The Casta Paintings
The Casta Paintings highlighted the racial taxonomy, or rather the stereotypes that existed in the late 18th and early 19th century in the Spanish colonies. Dr Andrés Arce y Miranda, who were creole attorneys from Puebla, believed that the Casta Paintings only offered negative images of what was happening in the Americas at that time. These negative images were mainly due to societies views (Spaniards) on how races should be kept pure; and secondly that the racial mixtures that resulted, were thought of as “inferior” races. In many cases, the Paintings portrayed men of different races who were allocated with certain job descriptions determined by the color of their skin.
The phrase “No te entiendo”, which translates to “I don’t understand you”, was also said to be used with the intention to discriminate against the locals (mestizos, mulatos, and zambos) as a result of their race. In other words, they made them feel as if they did not belong anywhere, secluding them from their own society. Even though there were many negative images linked to the Casta Paintings, many contemporaries believed that positive images were present. These could be seen through the manifestations of the paintings, which in a way favored both the Spanish Imperial rule and the Mexicans as they expressed the emergence of new races, created by the Spanish colonizers and the local indigenous people.
It could be said that the paintings were meant to emphasize the on-going changes in the racial taxonomy; which was positive because these new races were mixed, which means that many of them could have adapted to the Spanish view on how society works- in other words, they can be interpreted as more “understanding” people, due to their Spanish blood. However, Dr Andrés Arce y Miranda still believed that a pure race should not be mixed with the indigenous, as it did not suit the interests of the Spanish Imperial rule.
Something I also find interesting/confusing about the Casta Paintings was the fact that they were so rigidly classified with boxes around them, that people were supposed to be a kind of person if they were from a particular race. However, people would inter-racially marry and have children who were “mixed”. In reality there is no separation of races, and there shouldn’t be. It was a complete social construct that changed the way how people view others based on their race, and Casta Paintings simply created a system that justified a reason for doing so.
I enjoyed a lot your post. I think it is hard to agree with some of the authors about the statements they write. But, definitely those statements become part of the history and also of our present; sometimes it isn’t very positive; in Mexico for example: we’re classicist people, so it’s “normal” (which shouldn’t) to discriminate the indigenous… And I think this is because of this enormous separations of social classes. We haven’t really fight about that way of thinking, it is in our daily lives. But on the other hand, thanks to history we can understand from where this kind of behavior or thinking come from.