The Squatter and the Don (Part 2)

Overall, reading The Squatter and the Don, has been an eye-opening experience for me culturally. Even before we started reading the book for class, I found that this is a topic that I can say I can “identify” with not because I have any relations with the descent and historical background of the people in the story, but because California is a place that I frequent when school is not in session. I was excited to keep reading the novel because the place that are mentioned in the book like Napa, Sonoma, Alameda and so forth are places that I always pass or see when I’m in California when I visit my family.

Another thing I realized from this is that of the many times that I stayed in California, I never bothered to look up the history and how California was previously a territory, or it was previously Mexico. I would see places with names as Corte Madera, Palo Alto, El Cerrito, Embarcadero and just thought to myself “it’s so amazing how this place has so much Spanish influence because of Mexicans” without digging deeper into what actually happened back then.

We have mentioned in class that the reason for this inequality is a matter of a “system” problem rather than a “personal” problem. In my opinion, it goes back to being a personal problem. People who are in charge and who have the power are responsible for their greed and injustice. I think a unit that is made up of mostly selfish and prejudiced individuals will eventually make up a corrupt system. As it says in the book, “Bribery has been at work… successfully”. This then just goes on as long as individuals are willing to participate.

One of the parts of this book that I find really interesting is how the women aren’t allowed to have their say when the squatters would “assemble” and conduct their meetings. When Doña Josefa expressed her reasoning as to why he asked Clarence to pay Don Mariano, there was an element of irony as to how the one who had the least heard opinion had the most sensible thought. The contrast between Mrs. Darrell and Mercedes was also very interesting to me. Although they weren’t both matriarchal images in the novel, it shows how the representation of the female gender is in a wider spectrum. There is Mercedes, who is mostly emotion-driven and then there’s Mrs. Darrell, who is more of a rational image in the novel.

In my opinion, one of the reasons why everyone just gets sick towards the end of the book is because of the fact that we are all in a corrupt society and that we have the ability to “infect” each other. When one of the units of society crumbles down, or becomes corrupt, then we can see a divide and a sickness affects everyone, whether you are in the wrong or in the right.

The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez: The Movie

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Especially given that one of the themes of Américo Paredes’s “With His Pistol in His Hand” is the different ways in which the same tale can be told (History, newspaper sources, oral legend, corrido, not to mention Paredes’s own book), I recommend you also take a look at yet another medium in which the same tale has been told: the movie adaptation of The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez. Here it is:

The Squatter and the Don: Part 2

I have found it very interesting throughout my reading of The Squatter and the Don how María Amparo Ruiz De Burton has used this literary work to somewhat criticize and shed a light on society and also important institutions in our society such as the government. What was brought to my attention as I was reading the second part was how the author makes a case to criticize and mention the way that government works. Many parts in the book are dedicated in criticizing the way government and legislation works in Washington. For example, this is shown when George Melchin is witnessing the decision making for the construction of the Texas Pacific Railroad that is viewed as vital to the economy and livelihood of the people in California. To their misfortune they lose much optimism and pride in their institution and identity as an American citizen. Having trust and pride in your system is part of your identity as a citizen and being patriotic to your country. As George Mechlin is sitting in the House of Representatives with his uncle listening to the politicians who are supposedly working for the people and for the greater good of the country he comes to realize that it is the exact opposite. In reality these lawmakers are not conscientious of the effects their laws have on the citizens as they are purely interested in their relationship with other politicians and the people who truly govern them the ones who control the votes being the elites who have a major say in the governance of the country. They have no sense of responsibility or morality towards their constituents rather they have it for those who are willing to offer some kind of monetary reward to them.

Another point of interest for me in the book is how racism in society is addressed. This is clearly seen in the way the Californio landowners, these being Don and his family are treated by the squatters. It is clear that the squatters have no respect for them whatsoever. The discriminatory and disrespectful treatment towards the Californio landowners increases and is exemplified even more when the squatters learn that the appeal has been dismissed and there is no dispute whatsoever about the validity of the title of Don Mariano’s land. It infuriates them how a population that they see as the conquered ones can own more land than the rightful inhabitants of the country, the Americans. Their pride and feeling of being of the superior race has taken a hit as this racial group which they view as inferior, incompetent, ignorant and lazy has won a case that benefits and validates their equal ownership to land in the country.

Mrs. Darrell


One of the events that transpired in this second half of the book that impressed me was Mrs. Darrell’s speech on her views of the land laws. The whole event was revealing of her true nature, a nature that we have known as readers since the beginning of the novel. She was honest, showing integrity and firmness of spirit, and assumed responsibility in deceiving her husband and those involved. As it pertains to the author’s views on women, this character has voice and imposes her voice over that of men. However, the author makes it known that she has no seat among the men in the “colony”, for none offer her one, she simply steps in and speaks. That is a rupture in the behaviours set by women in the novel. Mrs. Darrell expresses a forward opinion of the Law, on matters of the land, on business, conscience and ethics.
In contrast Dona Josefa, Mercedes, Elvira, Mrs. Mechlin (George’s Aunt) all seem to fit this “mold” of womanhood where matrons impose tradition and customs for the younger ones to follow. This is representative of the time in which these events transpire. Making Mrs. Darrell are the more interesting. I believe the chapters at the beginning of the novel that describe her somewhat independent lifestyle as a single young woman foreshadow her “forwardness” later on. That even as a married woman and mother she sets her own terms and philosophy of life, one that is passed on to her son.
In a way I would say that Mrs. Darrell and her husband don’t share a conventional marriage. We see that she plays a more active part in the lives of her sons, she is the one that makes them better men. We see that this emasculates Mr.Darrell. A striking scene is one in which he has a fit of anger and his own son laughs at him. In that same fit his wife joins the group and inquires after what her husband has done, treating him as a child, having to justify his actions. Clarence and her sons look for her approval and opinion, she garners their respect. These are all qualities that traditionally are held by a man in relation to his sons. Such is the relationship Don Mariano holds with his own sons and even Clarence.
Mrs. Darrell although left at the margins of the action, does not hold the same role as the other women and that is what makes her so interesting. We see embodied in her character this notion of interior freedom, of justice and morality. Those are the same characteristics we find in Clarence and Don Mariano. With this in mind I believe Mrs. Darrell symbolizes the ideal voice of women in democracy. One that is educated and rational yet on the sidelines, expressing her opinion but not having a seat among the squatters, hence not fully a citizen. The author also makes it known that not all women are like that, and in fact what the “majority” (in this novel) are most concerned with is the wellbeing of men, their families, shopping, balls, marriage prospects and real estate.

Mrs. Darrell


One of the events that transpired in this second half of the book that impressed me was Mrs. Darrell’s speech on her views of the land laws. The whole event was revealing of her true nature, a nature that we have known as readers since the beginning of the novel. She was honest, showing integrity and firmness of spirit, and assumed responsibility in deceiving her husband and those involved. As it pertains to the author’s views on women, this character has voice and imposes her voice over that of men. However, the author makes it known that she has no seat among the men in the “colony”, for none offer her one, she simply steps in and speaks. That is a rupture in the behaviours set by women in the novel. Mrs. Darrell expresses a forward opinion of the Law, on matters of the land, on business, conscience and ethics.
In contrast Dona Josefa, Mercedes, Elvira, Mrs. Mechlin (George’s Aunt) all seem to fit this “mold” of womanhood where matrons impose tradition and customs for the younger ones to follow. This is representative of the time in which these events transpire. Making Mrs. Darrell are the more interesting. I believe the chapters at the beginning of the novel that describe her somewhat independent lifestyle as a single young woman foreshadow her “forwardness” later on. That even as a married woman and mother she sets her own terms and philosophy of life, one that is passed on to her son.
In a way I would say that Mrs. Darrell and her husband don’t share a conventional marriage. We see that she plays a more active part in the lives of her sons, she is the one that makes them better men. We see that this emasculates Mr.Darrell. A striking scene is one in which he has a fit of anger and his own son laughs at him. In that same fit his wife joins the group and inquires after what her husband has done, treating him as a child, having to justify his actions. Clarence and her sons look for her approval and opinion, she garners their respect. These are all qualities that traditionally are held by a man in relation to his sons. Such is the relationship Don Mariano holds with his own sons and even Clarence.
Mrs. Darrell although left at the margins of the action, does not hold the same role as the other women and that is what makes her so interesting. We see embodied in her character this notion of interior freedom, of justice and morality. Those are the same characteristics we find in Clarence and Don Mariano. With this in mind I believe Mrs. Darrell symbolizes the ideal voice of women in democracy. One that is educated and rational yet on the sidelines, expressing her opinion but not having a seat among the squatters, hence not fully a citizen. The author also makes it known that not all women are like that, and in fact what the “majority” (in this novel) are most concerned with is the wellbeing of men, their families, shopping, balls, marriage prospects and real estate.

The Squatter and The Don Chapter XX-Conclusion

In reading the last half of The Squatter and The Don, I noticed repeated mention of corruption, greed, abuse of power, and violent acts committed onto one another. This concluding half, filled with suspense and action, concludes gloomily as it expresses the deep-seated fault of the American government; legislature and elite economic interest are undoubtedly intertwined.

The suspense of the latter half of the book begins with the violent argument of Mr. Darrell and Don Mariano. As Gasbang, Mathews, and Hughes tell Mr. Darrell about the “shady” business dealings between Clarence and the Don, Mr. Darrell wholeheartedly believes that Don Mariano required Clarence to pay for Mercedes’s love. Rash decisions are made and the confrontation of Mr. Darrell and the Don tells of a societal imbalance of power at this moment in history. Mr. Darrell cracks the whip, aiming to injure the Don. Though this moment is out of rage and a simple communication error, I believe there is a deeper message. The Don, wealthy and a legal land-owner, should be more “powerful” than the squatter, Darrell. However, in this instance, the whip represents societal power being exercised by a white man over a Hispanic man. This strongly related to the squatter laws, which aimed to disproportionately discriminate against Mexican-American families. It’s comfortable to think that in the eyes of the law, all people are equal. However, law and society are not colourblind and in 19th century San Diego, on the Alamar Rancho, this inequality is enacted upon as a white man asserts his dominance, like his ancestors before him.

As this book is full of heinous acts coming to fruition, it continues as the squatters Gasbang and Hogsden with the help of corrupt lawyer, Roper, pursue the house of the recently deceased Mr. Mechlin. This utter disregard for a grieving family and desire to reprimand the home of a dead man is disheartening and shows the reader the wickedness of humans. Roper is the epitome of corruption, greed, and egocentricity as he boasts that he “has the Court in [his] pocket”. Ruiz de Burton displays Roper as an utterly horrible human being but warns that humanity could soon be (if not already) infested with these abhorrent minds. If a society is filled with these sorts of people, there is no telling what that could do to say… The legal system of a nation.

Finally, The Squatter and the Don demonstrates how government carries the fate of its citizens in its hands and how a corrupt government can ruin the well-being of the vast majority. As the Don and friends meet with Governor Stanford to discuss the Texas Pacific Railroad, they are confronted with the same corruption and greed we have seen before. However, this selfishness has damning consequences because the simple actions of governors, congressmen, and lawmakers can build up or tear down a nation. Ruiz de Burton, through Governor Stanford, shows that greed can hurt people on a very personal scale, but giving these self-serving individuals the power of an office can harm the very fabric that holds society together. The greased pockets and egoistic mind of Governor Stanford saw “grass grow over” the plans of the Texas Pacific, depriving countless souls of a promised future. The evils that plague our world are unsettling, disturbing, and often frightening. However, as a nation, united by our values, beliefs, and morality, and strengthened by literary works like The Squatter and the Don, we must prohibit these selfish souls from attaining a position to inflict generational trauma through laws and political policy.

-Curtis HR

The Squatter and the Don (II) – The morality: the main Lesson of the book.

In chapter XXII of the Squatter and the Don, Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton reveals the purpose of her book: to instruct the readers. Indeed, it is stated at the beginning of this chapter that ” Biographies are intended, or should be, admonitory; to teach men by the example of the one helps up to view – be this is an example to followed or to be avoided “. While this book cannot be considered strictly as a biography because it is merely a fiction, it nonetheless contains several historical facts and has been largely inspired by the life of the author. It is therefore fair to admit that this book can be considered as a fictional biography. As a biography, its main purpose is not to entertain but to deliver lessons. If throughout the book several lessons are shared with the reader, the end of Squatter and Don reveals the real antagonist of the story and therefore its main “Moral”. On the one hand, if, after a long period of uncertainty, the Alamares and the Darrels are united by the marriage of their respective children, thus showing the possibility of building a nation despite the diversity of races. On the other hand, both families are victims of the selfishness and voracity of the managers of the Central Railroad Company. The hope of building a sustainable nation that includes and considers equally all these citizens regardless of their social or racial origin (at least the Spanish and Anglo-Saxons) is demolished by immorality. That is why I consider this book as a real plea urging the Americans to act ethically in all aspects of their lives in order to build a just society. As the author shows, this task is particularly incumbent on the powerful, but it is also a guiding principle in the lives of ordinary citizens.

To demonstrate my point, I will use the example of the “Business”, which is crucial to the plot of the novel. The author throughout the book but especially in the second part of the story develops a crucial division between “wild capitalism” and “moral capitalism”. The wild capitalism is represented mainly by Gasbang, its lawyer Roper, and the managers of the Central Railroad Company. The moral capitalism is represented by George, the Don and Clarence. The distinction between “wild” capitalism and “moral” capitalism is not the legality of actions but their ethical approach. In fact, all illegal actions are presented as immoral. The immorality of corruption is first represented by Roper, a corrupt lawyer. His immorality is first presented by his lack of humanity when he says: “If I can make any money by kicking him out of his house, don’t you suppose I’d do it”. The second element characterizing his immorality is his corrupt nature when he says: “you have the law, the equity, the money and the talent but I have the judge” (Chapter XXX, p.280). The immorality of corruption is also illustrated in chapter XXXI, when the author, referring to the conspiracy of the railway barons, states that “The aid was refused. The monopoly triumphed, bringing poverty and distress where peace might have been”. Nevertheless, even if Business is conducted legally, it can also be immoral according to the author. In fact, the actions of squatters are, at least at the beginning of the novel, totally legal because they use unfair laws as an opportunity to make money. However, their actions are guided by bad faith and hurt honest people, namely the Don’s family. Worse still, they harm the global economy and all Californians, as illustrated in Chapter 5, because their activities are not adapted to the country, which is a “gazing country” and not a country adapted to crops. Therefore, this “wild” capitalism is mainly driven by vanity, i.e. an action guided by a person’s self-satisfaction without taking into account the suffering involved by his activity. The actors of this immoral capitalism intentionally hurt people in order to improve their own satisfaction. On the other hand, moral capitalism is represented by George or Clarence who are true entrepreneurs, taking risks to make money. It is interesting to show that the family is omnipresent in the strategy employed by the two characters, which implies that a moral form of capitalism must lead to the prosperity and growth of the whole society and not of certain individuals. By contrasting these two forms of capitalism, the author shows the need to introduce morality into this new economic system. She shows that if morality is forgotten, it will lead to the improvement of the majority and the domination of a few powerful businessmen.

This is why Morality is the main link between capitalism, the nation, the people, the law, the democracy and love, at least in this novel.

The Squatter and the Don II

ruiz-de-burton_squatterIn the second half of Ruiz de Burton’s novel, almost all the characters find themselves, at one point or another, struck down by some debilitating illness or accident. Mercedes, for instance, collapses as she vainly tries to call back Clarence as he precipitously leaves the Alamar residence under what he feels is a cloud of disgrace: “’Oh my darling is gone,’ said she, and the ground swelled and moved under her feet, and the trees went round in mad circles, and she knew no more” (262). This fainting spell, what is more, leads to a fever and months of bed rest; “I think the parting with Clarence has nearly killed her,” observes family friend, George Mechlin (267). Clarence’s sister, Alice, succumbs at the same time, running up a “high fever” and becoming “delirious” while “calling for Clarence most piteously” (271). Then George is shot and injured by the squatter, Mathews. Don Mariano contracts pneumonia (“followed by a lung fever” [294]) after being caught in a snowstorm while herding his cattle, bought by Clarence, towards Clarence’s mines. The same snowstorm leaves Victoriano, Mariano’s son and so also Mercedes’s sister, with a “strange malady” (294) that apparently weakens his extremities and makes him unsteady on his feet. Both father and son continue to be affected for the next year or so: in Victoriano’s case, “every two or three months he had attacks more or less serious of the same lameness which deprived him of the use of his limbs” (300). At the same time, William Darrell (the squatter and Clarence’s father) is equally incapacitated, in the wake of the confrontation with the Alamars that provoked all this disruption in the first place: he has bruises that only get worse; he can “scarcely walk”; and he has “a fever to intensify his pains” (277). Not to be undone (though unaware of the sickness and incapacitation that he has left behind), Clarence himself soon succumbs to something or other, exacerbated by the heat of Arizona where he is inspecting his mines, and ends up “with a raging fever that seemed to be drying the very fountain of his young life” (278).

It is no wonder, then, that when Mercedes’s (and Victoriano’s) brother Gabriel is down on his luck in San Francisco, his wife, Lizzie, who is also George’s sister, hesitates before relaying the news to those back home in Southern California “for it was a noted fact, well recognized by the two families, that misfortunes made them all more or less physically ill” (339). But she can no longer keep quiet when, forced into the menial labor of a hod-carrier by financial desperation, George then slips and falls while working on the construction site of a Nob Hill mansion. As an entire social order once anchored by the Californios’ possession of land now disintegrates, the disaster is registered on the bodies of those affected. It is as though, if the plight of the Alamar family and by extension all other Hispanic Americans cannot find words (for, as Mariano observes early on, “the conquered have always but a weak voice, which nobody hears” [17]), it must still find expression, physically and affectively if necessary.

The problem is that not everyone is equally moved, not everyone’s bodies are sufficiently sensitive to register the affective impact of the Californios’ slow-motion dispossession. On the one hand, the families of squatter and Don alike show themselves attuned corporeally to their surroundings. This is demonstrated most often in blushes and tears; there is more blush in this book than in your average make-up store, and there are tears enough to fill a good-sized swimming pool. It is Mary, Clarence’s mother, who opens the blushing in Chapter I (11). Then Mercedes, when she first meets Clarence (“Her face was suffused with burning blushes” [54]), who is affected in turn (“her blushes being immediately reflected on Clarence’s forehead” [56]) and soon “blushe[s] redder yet” (56). Indeed, blushing tends to be contagious: Mercedes, for instance, “could never see any one blush without doing the very same thing herself” (135). And so when her would-be suitors from the East Coast blush–and they do, of course–so does she. But again, even if she is the most prodigious of blushers she is hardly alone: later it is “Doña Josefa’s turn to blush” (152); likewise, both Lizzie and Gabriel (340). Tears, on the other hand, are regularly and copiously drawn from Mercedes and Clarence (with Mercedes’s “lovely face often bathed in tears” [242] such that Clarence even fears “she would make herself ill with weeping” [359]), but also Mercedes’s sister, Elvira (90, 286, 343), Doña Josefa (341), Mrs Mechlin and her daughter (Lizzie’s sister), Caroline (343), Lizzie herself (354), and at one point the entire Alamar family (336). Even Mr Darrell both blushes (198, 283) and weeps (345, 358), a sign that he is not all bad. Indeed, the fact that both squatter and Don can be moved is what distinguishes them, and ultimately cancels out their antagonism, in the face of the pernicious lawyers (the worst of whom, Roper, is repeatedly described as “unblushing”) on the one hand, and monopoly capital on the other. For the “mighty monopoly” of the railroad represented by Leyland Stanford and others is by contrast a “soulless, heartless, shameless monster” that has “no heart for human pity, no face for manly blush” (314).

In the end (as Rosaura Sánchez and Beatrice Pita also note), the opposition between squatter and Don fades as they are both portrayed as suffering, sensitive victims of a corporate capitalism that shows neither qualms (at bribery and corruption, for instance) nor sympathy of any kind. What happened to the Californios, Ruiz de Burton is arguing, will also happen to the Californians as a whole unless they can make common cause and find some “Redeemer” (375). But we end the novel with no great hope that this will happen any time soon. The sickness can only spread.

Week 3—The Squatter and The Don (part ii)

I noticed that the edition of our current novel that was prescribed in class does not contain the subtitle that mine does. The title of the edition that I read includes a subtitle: The Squatter and The Don—A Novel Descriptive of Contemporary Occurrences in California. I find it interesting that subtitles maybe omitted from some editions and not others. I think the subtitle on the edition I read is well befitting of the novel itself. It is certainly one of the oddest novels I’ve ever read, structurally speaking. The author assigns a great deal of real estate (as it were) to the laws and treaties of the time in which the narrative takes place, exploring both sides of the implications of them. For the Alamar and Mechlin families, the laws have dire consequences rendering each family rather destitute. It is noteworthy, I think, that these families represent the goodness of society, the law-abiding, community conscious folks who care about others and not just their own gains. The other families, those of Roper and Gasbang (and a few more whose names I can’t offhandedly recall) benefit from the unfairness and corruption despite their moral turpitude. So back to why I find this novel odd…while there is a plot that unfolds, Ruiz de Burton provides it to the reader from multiple points of view. We see first hand how the Alamar and Mechlin families are affected by the events that unfold, but we also get to experience the point of view of Gasbang and his thugs, their attitudes and thoughts which drive their behaviour. So not only does Ruiz de Burton provide a one-sided perspective to the contemporary occurrences in California, she provides what she believes are the opposing points of view.

One of the main motifs in the novel that really stands out to me is “the least said, soonest mended”. My mother used to tell me this all the time as a kid. It never made sense to me, especially in this day and age when it is en vogue to talk about one’s emotions and feelings. This meaning of this ‘pearl of wisdom’ is that if you don’t talk about a problem, it will simply go away. Look how well that worked out for Don Mariano and Clarence. Look how much time was wasted for Clarence and Mercedes when Clarence decided not to defend himself after his father’s hissy fit. In the words of Freddie Mercury’s song, ‘time waits for no one’, so do what you have to do and make the most of time while you have it. For me, this is the most important take-away from Ruiz de Burton’s story.

I found a few Spanishism in the second half, one in particular caught my eye. Again, the page reference may not apply to the edition prescribed for class, but on page 361 of the one I read, at the end of Chapter XXXII—A False Friend Sent to Deceive the Southerners, Mr. Mechlin states “[t]he earnings of the Central Pacific this last year were seventeen millions of dollars” while speaking with Governor Stanford and Mr. Perin. This is how it would be literally translated into English from the Spanish (something to the effect of: Los ingresos del Pacífico Central este año pasado fueron diecisiete millones de dólares). In English, million is not plural and the preposition ‘of’ is merely implied and not included; whereas in Spanish, millones is plural and the preposition de is required. Further, it is amusing to me, as someone keen on linguistics, to see Mr. Mechlin make this utterance and not Don Mariano. I could see Don Mariano making this type of Spanishism, but not so much Mr. Mechlin.