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Martha Summerhayes 'Reflections Of Food In The Mexican Borderlands'

2165 Words9 Pages

Brock Baldwin
November 18, 2014
Mexican Borderlands Reflection Historians have tried piecing together as much as they can about the history on the Mexican Borderlands for centuries. The only evidence and knowledge they have to base off their work is from documents like Martha Summerhayes’ diary, which she published in the late 1800s. Martha Summerhayes was an American female during this time on a journey through Arizona. In this document she explains life in the Borderlands from a first person point of view and explains many first hand encounters from her daily life. In this paper I will explain what life was like from Martha Summerhayes’ point of view as well as Olga Beatriz Torres in her document, “Memorias de Mi Viaje/ Recollections of …show more content…

Summerhayes explains about the food during her time in Southwest: “Besides, the tortillas were delicious to eat, as for the frijoles, they were beyond anything I had ever eaten in the shape of bean.” Summerhayes loved the food that the Mexican women prepared and tried to teach her how to make it. Summerhayes could never get the hang of how to properly make a tortilla, but this made her appreciate the art that these Mexican women had in preparing their meals. Mexican Torres explained, “Then we were off to suffer the horrors of the horrible food. How horrible one eats in this ship. My God!” Olga was dealing with the food prepared by the workers on the ship and hated the food. Olga and Martha kind of switched roles at this point because they were eating their other cultures foods and I feel that they both prefer Mexican food, even though Martha may not admit it. Transculturalization happened at this time because Summerhayes had a kitchen made and a Mexican woman hired to come in and teach her how to cook Mexican-based foods. I feel like Summerhayes didn’t completely conform to their culture but she definitely gave it a try and she kind of liked it. The Euro-Americans saw that Mexicans didn’t really lived that bad of lives but the stereotype was that they still lived too “simple” of …show more content…

Martha Summerhayes wrote that she was taking care of a child while she was writing her diary along the Colorado, whereas Torres comes out right away explains that she is thirteen years old. I believe that we as a reader see a different perspective because of their ages. This explains what it was like in the borderlands for a teenager and as well as a caring mother. Martha Summerhayes recalls in this primary source about her experiences during the summer in Ehrenberg, Arizona. Olga Torres explained that most of her experiences were in Mexico City, Mexico. Both of these cities are in the Southwest but we that the culture was even different in these two places. Summerhayes says to Patrocina, another woman with Summerhayes during her journey, “But don’t you to want to see trees and grass and flowers?” Patrocina responded with another sad shake of the head. Patrocina didn’t appreciate the beauty of nature and took it for granted because she thought the trip was dragging on too long. Summerhayes was different than Patrocina in this way because she loved nature and thought that the trip provided many different opportunities to see what the beautiful country provided. Olga Torres explained that the country in Mexico was beautiful but explained: “Though I had seen it several times before, it always seemed the same: trees

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