Alisha Loftin
Prof. L. Zentz
7 December 17
The Baby Was a Rebel: The reflection of gender in the childhood of Leonor Villegas de Magnón
I. Introduction
Born in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, but educated in the U.S., Leonor Villegas de Magnón was a writer of both the Mexican-American and the Mexican tradition. She attended Catholic primary school in Texas, and received her undergraduate degree and teaching credentials from the Academy of Mount St. Ursula in New York in 1895. Later, at the turn of the century, de Magnón moved to Mexico City with her husband, where she became politically active, and participated in Liberal political salons with activists such as Venustiano Carranza.
During a visit to her terminally ill, and beloved, father, she was caught in Laredo, on the northern side of the Texas/Mexico border at onset of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, and unable to return to Mexico City. Her previous support for Mexican Liberal causes prompted her to become a voice amongst the Spanish-Speaking communities of South Texas, for not only the Revolution that eventually ousted dictator Porfirio Díaz, but later in Texas state politics.
De Magnón perceived that women’s contributions to the Mexican Revolution had been ignored (Kanelos, 2002). In response, she wrote her memoirs with the hope of bringing attention to women’s participation. She wrote the Spanish version, La rebelde in the 1910s or 1920s, but Mexican publishers rejected it. In the 1940s, she rewrote the book in English using the title The Lady was a Rebel in an effort to attract an American publishing house. It too was rejected. It wasn’t until 1961 that her daughter, Leonor Grubbs, had the Spanish version published as a serial in The Laredo Times. Clara Lomas, of Colorado College, eventually discovered, edited, and published the original English version in the mid-1990s (Magnón, 1994). The letters Lomas included in the “Introduction” to the The Rebel published by Arte Público in 1994, state that it “… was a description of a historical situation for which the general book-buying public has no interest” (Lomas, Introduction, 1994, pp. xliv-xlvi). Nicolas Kanellos, who included de Magnón’s work in an anthology of Hispanic writers suggests, however, that sexism was the cause (Kanellos, 2002, p. 495). Marta Eva Rocha, a scholar of Mexican women’s history, laments the absence of women in general historical texts, not because they didn’t participate in society but because History has not seen them as objects of study (Rocha, M. E. 1991).
This essay proposes a text analysis and comparison of the first few chapters of both of de Magnón’s autobiographical narratives, in English and in Spanish. Aneta Pavelenko asserts that life stories are co-constructed by “(imagined) interlocutors, by the time and place in history in which the events are portrayed… by the language we choose to for the telling and by the cultural conventions of the community in which the narrative is located. For this work, time and place play a crucial role in exploring the social meaning of Latin femininity and masculinity. De Magnón’s spent her childhood in the embrace of a traditional grandmother, and romantic mother, whose disparate definitions of gender roles influenced the author. Her autobiography in English, but especially in Spanish display her ultimate rejection of tradition in favor of a modern definition of women’s roles.
Analysis of de Magnón’s writing reveals gender expectations of three generations of women in the first few chapters of her memoires. These chapters cover her birth and early life, through about age ten, when her mother died. This work will explore how these concepts of femininity and masculinity began to shape her stance toward feminism and indexicality around gender roles in her early life. Her memoires reveal that as a child, de Magnón perceived many of her grandmother’s and mother’s views of what constituted feminine behavior and the behaviors that the older women advocated for their daughters. But while she clearly understood them, she became skeptical of some of them. Indeed, Marta Rocha posits that the Porfiriato marks “the first time women appear on the political scene and a new discourse began to question their social function, and plant demands specific to their gender” (Rocha, M. E. 1991).
II. Literature Review
This analysis relies significantly on de Magnón’s two autobiographical memoires. As noted above, the first Spanish version was published as a serial in the early 1960s. Several versions, mostly rewrites and edits of the original, however rediscovered by Clara Lomas and archived in the Special Collections at the University of Houston (University of Houston Library System, Special Collections, n.d.). Also in the archives are several versions of the English manuscript. It is the last of which Lomas edited and Arte Público published that is considered here. Some differences between the two narratives exist, however. Some descriptions and scenes from the English text do not appear in the Spanish manuscript; others the author has moved within the text. De Magnón made various changes in response to editors’ comments at the American publishing houses before she arrived at the final version that appears in the Arte Público book. Moreover, many years, as many as 25 or 30 differentiated the original Spanish writing from the English one. Standards regarding acceptable topics and stances in literature as well as de Magnón’s own opinion about what was interesting and of value may have changed.
In order to place de Magnón’s narratives within a sociolinguistic framework, it is necessary to understand the role of gender in linguistics. Robin Lakoff began contemporary sociolinguistic work on gendered speech, describing and christening them “genderlects” or men’s and women’s registers, and their differences (Lakoff, 1975). Lakoff proposed the women’s Politeness Principal, a theory which later led to the ‘gender dominance approach’ (Coates, 2013). This latter model advances the notion that women use linguistic forms that reflect and reinforce, at the least, a subordinate role, and at the most, patriarchy (Wilson, 2017).
The Latin American version of this is Evelyn Steven’s theoretic framework of Marianismo which stands in direct opposition to Mexican Machismo (Stevens, 1973). As in Victorian-era America, the virtues of purity, piety, domesticity, and submission of women to their husbands were, and according to Stevens, still are, lauded as uniquely feminine in Latin America. In turn, men are expected to be unemotional, worldly, valiant, and protective of women. While men afford women power within domestic spheres, they maintain that authority only under male supervision and their ultimate approval. Men are, however, expected to accede to women in some cases, to take their counsel to heart even in public matters; not doing so would be considered an insult to machismo, or masculine pride. If a man is not masculine enough to take female counsel, he is falsely macho.
Motherhood might also be regarded as a primary virtue of Mexican women of the porfiriato. Motherhood was praised and protected, valued primarily because of its association with la Virgen de Guadalupe but also as an extension of domesticity. Even small girls were groomed to nurture babies and children. Porfirian publications directed at women nearly always included articles and features that either lauded motherhood, or purported to teach women how to be better mothers (Denton, 1997).
Nevertheless, de Magnón herself came of age in the America of the New Woman. These burgeoning feminists of the early 1900s insisted on a more active role in society; within marriage, the workforce. They flouted social conventions, engaging in promiscuous behavior social behavior such as bicycle riding, pantaloon wearing, and bobbed hair styles (James Michael Roark, 2014). Even if de Magnón herself did not engage in such activities, she could not have helped being aware of them. She attended university in New York State, a hotbed of early feminism, and later lived in Mexico City, whose newspapers were full of derogatory articles about inappropriate American-girls’ behavior (Rocha, M. E. 1991), (Denton, 1997)
Furthermore, much modern sociolinguistic analysis depends on the social meaning and indexicality of speakers: how speakers perceive and demonstrate aspects of their social position (Eckert, 2008). Claudia Mendoza explains,
“Social meaning refers to part of the processes in which people index their belonging to specific social configurations related to gender, social class, ethnicity, race, age, etc.; thus, social meaning is intimately related to cultural values and ideologies like nationalities and religion, which constitute a set of socially constructed knowledge understood by the group in which is produced. These means of indexing social meaning could then include language as well as other elements of aesthetic expression like fashion or commodities” (Mendoza, 2011).
For de Magnón, social meaning and indexicality are bound up in her generational and cultural positionality as well as her perception of her parents’ marriage. She spent her childhood under the tutelage of a traditional Mexican grandmother, Doña Damianita, and a young, romantic mother, Doña Valerianna. Writing as an adult, she seems to reject both approaches to marriage, adopting language that casts Doña Damianita as old-fashioned, and Valerianna as starry-eyed.
III. Methodology and Analysis
In order to investigate the gender narratives and their roles in de Magnón’s early life, I coded the first three chapters of both the Spanish and English versions of the book for scenes that depicted gender roles of the adults in the author’s childhood. This included interactions between her parents, don Joaquín and doña Valerianna (alternately Valeriana in Spanish), as well as between doña Valerianna and her own mother, doña Damianita. Additionally, I coded interactions that her parents had with other adults, be they rebels or federal soldiers, household or ranch help, or social acquaintances. Finally, I looked for descriptions of actions by both male and female characters. All these interactions I then recoded based on Steven’s definition of the Marianismo/machismo construct; piety, purity, submission and domesticity for women, and protectiveness, worldliness, and stoicism for men.
De Magnón began both her narrations with the night of her birth. 1876 saw the end of the Imperial period and the rise of Porfirio Diaz. In the midst of a guerilla fighter raid on Nuevo Laredo, a flood occurred flinging the poor who lived closest to the river’s edge into acute danger and material loss. De Magnón described the families trying to escape the flood waters: “[W]omen carry children in rebozos and lead animals by tethers. Men burdened by chattel also dragged their beasts trying to find a safe footpath to scale the river’s banks” (Magnón L. V., The Rebel, 1994, p. 4). Mozos, or manservants, protected her family’s property with rifles. When the guerilla fighters arrived at the house, rather than react in violence, her father, Don Joaquín, described as an “honorable and prudent man” let them in and plied them with good Spanish wine from his bodega (University of Houston Library System, Special Collections, n.d.). In this chaos, Doña Valerianna, gave birth to daughter, Leonor, our narrator. De Magnón wrote that the rebel looters were “touched by the familiar sacredness of the scene… put away their guns, crossed themselves, and resumed drinking on the patio.” (Magnón L. D., 1994, p. 6). Soon after, Federales, Mexican regulars, arrived, demanding entry to search for the outlaws. Don Joaquín “slowly opens the door, and in a soft, calm voice said, “Come in (University of Houston Library System, Special Collections, n.d., p. 4).” Demanding to know if he is harboring rebels, the Federal commander demands passage into the birthing room. Don Joaquín replied, “Sí, señor, I am hiding one rebel,” and allows them to view the newborn. De Magnón continues:
“Pardon us, señor. We knew you were an honest man, but in these times, anything may happen.”
Don Joaquín (then) ushered the Federals to the same cellar where the bandits had just been. With their cups held high, they offered a toast of welcome to the new arrival, the Rebel. They drank a second toast “to the mother of this border town on the banks of the Rio Bravo,” (Magnón L. D., 1994, p. 7).
De Magnón’s account of the night of her birth reflects many Porfirian gender norms. Women are associated with babies and children, as are the peon women on the riverbanks and Baby Leonor’s own mother. Menfolk protected their families and their property. The peón men scouted for the safe passage from the flood zones, and the mozos at the at the Villegas residence with weapons. In De Magnón’s telling, both the Federales and the bandits display respect of the sanctity of motherhood, allowing the birth of the baby to distract them from their original intent of mayhem. They are even contrite about bursting in on the new mother and infant, and end up proposing a toast to them both. Significantly, Doña Valerianna is “the mother of this border town,” which seems to conflate her own motherhood with the more general virtue of Motherhood. Moreover, in the Spanish text, the soldiers toast “The Mexican Mothers on the banks of the Rio Bravo,” text which also appears in all capital letters, lending it weight (University of Houston Library System, Special Collections, n.d.).
Don Joaquin displays amazing bravery by allowing both the bandits and the federales in, even when his mayordomo, was too frightened to do so (University of Houston Library System, Special Collections, n.d.). He goes on to calmly de-escalates both dire situations that could have led to violence within the walls of his home. While women were generally supposed to be ruled by their emotions, not their intellect, Don Joaquin’s calm, authoritative demeanor stands as a clear reflection of the best of the Marianismo-Machismo construct.
Nevertheless, De Magnón scripts her father’s indexicality, and thus her own, as modern in several ways. On the night of her birth, Don Joaquin reflects to his wife, “My son born on American soil, my daughter in Mexican territory, and I a Spanish subject. Who will be more powerful, he or she?” The obvious answer, in so far as a Marianist framework would be that it wouldn’t matter where an infant girl was born, her brother would always have more privilege. But this statement, given on the heels of de Magnón’s account of the harrowing night of her birth and her father’s appellation of her as “the rebel” demonstrates her own stance toward women’s social power. If women rebel, they act to extend their influence and become agents of change. De Magnón’s self-image is one of acting for change, in a way that begins a shift away from the constraints of the gender norms of the Porfiriato to a more modern one.
If Don Joaquin exudes traditional Mexican masculinity, de Magnón’s mother represents the epitome of a proper Mexican lady. The dichotomy between the couple’s interests and world view again reflects the ideal Porfirian family as well as the Marianismo-Machismo construct. Doña Valerianna’s life is firmly bound to the wellbeing of her children and her husband’s happiness. For example, upon his return at the end of the day Doña Valerianna “[L]ooked at him (Don Joaquin) with pride. She adored her husband and lived only to please him” (Magnón L. D., 1994, p. 10). Further reinforcing the traditional ideals of domesticity and submission, de Magnón recalls her grandmother Doña Damianita’s proscription as wife’s duty “[T]o serve her husband in every way. Whatever he wishes you must not question. Neither laugh too loud or shed too many tears. Love will make you do that.” (Magnón L. D., 1994, p. 12). Valerianna seems non-plussed by her mother’s dictate. She maintains that she loves him and “will do anything for him.” It doesn’t take long for her to understand that her husband doesn’t appreciate female hysterics. In both versions, recollections of her mother’s admonishments come on the heels of a horse-riding accident. Initially in the English version, Don Joaquín is moved to tenderness for his wife; “…he put his arms about her, kissed her warmly, holding her close. ‘You saved my life, Valerita. Yet I think it is not just today, but every day you are my star of good fortune.” While this profession doesn’t occur in the Spanish version, the next passage occurs in both.
“She closed her eyes and remembered her mother… who had first laid the weight on her heart… [Valerianna had learned to] laugh and cry only for a little while for her husband did not approve. Valerianna opened her eyes as she felt her husband’s body stiffen. She knew he was again the man whose sense of responsibility to his family had made him austere and cold at twenty-four. (Magnón L. D., 1994)”
In the Spanish version, the accident doesn’t occur while the couple ride, only Valerianna’s reminiscence of her mother’s warning and her own sadness about it; she was young and although she adored her husband, she thought him to be handsome yet austere. Nevertheless, de Magnón, states here that “in those days (En esas épocas) wives assumed the responsibility for the marriage (University of Houston Library System, Special Collections, n.d.).
These passages, both Spanish and English, overflow with presumed gender roles as well as de Magnón’s stance toward them. Doña Damianita’s initial statement about a wife’s emotional displays indicates her expectation that hysterical tears and laughter were typical female behavior, but nevertheless such strong emotional displays should be avoided. For her, women’s speech, even within the conjugal relationship should reflect good behavior. Valerianna seems predisposed to a more romantic vision of the relationship between spouses; de Magnón expresses sadness on her behalf that don Joaquín is emotionally reserved. Nevertheless, she perceives her mother as willing to do what it took to make the marriage work, not only because she “adored” her husband, but also because in “those days” it was the wife’s domestic prerogative to make the marriage work and, of course, nurture their progeny. Moreover, it was de Magnón’s perception was that her parents fulfilled these ideals: “her concern was the children, his, amassing a fortune for their inheritance.” (Magnón L. D., 1994, p. 7).
The issue providing and nurturing progeny arises throughout the first few chapters. Both de Magnón and her younger brother’s births are attended to in detail; her older brother’s is alluded to in the context of Leonor’s. As Porfirian values dictated, Valerianna spends an enormous amount of time with her children, traveling with them to the hacienda even when don Joaquín can’t go. Moreover, the memories that de Magnón provides in the manuscript often point to interactions with their mother as didactic religiosity. When young Leonor pricks her finger on a rose stem, doña Valerianna has teaches a lesson about accepting the beauty and pain in life as God wills (Magnón L. D., 1994, p. 8; University of Houston Library System, Special Collections, n.d.). When they prepare for a long commercial journey, doña Valerianna not only precedes the trip with a Mass, but also takes portraits of the Pope and the Virgin Mary along with her. Piety was certainly a virtue touted by marianista norms; de Magnón acknowledges her mother’s devotion, and seems to accept it in her own life. For example, when the children accompany their mother to the hacienda for the summer, they learn to “love God in his infinite grandeur” (University of Houston Library System, Special Collections, n.d., p. 10).
De Magnón also relates the differing social and material goals of parents. In Chapter III, she took on her mother’s voice, gushing over the procurement of an ensemble for an upcoming ball. “thoughts were of sleeves and tight waists, white damask, red velvet, and black taffeta, curled hair falling in ringlets, glittering jewels, fans, long white gloves, and satin slippers” (Magnón L. D., 1994, p. 15). Doña Valerianna prepares with shopping trips, consultations with seamstresses, and fashion plates. Here, Doña Valerianna’s obsession with upward social mobility and securing her place in the social hierarchy via the conspicuous consumption of fashion is notable, and consistent with feminine indexicality. Don Joaquin’s dress is not mentioned. Instead, his display of wealth lies in the efficiency and precision of the outriders, horses, and the flashy carriage marked with his coat of arms that conveyed them to the ball. In the next paragraph, de Magnón outlined the source of Don Joaquin’s wealth and his own preoccupation with it. He asks his men, “What good news do you have for me today? How have you increased your wealth?” (Magnón, L. D.,1994, p. 10). Moreover, de Magnón admits that while her mother is planning for the ball, her father is preoccupied with a trading trip into northern Mexico he planned to undertake.
The Spanish version sheds better light on the marianista/machista construct. At the beginning of Chapter III, which begins with the preparations for the party in the English version, de Magnón introduces the topic in a completely different way. Her mother, the romantic who loved to sing, play her guitar and socialize, pines to attend one of the many “dances, social gatherings, picnics or religious parties” hosted by the “ricos hacendados” of Laredo.
She kissed each one, hoping they would please his husband without daring to say it. She arranged them in a thousand ways, laying them in the dressing table where he could best see them but then removing them. “No, not here in hall near lamp. Rather, there, where her lord and master (amo y señor) could see them better when he drank his coffee and smoked his good cigar after lunch or dinner. If he did not seem like an invitation, he deposited them on the table without making any observation and she silently accepted his order and never again brought up that dance (University of Houston Library System, Special Collections, n.d., p. 12).
Don Joaquín has clearly been reticent to attend, but finally acquiesces, and the narration picks up again with describing her preparations, albeit in less detail.
In yet another passage that varies from the Spanish to the English version, don Joaquín plans for the business trip into Mexico. In the English version, he simply plans the trip, and the family goes – despite having discovered that Valerianna is pregnant. In the Spanish version, he asks his wife if she “has the courage to accompany me on an extended trip.” He acknowledges it’s risky, but he “dares not leave her” as there is risk even in town. De Magnón continues, “Doña Valerianna was a saint; she only thought about pleasing her husband, and so she answered, ‘We will go.’ She said submissively. She would die a thousand deaths at the side of her beloved husband” (University of Houston Library System, Special Collections, n.d., p. 15).
Again, these texts index feminine and masculine behavior expectations of the porfiriato. As mentioned, before, women are concerned with conspicuous consumption, and socializing, and men are, well, not. Additionally, she acquiesces to her husband’s wish for her to go on a prolonged and often arduous journey, in horse-drawn carts and coaches, despite the fact that she is pregnant and will clearly give birth while on the road. In both versions, this causes doña Damianita, Valerianna’s mother much apprehension. Nevertheless, in both cases, Valerianna is exactly the submissive and timid wife she should be. despite her rather romantic desire to swept up in the social life of the city, she accepts that don Joaquín makes the ultimate decisions in regard to attending these events, and while she endeavors mightily, yet passively, to sway his pronouncement, she ultimately accepts the will of her “master” without complaint. She “submissively” and much to her own discomfort and risk to her health, endeavors to please him. De Magnón again snidely ridicules this behavior, casting it as old-fashioned and even unreasonable. In the Spanish version, she includes the following passage:
“Wives didn’t ever speak or ask questions; they silently obeyed, rather they formed part of the great plan of these archaic marriages, in which the man was the lord and master; he but demanded comforts, dispensed warm attentions and delicate words scarce and pleasant conversation. When he spoke thus, it seemed that God himself would open heaven so that the noble wife might have a burst of light; for they (husbands) knew everything, they could do everything” (University of Houston Library System, Special Collections, n.d., p. 16).
She herself, would have come of age, and would have written this first draft in the American era of The New Woman. These were burgeoning feminists, educated, independent career women who engaged more actively with a broader world. The New Woman pushed the limits set by male-dominated society and the workforce, and exerting her autonomy in the domestic and private spheres – exactly where Damianita and Valerianna were the most compliant (James Michael Roark, 2014).
Don Joaquín was tied rather strictly to his bodega and his import/export business. Nevertheless, as befitted a family of their high social rank, Doña Valerianna and the children spent winter in town, but their summers at their rural hacienda in the country, Rancho San Francisco. De Magnón’s description of the hacienda radiated tender domesticity provided by her mother and Julia, her criada. Long passages in her memoir describe the kitchens with their ovens, copper cazuelos and coffee pots, the creation of lye (soap), and the subsequent cleaning of clothing and children in the river. She sketched out the men’s work on the hacienda. Shepherds, attuned to the rhythms of nature and humble in their huaraches, and swashbuckling vaqueros glittering with silver occupied her imagination (Magnón L. D., 1994, p. 14). Pancho, the mayordomo, possesses arcane knowledge of horseflesh, tracking abilities. He could also find trails, identify the sounds of “man on horseback, mules, oxen, carts carriages and wagons when he lays his ear to the ground” (Mangón, 2002, p. 13). These descriptions underscore the separate spheres that men and women occupied, even amongst the working class. Men worked in the public sphere with other men and possessed earthy knowledge and skills foreign to women. Women remained tied to the domestic sphere, cooking, cleaning, caring for children. Notably, Villegas identified men’s work as providing resources. Indeed, she reported Doña Valerianna’s sole “active” contribution to her husband’s business was an enormous dowry that financed it. (Magnón L. V., 1994, p. 11). Women, however, created “harmony and union” on the hacienda, soothing ruffled feathers, encouraging the downtrodden and upholding religiosity and morality.
Religiosity and piety represent another aspect of Marianismo. Victorian dogma held that women, because they were ruled by the heart and not the head, were inherently more spiritual and thus closer to God. In Mexico spirituality and material support of the church was of imminent concern for ladies. De Magnón reported, “young matrons vie with each other in supplying costly gifts of perfumes and incense for the church. Doña Valerianna proved no exception. She worked on flower arrangements for the chapel and religious items (Magnón L. V., 1994, p. 15). She traveled with a portrait of the Virgen de Guadalupe, Mexico’s patron saint, to which she directed her prayers with a kiss. La Virgen’s portrait also hung in her children’s room. Her utterances were peppered with Catholic references. She told her children Bible stories, and prayed the Rosary twice daily – more often when there was strife. De Magnón recounts two instances when her mother explicitly prayed in gratitude to the portrait (Magnón L. V., 1994, p. 27). Her piety reflects one of the tenets of Marianismo, but additionally, it reflected her status consciousness and her need to be valued by society and her family. De Magnón portrayed Doña Valerianna’s religiosity not only as a fundamental part of the family’s personal interactions, but also as a guiding light to her own spirituality. In the account of an encounter with the Comanche, Doña Valerianna handed a very young Leonor her rosary beads and hid in the floorboards of the coach. To the horror and alarm of her family, she snuck from her hiding place and approached the Comanche Chief, who allowed her to pluck a feather from his headdress before returning the child to her mother. De Magnón’s description made it clear that the Chief’s kind treatment of the child was due, at least in part, to her possession of the Rosary beads; indeed, the Chief kissed the hand that clutched the beads. (Magnón L. V., 1994, p. 21).
De Magnón’s, work reflects many values expressed by Marianista culture and found in Western society today. She expressed an appreciation, even veneration, of Porfirian values associated with gender, which are encapsulated in the term Marianismo. She describes a separation of male and female labor, especially when referencing work on the hacienda. These separate spheres are domestically bound for women – the home and childcare, but external for men – procuring wealth generally, through ranch-work and herding specifically. Religiosity and piety were important parts of her upbringing, expressed by her mother in a variety of ways, many of which reflect a “feminine” desire to be needed by family and society at large as aspirations for upward mobility and status consciousness. Finally, submission to their husbands and domesticity clearly index feminine behavior. De Magnón herself acknowledges that behavior as old-fashioned.
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