Chapter 9 - Nineteenth-Century Spanish-Language Textbooks and US American Literature

Summary

Francisco Javier Vingut was a nineteenth-century Latino educator who dedicated his life to teaching Spanish while living in the United States. Vingut also produced Spanish-language textbooks, compiled a bilingual literary anthology, and published the complete works of such important figures of his day as José Antonio Saco, José María Heredia, and the poet Plácido (Gabriel de la Concepción). This chapter demonstrates how his textbooks and compilations are an integral component of US American literary history. Influencing such US intellectuals as George Folsom and Herman Melville, Vingut’s works also established a series of Latina/o legacies that extend beyond his lifetime. They include Vingut’s impact on the Latina/o educator Luis Felipe Mantilla and his translation of Peter Parley’s Universal History, a translation distributed throughout the Americas. Vingut’s wife, Gertrude Fairfield, has a Latina/o legacy of her own: her novel Naomi Torrente: History of a Woman (1864) is a thematic precursor of the Latinx novels of the 1990s with their focus on the challenges faced by second-generation Latina/o/xs. This chapter contends that Spanish-language textbooks continue to be literary and political in nature. In light of the current book banning across the country and the concurrent attacks on educators, this study is particularly urgent.