taking into account several "intangibles" such as Josefa possibly having to wake up in the middle of the night to tend to their two and three-year-old daughters while he was away. The sexualization of his discourse was evident in his reference to an encounter with "una muy linda moza," which may have been made to badger Josefa. Yet, on another occasion, he wrote in more explicit terms from San Luis Obispo, "tell Chonita [an unidentified woman who may have been the servant "Chinita"] that there is an Indian woman here who is old and who has an infallible secret remedy for fattening the legs and enlarging the breasts, but who also wants to be paid. So if she is interested in the matter and wants to use it, I can pay for the treatment here and she can pay me there with a certain thing, which if now she is not very stout, I can make her stout with the secret I have and which I believe is good not only for the legs and the breasts, but also for... the certain thing with which she could repay me for so useful a secret."128 Regarding the exchange of the "infallible" leg and breast enlargement remedy for sex as described in this letter, Geiger ascertains that after consulting an unnamed Spanish-born physician practicing psychiatry in Southern California, it was the physician's opinion that "Pablo is writing in jest, and that his remarks fit very well with a Spanish sense of humor with regard to the matters touched upon."129 What made the physician an authority other than his racial and cultural background remains unclear. The Spanish-born physician's apologist assessment dismisses Pablo's use of sex in a manipulative manner to attempt to affect Josefa's behavior in a manner favorable to Pablo or risk the possibility of his infidelity. Further, the physician's and ultimately Geiger's assessment dismissed the sexualization of this text as a "cultural" practice, which because it entailed a "sense of humor" accepted the cultural deficiency model. Thus, Pablo's cultural background was utilized as an explanation for his flawed behavior, whereas mainstream sexism and patriarchy, such as that reflected in Geiger's own assessment of the text, is made to appear distant, objective, and pure. Pablo's complaints were sometimes accompanied by sincere queries which were intermingled with manipulative statements meant to induce guilt and pity. Regarding his desire to be with Josefa, he wrote "si supieras las ganas que tengo de estar contigo me tendr°as hasta lastima. No se porque pienso que cuando vaya y te vea a m° lado (ojala fuera ahorita) voy a pasar un buen rato, [if you only knew the desire I have to be with you you would even pity me. I don't know why I think that when I go to see you and have you at my side (I wish it were now) I am going to have a good time]. This passage revealed the sincerity of a man who was lonely and longed for his wife's company. He continued, "cuentame algo ®Por que no me escribes? parece que siempre que viene el vapor se te antoja enfermarte de la cabeza. ®Que no puedes escribir uno o dos d°as antes y tener tu carta lista con anticipaci¢n? Vamos: tu no me quieres a m°, como yo a t°. ®No es verdad?130 [Tell me something, Why don't you write? It seems that every time the steamer comes it occurs to you to get sick in the head. Can't you write one or two days before and have the letter ready with anticipation? Well, you do not like me as I like you. Isn't this true?] On another occasion, Pablo excused his brevity on his own headache, writing "el otro d°a te puse dos renglones que apenas pude escribir por lo que me dolia la cabeza pero ahora estoy mejor gracias a Dios..."131 [The other day I barely wrote two lines because I had a headache, but now I feel better, thank God...] Her lack of response often frustrated Pablo. In another letter, he complained to Josefa, "lleg¢ el vapor pero no trajo carta tuya ®Porque, dime, te olvidas tanto de este t£ pobre y aflijido viejo? Porque tan ingrata dejas de escribirme ya que solo cada 15 dias puedes hacerlo?"132 [The steamer arrived, but it did not bring your letter. Why, tell me, do you forget this poor and heartbroken old man so much? Why do you so ungratefully refrain from writing me now that you can only do so every two weeks?] His reference to being a poor and heartbroken old man, as well as his appeal to her to write ahead of time followed by his assessment that "tu no me quieres a mi como yo a t°," [you don't like me as I like you] implied his attempt to induce pity and guilt in order to get Josefa to write. Pablo's accusations of Josefa's perceived ungratefulness demonstrated his belief that he contributed more both materially and emotionally to their relationship. However, he failed to recognize Josefa's contributions, which included raising their children and managing the household. Even still, he extended his discontent at not receiving attention from his children. He wrote, "parece que tu y tus hijas se han propuesto a nunca escribirme si yo primero no escribo. ®Porque hacen esto? Tu debias escribirme y cuidar que tus hijas tambien,"133 [it seems that you and your daughters have proposed to never write me if I do not write first. Why do you do this? You should write me and take care that they do too]. Thus, he expected Josefa to include in her duty, as a mother and caretaker, the assurance that her daughters write to their father. The detachment from his daughters in his reference to "tus hijas" [your daughters] implied his association of their non-writing to Josefa's perceived ungratefulness. On another occasion, Pablo wrote:
Although Pablo complained about what he considered to be a lack of Josefa's letters, his own lack of writing was apparent in his discourse. By his own admission, lack of time did not permit him to write his sister and an unidentified woman to whom he asked Josefa to relay the message, "que tengan esta [carta] por suya y que me dispensen que no les escriba apartamente porque ya es muy noche,"135 [to take this (letter) as theirs and that they excuse me for not writing them their own letter because it is too late]. On many occasions, Pablo indicated that he did not have an opportunity to write or that certain factors caused him to be brief. In spite of various obstacles, it appears that his constant writing was due in part to homesickness. His homesickness was evident in his reference to social events such as his father's saint's day. "Supongo que hoy estaran gozando de placer y buena comida por ser d°a de los Joses pero yo aqu° lo pasare como todos los demas, triste y solo,"136 [I take it today you will enjoy the pleasantness and good food during this day of the Joses (referring to el d°a de San Jose or Saint Joseph's Day), but I will spend it here like all the rest, sad and lonely]. Lack of funds prohibited Pablo from addressing such homesickness at times. In a letter dated Dec. 22, 1860, he wrote to Josefa, "espero que se diviertan bien la pascua mientras yo aqu° me aburro en m° cuarto por que n° a donde °r tengo en raz¢n que la bolsa esta vacia," [I expect that you will enjoy your Christmas, while I am here bored in my room because I don't even have a place to go since my pockets are empty].137 The following month he referred to Josefa's bad Christmas but quickly followed that due to illness, "yo no las he pasado mejores porque las pase en cama de un fuerte catarro y fonquera y como llovi¢ tanto ese d°a no quise empeorarme y me quede todo el d°a en cama," [I did not pass it much better because I was in bed with a severe cold, and since it rained so much that day, I didn't want to make it worse so I stood in bed]. However, his illness did not keep him from attending mass, in which "varias veces durante la Misa me acorde de t° y de los demas,"138 [a few times during Mass, I remembered you and the others]. The dependence on streamers and stagecoaches, despite their apparent regularity, hindered the degree of communication because they were usually on weekly or bi-monthly schedules. Given the physical detachment, the slow pace of mail delivery frustrated Pablo even more. Reflective of this, Pablo complained in April 1851, "estoy muy enfadado y aburrido, pero no he podido sal°r de este diablo de lugar,"139 [I am fed up and bored, but I have not been able to escape this devil of a place]. Such boredom helped explain his constant nagging of Josefa to write. Upon receipt of letters from Josefa, Pablo greeted them with "recibí tú muy deseada cartita... t£ cartita me ha llenado de placer," and "recib° t£s apreciables renglones," ["I received your much desired little letters... your little letter has filled me with pleasure," and "I received your valued lines"]. In such cases, his use of diminutives to describe the objects he longed for, the "cartitas," indicates that these letters had taken on a life of their own as they were one of the few methods of communication available. The letters became a tangible representation of Josefa's words and ideals which he could hold onto for a duration of time. Indeed, Pablo's desire to be with his family was genuine. His longing was evident in his letters and was used as collateral in an effort to solicit responses from others that were favorable to him. His reference to lack of cash on hand provides a glimpse into the enhanced frustration of being alone and not having the means to socialize. Yet, on occasions when he did have cash, Pablo attempted to address his loneliness through various means. In spite of his loneliness, Pablo once ably found four friends in Sacramento with whom to celebrate his 13th anniversary, though in Josefa's absence, writing, "siento que no pudiste celebrar nuestro 13 aniversario de union," [I'm sorry that you could not celebrate our 13th anniversary]. Reassuring her that not all was lost, he continued, "...yo fui mas feliz porque dos d°as antes me puse a jugar ventiuno y gane $40 con los que costie una comidita de 4 amigos y brindamos a t£ salud,"140 [...I was most happy because two days before, I played Twenty-one and won $40 with which I bought some food for four friends and we toasted to your health]. Pablo found other social events in northern California provided an opportunity for leisure. Such was the case when he received an invitation from the Sacramento Pioneer Association to "participate in the festivities of the... anniversary of the admission of the State into the Union."141 A series of letters in the de la Guerra Collection - SBMAL from various individuals, Californios, and Euroamericans alike, suggest that his presence and favor was in high demand.142 Pablo's absence from home was necessitated by political and economic considerations for his family. He withstood deprivation and loneliness in order to look out for such interests. Likewise, social and political events affected the mood in his discourse. Geiger and Cassidy concluded that Pablo rarely discussed public affairs with Josefa while Pubols addressed this sharing of public space between Pablo and Josefa with regard to hosting. But closer examination reveals that Pablo did indeed share discussion of his non-domestic, "public" endeavors with Josefa. The sharing of private and public space between Pablo and Josefa took on a sexualized character at times. When this occurred, Pablo limited and belittled the public and professional experiences he shared with Josefa.143 The following section examines the intersection of "public" and "private" space in Pablo's discourse. The Intersection of "Public" and "Private" Space Historian Cynthia Orozco writes that feminists argue that "men have subjugated women to the domestic sphere - the home - where the major societal decisions are not made."144 The feminists to whom Orozco refers rely on the emphasis by traditional historians on institutional history as the primary field of analysis. Power here is determined by that space in which public policy, or "major societal decisions" are made and not made. Thus, the creation of mutually exclusive, sex-specific spheres for scholarly purposes has been done as much for convenience in organizing data, as for the emphasis on the existence of difference and conflict between men and women. To suggest that the home connotes "private" space and that any and every activity outside the home connotes "public" space does not do justice to our attempts at understanding the dynamics of negotiation for power along gender, race, and class lines. Indeed, the intersection of these spheres, provided they exist as rigidly as has heretofore been documented in the first place, has been addressed by various scholars.145 In her essay "Creating Community: Mexican American Women in East Los Angeles," sociologist Mary Pardo demonstrates that Mexican women's efforts to improve quality of life in East Los Angeles during the 1980's influenced conditions in their neighborhoods and at times changed household arrangements. Pardo writes that "women's community activism can either change the traditional domestic division of labor or reinforce 'traditional' gender expectations."146 Thus, the division of public/private and male/female realms is problematic because they are often intersected. The construction of public and private space in Geiger, Cassidy, and Pubols' treatment of Pablo's letters to Josefa suggests that public space was male-dominant, while private space was the realm of "mistresses of the house." Although reference is made to women taking part in hosting public and private functions in the house, the functions themselves remained male-dominant. The evidence demonstrates that Pablo rarely shared public experiences with Josefa, and the times he did, he curtailed their importance by his use of sarcasm, or by belittling or sexualizing the text. In doing this, Pablo created a superficial exchange that emphasized his work as a politician and judge rather than a true political conversation. On one occasion as a judge, Pablo wrote, "I am writing this [letter] during today's session while I am listening to declarations of witnesses, so that I hardly know what I have written nor what I am writing, so who knows if I can read or understand this."147 Pablo's admission that he wrote to Josefa while sitting on the bench, listening to eyewitness testimony, indicates his disregard for his duty as a judge, and for his correspondence with Josefa in this instance. Moreover, Pablo's act of incorporating Josefa into what he may have perceived as his "public life" was done in such a manner that his demeanor toward Josefa was unlike the demeanor he may have expressed in front of others. For instance, spectators and parties in court the day he wrote this letter were mislead to believe that perhaps Pablo was taking notes of testimony. This facade afforded Pablo the opportunity to maintain a modicum of professionalism to those observers. Yet, to Josefa, Pablo lacked undivided attention and failed to engage Josefa in some form of thoughtful discussion regarding his duties as a judge. Pablo wrote to Josefa that when he was named "Teniente Gobernador" [lieutenant governor], she acquired "one more title" by her association to him. Jokingly he wrote that she now had so many titles that she should in turn delegate some among other female members of the family.148 The significance of these titles reveals Pablo's attempt to include Josefa in the public life he enjoyed by projecting a privileged social status onto her. He attempted to reinforce his perceived centrality in relation to Josefa and other women of the family by implying that as an extension of the illusionary male-provider role, he provided elite social status as well. The absence of Josefa's written record notwithstanding, literary critic Genaro Padilla argues that Josefa's sister-in-law, Angustias de la Guerra, provided a critical assessment of Californio men, whom she believed misjudged Euroamerican intentions in California prior to the conquest. The idea of men providing elite social status to women seems outlandish to Angustias, who described an incident in which she and several other women chose to hide a Californio, by the name of Jose Antonio Chavez from Euroamerican troops. While she was subjected to a search of her home and had a gun pointed to her head by the Euroamerican soldiers, Angustias (and the other women) successfully hid the man under a pile of blankets upon which her infant slept.149 Thus, Pablo's attempt to intersect public and private domains through his suggestion that others - women in particular - received their social status through him demonstrated his emphasis on male privilege as determining hierarchy in public and private space. Angustias' recollection, however, demonstrated that during war time, she and other women became the "public" actors. Upon his return to Los Angeles from San Bernardino in 1863, Pablo proclaimed that he was "muy satisfecho porque los Yankes se prendaron de m° patriotismo y las Yankes de m° buena presencia, demanera que tu corres riesgo all°," [very satisfied because the Yankees were won over by my patriotism and the (Yankee) women by my fine appearance, in such a way that you run a risk there].150 Patriotism was the subject of his winning over a group of unidentified, yet politically worthy, male Yankees. Pablo added that the Yankee women in the group were won over by his "buena presencia" in such a way that Josefa is left to ruminate on the possibility of his infidelity once more. Thus, Pablo ascertained that Euroamerican men were attracted to him politically, while Euroamerican women were attracted to him sexually. On the surface, it appears that Pablo did not perceive an intersection of politics and sex along "public" and "private" spheres. However, what he perceived as the public and private spheres of politics and sex as well as his suggestion of infidelity reveal that his use of sexual politics resulted is an attempt to affect Josefa's behavior as well. His use of sexuality in vario |