María Amparo Ruiz de Burton: Critical and Pedagogical Perspectives (review)

Ever since the recovery of María Amparo Ruiz de Burton's two novels, The Squatter and the Don (1885/1992) and Who Would Have Thought It? (1872/1995), interest in Ruiz de Burton's work has grown exponentially in relation to issues of gender, nationalism, political displacement, and the contextualization of the novels within literary discourse. Montes and Goldman's text, María Amparo Ruiz de Burton: Critical and Pedagogical Perspectives, not only advances the initial wave of analysis but also broadens the conceptualization of Ruiz de Burton's work by including critical analysis of her theatrical efforts. The list of authors included in the anthology ranges from such foundational, critical voices of Ruiz de Burton's work as Jose F. Aranda, Jr., Vincent Pérez, and Beth Fisher, to more recent analytical discourse. The tensions generated in the anthology bring to the forefront the continued debate regarding the location of Ruiz de Burton as a "subaltern," a "mediator" between cultures, or a cultural elitist (13); however, the text offers only further speculation with no resolution.

The net result is a work that solidifies the scattered critical discourse on Ruiz de Burton's works and that further fleshes out earlier arguments relating Mexican-American literature to racial identity and fluidity, corporate capitalism and imperialism, and elitism in the nineteenth century. Of equal importance to educators is Montes and Goldman's "objective" of presenting a text that provides "a working guide" (8) in the form of concrete teaching strategies, applicable historical documents, and letters from Ruiz de Burton for use by both college and secondary educators from a wide variety of fields ranging from Chicana/o Studies to Women's Studies.

Linking the four sections of critical analysis and separate pedagogical division are Montes and Goldman's concerns regarding the marginalization or displacement of the Mexican-Americans in AltaCalifornia, the Californios. Part I involves the issue of class in The Squatter and the Don; for the Californios such class was represented both through space, specifically located in the hacienda and its aristocratic culture, and, ironically, through the Northeastern class illness, "'neurasthenia'" (56). Part II, devoted entirely to Who Would Have Thought It?, focuses on contextualizing the novel's racial tensions and how the feminine serves as a carrier for both whiteness and class hierarchy. Part III approaches both novels from a nationalistic viewpoint that tends to repeat previously argued issues of race, class, and historical framework. However, the section explores the political dilemmas imposed on the Mexican-American in a post-1848 America of hemispheric domination and corporate greed. The final critical section, Part IV, draws an interesting parallel between Ruiz de Burton's play, Don Quixote de la Mancha: A Comedy in Five Acts (1876) and the satirizing of New England culture and greed as well as the political and cultural problems of the Californios and Ruiz de Burton's own life.

Part V provides pedagogical suggestions from many of the anthology's authors ranging from teaching strategies, "narrative contexts" (230), Ruiz de Burton's relationship to "Chicana/Chicano literature and . . . studies" (235), "American Studies" (238), to learning assessment. Besides nineteenth-century historical and political texts, the section considers literary works ranging from Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona to Ana Castillo's Sapogonia. A bonus is the inclusion of a chronology of de Burton's life, letters, segments of historical texts, and a "Teaching Resource Bibliography" (257), all of which relate to the anthology's essays. However, I would caution the secondary teacher that several of the articles would prove difficult to read in terms of contextualizing the subject matter for their students.

Overall, for both student and instructor alike, Montes and Goldman's text provides an excellent vehicle for discussing the shifting nature of marginalization, gender, and elitism working in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and for recognizing the dynamics of an excellent writer.