Moreno, Gary - From the Hacienda to Hollywood. a Cultural History of the Charro

FROM THE HACIENDA TO HOLLYWOOD:

A CULTURAL HITORY OF THE CHARRO

A THESIS

Presented to the Department of History

California State University, Long Beach

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts in History

Committee Members:

Nancy Quam-Wickham, Ph.D. (Chair) Lise Sedrez, Ph.D.

Antonia Garcia-Orozco, Ph.D.

College Designee:

Mark Wiley, Ph.D.

By Gary Moreno

B.A., 2002, Humboldt State University, Areata

December 2009

UMI Number: 1481755

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ABSTRACT

FROM THE HACIENDA TO HOLLYWOOD:

A CULTURAL HISTORY OF THE CHARRO

By

Gary Moreno

December 2009

This thesis explores the cultural history of the Mexican equestrians known as

charros from the colonial period to the middle of the twentieth century with particular

focus on their emergence as laborers, their military association, and transformation into

performers. The charros evolution from laborer and insurgent to performer and national

symbol is central to this thesis. Attempts to fill the omissions of previous studies

required the exploration of the link between fashion, race, class, gender, and regional

identity. The tensions between rural folk culture and the urban industrial society is a

theme that is also central to this thesis. The development of the popular charro archetype

developed throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century occurred through

literature, military pageantry, equestrian performance, mariachi music, and cinema and

are all explored at length.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

PREFACE iv

CHAPTER

1. LITERATURE REVIEW 1

2. VAQUERO RANCH HANDS 7

The Jalisco Landscape 14

Chinaco Insurgent 18

3. CHARRO PERFORMANCE 24

Charro Literature 25 Military Pageantry 33

Professional Performers 38

4. IMAGINED CHARROS 47

Recreational Sportsmen 49 Professional Mariachi 57 Cinema Charro 60

BIBLIOGRAPHY 72

in

PREFACE

Mexican charros1 are heirs of one of the oldest horse riding tradition of the New

World. Resplendent in gaudy suits and wide brimmed sombreros charros romance pretty

girls in films, perform equestrian feats at patriotic celebrations and roam the plazas as

musicians in mariachi ensembles. Charros were initially laborer during the colonial

period, were often utilized for military purposes, and finally evolved into performers.

Throughout the course of Mexican history charros have held many different roles, often

contradictory of each other. Thus they have been characterized as valiant, brave and

courageous but also crude, debased and oppressors. However, characterizations do not

account for the wide variety of charro styles, nor their many cultural components.

Although there are significant differences the similarities to the American cowboy

include their emergence as laborers on the open range, their transformation into

performers when cattle management practices changed and their evolution into popular

symbols of national identity. Like cowboys, the rise of the imagined and performed

aspects of charros coincided with their diminished significance as laborers in the second

half of the nineteenth century. The evolution of the popular charro archetype developed

through literature, military pageantry, equestrian performance, art, music, and cinema in

The first use of a foreign word is italicized.

iv

the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was a form of nation building that had a

significant impact upon Mexican culture.

The charros shift from hacienda workers and insurgents to performers is of

particular cultural importance. Therefore, this thesis explores how the charro archetype

of the late nineteenth and twentieth century maintained a perceived connection to the

legacy of the colonial laborers and assumed the military qualities of insurgent patriots in

literature, performance, and cinema. The charros historic transformations from laborer to

insurgent most frequently defined performance and affected meaning, identity and

fashion. Modern charros completed the transition from hacienda laborers and insurgents

to performers and recreational sportsmen during the post-Revolutionary period of the

twentieth century. It is during the post-Revolutionary period when the imagined and

performed aspects of the charro take firm hold over Mexican popular culture. The

hacienda laborers disappeared from view while the insurgent became part of the

pageantry of the state.

Charreria, the sport and pageantry of Mexican horsemanship, maintains the

closest link to the charros roots as laborers on the haciendas. Therefore, this thesis relies

on the publications produced by practicing charreria sportsmen. The works of practicing

charreria scholars include manuals, histories, biographies and graphic books. Much

recent scholarship considers the works of practicing charreria-scholars as the cornerstone

of charro studies. Thus, this thesis similarly references the publications of charreria

scholars and considers them central to the discussion of the cultural history of the charro.

From the first manual printed in 1865 to many recent publications, most of the texts of

charreria-scholars are in Spanish. American scholars did not express interest in the

v

charro until the late nineteen fifties. The translation and interpretation of Mexican texts

is vitally important to the study of the popular charro. The thesis author has made all

translations of Mexican texts that appear here.

Although much of the charreria scholarship has focused attention on literature,

poetry, proverbs and folklore, there have been few literary studies of the charro. In fact,

much of the cultural history of the charro is limited. The few American works on music

and cinema consider the charro, and the charro suit, as a mere subtopics in the history of

mariachi and Mexico's cinematic "golden age." While many scholars have analyzed the

equestrian history of charros, few have directly explored the cultural history or popular

imagery. Although both Mexican and American scholars have published important

works on the charro-equestrian, cultural studies are few. This thesis attempts to fill the

omission of cultural history by focusing attention on the link between fashion, race, class,

gender, and regional identity that have affected the development of the charro archetype.

Like the chinaco of the early republic, the charro also represented the nation. Charros

became a folkloric representation of the Mexican nation during the drive towards

modernization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. However, they also

served to mediate the anxieties of a nation transitioning from a variety of rural folk

cultures to an urban industrial society. The tension between rural and urban cultures has

been generally absent from most scholarship. This thesis attempts to address the

omission of this analysis.

Beside the textual information of scholars and charreria sportsmen, this thesis

relies upon the visual imagery that makes up the iconography of the popular charro. The

work of charro-painters and illustrators has been referenced as well as cinematic

vi

representations. However, the charro suit, or traje de charro, has been the most common

reference in the study of visual aesthetics. Much of the history of the charro is

discernable through the analysis of the charro suit. The various forms of the traje de

charro include its Salamanca origins, the association with rugged labor, elite stylizations,

militarization, standardization, uniform-use and deviant forms. Nearly all of the manuals

produced during the post-Revolutionary-era reference some aspect of charro fashion.

Studies that are more recent include a graduate dissertation that focused on the history

and evolution of the charro suit. Since fashion is a cultural component of charros that has

continually been referenced this thesis regards the cultural, social, political, and gendered

evolution of the traje de charro as important themes in the history of the popular charro.

This thesis also focuses on regional variations of the charro. The landscape

referenced in popular imagery, literature, song, and pageantry is important to

understanding the history and diaspora of charro culture. It is generally believed that

charros emerged in west-central Mexico for the purpose of cattle management on the

colonial haciendas. Academic scholars and charreria enthusiasts agree that the Mexican

charro emerged from the highlands of the state of Jalisco, a place known as Los Altos.

The charro from Jalisco represents an archetypal form within popular imagery. However,

charro culture and practices migrated to other regions of Mexico and areas of the

American Southwest. Consider the Cisco Kid television series of the nineteen fifties,

which featured a charro among the boulder fields and Joshua trees of the California

desert. Analyzing the various regional forms of the charro facilitates a deeper

understanding their cultural history.

vn

CHAPTER 1

LITERATURE REVIEW

The first literary work which focused attention on the charro is Claudo Linati's

1828 publication, Trajes Civiles, Militares y Religiosos de Mexico, or Civil, Religious,

and Military Costumes of Mexico. Linati traveled through Mexico between 1825 and

1826, shortly after it achieved Independence from Spain in 1821. Linati's

characterizations are portrayals of a recent past romantically remembered. Linati's praise

for Mexican horsemanship and the "opulent men," dressed in charro attire are significant.

Considering the impact of his work on contemporary views of Mexico, Linati's

characterizations hold an unparalleled importance, especially regarding the description of

national archetypes. Luis Inclan's 1865, "Treatise of charreria," translated as, Rules by

Which a Collegiate Can Throw a Bull by Pulling the Tail and Rope, is considered the

first charro manual from which all others were descended. However, it is during the

post-Revolutionary era of the 1930s and 1940s when the literary form of the charro

manual became most prevalent.

The manuals of the twentieth century attempted to recover the cultural history of

colonial era charros. The authors were mainly upper class recreational equestrians who

1

blended their mental and physical labor in their hope of preservation charro traditions.

During the post-Revolutionary era, 1919-1952, charreria-scholars documented the

development of the sport of charreria and described the equestrian history and folklore of

the charro. Carlos Rincon Gallardo's manual from 1939, El Libro del Charro Mexicano,

The Book of the Mexican Charro, still stands as one of the most important texts of this

period. Some contemporaries went as far as designating it a "Bible of charreria," fit for

review at institutions of higher learning.1 Rincon Gallardo was a former inspector

general of the mounted Rurales who came from the hacendado elite with a long family

tradition of charro horsemanship. Rincon Gallardo spent a considerable length reviewing

guns and horses and included an analysis of different models, breeds, training and

maintenance.

Charreria-historian, Jose Alvarez del Villar published, Historia de la Charreria,

History of Charreria, in 1941. Like many of the early charro histories, Alvarez del

Villar's work is romantic; however, this work is significant in its description of the early

charro associations of the twentieth century and the professional performances of the late

nineteenth century. Alvarez del Villar is also important because he is among the few

scholars who linked the charro to the Spanish bullfighting tradition. In 1949, Jose Ramon

Ballesteros published, Origen y Evolution del Charro Mexicano, Origin and Evolution of

the Mexican Charro. This work is useful in its meticulous attention to charro dress.

Carlos Rincon Gallardo, Manuel Romero de Terreros y Vinent, El Libro del Charro Mexicano, (Mexico: Libreria de M. Porrua, 1977), viii.

2

Ballesteros came from the urban professional class who increasingly defined the sport

and culture in the twentieth century.

Scholars, particularly Americans, first studied the literary and folk aspects of the

charro in the fifties and sixties. Three essays published between 1958 and 1964 by

Americo Paredes, "The Mexican Corrido: Its Rise and Fall," "Luis Inclan: First of the

Cowboy Writers," and "Some Aspects of Folk Poetry," treated the subject of the charro

in song, literature and poetry. Paredes essays were useful when analyzing of the

development of the popular charro archetype in the nineteenth century. Edward Laroque

Tinker, also a practicing equestrian, attempted a literary analysis of the American

horsemen, which included the North American cowboy, the Mexican charro and the

Argentine gaucho. Although not a manual in the traditional sense, his work from 1967,

The Horsemen of the Americas and the Literature They Inspired, contains many of the

elements, specifically attention to history, myth and legend, which most other manuals

attempt. Laroque Tinker held the charro in high esteem; he believed these men

"Represented in their daily lives the freedom of the individual or, at least, a life of

relative independence and mobility, as they confronted dangers on or beyond the

frontier."2

There is no general trend in the scholarship of the charro in the nineteen seventies.

However, in the eighties scholars studying various aspects of equestrian cultures

increasingly publish monographic works, articles and large graphic books. Paul J.

Vanderwood published, Disorder and Progress: Bandits, Police, and Mexican

2 Edward Laroque Tinker, The Horsemen of the Americas and the Literature They Inspired, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967), xvi.

3

Development, in 1981. Although the charro is not central to his work, Vanderwood

touches upon the propaganda and pageantry of Porfirian Mexico, which included the

uniform use of the charro suit by the mounted Rural Police Force. Richard W. Slatta's

study of the gaucho from 1983, Gauchos and the Vanishing Frontier, served as a

valuable equestrian comparison for the charro while providing a historical example of the

cultural erasure of these traditions. In 1984, Miguel Flores C. described the trans-border

adaptation of the sport of charreria in, 'The Charro' in U.S.A.. Although this is not a

monographic work, Flores C. was a charreria enthusiast from Los Angeles who described

the establishment of the sport along the San Gabriel River throughout the forties, fifties

and sixties. That same year Jose Cisneros, a talented graphic artist, published, Riders

Across the Centuries: Horsemen of the Spanish Borderlands. This illustrated book

harkens back to Linati's work, which also focused on generalized characterization. In

1989, Beverly J. Stoeltje published an article on professional cowboy performance titled,

"Rodeo: From Custom to Ritual." Stoeltje's insightful work from the "transitional

period" of the cowboy, 1870-1930, served as a valuable comparison for the charro

performances of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Throughout the nineteen eighties and nineties, there was a significant increase in

the publication of large graphic books and monographic charro histories. Jose Valero

Silva's, El Libro de la Charreria, The Book of Charreria, published in 1987, is a graphic

history of Mexico's equestrian tradition. Octavio Chavez's publication from 1991, La

Charreria: Tradicion Mexicana, Charreria: Mexican Tradition is similar to Valero

Silva's in the attention given to the development of charro associations of the early

twentieth century. However, it was a series of non-equestrian academics, both Mexican 4

and American, who published some of the most significant recent histories of the charro.

G. Guillermina Sanchez Hernandez published, La Charreria en Mexico: Ensayo

Historico, Charreria in Mexico: Historic Essay in 1993. Sanchez Hernandez analyzed

the charros development, beginning with cattle management and warfare, continuing with

celebrations, performances and finally sport. The very same year Kathleen Mullen-Sands

published her seminal work, Charreria Mexicana: An Equestrian Folk Tradition. Her

work made a considerable effort in acknowledging the perspectives and opinions of

contemporary charreria enthusiasts in both Mexico and the United States. Mullen-Sands

anthropological approach is similar in structure to the manuals, which blend elements of

history and myth along with descriptions of traditions and customs. Besides Mullen-

Sands, Olga Naj era-Ramirez is one of the most important modern American scholars of

charreria. Naj era-Ramirez published several article and papers including, "Engendering

Nationalism: Identity, Discourse, and the Mexican Charro." The structure of Najera-

Ramirez's essay and her historical approach has considerably informed this thesis. Like

Naj era-Ramirez, much of the work of Cristina Palomar, from the University of

Guadalajara, has also focused on gender, nationalism and charreria. Palomar's recent

work includes a 2004 article translated as, "The Paper of Charreria as a Cultural

Phenomenon in the Construction of Western Mexico."

Growing interest in the history of mariachi music and Mexican cinema in the late

nineteen nineties led to the publication of several works on the subjects. Jesus Jaregui's,

Los Mariachis de Mi Tierra. . . Noticias, Cuentos, Testimonios y Conjeturas: 1925-

1994, The Mariachis of My Home . . . News, Stories, Testimonies and Conjectures:

1925-1994, published in 1999, is a compilation of several primary and secondary sources 5

that date back to the professional formation of mariachis. Jeff Nevin's Virtuoso Mariachi

from 2002 and Daniel Edward Sheehy's Mariachi Music in America: Experiencing

Music, Expressing Culture from 2006 also explored the development of mariachi music

in the early twentieth century. Similarly, Mexican cinema and television has recently

become a popular subject within cultural scholarship. Rogelio Agrasanchez's graphic

study from 2001 titled, Cine Mexicano: Posters from the Golden Age, 1936-1956 briefly

explores the development of Mexico's cinematic infrastructure. Also, in 2001, Anne T.

Doremus published Culture, Politics, and National Identity in Mexican Literature and

Film 1929-1952. Doremus ably explores the political, cultural, and social significance of

the comedia rancher a, a cinematic format that featured singing charros. Most recently,

Francis M. Nevins and Gary D. Keller published an extensive study of the Cisco Kid film

and television serials in 2008, The Cisco Kid: American Hero, Hispanic Roots. This

source has been particularly insightful in tracing the first cinematic interpretations of the

charro.

6

CHAPTER 2

VAQUERO RANCH HAND

When Hernan Cortes landed on Mexican shores, intent on conquest, on April 21,

1519, he brought the first horses to the continental mainland.3 Scholars point to those

sixteen horses as proof that Cortes introduced the first equestrian tradition of the

Americas in Mexico. Charros are, in part, the culmination and heirs to the horse riding

culture established by the conquistadors. A few years after Cortes introduced the horse,

he brought cattle to the mainland. This herd of cattle preceded those brought to the

American South by the Coronado expedition two decades later.4 Horses and cattle

proved vital for the economic development, social politics, and cultural fusion of the

colony. During the early colonial era equestrians, and their horses, labored together.

During the fight for Independence, equestrians and their horses allied in battle. In the late

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this relationship became a partnership in

competitive performance and the spectacle of pageantry.

3 Kathleen Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana: An Equestrian Folk Tradition, (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993), 22.

4 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 28.

7

The horses brought to the New World, similar to those introduced in the Iberian

Peninsula during the sixth century, followed a military conquest.5 Originally reserved for

elites, the monarchy established academies for breeding and training based on Moorish

examples. However, the development of horse husbandry in Castilian churches spread

equine practices among other sectors of the population.6 Additionally, competing

interests between different regions distinguished themselves through practices, festivities,

celebrations and fashion. Manuals were also produced which taught horsemen the

appropriate forms of training and caring for their mounts.7 Regional traditions, practices

and legacies transferred to the New World when Spaniards attempted to recreate the

culture of their respective homelands in Mexico.

The American colonies considerably depended upon horse and cattle. Ranching

and cattle management were vital for the economic growth of the colony, without which

other sectors, such as mineral extraction, may not have prospered. The hacienda

ranching system evolved from the large land grants awarded to the officers of the military

and officials of the church. Additionally, Spaniards utilized the horse as physical and

psychological tool for the control of the native population. Thus, the colonial

government limited horse ownership to people of European descent.8 As the hacienda

system expanded and became more prosperous over the course of the sixteenth century

5 Joseph F. O'Callaghan, History of Medieval Spain, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975), 27.

6 O'Callaghan, History of Medieval Spain, 183.

7 O'Callaghan, History of Medieval Spain, 511.

8 Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 27-31.

8

racial restrictions became impractical.9 Sebastian de Aparicio was a Spaniard who

traveled to Mexico and established a hacienda in 1532. Ballesteros considers Aparicio

the first "Charro," partially because he taught Spanish equestrian skills to mestizo and

indigenous people in defiance of colonial restrictions.10 Due to the need for more native

labor, the colonial government began to loosen racial restrictions in the seventeenth

century.'! The revocation of racial laws meant that people of indigenous descent and

mixed mestizo heritage could work as equestrian. Although mestizo and indigenous

people undoubtedly practiced in defiance of Spanish law it can be stated that equestrian

traditions fully emerged in Mexico due to the revocation of these restrictions in the

seventeenth century.

Ballesteros and Gallardo emphasize the link to the Salamanca charro. Within the

province of Salamanca, Spain, much of the central land is a "Campo charro," or charro

lands, historically dedicated to the horse and cattle industry. Spaniards from Salamanca,

and possibly Andalucia and Navarra, may have tied to recreate campos charros in

Mexico. Most notably, the Spanish used the term charro to describe both the men,

9 Jose Ramon Ballesteros, Origen y Evolution del Charro Mexicano, (Mexico: Libreria de M. Pornia, 1972), 31.

10 Ballesteros, Origen y Evolution, 30-38.

11 Frank Dean, Nacho Rodriguez, Trick and Fancy Roping in the Charro Style, (Las Vegas: The Wild West Arts Club, 2003), 7.

12 Ballesteros, Origen y Evolution, 17.

9

considered rustic outdoorsmen, and their style of dress. In the seventeenth century, the

charro suit from Salamanca became fashionable among the colonial upper class. The

attire included a decorated short jacket, sombrero and tight riding pants.14 The suits

adopted by the working ranch hands differed from those of the hacienda elites.

Workman's suits were usually made of durable leather, thus cuerudos, leather men,

became a descriptive term.15 The unadorned cuerudo style was the prototype of the

modern traje defaena, otherwise known as the workman's suit.16 From the early

seventeenth century onward, charro fashion reflected upper and lower class tastes. For

Spaniards the word charro continued to be derisive and signified a gaudy fashion of the

lower classes. However, in a Mexican context, the hacienda elite made the charro

fashion a marker of class status and wealth.17

The delineation of social classes is embroidered and leather-stamped on the traje

de charro. The men who wore charro attire on these large cattle ranches had clearly

defined social positions that included specific work duties. At the bottom was the

cowhand, or vaquero, who risked his life capturing cattle. The caporal organized and led

the vaqueros. Next was the horse trainer, the amansador, followed by the mozo de


14 Rincon Gallardo, El Libro del Charro Mexicano, 7.




10

estribo, who was the enforcer and confidant of the hacendado. Charro scholars agree that

the men from the vaquero ranks dressed simply in unadorned suits made of durable

materials. However, the upper ranks had the means to wear finely made clothes.

Ballesteros described two types of hacienda elites, the absentee landowner and the rural

type. The absentee landholder fled to the urban centers and usually dressed in an overly

flamboyant manner. The rural type typically dressed as simply as a vaquero workman.

For Ballesteros the true "Prototype," of the charro was the rural hacendado who could

dress for the rigors of ranch work but could also don fine gala attire for special functions

1 R

and celebrations such as weddings or fandangos.

While the unadorned fashion of the vaquero ranch hand was part of the charro

aesthetic the saddle also indicated a relation to labor. The charro saddle is a working tool

suited for either the labors of the field or the rigors of war.19 It is a legacy of the

conquistadors descended from the Arabian campaign saddle and uniquely modified to the

Mexican riding style, which is a cross between the erect a la brida medieval European

form and the crouching a lajineta inherited from the Moorish invaders of Spain.20 The

charro riding posture serves, "To meet the demands of controlling, branding, doctoring

and castrating livestock." Fused between cultures and the necessities of the labor Linati

1R

Ballesteros, Origen y Evolution, 165-170.

19 Rincon Gallardo, El Libro del Charro Mexicano, 334.

Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 33.


11

considered the Mexican riding style and charro saddle superior to the Spanish. Work

on the open range also required charros to be experts at the skills of camping. Mullen-

Sands noted, "Frequently he had to carry provisions, ropes, tools, and minimal camping

comforts he might need for several days tied to or hanging from his saddle."23 The

charros preparation for the rigors outdoor living made them ideal for campaigns of war

and long marches. A charro's horse, a caballo de campo, was also accustomed to work

in the outdoors. In contrast, the caballo de camino used for traveling, "Pleasure riding,"

performances and ceremonies wore an ostentatiously decorated saddle.24

During the colonial period, the semi-annual round-up activities of the hacienda

were important activities. Various times a year vaqueros from several haciendas would

gather roaming cattle at a central location to sort, treat, brand and return to their proper

owners. Mullen-Sands wrote, "There they treated stock for diseases and injuries,

castrated all but the best breeding bulls and stallions, clipped matted manes and tails,

selected and broke promising young horses to saddle, and culled out and returned to their

owners animals that had strayed into the hacienda's herd."25 After these labors were

completed, families would gather for festivities, which included music, dancing, food and

Claudio Linati, Trajes Civiles, Militares y Religiosos de Mexico, trans. Justino Fernandez (Mexico: Imprenta Universitaria, 1956), 90.




12

competitive games. The performances of equestrian skills for entertainment were

important rituals in the evolution of the modern sport of charreria. For example,

hacienda owners and their properly trained sons would compete alongside hired ranch

hands. Exchanging roles occurred within rituals of play and performance. Finely dressed

hacendados competed against plainclothes vaqueros in a contest of skill.28 During these

events, vaqueros often adopted the richly decorated charro attire of the elites temporarily

creating the illusion of unity and cooperation on the hacienda.29

The post-round-up activities of the hacienda were an opportunity for socialization.

Families accompanied the men folk for the specific purpose of communal celebration.

The gatherings also served to provide, "Young people an opportunity for courtship."30 It

is evident that the socialization customs of the hacienda have left their mark on the charro

archetype, especially concerning his portrayal as a womanizer. The characterization of

the charro as a romantic figure began during the post-round-up courtship rituals of the

colonial period. The role-playing facilitated by the wearing of a finely embroidered

charro suit allowed for courtship across class lines. At these events, the victor became

the romantic equivalent of a knight in shining armor.

26 Francis Edward Abernathy, "Charreria: From Spain to Texas," Charreada: Mexican Rodeo in Texas, (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2002), 2.

Olga Naj era-Ramirez, "Engendering Nationalism: Identity, Discourse, and the Mexican Charro," Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 1. (Jan., 1994), 3.

28 Naj era-Ramirez, "Engendering Nationalism," 3.



13

The Jalisco Landscape

Although charros eventually became a national symbol, they initially emerged

from the region that is now the modern state of Jalisco. Today, the charro is widely

accepted as an embodiment of Jalisco's regional identity. Beside tequila and mariachi,

some consider the charro to be the regions contribution to modern Mexican culture and

identity. During the colonial period Jalisco was an area identified by its vast cattle

economy and its large European population. Christina Palomar observed, "The

characteristics which define the relation of this region and the central power has been

rivalry."31 An economic and cultural rivalry dates back to the 1528 when Nufio Beltran

de Guzman, or "bloody Guzman," became president of the first Audiencia of New Spain,

then dissolved the Audiencia and founded Nueva Galicia (Jalisco) and Guadalajara.

Palomar goes on to note that the regions autonomous stance was partially due to the

geographic distance from Mexico City. Additionally, the state declared its independence

from the republic in 1823. It is no wonder that the symbol of independent Mexico

became the charro, a rebel from autonomous Jalisco.

Charro culture first emerged in the highlands of Jalisco known as Los Altos.32

Mullen-Sands wrote, "Occupational activities practiced on huge hacienda holdings and

small ranchos alike gave birth to a sense of separate national identity and traditions."33 In

31 Cristina Palomar, "El Papel de la Charreria Como Fenomeno Cultural en la Construction del Occidente de Mexico," Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, No. 76. (April 2004), 84.

32 Cristina Palomar, "El Papel de la Charreria," 86. Mullen-Sands, Charreria Mexicana, 39.

14

narratives, folktales, songs and performances the charro exists in this landscape, a place

of vast open spaces and rugged hill country dotted with small town pueblos, communal

haciendas, independent ranchos and churches. Jalisco's identity and lifestyle centered

around regional labor practices represented by the horse and charro.34 The charro's

influence spread across Mexico through the expansion of cattle ranching and the hacienda

system during the colonial period.35 Throughout the early independence era, 1810-1865,

social dislocation caused by political and armed conflict also assisted the spread of charro

culture. Charros perceived mobility across communities first occurred when they

migrated from rural Jalisco to other regions.

Many of the idiosyncrasies regarding the migration of the charro concern the suits

usage and production across time and place. Unfortunately, detailed documentation prior

to the 1800s is either inaccessible, inconsistent or has significant chronological gaps.

Therefore, the analysis of the suit is limited to the expertise of Ballesteros, Mullen Sands

and Leona Lewis's dissertation, in addition to references to the imagery of Linati and

contemporary paintings. One popular generalization about the charro suits is the idea that

no two costumes are alike, and that personal decorative preferences have contributed to

the development of highly individualized suits.36 While there are many varieties of styles

and accessories to the charro suit, which extend beyond the realm of horsemanship, many

forms have been lost over time or simply fallen out of use. Nonetheless, Ballesteros

34 Cristina Palomar, "El Papel de la Charreria," 85.



15

discerned four distinct charro regions, or "Zones," in Mexico that include the central,

northern, western and southern.

The central region maintained its distinct Spanish character through class

distinctions and racial segregation based on the rigid casta system that clearly delineated

which races could wear what textiles. According to Lewis, elites could wear wool

serapes and coats, silk ties, felt or silk hats, as well as velvet and satin apparel.

Indigenous and mestizo people could not use wool or silk, but could wear cotton or native

textiles that predated the Spanish conquest. Initially indigenous and mestizo

equestrians were allowed to wear cotton serapes, short jackets not made of velvet or

•30 .

wool, cotton or linen pants and leather or palm frond huaraches. Mestizos could also

wear any attire they made by hand but did not involve the use of any materials belonging

to the hacienda.

In the northern zone, which had attire similar to that of the central region, rigid

dress codes also maintained limited racial mixing. Eventually, mestizo and indigenous

workers attained the right to wear wool serapes with the distinctive diamond design in the

tradition of the Andalucia serapes. Ballesteros vaguely described the western style,

closely associated to that of Salamanca Spain. In the west, European style suits were

somewhat modified to reflect the Mexican locale and textiles. In the southern zone,

differences between the tropical lowland heat and the cold climate of the mountains

Ballesteros, Origen y Evolution, 103.

Ballesteros, Origen y Evolution, 103-104.

16

required clothing with multiple uses. Therefore, wide bell-bottoms pants, which

transformed into shorts, were common.39

The urban landscape of the late nineteenth century also transformed the charro.

The expansion of manufacturing attracted rural migrants to cities and industrialization

created the opportunity to mass-produce the textiles used for charro suits. However, poor

production and high costs limited any attempts at aesthetic uniformity or mass

distribution. The changing politics of the country also fueled mixed emotions about

Spanish identity and abuses within the haciendas. Mexican born European criollos were

also growing frustrated at the limited opportunities they faced due to a reduction in land

grants, the churches banning of slavery and the rise of political agitation. Mullen-Sands

observed that by the end of the French occupation in 1865, there was a, "Growing

resentment generated by extremes of wealth and poverty," which, "Set the stage for the

drama of civil war and the movement of charro performance from countryside to city."40

Poor, displaced rural migrants also brought their regional cultures, common equestrian

practices, and music to the cities. The migration of rural cultures facilitated the

emergence of charro traditions detached from their regional roots and mainly expressed

as a means of communion and socialization in the urban centers. It is also in the urban

centers where literary representations of charros were widely distributed by printers. The

imagined form of the charro was mainly an urban phenomenon, somewhat divorced from

rural and equestrian origins.



17

In the cities, the imagined form of the charro took firm hold over Mexican

popular culture. The popular form of the charro returned to an idealized rural landscape,

a romantic imagery of the hacienda that was nostalgically divorced from reality. Edward

Larocque Tinker's study of charros begins with a nostalgic retelling of his visit to a

working Porfirian hacienda. When he witnessed a peon groveling at the hacendados feet

Tinker related, "I am glad to bear witness to the cordial and paternal relations that

sometimes existed between master and man in the days before the last revolution."41

Remembering the hacienda in an idealized nostalgia was common in the post-

Revolutionary era. Tinkers' nostalgic remembrance of the benevolent hacendado, his

loyal peons and the faithful charro equestrians reflected a combination of poetic license,

blind privilege and political naivete regarding the end of the equestrian era. Tinkers

nostalgia parallels the writings of authors such as Willa Cather and Mark Twain, or

Henry Dana Jr., writers in a hurry to see the frontier before it disappeared as later defined

by Frederick Jackson Turner in his seminal "frontier thesis." Migrants eager to embrace

the remnants of their rural traditions remembered the charro as an emblem of the past,

their hopes and dreams delaying the charro's demise from Mexican society.

Chinaco Insurgent

Other significant events in Mexico's history affected the evolution of the charro at

the start of the eighteenth century. When Miguel Hidalgo rang the bell that sounded the

call for independence on September 16, 1810, he and his compatriots Jose Maria Morelos

y Pavon, Nicholas Bravo and Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez became political figures and

41 Laroque Tinker, The Horsemen of the Americas, 75.

18

rallying symbols for the insurgent rebels. The struggle to attain independence from the

crown spread throughout the Latin America colonies and embroiled the continent in a

general insurrection against Spain's cultural and political domination. The shift from

Mexico's colonial era to that of the early republic was violent and marked by armed

conflict. During the Independence movement, many equestrians became politically

active in the struggle against the crown. For the charros who tired of the abuses of

Spanish rule becoming a chinaco insurgent served to redefine their identity and purpose

in society. The chinacos association with valorized militancy was among the first

articulations of the charro patriot. The chinaco insurgent however, was a controversial

construct, as chinacos fought on both sides of the battle lines in the war for

Independence, the American invasion, the War of Reforms, and during the French

occupation. Mullen-Sands commented, "By benefit of their rural upbringing and way of

life, the chinacos were fiercely independent and resistant to outside authority."42

Therefore, the chinaco represents a regional and autonomous variation of the same

evolving character of the charro.

During the long running volatility of the Independence period, the term chinaco

became a political designation. The term chinaco is interchangeable with charro

according to Mullen-Sands.43 Chinacos fought on both sides of the battle lines, serving

the state, a regional caudillo strongman or their own interests. Chinacos who fought for



19

the crown were mochos, people missing a limb. Chinacos were not a uniform political

group. Horsemen held allegiances that were self-serving and varied according to

personal circumstances throughout Mexico's armed conflicts. Criticism of the chinacos

alleged lack of virtue and discipline masked racial legacies. Some chinacos, such as the

insurgent leader and President of Mexico Vicente Guerrero, were Afro-mestizos.45

Idealized portrayals of chinacos, originally a caste designation for people of mixed

African heritage, overlooked their Afro-mestizo identity. Linati romantically described

the chinaco when he wrote,

This Mexican criollo, this simple rural inhabitant, full of simple ideas, watches foreign soldiers march across the terrain of his country in order to subdue him, his heart swells and is inflamed in just indignation, he does not count his enemies numbers, nor checks the quality of his arms: the very same rope he uses to catch wild bulls will serve him well.46

In many respects, the chinacos political militancy and their association with the

Independence movement were among the first popular articulations of an imagined

characterization of what would eventually become the charro patriot.47

The most recognizable feature of the chinaco insurgent was their clothes.

Chinacos wore bell-bottom trousers with a side split to the knee, inlaid with a fine

material often embroidered to match the decoration on the jacket. This fashion became a

44 Leona Lewis, "The History and Contemporary Meaning of the Charro Suit," MA thesis University of Wisconsin, 1999. 43.

45 Theodore G. Vincent, "The Contribution of Mexico's First Black President, Vicente Guerrero," The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 86, No. 2. (Spring, 2001), 155.

46 Linati, Trajes Civiles, Militares y Religiosos, 91.


20

symbol against European oppression. As a gesture of their perceived military nature and

political designation, chinaco bell-bottoms were usually uniformly blue and made of

wool. There were of course differences in what chinacos wore based on wealth,

allegiances, convenience and other mitigating circumstances, but the Independence

struggle against Spain was one of the first attempts at creating aesthetic uniformity with

the chinaco/charro suit. Linati's idealized illustration of Miguel Hidalgo depicts him

wearing finely embroidered chinaco bell-bottoms that served to identify him as a

patriot.48 Throughout the nineteenth century the bell-bottoms associated with chinaco

insurgents became less ostentatious, shrinking slowly until they became the tight riding

pants preferred by equestrian performers and soldiers. The upper classes adopted the

chinaco bell-bottom style in much the same manner that they adopted the rustic suit of

the Salamanca charro. Chinacos also wore a serape, red sash, huaraches, and a flat wide-

brimmed sombrero.

Although finely made chinaco bell-bottoms were flamboyant, their design had

origins in labor practices older than the fashion adopted during the independence period.

Folding the lower half, which was extremely wide at the bottom, over the top of the knee

converted long trousers into shorts. This action added padding over the thigh and proved

useful when loading or unloading mules. In addition, Ballesteros speculated that bell-

bottoms may have developed among porters and peons before equestrians adopted them

due to widespread huarache use.49 Early chinaco aesthetics may have been ostentatious


49 Ballesteros, Origen y Evolution, 105. 21

but practical such as the rough leather suits adopted and embellished by the hacienda

elites.

The female compliment to the chinacos masculine image was the china poblana.

While men dressed in the fine regalia of bell-bottomed chinacos during the independence

movement, some elite women adopted the lower class aesthetic of the working class

"china poblana" to designate their political affiliation. The charro manual writers

attribute the china costume to the class of indigenous and mestizo women that

traditionally served the rich. China fashion included a long, sequined or ribboned skirt, a

richly embroidered blouse and a Spanish shawl. China attire was so closely associated

with the insurgency that it prompted the last viceroy of Mexico to prohibit its use. While

elite women adopted the fashion to signify their rejection of Spanish authority and

culture, Mullen-Sands believes that this blended form of upper and lower class aesthetics

remained firmly rooted in the Mexican pueblo.50 As an archetype, the stereotypical china

figure blended the gentility of the upper classes, the physical labor of their servants and

the bravery of combat warriors.51 Beside mounting horses and laboring on the open

range, some of these women actually fought side-by-side with men.52 Even after the era

of the chinaco had passed, the china poblana remained coupled with the charro in




22

performances and popular imaginary. In the twentieth century, the china poblana also

became the favored attire of female singers of cancion rancher a such as Lucha Reyes and

Lydia Mendoza.

23

CHAPTER 3

CHARRO PERFORMANCE

The end of the French occupation of Mexico in 1867 was the historical event that

marked the end of the era of the chinaco insurgent. Charros associated with the labors of

the open range, and those of war, clearly contrast with the emergence of popular

performers and the expression of the imagined archetype in the second half of the

nineteenth century. Charros had historically progressed from being rural laborers in the

colonial era to rebel insurgents during early independence but by the end of nineteenth

century non-equestrian urban performers wearing cheap imitations of the charro suit

emerged in the cities. Thus, the imagined or archetypal charro appeared in the urban

context of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Equestrian feats developed on

the colonial hacienda but in the urban setting charros performed in designated spaces

such as teatros, revistas, carpas, lienzos or bullfighting arenas. The popularization of the

charro archetype did not occur until rural cultural forms, reinterpreted as formal

literature, military pageantry and leisure entertainment, were re-articulated in urban areas

like Mexico City. This section will review the reinterpretation of the charro archetype

within the urban context of the late nineteenth century, principal through costumbrista

24

literature, the pageantry of the mounted Rural Police Force and the exhibitions of

professional performers.

No other historical event may so poetically capture the charros shift from laboring

and soldiering to the realm of the imagined and performed as Emperor Maximillians

execution before a firing squad on June 19, 1867. Maximillian, the French imposed

Austrian Emperor of Mexico, was an avid equestrian who appears to have been

fascinated by charro horsemanship. Modern charros believe Maximilian was among the

first to adopt on the fashion of the rural elite when he created an uncommon black suit of

the finest materials, popularizing it among the urban upper class.53 The traje de etiqueta,

henceforth attributed to the French-Austrian court, is still reserved for formal occasions.

Maximilian supposedly wore his traje de etiqueta on the day of his execution.54

Therefore, Maximilian's execution at the Hill of the Bells in Queretaro ushered in a new

era of the imagined and performed, henceforth localized in the urban centers.

Charro Literature

In 1865, five years after Luis Inclan published his manual on bull tailing, this

charro-author, released his first novel, Astucias, El Jefe de los Hermanos de la Hoja, or

Astucias, Leader of Fellowship of the Leaf. This Dumas-inspired novel blends the

romantic adventures of a band of tobacco smugglers evading imperial tax collectors with

the realism and self-awareness of the charro-authors own experience. Charreria-scholar

who blended manual and mental labor, such as Inclan, were principal agents in the urban

53 Brian Woolley, "La Vida del Charro," Dallas Morning News, 23 May 1999. Charreada: Mexican Rodeo in Texas, 19.


25

adaptation of charro culture that re-imagined life on the hacienda. Americo Paredes

noted, "It is the novel Astucia which puts Inclan in modern histories of Mexican

literature. His only published novel, it confirms Inclan as a precursor of Mexican

realism."55 Of Astucias, Olga Naj era-Ramirez noted, "Inclan intended the novel to

justify, glorify, and even promote charro ways and values. Moreover it served to create

an ambience of romanticism and nationalism around the charro figure."56

From the cowboy to the gaucho, the blending of romanticism and realism is

typical of the equestrian literature of the Americas. The charro and gaucho both emerged

as laborers, transformed into soldiers and eventually became archetypes in the realm of

the imagined. For the gaucho idealized images emerged only after the historic figure of

the laborer and insurgent disappeared. Slatta concludes, "The gaucho still rides a

romanticized frontier pampa as an idealized myth and political symbol. His qualities,

real and imagined, represent an essential ingredient of the continuous quest by Argentines

en

to define the essence of their national character." It was primarily through literature

that nineteenth century readers perceived the rural ideal as lost or vanishing. The

imagined form of the charro and his link to Mexican identity is a similar phenomenon.

The need for working ranch hands diminished in the late nineteenth century adding to the

population migration into the cities. While wars created the temporary need for

55 Americo Paredes, "Luis Inclan: First of the Cowboy Writers," American Quarterly, No. 12 (1960), 60.


57 Richard W. Slatta, Gauchos and the Vanishing Frontier, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), 192.

26

equestrian soldering, during peacetime vaqueros became laborers, competing for

subsistence wages. Displaced vaqueros who could not find employment on the ranch

sought work in factories or other forms of wage labor in the cities while others found

work tramping around the countryside as performers of equestrian skills. Therefore, the

charro archetype featured in nineteenth century literature developed alongside the

vanishing form of the equestrian laborer.

Inclan noted an increase in the popularity of equestrian activities among Mexico

City's young men in the 1830s.59 These were the colegiales, college boys or educated

men, identified in his title, Rules by Which a Collegiate Can Throw a Bull by Pulling the

Tail and Rope. Inclan directed his manual at the literary elite's interest in, and

romantization of, rural life.60 According to Benedict Anderson, the reading public was a

vital component of the nationally imagined community.61 Anderson wrote, "These

fellow-readers, to whom they were connected through print, formed, in their secular,

particular, visible invisibility, the embryo of the nationally imagined community."62 It

was the literary elite, localized in the cities near the centers of the print industry, who

formed this nucleus. Anderson also noted that European communities essentially defined

Naj era-Ramirez, "Engendering Nationalism," 5.

59 Paredes, "Luis Inclan," 59.

60 Paredes, "Luis Inclan," 68.

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, (New York: Verso, 1983), 36.

62 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 44.

27

the national identities of Latin America republics and helped form their emergent national

consciousness. 3

The majority of charro novels and manuals of the nineteenth century fall under

the larger category of costumbrista literature.64 Rather than looking to European literary

models, Latin-Americans increasingly asserted their cultural independence by exploring

local themes, landscapes, characters and customs. For example, the writers of Argentina

and Uruguay turned to the gaucho as their literary hero while Mexicans turned to the

charro.65 Writers like Inclan lent authenticity to their depictions but the majority of

characterizations were nostalgic. This was partially because the costumbrista literature of

the nineteenth century was rooted in older folkloric cultural forms and oral traditions.

The cultural construction of the popular charro archetype of the late nineteenth

century was dependent on written language, such as costumbrista literature, and imagery

such as charro paintings.66 The works created by charro painters of the era also blended

the elements of realism and romanticism that was evident in costumbrista literature.

Much like the literature, this style of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century

highlighted rural imagery, the landscape, fashion, and equestrian feats.67 The works of

63 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 50.



66 Maria Herrera-Sobek, The Mexican Corrido: A Feminist Analysis, (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990), xiv.

67 Justino Fernandez, "El Arte en la Charreria," Artes de Mexico, No. 200 (1960), 19-22.

28

the charro-painter Ernesto Icaza are both romantic portrayals of charros and meticulous

documentations of customs, attire and portraiture. Other renowned charro painters

included F. Alfaro, Leandro Izaguirre, Jose Albarran and the brother Tomas and Jesus

Ballesteros. Lithographers included Linati and Manuel Serrano. There are also a

substantial number of anonymous paintings from this era in museums and private

collections.

The American equivalent of the costumbrista school was the literature of the

cowboy, which considers Owen Winster's 1902 publication, The Virginian, as the first

cowboy novel. According to Laroque Tinker, the literature of the American horsemen

has three chronological categories. The formal written novel is the most recent,

developing between the last half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth. The

novel shares much with nineteenth century folk tales, poetry, proverbs and songs

traditionally sung or performed. In his manual, Ballesteros includes a tale about a charro

who makes a pact with the devil in exchange for extraordinary equestrian skills.68

However, it was song, specifically corridos, which Tinker considered the oldest and most

significant contributor to the literary genre.

The corrido (from Spanish correr, to run) is a fast-paced ballad of Mexican and

Mexican American origin that combines elements of music, literature, history, politics,

and popular culture. As a musical form, the corrido maintains vestiges of both Spanish

and Indigenous American music. As a literary form, the corrido is traditionally an oral

narrative developed from the Spanish ballad and framed by formulaic openings and


29

closings. It is typically composed in eight-syllable lines grouped in four-line stanzas, or

quatrains, and usually follows an abcb rhyme scheme. Migrants and field hands or

campesinos have most enthusiastically continued to use and develop the corrido.

Typically, the corrido both reflects a collective memory of cultural origins and political

inequality, and it documents the feats of heroes and, less often heroines, which fought for

justice and human rights. 9 Tinker goes as far as designating the corrido as the

"Folksong of the charro."70

Rural stylizations of folk legend and poetry also bridge the gap between colonial

era songs and the formal literature of modern cities. Rural folk forms were largely oral

71

traditions emphasizing performance. The repeated patterns and structures along with

the use of conventional language facilitated performance. Folk forms were often

celebrations of rural culture, thus Mullen-Sands wrote, "The poetry of charreria offers

absolutely unambiguous and altogether honorific portrayals of charros and charras

primarily because it is directed specifically toward a charro audience and often is 77

authored by charros." Folk proverbs known as dichos, were and continue to be

commemorative. Charro scholars have spent a considerable effort compiling these

refrains in manuals and dictionaries. Some of the most common themes include guns, 69 Antonia Garcia-Orozco, "The Corrido," Pearson Library of American

Literature, ed. John Bryant, Jacquelyn McLendon, Cristanne Miller, Robin Schulze, and David Shields (Boston: Pearson, 2003)

70 Laroque Tinker, The Horsemen of the Americas, vii.

71

Americo Paredes, "Some Aspects of Folk Poetry," Folklore and Culture on the Texas-Mexican Border (Austin: CMAS Books, 1993), 117.

77


30

horses and the outdoors and include commentaries on race, class, and gender. The

collected include:

Horse, woman, and gun, to no one should you lend. Horse for the gentleman; for the mulato a mule and for the Indian a burro.74

It is worth more to know the landscape than to be a good cowboy.75

Although the language of folk forms may be conventional, the diction is often

original and represents the voz campirana, rural voice, or ranchero dialect. Once again,

Laroque-Tinker has noted that this is also a characteristic, along with a "Liking for song,"

of American horsemen.76 Slatta noted, "Gauchesco poetry utilized the rustic dialect of

the pampa, which provoked scorn and derision from cosmopolitan critics and linguistic 77

purists." To this day, some scholars continue to believe that the conventional language

of this poetry indicates an inferior or poor quality. Charreria-scholars also attempted to

write in the voz campirana of the charro. The deceptively simple language of the charro

was also a major aspect of Inclan's novels and manuals. Carlos Rincon Gallardo wrote

his 1939 manual in a "Vibrant rural expression."78 Some have proposed that this rural

Leovigildo Islas Escarcega, and Rodolfo Garcia-Bravo y Olivera, Diccionario y Refranero Charro, (Mexico: Joaquin Pornia, S.A. de C.V., 1984), 124.

74 Islas Escarcega & Garcia-Bravo y Olivera, Diccionario y Refranero Charro, 125.

75 Islas Escarcega & Garcia-Bravo y Olivera, Diccionario y Refranero Charro, 128.

76 Laroque Tinker, The Horsemen of the Americas, xvii.

77 Slatta, Gauchos and the Vanishing Frontier, 185.

78 Rincon Gallardo, El Libro del Charro Mexicano, ix.

31

dialect actually reinvigorated the language. In the twentieth century, mariachi song and

cinematic dialogue would also adopt the voz campirana of the rural charro.

Literary forms were instrumental in bridging the gap between rural traditions and

urban stylizations. Folksong was just as significant in this regard. There has been much

scholarship on the history, themes and structures of the corrido. The corrido was the first

musical genres to address the charro as a legitimate subject. Although the corrido

reached its highpoint during the Revolution, its historical roots extend back to Spain.

Paredes explored how the late nineteenth century corrido was descended from the

decima, which was popular in the first half of the nineteenth century. These verses

recounted the French invasion, War of Reforms and the American War, thus, bolstering

the claim that the corrido is, in part, a war song. Before the decima the colonial era copla

was descended from the Andalusia romance. Most of these song forms were present in

some form throughout the American Southwest while also popular in "Greater"

Mexico.80

Paredes proposed that the corrido did not originate in Michoacan, as some

scholars previously suggested. Instead, he believed that the corrido originated in the

conflictive region of the Lower Border sometime during the 1860s.81 Whatever it

regional roots the corrido found mass appeal in the cities. The print industry facilitated

the mass distribution and popularity of the corrido. The sale of ojas sueltas, or


O A

Americo Paredes, "The Mexican Corrido: Its Rise and Fall," Folklore and Culture, 132-135.

81 Paredes, "The Mexican Corrido," 140-141.

32

broadsides, helped popularize lyrics. Paredes wrote, "The corrido must have begun in the

rural areas and then moved to the broadside printing shops."82 In the late nineteenth

century, the corridos mass appeal accelerated when musicians and singers began

congregated in urban centers, playing popular printed corridos to the tune of their

regional musical forms. These were the seeds of the urban professional mariachi.

Military Pageantry

Another significant development that signaled Mexico's shift from a rural society

to an increasingly urban industrial nation in the late nineteenth century was the

establishment of the mounted police force known as the Rurales. The Rurales, uniformed

in grey charro suits, were another step in the evolution of the charro's construction as a

cultural archetype. The charro-Rural image was a masculine symbol of the emergent

national identity popularized in the nineteenth century through the pageantry and

propaganda of the state. The second half of the nineteenth century was an era that

included political, cultural and social conflicts in an atmosphere of autocratic oppression.

The Porfiriato, the period between 1876 and 1911, was Mexico's initiation into

modernity with its particularly liberal forms of republicanism, capitalism and

individualism.83 In the attempt to create a semblance of domestic order President Porfirio

Diaz formed the Rural Police Force in order to attract foreign capital investment and

further shackle rural communities to the central authority of the federal government

localized in Mexico City. The uniform use of the charro suit, newspaper accounts of

82 Paredes, "The Mexican Corrido," 137.

Paul J. Vanderwood, Disorder and Progress: Bandits, Police, and Mexican Development, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981), 39.

33

their exploits, deployment across various regions and major travel routes, and the

political spectacle of parades and other state functions all served to create the

omnipresent image of the Rurales.

The Rurales were instrumental in the perceived establishment of the rule of law,

the centralization of power in Mexico City and the formation of a national identity. Paul

J. Vanderwood wrote, "Rural police would crack through the barriers to national

unification . . . and link rural districts to the capital. Mexico City was out to regain its

colonial hegemony."84 In last half of the nineteenth century, many nations across the

globe recognized the need and use of police as a unifying political force. Thus, the

Rurales bear a striking resemblance to the Texas Rangers, the Royal Canadian Mounted

Police, the French gendarmerie, the Italian carabinieri and the Russian Cossack.

Although the Rural corps had its roots in the Acordada police force of the colonial period

it was not until 1861 that Benito Juarez decreed their formation based on the example of

Spain's Guardia Civil.85

The first step in the formation of the Rurales required the control or assimilation

of certain outlaw elements. Although lawlessness existed during Mexico's colonial

period, banditry rose during the political conflicts of the early republican era. Political

factions were in the habit of utilizing mercenary-like bandits, paving the way for their

eventual cooption in the Rural constabulary of the late nineteenth century. Vanderwood

84 Vanderwood, Disorder and Progress, 45.

John W. Kitchens, "Some Considerations on the Rurales of Porfirian Mexico," Journal of Inter-American Studies, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Jul. 1967), 442.

Vanderwood, Disorder and Progress, 51-53.

34

described the relationship of the bandit-Rural as two groups that were, "Colorful, deadly

and interchangeable. Both groups created and contributed to order and disorder, and they

exchanged their roles with ease, often by official invitation."87 The repeated use of the

old adage, "It takes a thief to capture a thief," described how the Rurales often

OQ

functioned. The foreign press undoubtedly fostered the image of the Rurales as a force

that pacified lawlessness in the countryside. The mere whisper of their name was enough

to cause, "all persons engaged in illegal acts, such as knifing each other, burning hay

stacks, or discussing ways of overthrowing the present regime, [to] sober up and flee

noiselessly."89

The Rural Police Force also emerged from the need for political centralization.

Although financed by the federal government, the Rurales provided security for the

states. Therefore, they were in the service of the president and served to consolidate his

power in Mexico City. In the eighteen eighties, they were mainly concentrated in the

central states around the capital. When discontent with Diaz's rule increased in the early

twentieth century, he sent Rurales to the north and south in order to quell mounting

opposition.91 The Rurales numbers were never large but they appeared to be everywhere.

87 Vanderwood, Disorder and Progress, xii.

o n

Jose Cisneros, Riders Across the Centuries: Horsemen of the Spanish Borderlands, (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1984), 176.

89 '"The Rurales,' Mexico's Crack Regiment, and Their Work," New York Times, 4 December 1910.

90 Kitchens, "Some Considerations on the Rurales," 446.

91 Vanderwood, Disorder and Progress, 120-124.

35

The expansion of the Mexican railroad system was central to their perceived

omnipresence. The rapid deployment of Rural troops to all corners of the republic was

possible via the railroad by the early twentieth century. The expansion of the

transportation system helped spread both the image and exploits of the Rurales. Through

his manipulation of the Rurales, Porfirio Diaz spread the military image of the charro and

extended it to the borders of the republic. Mimicking the aesthetic success of the rurales,

The Guardias Fiscales de la Frontera, Border Customs Patrol, were also outfitted in

charro uniforms.92

The public image of the Rural Police Force was largely dependent on capitalizing

on the reputation of charros, increasingly defined not by equestrian skills but through

fashion. The Mexican government standardized the Rurales uniform in 1880 along with

their gear and weaponry. The adaptation of the charro suit and the regulation of their

equipment signaled the transformation from bandit to lawman. Although outlaws, like

the renowned Plateados, also dressed as charros, "Everyone understood what it meant: its

wearer could outride, outrope, outshoot, outdrink, and outwomanize any other cowboy,

from whatever land."93 At parades, banquets and other public celebrations the Rurales

tried to impress the common people. A troop reserved for state functions wore special

dress uniforms made of suede trimmed with silver and topped with a felt sombrero.94

Kitchens wrote, "Such public appearances in their idealized ranchero uniform

Cisneros, Riders Across the Centuries, 180.



36

supplemented government propaganda in spreading the fame of the rurales." Thus, the

government attempted to form the Rurales image as competent charros through fashion,

propaganda and public spectacle.

In reality, there was an absence of real charros and vaqueros among the Rurales

ranks. Although many of the recruits came from the area known as the Bajio, which

includes Jalisco, Michoacan, Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Queretaro, San Luis Potosi and

Zacatecas, most were poor semi-skilled townspeople. Porfirian modernization had

unsettled many traditional sectors of the economy, especially in the rural areas, and

created frequent boom and bust cycles that enticed some of the unemployed into police

work.96 The absence of real charros in the Rural corps supports the notion that their

popular image was largely divorced from the charros historical roots in the highland

ranchos of Jalisco. Naj era-Ramirez wrote, "No matter that not all rurales were expert

Q7

horsemen; their real power rested in the image." It is as if real charros preferred the

relative freedom of the open range to grueling police work. This may partially be due to

uncompetitive pay and the dangers of such work. The freedom and security afforded by

the middle-class ranching lifestyle, or that of the hacienda, was more enticing than a

dollar a day wage and a ten percent mortality rate. Although many charros did not join

the Rurales, the Rurales conjured the charros reputation as good soldiers.

Kitchens, "Some Considerations on the Rurales," 454.

Vanderwood, "Mexico's Rurales," 80-81.

Naj era-Ramirez, "Engendering Nationalism," 4.

37

The charros alternating characterization as a delinquent is partially rooted in the

perceived oppression of the Rurales and their early association with banditry. In

literature and song the archetype of el charro malo, the bad charro, is often a Porfirian

Rural. According to Americo Paredes the corrido, which became a popular format during

OR

the Porfiriato, often recounted the tales of common heroes who evaded Rurales.

Although the heroes of these corridos were often bandits, scholars agree that the Rurales

were mostly commonly depicted as the, "Hated but respected villains."99 The post-

Revolutionary government tried to legitimate its power through the rejection of all things

Porfirian, including the Rurales. 00 The assassination of the patron saint of the

Revolution, Francisco Madero, by a former Rural undoubtedly encouraged this view.101

Emiliano Zapata's mythos would eventually counterbalance the tarnished image of the

charro in the post-Revolutionary era and provide a historic example of el charro bueno,

the good charro, primarily because of his expert horsemanship, his insurgent status, and

his affinity for the attire.

Professional Performers

The third popular form of the charro that emerged in the last half of the nineteenth

century, besides formal literature and the uniformed Rural, was the professional

performer. Ranch hands who often labored on a seasonal basis, sometimes found work



100 Vanderwood, Disorder and Progress, xv.


38

performing their rural skills for an audience. Although few scholars have treated the

subject of the emergence of the charro as a professional performer, a handful of the

manual writers have briefly addressed it. Additionally, the works of two charreria

historians, Jose Alvarez del Villar and G. Guillermina Sanchez Hernandez, have been

especially insightful, as has Beverly J. Stoeltje's essay on the emergence of the cowboy

as a popular performer. The discursive themes concerning the professional charro

performer include the movement from labor to leisure and a rural to urban cultural shift.

This section also includes a history of the professional charro performer and his relation

to the toreador, bullfighter. Last is an account of the first international performances,

which included tours with Buffalo Bills Wild West Show. Stoeltje's essay has served as

a template for this section, thus the professional cowboy will serve as a valuable

comparison, as will the Argentine gaucho.

Some of the most recent studies of the charro, and the modern sport of charreria,

have focused on the shift from labor to performance. Most charreria scholars who

explored the development of the sport would agree that charreria is rooted in open range

labor practices of the colonial era. Similarly, Beverly J. Stoeltje believes that rodeo

performances are the ritual customs of early cowboy culture developed through social

interactions on large cattle ranches. Similarly, games and contests on the hacienda

became a performance developed by working charros. For many scholars, space is

102 Beverly J. Stoeltje, "From Custom to Ritual," Western Folklore, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Jul. 1989), 244-245.

39

central to the discussion over labor and performance. If charro work and games

developed on the open range, then charro performance formalized on the hacienda

proper, in fairs and fiestas and the pueblo streets. The shift from the labors of the open

range to the customs of the hacienda and pueblo is central to the development of charro

performance.

The transition period, which signaled the cowboy's transformation from a laborer

to a professional performer at rodeos, occurred between 1870 and 1930.104 Stoeltje notes

a decline in cowboy jobs between 1870-1880 attributed to corporate ranching, economic

depression, growing urbanization and environmental degradation. The cowboy strike of

1883 essentially marks the end of the cowboy as a frontier laborer. Slatta believes that

during this same period a changing economic landscape altered gaucho life on the

Argentine Pampa. Fencing and the growth of export agriculture served to decrease the

need for hired ranch hands while increased productivity and reduced wages created more

competition. Essentially, "strands of wire cut off the gaucho from the verities and life of

the past and enforced the new capitalist ethic of the modernizing elites."105 Similar to the

post Civil-War cattle boom in the United States that fed rising populations in the east,

Mexico experienced a growth in its cattle industry. However, the expansion of hacienda

holding served mainly to widen the divide between rich and poor. While eighty percent

of the population continued living on haciendas and ranchos during the Porfiriato, the

10 G Guillermina Sanchez Hernandez, La Charreria en Mexico: Ensayo Historico, (Guadalajara: Secretaria de Cultura de Jalisco, 1993), 84.

104 Stoeltje, "From Custom to Ritual," 246.

105 Slatta, Gauchos and the Vanishing Frontier, 149.

40

economically dislocated found employment in urban areas. The wealthy also fled the

haciendas for the urban centers where they may have hoped class tension were not as

severe.

The second paradigm used to describe the emergence of charro performance is the

urban expansion of the Porfirian period. Although performance formalized on the

hacienda, charros held exhibitions at various locations outside the hacienda proper. From

the colonial period onward, these locations included pueblo plazas and streets, bull

fighting arenas and other urban spaces.106 The development of lienzos, wall or alleyway

designating a charro performance space, appear to have developed first on the haciendas

and later built in pueblos and cities as formal arenas. The modern sport of charreria

continues to bridge the gap between rural and urban settings.107 Mullen-Sands described

the difference mediated through the performance space of the lienzo thus,

Inside the arena is pageant; outside is real life. The demarcation is much clearer in the urban setting, where most modern charreadas take place, than on the ranch, where sport and work blend and the physical space is used for both play and work.

In the lienzo, the landscape of all of Mexico is historically re-enacted through

performance and the enactment of a "script." The audience and performers interpret that

1 OR

script and judge it accordingly. Although the building of lienzos would not fully

develop until the post-Revolutionary period, they are an appropriate means to study the

emergence of charro performance in urban areas. The audience of the charro

106 Sanchez Hernandez, La Charreria en Mexico, 84.



41

performances held in pueblos and cities were a mixture of the economically displaced

who migrated from rural areas and the absentee landowning class. Stoeltje also

associated the rise of rodeo performance with increased migration and a developing

urbanity. Referencing the 1930s she wrote, "As communities increased in number and

the automobile enhanced transportation, townspeople journeyed out to ranches to witness

the cowboy contests, or cowboys rode into town to display their skills."109

Among the first urban spaces designated for the performance of equestrian feats

were bull-fighting arenas. In 1526, the Spanish built the first bullfighting arena across

from the government palace in Mexico City.110 The viceroys of Mexico and the elite

seem to have actively promoted toreadas, bullfights, along with corridas de toros, bull

runs. Horsemen were vital to the spectacle of such events. Thus, from the early colonial

period until the late nineteenth century equestrian competition was linked to the spectacle

Spanish bull fighting. Alvarez del Villar and Sanchez Hernandez would agree that

bullfighting was, "intimately linked to charreria."111 In modern charreria, the events of

the bull toss, coleada, similar to bull dogging and bull riding, jineteada de toros, shared

with American rodeo, may be remnants of the charro's past association as a bullfighter.

Although charro bullfighters disappeared in the twentieth century the affinity for bulls

remains. Alvarez del Villar romantically wrote,

loy Stoeltje, "From Custom to Ritual," 247.

110 Jose Alvarez del Villar, Historia de la Charreria, (Mexico City: Londres, 1941), 231.

111 Alvarez del Villar, Historia de la Charreria, 250.

42

All of us who have roamed on dusty provincial roads, those who are attracted to town fairs and ranch fiestas, know that every horserider with a wide-brimmed sombrero, when the times comes, will untie the serape from his saddle and feel at ease before any bull, who could be more or less angry, and may try to gore him with his sharp defenses.112

Linati also noted the affinity for bullfights among Mexican urbanites in the early

nineteenth century. However, Linati believed that Mexicans were averse to the gore of

that particular spectacle, preferring cockfights, another predilection of the charro

archetype. However, cost is a more likely explanation for favoring cockfights over

bullfights; a working charro could easily obtain and compete with a champion rooster but

did not have the same access, logistics or money to raise, train and fight a bull.

The first charro performers to attain national popularity were bullfighters. In the

1880s Ponciano Diaz, a mounted bullfighter, a charro-toreador, used a lance to kill his

prey. Mexican mounted bullfighting was common during the colonial period and Diaz

appears to have briefly brought it back into style.114 Many charros of the colonial era

were able, "bullfighters and vaqueros."115 The first professional performers were

presumed to come from the lowest social classes, thus they were often mestizo with

mixed Indian, black or European heritage.116 Diaz is significant because of the popularity

he attained and the international interest he created for charro performance. Diaz's dress






43

was a combination of toreador fashion and charro attire. He wore a bullfighter's jacket

while wearing the riding pants and sombrero of the charro. Sometime in the 1880s he

I I S

"Staged the first public charro exhibition in Mexico City." In 1884, he traveled to

New Orleans and gave a demonstration of his skills at the International Fair.119 This may

have been the first professional performance of the charro toreador abroad. However,

real renown would come five years later when he traveled to Madrid, demonstrating to

the mother country the excellence of Mexican bullfighting and equestrian skills.120 In

essence, the Mexican variant of the Salamanca charro had returned to perform before a

Spanish audience.

Tours with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show were significant because they were the

first to introduce professional charro performance to a receptive American audience,

beginning in 1882 and continuing until the First World War. Stoeltje believes that, "As

the modern ranch subsumed the frontier displacing the frontier cowboy, the Wild West

Show and related theatrical entertainments offered new opportunities to the cowboy,

ranging from exhibition to competition to melodrama."121 The Wild West Show

employed equestrian traditions from other countries, therefore, charros and gauchos

found themselves in the same show as cowboys, Cossacks and Native Americans.



Dean, Rodriguez, Trick and Fancy Roping, 9. Octavio Chavez, La Charreria: Tradicion Mexicana, (Mexico City: Instituto

Mexiquense de Cultura, 1991), 60.

121 Stoeltje, "From Custom to Ritual," 249.

44

Additionally, President Porfirio Diaz recognized the potential of professional charro

performance as propaganda, especially in encouraging tourism and attracting foreign

capital investment. In 1894, twelve Rurales began performing with the Wild West Show.

Vanderwood believes that they were a "special troop reserved for show," such as parades,

banquets and patriotic functions.122 A tour through the United States with Vicente

Oropeza, a renowned performer of the stylized roping tricks known asjloreos, preceded

presentations throughout Europe in 1900. Eventually, cowboys performed in Mexico

City in 1905 and gauchos did the same in 1910. Throughout the first decade of the

twentieth century, charros also performed in Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina and

Canada.124 Mullen-Sands believes, "Their performances brought the skills and events of

the charro into cities throughout Mexico and laid the foundation for the formalization of

performance into regular charreada after the revolution."125

Throughout the urban re-imagination of the charro archetype, charros became

potent symbols of Mexican identity in an evolving nationalism. The late nineteenth and

early twentieth century was a prolific period for the invention of civic traditions,

symbols, and heroes by modern states. The government of Porfirio Diaz ably fostered the

image of the Rurales as charro patriots through propaganda. However, movements and

social groups also invented traditions that were eventually formalized, regulated and





45

institutionalized. During the Porfiriato, social groups, such as the reading elite and urban

proletarians, contributed to the creation of the charro hero through formal literature and

performance. Additionally, mass spectacles such as parades, civic ceremonies, or

sporting events helped assimilate the viewing public to the social and political norms of

the elite.126 In the post-Revolutionary period, the creation of holidays, commemorations

and parades by the Mexican state added heroes, pageantry and monuments of the national

pantheon of patriots. The official Revolutionary narrative included the creation of

Zapata's legacy through sculptural monuments, murals, official histories and cinematic

epics.127 The charro archetype was central to the post-Revolutionary nation building

termed, forjando patria. The regulation of the sport of charreria, professionalization of

mariachi music, and the cinematic interpretations in the 20s, 30s and 40s were an

extension of an evolving icon, an invented creation of reshaped rural traditions.

126 Eric Hobsbawm, The Invention of Tradition, (Cambridge: University Press, 1983), 298.

127 Thomas Benjamin, The Revolution: Mexico's Great Revolution as Memory, Myth, and History, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000).

46

CHAPTER 4

IMAGINED CHARROS

The Mexican Revolution of 1911-1919 disrupted the Porfirian social order, and a

very different society emerged from the conflict. Although the imagined form of the

charro enjoyed popularity in literature, military pageantry and the professional

performances of the Porfirian era, it had existed alongside the historical form of the

laborer and the insurgent. In the post Revolutionary period, which began in 1919 and

lasted until the end of the Miguel Aleman presidency in 1952, only the imagined and

performed aspects of the charro seem to have survived. The charro laborer disappeared

from view, existing mainly in isolated rural pockets.128 The threat of the charro insurgent

was dissuaded through cooption by the state, primarily in the form of government support

of charro performance, patriotic pageantry and cinema. The expression of charro culture

in the post-Revolutionary period occurred mainly within an urban context. For example,

professional mariachi 's, ambulating folk orchestras that originated in west central

Mexico, began congregating in urban areas and adopted the charro suit as a uniform. In


47

addition, cinema rearticulated the literary form of the charro and presented a nostalgic

vision of rural Mexico that bolstered the legitimacy of the post-Revolutionary

government by allaying the class tensions caused by the new urban-industrial social

order.

It was Francisco Madero's call for democratic elections that unleashed the beasts

of the Revolution and toppled the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz. The conflict took nine

years to resolve, killing and displacing millions. The Mexican Revolution was one of the

most significant theaters of combat in the twentieth century. Ancient and new strategies

were applied which coupled cavalry tactics with rail transport and pitted horsemen

against aviators. Although equestrians played a vital role in the Revolution, "The day of

cavalry skirmishes was ending."129 Charros, such as Emiliano Zapata, proved vital to the

leadership of various factions. While Emperor Maximillians execution ushered in the era

of performance and pageantry, the assassination of Emiliano Zapata grimly marks the

decline of the charro laborer and military insurgent. The death of Zapata coincided with

the formation of the first charro association in Jalisco. In the coming decades, regional

charro associations became vital to the formalization of performed charreria. Therefore,

Zapata's assassination at Chinameca marks the beginning of the era of the purely

imagined charro, expressed through equestrian performance, mariachi song, state

pageantry and cinematic imagery in the post-Revolutionary period. During these years

the hacienda system was dismantled, marking the end of the charro laborer.130 Modern


Sanchez Hernandez, La Charreria en Mexico, 93.

48

warfare also changed signaling the end of the mounted insurgent. The imagined form of

the charro, the equestrian performer, the mariachi and the cinema hero, became popular

symbols propagated throughout Mexican popular culture.

Recreational Sportsmen

The relative stability of the nineteen twenties allowed an urban rebirth of another

variation of performance, recreational sport.131 In the post-Revolutionary period,

industrial production reemerged in the urban centers and this, in turn, attracted rural

migrants to the cities.132 Many of the displaced were former rural artisans who made

saddles, bred horses or had skills in some other form of equestrian crafts during the

Porfirian era. Urban elites put artisans back to work, slowly reviving equestrian crafts,

which had declined during the Revolution.133 During this period, there was a general

trend towards nation building and a growing concern for the preservation of Mexican

culture and arts.134 Urban elites organized attempts to preserve and promote, lo mexicano

through charro associations. The association members gathered to practice the rural

labors known as suertes charms, charro maneuvers. Ballesteros and most charro


132 Jose Valero Silva, El Libro de la Charreria, (Mexico: Graficas Montealban, 1987), 144.




49

historians agree that urban elite associations were instrumental to the recovery of charro

culture in the cities and the formation of the sport of charreria.

The Charro Association of Jalisco organized in 1919 was the precursor to the

National Association formed in Mexico City in 1921. Octavio Chavez relates the spark

that led to the creation of the Asociacion Nacional de Charros, National Association of

Charros, the first permanent charro association. Enrique Mungia was a charro excluded

from festivities at a racetrack, affronted, Mungia convened the elite charros of Mexico

City in order to organize an association and build a lienzo. The National Association

sought to establish regional associations across the country, recover charro crafts, and

standardize the various suits. Conserving the classic look of the charro suit was a major

focus of the National Associations regulatory efforts.138 Although Guadalajara, with its

proximity to the historic rangeland of Los Altos, had hosted the first association, the

primacy of Mexico City was certain. In 1923, the first regional associations established

by the mandate of the National Association were in Guadalajara, Puebla, San Juan del

Rio, and Queretaro. Chavez wrote that the National Association, "Cooperated and lent

moral support to the formation of new charro associations in the different states. ,140


137 Octavio Chavez, La Charreria, 52.


139 Valero Silva, El Libro de la Charreria, 145.

140 Octavio Chavez, La Charreria, 52.

50

The creation of a Federacion Nacional de Charros, National Federation of

Charros, which acted as an umbrella organization for the various regional associations,

occurred in 1933. In this second phase of organization, the need to regulate and

standardize performances as athletic events was the main goal that led to the creation of

the Federation. The Federation was part of a larger project that attempted to organize a

Confederation of Mexican Sports.141 Therefore, the events known as suertes charras

became standardized, regulated in their rules, and scoring. Nonetheless, Mullen-Sands

warned, "The definition of charreria only as a sport is misleading and reductive."142 The

blending of athleticism and pageantry is central to the sport of charreria and serves to

distinguish it from other popular sports in Mexico.

The pageantry established in the twenties remained a major aspect of the urban

elite's reinterpretation of charreria in the thirties, and continues to the present. The

demarcation of social class through distinctive costumes and sporting rituals is central to

modern nation building.143 The Mexican president, Abelardo L. Rodriguez, officially

declared charreria the national sport in 1933. However, throughout the thirties there

appeared to be conflicts within the leadership of the Federation concerning the assertion

of pageantry over athleticism. Alvarez del Villar claimed that in the election of 1934,

functionaries came to power within the board of directors that were, "removed from rural

labors and had never felt a good rope in their hands or enjoyed the dangers of our



143 Hobsbawm, The Invention of Tradition, 287.

51

beautiful sport." The statement reveals how some, like Alvarez del Villar, believed

that athleticism should be the focus of performance, not pageantry.145 Although

pageantry remained a major aspect of charreria, athleticism also prevailed. Additionally,

the invention of charreria as an athletic performance stimulated the publication of

manuals and histories throughout the thirties and forties. Without the work of charro-

intellectuals who historicized the development of rural labor practices, charreria

scholarship would not exist in its present form.

The second issue for the Federation concerned the cultural threat posed by the

expansion of charreria abroad, specifically in the American Southwest. Aspects of

vaquero/chinaco culture existed in the American Southwest. This is especially true in

California and Texas during the Spanish colonial period. However, the post-

Revolutionary influx of new immigrants revived equestrian arts and eventually facilitated

the establishment of associations across the border. The Federation intended to regulate

associations on both sides of the border through the recognition and incorporation of

organizations formed in the American southwest.146 The establishment of charro

associations in the United States began in the Southwest in the nineteen fifties and

sixties.147 The San Antonio Charro Association was the first foreign association

Alvarez del Villar, Historia de la Charreria, 386.


Octavio Chavez, La Charreria, 55.


52

recognized by the Federation in 1947. The Los Angeles Charro Association did not

attain recognition until 1962.149 Although the Federation tried to regulate international

associations, it ultimately supported their expansion. There are differences in style,

practice, and symbolism across the border that remains as points of contention between

the United States and Mexico. Today Mexican charreria associations have spread as far

north as Canada and crossed the Atlantic reaching back to Spain.150

The Mexican government's manifested its support of charreria in several ways.

Foremost among them was the declaration as a national sport, support in the building of

lienzos and incorporation into the pageantry of the post-Revolutionary state. Although

Palomar believes that rural charros form Jalisco maintained a symbolic autonomy, which

had the potential to resist the authority of the new government, they were a politically

powerful group, and they were armed.151 Government support of charreria partially

served to contain the charros autonomous nature in the confines of the lienzo space and

hypothetically placated their rebelliousness through regulation as a sport.152 The

government fundamentally co-opted the charros perceived threat to the post-

Revolutionary state. The symbolic designation of the charro as Mexico's reserve

military, and as the only armed section of the civilian populace, served to mediate

14 Abernathy, Charreada: Mexican Rodeo in Texas, 4.

149 Flores C , "El Charro, " en U.'S.A, (Glendora: Associated Publications, 1984) 18.

150 Valero Silva, El Libro de la Charreria, 156.



53

tensions over charro performer's right to bear arms. Mullen-Sands observed, "No matter

that charros have not ridden in defense of Mexican freedom in nearly seventy years; they

are icons of patriotism and potential defenders of Mexican nationhood."153 In addition,

the spectacle of performed charreria was linked to public displays of nationalism with the

semblance of military pageantry.154 Charro presentations at parades and patriotic

celebrations became part of the larger project offorjandopatria, forming a nation, in

essence legitimating the state through the appropriation of charro imagery, performance

and pageantry, in much the same manner that Porfirio Diaz had done with the Rurales.

Mullen-Sands perceptively noted,

This pivotal point in the development of charreria marks a reimagining of the equestrian history of Mexico and the creation of a fictional culture based in real events and rural practices but elevated to a level of cultural iconography in which the charro became a symbol of the emerging nationhood through performance of a time-honored tradition in the public arena.155

The comparison of the sport of charreria to American rodeo revolves around

differences in style and movement. Most charro scholars would agree that while the

main emphasis of American rodeo is speed and power, in Mexican charreria precision

and economy of movement are the preferred standards. Time limitations added to

charreria events are loose restrictions measured in minutes while rodeo remains strictly

measured in seconds.156 There are also differences in a cowboy and a charro's rope




156 Valero Silva, El Libro de la Charreria, 149. 54

length and preferred tying methods. Cowboys use short cotton ropes that require the

"hard and fast," tying method. On the other hand, charros use long rawhide ropes that

allow more leverage, thus they use the dallie welt, dor le vuelta, tying method.157

Cowboy rope tricks emphasize the element of speed but Nacho Rodriguez, a renowned

charro performer and an expert at floreo rope tricks, noted,

Speed is not a desirable quality because it denotes lack of skill and no command of the art. There are cowboys who present their effects with the help of speed, working the data with such quick movements that it continues rotating under the inertia of the previous move, but in charro roping that ruins the display.158

Mullen-Sands also notes that rodeo's emphasis on speed and strength reflect American

characteristics which value, "efficiency, practicality, endurance, and power," while

Mexican charreada is valued according to, "elegance, colorful embellishment, baroque

richness, and mastery."15 It is interesting to note that cinema also carries this distinction.

American representations of charros in films and television are generally more dynamic

in their movement, jumping, running, or shooting up plazas with rocket launchers and

grenades while Mexican cinema charros tend to sit stiffly on their horses.

Significant differences also exist regarding class and gender in the practice of

American and Mexican charreria. While: charreria is an elite sport in Mexico, in the

Lawrence Clayton, Jim Hoy, and Jerald Underwood, Vaqueros, Cowboys, and Buckaroos, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001), xvii.

Dean, Rodriguez, Trick and Fancy Roping, 55.


55

United States it is practiced by the middle classes. The egalitarian nature of American

charreria has had profound effects on gender performances and pageantry. Currently,

female performers in charreria participate in escaramuza riding teams that execute

synchronized "skirmishes," in a designed pattern. However, the escaramuza was an

American innovation, first observed in Texas in the nineteen fifties. Officially

recognized by the Federation in 1989, escaramuzas remained excluded from scoring in

tournaments. Before gaining official recognition, escaramuzas usually exhibited their

skills towards the end of the performance as an unofficial event.161 The escaramuza

event remains a secondary and lesser addition to charro performance and is a significant

point of contention in charreria.

Although women who participate in charreria tend to dress in the historic

costumes of combatants who fought alongside male insurgents, they enact traditional

gender roles. For example, women ride in sidesaddle form, which draws attention to

their grace and aesthetic appeal. The charra suit, a feminized version of the charro suit,

first appeared in 1937 but did not become the preferred costume of equestrian

performance. Although some women perform in charra suits, the long skirts are

restrictive and impractical for charreria. The adelita ranchera costumes used by the

escaramuzas are better suited for riding. Female performers maintain supportive roles to

the males, most notably as the object of male attention; perceived as available women,



Valero Silva, El Libro de la Charreria, 153.

56

virginal daughters, dutiful wives or supportive mothers. Thus, Mullen-Sands notes that

women embody oppositional meaning in charreria that encompass, "an aristocratic

tradition of femininity and gentility even in circumstances that require bravery, physical

agility, and independent action."

Professional Mariachi

The advent of radio broadcasting in the nineteen twenties popularized regional

folk music across Mexico. Mariachi music was at the forefront of attempts to forge a

new post-Revolutionary national identity that was rooted in rural culture. Elites,

intellectuals and the government alike tried to promote a mestizo identity that embraced

both European and indigenous cultural forms.164 Thus, rural mariachi music, believed to

be a fusion of mestizo and European musical instruments, was reinterpreted and

presented to an urban audience. While rural migrants from central Mexico originally

brought mariachi music to Mexico City in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century,

the Revolution disrupted the development of professional mariachi ensembles.165 The

pageantry adopted by professional mariachi led to the creation of the charro cantor, or

singing charro. It was in Mexico City's Plaza de Garibaldi that transplanted mariachi

musicians, such as El Mariachi Tapatio de Jose Marmolejo, began competing for work in


164 Salvador Siguenza Orozco, "Del Mariachi y la China Poblana como Identidad Nacional en el Siglo XX a lo Diverso y Heterogeneo en el Siglo XXI," Desacatos, No.9 (2002), 180.

165 Daniel Edward Sheehy, Mariachi Music in America: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture, (New York, Oxford University Press, 2006), 17.

57

the local restaurants and for airtime on radio stations, XEW, XEB and XEQ. While the

mariachi sound broadcasted across Mexico the image of professional mariachis dressed

in uniform charro suits was projected onto a national stage and eventually exported

abroad, but not without criticism by charro equestrians.

Prior to their professionalization, mariachi's dressed in dissimilar styles

associated with their regional identity, laboring class, and unprofessional status. Some

dressed in huarache sandals, others carried machetes while some wore guayabera shirts.

When Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan, one of Mexico's oldest and most revered

professional mariachi's, was contracted to perform in Tijuana in 1932 they were

uniformed in a common peasant garb of coarse manta cloth tied with a red sash around

the waist. Recognizing that, "The public responded better to formally dressed, more

professional looking groups," mariachis began dressing in charro uniforms.168 The

mariachi did not adopt the traje defaena worn by the vaquero ranch hands, instead they

chose the traje de etiqueta, reserved for formal occasions. The notion that mariachi

music was descended from French culture was, and continues to be, a common belief.

Beginning in the 1930s a debate began to take shape among mariachi scholars

centered on the origins of the word "mariachi." Rather than being related to the French

Dolores Roldan, "El Mariachi Coculense" in Jesus Jaregui, Los Mariachis de Mi Tierra. . . Noticias, Cuentos, Testimoniosy Conjeturas: 1925-1994 (Mexico: Direction General de Culturas Populares, 1999) 287.

Nicolas Torres Vazquez, "Mis Recuerdos del Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan (1926-1939)," in Jaregui, Los Mariachis de Mi Tierra, 383.

Jeff Nevin, Virtuoso Mariachi, (Lanham, University Press of America, 2002), 9.

58

word for marriage, scholars and commentators began claiming that the word derived

from the indigenous Coca language once spoken in Jalisco.169 However, while the debate

appeared focused on linguistics, its true nature revolved around ethnicity. Was mariachi

indigenous or European? The mestizo national identity promoted by the elites attempted

to bridge the divide between indigenous and European, but it also sought to celebrate a

fictive folk culture. Therefore, the folksongs of the countryside such as the corrido,

became a central component of the mariachi's repertoire. Although not exclusively a

male genre, the Revolutionary corridos tend to allude to, "caudillos, presidents, generals,

heroes and traitors," often in the form of fictional charros such as Juan Charrasqueado or

GabinoBarrera.170

The popularization of mariachi music through radio also influenced its

development facilitating the adaptation of various regional styles and forms. Mariachi

acted as a sponge incorporating huapango, polkas, paso doble, sonjarocho and vals

among others into its repertoire, additionally binding regional cultures to the nationalist

project broadcasted from the urban centers.171 Central to the popularity of mariachi

music was Lucha Reyes, the cancion ranchera singer crowned La Reina de Los

Mariachis, The Queen of Mariachi. Reyes often sang dress as a charra or as a china

poblana and premiered the vocal repertoire that is still considered part of the mariachi

Jose Ignacio Davila Garibi, "Los Famosos Mariachis de Cocula. El Vocablo 'Mariachi'," in Jaregui, Los Mariachis de Mi Tierra, 141.

7 Alvaro Custodio, El Corrido Popular Mexicano: Su Historia, sus Temas, sus Interpretes, (Madrid: Mateu Cromo S.A., 1975), 46.

Nevin, Virtuoso Mariachi, 15-16.

59

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Highlight

standards. Reyes and other mariachi singers who followed in her footsteps were not

without their critics.172 For example, Paredes believed that the corrido began to decline

in the thirties when comedias rancheras, ranch comedies featuring singing charros,

became a cinematic form. He believed that the songs crooned by charro cinema stars

were merely "pseudo-corridos."

Cinema Charro

Fernando de Fuente's Alia en el Rancho Grande, Over at the Big Ranch, was

released in 1936. It was the first comedia rancher a and model for all those produces

throughout the late thirties, forties and fifties. The comedia ranchera featured pastoral

countryside's, pretty girls, handsome charros, pistols, horses, haciendas, cantinas, tequila,

mariachis and a sizeable dose of virile machismo. Alia en el Rancho Grande marked the

beginning of the golden era in Mexican cinema during which profitability increased,

production was streamlined, a star system was initiated and distribution was

regularized.174 The post-Revolutionary government, institutionalized in the Party of the

National Revolution (PNR) in 1929, also subsidized the film industry thereby

guaranteeing its success. Charros, who had once labored on the haciendas, battled

against foreign invaders, and policed the countryside, now rode to the aide of the film

industry but as stuntmen and background extras. Their employment in background roles

Garcia Orozco, "Cucurrucucu Palomas: The Estilo Bravio of Lucha Reyes and the Creation of Feminist Consciousness Via the Cancion Ranchera." (Proquest 2005) 24.


174 Rogelio Agrasanchez Jr., Cine Mexicano: Posters from the Golden Age, 1936-1956, (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2001), 14.

60

created the notion that validated the formation of a cinematic national image. With the

help of the government, and the entertainment industry, the image of charros remained at

the forefront of the national stage.

The state vigorously sought to legitimate its authority during the nationalist phase

beginning with the institutionalization of the post-Revolutionary government in 1929

17S

through the end of Miguel Aleman's presidency in 1952. Cinema, the comedia

rancher a, and the charro, were instrumental in the government's attempts to diffuse class

tension in a society that was increasingly urban and rapidly industrializing. Anne T.

Doremus noted that these films were visions of a nostalgic rural ideal which, Reassured their audiences that many of their traditions and values would remain, and taught them which ones these were. They further constructed new codes of behavior that would be crucial in providing a sense of collective identity and ties, in stemming the social decay that can result from rapid modernization, and in facilitating economic growth.

These values included respect for authority, the family, church, and a patriarchal

society. The cinema charro conveyed the romanticized traditional order of the colonial

hacienda. The state recognized the nationalist potential of cinema and began subsidizing

the industry with the advent of sound in the thirties. It established the Banco

Cinematografico, Cinematic Bank, in 1942 to fund film production; formed a state run

production and distribution company, and exempted the industry from paying income

Anne T. Doremus, Culture, Politics, and National Identity in Mexican Literature and Film 1929-1952 (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2001), 1.

176 Doremus, Culture, Politics, and National Identity, 6-7.

| nn

Doremus, Culture, Politics, and National Identity, 14.

61

tax.178 Additionally, throughout the Second World War the United States provided

Mexico, its ally, raw film stock, money, equipment and technical advice.179

However, the cinema charro also stood as a defense against American culture.

The charro archetype in Mexican films counteracted negative Hollywood representations

of Mexicans. Thus, the charros historic resistance towards foreignness became essential

to the cinematic construction of post-Revolutionary identity. Despite Hollywood's

support in the forties, the Mexican film industry did not always enjoy an easy relationship

with American film producers. The advent of sound technology in the late twenties

threatened native film industries throughout Latin America. These markets had been

saturated by silent-era Hollywood productions and many believed that English talkies

posed the threat of American cultural domination.180 Thus, the Mexican government took

measures to restrict the distribution of American features throughout the thirties.

Although Hollywood made Spanish-language remakes for these markets, they were not

always well received.181 Nonetheless, the public seemed to enjoy American productions

and lamented their absence. When Mexican film workers went on strike seeking

protectionism, movie houses and theaters were shut down in Mexico City. The public

Agrasanchez Jr., Cine Mexicano, 18.

179 Agrasanchez Jr., Cine Mexicano, 16-18.

Carl J. Mora, Mexican Cinema: Reflections of a Society, 1896-2004 (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2005), 29.

1 O 1

Mora, Mexican Cinema, 31.

62

was not necessarily enthusiastic about low quality native productions either. Mexican

cinema seemed on the verge of collapse, threatened by foreign features and deterioration

from within until the comedia ranchera saved the industry. Alia en el Rancho Grande

was actually the first feature widely exported throughout Latin America and subtitled for

an English-speaking audience. The singing charro archetype bolstered the Mexican

film industry and reversed the single-sided incursion of American film productions.

American representations of the cinematic charro were not solely negative. It is

very possible that the first silent shorts that featured the charro archetype were not

Mexican. The Revolution delayed the development of the Mexican film industry.

Therefore, the first cinematic interpretation of the charro archetype may have been

foreign. A French company produced the first cinematic adaptation of O. Henry's Cisco

1 R4

Kid short story, The Caballeros Way, in 1914. A twelve episode Mexican serial from

1917 titled, El Charro Negro, The Black Charro, remained unreleased.185 The loss of

films, shorts, serials and other documents complicates the early cinematic history.

However, the first "ranchero melodrama," was the 1921 Mexican production titled En la

Hacienda, On the Hacienda, which must have undoubtedly depicted charros, as must

182 Cristina Martin, Cronicas Tapatias del Cine Mexicano, (Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1999), 26-27.

183 E. G. B. "Review: Rancho Grande," The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 23 No.8 (Blackwell Publishing, 1939), 637.

Francis M. Nevins, Gary D. Keller, The Cisco Kid: American Hero, Hispanic Roots, (Tempe: Bilingual Press, 2008), 29.

185 David E. Wilt, The Mexican Film Bulletin, www.wam.umd.edu/~dwilt/mex news.html (Sept. 2008).

63

http://www.wam.umd.edu/~dwilt/mex

have Los Plateados, The Silver Thieves, from the previous year.186 Nonetheless, the first

American western featuring sound was the Oscar-winning, 1929 production, In Old

Arizona. In this talkie, Warren Baxter reprised the role of the Cisco Kid charro character

in what eventually became a lucrative series of Hollywood productions. The first

Mexican sound production featuring charros, which has now been lost, was Arcady

Boytler's, Mono a Mono, Hand to Hand, from 1932.188 Therefore, by the time Alia en el

Rancho Grande saved the Mexican film industry, the cinematic charro archetype had

been well established for over two decades.

Tito Guizar was the actor who first interpreted the singing charro in Alia en el

Rancho Grande but Jorge Negrete was the first singing charro superstar. After a string of

relatively obscure films, the first of which he starred as a chinaco, and a lackluster career

as an opera singer, Negrete emulated Lucha Reyes success and embrace the cancion

ranchera to achieve fame. His performance in the 1941 hit, }Ay Jalisco No Te Rajesl,

Hey, Jalisco Don't Back Down!, propelled him to superstardom. Ironically, Lucha

Reyes, who also appeared in the film, premiered the theme song on live radio but saw her

life's work, her recordings, turned into a vehicle for Negrete's success. Previous

interpretations of the singing charro, like Guizar's, had been saintly and wholesome

characters.189 Negrete's performance as El Ametralladora, The Machine Gunner, which

186 Martin, Cronicas Tapatias, 21-22.

187 Nevins, Keller, The Cisco Kid, 33.

188 Gustavo Motiel Pages, "El Charro en el Cine," Artes de Mexico, No.200 (1960), 59.

Enrique Serna, Jorge el Bueno, (Mexico: Editorial Clio, 1993), 47. 64

referenced his characters quickness and fatal accuracy with a pistol, added an element of

darkness to the cinematic charro.

I Ay Jalisco No Te Raj'esf is a tale of calculated vengeance and romance. Negrete

and director Joselito Rodriguez redefined the cinematic charro archetype, which was

more believable with tragic flaws and violent tendencies. The Machine Gunner was the

prototype reproduced throughout charro films of the "Golden Age."190 Although

Negrete, a son of middle class urbanites, reluctantly agreed to interpret what he believed

were staid rural dramas his name eventually became synonymous with the charro cantor,

singing charro.191 Later singer/actors like Pedro Infante, Antonio Aguilar and Vicente

Fernandez aspired to replicate Negrete's fame as a charro cantor through the

interpretation of Lucha Reyes musical repertoire. Recent modern interpretations of the

cinematic charro harkens back to the formula established in /Ay Jalisco No Te Rajes!

The main character in Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi (1993) does not ride a horse or

wear a sombrero but he conveys the same violent tendencies and romantic characteristics

first established fifty years earlier.

The comedia ranchera temporarily sounded the death knell for experimentation in

Mexican cinema. Although early Mexican cinema was generally underdeveloped, it

was also independent and much bolder in its treatment of risque topics. The urban

comedies of Cantinflas and TinTan appear to be the only other option available to cinema

190 Gustavo Garcia, Rafael Avifia, Epoca de Oro del Cine Mexicano, (Mexico: Editorial Clio, 1993), 14-15.

191 Serna, Jorge el Bueno, 47.

192 Garcia, Avifia, Epoca de Oro, 14.

65

audiences during Mexico's "Golden Age." With government funding, the unionization

of film workers and the support of Hollywood the cinema charro became an "institution."

193 However, the industry was stagnated by formulaic movie scripts. New talent was

shut out and competition quashed.194 Much of the public initially rejected the

oversaturation of charro films.195 A skeptical Mexican audience preferred the wider

selection and availability of Hollywood productions.196

The lack of quality cinematic productions allowed some to criticize the Mexican

movie industry. Abel Quezada, the cartoonist, began his Charro Matias serial in the mid

fifties. Charro Matias was a lazy, cowardly, and inept charro who constantly tried to find

employment in feature films but was repeatedly rejected because he was too ugly.

Quezada referenced the public's annoyance with a, "Charrito bonitopero banqueter o,"

pretty but useless little charro . The tragic deaths of Jorge Negrete in 1953 and Pedro

Infante in 1957 foreshadowed the decline of the comedia rancher a and coincidentally

signaled the end of Mexico's cinematic "Golden Age." Although the cinematic charro

archetype would be recycled in low-quality films during the 1960s, the image of the

charro cantor would never again be as pervasive or receive a warm public reception.

The industries insistence on using lousy singers combined with the recycling of clips

193 Serna, Jorge el Bueno, 41.

194 Agrasanchez Jr., Cine Mexicano, 20.

195 Garcia, Avifia, Epoca de Oro, 15.

Martin, Cronicas Tapatias, 27.

197 Abel Quezada, El Charro Matias: Los Mejores Cartones, (Mexico City: Editorial Planeta Mexicana, 1999) 17.

66

from earlier movies led to a backlash that exists to some degree today. While the

American western and the cowboy have remained as popular cinematic forms few

attempts have been made to recover the charro of the Mexican cinematic tradition.

The sport of charreria, professional mariachi and the cinematic interpretations are

performances that refer to the charros historic roots as laborers, hacienda elites and

insurgents but they are also imaginary constructs far removed from colonial and early

nineteenth century realities. Since the early twentieth century, there has been tension

over which performance conveys the most genuine form of the charro. Although it is a

sport invented by urban elites, charreria practitioners generally believe that they embody

the true form of the charro laborer. In their view, cinematic interpretations have done a

disservice to the legacy of the charro. Most charro manuals and histories type the

cinematic charro as cursory and negative. Descriptions such as these are common,

Mexican cinema is 'charro' in the crudest pejorative meaning of the term. In it come together, without remedy, the unnecessary ruggedness of the bitterest folk culture, the inevitable foolishness of drunken sobbing, and the irremediable explosion of a false abduction of machismo.198

Similarly, cinematic histories of the charro have ignored the contemporaneous

development of performed charreria. Tensions between charreria enthusiasts and

appreciators of cinema have therefore seeped into the scholarship of both forms.

Scholars have been complicit in a petty fight between performers. In the last half of the

twentieth century some cinema actors and mariachi singers such Irma Dorantes, Antonio

Aguilar, Flor Silvestre and Vicente Fernandez, mediated this divide by practicing or

featuring charreria as a way to legitimate their performances. The latter four were

198 Motiel Pages, "El Charro en el Cine," 59.

67

accomplished equestrians and musicians who respected the integrity of both art forms

they embrace, charreria and mariachi music. Unlike Jorge Negrete who collected cars or

Pedro Infante who rode motorcycles and piloted airplanes, the modern charro cantor

must master equestrian skills.

Scholars must not continue to privilege the equestrian discursive that has

marginalized cinematic representations. New scholarship must analyze the charro

archetype from multiple perspectives, referencing all aspects of their evolution from their

emergence as laborers to the rise of the imagined and performed. Although the hacienda

laborer and insurgent no longer roam the landscape modern interpretations of the charro

archetype, which were firmly established in the twentieth century, remain rooted in an

idealized colonial culture. The cultural analysis of the charro archetype spans the course

of Mexican history. From the contemporary present to the colonial period, Mexican

culture, both popular and folk, requires more study by academics. Cultural scholars must

also revisit past texts, translate their content, and address the omissions of previous

studies. These omissions include issues of race, class and gender in the history of the

popular charro.

The study of the popular charro is'a subject that is broad and varied in scope. The

necessary omissions in this thesis were difficult to negotiate. The academic weakness of

many previous studies included a poor understanding of the charros Spanish origins.

Therefore, a comparative study of the Salamanca charro must be included in future

research. Beside the Argentine Gaucho and the North American cowboy, other

equestrian traditions of the Americas, like the Llaneros of Venezuela and Colombia or

the legendary Paniolos of Hawaii, should be expanded. Additional research must also 68

contain a better analysis of the historic role of the charro insurgent in Mexico's armed

conflicts, which should include the erasure of the chinacos Afro-mestizo identity. A

study of the charros material culture, from the reata and pistol to the various suits, can

reveal conflict with, and borrowing from indigenous, Spanish and American culture.

Similarly, a broader analysis of the charro suit should include a review of the artisans

who made them. The focus on fashion should include the study of charro suits tucked

away in museums and private collections. Where actual suits may be missing,

photographic evidence may facilitate analysis.

The review of literature and films in this thesis was limited to a handful of major

works. Additional research on charro novels and films would lead to a better

understanding of the development of the imagined charro archetype. This exploration

should be focused on the typical forms of the genre and their deviant elements.

Limitations of length also required the omission of significant portions of the last half-

century. One of the most significant aspects of Mexican culture in the 1950s is the rise of

the concept of "Machismo," and its association with the charro archetype. Therefore, an

analysis of the concepts of gender in Mexican culture during the second half of the

twentieth century is important and related to the performance of female equestrians and

singing charras. Lastly, while it is possible to explore the history of the charro through

the evolving fashion of the charro suit, an analysis of the charro depicted in artworks,

such as sculpture and painting, is also necessary. Although a few charro-painters were

referenced in this thesis, no actual artwork was mentioned. The evolution of the

imagined charro archetype is represented throughout colonial and contemporary art

69

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forms. Although charreria enthusiasts have contributed significant texts, collections, and

artworks more academic scholars must attempt to recover the charro's cultural history.

70

BIBLIOGRAPHY

71

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Moreno, Gary - From the Hacienda to Hollywood. a Cultural History of the Charro

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