María Ruiz de Burton

María Amparo Ruiz de Burton (July 3, 1832 – 1895) in Loreto, Baja California is considered the first female Mexican-American author to write in English. In her career she published two very popular books and one play: Who Would Have Thought It? (1872), The Squatter and the Don (1885), and Don Quixote de la Mancha: A Comedy in Five Acts: Taken From Cervantes' Novel of That Name (1876).

Biography

María Amparo Ruiz was born in Loreto, Baja California on July 3, 1832 to an aristocratic family. Her grandfather Don Jose Manuel Ruiz was a Commander of the Mexican northern frontier in Baja California and later governor of the region from 1822 to 1825. Due to his outstanding work in the services, Don Jose Manuel received two sites of over 3,500 hectares of land in the Ensanada region. This land became very important for the Ruiz family for Ruiz de Burton's entire life. Then many years later, Francisco Ruiz, her great-uncle, was a commandate in San Diego. When Ruiz de Burton's family moved to the United States, they settled in San Diego where they had the most family ties. While living in San Diego, Ruiz de Burton had an English tutor by the name of Mariano Vallejo who taught her the basics of being a writer.

Ruiz de Burton met her future husband, Captain Henry S. Burton of Norwich, Vermont, when he was stationed in Loreto, Baja California Sur, as occupied territory of the United States during the Mexican-American War. In 1848 she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area upon the signing of the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo. Just prior to the implementation of the treaty, U.S. officials promised certain residents of Baja California transport to Alta California on refugee ships and full U.S. citizenship. She married Burton on July 9, 1849 in Monterey, CA, six days after her seventeenth birthday. The couple's first chiled, Nellie, was born on July 4, 1850. In 1852, Captain Burton was assigned to San Diego, CA and their second child, Henry was also born this year on November 24. In 1853, the couple bought a ranch, Rancho Jamul, where the couple made extensive renovations and lived for many years. In 1859, Henry Burton was sent to the East Coast to help the Union military towards the end of the Civil War, Ruiz de Burton and their two children accompanied the Captain there. Over the next ten years, they lived in Rhode Island, New York, Washington D.C., Delaware and Virginia. Captain Burton died of malaria in 1869.

Ruiz de Burton returned to San Diego, CA in 1870 after her husband's death, and spent the rest of her life in lawsuits trying to keep the title to Rancho Jamul and also began her writing career. While the Burtons bought Rancho Jamul in the 1850s, the deed of purchase did not come through until the 1870s. As a result of the long and extensive litigation process, squatters settled onto parts of the ranch. However, the ranch was never without the presence of a member of the Burton family even when they moved east with Henry. Finally, in 1875 Ruiz de Burton received the land grant, but after years fighting legally over the land it was very heavily mortgaged. Ruiz de Burton then had no choice but to apply for a homestead instead which granted her only 986.6 hectares of land. Even after this small victory in 1887, the government still fought with her over the land for the next two years, which ultimately remained in her name.

Ruiz de Burton published two novels and one major play between 1872 and 1885: Who Would Have Thought It? was her first novel, published in 1872, The Squatter and the Don (1885) was her second novel, published in 1885, and Don Quixote de la Mancha: A Comedy in Five Acts: taken from Cervantes' novel of that name was her play, published and first performed in San Francisco in 1876.

Towards the end of her life Ruiz de Burton moved east to Chicago in order to fight for claims to another family ranch, Rancho Ensenada de Todos Santos, that her grandfather had inherited. However, she was unsuccessful and died there in 1895 trying to get the title for it. Her body was taken to San Diego for burial. Due to all of the years she spent in lawsuits over lands, she died bankrupt but had spent her entire life pursuing her all of her work with energy and the hope to preserve her Latina roots.

Political Ideals

Although María Ruiz de Burton's novels are politically charged it is hard to analyze certain aspects of her political ideals with a certain level of concreteness. Therefore analyzing her characters is one way to take a step into how Ruiz de Burton feels about the political situatins happening during her lifetime. There is a conflict where in her novels there is support for individuality, political freedom, and equality for women, while the novel is vague in its judgement of democracy for mass politics.

In order to make any claims as to the political ideals that Mrs. Burton held one would have to draw parallels from her novels to the political and social turmoil during her lifetime. Readers of Who Would Have Thought It? are able to draw some of her cultural politics from the book. The satirical style of Who Would Have Thought It? demonstrates her unhappiness with the current institutions of the American lifestyle. Religion and morality are two abstractions she criticizes in this book. She parodies the Protestant's belief that they are the official religion of the United States of America.

However, this her books touches on many other political issues; such as gender equality. The issue of land ownership by women is brought up in her book The Squatter and the Don. At the time Mexican and Spanish law allowed women to have rights to property and wealth. However, this was not common practice in the United States at the time. One can take that Mrs. Burton did not take too kindly to not being able to have an entitlement to land. This is because women were not equal according to U.S. law and by custom. This combined with the prejudice on Mexicans at the time added up to be an issue for Mrs. Burton. . "As a romantic racialist/romantic feminist strategy of vindicating groups exploited on the basis of region, race, culture, class, or gender, sentimentalism links gender politics to racial caste politics (Luis-Brown,830).

Another issue pertaining to land ownership is brought up in "The Squatter and the Don." Primarily land dispossession of the Hispanic Californians. Because she was a Californian ranchero this book is an example of her victimization. This book was a tool to sway public opinion on her behalf. . This was a daunting task because of the audience for whom she had to write. "...Ruiz de Burton had to write in English to address a mainly English-speaking readership, but she also had to incorporate some Spanish to be truthful to her characters and settings. her efforts resulted in one of the first published examples of Spanish-English code mixing in American Literature" (Moyna, 235-236). Doing this helped Mrs. Burton open her ideals to a broader market. Therefore helping cast her ideals of land litigation to the very people from who she felt victimized by. She was trying to cajole the Anglo majority of the unfair conduct towards the top-tiered Californians.

Theatre Career

Ruiz de Burton is credited with the authorship and publication of one play in her career, entitled Don Quixote de la Mancha: A Comedy in Five Acts, Taken from Cervantes' Novel of That Name, published in San Francisco, CA in 1876.

Writing Style

Major Themes

Marí Ruiz de Burton has a few consistent themes running through her major works. These are the subordination race, gender, and class. Class, gender, and race are all intertwined to illustrate the cultural constraints on women and how they should submit or be rejected. It also demonstrates the construction fo the upper class and how chicanos are viewed. In her two major works both major families are wealthy and have some sort of problem pertaining to finances.

Literary Works

Most of Ruiz de Burton's works were published under the pen name C. Loyal. She chose C. Loyal for the meaning Loyal Citizen, which in Spanish translates to Cuidadano Leal. The idea from her pen name came from the way government officials in Mexico would end their letters in the nineteenth century.

Who Would Have Thought It? does not actually have her name attached to it; however, in the Library of Congress the novel is under the names H. S. Burton and Mrs. Henry S. Burton. This novel deals with the Civil War in a very sardonic manner. In Who Would Have Thought It? a Presbyterian minister and the wife of one of his friends engage in a love affair that in the context of the Civil War illuminates the hypocrisy and racism of this Northern abolitionist family. A quick synopsis of the book tells one that it is a satirical novel based on her observations and experiences of the New England culture and society.

The Squatter and the Don is her most famous literary piece. This work of fiction adopts the narrative perspective of a conquered Mexican population that felt exploited and inferior to Americans, despite the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848. This novel came after Ruiz de Burton and her two children moved back to California after her husband's death. The story of The Squatter and the Don fictionally documents the many Californio families that lost their land due to squatters and litigation, which is something with which Ruiz de Burton had first hand experience.

List of works

• Burton, Mrs. H S (1872), Who Would Have Thought It? A Novel ..., Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., OCLC 16651194. Republished as Ruiz de Burton, María Amparo (1995), Sánchez, Rosaura; Pita, Beatrice (eds.), Who Would Have Thought It?, Houston: Arte Público, pp. vii–lxv, ISBN 978-1558850811.
• Ruiz de Burton, María Amparo (1885), The Squatter and the Don: A Novel Descriptive of Contemporary Occurrences in California, San Francisco: S. Carson & Co., OCLC 4323620. Republished as Ruiz de Burton, María Amparo (1992), Sánchez, Rosaura; Pita, Beatrice (eds.), The Squatter and the Don, Houston: Arte Público Press, ISBN 978-1558850552.
• Ruiz de Burton, María Amparo (2001), Sànchez, Rosaura; Pita, Beatrice (eds.), Conflicts of Interest: The Letters of María Amparo Ruiz De Burton, Houston, TX: Arte Público, ISBN 978-1558853287.

References

• Aranda Jr., José F. (September 1998), "Contradictory Impulses: María Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Resistance Theory, and the Politics of Chicano/a Studies", American Literature, 70 (3): 551–579{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link).

Anne E. Goldman MELUS, Vol. 19, No. 3, Intertextualities (Autumn, 1994), pp. 129-131 Published by: The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS)

"White Slaves" and the "Arrogant Mestiza": Reconfiguring Whiteness in The Squatter and the Don and Ramona David Luis-Brown American Literature, Vol. 69, No. 4 (Dec., 1997), pp. 813-839 Published by: Duke University Press*de la Luz Montes, Amelia María (2004), ""Mine Is The Mission to Redress": the New Order of Knight-Errantry in Don Quixote de la Mancha: A Comedy in Five Acts", in de la Luz Montes, Amelia María; Goldman, Anne E. (eds.), María Amparo Ruiz de Burton: Critical and Pedagogical Perspectives, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, pp. 206–224, ISBN 978-0803232341.

• de la Luz Montes, Amelia María; Goldman, Anne E., eds. (2004), "Chronology of Events in the Life of Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton", María Amparo Ruiz de Burton: Critical and Pedagogical Perspectives, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, pp. 245–246, ISBN 978-0803232341.

See How I am Received: Nationalism, Race, and Gender in Who Would Have Thought it?, by Arturo Aldama. In Decolonial Voices: Chicana and Chicano Cultural Studies in the 21st Century, by Arturo Aldama. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2002) <http://asp6new.alexanderstreet.com/lali/lali.object.details.aspx?dorpID=1000044817&fulltext=ruiz%20de%20burton>.

Moyna, María I. "Language and Literature." De Burton's The Squatter and the Don Portrayals of Spanish in 19th-century American prose: María Amparo Ruiz 235th ser. 17 (2008): 236-51.