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Chapter 10 - Passing Time

Latinx Racialization, Modernist Satire, and the Captivity Narrative

from Part III - Time

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2025

By
Evelyn Soto
Edited by
John Alba Cutler  and
Marissa López
John Alba Cutler
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Marissa López
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Summary

This chapter attends to the formal and cultural function of Latinx racial passing in Who Would Have Thought It? (1872) by María Amparo Ruiz de Burton. Critical conversations about the orphan protagonist of the novel, Lola Medina, interrogate her rescue from Indian captivity and the gradual “whitening” of her dyed skin as a form of aspirational assimilation into Anglo-American society. Scholars have also studied the ways in which Lola’s captivity story is informed by the historical precedent and publications surrounding the repatriation of Olive Oatman to white American society after her five-year captivity among the Mohave in the 1850s. This contribution reads Lola’s performance of Latinx racial passing alongside the captivity narrative, newspaper articles, and visual culture from the Oatman case to argue how the idea of “passing” operates in the novel as a form of political critique and a catalyst for modernist, formal innovation. Lola’s narrative of Latinx racial passing not only illuminates an early discourse of Latinx racialization, but also catalyzes a modernist satire of Anglo-American imperialism.

Keywords

modernismMaría Amparo Ruiz de Burtoncaptivity narrativebrownnesssatireracializationOlive Oatmancapitalismindigeneitypassing
Type
Chapter
Information
Latinx Literature in Transition, 1848–1992 , pp. 178 - 194
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

Works Cited

Aranda, José F. The Places of Modernity in Early Mexican American Literature, 1848–1948. U of Nebraska P, 2022.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brady, Mary Pat. Scales of Captivity: Racial Capitalism and the Latinx Child. Duke UP, 2022.Google Scholar
Hobbs, Allyson. “Passing.” Keywords for African American Studies, edited by Edwards, Erica, Ferguson, Roderick A., and Green Ogbar, Jeffrey Ogbonna. New York UP, 2018, pp. 133–135.Google Scholar
Lomas, Laura. Translating Empire: José Martí, Migrant Latino Subjects, and American Modernities. Duke UP, 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mifflin, Margot. The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman. U of Nebraska P, 2009.Google Scholar
Muñoz, José Esteban. The Sense of Brown, edited by Ochieng’ Nyongó, Tavia Amolo and Chambers-Letson, Joshua Takano. Duke UP, 2020.Google Scholar
Rice, William B. “The Captivity of Olive Oatman: A Newspaper Account.” California Historical Society Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 2, 1942, pp. 97–106. https://doi.org/10.2307/25160991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruiz de Burton, María Amparo. Who Would Have Thought It? Introduction and edited by de la Luz Montes, Amelia María. Penguin Classics, 2009.Google Scholar
Sánchez, María Carla. “Whiteness Invisible: Early Mexican American Writing and the Color of Literary History.” Passing: Identity and Interpretation in Sexuality, Race, and Religion, edited by Sánchez, María Carla and Schlossberg, Linda. New York UP, 2001, pp. 64–91.Google Scholar
Schlossberg, Linda. “Introduction: Rites of Passing.” Passing: Identity and Interpretation in Sexuality, Race, and Religion, edited by Sanchez, María Carla and Schlossberg, Linda. New York UP, 2001, pp. 1–12.Google Scholar
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Stratton, R. B., Shepherd, O. L., and Webb Hodge, Frederick. Life Among the Indians: Being an Interesting Narrative of the Captivity of the Oatman Girls Among the Apache and Mohave Indians, 1st ed. Whitton, Towne & Co., 1857.Google Scholar
Stratton, R. B., Shepherd, O. L., and Webb Hodge, Frederick. Captivity of the Oatman Girls: Being an Interesting Narrative of Life among the Apache and Mohave Indians: Containing an Interesting Account of the Massacre of the Oatman Family, by the Apache Indians, in 1851; the Narrow Escape of Lorenzo D. Oatman; the Capture of Olive A. and Mary A. Oatman …, 2nd ed. Charles Scott & Co., 1857.Google Scholar
Stratton, R. B., Shepherd, O. L., and Webb Hodge, Frederick. Captivity of the Oatman Girls: Being an Interesting Narrative of Life among the Apache and Mohave Indians: Containing an Interesting Account of the Massacre of the Oatman Family, by the Apache Indians, in 1851; the Narrow Escape of Lorenzo D. Oatman; the Capture of Olive A. and Mary A. Oatman …, 3rd ed. Carlton and Porter, 1858.Google Scholar
Tinnemeyer, Andrea. Identity Politics of the Captivity Narrative after 1848. U of Nebraska P, 2006.Google Scholar
Tinnemeyer, Andrea. “Rescuing the Past: The Case of Olive Oatman and Lola Medina.” María Amparo Ruiz de Burton: Critical and Pedagogical Perspectives, edited by de la Luz Montes, Amelia María and Goldman, Anne Elizabeth. U of Nebraska P, 2004, pp. 169–183.Google Scholar

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  • Passing Time
  • Edited by John Alba Cutler, University of California, Berkeley, Marissa López, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book: Latinx Literature in Transition, 1848–1992
  • Online publication: 10 April 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009314206.014
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  • Passing Time
  • Edited by John Alba Cutler, University of California, Berkeley, Marissa López, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book: Latinx Literature in Transition, 1848–1992
  • Online publication: 10 April 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009314206.014
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Passing Time
  • Edited by John Alba Cutler, University of California, Berkeley, Marissa López, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book: Latinx Literature in Transition, 1848–1992
  • Online publication: 10 April 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009314206.014
Available formats
×