coldhearted scientist وداد

This is interesting on its own but it is mainly created to teach beginning graduate students how to read an article. They have to follow my notes, map them onto the article in question, fill in my gaps, and elaborate in a lucid way. I am using this piece because it is germane to the course and to my research, but also because I think it is one of the most important pieces of Hispanist scholarship in existence.

Notes on José Piedra, “Literary Whiteness and the Afro-Hispanic Difference”
Article NLH 18:2 (1987): 303-332
Accessed from our library via JSTOR

NOTES: PART I. Detailed notes on the first few pages. We as a group should discuss these concepts and make sure we all grasp them.

Epigraphs: Unamuno, El lenguaje es la raza; anonymous song, Mexico, 19th century, on multi-huedness with a Spanish accent; slavery reference, race as a visual marker of difference, Nebrija, grammar of the Spanish language, 15th century. Themes here: the Hispanic race/language.

1492: publication of Nebrija’s grammar, foreshadowing unification of the nation; purification of infidels; launching of the New World adventure. Castilian is cast here as an imperial language, the language of Spain’s ethnic assertion, religious and racial bigotry; also the ultimate “civilized” weapon for political expansionism among the “illliterate.”

Spanish grammar assimilates otherness and others, and imperial grammarians established a test of literacy for Hispanic citizenship i.e., a grammatical contractof servitude. Nebrija emphasizes the ability of grammar to assimilate foreign words and also learners. Spanish would have the power of the letter and would Hispanize non-literate societies. It would seduce and dominate, and unify the different through grammar and rhetoric. The final result is an impure but unified empire; the fact that the impurity of the system was not officially accepted served to strengthen the imperial hold. It would offer outsiders a false sense of accessibility and a false hope of equality within Spain’s implicit, unofficial heterogeneity.

Spain opted for linguistic unity because it was the only viable way to posit national integrity. As early as Alfonso X Spain was experimenting with tactical assimilation aimed at national unity. With the territory in a state of seige, such unity was formed in theory, through language and cultural exchange. Nebrija for instance discusses linguistic contribution of Moors and Jews: tactical assimilation. Rule through grammar: Spain pieced together a language of survival and domination in both Africa and America. The transatlantic language offered cultural strength for the occupiers and syncretic assimilation for the occupied.

Latin and Castilian were both used and everyone was invited to partake in translation, teaching, and peaceful coexistence. Columbus participated, moving from Italian to Castilian (and used Latin, of course). Add to this grammatical pride Aristotelian views of world unity (Aristotle being el filósofo and having been rediscovered in Spain at about the same time). Meanwhile Spain was translating all these barbarian texts, assimilating them. Observe the combination of global control, and language — where Spain planned to practice enslavement “justified as a rhetorical brokerage of universal knowledge.”

Writing for Nebrija is the natural means of expressing Aristotelian world unity, and the outsiders are to be converted to an official written dictum. Slavery was apprentice citizenship and everyone was subject to some degree of slavery to the system that legitimized them. Grammar was also a way to standardize and uphold the rights and duties of citizens. On paper, but not in practice, differences were minimized as alliances were maximized. (306)

To become Hispanic was to acquire “literary whiteness.” The concept of the Hispanic “race” grew in print … but there are Afro-Hispanic writings throughout the colonies that were not entirely “whitened.” Piedra has done archival research on this, and that material is the substance of this article.

NOTES, PART II. More fragmentary discussion of the rest of the piece. We as a group should go back and fill in the gaps in these notes.

Estatutos de limpieza de sangre: you had to present proof of pureza to become Hispanic. Many prominent Afro-Hispanics accused themselves of crimes of faith or lineage so as to come to trial and have them proved untrue. This was so as to get an official audience and be able to defend rights which could otherwise not be brought to court. It was not easy to get declared a “person of reason” — so, you were invited to join Hispanidad, but not the elite.

Many of the crimes tried before the Inquisition were linguistic and magical: people were accused of substituting some other form of expression for the official logic and written letter of the law. Ventriloquism serves as a metaphor for the birth of literature in Latin America: formerly writing literature had been an amusement of the highborn but now adventurers seeking to move up impersonated the voice of the idle rich as littérateurs.

Nebrija was actually against literature, it was too unruly, but the creation of a Hispanic mold for language actually allowed for the creation of literature; Hispanic American fiction was born on the margins of what was officially accepted as grammatical writing. (310) Writers expressed themselves in the imperial language of tactical obedience but this language was in fact “a fictional manipulation of a rapacious grammar.”

“The largesse of the mother language disguised a linguistic dominatrix which condemned dissident values to hierarchical classifications and stages of unpleasant conformity.” Racial differences demanded a great commitment to imitation (see note 21).

Part II of the article: we will now locate the origins of Afro-Hispanic writings in factual and fictional differences within ghe model of literary whiteness. Traditional literary history locates Black voices as appearing in the 19th century. But it was black characters, not writers, who appeared, as mediators of ideas whites should not express.

There was an Afro-Hispanic Enlightenment and there are earlier Afro-Hispanic writers. They, and those brought to trial in the 18th century, sought ways to express Black aestherics. Example: Juan Latino, Latin grammarian and poet. Example: José Manuel Valdés, who received and then renounced a certificate of whiteness and also refused to have his portrait painted….

In the 18th century, opportunities to be declared white proliferated. Those who just could not make it in were encouraged to be “moreno” (a safe midpoint).

The case of José Ventura (318), refusing to be defined by race or caste. Then he would create embroidery depicting social injustice — very bad — and got declared insane for this. He refused the concept of purity of blood and the whole system, and defended miscegenation.

Then there is a famous Colombian petition for “extinction of color.” And Baltasar de Esquivel, who claims Blackness, lax Catholicism, and disinterest in Mexican nationalism. And makes fun of Spain and Spanishness. (See 321)

NOTES, PART III. Less formal discussion of the material discussed in Part II of these notes, and and in the conclusion of the article.

This is one of the most important pieces of work in Hispanism, even if most do not realize that. The Hispanic “race,” as we know, is based on acquisition of Castilian and writing, but to join the directing classes of this race, i.e. to become Hispanic with full rights, you must also be white. This means that many people who do not look white end up getting declared legally white so they can function in the roles where they are needed, or that they want. That looks fine enough from one point of view … unless, of course, you care about the deculturation involved, or about the facts of hierarchy, exclusion, and so on.

Piedra: to become Hispanic was to acquire “literary whiteness.” The concept of the Hispanic “race” grew in print … but there are Afro-Hispanic writings throughout the colonies that were not entirely “whitened.” Piedra has done archival research on this, and that material is the substance of this article.

Estatutos de limpieza de sangre: you had to present proof of pureza to become Hispanic. Many prominent Afro-Hispanics accused themselves of crimes of faith or lineage so as to come to trial and have them proved untrue. This was so as to get an official audience and be able to defend rights which could otherwise not be brought to court. It was not easy to get declared a “person of reason” — so, all were invited to join Hispanidad, but few to join the elite.

People applied for certificates of whiteness. How I would explain to undergraduates: if, for instance, you had a job offer to an entity that by official decree could only hire whites, and you were not white, you went to a judge and petitioned to be declared white. Judge: “All right. Sure enough. If you are qualified to work there and they want to hire you, you must be sort of white, so yes, I will sign off on this.”

The downside of it all is that you then have to give up Blackness. Since whiteness and literacy were bound up together you basically could not publish in a Black identity. Yet there were these clever writers who at least wrote in one, even if they did not publish in such an identity, and the legal cases on how they did and did not allow themselves and their writing to be defined are very interesting.

Some are: Juan Latino, Latin grammarian and poet. José Manuel Valdés, who received and then renounced a certificate of whiteness and also refused to have his portrait painted, all because he was rejecting every racial classification and definition.

José Ventura, who refused to be defined by race or caste. Then he created embroidery depicting social injustice, very wicked, pictures with captions, like comic strips. He refused the concept of purity of blood and the whole system, and defended miscegenation, and was declared insane.

Baltasar de Esquivel, who asserted Blackness, lax Catholicism, and disinterest in Mexican nationalism.

The article has quotations from these people and not all of the texts are easily available. They are sardonic and quite amusing. And remember, all of this is discussed in the context of Nebrija’s Castilian grammar of 1492, which is intended to whiten the language: limpia, pule, y da resplandor — cleanse, steady and shine.

So the “Afro-Hispanic difference” really does disrupt Hispanism and is quite fun besides.

Axé.