The Californios

Melissa McMahon

February 3 2009

Journal on Maria Amparo Ruiz De Burton

"The one great principle of American law is very much the same; our lawgivers keep giving us laws and then enacting others to explain them. The lawyers find plenty of occupation, but what becomes of the laity?"

Maria Amparo Ruiz De Burton was very political and influential during her time. She maintained very strong views about the displacement of the "Californios"- native born Californians of Spanish descent. Although she wrote about her passions through such stories like "The Squatter and the Don," her writing still reflects racial stereotypes that were common for her time.

Burton's "The Squatter and the Don," is the story about different racial groups under attack by a greedy, white capitalist society. Burton captures the vulnerability behind the groups in this story- and although it is a love story between Mercedes and Clarence,- it ends sadly for the families- with both losing their land to white men.

Very much like a Spanish "Romeo and Juliet," the romance's happy ending is overshadowed by the incredible loss both families share. Burton got her writing ideas from her constant travel, and her need to document what she was seeing happen politically during her time. Wikipedia quotes: "Her life took her from coast to coast in the United States, which provided her with opportunity for first-hand observation of the U.S., its westward expansion, the Civil War, and its aftermath. This vantage point and her status as a woman provided her with both an insider's and outsider's perspective on issues of ethnicity, power, gender, class, and race." Burton used this inside track to get her point of view across and did so in her two novels, "Squatter," and "Who Would Have Thought It?" (1872)

Since "The Squatter's" republication, Burton has become an influential figure in Mexican American Literature- and a voice that lends understanding to her people and what they went through. "Ruiz de Burton's work is considered to be a precursor to Chicano literature, giving the perspective of the conquered Mexican population that, despite being granted full rights of citizenship by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, was a subordinated and marginalized national minority."-Wikipedia

She remains a gifted and powerful part of Mexican American history that is still studied and admired today.