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Transcript of Moreno, Gary - From the Hacienda to Hollywood. a Cultural History of the Charro
FROM THE HACIENDA TO HOLLYWOOD:
A CULTURAL HITORY OF THE CHARRO
A THESIS
Presented to the Department of History
California State University, Long Beach
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts in History
Committee Members:
Nancy Quam-Wickham, Ph.D. (Chair) Lise Sedrez, Ph.D.
Antonia Garcia-Orozco, Ph.D.
College Designee:
Mark Wiley, Ph.D.
By Gary Moreno
B.A., 2002, Humboldt State University, Areata
December 2009
UMI Number: 1481755
All rights reserved
INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted.
In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed,
a note will indicate the deletion.
UMT Dissertation Publishing
UMI 1481755 Copyright 2010 by ProQuest LLC.
All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
uest ProQuest LLC
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ABSTRACT
FROM THE HACIENDA TO HOLLYWOOD:
A CULTURAL HISTORY OF THE CHARRO
By
Gary Moreno
December 2009
This thesis explores the cultural history of the Mexican equestrians known as
charros from the colonial period to the middle of the twentieth century with particular
focus on their emergence as laborers, their military association, and transformation into
performers. The charros evolution from laborer and insurgent to performer and national
symbol is central to this thesis. Attempts to fill the omissions of previous studies
required the exploration of the link between fashion, race, class, gender, and regional
identity. The tensions between rural folk culture and the urban industrial society is a
theme that is also central to this thesis. The development of the popular charro archetype
developed throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century occurred through
literature, military pageantry, equestrian performance, mariachi music, and cinema and
are all explored at length.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
PREFACE iv
CHAPTER
1. LITERATURE REVIEW 1
2. VAQUERO RANCH HANDS 7
The Jalisco Landscape 14
Chinaco Insurgent 18
3. CHARRO PERFORMANCE 24
Charro Literature 25 Military Pageantry 33
Professional Performers 38
4. IMAGINED CHARROS 47
Recreational Sportsmen 49 Professional Mariachi 57 Cinema Charro 60
BIBLIOGRAPHY 72
in
PREFACE
Mexican charros1 are heirs of one of the oldest horse riding tradition of the New
World. Resplendent in gaudy suits and wide brimmed sombreros charros romance pretty
girls in films, perform equestrian feats at patriotic celebrations and roam the plazas as
musicians in mariachi ensembles. Charros were initially laborer during the colonial
period, were often utilized for military purposes, and finally evolved into performers.
Throughout the course of Mexican history charros have held many different roles, often
contradictory of each other. Thus they have been characterized as valiant, brave and
courageous but also crude, debased and oppressors. However, characterizations do not
account for the wide variety of charro styles, nor their many cultural components.
Although there are significant differences the similarities to the American cowboy
include their emergence as laborers on the open range, their transformation into
performers when cattle management practices changed and their evolution into popular
symbols of national identity. Like cowboys, the rise of the imagined and performed
aspects of charros coincided with their diminished significance as laborers in the second
half of the nineteenth century. The evolution of the popular charro archetype developed
through literature, military pageantry, equestrian performance, art, music, and cinema in
The first use of a foreign word is italicized.
iv
the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was a form of nation building that had a
significant impact upon Mexican culture.
The charros shift from hacienda workers and insurgents to performers is of
particular cultural importance. Therefore, this thesis explores how the charro archetype
of the late nineteenth and twentieth century maintained a perceived connection to the
legacy of the colonial laborers and assumed the military qualities of insurgent patriots in
literature, performance, and cinema. The charros historic transformations from laborer to
insurgent most frequently defined performance and affected meaning, identity and
fashion. Modern charros completed the transition from hacienda laborers and insurgents
to performers and recreational sportsmen during the post-Revolutionary period of the
twentieth century. It is during the post-Revolutionary period when the imagined and
performed aspects of the charro take firm hold over Mexican popular culture. The
hacienda laborers disappeared from view while the insurgent became part of the
pageantry of the state.
Charreria, the sport and pageantry of Mexican horsemanship, maintains the
closest link to the charros roots as laborers on the haciendas. Therefore, this thesis relies
on the publications produced by practicing charreria sportsmen. The works of practicing
charreria scholars include manuals, histories, biographies and graphic books. Much
recent scholarship considers the works of practicing charreria-scholars as the cornerstone
of charro studies. Thus, this thesis similarly references the publications of charreria
scholars and considers them central to the discussion of the cultural history of the charro.
From the first manual printed in 1865 to many recent publications, most of the texts of
charreria-scholars are in Spanish. American scholars did not express interest in the
v
charro until the late nineteen fifties. The translation and interpretation of Mexican texts
is vitally important to the study of the popular charro. The thesis author has made all
translations of Mexican texts that appear here.
Although much of the charreria scholarship has focused attention on literature,
poetry, proverbs and folklore, there have been few literary studies of the charro. In fact,
much of the cultural history of the charro is limited. The few American works on music
and cinema consider the charro, and the charro suit, as a mere subtopics in the history of
mariachi and Mexico's cinematic "golden age." While many scholars have analyzed the
equestrian history of charros, few have directly explored the cultural history or popular
imagery. Although both Mexican and American scholars have published important
works on the charro-equestrian, cultural studies are few. This thesis attempts to fill the
omission of cultural history by focusing attention on the link between fashion, race, class,
gender, and regional identity that have affected the development of the charro archetype.
Like the chinaco of the early republic, the charro also represented the nation. Charros
became a folkloric representation of the Mexican nation during the drive towards
modernization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. However, they also
served to mediate the anxieties of a nation transitioning from a variety of rural folk
cultures to an urban industrial society. The tension between rural and urban cultures has
been generally absent from most scholarship. This thesis attempts to address the
omission of this analysis.
Beside the textual information of scholars and charreria sportsmen, this thesis
relies upon the visual imagery that makes up the iconography of the popular charro. The
work of charro-painters and illustrators has been referenced as well as cinematic
vi
representations. However, the charro suit, or traje de charro, has been the most common
reference in the study of visual aesthetics. Much of the history of the charro is
discernable through the analysis of the charro suit. The various forms of the traje de
charro include its Salamanca origins, the association with rugged labor, elite stylizations,
militarization, standardization, uniform-use and deviant forms. Nearly all of the manuals
produced during the post-Revolutionary-era reference some aspect of charro fashion.
Studies that are more recent include a graduate dissertation that focused on the history
and evolution of the charro suit. Since fashion is a cultural component of charros that has
continually been referenced this thesis regards the cultural, social, political, and gendered
evolution of the traje de charro as important themes in the history of the popular charro.
This thesis also focuses on regional variations of the charro. The landscape
referenced in popular imagery, literature, song, and pageantry is important to
understanding the history and diaspora of charro culture. It is generally believed that
charros emerged in west-central Mexico for the purpose of cattle management on the
colonial haciendas. Academic scholars and charreria enthusiasts agree that the Mexican
charro emerged from the highlands of the state of Jalisco, a place known as Los Altos.
The charro from Jalisco represents an archetypal form within popular imagery. However,
charro culture and practices migrated to other regions of Mexico and areas of the
American Southwest. Consider the Cisco Kid television series of the nineteen fifties,
which featured a charro among the boulder fields and Joshua trees of the California
desert. Analyzing the various regional forms of the charro facilitates a deeper
understanding their cultural history.
vn
CHAPTER 1
LITERATURE REVIEW
The first literary work which focused attention on the charro is Claudo Linati's
1828 publication, Trajes Civiles, Militares y Religiosos de Mexico, or Civil, Religious,
and Military Costumes of Mexico. Linati traveled through Mexico between 1825 and
1826, shortly after it achieved Independence from Spain in 1821. Linati's
characterizations are portrayals of a recent past romantically remembered. Linati's praise
for Mexican horsemanship and the "opulent men," dressed in charro attire are significant.
Considering the impact of his work on contemporary views of Mexico, Linati's
characterizations hold an unparalleled importance, especially regarding the description of
national archetypes. Luis Inclan's 1865, "Treatise of charreria," translated as, Rules by
Which a Collegiate Can Throw a Bull by Pulling the Tail and Rope, is considered the
first charro manual from which all others were descended. However, it is during the
post-Revolutionary era of the 1930s and 1940s when the literary form of the charro
manual became most prevalent.
The manuals of the twentieth century attempted to recover the cultural history of
colonial era charros. The authors were mainly upper class recreational equestrians who
1
blended their mental and physical labor in their hope of preservation charro traditions.
During the post-Revolutionary era, 1919-1952, charreria-scholars documented the
development of the sport of charreria and described the equestrian history and folklore of
the charro. Carlos Rincon Gallardo's manual from 1939, El Libro del Charro Mexicano,
The Book of the Mexican Charro, still stands as one of the most important texts of this
period. Some contemporaries went as far as designating it a "Bible of charreria," fit for
review at institutions of higher learning.1 Rincon Gallardo was a former inspector
general of the mounted Rurales who came from the hacendado elite with a long family
tradition of charro horsemanship. Rincon Gallardo spent a considerable length reviewing
guns and horses and included an analysis of different models, breeds, training and
maintenance.
Charreria-historian, Jose Alvarez del Villar published, Historia de la Charreria,
History of Charreria, in 1941. Like many of the early charro histories, Alvarez del
Villar's work is romantic; however, this work is significant in its description of the early
charro associations of the twentieth century and the professional performances of the late
nineteenth century. Alvarez del Villar is also important because he is among the few
scholars who linked the charro to the Spanish bullfighting tradition. In 1949, Jose Ramon
Ballesteros published, Origen y Evolution del Charro Mexicano, Origin and Evolution of
the Mexican Charro. This work is useful in its meticulous attention to charro dress.
Carlos Rincon Gallardo, Manuel Romero de Terreros y Vinent, El Libro del Charro Mexicano, (Mexico: Libreria de M. Porrua, 1977), viii.
2
Ballesteros came from the urban professional class who increasingly defined the sport
and culture in the twentieth century.
Scholars, particularly Americans, first studied the literary and folk aspects of the
charro in the fifties and sixties. Three essays published between 1958 and 1964 by
Americo Paredes, "The Mexican Corrido: Its Rise and Fall," "Luis Inclan: First of the
Cowboy Writers," and "Some Aspects of Folk Poetry," treated the subject of the charro
in song, literature and poetry. Paredes essays were useful when analyzing of the
development of the popular charro archetype in the nineteenth century. Edward Laroque
Tinker, also a practicing equestrian, attempted a literary analysis of the American
horsemen, which included the North American cowboy, the Mexican charro and the
Argentine gaucho. Although not a manual in the traditional sense, his work from 1967,
The Horsemen of the Americas and the Literature They Inspired, contains many of the
elements, specifically attention to history, myth and legend, which most other manuals
attempt. Laroque Tinker held the charro in high esteem; he believed these men
"Represented in their daily lives the freedom of the individual or, at least, a life of
relative independence and mobility, as they confronted dangers on or beyond the
frontier."2
There is no general trend in the scholarship of the charro in the nineteen seventies.
However, in the eighties scholars studying various aspects of equestrian cultures
increasingly publish monographic works, articles and large graphic books. Paul J.
Vanderwood published, Disorder and Progress: Bandits, Police, and Mexican
2 Edward Laroque Tinker, The Horsemen of the Americas and the Literature They Inspired, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967), xvi.
3
Development, in 1981. Although the charro is not central to his work, Vanderwood
touches upon the propaganda and pageantry of Porfirian Mexico, which included the
uniform use of the charro suit by the mounted Rural Police Force. Richard W. Slatta's
study of the gaucho from 1983, Gauchos and the Vanishing Frontier, served as a
valuable equestrian comparison for the charro while providing a historical example of the
cultural erasure of these traditions. In 1984, Miguel Flores C. described the trans-border
adaptation of the sport of charreria in, 'The Charro' in U.S.A.. Although this is not a
monographic work, Flores C. was a charreria enthusiast from Los Angeles who described
the establishment of the sport along the San Gabriel River throughout the forties, fifties
and sixties. That same year Jose Cisneros, a talented graphic artist, published, Riders
Across the Centuries: Horsemen of the Spanish Borderlands. This illustrated book
harkens back to Linati's work, which also focused on generalized characterization. In
1989, Beverly J. Stoeltje published an article on professional cowboy performance titled,
"Rodeo: From Custom to Ritual." Stoeltje's insightful work from the "transitional
period" of the cowboy, 1870-1930, served as a valuable comparison for the charro
performances of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Throughout the nineteen eighties and nineties, there was a significant increase in
the publication of large graphic books and monographic charro histories. Jose Valero
Silva's, El Libro de la Charreria, The Book of Charreria, published in 1987, is a graphic
history of Mexico's equestrian tradition. Octavio Chavez's publication from 1991, La
Charreria: Tradicion Mexicana, Charreria: Mexican Tradition is similar to Valero
Silva's in the attention given to the development of charro associations of the early
twentieth century. However, it was a series of non-equestrian academics, both Mexican 4
and American, who published some of the most significant recent histories of the charro.
G. Guillermina Sanchez Hernandez published, La Charreria en Mexico: Ensayo
Historico, Charreria in Mexico: Historic Essay in 1993. Sanchez Hernandez analyzed
the charros development, beginning with cattle management and warfare, continuing with
celebrations, performances and finally sport. The very same year Kathleen Mullen-Sands
published her seminal work, Charreria Mexicana: An Equestrian Folk Tradition. Her
work made a considerable effort in acknowledging the perspectives and opinions of
contemporary charreria enthusiasts in both Mexico and the United States. Mullen-Sands
anthropological approach is similar in structure to the manuals, which blend elements of
history and myth along with descriptions of traditions and customs. Besides Mullen-
Sands, Olga Naj era-Ramirez is one of the most important modern American scholars of
charreria. Naj era-Ramirez published several article and papers including, "Engendering
Nationalism: Identity, Discourse, and the Mexican Charro." The structure of Najera-
Ramirez's essay and her historical approach has considerably informed this thesis. Like
Naj era-Ramirez, much of the work of Cristina Palomar, from the University of
Guadalajara, has also focused on gender, nationalism and charreria. Palomar's recent
work includes a 2004 article translated as, "The Paper of Charreria as a Cultural
Phenomenon in the Construction of Western Mexico."
Growing interest in the history of mariachi music and Mexican cinema in the late
nineteen nineties led to the publication of several works on the subjects. Jesus Jaregui's,
Los Mariachis de Mi Tierra. . . Noticias, Cuentos, Testimonios y Conjeturas: 1925-
1994, The Mariachis of My Home . . . News, Stories, Testimonies and Conjectures:
1925-1994, published in 1999, is a compilation of several primary and secondary sources 5
that date back to the professional formation of mariachis. Jeff Nevin's Virtuoso Mariachi
from 2002 and Daniel Edward Sheehy's Mariachi Music in America: Experiencing
Music, Expressing Culture from 2006 also explored the development of mariachi music
in the early twentieth century. Similarly, Mexican cinema and television has recently
become a popular subject within cultural scholarship. Rogelio Agrasanchez's graphic
study from 2001 titled, Cine Mexicano: Posters from the Golden Age, 1936-1956 briefly
explores the development of Mexico's cinematic infrastructure. Also, in 2001, Anne T.
Doremus published Culture, Politics, and National Identity in Mexican Literature and
Film 1929-1952. Doremus ably explores the political, cultural, and social significance of
the comedia rancher a, a cinematic format that featured singing charros. Most recently,
Francis M. Nevins and Gary D. Keller published an extensive study of the Cisco Kid film
and television serials in 2008, The Cisco Kid: American Hero, Hispanic Roots. This
source has been particularly insightful in tracing the first cinematic interpretations of the
charro.
6
CHAPTER 2
VAQUERO RANCH HAND
When Hernan Cortes landed on Mexican shores, intent on conquest, on April 21,
1519, he brought the first horses to the continental mainland.3 Scholars point to those
sixteen horses as proof that Cortes introduced the first equestrian tradition of the
Americas in Mexico. Charros are, in part, the culmination and heirs to the horse riding
culture established by the conquistadors. A few years after Cortes introduced the horse,
he brought cattle to the mainland. This herd of cattle preceded those brought to the
American South by the Coronado expedition two decades later.4 Horses and cattle
proved vital for the economic development, social politics, and cultural fusion of the
colony. During the early colonial era equestrians, and their horses, labored together.
During the fight for Independence, equestrians and their horses allied in battle. In the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this relationship became a partnership in
competitive performance and the spectacle of pageantry.
3 Kathleen Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana: An Equestrian Folk Tradition, (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993), 22.
4 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 28.
7
The horses brought to the New World, similar to those introduced in the Iberian
Peninsula during the sixth century, followed a military conquest.5 Originally reserved for
elites, the monarchy established academies for breeding and training based on Moorish
examples. However, the development of horse husbandry in Castilian churches spread
equine practices among other sectors of the population.6 Additionally, competing
interests between different regions distinguished themselves through practices, festivities,
celebrations and fashion. Manuals were also produced which taught horsemen the
appropriate forms of training and caring for their mounts.7 Regional traditions, practices
and legacies transferred to the New World when Spaniards attempted to recreate the
culture of their respective homelands in Mexico.
The American colonies considerably depended upon horse and cattle. Ranching
and cattle management were vital for the economic growth of the colony, without which
other sectors, such as mineral extraction, may not have prospered. The hacienda
ranching system evolved from the large land grants awarded to the officers of the military
and officials of the church. Additionally, Spaniards utilized the horse as physical and
psychological tool for the control of the native population. Thus, the colonial
government limited horse ownership to people of European descent.8 As the hacienda
system expanded and became more prosperous over the course of the sixteenth century
5 Joseph F. O'Callaghan, History of Medieval Spain, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975), 27.
6 O'Callaghan, History of Medieval Spain, 183.
7 O'Callaghan, History of Medieval Spain, 511.
8 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 27-31.
8
racial restrictions became impractical.9 Sebastian de Aparicio was a Spaniard who
traveled to Mexico and established a hacienda in 1532. Ballesteros considers Aparicio
the first "Charro," partially because he taught Spanish equestrian skills to mestizo and
indigenous people in defiance of colonial restrictions.10 Due to the need for more native
labor, the colonial government began to loosen racial restrictions in the seventeenth
century.'! The revocation of racial laws meant that people of indigenous descent and
mixed mestizo heritage could work as equestrian. Although mestizo and indigenous
people undoubtedly practiced in defiance of Spanish law it can be stated that equestrian
traditions fully emerged in Mexico due to the revocation of these restrictions in the
seventeenth century.
Ballesteros and Gallardo emphasize the link to the Salamanca charro. Within the
province of Salamanca, Spain, much of the central land is a "Campo charro," or charro
lands, historically dedicated to the horse and cattle industry. Spaniards from Salamanca,
and possibly Andalucia and Navarra, may have tied to recreate campos charros in
Mexico. Most notably, the Spanish used the term charro to describe both the men,
9 Jose Ramon Ballesteros, Origen y Evolution del Charro Mexicano, (Mexico: Libreria de M. Pornia, 1972), 31.
10 Ballesteros, Origen y Evolution, 30-38.
11 Frank Dean, Nacho Rodriguez, Trick and Fancy Roping in the Charro Style, (Las Vegas: The Wild West Arts Club, 2003), 7.
12 Ballesteros, Origen y Evolution, 17.
9
considered rustic outdoorsmen, and their style of dress. In the seventeenth century, the
charro suit from Salamanca became fashionable among the colonial upper class. The
attire included a decorated short jacket, sombrero and tight riding pants.14 The suits
adopted by the working ranch hands differed from those of the hacienda elites.
Workman's suits were usually made of durable leather, thus cuerudos, leather men,
became a descriptive term.15 The unadorned cuerudo style was the prototype of the
modern traje defaena, otherwise known as the workman's suit.16 From the early
seventeenth century onward, charro fashion reflected upper and lower class tastes. For
Spaniards the word charro continued to be derisive and signified a gaudy fashion of the
lower classes. However, in a Mexican context, the hacienda elite made the charro
fashion a marker of class status and wealth.17
The delineation of social classes is embroidered and leather-stamped on the traje
de charro. The men who wore charro attire on these large cattle ranches had clearly
defined social positions that included specific work duties. At the bottom was the
cowhand, or vaquero, who risked his life capturing cattle. The caporal organized and led
the vaqueros. Next was the horse trainer, the amansador, followed by the mozo de
13 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 38.
14 Rincon Gallardo, El Libro del Charro Mexicano, 7.
15 Ballesteros, Origen y Evolution, 19.
16 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 79.
17 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 38.
10
estribo, who was the enforcer and confidant of the hacendado. Charro scholars agree that
the men from the vaquero ranks dressed simply in unadorned suits made of durable
materials. However, the upper ranks had the means to wear finely made clothes.
Ballesteros described two types of hacienda elites, the absentee landowner and the rural
type. The absentee landholder fled to the urban centers and usually dressed in an overly
flamboyant manner. The rural type typically dressed as simply as a vaquero workman.
For Ballesteros the true "Prototype," of the charro was the rural hacendado who could
dress for the rigors of ranch work but could also don fine gala attire for special functions
1 R
and celebrations such as weddings or fandangos.
While the unadorned fashion of the vaquero ranch hand was part of the charro
aesthetic the saddle also indicated a relation to labor. The charro saddle is a working tool
suited for either the labors of the field or the rigors of war.19 It is a legacy of the
conquistadors descended from the Arabian campaign saddle and uniquely modified to the
Mexican riding style, which is a cross between the erect a la brida medieval European
form and the crouching a lajineta inherited from the Moorish invaders of Spain.20 The
charro riding posture serves, "To meet the demands of controlling, branding, doctoring
and castrating livestock." Fused between cultures and the necessities of the labor Linati
1R
Ballesteros, Origen y Evolution, 165-170.
19 Rincon Gallardo, El Libro del Charro Mexicano, 334.
Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 33.
21 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 30.
11
considered the Mexican riding style and charro saddle superior to the Spanish. Work
on the open range also required charros to be experts at the skills of camping. Mullen-
Sands noted, "Frequently he had to carry provisions, ropes, tools, and minimal camping
comforts he might need for several days tied to or hanging from his saddle."23 The
charros preparation for the rigors outdoor living made them ideal for campaigns of war
and long marches. A charro's horse, a caballo de campo, was also accustomed to work
in the outdoors. In contrast, the caballo de camino used for traveling, "Pleasure riding,"
performances and ceremonies wore an ostentatiously decorated saddle.24
During the colonial period, the semi-annual round-up activities of the hacienda
were important activities. Various times a year vaqueros from several haciendas would
gather roaming cattle at a central location to sort, treat, brand and return to their proper
owners. Mullen-Sands wrote, "There they treated stock for diseases and injuries,
castrated all but the best breeding bulls and stallions, clipped matted manes and tails,
selected and broke promising young horses to saddle, and culled out and returned to their
owners animals that had strayed into the hacienda's herd."25 After these labors were
completed, families would gather for festivities, which included music, dancing, food and
Claudio Linati, Trajes Civiles, Militares y Religiosos de Mexico, trans. Justino Fernandez (Mexico: Imprenta Universitaria, 1956), 90.
23 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 35.
4 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 29.
Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 41.
12
competitive games. The performances of equestrian skills for entertainment were
important rituals in the evolution of the modern sport of charreria. For example,
hacienda owners and their properly trained sons would compete alongside hired ranch
hands. Exchanging roles occurred within rituals of play and performance. Finely dressed
hacendados competed against plainclothes vaqueros in a contest of skill.28 During these
events, vaqueros often adopted the richly decorated charro attire of the elites temporarily
creating the illusion of unity and cooperation on the hacienda.29
The post-round-up activities of the hacienda were an opportunity for socialization.
Families accompanied the men folk for the specific purpose of communal celebration.
The gatherings also served to provide, "Young people an opportunity for courtship."30 It
is evident that the socialization customs of the hacienda have left their mark on the charro
archetype, especially concerning his portrayal as a womanizer. The characterization of
the charro as a romantic figure began during the post-round-up courtship rituals of the
colonial period. The role-playing facilitated by the wearing of a finely embroidered
charro suit allowed for courtship across class lines. At these events, the victor became
the romantic equivalent of a knight in shining armor.
26 Francis Edward Abernathy, "Charreria: From Spain to Texas," Charreada: Mexican Rodeo in Texas, (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2002), 2.
Olga Naj era-Ramirez, "Engendering Nationalism: Identity, Discourse, and the Mexican Charro," Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 1. (Jan., 1994), 3.
28 Naj era-Ramirez, "Engendering Nationalism," 3.
29 Naj era-Ramirez, "Engendering Nationalism," 4.
30 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 44.
13
The Jalisco Landscape
Although charros eventually became a national symbol, they initially emerged
from the region that is now the modern state of Jalisco. Today, the charro is widely
accepted as an embodiment of Jalisco's regional identity. Beside tequila and mariachi,
some consider the charro to be the regions contribution to modern Mexican culture and
identity. During the colonial period Jalisco was an area identified by its vast cattle
economy and its large European population. Christina Palomar observed, "The
characteristics which define the relation of this region and the central power has been
rivalry."31 An economic and cultural rivalry dates back to the 1528 when Nufio Beltran
de Guzman, or "bloody Guzman," became president of the first Audiencia of New Spain,
then dissolved the Audiencia and founded Nueva Galicia (Jalisco) and Guadalajara.
Palomar goes on to note that the regions autonomous stance was partially due to the
geographic distance from Mexico City. Additionally, the state declared its independence
from the republic in 1823. It is no wonder that the symbol of independent Mexico
became the charro, a rebel from autonomous Jalisco.
Charro culture first emerged in the highlands of Jalisco known as Los Altos.32
Mullen-Sands wrote, "Occupational activities practiced on huge hacienda holdings and
small ranchos alike gave birth to a sense of separate national identity and traditions."33 In
31 Cristina Palomar, "El Papel de la Charreria Como Fenomeno Cultural en la Construction del Occidente de Mexico," Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, No. 76. (April 2004), 84.
32 Cristina Palomar, "El Papel de la Charreria," 86. Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 39.
14
narratives, folktales, songs and performances the charro exists in this landscape, a place
of vast open spaces and rugged hill country dotted with small town pueblos, communal
haciendas, independent ranchos and churches. Jalisco's identity and lifestyle centered
around regional labor practices represented by the horse and charro.34 The charro's
influence spread across Mexico through the expansion of cattle ranching and the hacienda
system during the colonial period.35 Throughout the early independence era, 1810-1865,
social dislocation caused by political and armed conflict also assisted the spread of charro
culture. Charros perceived mobility across communities first occurred when they
migrated from rural Jalisco to other regions.
Many of the idiosyncrasies regarding the migration of the charro concern the suits
usage and production across time and place. Unfortunately, detailed documentation prior
to the 1800s is either inaccessible, inconsistent or has significant chronological gaps.
Therefore, the analysis of the suit is limited to the expertise of Ballesteros, Mullen Sands
and Leona Lewis's dissertation, in addition to references to the imagery of Linati and
contemporary paintings. One popular generalization about the charro suits is the idea that
no two costumes are alike, and that personal decorative preferences have contributed to
the development of highly individualized suits.36 While there are many varieties of styles
and accessories to the charro suit, which extend beyond the realm of horsemanship, many
forms have been lost over time or simply fallen out of use. Nonetheless, Ballesteros
34 Cristina Palomar, "El Papel de la Charreria," 85.
35 Naj era-Ramirez, "Engendering Nationalism," 2.
36 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 7.
15
discerned four distinct charro regions, or "Zones," in Mexico that include the central,
northern, western and southern.
The central region maintained its distinct Spanish character through class
distinctions and racial segregation based on the rigid casta system that clearly delineated
which races could wear what textiles. According to Lewis, elites could wear wool
serapes and coats, silk ties, felt or silk hats, as well as velvet and satin apparel.
Indigenous and mestizo people could not use wool or silk, but could wear cotton or native
textiles that predated the Spanish conquest. Initially indigenous and mestizo
equestrians were allowed to wear cotton serapes, short jackets not made of velvet or
•30 .
wool, cotton or linen pants and leather or palm frond huaraches. Mestizos could also
wear any attire they made by hand but did not involve the use of any materials belonging
to the hacienda.
In the northern zone, which had attire similar to that of the central region, rigid
dress codes also maintained limited racial mixing. Eventually, mestizo and indigenous
workers attained the right to wear wool serapes with the distinctive diamond design in the
tradition of the Andalucia serapes. Ballesteros vaguely described the western style,
closely associated to that of Salamanca Spain. In the west, European style suits were
somewhat modified to reflect the Mexican locale and textiles. In the southern zone,
differences between the tropical lowland heat and the cold climate of the mountains
Ballesteros, Origen y Evolution, 103.
Ballesteros, Origen y Evolution, 103-104.
16
required clothing with multiple uses. Therefore, wide bell-bottoms pants, which
transformed into shorts, were common.39
The urban landscape of the late nineteenth century also transformed the charro.
The expansion of manufacturing attracted rural migrants to cities and industrialization
created the opportunity to mass-produce the textiles used for charro suits. However, poor
production and high costs limited any attempts at aesthetic uniformity or mass
distribution. The changing politics of the country also fueled mixed emotions about
Spanish identity and abuses within the haciendas. Mexican born European criollos were
also growing frustrated at the limited opportunities they faced due to a reduction in land
grants, the churches banning of slavery and the rise of political agitation. Mullen-Sands
observed that by the end of the French occupation in 1865, there was a, "Growing
resentment generated by extremes of wealth and poverty," which, "Set the stage for the
drama of civil war and the movement of charro performance from countryside to city."40
Poor, displaced rural migrants also brought their regional cultures, common equestrian
practices, and music to the cities. The migration of rural cultures facilitated the
emergence of charro traditions detached from their regional roots and mainly expressed
as a means of communion and socialization in the urban centers. It is also in the urban
centers where literary representations of charros were widely distributed by printers. The
imagined form of the charro was mainly an urban phenomenon, somewhat divorced from
rural and equestrian origins.
39 Ballesteros, Origen y Evolution, 99-101.
0 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 60.
17
In the cities, the imagined form of the charro took firm hold over Mexican
popular culture. The popular form of the charro returned to an idealized rural landscape,
a romantic imagery of the hacienda that was nostalgically divorced from reality. Edward
Larocque Tinker's study of charros begins with a nostalgic retelling of his visit to a
working Porfirian hacienda. When he witnessed a peon groveling at the hacendados feet
Tinker related, "I am glad to bear witness to the cordial and paternal relations that
sometimes existed between master and man in the days before the last revolution."41
Remembering the hacienda in an idealized nostalgia was common in the post-
Revolutionary era. Tinkers' nostalgic remembrance of the benevolent hacendado, his
loyal peons and the faithful charro equestrians reflected a combination of poetic license,
blind privilege and political naivete regarding the end of the equestrian era. Tinkers
nostalgia parallels the writings of authors such as Willa Cather and Mark Twain, or
Henry Dana Jr., writers in a hurry to see the frontier before it disappeared as later defined
by Frederick Jackson Turner in his seminal "frontier thesis." Migrants eager to embrace
the remnants of their rural traditions remembered the charro as an emblem of the past,
their hopes and dreams delaying the charro's demise from Mexican society.
Chinaco Insurgent
Other significant events in Mexico's history affected the evolution of the charro at
the start of the eighteenth century. When Miguel Hidalgo rang the bell that sounded the
call for independence on September 16, 1810, he and his compatriots Jose Maria Morelos
y Pavon, Nicholas Bravo and Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez became political figures and
41 Laroque Tinker, The Horsemen of the Americas, 75.
18
rallying symbols for the insurgent rebels. The struggle to attain independence from the
crown spread throughout the Latin America colonies and embroiled the continent in a
general insurrection against Spain's cultural and political domination. The shift from
Mexico's colonial era to that of the early republic was violent and marked by armed
conflict. During the Independence movement, many equestrians became politically
active in the struggle against the crown. For the charros who tired of the abuses of
Spanish rule becoming a chinaco insurgent served to redefine their identity and purpose
in society. The chinacos association with valorized militancy was among the first
articulations of the charro patriot. The chinaco insurgent however, was a controversial
construct, as chinacos fought on both sides of the battle lines in the war for
Independence, the American invasion, the War of Reforms, and during the French
occupation. Mullen-Sands commented, "By benefit of their rural upbringing and way of
life, the chinacos were fiercely independent and resistant to outside authority."42
Therefore, the chinaco represents a regional and autonomous variation of the same
evolving character of the charro.
During the long running volatility of the Independence period, the term chinaco
became a political designation. The term chinaco is interchangeable with charro
according to Mullen-Sands.43 Chinacos fought on both sides of the battle lines, serving
the state, a regional caudillo strongman or their own interests. Chinacos who fought for
Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 54.
Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 54.
19
the crown were mochos, people missing a limb. Chinacos were not a uniform political
group. Horsemen held allegiances that were self-serving and varied according to
personal circumstances throughout Mexico's armed conflicts. Criticism of the chinacos
alleged lack of virtue and discipline masked racial legacies. Some chinacos, such as the
insurgent leader and President of Mexico Vicente Guerrero, were Afro-mestizos.45
Idealized portrayals of chinacos, originally a caste designation for people of mixed
African heritage, overlooked their Afro-mestizo identity. Linati romantically described
the chinaco when he wrote,
This Mexican criollo, this simple rural inhabitant, full of simple ideas, watches foreign soldiers march across the terrain of his country in order to subdue him, his heart swells and is inflamed in just indignation, he does not count his enemies numbers, nor checks the quality of his arms: the very same rope he uses to catch wild bulls will serve him well.46
In many respects, the chinacos political militancy and their association with the
Independence movement were among the first popular articulations of an imagined
characterization of what would eventually become the charro patriot.47
The most recognizable feature of the chinaco insurgent was their clothes.
Chinacos wore bell-bottom trousers with a side split to the knee, inlaid with a fine
material often embroidered to match the decoration on the jacket. This fashion became a
44 Leona Lewis, "The History and Contemporary Meaning of the Charro Suit," MA thesis University of Wisconsin, 1999. 43.
45 Theodore G. Vincent, "The Contribution of Mexico's First Black President, Vicente Guerrero," The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 86, No. 2. (Spring, 2001), 155.
46 Linati, Trajes Civiles, Militares y Religiosos, 91.
47 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 56.
20
symbol against European oppression. As a gesture of their perceived military nature and
political designation, chinaco bell-bottoms were usually uniformly blue and made of
wool. There were of course differences in what chinacos wore based on wealth,
allegiances, convenience and other mitigating circumstances, but the Independence
struggle against Spain was one of the first attempts at creating aesthetic uniformity with
the chinaco/charro suit. Linati's idealized illustration of Miguel Hidalgo depicts him
wearing finely embroidered chinaco bell-bottoms that served to identify him as a
patriot.48 Throughout the nineteenth century the bell-bottoms associated with chinaco
insurgents became less ostentatious, shrinking slowly until they became the tight riding
pants preferred by equestrian performers and soldiers. The upper classes adopted the
chinaco bell-bottom style in much the same manner that they adopted the rustic suit of
the Salamanca charro. Chinacos also wore a serape, red sash, huaraches, and a flat wide-
brimmed sombrero.
Although finely made chinaco bell-bottoms were flamboyant, their design had
origins in labor practices older than the fashion adopted during the independence period.
Folding the lower half, which was extremely wide at the bottom, over the top of the knee
converted long trousers into shorts. This action added padding over the thigh and proved
useful when loading or unloading mules. In addition, Ballesteros speculated that bell-
bottoms may have developed among porters and peons before equestrians adopted them
due to widespread huarache use.49 Early chinaco aesthetics may have been ostentatious
48 Linati, Trajes Civiles, Militares y Religiosos, 87.
49 Ballesteros, Origen y Evolution, 105. 21
but practical such as the rough leather suits adopted and embellished by the hacienda
elites.
The female compliment to the chinacos masculine image was the china poblana.
While men dressed in the fine regalia of bell-bottomed chinacos during the independence
movement, some elite women adopted the lower class aesthetic of the working class
"china poblana" to designate their political affiliation. The charro manual writers
attribute the china costume to the class of indigenous and mestizo women that
traditionally served the rich. China fashion included a long, sequined or ribboned skirt, a
richly embroidered blouse and a Spanish shawl. China attire was so closely associated
with the insurgency that it prompted the last viceroy of Mexico to prohibit its use. While
elite women adopted the fashion to signify their rejection of Spanish authority and
culture, Mullen-Sands believes that this blended form of upper and lower class aesthetics
remained firmly rooted in the Mexican pueblo.50 As an archetype, the stereotypical china
figure blended the gentility of the upper classes, the physical labor of their servants and
the bravery of combat warriors.51 Beside mounting horses and laboring on the open
range, some of these women actually fought side-by-side with men.52 Even after the era
of the chinaco had passed, the china poblana remained coupled with the charro in
Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 182.
51 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 155.
52 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 11.
22
performances and popular imaginary. In the twentieth century, the china poblana also
became the favored attire of female singers of cancion rancher a such as Lucha Reyes and
Lydia Mendoza.
23
CHAPTER 3
CHARRO PERFORMANCE
The end of the French occupation of Mexico in 1867 was the historical event that
marked the end of the era of the chinaco insurgent. Charros associated with the labors of
the open range, and those of war, clearly contrast with the emergence of popular
performers and the expression of the imagined archetype in the second half of the
nineteenth century. Charros had historically progressed from being rural laborers in the
colonial era to rebel insurgents during early independence but by the end of nineteenth
century non-equestrian urban performers wearing cheap imitations of the charro suit
emerged in the cities. Thus, the imagined or archetypal charro appeared in the urban
context of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Equestrian feats developed on
the colonial hacienda but in the urban setting charros performed in designated spaces
such as teatros, revistas, carpas, lienzos or bullfighting arenas. The popularization of the
charro archetype did not occur until rural cultural forms, reinterpreted as formal
literature, military pageantry and leisure entertainment, were re-articulated in urban areas
like Mexico City. This section will review the reinterpretation of the charro archetype
within the urban context of the late nineteenth century, principal through costumbrista
24
literature, the pageantry of the mounted Rural Police Force and the exhibitions of
professional performers.
No other historical event may so poetically capture the charros shift from laboring
and soldiering to the realm of the imagined and performed as Emperor Maximillians
execution before a firing squad on June 19, 1867. Maximillian, the French imposed
Austrian Emperor of Mexico, was an avid equestrian who appears to have been
fascinated by charro horsemanship. Modern charros believe Maximilian was among the
first to adopt on the fashion of the rural elite when he created an uncommon black suit of
the finest materials, popularizing it among the urban upper class.53 The traje de etiqueta,
henceforth attributed to the French-Austrian court, is still reserved for formal occasions.
Maximilian supposedly wore his traje de etiqueta on the day of his execution.54
Therefore, Maximilian's execution at the Hill of the Bells in Queretaro ushered in a new
era of the imagined and performed, henceforth localized in the urban centers.
Charro Literature
In 1865, five years after Luis Inclan published his manual on bull tailing, this
charro-author, released his first novel, Astucias, El Jefe de los Hermanos de la Hoja, or
Astucias, Leader of Fellowship of the Leaf. This Dumas-inspired novel blends the
romantic adventures of a band of tobacco smugglers evading imperial tax collectors with
the realism and self-awareness of the charro-authors own experience. Charreria-scholar
who blended manual and mental labor, such as Inclan, were principal agents in the urban
53 Brian Woolley, "La Vida del Charro," Dallas Morning News, 23 May 1999. Charreada: Mexican Rodeo in Texas, 19.
54 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 59.
25
adaptation of charro culture that re-imagined life on the hacienda. Americo Paredes
noted, "It is the novel Astucia which puts Inclan in modern histories of Mexican
literature. His only published novel, it confirms Inclan as a precursor of Mexican
realism."55 Of Astucias, Olga Naj era-Ramirez noted, "Inclan intended the novel to
justify, glorify, and even promote charro ways and values. Moreover it served to create
an ambience of romanticism and nationalism around the charro figure."56
From the cowboy to the gaucho, the blending of romanticism and realism is
typical of the equestrian literature of the Americas. The charro and gaucho both emerged
as laborers, transformed into soldiers and eventually became archetypes in the realm of
the imagined. For the gaucho idealized images emerged only after the historic figure of
the laborer and insurgent disappeared. Slatta concludes, "The gaucho still rides a
romanticized frontier pampa as an idealized myth and political symbol. His qualities,
real and imagined, represent an essential ingredient of the continuous quest by Argentines
en
to define the essence of their national character." It was primarily through literature
that nineteenth century readers perceived the rural ideal as lost or vanishing. The
imagined form of the charro and his link to Mexican identity is a similar phenomenon.
The need for working ranch hands diminished in the late nineteenth century adding to the
population migration into the cities. While wars created the temporary need for
55 Americo Paredes, "Luis Inclan: First of the Cowboy Writers," American Quarterly, No. 12 (1960), 60.
56 Naj era-Ramirez, "Engendering Nationalism," 5.
57 Richard W. Slatta, Gauchos and the Vanishing Frontier, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), 192.
26
equestrian soldering, during peacetime vaqueros became laborers, competing for
subsistence wages. Displaced vaqueros who could not find employment on the ranch
sought work in factories or other forms of wage labor in the cities while others found
work tramping around the countryside as performers of equestrian skills. Therefore, the
charro archetype featured in nineteenth century literature developed alongside the
vanishing form of the equestrian laborer.
Inclan noted an increase in the popularity of equestrian activities among Mexico
City's young men in the 1830s.59 These were the colegiales, college boys or educated
men, identified in his title, Rules by Which a Collegiate Can Throw a Bull by Pulling the
Tail and Rope. Inclan directed his manual at the literary elite's interest in, and
romantization of, rural life.60 According to Benedict Anderson, the reading public was a
vital component of the nationally imagined community.61 Anderson wrote, "These
fellow-readers, to whom they were connected through print, formed, in their secular,
particular, visible invisibility, the embryo of the nationally imagined community."62 It
was the literary elite, localized in the cities near the centers of the print industry, who
formed this nucleus. Anderson also noted that European communities essentially defined
Naj era-Ramirez, "Engendering Nationalism," 5.
59 Paredes, "Luis Inclan," 59.
60 Paredes, "Luis Inclan," 68.
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, (New York: Verso, 1983), 36.
62 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 44.
27
the national identities of Latin America republics and helped form their emergent national
consciousness. 3
The majority of charro novels and manuals of the nineteenth century fall under
the larger category of costumbrista literature.64 Rather than looking to European literary
models, Latin-Americans increasingly asserted their cultural independence by exploring
local themes, landscapes, characters and customs. For example, the writers of Argentina
and Uruguay turned to the gaucho as their literary hero while Mexicans turned to the
charro.65 Writers like Inclan lent authenticity to their depictions but the majority of
characterizations were nostalgic. This was partially because the costumbrista literature of
the nineteenth century was rooted in older folkloric cultural forms and oral traditions.
The cultural construction of the popular charro archetype of the late nineteenth
century was dependent on written language, such as costumbrista literature, and imagery
such as charro paintings.66 The works created by charro painters of the era also blended
the elements of realism and romanticism that was evident in costumbrista literature.
Much like the literature, this style of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century
highlighted rural imagery, the landscape, fashion, and equestrian feats.67 The works of
63 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 50.
64 Naj era-Ramirez, "Engendering Nationalism," 4.
65 Laroque Tinker, The Horsemen of the Americas, 7.
66 Maria Herrera-Sobek, The Mexican Corrido: A Feminist Analysis, (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990), xiv.
67 Justino Fernandez, "El Arte en la Charreria," Artes de Mexico, No. 200 (1960), 19-22.
28
the charro-painter Ernesto Icaza are both romantic portrayals of charros and meticulous
documentations of customs, attire and portraiture. Other renowned charro painters
included F. Alfaro, Leandro Izaguirre, Jose Albarran and the brother Tomas and Jesus
Ballesteros. Lithographers included Linati and Manuel Serrano. There are also a
substantial number of anonymous paintings from this era in museums and private
collections.
The American equivalent of the costumbrista school was the literature of the
cowboy, which considers Owen Winster's 1902 publication, The Virginian, as the first
cowboy novel. According to Laroque Tinker, the literature of the American horsemen
has three chronological categories. The formal written novel is the most recent,
developing between the last half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth. The
novel shares much with nineteenth century folk tales, poetry, proverbs and songs
traditionally sung or performed. In his manual, Ballesteros includes a tale about a charro
who makes a pact with the devil in exchange for extraordinary equestrian skills.68
However, it was song, specifically corridos, which Tinker considered the oldest and most
significant contributor to the literary genre.
The corrido (from Spanish correr, to run) is a fast-paced ballad of Mexican and
Mexican American origin that combines elements of music, literature, history, politics,
and popular culture. As a musical form, the corrido maintains vestiges of both Spanish
and Indigenous American music. As a literary form, the corrido is traditionally an oral
narrative developed from the Spanish ballad and framed by formulaic openings and
68 Ballesteros, Origen y Evolution, 43-49.
29
closings. It is typically composed in eight-syllable lines grouped in four-line stanzas, or
quatrains, and usually follows an abcb rhyme scheme. Migrants and field hands or
campesinos have most enthusiastically continued to use and develop the corrido.
Typically, the corrido both reflects a collective memory of cultural origins and political
inequality, and it documents the feats of heroes and, less often heroines, which fought for
justice and human rights. 9 Tinker goes as far as designating the corrido as the
"Folksong of the charro."70
Rural stylizations of folk legend and poetry also bridge the gap between colonial
era songs and the formal literature of modern cities. Rural folk forms were largely oral
71
traditions emphasizing performance. The repeated patterns and structures along with
the use of conventional language facilitated performance. Folk forms were often
celebrations of rural culture, thus Mullen-Sands wrote, "The poetry of charreria offers
absolutely unambiguous and altogether honorific portrayals of charros and charras
primarily because it is directed specifically toward a charro audience and often is 77
authored by charros." Folk proverbs known as dichos, were and continue to be
commemorative. Charro scholars have spent a considerable effort compiling these
refrains in manuals and dictionaries. Some of the most common themes include guns, 69 Antonia Garcia-Orozco, "The Corrido," Pearson Library of American
Literature, ed. John Bryant, Jacquelyn McLendon, Cristanne Miller, Robin Schulze, and David Shields (Boston: Pearson, 2003)
70 Laroque Tinker, The Horsemen of the Americas, vii.
71
Americo Paredes, "Some Aspects of Folk Poetry," Folklore and Culture on the Texas-Mexican Border (Austin: CMAS Books, 1993), 117.
77
Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 254.
30
horses and the outdoors and include commentaries on race, class, and gender. The
collected include:
Horse, woman, and gun, to no one should you lend. Horse for the gentleman; for the mulato a mule and for the Indian a burro.74
It is worth more to know the landscape than to be a good cowboy.75
Although the language of folk forms may be conventional, the diction is often
original and represents the voz campirana, rural voice, or ranchero dialect. Once again,
Laroque-Tinker has noted that this is also a characteristic, along with a "Liking for song,"
of American horsemen.76 Slatta noted, "Gauchesco poetry utilized the rustic dialect of
the pampa, which provoked scorn and derision from cosmopolitan critics and linguistic 77
purists." To this day, some scholars continue to believe that the conventional language
of this poetry indicates an inferior or poor quality. Charreria-scholars also attempted to
write in the voz campirana of the charro. The deceptively simple language of the charro
was also a major aspect of Inclan's novels and manuals. Carlos Rincon Gallardo wrote
his 1939 manual in a "Vibrant rural expression."78 Some have proposed that this rural
Leovigildo Islas Escarcega, and Rodolfo Garcia-Bravo y Olivera, Diccionario y Refranero Charro, (Mexico: Joaquin Pornia, S.A. de C.V., 1984), 124.
74 Islas Escarcega & Garcia-Bravo y Olivera, Diccionario y Refranero Charro, 125.
75 Islas Escarcega & Garcia-Bravo y Olivera, Diccionario y Refranero Charro, 128.
76 Laroque Tinker, The Horsemen of the Americas, xvii.
77 Slatta, Gauchos and the Vanishing Frontier, 185.
78 Rincon Gallardo, El Libro del Charro Mexicano, ix.
31
dialect actually reinvigorated the language. In the twentieth century, mariachi song and
cinematic dialogue would also adopt the voz campirana of the rural charro.
Literary forms were instrumental in bridging the gap between rural traditions and
urban stylizations. Folksong was just as significant in this regard. There has been much
scholarship on the history, themes and structures of the corrido. The corrido was the first
musical genres to address the charro as a legitimate subject. Although the corrido
reached its highpoint during the Revolution, its historical roots extend back to Spain.
Paredes explored how the late nineteenth century corrido was descended from the
decima, which was popular in the first half of the nineteenth century. These verses
recounted the French invasion, War of Reforms and the American War, thus, bolstering
the claim that the corrido is, in part, a war song. Before the decima the colonial era copla
was descended from the Andalusia romance. Most of these song forms were present in
some form throughout the American Southwest while also popular in "Greater"
Mexico.80
Paredes proposed that the corrido did not originate in Michoacan, as some
scholars previously suggested. Instead, he believed that the corrido originated in the
conflictive region of the Lower Border sometime during the 1860s.81 Whatever it
regional roots the corrido found mass appeal in the cities. The print industry facilitated
the mass distribution and popularity of the corrido. The sale of ojas sueltas, or
79 Laroque Tinker, The Horsemen of the Americas, 92.
O A
Americo Paredes, "The Mexican Corrido: Its Rise and Fall," Folklore and Culture, 132-135.
81 Paredes, "The Mexican Corrido," 140-141.
32
broadsides, helped popularize lyrics. Paredes wrote, "The corrido must have begun in the
rural areas and then moved to the broadside printing shops."82 In the late nineteenth
century, the corridos mass appeal accelerated when musicians and singers began
congregated in urban centers, playing popular printed corridos to the tune of their
regional musical forms. These were the seeds of the urban professional mariachi.
Military Pageantry
Another significant development that signaled Mexico's shift from a rural society
to an increasingly urban industrial nation in the late nineteenth century was the
establishment of the mounted police force known as the Rurales. The Rurales, uniformed
in grey charro suits, were another step in the evolution of the charro's construction as a
cultural archetype. The charro-Rural image was a masculine symbol of the emergent
national identity popularized in the nineteenth century through the pageantry and
propaganda of the state. The second half of the nineteenth century was an era that
included political, cultural and social conflicts in an atmosphere of autocratic oppression.
The Porfiriato, the period between 1876 and 1911, was Mexico's initiation into
modernity with its particularly liberal forms of republicanism, capitalism and
individualism.83 In the attempt to create a semblance of domestic order President Porfirio
Diaz formed the Rural Police Force in order to attract foreign capital investment and
further shackle rural communities to the central authority of the federal government
localized in Mexico City. The uniform use of the charro suit, newspaper accounts of
82 Paredes, "The Mexican Corrido," 137.
Paul J. Vanderwood, Disorder and Progress: Bandits, Police, and Mexican Development, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981), 39.
33
their exploits, deployment across various regions and major travel routes, and the
political spectacle of parades and other state functions all served to create the
omnipresent image of the Rurales.
The Rurales were instrumental in the perceived establishment of the rule of law,
the centralization of power in Mexico City and the formation of a national identity. Paul
J. Vanderwood wrote, "Rural police would crack through the barriers to national
unification . . . and link rural districts to the capital. Mexico City was out to regain its
colonial hegemony."84 In last half of the nineteenth century, many nations across the
globe recognized the need and use of police as a unifying political force. Thus, the
Rurales bear a striking resemblance to the Texas Rangers, the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police, the French gendarmerie, the Italian carabinieri and the Russian Cossack.
Although the Rural corps had its roots in the Acordada police force of the colonial period
it was not until 1861 that Benito Juarez decreed their formation based on the example of
Spain's Guardia Civil.85
The first step in the formation of the Rurales required the control or assimilation
of certain outlaw elements. Although lawlessness existed during Mexico's colonial
period, banditry rose during the political conflicts of the early republican era. Political
factions were in the habit of utilizing mercenary-like bandits, paving the way for their
eventual cooption in the Rural constabulary of the late nineteenth century. Vanderwood
84 Vanderwood, Disorder and Progress, 45.
John W. Kitchens, "Some Considerations on the Rurales of Porfirian Mexico," Journal of Inter-American Studies, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Jul. 1967), 442.
Vanderwood, Disorder and Progress, 51-53.
34
described the relationship of the bandit-Rural as two groups that were, "Colorful, deadly
and interchangeable. Both groups created and contributed to order and disorder, and they
exchanged their roles with ease, often by official invitation."87 The repeated use of the
old adage, "It takes a thief to capture a thief," described how the Rurales often
OQ
functioned. The foreign press undoubtedly fostered the image of the Rurales as a force
that pacified lawlessness in the countryside. The mere whisper of their name was enough
to cause, "all persons engaged in illegal acts, such as knifing each other, burning hay
stacks, or discussing ways of overthrowing the present regime, [to] sober up and flee
noiselessly."89
The Rural Police Force also emerged from the need for political centralization.
Although financed by the federal government, the Rurales provided security for the
states. Therefore, they were in the service of the president and served to consolidate his
power in Mexico City. In the eighteen eighties, they were mainly concentrated in the
central states around the capital. When discontent with Diaz's rule increased in the early
twentieth century, he sent Rurales to the north and south in order to quell mounting
opposition.91 The Rurales numbers were never large but they appeared to be everywhere.
87 Vanderwood, Disorder and Progress, xii.
o n
Jose Cisneros, Riders Across the Centuries: Horsemen of the Spanish Borderlands, (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1984), 176.
89 '"The Rurales,' Mexico's Crack Regiment, and Their Work," New York Times, 4 December 1910.
90 Kitchens, "Some Considerations on the Rurales," 446.
91 Vanderwood, Disorder and Progress, 120-124.
35
The expansion of the Mexican railroad system was central to their perceived
omnipresence. The rapid deployment of Rural troops to all corners of the republic was
possible via the railroad by the early twentieth century. The expansion of the
transportation system helped spread both the image and exploits of the Rurales. Through
his manipulation of the Rurales, Porfirio Diaz spread the military image of the charro and
extended it to the borders of the republic. Mimicking the aesthetic success of the rurales,
The Guardias Fiscales de la Frontera, Border Customs Patrol, were also outfitted in
charro uniforms.92
The public image of the Rural Police Force was largely dependent on capitalizing
on the reputation of charros, increasingly defined not by equestrian skills but through
fashion. The Mexican government standardized the Rurales uniform in 1880 along with
their gear and weaponry. The adaptation of the charro suit and the regulation of their
equipment signaled the transformation from bandit to lawman. Although outlaws, like
the renowned Plateados, also dressed as charros, "Everyone understood what it meant: its
wearer could outride, outrope, outshoot, outdrink, and outwomanize any other cowboy,
from whatever land."93 At parades, banquets and other public celebrations the Rurales
tried to impress the common people. A troop reserved for state functions wore special
dress uniforms made of suede trimmed with silver and topped with a felt sombrero.94
Kitchens wrote, "Such public appearances in their idealized ranchero uniform
Cisneros, Riders Across the Centuries, 180.
93 Vanderwood, Disorder and Progress, 53.
94 Kitchens, "Some Considerations on the Rurales," 454.
36
supplemented government propaganda in spreading the fame of the rurales." Thus, the
government attempted to form the Rurales image as competent charros through fashion,
propaganda and public spectacle.
In reality, there was an absence of real charros and vaqueros among the Rurales
ranks. Although many of the recruits came from the area known as the Bajio, which
includes Jalisco, Michoacan, Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Queretaro, San Luis Potosi and
Zacatecas, most were poor semi-skilled townspeople. Porfirian modernization had
unsettled many traditional sectors of the economy, especially in the rural areas, and
created frequent boom and bust cycles that enticed some of the unemployed into police
work.96 The absence of real charros in the Rural corps supports the notion that their
popular image was largely divorced from the charros historical roots in the highland
ranchos of Jalisco. Naj era-Ramirez wrote, "No matter that not all rurales were expert
Q7
horsemen; their real power rested in the image." It is as if real charros preferred the
relative freedom of the open range to grueling police work. This may partially be due to
uncompetitive pay and the dangers of such work. The freedom and security afforded by
the middle-class ranching lifestyle, or that of the hacienda, was more enticing than a
dollar a day wage and a ten percent mortality rate. Although many charros did not join
the Rurales, the Rurales conjured the charros reputation as good soldiers.
Kitchens, "Some Considerations on the Rurales," 454.
Vanderwood, "Mexico's Rurales," 80-81.
Naj era-Ramirez, "Engendering Nationalism," 4.
37
The charros alternating characterization as a delinquent is partially rooted in the
perceived oppression of the Rurales and their early association with banditry. In
literature and song the archetype of el charro malo, the bad charro, is often a Porfirian
Rural. According to Americo Paredes the corrido, which became a popular format during
OR
the Porfiriato, often recounted the tales of common heroes who evaded Rurales.
Although the heroes of these corridos were often bandits, scholars agree that the Rurales
were mostly commonly depicted as the, "Hated but respected villains."99 The post-
Revolutionary government tried to legitimate its power through the rejection of all things
Porfirian, including the Rurales. 00 The assassination of the patron saint of the
Revolution, Francisco Madero, by a former Rural undoubtedly encouraged this view.101
Emiliano Zapata's mythos would eventually counterbalance the tarnished image of the
charro in the post-Revolutionary era and provide a historic example of el charro bueno,
the good charro, primarily because of his expert horsemanship, his insurgent status, and
his affinity for the attire.
Professional Performers
The third popular form of the charro that emerged in the last half of the nineteenth
century, besides formal literature and the uniformed Rural, was the professional
performer. Ranch hands who often labored on a seasonal basis, sometimes found work
98 Paredes, "The Mexican Corrido," 135-140.
99 Kitchens, "Some Considerations on the Rurales," 455.
100 Vanderwood, Disorder and Progress, xv.
101 Kitchens, "Some Considerations on the Rurales," 452.
38
performing their rural skills for an audience. Although few scholars have treated the
subject of the emergence of the charro as a professional performer, a handful of the
manual writers have briefly addressed it. Additionally, the works of two charreria
historians, Jose Alvarez del Villar and G. Guillermina Sanchez Hernandez, have been
especially insightful, as has Beverly J. Stoeltje's essay on the emergence of the cowboy
as a popular performer. The discursive themes concerning the professional charro
performer include the movement from labor to leisure and a rural to urban cultural shift.
This section also includes a history of the professional charro performer and his relation
to the toreador, bullfighter. Last is an account of the first international performances,
which included tours with Buffalo Bills Wild West Show. Stoeltje's essay has served as
a template for this section, thus the professional cowboy will serve as a valuable
comparison, as will the Argentine gaucho.
Some of the most recent studies of the charro, and the modern sport of charreria,
have focused on the shift from labor to performance. Most charreria scholars who
explored the development of the sport would agree that charreria is rooted in open range
labor practices of the colonial era. Similarly, Beverly J. Stoeltje believes that rodeo
performances are the ritual customs of early cowboy culture developed through social
interactions on large cattle ranches. Similarly, games and contests on the hacienda
became a performance developed by working charros. For many scholars, space is
102 Beverly J. Stoeltje, "From Custom to Ritual," Western Folklore, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Jul. 1989), 244-245.
39
central to the discussion over labor and performance. If charro work and games
developed on the open range, then charro performance formalized on the hacienda
proper, in fairs and fiestas and the pueblo streets. The shift from the labors of the open
range to the customs of the hacienda and pueblo is central to the development of charro
performance.
The transition period, which signaled the cowboy's transformation from a laborer
to a professional performer at rodeos, occurred between 1870 and 1930.104 Stoeltje notes
a decline in cowboy jobs between 1870-1880 attributed to corporate ranching, economic
depression, growing urbanization and environmental degradation. The cowboy strike of
1883 essentially marks the end of the cowboy as a frontier laborer. Slatta believes that
during this same period a changing economic landscape altered gaucho life on the
Argentine Pampa. Fencing and the growth of export agriculture served to decrease the
need for hired ranch hands while increased productivity and reduced wages created more
competition. Essentially, "strands of wire cut off the gaucho from the verities and life of
the past and enforced the new capitalist ethic of the modernizing elites."105 Similar to the
post Civil-War cattle boom in the United States that fed rising populations in the east,
Mexico experienced a growth in its cattle industry. However, the expansion of hacienda
holding served mainly to widen the divide between rich and poor. While eighty percent
of the population continued living on haciendas and ranchos during the Porfiriato, the
10 G Guillermina Sanchez Hernandez, La Charreria en Mexico: Ensayo Historico, (Guadalajara: Secretaria de Cultura de Jalisco, 1993), 84.
104 Stoeltje, "From Custom to Ritual," 246.
105 Slatta, Gauchos and the Vanishing Frontier, 149.
40
economically dislocated found employment in urban areas. The wealthy also fled the
haciendas for the urban centers where they may have hoped class tension were not as
severe.
The second paradigm used to describe the emergence of charro performance is the
urban expansion of the Porfirian period. Although performance formalized on the
hacienda, charros held exhibitions at various locations outside the hacienda proper. From
the colonial period onward, these locations included pueblo plazas and streets, bull
fighting arenas and other urban spaces.106 The development of lienzos, wall or alleyway
designating a charro performance space, appear to have developed first on the haciendas
and later built in pueblos and cities as formal arenas. The modern sport of charreria
continues to bridge the gap between rural and urban settings.107 Mullen-Sands described
the difference mediated through the performance space of the lienzo thus,
Inside the arena is pageant; outside is real life. The demarcation is much clearer in the urban setting, where most modern charreadas take place, than on the ranch, where sport and work blend and the physical space is used for both play and work.
In the lienzo, the landscape of all of Mexico is historically re-enacted through
performance and the enactment of a "script." The audience and performers interpret that
1 OR
script and judge it accordingly. Although the building of lienzos would not fully
develop until the post-Revolutionary period, they are an appropriate means to study the
emergence of charro performance in urban areas. The audience of the charro
106 Sanchez Hernandez, La Charreria en Mexico, 84.
107 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 222.
108 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 201-209.
41
performances held in pueblos and cities were a mixture of the economically displaced
who migrated from rural areas and the absentee landowning class. Stoeltje also
associated the rise of rodeo performance with increased migration and a developing
urbanity. Referencing the 1930s she wrote, "As communities increased in number and
the automobile enhanced transportation, townspeople journeyed out to ranches to witness
the cowboy contests, or cowboys rode into town to display their skills."109
Among the first urban spaces designated for the performance of equestrian feats
were bull-fighting arenas. In 1526, the Spanish built the first bullfighting arena across
from the government palace in Mexico City.110 The viceroys of Mexico and the elite
seem to have actively promoted toreadas, bullfights, along with corridas de toros, bull
runs. Horsemen were vital to the spectacle of such events. Thus, from the early colonial
period until the late nineteenth century equestrian competition was linked to the spectacle
Spanish bull fighting. Alvarez del Villar and Sanchez Hernandez would agree that
bullfighting was, "intimately linked to charreria."111 In modern charreria, the events of
the bull toss, coleada, similar to bull dogging and bull riding, jineteada de toros, shared
with American rodeo, may be remnants of the charro's past association as a bullfighter.
Although charro bullfighters disappeared in the twentieth century the affinity for bulls
remains. Alvarez del Villar romantically wrote,
loy Stoeltje, "From Custom to Ritual," 247.
110 Jose Alvarez del Villar, Historia de la Charreria, (Mexico City: Londres, 1941), 231.
111 Alvarez del Villar, Historia de la Charreria, 250.
42
All of us who have roamed on dusty provincial roads, those who are attracted to town fairs and ranch fiestas, know that every horserider with a wide-brimmed sombrero, when the times comes, will untie the serape from his saddle and feel at ease before any bull, who could be more or less angry, and may try to gore him with his sharp defenses.112
Linati also noted the affinity for bullfights among Mexican urbanites in the early
nineteenth century. However, Linati believed that Mexicans were averse to the gore of
that particular spectacle, preferring cockfights, another predilection of the charro
archetype. However, cost is a more likely explanation for favoring cockfights over
bullfights; a working charro could easily obtain and compete with a champion rooster but
did not have the same access, logistics or money to raise, train and fight a bull.
The first charro performers to attain national popularity were bullfighters. In the
1880s Ponciano Diaz, a mounted bullfighter, a charro-toreador, used a lance to kill his
prey. Mexican mounted bullfighting was common during the colonial period and Diaz
appears to have briefly brought it back into style.114 Many charros of the colonial era
were able, "bullfighters and vaqueros."115 The first professional performers were
presumed to come from the lowest social classes, thus they were often mestizo with
mixed Indian, black or European heritage.116 Diaz is significant because of the popularity
he attained and the international interest he created for charro performance. Diaz's dress
112 Alvarez del Villar, Historia de la Charreria, 256.
113 Linati, Trajes Civiles, Militares y Religiosos, 117.
114 Sanchez Hernandez, La Charreria en Mexico, 85.
115 Sanchez Hernandez, La Charreria en Mexico, 84.
116 Alvarez del Villar, Historia de la Charreria, 263.
43
was a combination of toreador fashion and charro attire. He wore a bullfighter's jacket
while wearing the riding pants and sombrero of the charro. Sometime in the 1880s he
I I S
"Staged the first public charro exhibition in Mexico City." In 1884, he traveled to
New Orleans and gave a demonstration of his skills at the International Fair.119 This may
have been the first professional performance of the charro toreador abroad. However,
real renown would come five years later when he traveled to Madrid, demonstrating to
the mother country the excellence of Mexican bullfighting and equestrian skills.120 In
essence, the Mexican variant of the Salamanca charro had returned to perform before a
Spanish audience.
Tours with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show were significant because they were the
first to introduce professional charro performance to a receptive American audience,
beginning in 1882 and continuing until the First World War. Stoeltje believes that, "As
the modern ranch subsumed the frontier displacing the frontier cowboy, the Wild West
Show and related theatrical entertainments offered new opportunities to the cowboy,
ranging from exhibition to competition to melodrama."121 The Wild West Show
employed equestrian traditions from other countries, therefore, charros and gauchos
found themselves in the same show as cowboys, Cossacks and Native Americans.
117 Sanchez Hernandez, La Charreria en Mexico, 85.
Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 64.
Dean, Rodriguez, Trick and Fancy Roping, 9. Octavio Chavez, La Charreria: Tradicion Mexicana, (Mexico City: Instituto
Mexiquense de Cultura, 1991), 60.
121 Stoeltje, "From Custom to Ritual," 249.
44
Additionally, President Porfirio Diaz recognized the potential of professional charro
performance as propaganda, especially in encouraging tourism and attracting foreign
capital investment. In 1894, twelve Rurales began performing with the Wild West Show.
Vanderwood believes that they were a "special troop reserved for show," such as parades,
banquets and patriotic functions.122 A tour through the United States with Vicente
Oropeza, a renowned performer of the stylized roping tricks known asjloreos, preceded
presentations throughout Europe in 1900. Eventually, cowboys performed in Mexico
City in 1905 and gauchos did the same in 1910. Throughout the first decade of the
twentieth century, charros also performed in Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina and
Canada.124 Mullen-Sands believes, "Their performances brought the skills and events of
the charro into cities throughout Mexico and laid the foundation for the formalization of
performance into regular charreada after the revolution."125
Throughout the urban re-imagination of the charro archetype, charros became
potent symbols of Mexican identity in an evolving nationalism. The late nineteenth and
early twentieth century was a prolific period for the invention of civic traditions,
symbols, and heroes by modern states. The government of Porfirio Diaz ably fostered the
image of the Rurales as charro patriots through propaganda. However, movements and
social groups also invented traditions that were eventually formalized, regulated and
122 Vanderwood, Disorder and Progress, 135.
123 Sanchez Hernandez, La Charreria en Mexico, 85.
124 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 64.
Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 64.
45
institutionalized. During the Porfiriato, social groups, such as the reading elite and urban
proletarians, contributed to the creation of the charro hero through formal literature and
performance. Additionally, mass spectacles such as parades, civic ceremonies, or
sporting events helped assimilate the viewing public to the social and political norms of
the elite.126 In the post-Revolutionary period, the creation of holidays, commemorations
and parades by the Mexican state added heroes, pageantry and monuments of the national
pantheon of patriots. The official Revolutionary narrative included the creation of
Zapata's legacy through sculptural monuments, murals, official histories and cinematic
epics.127 The charro archetype was central to the post-Revolutionary nation building
termed, forjando patria. The regulation of the sport of charreria, professionalization of
mariachi music, and the cinematic interpretations in the 20s, 30s and 40s were an
extension of an evolving icon, an invented creation of reshaped rural traditions.
126 Eric Hobsbawm, The Invention of Tradition, (Cambridge: University Press, 1983), 298.
127 Thomas Benjamin, The Revolution: Mexico's Great Revolution as Memory, Myth, and History, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000).
46
CHAPTER 4
IMAGINED CHARROS
The Mexican Revolution of 1911-1919 disrupted the Porfirian social order, and a
very different society emerged from the conflict. Although the imagined form of the
charro enjoyed popularity in literature, military pageantry and the professional
performances of the Porfirian era, it had existed alongside the historical form of the
laborer and the insurgent. In the post Revolutionary period, which began in 1919 and
lasted until the end of the Miguel Aleman presidency in 1952, only the imagined and
performed aspects of the charro seem to have survived. The charro laborer disappeared
from view, existing mainly in isolated rural pockets.128 The threat of the charro insurgent
was dissuaded through cooption by the state, primarily in the form of government support
of charro performance, patriotic pageantry and cinema. The expression of charro culture
in the post-Revolutionary period occurred mainly within an urban context. For example,
professional mariachi 's, ambulating folk orchestras that originated in west central
Mexico, began congregating in urban areas and adopted the charro suit as a uniform. In
Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 74.
47
addition, cinema rearticulated the literary form of the charro and presented a nostalgic
vision of rural Mexico that bolstered the legitimacy of the post-Revolutionary
government by allaying the class tensions caused by the new urban-industrial social
order.
It was Francisco Madero's call for democratic elections that unleashed the beasts
of the Revolution and toppled the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz. The conflict took nine
years to resolve, killing and displacing millions. The Mexican Revolution was one of the
most significant theaters of combat in the twentieth century. Ancient and new strategies
were applied which coupled cavalry tactics with rail transport and pitted horsemen
against aviators. Although equestrians played a vital role in the Revolution, "The day of
cavalry skirmishes was ending."129 Charros, such as Emiliano Zapata, proved vital to the
leadership of various factions. While Emperor Maximillians execution ushered in the era
of performance and pageantry, the assassination of Emiliano Zapata grimly marks the
decline of the charro laborer and military insurgent. The death of Zapata coincided with
the formation of the first charro association in Jalisco. In the coming decades, regional
charro associations became vital to the formalization of performed charreria. Therefore,
Zapata's assassination at Chinameca marks the beginning of the era of the purely
imagined charro, expressed through equestrian performance, mariachi song, state
pageantry and cinematic imagery in the post-Revolutionary period. During these years
the hacienda system was dismantled, marking the end of the charro laborer.130 Modern
Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 69.
Sanchez Hernandez, La Charreria en Mexico, 93.
48
warfare also changed signaling the end of the mounted insurgent. The imagined form of
the charro, the equestrian performer, the mariachi and the cinema hero, became popular
symbols propagated throughout Mexican popular culture.
Recreational Sportsmen
The relative stability of the nineteen twenties allowed an urban rebirth of another
variation of performance, recreational sport.131 In the post-Revolutionary period,
industrial production reemerged in the urban centers and this, in turn, attracted rural
migrants to the cities.132 Many of the displaced were former rural artisans who made
saddles, bred horses or had skills in some other form of equestrian crafts during the
Porfirian era. Urban elites put artisans back to work, slowly reviving equestrian crafts,
which had declined during the Revolution.133 During this period, there was a general
trend towards nation building and a growing concern for the preservation of Mexican
culture and arts.134 Urban elites organized attempts to preserve and promote, lo mexicano
through charro associations. The association members gathered to practice the rural
labors known as suertes charms, charro maneuvers. Ballesteros and most charro
131 Sanchez Hernandez, La Charreria en Mexico, 94.
132 Jose Valero Silva, El Libro de la Charreria, (Mexico: Graficas Montealban, 1987), 144.
133 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 76.
134 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 74.
135 Sanchez Hernandez, La Charreria en Mexico, 99.
49
historians agree that urban elite associations were instrumental to the recovery of charro
culture in the cities and the formation of the sport of charreria.
The Charro Association of Jalisco organized in 1919 was the precursor to the
National Association formed in Mexico City in 1921. Octavio Chavez relates the spark
that led to the creation of the Asociacion Nacional de Charros, National Association of
Charros, the first permanent charro association. Enrique Mungia was a charro excluded
from festivities at a racetrack, affronted, Mungia convened the elite charros of Mexico
City in order to organize an association and build a lienzo. The National Association
sought to establish regional associations across the country, recover charro crafts, and
standardize the various suits. Conserving the classic look of the charro suit was a major
focus of the National Associations regulatory efforts.138 Although Guadalajara, with its
proximity to the historic rangeland of Los Altos, had hosted the first association, the
primacy of Mexico City was certain. In 1923, the first regional associations established
by the mandate of the National Association were in Guadalajara, Puebla, San Juan del
Rio, and Queretaro. Chavez wrote that the National Association, "Cooperated and lent
moral support to the formation of new charro associations in the different states. ,140
136 Ballesteros, Origen y Evolution, 170.
137 Octavio Chavez, La Charreria, 52.
Sanchez Hernandez, La Charreria en Mexico, 100.
139 Valero Silva, El Libro de la Charreria, 145.
140 Octavio Chavez, La Charreria, 52.
50
The creation of a Federacion Nacional de Charros, National Federation of
Charros, which acted as an umbrella organization for the various regional associations,
occurred in 1933. In this second phase of organization, the need to regulate and
standardize performances as athletic events was the main goal that led to the creation of
the Federation. The Federation was part of a larger project that attempted to organize a
Confederation of Mexican Sports.141 Therefore, the events known as suertes charras
became standardized, regulated in their rules, and scoring. Nonetheless, Mullen-Sands
warned, "The definition of charreria only as a sport is misleading and reductive."142 The
blending of athleticism and pageantry is central to the sport of charreria and serves to
distinguish it from other popular sports in Mexico.
The pageantry established in the twenties remained a major aspect of the urban
elite's reinterpretation of charreria in the thirties, and continues to the present. The
demarcation of social class through distinctive costumes and sporting rituals is central to
modern nation building.143 The Mexican president, Abelardo L. Rodriguez, officially
declared charreria the national sport in 1933. However, throughout the thirties there
appeared to be conflicts within the leadership of the Federation concerning the assertion
of pageantry over athleticism. Alvarez del Villar claimed that in the election of 1934,
functionaries came to power within the board of directors that were, "removed from rural
labors and had never felt a good rope in their hands or enjoyed the dangers of our
141 Alvarez del Villar, Historia de la Charreria, 384.
142 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 283.
143 Hobsbawm, The Invention of Tradition, 287.
51
beautiful sport." The statement reveals how some, like Alvarez del Villar, believed
that athleticism should be the focus of performance, not pageantry.145 Although
pageantry remained a major aspect of charreria, athleticism also prevailed. Additionally,
the invention of charreria as an athletic performance stimulated the publication of
manuals and histories throughout the thirties and forties. Without the work of charro-
intellectuals who historicized the development of rural labor practices, charreria
scholarship would not exist in its present form.
The second issue for the Federation concerned the cultural threat posed by the
expansion of charreria abroad, specifically in the American Southwest. Aspects of
vaquero/chinaco culture existed in the American Southwest. This is especially true in
California and Texas during the Spanish colonial period. However, the post-
Revolutionary influx of new immigrants revived equestrian arts and eventually facilitated
the establishment of associations across the border. The Federation intended to regulate
associations on both sides of the border through the recognition and incorporation of
organizations formed in the American southwest.146 The establishment of charro
associations in the United States began in the Southwest in the nineteen fifties and
sixties.147 The San Antonio Charro Association was the first foreign association
Alvarez del Villar, Historia de la Charreria, 386.
Sanchez Hernandez, La Charreria en Mexico, 98.
Octavio Chavez, La Charreria, 55.
Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 224.
52
recognized by the Federation in 1947. The Los Angeles Charro Association did not
attain recognition until 1962.149 Although the Federation tried to regulate international
associations, it ultimately supported their expansion. There are differences in style,
practice, and symbolism across the border that remains as points of contention between
the United States and Mexico. Today Mexican charreria associations have spread as far
north as Canada and crossed the Atlantic reaching back to Spain.150
The Mexican government's manifested its support of charreria in several ways.
Foremost among them was the declaration as a national sport, support in the building of
lienzos and incorporation into the pageantry of the post-Revolutionary state. Although
Palomar believes that rural charros form Jalisco maintained a symbolic autonomy, which
had the potential to resist the authority of the new government, they were a politically
powerful group, and they were armed.151 Government support of charreria partially
served to contain the charros autonomous nature in the confines of the lienzo space and
hypothetically placated their rebelliousness through regulation as a sport.152 The
government fundamentally co-opted the charros perceived threat to the post-
Revolutionary state. The symbolic designation of the charro as Mexico's reserve
military, and as the only armed section of the civilian populace, served to mediate
14 Abernathy, Charreada: Mexican Rodeo in Texas, 4.
149 Flores C , "El Charro, " en U.'S.A, (Glendora: Associated Publications, 1984) 18.
150 Valero Silva, El Libro de la Charreria, 156.
151 Cristina Palomar, "El Papel de la Charreria," 88.
152 Cristina Palomar, "El Papel de la Charreria," 93.
53
tensions over charro performer's right to bear arms. Mullen-Sands observed, "No matter
that charros have not ridden in defense of Mexican freedom in nearly seventy years; they
are icons of patriotism and potential defenders of Mexican nationhood."153 In addition,
the spectacle of performed charreria was linked to public displays of nationalism with the
semblance of military pageantry.154 Charro presentations at parades and patriotic
celebrations became part of the larger project offorjandopatria, forming a nation, in
essence legitimating the state through the appropriation of charro imagery, performance
and pageantry, in much the same manner that Porfirio Diaz had done with the Rurales.
Mullen-Sands perceptively noted,
This pivotal point in the development of charreria marks a reimagining of the equestrian history of Mexico and the creation of a fictional culture based in real events and rural practices but elevated to a level of cultural iconography in which the charro became a symbol of the emerging nationhood through performance of a time-honored tradition in the public arena.155
The comparison of the sport of charreria to American rodeo revolves around
differences in style and movement. Most charro scholars would agree that while the
main emphasis of American rodeo is speed and power, in Mexican charreria precision
and economy of movement are the preferred standards. Time limitations added to
charreria events are loose restrictions measured in minutes while rodeo remains strictly
measured in seconds.156 There are also differences in a cowboy and a charro's rope
153 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 204.
154 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 202.
155 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 75.
156 Valero Silva, El Libro de la Charreria, 149. 54
length and preferred tying methods. Cowboys use short cotton ropes that require the
"hard and fast," tying method. On the other hand, charros use long rawhide ropes that
allow more leverage, thus they use the dallie welt, dor le vuelta, tying method.157
Cowboy rope tricks emphasize the element of speed but Nacho Rodriguez, a renowned
charro performer and an expert at floreo rope tricks, noted,
Speed is not a desirable quality because it denotes lack of skill and no command of the art. There are cowboys who present their effects with the help of speed, working the data with such quick movements that it continues rotating under the inertia of the previous move, but in charro roping that ruins the display.158
Mullen-Sands also notes that rodeo's emphasis on speed and strength reflect American
characteristics which value, "efficiency, practicality, endurance, and power," while
Mexican charreada is valued according to, "elegance, colorful embellishment, baroque
richness, and mastery."15 It is interesting to note that cinema also carries this distinction.
American representations of charros in films and television are generally more dynamic
in their movement, jumping, running, or shooting up plazas with rocket launchers and
grenades while Mexican cinema charros tend to sit stiffly on their horses.
Significant differences also exist regarding class and gender in the practice of
American and Mexican charreria. While: charreria is an elite sport in Mexico, in the
Lawrence Clayton, Jim Hoy, and Jerald Underwood, Vaqueros, Cowboys, and Buckaroos, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001), xvii.
Dean, Rodriguez, Trick and Fancy Roping, 55.
159 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 19.
55
United States it is practiced by the middle classes. The egalitarian nature of American
charreria has had profound effects on gender performances and pageantry. Currently,
female performers in charreria participate in escaramuza riding teams that execute
synchronized "skirmishes," in a designed pattern. However, the escaramuza was an
American innovation, first observed in Texas in the nineteen fifties. Officially
recognized by the Federation in 1989, escaramuzas remained excluded from scoring in
tournaments. Before gaining official recognition, escaramuzas usually exhibited their
skills towards the end of the performance as an unofficial event.161 The escaramuza
event remains a secondary and lesser addition to charro performance and is a significant
point of contention in charreria.
Although women who participate in charreria tend to dress in the historic
costumes of combatants who fought alongside male insurgents, they enact traditional
gender roles. For example, women ride in sidesaddle form, which draws attention to
their grace and aesthetic appeal. The charra suit, a feminized version of the charro suit,
first appeared in 1937 but did not become the preferred costume of equestrian
performance. Although some women perform in charra suits, the long skirts are
restrictive and impractical for charreria. The adelita ranchera costumes used by the
escaramuzas are better suited for riding. Female performers maintain supportive roles to
the males, most notably as the object of male attention; perceived as available women,
160 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 227.
161 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 156-157.
Valero Silva, El Libro de la Charreria, 153.
56
virginal daughters, dutiful wives or supportive mothers. Thus, Mullen-Sands notes that
women embody oppositional meaning in charreria that encompass, "an aristocratic
tradition of femininity and gentility even in circumstances that require bravery, physical
agility, and independent action."
Professional Mariachi
The advent of radio broadcasting in the nineteen twenties popularized regional
folk music across Mexico. Mariachi music was at the forefront of attempts to forge a
new post-Revolutionary national identity that was rooted in rural culture. Elites,
intellectuals and the government alike tried to promote a mestizo identity that embraced
both European and indigenous cultural forms.164 Thus, rural mariachi music, believed to
be a fusion of mestizo and European musical instruments, was reinterpreted and
presented to an urban audience. While rural migrants from central Mexico originally
brought mariachi music to Mexico City in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century,
the Revolution disrupted the development of professional mariachi ensembles.165 The
pageantry adopted by professional mariachi led to the creation of the charro cantor, or
singing charro. It was in Mexico City's Plaza de Garibaldi that transplanted mariachi
musicians, such as El Mariachi Tapatio de Jose Marmolejo, began competing for work in
Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 155.
164 Salvador Siguenza Orozco, "Del Mariachi y la China Poblana como Identidad Nacional en el Siglo XX a lo Diverso y Heterogeneo en el Siglo XXI," Desacatos, No.9 (2002), 180.
165 Daniel Edward Sheehy, Mariachi Music in America: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture, (New York, Oxford University Press, 2006), 17.
57
the local restaurants and for airtime on radio stations, XEW, XEB and XEQ. While the
mariachi sound broadcasted across Mexico the image of professional mariachis dressed
in uniform charro suits was projected onto a national stage and eventually exported
abroad, but not without criticism by charro equestrians.
Prior to their professionalization, mariachi's dressed in dissimilar styles
associated with their regional identity, laboring class, and unprofessional status. Some
dressed in huarache sandals, others carried machetes while some wore guayabera shirts.
When Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan, one of Mexico's oldest and most revered
professional mariachi's, was contracted to perform in Tijuana in 1932 they were
uniformed in a common peasant garb of coarse manta cloth tied with a red sash around
the waist. Recognizing that, "The public responded better to formally dressed, more
professional looking groups," mariachis began dressing in charro uniforms.168 The
mariachi did not adopt the traje defaena worn by the vaquero ranch hands, instead they
chose the traje de etiqueta, reserved for formal occasions. The notion that mariachi
music was descended from French culture was, and continues to be, a common belief.
Beginning in the 1930s a debate began to take shape among mariachi scholars
centered on the origins of the word "mariachi." Rather than being related to the French
Dolores Roldan, "El Mariachi Coculense" in Jesus Jaregui, Los Mariachis de Mi Tierra. . . Noticias, Cuentos, Testimoniosy Conjeturas: 1925-1994 (Mexico: Direction General de Culturas Populares, 1999) 287.
Nicolas Torres Vazquez, "Mis Recuerdos del Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan (1926-1939)," in Jaregui, Los Mariachis de Mi Tierra, 383.
Jeff Nevin, Virtuoso Mariachi, (Lanham, University Press of America, 2002), 9.
58
word for marriage, scholars and commentators began claiming that the word derived
from the indigenous Coca language once spoken in Jalisco.169 However, while the debate
appeared focused on linguistics, its true nature revolved around ethnicity. Was mariachi
indigenous or European? The mestizo national identity promoted by the elites attempted
to bridge the divide between indigenous and European, but it also sought to celebrate a
fictive folk culture. Therefore, the folksongs of the countryside such as the corrido,
became a central component of the mariachi's repertoire. Although not exclusively a
male genre, the Revolutionary corridos tend to allude to, "caudillos, presidents, generals,
heroes and traitors," often in the form of fictional charros such as Juan Charrasqueado or
GabinoBarrera.170
The popularization of mariachi music through radio also influenced its
development facilitating the adaptation of various regional styles and forms. Mariachi
acted as a sponge incorporating huapango, polkas, paso doble, sonjarocho and vals
among others into its repertoire, additionally binding regional cultures to the nationalist
project broadcasted from the urban centers.171 Central to the popularity of mariachi
music was Lucha Reyes, the cancion ranchera singer crowned La Reina de Los
Mariachis, The Queen of Mariachi. Reyes often sang dress as a charra or as a china
poblana and premiered the vocal repertoire that is still considered part of the mariachi
Jose Ignacio Davila Garibi, "Los Famosos Mariachis de Cocula. El Vocablo 'Mariachi'," in Jaregui, Los Mariachis de Mi Tierra, 141.
7 Alvaro Custodio, El Corrido Popular Mexicano: Su Historia, sus Temas, sus Interpretes, (Madrid: Mateu Cromo S.A., 1975), 46.
Nevin, Virtuoso Mariachi, 15-16.
59
standards. Reyes and other mariachi singers who followed in her footsteps were not
without their critics.172 For example, Paredes believed that the corrido began to decline
in the thirties when comedias rancheras, ranch comedies featuring singing charros,
became a cinematic form. He believed that the songs crooned by charro cinema stars
were merely "pseudo-corridos."
Cinema Charro
Fernando de Fuente's Alia en el Rancho Grande, Over at the Big Ranch, was
released in 1936. It was the first comedia rancher a and model for all those produces
throughout the late thirties, forties and fifties. The comedia ranchera featured pastoral
countryside's, pretty girls, handsome charros, pistols, horses, haciendas, cantinas, tequila,
mariachis and a sizeable dose of virile machismo. Alia en el Rancho Grande marked the
beginning of the golden era in Mexican cinema during which profitability increased,
production was streamlined, a star system was initiated and distribution was
regularized.174 The post-Revolutionary government, institutionalized in the Party of the
National Revolution (PNR) in 1929, also subsidized the film industry thereby
guaranteeing its success. Charros, who had once labored on the haciendas, battled
against foreign invaders, and policed the countryside, now rode to the aide of the film
industry but as stuntmen and background extras. Their employment in background roles
Garcia Orozco, "Cucurrucucu Palomas: The Estilo Bravio of Lucha Reyes and the Creation of Feminist Consciousness Via the Cancion Ranchera." (Proquest 2005) 24.
173 Paredes, "The Mexican Corrido," 138-139.
174 Rogelio Agrasanchez Jr., Cine Mexicano: Posters from the Golden Age, 1936-1956, (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2001), 14.
60
created the notion that validated the formation of a cinematic national image. With the
help of the government, and the entertainment industry, the image of charros remained at
the forefront of the national stage.
The state vigorously sought to legitimate its authority during the nationalist phase
beginning with the institutionalization of the post-Revolutionary government in 1929
17S
through the end of Miguel Aleman's presidency in 1952. Cinema, the comedia
rancher a, and the charro, were instrumental in the government's attempts to diffuse class
tension in a society that was increasingly urban and rapidly industrializing. Anne T.
Doremus noted that these films were visions of a nostalgic rural ideal which, Reassured their audiences that many of their traditions and values would remain, and taught them which ones these were. They further constructed new codes of behavior that would be crucial in providing a sense of collective identity and ties, in stemming the social decay that can result from rapid modernization, and in facilitating economic growth.
These values included respect for authority, the family, church, and a patriarchal
society. The cinema charro conveyed the romanticized traditional order of the colonial
hacienda. The state recognized the nationalist potential of cinema and began subsidizing
the industry with the advent of sound in the thirties. It established the Banco
Cinematografico, Cinematic Bank, in 1942 to fund film production; formed a state run
production and distribution company, and exempted the industry from paying income
Anne T. Doremus, Culture, Politics, and National Identity in Mexican Literature and Film 1929-1952 (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2001), 1.
176 Doremus, Culture, Politics, and National Identity, 6-7.
| nn
Doremus, Culture, Politics, and National Identity, 14.
61
tax.178 Additionally, throughout the Second World War the United States provided
Mexico, its ally, raw film stock, money, equipment and technical advice.179
However, the cinema charro also stood as a defense against American culture.
The charro archetype in Mexican films counteracted negative Hollywood representations
of Mexicans. Thus, the charros historic resistance towards foreignness became essential
to the cinematic construction of post-Revolutionary identity. Despite Hollywood's
support in the forties, the Mexican film industry did not always enjoy an easy relationship
with American film producers. The advent of sound technology in the late twenties
threatened native film industries throughout Latin America. These markets had been
saturated by silent-era Hollywood productions and many believed that English talkies
posed the threat of American cultural domination.180 Thus, the Mexican government took
measures to restrict the distribution of American features throughout the thirties.
Although Hollywood made Spanish-language remakes for these markets, they were not
always well received.181 Nonetheless, the public seemed to enjoy American productions
and lamented their absence. When Mexican film workers went on strike seeking
protectionism, movie houses and theaters were shut down in Mexico City. The public
Agrasanchez Jr., Cine Mexicano, 18.
179 Agrasanchez Jr., Cine Mexicano, 16-18.
Carl J. Mora, Mexican Cinema: Reflections of a Society, 1896-2004 (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2005), 29.
1 O 1
Mora, Mexican Cinema, 31.
62
was not necessarily enthusiastic about low quality native productions either. Mexican
cinema seemed on the verge of collapse, threatened by foreign features and deterioration
from within until the comedia ranchera saved the industry. Alia en el Rancho Grande
was actually the first feature widely exported throughout Latin America and subtitled for
an English-speaking audience. The singing charro archetype bolstered the Mexican
film industry and reversed the single-sided incursion of American film productions.
American representations of the cinematic charro were not solely negative. It is
very possible that the first silent shorts that featured the charro archetype were not
Mexican. The Revolution delayed the development of the Mexican film industry.
Therefore, the first cinematic interpretation of the charro archetype may have been
foreign. A French company produced the first cinematic adaptation of O. Henry's Cisco
1 R4
Kid short story, The Caballeros Way, in 1914. A twelve episode Mexican serial from
1917 titled, El Charro Negro, The Black Charro, remained unreleased.185 The loss of
films, shorts, serials and other documents complicates the early cinematic history.
However, the first "ranchero melodrama," was the 1921 Mexican production titled En la
Hacienda, On the Hacienda, which must have undoubtedly depicted charros, as must
182 Cristina Martin, Cronicas Tapatias del Cine Mexicano, (Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1999), 26-27.
183 E. G. B. "Review: Rancho Grande," The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 23 No.8 (Blackwell Publishing, 1939), 637.
Francis M. Nevins, Gary D. Keller, The Cisco Kid: American Hero, Hispanic Roots, (Tempe: Bilingual Press, 2008), 29.
185 David E. Wilt, The Mexican Film Bulletin, www.wam.umd.edu/~dwilt/mex news.html (Sept. 2008).
63
have Los Plateados, The Silver Thieves, from the previous year.186 Nonetheless, the first
American western featuring sound was the Oscar-winning, 1929 production, In Old
Arizona. In this talkie, Warren Baxter reprised the role of the Cisco Kid charro character
in what eventually became a lucrative series of Hollywood productions. The first
Mexican sound production featuring charros, which has now been lost, was Arcady
Boytler's, Mono a Mono, Hand to Hand, from 1932.188 Therefore, by the time Alia en el
Rancho Grande saved the Mexican film industry, the cinematic charro archetype had
been well established for over two decades.
Tito Guizar was the actor who first interpreted the singing charro in Alia en el
Rancho Grande but Jorge Negrete was the first singing charro superstar. After a string of
relatively obscure films, the first of which he starred as a chinaco, and a lackluster career
as an opera singer, Negrete emulated Lucha Reyes success and embrace the cancion
ranchera to achieve fame. His performance in the 1941 hit, }Ay Jalisco No Te Rajesl,
Hey, Jalisco Don't Back Down!, propelled him to superstardom. Ironically, Lucha
Reyes, who also appeared in the film, premiered the theme song on live radio but saw her
life's work, her recordings, turned into a vehicle for Negrete's success. Previous
interpretations of the singing charro, like Guizar's, had been saintly and wholesome
characters.189 Negrete's performance as El Ametralladora, The Machine Gunner, which
186 Martin, Cronicas Tapatias, 21-22.
187 Nevins, Keller, The Cisco Kid, 33.
188 Gustavo Motiel Pages, "El Charro en el Cine," Artes de Mexico, No.200 (1960), 59.
Enrique Serna, Jorge el Bueno, (Mexico: Editorial Clio, 1993), 47. 64
referenced his characters quickness and fatal accuracy with a pistol, added an element of
darkness to the cinematic charro.
I Ay Jalisco No Te Raj'esf is a tale of calculated vengeance and romance. Negrete
and director Joselito Rodriguez redefined the cinematic charro archetype, which was
more believable with tragic flaws and violent tendencies. The Machine Gunner was the
prototype reproduced throughout charro films of the "Golden Age."190 Although
Negrete, a son of middle class urbanites, reluctantly agreed to interpret what he believed
were staid rural dramas his name eventually became synonymous with the charro cantor,
singing charro.191 Later singer/actors like Pedro Infante, Antonio Aguilar and Vicente
Fernandez aspired to replicate Negrete's fame as a charro cantor through the
interpretation of Lucha Reyes musical repertoire. Recent modern interpretations of the
cinematic charro harkens back to the formula established in /Ay Jalisco No Te Rajes!
The main character in Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi (1993) does not ride a horse or
wear a sombrero but he conveys the same violent tendencies and romantic characteristics
first established fifty years earlier.
The comedia ranchera temporarily sounded the death knell for experimentation in
Mexican cinema. Although early Mexican cinema was generally underdeveloped, it
was also independent and much bolder in its treatment of risque topics. The urban
comedies of Cantinflas and TinTan appear to be the only other option available to cinema
190 Gustavo Garcia, Rafael Avifia, Epoca de Oro del Cine Mexicano, (Mexico: Editorial Clio, 1993), 14-15.
191 Serna, Jorge el Bueno, 47.
192 Garcia, Avifia, Epoca de Oro, 14.
65
audiences during Mexico's "Golden Age." With government funding, the unionization
of film workers and the support of Hollywood the cinema charro became an "institution."
193 However, the industry was stagnated by formulaic movie scripts. New talent was
shut out and competition quashed.194 Much of the public initially rejected the
oversaturation of charro films.195 A skeptical Mexican audience preferred the wider
selection and availability of Hollywood productions.196
The lack of quality cinematic productions allowed some to criticize the Mexican
movie industry. Abel Quezada, the cartoonist, began his Charro Matias serial in the mid
fifties. Charro Matias was a lazy, cowardly, and inept charro who constantly tried to find
employment in feature films but was repeatedly rejected because he was too ugly.
Quezada referenced the public's annoyance with a, "Charrito bonitopero banqueter o,"
pretty but useless little charro . The tragic deaths of Jorge Negrete in 1953 and Pedro
Infante in 1957 foreshadowed the decline of the comedia rancher a and coincidentally
signaled the end of Mexico's cinematic "Golden Age." Although the cinematic charro
archetype would be recycled in low-quality films during the 1960s, the image of the
charro cantor would never again be as pervasive or receive a warm public reception.
The industries insistence on using lousy singers combined with the recycling of clips
193 Serna, Jorge el Bueno, 41.
194 Agrasanchez Jr., Cine Mexicano, 20.
195 Garcia, Avifia, Epoca de Oro, 15.
Martin, Cronicas Tapatias, 27.
197 Abel Quezada, El Charro Matias: Los Mejores Cartones, (Mexico City: Editorial Planeta Mexicana, 1999) 17.
66
from earlier movies led to a backlash that exists to some degree today. While the
American western and the cowboy have remained as popular cinematic forms few
attempts have been made to recover the charro of the Mexican cinematic tradition.
The sport of charreria, professional mariachi and the cinematic interpretations are
performances that refer to the charros historic roots as laborers, hacienda elites and
insurgents but they are also imaginary constructs far removed from colonial and early
nineteenth century realities. Since the early twentieth century, there has been tension
over which performance conveys the most genuine form of the charro. Although it is a
sport invented by urban elites, charreria practitioners generally believe that they embody
the true form of the charro laborer. In their view, cinematic interpretations have done a
disservice to the legacy of the charro. Most charro manuals and histories type the
cinematic charro as cursory and negative. Descriptions such as these are common,
Mexican cinema is 'charro' in the crudest pejorative meaning of the term. In it come together, without remedy, the unnecessary ruggedness of the bitterest folk culture, the inevitable foolishness of drunken sobbing, and the irremediable explosion of a false abduction of machismo.198
Similarly, cinematic histories of the charro have ignored the contemporaneous
development of performed charreria. Tensions between charreria enthusiasts and
appreciators of cinema have therefore seeped into the scholarship of both forms.
Scholars have been complicit in a petty fight between performers. In the last half of the
twentieth century some cinema actors and mariachi singers such Irma Dorantes, Antonio
Aguilar, Flor Silvestre and Vicente Fernandez, mediated this divide by practicing or
featuring charreria as a way to legitimate their performances. The latter four were
198 Motiel Pages, "El Charro en el Cine," 59.
67
accomplished equestrians and musicians who respected the integrity of both art forms
they embrace, charreria and mariachi music. Unlike Jorge Negrete who collected cars or
Pedro Infante who rode motorcycles and piloted airplanes, the modern charro cantor
must master equestrian skills.
Scholars must not continue to privilege the equestrian discursive that has
marginalized cinematic representations. New scholarship must analyze the charro
archetype from multiple perspectives, referencing all aspects of their evolution from their
emergence as laborers to the rise of the imagined and performed. Although the hacienda
laborer and insurgent no longer roam the landscape modern interpretations of the charro
archetype, which were firmly established in the twentieth century, remain rooted in an
idealized colonial culture. The cultural analysis of the charro archetype spans the course
of Mexican history. From the contemporary present to the colonial period, Mexican
culture, both popular and folk, requires more study by academics. Cultural scholars must
also revisit past texts, translate their content, and address the omissions of previous
studies. These omissions include issues of race, class and gender in the history of the
popular charro.
The study of the popular charro is'a subject that is broad and varied in scope. The
necessary omissions in this thesis were difficult to negotiate. The academic weakness of
many previous studies included a poor understanding of the charros Spanish origins.
Therefore, a comparative study of the Salamanca charro must be included in future
research. Beside the Argentine Gaucho and the North American cowboy, other
equestrian traditions of the Americas, like the Llaneros of Venezuela and Colombia or
the legendary Paniolos of Hawaii, should be expanded. Additional research must also 68
contain a better analysis of the historic role of the charro insurgent in Mexico's armed
conflicts, which should include the erasure of the chinacos Afro-mestizo identity. A
study of the charros material culture, from the reata and pistol to the various suits, can
reveal conflict with, and borrowing from indigenous, Spanish and American culture.
Similarly, a broader analysis of the charro suit should include a review of the artisans
who made them. The focus on fashion should include the study of charro suits tucked
away in museums and private collections. Where actual suits may be missing,
photographic evidence may facilitate analysis.
The review of literature and films in this thesis was limited to a handful of major
works. Additional research on charro novels and films would lead to a better
understanding of the development of the imagined charro archetype. This exploration
should be focused on the typical forms of the genre and their deviant elements.
Limitations of length also required the omission of significant portions of the last half-
century. One of the most significant aspects of Mexican culture in the 1950s is the rise of
the concept of "Machismo," and its association with the charro archetype. Therefore, an
analysis of the concepts of gender in Mexican culture during the second half of the
twentieth century is important and related to the performance of female equestrians and
singing charras. Lastly, while it is possible to explore the history of the charro through
the evolving fashion of the charro suit, an analysis of the charro depicted in artworks,
such as sculpture and painting, is also necessary. Although a few charro-painters were
referenced in this thesis, no actual artwork was mentioned. The evolution of the
imagined charro archetype is represented throughout colonial and contemporary art
69
forms. Although charreria enthusiasts have contributed significant texts, collections, and
artworks more academic scholars must attempt to recover the charro's cultural history.
70
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71
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