Remembering the Borderlands' forgotten.

AuthorMartinez, Elizabeth Coonrod
PositionDesert Blood: The Juarez Murders - The Chronicles of Panchita Villa and other Guerrilleras - The Hummingbird's Daughter - Book review

In artistic terms, the U.S. Southwest conjures images of gorgeous desert scenes, stark contrasts in nature, and peaceful, sleepy communities. Other realities are ignored--its native history and a lack of attention to human rights and survival. The continued existence of original Indian groups (despite consistent attempts to eradicate them) in northern Mexico is overlooked except as museum artifacts. Nor is attention given to the fact that hundreds of maquiladora workers have been raped, killed, and mutilated in the late twentieth century without any great concern to find their killers. These realities are borne out in two especially salient new novels. Literature often reevaluates history, and a recent collection of essays demonstrates how writings by Chicana women in recent decades transcend borders and boundaries to manifest little-understood cultural identities.

The Hummingbird's Daughter, by Luis Alberto Urrea. New York: Little, Brown, 2005.

In an expansive, poetic novel, Luis Alberto Urrea lays out the story of a late nineteenth-century woman whose mention is scant in history books, but who was so feared by the Porfirio Diaz dictatorship that he had her jailed and then expelled from Mexico. Teresa Urrea, born in 1873 in the Pacific coastal state of Sinaloa near the Sonora border, became the patron saint of various Indian groups and their rallying cry against government abuse.

As a child, Teresa already exhibits goodness and a sense of warmth in her hands, which she uses to mystically transport herself away from a difficult home environment. She is half-Indian, the daughter of a peasant washerwoman who is impregnated by the son of a wealthy hacienda owner. When Teresa is only a few years old, her mother leaves her with her aunt, a single woman with two children who lives in abject poverty and is extremely abusive to Teresa. The child becomes interested in the huge house and eventually wins the interest and protection of an older servant, Huila, who is a curandera. Teresa's father, Tomas Urrea, is amused by some of the things the young girl says, not realizing as yet that she is his daughter. Years later, he moves his entire household to another ranch house in Sonora, between the Chihuahua border and Guaymas, after concern for reprisals when he does not support Diaz's latest usurpation of the presidency. The journey and transfer of some hundred servants and cowhands together with animals and household goods is one of the most interesting sections of the novel, describing terrain, Indians, ghosts from the past, abandoned shacks, and remnants of the prior residence. On rafts they cross the mighty Rio Fuerte, a prominent river of the region originating in the Sierra Madre mountain range.

During the twentieth century, dams were built along this river, forever diverting and changing the ancient livelihood of Indian groups, pushed off their original lands during the Mexican colonial era as more and more settlers built haciendas, often taking Indians by force as servants. Those who rebelled or tried to retreat to locations in the foothills were systematically pursued, massacred, and their towns burned. Urrea brings this forgotten history to light in the character of Teresa's father, who makes such statements to the ranking military officer as, "it's their [the Indians'] country," to which the major retorts that the land belongs to the Mexican republic.

In Sonora, Teresa is trained in folk healing by Huila, learning the medicinal plant cures for common ailments. The older woman also takes her to an Indian spiritual teacher to apprentice with him. Huila is considered the community doctor. More than halfway...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT