User:Zac.israel/Jovita González

Jovita González was a well respected Mexican-American folklorist that focused on retelling stories about the "violence between the Mexican American minority and the dominant Anglos." Due to her being raised in Texas, she experienced a disconnect between Mexican-Americans and the Anglos. As a result, she made sure that she promoted Mexican-American culture and tried to ease the tensions between each group.

Background and upbringing
Jovita González was born near the Texas-Mexico borderland in Roma, Texas on January 18, 1904 to Jacob González Rodríguez and Severina Guerra Barrera. She was born into an unordinary family. Her father's side was filled with hardworking educated Mexicans: "My father, Jacob González Rodríguez, a native of Cadereyta, Nuevo León, came from a family of educators and artisans." On the other hand, her mother's family were descendants of the Spanish colonizers: "Both my maternal grandparents came from a long line of colonizers who had come with Escandón to El Nuevo Santander." Jovita was the fourth out of her parents' seven children. While she was just a child, her parents decided to move the family from Roma to San-Antonio so they could receive a better education.

Education
After finishing high school, she enrolled in the University of Texas but she returned home after her freshman year because she did not have the funds to pay for her education. As a result, she spent a couple of years teaching as "a Head Teacher of a two-teacher school." Soon after, she would enroll in Our Lady of the Lake. While she was there, she met J. Frank Dobie, the man that encouraged her to rewrite Mexican folktales and would later publish them in his anthology Pure Mexicano. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts and teaching for a couple of years, she was awarded a scholarship to fund her education to get her Master's Degree.

The Bullet-Swallower
In the 1936, she retold the famous folktale The Bullet-Swallower. The tale is about a fearless Mexican man who "left his upper-class environment to face the harshness of the west." By retelling this tale in english with a few Spanish words, González gave english speaking readers the opportunity to understand the Mexican culture as well as see the uniqueness in the narrator of the tale. It was published in Pure Mexicano, J. Frank Dobie's anthology.

Social Life in Cameron, Starr, and Zapata Counties
She titled her thesis for her Master's degree Social Life in Cameron, Starr, and Zapata Counties. The main focus of her thesis was to bridge the gap between the Anglos and the Texas-Mexicans. In the summer of 1929, Gonzaléz spent her time traveling through "the remotest regions of Webb, Zapata, and Starr Counties." While she was doing her research, she interviewed Anglos and Texas-Mexicans of all classes so she could see how they viewed each other. Her thesis Master, Dr. Eugene C Barker, did not want to approve of her work at first. He claimed that it did not have enough historical references and was "an interesting but somewhat odd piece of work." Dr. Carlos E. Castañeda, a friend of Gonzaléz's, thought that it would be used as source material in the future.

Texas Folklore Society
With the help of J. Frank Dobie, the Texas Folklore Society turned to "the collection of the folklore of the dispossessed with special attention to the folk traditions of Mexicans in Texas." Through Jovita Gonzaléz's relationship with Dobie, he was able to edit her manuscripts, have deep discussions about Mexican Folkore with her, and promote her "organizational participation in the Texas Folklore Society so that she eventually became its president." She was elected as vice president in 1928 and as president in both 1930 and 1931. Since the society consisted mainly of white male Texans, it was a big deal that Gonzaléz, a Mexican-American woman, was president. Her first of many contributions to the society was to Texas and Southwestern Lore, "a collection of popular folklore from Texas and the Southwest, including ballads, cowboy songs, Native American myths, superstitions and other miscellaneous folk tales." She added tales and songs "of the masculine world of the vaqueros." She would continue to regularly contribute to the Publications of the Texas Folklore Society and present her research at the annual meetings. She had a huge impact on the society and was seen as expert on the culture of Mexican-Americans of the southwest.

Among My People
"Among my People" was another one of Gonzaléz's contributions to the Texas Folklore Society. The tale was published in J. Frank Dobie's collection Tone the Bell Easy. She divided the tale up into 3 sections where in each, she talks about a Mexican man and religion. In the first section, "Juan, El Loco" (translated in English to "Juan, The Crazy" ), Gonzaléz discusses the mystery of an old ranchero that has witches visit him. The "Don Jose Maria" section is about an affluent man in Río Grande valley that threatens to commit suicide whenever one of his daughters gets married. In "Don Tomas," the last section of the tale, she tells a story of how a ranchero is in search for a pastor after his daughter-in-law used witchcraft to ruin his entire family. The text shows how religion and in particular, witchcraft is viewed in the Mexican culture.