D. Jill Savitt
After ten years of teaching Hispanic students and being involved in the Hispanic community, I have become acutely aware that Hispanic girls fare far better than do the Hispanic boys. The girls seem to work themselves out of bilingual programs more quickly by learning English faster. The female students seem to have fewer learning and behavioral problems. They also go on in greater numbers to complete high school in the face of a multitude of barriers. These same girls continue their successes, often outstripping the Hispanic male in what may be called energy and ambition. I am constantly amazed at the Hispanic women who juggle full-time work, full-time families and full-time studies. These women, while unwilling to undermine their familial relationships, will not compromise on their educational or personal goals.
While superwomen seem less extraordinary everyday, the fact that Hispanic females have faced so much prejudice against breaking out of their superimposed (fixed on them mostly from their own culture) gender roles, intrigues me as to how they have met the challenge. The first salient fact that I have learned is that school is a socially and morally respectable outlet for Hispanic girls. The Hispanic girls’ gender roles are so narrowly defined as to leave little leeway for mistakes. For example, a girl I once taught admitted to her parents that she had been sexually intimate with her boyfriend. Although she was just fifteen, her father literally forced her to marry her boyfriend. Fortunately, she was able to finish high school and was divorced soon afterwards. The Hispanic girls’ roles in general are much more strictly described than are those of the Hispanic males. In light of the restrictions placed upon the girls regarding their sexuality, career goals, aspirations and conduct, school and education offer a safe and acceptable exit from the confines of the role of Hispanic female. Hispanic males have a much less structured role handed to them. In essence, their role is much less restricting, allowing them more freedom in their behavior. Yet, it appears as if this less proscriptive role has hampered the Hispanic males’ chances for success, while the girl’s more limited role has led to less confusion for her. In fact, the tight controls over her social behavior have propelled her to achievement in very socially acceptable arenas. Hispanic males end up not being motivated professionally nor educationally in the same way as are the girls. The boys fail more often in school and go on less often to higher education.
With all the successes for the female, one would not be surprised to find many models of Hispanic and Latin American women throughout history. In fact, as I did my reading, I was greatly pleased to find so many examples of hard working, politically active and intellectually motivated women throughout Latin America. Yet, these women appear in only specialized, advanced readings. Our students rarely find Latin American women mentioned in their history books. Where are these role models when we read about women in history? Where are the women then we talk about Latin America? As motivation for editing a collection of stories by and about
Latinas
, we are told that “...as Latin American women, we are heirs of a culture of silence.’’
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It is ironic that Hispanic females do as well as they do while their men seem to have told
both
their stories forever. Certainly I have no reason to slight my male students or Hispanic males. Yet, I tire quickly, as do my students, of reading about the same Latin American males who have discovered, founded and liberated South America. Where were the women and how did they organize their efforts and their families’ lives? Their work left the men free to become heroes, but somehow the everyday social history that is so interesting and important has been trivialized and forgotten in big battles and chaos. What were the conditions that so defined and formed the attitudes in regards to being female in Latin America? The topic of women in general, and Latin American women in particular, is too important to ignore. For our students whose narrow worlds need expanding, the depth to which what they read influences them is profound.
Why do I feel that studying Latin American women would benefit my students? First of all, my female students in particular would derive satisfaction from seeing the wide reaching experiences of other Latin females. They would see new heroes emerge, while being able to identify, through their shared femaleness and Hispanic identity, with these powerful figures. They would see potential for themselves on both a local and historic level. The Hispanic boys, on the other hand, would be allowed to broaden their concept of what being female in a Latin society means. By liberating their own vision of female, the boys also free themselves. If anything, viewing females doing important things in Latin settings will balance and bring into focus an often one-sided story. By presenting such material to the Anglo students, as history, social studies or literature, a new interest may be sparked in Latin America and Hispanic culture. Too often Latin America is understudied, and by reminding students that other ways of life exist, comparisons and cultural awareness can be heightened. By allowing women a place in Latin America, a bit of spice and drama will lead to an enriched view of a “foreign” culture.
My students have always been fascinated by how other people live, how their families and households exist. What I have found in my readings for this unit is some very accessible and readable material about Latin American women. Also, some of the more complicated studies of these women and their involvement in Latin America can be sifted through and taught in a comfortable way. When we talk of women’s involvement in history, we often mean in terms of family and life-style, home and social connections. All of this material is very familiar to our students. What I intend to do here is provide some background material on the female and her life-style from Iberia through Latin America with its indigenous cultures, on to the Caribbean, Mexico and to Hispanics in the U.S.—namely our students. Some writings by particularly interesting females are included as illustrative of what women thought about and how they lived in a certain time and space. Also, certain important Hispanic women will be highlighted to further foment interest and research: exercises, activities and an extensive bibliography will provide excellent resources to supplement inadequate texts. It is doubtful that we have a textbook available that would cover Latin American women’s contributions to society. While I will herein provide readings to discuss, the use of a particular text,
Women in Latin American History, Their Lives and Views
, edited by June E. Hahner, is suggested. Hahner’s book, (see bibliography), is a great hands-on main book, be it for a six-week or six-month study. It is only through the inclusion of women in history, and the acknowledgment of women’s contributions to society that students will begin to understand to what extent women, and especially minority women, are excluded from our education. Through this realization, interest can be promoted in both Latin America and women’s studies. It is imperative that students of all ethnic backgrounds become more familiar with Latin American women and their history, while understanding the different influences that have shaped their lives. The more research done by teachers and students in this field, the more unsung female heroes will be uncovered. Through the study of Hispanic and Latin American females, all students may reach a better understanding of their own culture and identity. Too often our students are turned off by materials that have little to do with their lives. To learn about Latin culture and female and family life will stimulate students. This unit is geared to provide adequate and provocative materials to use in a social studies, English as a Second Language, foreign language, history or a bilingual classroom with the hopes that such materials will entice our students enough to continue studying women, Latin America, and Hispanic culture.
If one speaks of Hispanic woman as a modern entity, one must return to the roots of what Hispanic means to truly understand her. If we speak of the formation of Puerto Rican women, we not only have to speak of Spanish and African influences, but we must also study Taino Indian culture for its input. When we talk of Latin American women today, we must delve into the Iberian Peninsula and the Moorish-Islamic frame of reference. None of these contemporary entities exists in isolation. We need only to return to Spain to go further back to the Athenian society and its way of training women as wives and mothers. To speak of women we must speak of marriage and family. Yet, we can look back to medieval times and discover that marriage was basically a business contract. Until the Council of Trent, a marriage could be validated by its own participants. The idea of childhood as an intrinsically different stage of life didn’t emerge until relatively modern times, when life spans increased. With the development of the importance of childhood, the need for more tightly controlled childcare evolved. Thus, society became more child-oriented and motherhood and fatherhood became more clearly defined. Women’s roles especially became more clear. From the Moors, the Iberian society inherited the concept of the seclusion of women. In Medieval Iberia, conditions were so tenuous and turbulent that a finely drawn and elaborate protective system of segregating women from men developed and hardened into a way of life. The maintenance of a powerful force, i.e. strong, fierce men in the face of such violent times, helped re-define those highly venerated characteristics of womanhood. These characteristics include such hooded terms as being virtuous, pure, good and innocent, an innocence almost defined as ignorant. In fact, Iberian law code identified women as “imbecilitas sexus,” an imbecile by her very nature.
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Even as Latin American females come of age in the 20th-century, they still find themselves bound by 13th-century legal codes (Las siete partidas).
As women’s lives transformed the Iberian peninsula, the Indian cultures of what would one day be Latin America were developing and living out their own gender roles. There seem to be as many views on the importance of women in Indian cultures as there were distinct groups. Some anthropologists feel that Indian women had little influence over the survival of their people. Others feel that certain women were quite powerful. It is thought that while the Aztecs revered their woman in the role of wife and mother, she still had to be inherently good, pure and virginal in her life. Though she could inherit and possess goods, she was still isolated, submissive and paternalistically protected. The Aztec women in general were segregated from the rest of society. Within the higher echelons, both sexes were educated, however. Because women were allowed to be priestesses in the Aztec world, young girls were entrusted to these women’s care. The girls were taught to weave and embroider and were trained in most sacerdotal duties. Both sexes were well-drilled in discipline and morality. At marriage age, the young girls were released to the secular world. To attract a husband, (selected by the gods), modesty, neatness and hygiene were stressed. Parents taught their daughters to preserve their simplicity and to revere their husbands. Polygamy was allowed with wives expected to live harmoniously side by side. Aztec women appear to have been treated kindly by their husbands, while being allowed to enjoy a rather tranquil and lazy life, spinning, embroidering and reciting ballads. This indolent life seems a far cry from that of Indian women in Latin America today. In an article by Elinor Burkett in
Latin American Women
(ed. by Asunción Lavr’n) entitled “Indian Women and White Society: the case of 16th-Century Peru,” we are told that Indian women in 16th century Peru worked extremely hard. They were not only entrusted with the bearing and raising of children, the caring of animals, the spinning and weaving and the gathering of fuel, herbs, fruits, but they also participated side by side with the men in the planting and harvesting. Inca women were known to be particularly powerful in the political arena, but were virtually powerless legally. Society was, once again, patriarchal, but perhaps some of the power of women stemmed from the fact that there were four times as many women as men in the Lake Titicaca area in the 16th-century. If one reads
The Triple Struggle: Latin American Peasant Women
, a personal and well documented book by Audrey Bronstein, one sees that the tradition of backbreaking work by the Andean women of today has continued. These women remain isolated from mainstream society, but have found relief from their solitude through women-run labor cooperatives.
The strength and power of Puerto Rican women within their society, in comparison to other Latin American women, is in some part based in the highly developed importance of women in the major indigenous culture of the island of Puerto Rico—the Tainos. The Taino women were strong women of great influence. “Cacicas,” female tribal leaders, existed. Women were definite rulers in Taino culture and worked as equal partners with their men. Though the Taino culture was polygamous more often than not, some women Tainos had more than one husband. Unfaithful women existed, but in fact, only adulterous men were chastised for this behavior. Somehow, one feels the towering strength of Taino women present in Puerto Rican culture today.
Wherever there may have been a particularly strong female element before the Conquest of the New World, this powerbase soon fell asunder hand-in-hand with the men’s fate upon the arrival of the conquerors. The melding of the old world virtues with those of the new world, the dying off of the young Indian, Spanish and Portuguese women, all contributed to the weakening of whatever power the women may have executed in their society. If, on top of threatening physical and emotional conditions we add a conquered—conqueror/victim-victor mentality, then we can surely understand the outcome. For, if we agree with Frantz Fanon in
The Wretched of the Earth
that the negative aspects of “machismo” emerged as a reaction to limited options available to colonized people, i.e. men, and serve only as a way for the oppressed to protect their women, children and homes from the conqueror, then we can surely conceptualize what happened in Indian society with the arrival of the Spanish and Portuguese. We can talk about Puerto Rico in particular and the arrival of fifty women from Spain who came on their own accord. They began to teach Christianity to the Indians and forced their own family style or mold onto the local people. A religious fervor which served to preserve innocence, virginity, purity, etc., in the women prevailed. Even though tropical conditions proved physically unbearable for many women newly arrived, they still insisted on covering their bodies from top to bottom with heavy, starched clothing. However, the old world women stayed indoors much of the time while the Indian women continued to do the harsher outdoor labor. As the Indians began to die, Africans were brought over to replace them. Families began to disintegrate due to an imbalance of men and women. The mixture of the races at first led to an increased isolation for all, but soon a trend towards coupling and miscegenation took hold. Women had no legal rights, and their illegitimate offspring were equally unprotected. Thus, even then, there were many female headed, single parent families.
To get another historic perspective, jumping a bit in time and space, the Colonial period to the Revolution in Mexican history is quite revealing in reference to its women. Much of the Colonial period in Mexico was a replication of life in Spain at that time. The same moral and gender codes of Spain were superimposed on Mexican society. During these turbulent times in Mexico, women had two choices—the convent or marriage. The Islamic-Moorish tradition of protecting women from hardship survived the crossing of the sea. Of course, this meant that upperclass women were protected from hardship, while lower class, Indians in particular, struggled alongside their husbands to survive. This is a socio-economic pattern still prevalent in Mexican and Andean cultures. With the Independence Movement in Mexico, the church and the convents were nationalized, thus further limiting women’s options. Yet, the reform movement on its own did begin to provide more education and a chance for women to work outside the home. Professional schools began to admit women for the first time in Mexico during this period, and the number of girls in primary schools increased. The Mexican Civil Code of 1864 allowed single women the same rights as single men, but continued to treat married women as children. During the Mexican Revolution, women fought side by side with their men, enjoying increased rank and respect. War can be a great equalizer. The Revolution in Mexico did affect women’s rights, though the changes appear to have been more legal and political than emotional in nature. The Revolutionary state began to absorb many of the family’s functions, the socialization of children, the protection of one’s health, etc. In fact, the family’s rule became subordinate to the state’s power. Thus, women’s roles were minimized in light of existing conditions.
Parallel to the changes taking place in Mexico at this time, Puerto Rico was also suffering many transitions. In the 17th century, the convent in Puerto Rico offered one of the few exits for white women. The 18th-century brought about a struggle for all Puerto Ricans when the island’s economic life was destroyed. Certainly for women who were trying to feed and maintain family life, the challenge was enormous. Women continued to be very religious and still modeled themselves after the old world types. In fact, in the middle of the 18th-century, Spain seemed to rediscover Puerto Rico. The 19th-century in Puerto Rico as well as in Mexico and other Latin American nations saw an expansion of women’s opportunities. Schools for girls were organized, though most of what was taught was seen as feminine endeavor: Christian Doctrine, sacred history and embroidery, for example. But, reading and writing were stressed. Women’s activity in the public sector became more visible. In Puerto Rico, several important men spoke out in favor of women’s rights. Eugene Maria de Hostos condemned what he saw as a situation of women’s inferiority. Alejandro Tap’a y Rivera expressed the view that it was not a sin to educate women.
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In general, things were changing and evolving for both men and women due to the very nature of history and progress. As the 20th-century approached, certain patterns began to emerge. Many of the differences that exist among Latin American females are based on class differences. Just as a country woman’s life in the central mountains of Puerto Rico differs from that of a wealthy Puerto Rican in San Juan, so does the struggle of a Peruvian Indian woman differ from that of an educated woman from the capital. In Bronstein’s
The Triple Struggle,
the theme of lives of endless work with little compensation spins through the book. It matters little if the author is writing of Peruvian women of the Andes or women of Ecuador. Their work is arduous and relentless. In
Las Mujeres: Conversations from a Hispanic Community
by Nan Elsasser, Kyle MacKenzie and Yvonne Tixier y Vigil, the struggle of Mexican American—Chicana women of the Southwest United States is similar. The oldest Hispanic women remember a tradition of hard work and very harsh physical conditions, a life of constant family and community responsibility. These Hispanic women had little formal education, but education always loomed important to them. In this enriching look at Hispanic women, one begins to see changes occur in the subsequent generations as the women begin to work outside the home and make advances in education. As these women become more bilingual, they integrate themselves more into the Anglo world. Though they make great advances in this often alien Anglo world, they never abandon family or community. The youngest women expressed just how different their lives were from those of their grandmothers. The youngest generation lives in a very Anglo dominated society, yet still yearns for the Spanish language and cultural traditions of its past. The thread of Hispanic culture runs deep in them. The Chicano women of today appear to be very involved in the struggle against their triple oppression, that of racism, sexism and poverty. Chicano women see white women as fighting against white men, while they see themselves as fighting alongside their male partners, against the traditions of the church and its more romantic concepts of marriage and childbearing.
In Puerto Rico today, there is a major concern for education for its women. Though Latin American women from the continent share a lot of the same sex role values with their Puerto Rican sisters, the unique and often schizoid position of Puerto Rico has produced a special problem for the females. As mentioned before, Puerto Rican females have their social and sexual identity roles more heavily reinforced. They recognize the confines of their roles and work within them more easily than do the males. The women adapt more readily than do their male counterparts. The Puerto Rican female has encountered restrictions early on about her dress, demeanor and sexual conduct. She has been bombarded with subtle and not so subtle reminders of the importance of preserving her virginity and family honor in her culture. Thus the task of growing up for her is simplified. She has few choices. Due to the ambiguity and lassitude in the male roles in Puerto Rican culture, the males tend to flounder and fall into more self-destructive modes of behavior. The males seem to inherit their “machismo”—sexual conquest, physical encounters and drinking—in part due to fewer restrictions placed on them. Ironically, the Anglo’s view of the Latin American woman has been one of a child-like, pampered and irresponsible woman. Yet, the “woman in Puerto Rico appears strong, persevering, achieving, ambitious, determined and active.”
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The common factors that unite most Latin American women remain the same today. They include the cult of protecting virginity, the fight against “machismo,” the superimposed roles of maintaining innocence and purity in a world of double standards, and a need to fulfill certain personal goals. Unfortunately some of these factors are at odds with one another. The phenomenon of “machismo” and its counterpart of “marianismo” is fascinating. “Marianismo is the cult of feminine and spiritual superiority, teaching that women are semi-divine, morally superior to and stronger than men.”
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Surely this phenomenon has created in its wake the idea of “machismo,” the inferior spirituality that allows men to carouse, have many women and patronize women in often violent ways. It is difficult to break out of these molds, but the sooner women make it out, the sooner men can struggle with their self-image. Though education seems to be the answer for women, the answer may need to be the same for men. This would, of necessity, propel men into new ways of thinking, both of themselves and of their female partners. It is important to remember that the struggles may be different for men and women, as they are tangibly different for Hispanics and Anglos, yet the goal is the same, that of a quality life of dignity and equality with the recognition that the differences don’t make us better or worse, but rather worthy of respect.
