Day 24, 1791, Mexico City, Mexico
Genders are separated by very strict boundaries. The rules are invisible but everyone in the community seems to know them. Here in Mexico the Catholic Church has a large role to play in defining good gender versus bad gender which plays into the rules of ‘good’ gender and ‘good’ ethnic origins. The rules run through Central America and right into South America. There is a strict code of honor here. At first the rituals seem very strange. There seems to be no way to explain the way that people treat each other. The code of honor for gender seems to be the same the same even at different levels in society: men dominate and women are inferior.
The Church is especially hard on women. This is difficult to understand because the churches all have many images of Mother Mary. The Lady of Guadalupe is one of the most popular saints and her image is very popular. Women seem to live each day with a constant eye on protecting their name and their virtue. Their role is in the house. The men can go wherever they please. They are the “kings of their castles’ bossing their wives around like wives were slaves in some cases. (Lyman, 1998, 45)
A very important issue in the code of honor is whether or not a new born child is legitimate or illegitimate. If the child is born but the parents are not married that child will not be able to reach great success in life. The idea of being illegitimate, illegal, is a shadow that will haunt the child and their children. Some families are talked about generation by generation of who was born legitimately and who was born illegitimately. A lot of time is spent on the subject. The Catholic Church must have very rigid rules on the subject. The burden is worse for women because it is very obvious when she is going to be a mother but a father who is of ‘nobility’ does not have to worry about many consequences.
Ethnicity
Day 210, Arequipa, Peru
We have traveled much farther south now and we are observing some changes as we observe how people act with each other. In Mexico and further north, the idea that people of indigenous tribes or mixed race are treated very badly is not frowned upon but expected. (!!!) Women, poor people and people who appear to be of mixed race are all part of the inferior class that naturally according this culture anyway deserves to be treated badly. (Lyman, 1998, 14) Now we are in Arequipa, Peru. Colonial Latin America has clearly defined roles when it comes to ethnicity, too, though that is not a question. The boundary between people of different race is very rigid in colonial in the countries we have visited and Peru is no different. It turns out that the people that were originally living in Peru are no longer citizens here. They have no rights. The very last thing they can ever expect to happen in their lives is to hold public office. (Chambers, 1999, 3) Here the top of the political and social ladder is already filled with landowners and merchants who are the elite in this society. People that work are considered inferior and may be called ‘plebeians.’ Definitely underemployed and vagrants are labeled plebeians. (Chambers, 1999, 9)
The Spanish Catholic Church must have been imported here from the Conquistadors and Spain. Maybe it is because the people originally living here did not even know the Church existed, maybe that is the reason they are dealt with so cruelly now. There is no room for other belief systems here.
But maybe that is not altogether fair to say because Arequipa is turning into a city but there are still farms located in some of the most surprising neighborhoods. The transition from rural to urban is still happening. Boundaries here between land use and within the society are not as rigid here as we saw in Mexico City.
References
Chambers, Sarah C. (1999). Honor, Gender, and Politics in Arequipa, Peru, 1780-1854.University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press. Print.
Johnson, Lyman. (1998). The Faces of Honor: Sex, Shame, and Violence in Colonial Latin America. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. Print.
