The Legacy of Américo Paredes

Chapter 3: “With His Pistol in His Hand”

Chapter 3 “With His Pistol in His Hand” “I wonder what this Gringo thinks,” Román said to himself. “He takes me for a fool. But I’m going to make him such a trade that he will remember me forever.” “With His Pistol in His Hand”—Américo Paredes A mérico Paredes discovered what could be considered a distinct Chicano perspective—in terms of literary style and content—with “el corrido de Gregorio Cortez,” a ballad of border conflict. The Mexico-Tejano performer and scholar merged a Mexican oral legacy with a Protestant AngloSaxon literary tradition to challenge the conventional interpretations of Mexican Americans. “With His Pistol in His Hand”: A Border Ballad and Its Hero celebrated the Mexican vaquero way of life and demonstrated how Texas culture was permeated with Mexican influences—a truth seldom acknowledged by North American scholars. He disputed the long-held belief that Mexican American culture was a bastardized mix of Anglo and Mexican influences and suggested that border culture was unique unto itself and contributed to both cultures. The idea was pioneering for its time, and the book became the fundamental text for Américo Paredes and the groundwork for the development of Chicano cultural studies. 70 A Hybrid Book and Then Some “With His Pistol in His Hand” is a difficult text to pigeonhole because it is a hybrid of genres. The book is part history—in its discussion of the old Spanish province of Nuevo Santander in 1749; part folklore—in its study of oral tradition; part fiction—in its recreation of a story; part sociolinguistics—in its analysis of English words used in Spanish; part anthropology—in its ethnographic description of a culture; and part ethnomusicology—in its examination of the corrido (narrative folk song). The text erases or blurs the boundaries of any specialized subject and can be classified as postmodern with its use of newspapers, court documents, folk songs, and oral tradition. Paredes’s self-reflexive study consists of two parts: book one, “Gregorio Cortez, the Legend and the Life,” is an analysis of the sociopolitical climate and narrative nature of the historical event, and book two, “El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez, a Ballad of Border Conflict,” serves as its scholarly complement , identifying the border corrido variants and presenting a theory of the genesis and supposed decline of this type of folk music along the Lower Rio Grande border. In terms of historical, aesthetic, and theoretical perspectives, “With His Pistol in His Hand” has received the most attention by scholars and is considered the most influential book in Chicana and Chicano cultural studies.1 Some critics examined Paredes’s use of folklore to counteract the biased discourses established in Texas; another explained how Paredes’s style of writing anticipated some of the trends in anthropology’s “experimental moment”; while still another focused on Paredes’s innovative stance as an ethnographer who transcribed and translated a group’s storytelling performance . A few of the best-known critics are Ramón and José David Saldívar, José E. Limón, Renato Rosaldo, and Héctor Calderón. These scholars agree as to the impact Américo Paredes’s book had 71 “With His Pistol in His Hand” in the evolution of Mexican American studies and in some cases on their own lives. I seek to add to their important contributions by examining Américo Paredes’s idea of folklore as performance as another way to read “With His Pistol in His Hand.” An Overview of His Most Famous Book The book opens with a historical summary of José de Escand ón’s colonization efforts along the Lower Rio Grande region. These colonization tactics were different from other Spanish colonizers . Escandón did not use the Spanish presidio; his method involved a combination of settled families from the surrounding areas with newer ones from Querétaro. Incentives for the new settlers included freedom and autonomy from the officials of New Spain. The governor of Nuevo Santander delegated authority to his captains who, in turn, were responsible for the development and welfare of their own communities. The pastoral way of life organized in its socioeconomic base by the rancho and in its ideology by the ideals of Spanish chivalry fostered an informal culture and a natural equality among the men. By 1755 small ranching towns such as Camargo (1749), Guerrero...