The week three readings depict different aspect of what life was like in Latin America. The story of Catalina de Erauso tells a story of what it was like to be a man in Latin America, as well as an experience unique to herself, a woman pretending to be a man. The Casta Painting help to illustrate the way that was raced was perceived in Latin America.
The article called “Casta Paintings” was written by Susan Dean-Smith. The article tells the audience about a type of painting that was created in Latin America in order to help illustrate a social order that was created regarding the mixtures of races that existed in Latin America.
These mixed originated from three original races; Spanish, Blacks, and Mestizos. The social hierarchy usually depicted the that people with more Spanish blood were higher up on top of the social pyramid. As you went down the castes the depictions of different races became less and favorable, illustrating them in positions of lower power and harsher economic life styles.
Most of these casta paintings depicted roughly 16 different types of casts, however as time progressed the different mixes of people increased. Eventually people from extremely diverse backgrounds became known as “no te entiendo” which in English means, I don’t understand who you are. This because it was hard to put an identity on them.
The story of Catalina de Erauso sounds similar to the story of Mulan and Joan of Arc, a woman who disguises and presents herself as man, and lives in society as such. In the beginning she was a woman who was about to become a nun but she then leaves the convent and begins to live her life as a man, known as Antonio Diaz. She details most of her life in a dairy although the later part of her life remains uncertain.
When she left the convent she eventually left on a boat and sailed to Latin America. There she met her brother who had left the family when she was 2 years old. The recognized each other and he invited her to his home. Eventually she began to march with her brothers company. Eventually the two had a falling out and she moved on from him.
She lived the life of the army for many years, fighting in skirmishes with native tribes and other such things. Until one day she got into a fight with a companion and killed him. Eventually after the confrontation of a judge and she escaped to a church where she stayed there for 6 months surrounded by the army.
After many years as masquerading as a man she came clean but the pope at the time decreed that she had the right to continue wearing men’s clothes.