¡A mi no me manda nadie! : Individualism and identity in Mexican ranchero speech

Marcia Farr

Abstract

Rancheros are presented as a distinct subgroup of Mexican campesinos ‘peasants’ who enact a liberal individualist ideology that centrally values private property, especially land, and hard work as the legitimate route to el progreso ‘progress’. Both male and female rancheros are tough and independent “ranch” people who construct their identities in contrast to indigenas ‘Indians’ on the one hand (whom rancheros view as communally-oriented), and catrines ‘city people’ (whom rancheros see as fancily-dressed, and acting, “dandies”) on the other. A history of frontier isolation and mobility in la sociedad ranchera ‘ranchero society’ facilitated the development of both autonomy and strong ties of reciprocity for mutual support in hostile conditions, as well as common ways of living, dressing, and speaking. This valuing of both autonomy and affiliation undermines the often-invoked dichotomy between “Mexicans” and “North Americans” as being communal, or group-oriented, and individualistic, or self-oriented, respectively. Rather than predominantly one or the other, rancheros value both autonomy and affiliation. This historically constructed identity is enacted in a particular way of speaking, franqueza ‘frankness’, direct, straightforward, candid language that goes directly to a point. Informal verbal performances by members of these families within their homes, both in Chicago and Mexico, are analyzed for their construction of ranchero identity through franqueza.

Keywords:
Quick links
A browser-friendly version of this article is not yet available. View PDF
Año Nuevo Kerr, L.
(1977) Mexican Chicago: Chicano assimilation aborted, 1939–54. In M.G. Holli & P. d’A. Jones (eds.), Ethnic Chicago. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Erdmans Publishing Co., pp. 269–298.Google Scholar
Barragán López, E.
(1990) Más allá de los caminos. Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán.Google Scholar
(1997) Con un pie en el estribo: Formacíon y deslizamientos de las sociedades rancheras en la construccíon del méxico moderno. Zamora, Michoacán, Mexico: El Colegio de Michoacán.Google Scholar
Barragán López, E., O. Hoffmann, T. Linck, and D. Skerritt
(eds.) (1994) Rancheros y sociedades rancheras. Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán.Google Scholar
Bauman, R.
(1977/1984) Verbal art as performance. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.Google Scholar
Bauman, R. and J. Sherzer
(1989) Introduction to the second edition. In R. Bauman and J. Sherzer (eds.), Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ix-xxvii. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Bonfil Batalla, G.
(1996) México profundo: Reclaiming a civilization. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Brading, D.
(1994) Epilogue, A 25 años del encuentro con “Rancheros.” In Esteban Barragán López, Odile Hoffmann, Thierry Linck, and David Skerritt (eds.), Rancheros y sociedades rancheras. Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán, pp. 329–334.Google Scholar
Bravo, D.
(1996) La risa en el regateo: Estudio sobre el estilo comunicativo de negociadores epañoles y suecos. Stockholm: Institutionen för spanska och portugisiska.Google Scholar
Brown, P. and S. Levinson
(1987) Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chávez, Marta.
(1994) Una es la de todo. In E. Barragán López et al. (eds.), Rancheros y sociedades rancheras. Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán, pp. 109–124.Google Scholar
Chávez Carbajal, M. G.
(1995) El rostro colectivo de la nación mexicana. Morelia, Michoacán: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hidalgo.Google Scholar
Cintron, R.
(1997) Angel’s town: Chero ways, gang life, and rhetorics of the everyday. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Cosio Villegas, D., I. Bernal, A. Moreno Toscano, L. González, E. Blanquel, and L. Meyer
(1995) A compact history of Mexico. Mexico: Colegio de Mexico.Google Scholar
De la Peña, G.
(1984) Ideology and practice in Southern Jalisco: Peasants, rancheros, and urban entrepreneurs. In R. Smith (ed.), Kinship ideology and practice in Latin America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, pp. 204–234.Google Scholar
Delgado-Gaitán, C.
(1993) Parenting in two generations of Mexican American families. International Journal of Behavioral Development 16.3: 409–427. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Farr, M.
(1993) Essayist literacy and other verbal performances. Written Communication 10.1: 4–38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1994 a) Biliteracy in the home: Practices among mexicano families in Chicago. In D. Spener (ed.), Adult biliteracy in the United States. McHenry, IL and Washington, D.C.: Delta Systems and Center for Applied Linguistics, pp. 89–110.Google Scholar
(1994 b)  En los dos idiomas: Literacy practices among mexicano families in Chicago. In B. Moss (ed.), Literacy across Communities. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, pp. 9–47.Google Scholar
(1994c)  Echando relajo: Verbal art and gender among mexicanas in Chicago. In Cultural performances: Proceedings of the third Berkeley women and language conference. Berkeley: University of California, pp. 168–186.Google Scholar
(1998) El relajo como microfiesta. In H. Pérez (ed.), Mexico en fiesta. Zamora, Michoacán, Mexico: El Colegio de Michoacán, pp. 457–470.Google Scholar
(in press) Literacy and religion: Reading, writing, and gender among Mexican women in Chicago. In P. Griffin, J.K. Peyton, W. Wolfram, & R. Fasold (eds.) Language in Action: New Studies of Language in Society Cresskill, NJ Hampton Press
Farr, M. and J. Guerra
(1995) Literacy in the community: A study of mexicano families in Chicago. Discourse Processes. Special Issue, Literacy Among Latinos, 19.1: 7–19. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Guerra, J.
(1998) Close to home: Oral and literate practices in a transnational mexicano community. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Guerra, J. and M. Farr
(in press) Writing on the margins: Spiritual and autobiographical discourse among mexicanas in Chicago. In G. Hull, and K. Schultz (eds.) School’s out! Literacy at work and in the community New York Teachers College Press
González, L.
(1974) San José de Gracia: Mexican village in transition. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
(1991) Del hombre a caballo y la cultura ranchera. Tierra Adentro 52: 3–7.Google Scholar
Haverkate, H.
(1994) La cortesía verbal: Estudio pragmalingüistico. Madrid: Editorial Gredos.Google Scholar
Hernández-Flores, N.
(1999) Politeness ideology in Spanish colloquial conversations: The case of advice. Pragmatics 9.1: 37–49.  BoP DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hymes, D.
(1974a) Foundations in sociolinguistics: An ethnographic approach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
(1974b) Ways of speaking. In R. Bauman and J. Sherzer (eds.), Explorations in the ethnography of speaking (first edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 433–451.Google Scholar
(1975) Breakthrough into performance. In D. Ben-Amos and K.S. Goldstein (eds.), Folklore: Performance and communication. The Hague: Mouton, pp. 11–74. Also in D. Hymes (1981) In vain I tried to tell you: Essays in Native American ethnopoetics pp. 79–141. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, I.
(1982) Ranchero revolt: The Mexican revolution in Guerrero. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
LeVine, R.A. and M.I. White
(1986) Human conditions: The cultural basis of educational development. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lomnitz-Adler, C.
(1992) Exits from the labyrinth: Culture and ideology in the Mexican national space. Berkeley: University of California Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Melhuus, M.
(1996) Power, value, and the ambiguous meanings of gender. In M. Melhuus and K.A. Stolen (eds.), Machos, mistresses, Madonnas: Contesting the power of Latin American gender imagery. London: Verso, pp. 230–259.Google Scholar
Milroy, L.
(1980) Language and social networks. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ochs, E.
(1992) Indexing gender. In A. Duranti and C. Goodwin (eds.), Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 335–358.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Schiller, N.G., L. Basch, and C. Blanc-Szanton
(1992) Transnationalism: A new analytic framework for understanding migration. In N.G. Schiller, L. Basch, & C. Blanc-Szanton (eds.), Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Vol. 645: 1–24. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scott, J.
(1990) Weapons of the weak. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Tannen, D.
(1989) Talking voices: Repetition, dialogue, and imagery in conversational discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Valdés, G.
(1996) Con respeto: Bridging the distances between culturally diverse families and schools. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, A.
(1991) Cross-cultural pragmatics: The semantics of human interaction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar