Meaning Of The Squatter And The Don By Maria Ruiz De Burton

María Ruiz de Burton's historical transition from Mexican aristocrat to a concomitant spoil of war following America's annexation of California compelled her to detail similar circumstances in her 1885 fiction novel The Squatter and the Don. During a time when Mexican Americans, American Indians, and recently emancipated slaves were fighting for acceptance in U.S. society, there was a larger discussion among the general public regarding what kind of place they should occupy. In her book, Ruiz de Burton enters the debate by detailing the growing tensions between westward Anglo settlers and the Californios—the Mexican landed gentry whose ranchos became the target of opportunistic squatters who took advantage of property loopholes and government

Instances of the former assertion can be seen all throughout the novel, where the Californios’ describe themselves as native Californians, but this is especially important once the Alamares begin to lose social standing. Szeghi emphasizes that Ruiz de Burton consistently uses the term “native” to underscore the Californios prior occupancy of the land to bolster their claims, “however, assigning this aspect of native identity—along with the land rights it entails—to Mexicana/os involves stripping the same from American Indians" (91). I would go a step further and argue that Ruiz de Burton’s description of the Californios as natives is an attempt to successfully play the victim, as evidenced by her use of sickness and injury throughout the book. It is well documented that disease was the most potent killer of the Native American population following European colonization of the Americas. And yet, despite clearly descending from Spanish aristocracy, Ruiz de Burton gives her characters sickly qualities while denouncing the corrupting squatter invaders. For example, the squatter Hughes has a “sickly smile,” and Clarence maintains that once San Diego “‘is rid of the squatters, [Don Mariano] will recuperate’” (Ruiz de Burton 217, 138). The squatters' threat to the Don and his family acts like a creeping, insidious virus that erodes their wealth and status. And since economic health is tantamount to whiteness, as the Alamares fall prey to the corrupt legal system that enables the squatters, they slowly lose their status as whites and the hegemons of California society. As Szeghi suggests, however, the Californios’ coopting of American Indian body identity does not come without consequence as she ultimately uses illness to reassert whiteness, further silencing Native voices. Ruiz de