Hispanos are the descendants of the Spanish/Mexican families that settled the northernmost province of New Spain and are today indigenous to New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Arizona. La Provincia de Nuevo Mexico became part of Mexico in 1821, when the latter gained its independence from Spain, then became part of the United States in 1848, when the northern half of Mexico was taken over at the conclusion of the American-Mexican War. The earliest Spanish settlement in the region, Ciudad de Nuestro Padre San Francisco, was established by Juan de Oñate y Salazar in 1598, near the confluence of...

This book is a study of epistemology, which I define as what people know in their daily lives. Becker and Laing are used as starting points for a general depiction of Hispano thought, which includes the study of how language develops an understanding of the world of everyday life. Language usage is the vehicle for understanding how people name events, interactions, attitudes, and values. Understanding how words are used to construct the edifice of everyday life is best accomplished by using concepts from phenomenology.

Phenomenology allows one to study the elements of everyday life as phenomena. In order for us...

Language is the major means by which people express their everyday needs or explicate significant thoughts and feelings about the world of social relations. Naturally no study of Hispanos would be complete without considering their oral tradition. Although this chapter covers components of a phenomenological or ethnomethodological stance, strictly speaking some of the material here does not rise to either a phenomenological or ethnomethodological study. The oral tradition of Hispanos is about the use of language and creating meaning, and in this respect the oral tradition contributes significantly.

In one sense this knowledge has the characteristic of processed knowledge or...

Yo tengo mortificaciones; tu tienes mortificaciones; todos tenemos mortificaciones!We all have minor and major troubles that beset us. This chapter discusses a single concept,mortificación,but the method of examination can be used to clarify other terms relating to people’s well-being. What is taken up in these pages is the intentionality of consciousness of the emotion calledmortificación,the experience of being mortified. The consciousness of mortification is experienced in the consciousness of body and in social interaction, what the phenomenologists call intersubjectivity. What is presented in these pages is not new, since it is well known in the...

In 1922, John Dewey wrote, “These two facts, that moral judgment and moral responsibility are the work wrought in us by the social environment, signify that all morality is social; not because weoughtto take into account the effect of our acts upon the welfare of others, but because of facts. Othersdotake into account what we do and they respond accordingly to our acts” (Dewey 1922, 316).

Dewey, in declaring that morality is social, points to a fundamental element: accountability for our social behavior. He made a strong argument that culture defines the social behavior of its...

La mancornadorais a theme in Mexican music that depicts a heavy existential experience between men and women. The songs are filled with graphic and painful metaphors. The outcome is often tragic and violent, and often involves the killing of women. The termmancornarrepresents power and control, and the animal horn is its symbol. It is a difficult subject to broach, but its presence in a number of songs and in social life suggests certain commonalities that are worth exploring. It is important to locate these themes within a broader frame, which includes ideas from Norman Denzin, Ernest Becker,...

Hispano life in prison is poorly documented. This is due in part to lack of access and in part to the fact that men in prison as brothers, husbands, or sweethearts are often forgotten by society. The work reported in this chapter is partly drawn from a study conducted many years ago in a southwestern state. Other material was collected at a correctional facility in another state. I refer to these institutions as CF I and CF II. For purposes of continued confidentiality I do not identify the facilities further and I have given the men fictitious names in this...

In this chapter, I continue to explore the question of what constitutes a convict, aveterano,as defined by a group of Chicanos in a maximum-security prison in the Southwest. This chapter shows, more than anything, some of the tensions that arise in the prison. How do men deal with the tensions that build up between them? The larger question is, How doveteranosexercise leadership in a prison? To take a leadership role is to take a position that pits one against the guards and prison security. Other questions include: How do men do time? And how do they...

This chapter takes the worddesmadreas used in everyday life and subjects it to a descriptive analysis. To conduct a phenomenological analysis is to bracket what we think we know about an experience. More important, it is to “study . . . the structures that govern the instances of particular manifestations of the essence of that phenomenon. Phenomenology is the systematic attempt to uncover and describe the structures, the internal meaning structures of lived experience” (van Manen 1990, 10). In a book on the argot of the California prisons, Patricia Gutiérrez (n.d.) calleddesmadre“disorder.” This chapter is concerned...

Hispanos in northern New Mexico commemorate the death of a loved one with a written narrative referred to as a recuerdo (a remembrance). These narratives (or ballads) share many characteristics of the corrido and its forerunner, the Spanish romance. The romance, a popular form of epic poetry, and the corrido depict events in the lives of heroic, historical, and common folk. Both reflect historical events, describe injustices, depict social values, and present moral teachings elicited from catastrophic social events, for example, a tragic murder, a sentence of death, or imprisonment for a heinous act. An important and fundamental aspect of...

Joseph Campbell raises an interesting question about the differing views of death in planting cultures, on the one hand, and hunting and forest cultures, on the other. Planting cultures turn to the plant as a metaphor for understanding death. The self-regenerative powers of the plant mean that its nature can be characterized as “continuing inbeingness.” Pruning is helpful to a plant because it stimulates new growth. Out of the rot in a forest comes new life. Cut a branch from a tree, and new suckers appear in profusion. They are the “bright new little children who are part of the...

The Tinieblas, from the Latintenebrae,is the last ceremony before Easter Sunday conducted by theLa Cofradía de Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno(also known asLos Hermanos Penitentes) [the Penitent Brotherhood]).* Tinieblas is conducted on Holy Thursday or on Good Friday and always after sunset in darkenedmoradas(lay chapels) in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.† The termtinieblas(darkness and death) provides a contrast between light and darkness, sin and death, perdition and eternal life. This contrast can be subsumed underel ciclo de vida y muerte(the cycle of life and death) in New Mexico (Medina...

The apocalypse is considered the end in all perspectives of racial or cosmic immortality; at the apocalypse the entire world faces the judgment of eternity. In this final reflection, I present the themes of despair and transcendence as another facet of theciclo de vida y muerte. I expand the dualistic metaphor ofel ciclo de vida y muertebut recognize that there is a need to reintroduce the idea of resurrection as a trifocal view. I also look at the question of an Hispano eschatology. “Eschatology” refers to the “the last things,” for example, heaven, hell, and redemption. In...

There are several goals in this chapter. One goal is to cover some of the main findings by linking them back to some basic ideas from phenomenology. Another goal is to connect some of what has been uncovered in the previous chapters to the work of others. In the latter part of the chapter some consideration is given to applications in mental health. For example, it is noted that bracketing from phenomenological philosophy finds applications in mental health work, particularly in the study of empathy. Specifically we note that empathy is used by Husserl to understand the consciousness of another...