Ruiz-Tresgallo, Silvia. “Nation and Woman: from Conquered to Conqueror in Los Estados-Unidos (notas y episodios de viaje) by Alberto Lombardo.” Romance Notes 50.3 (2010): 295-306. Print.

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY NATION AND WOMAN: FROM CONQUERED TO CONQUEROR IN LOS ESTADOS-UNIDOS (NOTAS Y EPISODIOS DE VIAJE) BY ALBERTO LOMBARDO SILVIA RUIZ-TREGALLO

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY The Mexican conceives of love as combat and conquest. It is not so much an attempt to penetrate reality by means of the body as it is to violate it. Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude, 42. Nothing compares to the marvelous prosperity of the United States of the North . . . if the absence of a female spirit, origin of the artistic sense and complement of the national being, hardens and corrupts the heart of this amazing people, time will let us know. José Martí, Coney Island,1 82.

ALBERTO Lombardo presents in Los Estados-Unidos (notas y episodios de viaje) (1884) the psychological trauma of the conquest of Mexican territory by the United States. It is precisely this trauma that incites him to travel to his Northern neighbor, because he considers that studying the USA will benefit his Mexican homeland. Lombardo starts the prologue by explaining the different ways of life of Uncle Sam’s sons.

1 “Coney Island” was published in La Pluma, Bogotá, December 3, 1881. This article is included in Martí, José. En los Estados Unidos: Periodismo de 1881 a 1892. Eds. Roberto Fernández Retamar y Pedro Pablo Rodríguez. Madrid: Colección Archivos, 2003. 82-86.

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According to the author, this study will be supported by his own observations and the research of other experts. This Mexican lawyer2 and scholar, influenced by the scientific and political3 spirit of the “Porfiriato” (1876-1911), embarks on a luxury trip that will give him the opportunity to visit New Orleans, Philadelphia, New York and San Francisco, among other cities in the country. The “national” discourse related to the gain or loss of a territory is very similar to a sentimental speech, because the land, like a desired woman, is besieged, conquered, and may be lost to a rival. Traditionally, the American land is associated with the female figure that is conquered on the battlefield, and then covered with the mantles of civilization and masculine power. The homeland or nation becomes a mother or wife that her citizens – sons and husbands – should protect from the hegemonic desires of others. According to this discourse, Lombardo projects on men (the masculine figures), the military hostility of the conqueror and on women (the female figures), his desires of the re-conquest of 2

The data about the life and works of Alberto Lombardo point out he is a member of the middle or high class, academically interested in the discourse of the conquest and the Mexican nation. The historian and scholar Emmanuel Carballo describes Lombardo as a Mexican lawyer who went quite often to the Opera, particularly to the season of “la Gran Compañía de Ópera Francesa del señor Mauricio Grau” (40). Both aspects, Lombardo’s prestigious profession and refined choice of entertainment, draw the portrait of a man who belongs to the middle or high class in his own country. According to Carballo Lombardo’s works include Episodios de la Guerra de Independencia (Episodes of the War of Independence) which are historic novels with at least two volumes published dedicated to Hidalgo and Morelos (1893), and Los Estados Unidos, notas y episodios de viaje (The United States, Notes and Travel Episodes) (17). By writing a series about the Mexican Independence, Lombardo reveals his historic interest in the national conquest and in how Mexico became a sovereign country, independent of the Spanish empire. The discourse of the conquest is present too in Lombardo’s travel book in the US, in which not the Spanish but the “Yanquee Empire” took over a big part of the already independent Mexican territory. These works demonstrate his special interest in the nation, the Mexican domains, and the powers that menace his homeland autonomy. 3 The scientific and political spirit of the Porfirian era refers to Positivism. Gabino Barreda (1818-1881) brought this European philosophy, created by Auguste Comte (1798-1857), to Mexico. The “Porfiriato” incorporated the Positivist political leitmotiv “Order and Progress,” promoting an education based on scientific knowledge and a social class hierarchy directed by racial and economic factors. In this particular case, I am addressing Lombardo’s Positivism by using the “scientific method” when observing the behavior of U.S. population. His study is political because he wants to benefit the progress of his motherland. As I will address later on, the author seems to be influenced by the social implications of Positivism in Mexico, which include the supremacy of the white race and the preservation of the traditional role of women in society.

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national pride. In other words, the role of the author changes from that of conquered to conqueror of women, in order to compensate for the loss of part of Mexico. The thesis of this paper is to explore how Lombardo projects psychologically the military loss of part of the Mexican territory by U.S. men, and his attempt to compensate for that loss by romantically conquering women in the U.S. Additionally, I will explore the confrontation of the author with different female models he meets in the U.S., and why he feels attraction, rejection, or indifference towards them. I will also address the reasons behind the lack of representation of African American population in this discourse. This essay takes a psychological approach in order to analyze racial, gender, and class issues in Lombardo’s travel book. The Mexican-American War (1846-48) demonstrates the imperial agenda of the U.S., a nation that appropriated a significant part of Mexico’s territory. Although North Americans considered this territorial conquest a legal enterprise, Mexicans perceived it as an illegal military intervention.4 After the war, the previous Mexican admiration for the United States changed to hate and fear. The impact of the conquest of this part of the Mexican territory is twofold, on the one hand Mexicans consider it an attack to the sovereignty of their motherland that has being violated and amputated by the imperials desires of the U.S; on the other, they project their traumatic fears on the citizens of their neighbor country, the Americans. Lombardo is not immune to these disturbing feelings which he reveals upon observing the behavior of U.S. men during his trip in “Yankee land.” Lombardo projects the military outrages of the United States in his description of American men’s conduct. Sigmund Freud defines the “uncanny” as what “is undoubtedly related to what is frightening – to what arouses dread and horror” (219). Lombardo exposes the anxiety he feels towards American men, whom he regards as an active menace. Describing the moment some American men enter his train compartment in Veracruz, Lombardo writes: “The carriage could be invaded by Americans too, who would possess it as a right of conquest” (3). He perceives the hostility of U.S. men equals the imperial politics of their own 4 For historic information on the Mexican-American War, see Meyer and Sherman 335-54 and Cosío Villegas 331.

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country. U.S. men run over the rights of others, as a metaphor of the outrage of the laws and sovereignty of other countries such as Mexico. Lombardo provides the example of his visit to the theater in which he is looking for a seat. He states: “American men allow themselves to push when they try to come in . . . the most convenient thing to do is to look for a seat in one of the boxes” (43). In other words, he prefers to avoid a confrontation and go to a more private place where he feels safe.5 Moreover, U.S. men can squash Mexican men both, literally and militarily. The comical description of the possible crushing of the traveler by an American citizen offers a clear example of this statement. Lombardo points out, “But I can’t believe my eyes! The American man, whose weight I have precisely calculated, is going to sleep in the upper berth. I am going to die mashed” (86). His fear of boundary transgression is only a way to denounce the conquering disposition of North American men. Lombardo’s arrival to Texas makes him picture the maternal image of Mexico and the beginning of its violation by the presence of U.S. colonists. According to Lombardo, “it is not possible to forget that here . . . started the tear of the motherland’s bosom, because of some colonists who paid with ungratefulness the hospitality that was offered to them” (20). Lombardo unites the discourse of the conquest with that of the nation and the woman, because Mexico becomes a female figure. He seems to think the past decision of accepting U.S. settlers in Texas, initiated the war and the tear of the maternal bosom – the corporeal and territorial possession of part of Mexico. The intervention will be seen by Mexicans, as a violation of their nation, represented allegorically by Lombardo in the opened body of the mother. The inspection of Lombardo’s luggage by a U.S. border agent arouses the fears of invasion of a female entity – the nation erotized in the body of a woman. According to Susana Rotker, the nation is female and normally represented as a woman menaced by her violation or domination. “Erotizing the nation as the loved body of a woman implies the association of the sexual danger of the transgression of her limits, and the necessity of defending those limits” (Rotker 226). Lombardo uses the sensual body of a woman to symbolize the Mexican nation and her invasion by North Americans. He writes: 5

All Lombardo’s quotes are my translation.

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the corsets . . . that I am bringing to one of the most estimable women of San Francisco, desecrated by that rude hand! Hey, Mr. border agent, what are you doing? Don’t you know that those fortifications must never be taken? That the posts they protect, surrender most of the times, but it is never allowed to assault them? (21)

The language used in this passage, with words such as “fortifications,” “posts,” “taken,” “surrender,” and “assault” confirms that the vocabulary of the conquest of the territory parallels that of the carnal transgression of the woman’s body. Lombardo depicts the U.S. border agent with the aggressiveness of the soldier in the battlefield. In order to compensate for the alarming anxiety triggered by American men, Lombardo pictures women found in Yankee land as easy conquering territories. In his recollection he seems interested in having a romantic adventure. Lombardo says: “I could not pretend to find in a single night lips that would truly love and I had to accommodate myself with those who would be near. The heart is like the honeysuckle; it unites with the nearest plant” (44). This passage reminds us of the conquest of part of Mexico by the U.S., which is to some extent initiated by its proximity. The sentimental speech becomes a metaphor of the battle discourse because Lombardo takes the role of the conqueror not with violent weapons but with the language of love. Anne McClintock argues that “women served as boundary markers of imperialism, the ambiguous mediators of what appeared to be – at least superficially – the predominantly male agon of empire” (24). Lombardo, who was raised with European values, sees the United States as a combat zone in which the idea of conquering women compensates for the boundary loss and male anxiety, occasioned by the U. S. intervention. According to the author’s description, women who attend a New Orleans’ ballroom dance are very attractive and “unmatched” (27) in their beauty; however these fortresses do not seem to be protected by the company of North American men. The comments made by other gentlemen, friends of the traveler who participate in the same event, attest the ease of conquest. When Rodríguez asks if making female conquests is easy, Delavigne answers “I have done more than ten. I am bored” (27). It seems this pursuit of females continues with an international approach, because all of Lombardo’s friends, including himself, find a girlfriend. As the author points out, “Rodríguez, who only spoke Spanish, made amends with a young lady who knew the language;

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Delavigne with an English woman; I stayed with a nice French girl; and we only needed a German lady to end up conquering the world” (53). Lombardo seems to use the same affectionate discourse to talk on the one hand of the loss of Mexican land, and on the other, of the conquest of other international “female territories.” Lombardo’s masculine models of representation come from the image of the conqueror in the Mexican past. Octavio Paz in The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950) analyzes the identity and psychology of the Mexican. The ideal man is active and connected to the figure of the “Macho” (81) who is the “gran chingón” (81). Paz writes: “To the Mexican there are only two possibilities in life: either he inflicts the actions implied by chingar on others, or else he suffers them himself at the hands of others” (78), which means ser chingado. “Chingar” is to tear, open, or inflict violence on others. “Ser chingado” is to be humiliated, punished, or offended. According to Paz, social life is a “combat” (78) that “divides society into the strong” (78), who are the “chingones,” “and the weak” (78) who are the “chingados.” This bellicose philosophy is part of the discourse of the Conquest, because the “Macho” or “gran chingón” comes from the model of the “Stranger” (Paz 82) and the “Spanish conquistador” (Paz 82). The conqueror Hernán Cortés gains the Mexican territory thanks to his sentimental relationship with La Malinche, the indigenous woman that he uses as a mistress and later abandons. Malinche is the “Chingada” (Paz 85), the open and passive mother associated with the Mexican homeland. Malinche becomes the symbol of the violation of the Mexican territory and of Mexican indigenous women during the Spanish Conquest (Paz 86). The figure of the conqueror is twofold, because he not only possesses the Mexican land through his military power but also through his sexual conquest. By applying Paz’s ideas to the study of Lombardo’s travel book we uncover the binary discourse of the conquest. The lawyer portrays U.S. men as active and dangerous because they have occupied part of Mexico through armed might, and can reinitiate this attack. The North American becomes the “Macho” or “gran chingón,” the military agent of an empire that transgresses a foreign territory, just as Cortés did in New Spain. The counter-discourse of the Mexican, who is defeated on the battlefield, is the sentimental conquest, which is the only way to validate his masculinity in the U.S. Lombardo’s trip can be seen as a compensation for the violation of his homeland. If the Americans traveled to the

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Mexican motherland to transgress her, the Mexican travels to the United States to conquer women using the amorous discourse of the “conquistador.” Lombardo views passion in the tradition of another romantic conqueror of the Spanish world – Don Juan. For both men, love is about applying power over others, and it implies violation, defeat, and victory. However, Lombardo does not want to “transgress” all female territories, only those who remind him of the ideal portrait of a woman in the Porfirian era.6 The author pictures the Mexican homeland according to the passive model of the mother and wife during the “Porfiriato.” Carmen Ramos Escandón explains that the woman in this era is raised to be only a mother and wife (150), and Susana A. Montero Sánchez defines her as “generous, pious but not fanatic, resigned, suffering, loyal, and obedient” (105). This is the same female portrait that Lombardo admires. To the traveler the Mexican female is selfless, because she suffers without complaint the bad luck of the male she depends on. (115). Likewise, “The sublime type of mother” (115) understands men and sees in her sons part of her own soul and life. This depiction of women parallels that of the Mexican nation, portrayed in the sentimental patriotic discourse as a mother who accepts the destiny of her male children.7 Susana Rotker considers that “in order to make the trope of the woman/nation work, the feminine image must be caste, obedient, good daughter, wife, and mother, pretty, domestic, apolitical, and dependent on the activity of men” (226). Unconsciously, Lombardo unites woman and nation in this metaphoric example: “The land where I was born comes to my memory. I distinguish Mexico. Oh dear motherland! I wish your image may be the last memory of my soul!” (86). Both maternal images presented by Lombardo – the Mexican woman and homeland – are passive because both accept the control of men they are linked with. 6 The perfect portrait of the female role during the “Porfiriato” is the Angel of the House. According to Nancy LaGreca: “The Angel of the House was the domestic ideal for women of the mid nineteenth century in the Hispanic World and in Europe. It portrayed the perfect woman as the Christian, chaste, maternal guardian of the happiness and success of her children, husband, and other family members” (5). This model also keeps women in a passive role in society because “Abnegation, and the denial of the self that inevitably followed, were key to prevent women from demanding rights and moving beyond their prescribed place” (LaGreca 5). 7 According to Benedict Anderson, the nation is the motherland in which we are born and to which we naturally belong (86).

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Lombardo feels an attraction for U.S. women who are equivalent to the racial, moral, and social ideals of the Mexican female. The North American ladies judged positively by this traveler have pale skin and light eyes, in addition to an immobility that makes them passive. During Lombardo’s trip, he is captivated by a young lady for “her big blue eyes with a languid and modest gaze; her continuous severity; her mouth almost immobile; her irreproachable pose” (19). Clearly, this woman corresponds to the Eurocentric racial model prevalent in the Porfirian era, which privileges the white race. At the same time the moral code of Christian behavior and passive immobility define her body.8 Another Mexican author who travelled to the U.S. during the last quarter of the 19th century, Justo Sierra, feels the same attraction for women of the Aryan race, whose whiteness and proper exterior indicate the supremacy of their ethical code. Sierra describes a woman he meets on the train as “tall, correct, and clean, with that cleanliness of the blonde races that is like an irradiation of the soul” (12-13). Both Lombardo and Sierra’s portraits of attractive females in the U.S. privilege pale women because the white color of the epidermis marks a superior moral and class ranking in Mexican society. Nevertheless, not all white women seem desirable to the lawyer. Lombardo rejects the “masculine” and combative U.S. woman, who is the opposite of the model of the feminine and peaceful Mexican lady.9 In his chapter on “Women in the United States,” Lombardo narrates his negative response to the Yankee lady, who, although beautiful seems manly because “even her clothes . . . look masculine. They use woolen cloth instead of silk: they wear felt hats on their heads” (114). North American women appear to be covered with armor that does not show the voluptuous forms of their bodies, and that uses the same woolen 8 Lombardo provides us with another example, a seventeen year old girl he observes in Philadelphia and whose gaze could make the intellectual make of this city his permanent residence. The author describes “her eyes blue like the sky; in her throat the white of the snow; in her hair the colors of gold” (99). 9 Ingrid E. Fey and Karen Racine elucidate how the experience of living in a different culture and the confrontation with a different reality may cause a feeling of rejection (xvii). This seems to be Lombardo´s case on his negative perception of “active” U.S. women. The Mexican scholar, who was used to the traditional and dependent role of Mexican ladies, is shocked by the modernity and independence of women in the United States. Lombardo rejects these American females when describing them as masculine, rebellious, and adulterous.

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cloth and felt that U.S. men wear. The author feels gender confusion, because instead of the feminine silk dresses and uncovered faces of the serene Mexican ladies, U. S. women look like armored men ready to do battle.10 The bellicose image of U.S. women comes from their public activity, contrary to the passive image of the domestic Mexican lady. To Lombardo, the North American woman looks for “pleasures” that keep her “walking around all day long” so that she cannot take proper care of her home (116). This activity makes her behavior “imprudent,” “rebellious,” and even unfaithful so instead of heaven, her household becomes hell (116). He condemns the U.S. woman because she is active and stays outside the home without male supervision, which leads her to be adulterous and desecrate the family’s honor. By contrast, the ideal Porfirian woman accepts a passive position confined in the domestic space, in which her decency is controlled by her husband. Lombardo considers females as “weak” (117) creatures who must be protected by men, which is why Yankee women constitute a subversion of the 19th century Mexican ideal – they are rebellious amazons whose dangerous proximity may contaminate the traditional values of the good Mexican woman.11 North American females behave like U.S. males, they are a cultural menace to the ideal Mexican order – to the places men and women occupy in the Porfirian patriarchal society. It seems that to Lombardo if Mexican women become active they will equal men, so his nation’s female soul will be destroyed. The author discriminates not only against virile women, but also the black race. 10

The Cuban writer José Martí in “Carta en Nueva York” depicts a similar image of North American females as unattractive, because “our poetic and noble race does not take pleasure in virile women” (152). According to Martí, the U.S. man does not portray his woman as an “elegant iris that perfumes balconies and souls” as we do, instead “He sees a battle companion from whom he demands rough arms to fight” (152). “Carta de Nueva York” was written in New York, February 4, 1882. This article was published in La opinión Nacional, Caracas, February 18, 1882. See Martí 148-53. My own translation. 11 Julia Kristeva points out, “It is thus not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect border, positions, rules” (4). Active women are abject because they disturb the traditional values of Mexico´s social and national order. According to Lombardo´s ideas, if these pernicious thoughts arrive to Mexico the trope of the passive woman/nation would not work anymore. This danger seems to be real, because the positivist writer Horacio Barreda in 1909 warns Mexicans against Feminism, a movement that would lead to the moral and spiritual destruction of the nation (151).

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Lombardo eliminates black inhabitants from the discourse of the conquest which transforms them into no-people, because they have no agency in the Mexican patriotic discourse. During his trip, Lombardo describes U.S. men and women as well as European people, and associates them with the discourse of the conquest. However, there is almost no reference to black people, an aspect that could indicate the invisibility of this race in Mexico’s social system.12 According to Laurence E. Prescott, Mexicans could overlook the small and isolated communities of African descent in their own country, because of Mexico’s depiction as a mestizo nation – formed principally of indigenous and Spanish groups (15). This seems to be Lombardo’s agenda because there is only the mention of a black person during the “Mardi Gras” in New Orleans and a black boy looking at the train from a shack in Mississippi, both of whom form part of the landscape. It is remarkable that a person who has visited New Orleans, Philadelphia, or New York does not account for the large black population that lives in these cities. The discourse of the conquest does not include black people, only whites – Mexicans, Europeans, and U.S. citizens – that the lawyer associates with his own racial group and social class. To conclude, Alberto Lombardo reveals in his travel book the parallelism between the amorous and the patriotic military discourses. North American men are a fearful menace because they can conquer the Mexican motherland, but Mexicans excel in their romantic tactics of conquering ladies of different nationalities in the U.S. However, those women and racial groups who defy the social ideals of the Porfirian era become erased or pictured as dangerous agents of social disorder. North American women, when active and masculine, cause the author to reject them. He sees them as contaminant beings whose presence destabilizes the masculine and feminine roles in the Mexican social and national order. Black people are dehumanized because they are limited to be part of the landscape. Lombardo’s documentation of his travels in the United States reflect the social, racial, and political ideas of the end of the nineteenth century. UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN AT STOUT

12 Casey Blanton’s remarks on the importance of what a traveler omits in his journey recollections (1) are reflected in Lombardo’s lack of representation of blacks.

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WORKS CITED

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. New York: Verso, 1996. Barreda, Horacio. El siglo XIX ante el feminismo: Una interpretación positivista. Ed. Lourdes Alvarado. Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma de México, 1991. Blanton, Casey. Travel Writing: The Self and the World. New York: Routledge, 2002. Carballo, Emmanuel. ¿Qué país es éste? Los Estados Unidos y los gringos vistos por escritores mexicanos de los siglos XIX y XX. Xoco, México, D.F.: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1996. Cosío Villegas, Daniel. Estados Unidos contra Porfirio Díaz. México: Hermes, 1956. Fey, Ingrid E., and Karen Racine. “Introduction: National Identity Formation in an International Context.” Strange Pilgrimages: Exile, Travel, and National Identity in Latin America, 1800-1900s. Ed. Ingrid E. Fey and Karen Racine. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 2000. xi-xix. Freud, Sigmund. “The Uncanny.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Ed. James Strachey. Vol 17. London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1955. 217-56. 24 vols. 1953-74. Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. LaGreca, Nancy. Rewriting Womanhood: Feminism, Subjectivity, and the Angel of the House in the Latin American Novel, 1887-1903. University Park: The Pennsylvania State UP, 2009. Lombardo, Alberto. Los Estados-Unidos (notas y episodios de viaje). México: Imprenta y Fotolitografía de la Escuela Nacional de Artes y Oficios, 1884. Martí, José. “Carta de Nueva York.” En los Estados Unidos: Periodismo de 1881 a 1892. Ed. Roberto Fernández Retamar and Pedro Pablo Rodríguez. Madrid: Colección Archivos, 2003. 148-53. ––––––. “Coney Island.” En los Estados Unidos: Periodismo de 1881 a 1892. Ed. Roberto Fernández Retamar and Pedro Pablo Rodríguez. Madrid: Colección Archivos, 2003. 82-86. McClintcock, Anne. Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. New York: Routledge, 1995. Meyer, Michael C., and William L. Sherman. The Course of Mexican History. New York: Oxford UP, 1983. Montero Sánchez, Susana A. La construcción simbólica de las identidades sociales. Un análisis a través de la literatura mexicana del siglo XIX. México: Plaza y Valdés, 2002. Paz, Octavio. The Labyrinth of Solitude, and The Other Mexico, Return to the Labyrinth of Solitude, Mexico and the United States, The Philanthropic Ogre. Trans. Lysander Kemp, Yara Milos, and Rachel Phillips Belash. New York: Grove Press, 1985. Prescott, Laurence E. “Journeying through Jim Crow: Spanish American Travelers in the United States during the Age of Segregation.” Latin American Research Review 42.1 (2007): 3-28. Ramos Escandón, Carmen. “Señoritas porfirianas: mujer e ideología en el México progresista.” Presencia y transparencia: La mujer en la historia de México. México: El Colegio de México, 1987. 143-61. Rotker, Susana. Cautivas: Olvidos y memoria en la Argentina. Buenos Aires: Ariel, 1999. Sierra, Justo. En tierra yankee, en la Europa latina. México: Porrúa, 2000.

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