Biographical Notes

1. Revisiting Themes of Gender, Race and Education inPost-Revolutionary Mexico through Gabriela Mistral’s Lecturas para mujeres

2. Biographical Notes • Gabriela Mistral (literary pseudonym of Lucila Godoy Alcayaga) was the first Spanish American author to receive the Nobel Prize for literature. She was a poet, schoolteacher, journalist and diplomat. • Mistral was born on April 7, 1889 in Vicuña, Chile. She grew up in the Elqui Valley, a deeply cut, narrow farming land in the Chilean Andes Mountains, four hundred miles north of Santiago, the capital. Mistral wrote in Recados: "El Valle de Elqui: una tajeadura heroica en la masa montañosa, pero tan breve, que aquello no es sino un torrente con dos orillas verdes. Y esto, tan pequeño, puede llegar a amarse como lo perfecto" (Elqui Valley: a heroic slash in the mass of mountains, but so brief, that it is nothing but a rush of water with two green banks. And this little place can be loved as perfection).

3. She was raised by her mother and by an older sister, who was her first teacher. Her father, a primary-school teacher and a dilettante poet, abandoned his family when Lucila was a three-year old girl. Critic Santiago Daydí-Tolson, pointed out that from her father “she obtained, the love of poetry and the nomadic spirit of the perpetual traveler. [On the other hand] her mother was a central force in Mistral's sentimental attachment to family and homeland and a strong influence on her desire to succeed.” For almost two decades (1903-1922) Mistral worked as a teacher and administrator across her country. In the meantime, she was actively pursuing a literary career, writing poetry and prose, and keeping in contact with other Latin American writers and intellectuals. In 1914, she won the first prize for "Los sonetos de la muerte" (The Sonnets of Death) in a prestigious poetic contest organized by the city of Santiago. In 1922 Mistral traveled to Mexico, invited by José Vasconcelos, writer and secretary of public education in the government of Alvaro Obregón. This is the beginning of her life of traveling and of many changes of residence in foreign countries. Biographical Notes

4. Biographical Notes • Mistral served as secretary of the Latin American section in the League of Nations in Paris. • She was the Chilean consul in Naples, Madrid, and Lisbon. • She published five books of poetry: Desolación (1922), Ternura (1924), Tala (1938), Lagar (1954) and Poema de Chile (1967). She also collaborated for important Latin American and Spanish newspapers and taught in several American universities. • In 1945 she received the Nobel Prize “for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world.” • She died on January 10, 1957, in Hempstead, NY, USA.

5. Gabriela Mistral in Mexico (1922-1924) • Mistral was invited by the post-Revolutionary Mexican government to participate in the planning and reorganization of rural education, a significant effort in a nation that had recently experienced a decisive social revolution and was now building up its new institutions. • She traveled across the country, speaking with schoolteachers, peasants and women, discovering regions, customs, and culture in a profound and personal way. This knowledge gave her a new perspective on Latin America and its Indian roots. It also reinforced her commitment to the mistreated in society (especially children, women, and indigenous people). • Commissioned by Mexican educators to facilitate women’s schooling, Mistral edited Lecturas para mujeres (Readings for Women), an anthology of poetry and prose selections from classic and contemporary writers--including nineteen of her own texts. It was published in 1924 as a textbook to be used at the Escuela Hogar "Gabriela Mistral" (Home School "Gabriela Mistral"), named after her in recognition of her contribution to Mexican educational reform.

6. Mistral’s Pedagogical Ideas • In the Introduction of Lecturas para mujeres, Mistral expresses her ideas about teaching by describing her criteria for the selection of the works. For her, this kind of textbook should include readings with: a) a moral intention (as without it teachers can only form rhetoricians and amateurs); b) beauty of the language (as merely privileging utilitarianism and pragmatism carries the risk of sacrificing the quality of the readings); c) amenity (to stimulate imagination and pleasure for study among students). • In her Introduction she also denounces the exploitation of teachers under the pragmatic and lucrative policies of administrators: “No podemos aceptar esa especie de ‘jefe de faenas’ o de ‘capataz de hacienda’ en que algunos quieren convertir al conductor de los espíritus” (XIX) • Mistral’s pedagogical ideas are based on the importance hands-on, direct experience has in the learning process of children and youths (there are some correspondences with the pedagogical approach of María Montessori, Gustave Decroly and John Dewey).

7. Gender and Politics Strategies in LPM • In her book, Mistral dedicates an entire section to the “Hogar” theme, in which motherhood and domestic space are highlighted. Her goal of “elevar lo doméstico a dominio” implies her desire to elevate aesthetically and politically women’s role in society. • For Mistral, mothers are historical subjects with social responsibilities. As critic Elizabeth Horan points out: “Looking beyond the apparently ‘safe’ idea of maternity as the beginning and end of women's existence, Mistral engages in a revolutionary rejection of the fortress-like boundaries of class, urban or rural origin, and marital status. Mistral's ideal of the feminine pushes aside these distinctions in order to proclaim the greater importance of the social responsibilities of women, which she calls ‘maternity’ to make it seem acceptable, but which reaches far beyond producing offspring.” (451) • In Lecturas para mujeres Mistral’s notions of motherhood and nation are related. She approaches the foundational discourses of major intellectuals from the nineteenth and twentieth century, such as Sarmiento and Vasconcelos, and re-appropriates them to further her own ideas of a more equalitarian education, irrespective of gender, race and social class. From her position as a foreigner, woman, and schoolteacher, Mistral approaches these discourses of nation-building and utilizes them to instruct Latin American women.

8. Gender and Politics Strategies in LPM • The difference between the educational program of Sarmiento (and to some extent of Vasconcelos) and Mistral’s ideas of education resides in the fact that, for her, the search for social integration is not motivated by the modernizing impulse of an intellectual elite that sees the masses as a threat and obstacle to the development of the country. On the contrary, she looks to the cultural integration of diverse sectors of the nation without the imposition of an hierarchical order. • If for Vasconcelos the new “Mexicanness” is based on the fusion of the European and Indian, in his educational campaign European culture predominated over the other, as it pursued the acculturation of the natives. • On the other hand, in Mistral’s poetry and prose the ordinary and simple of everyday existence becomes extraordinary so that the frontiers between subject and object fall away. This allows Mistral to articulate another space where she can rescue voices and events that have been marginalized from history.

9. “Las jícaras de Uruapán” • The hand-made decorated “jícara” (a cup or bowl made from the fruit of a calabash tree) inspired Mistral to write this poetic prose included in LPM. • This text praises the primitive beauty of the autochthonous art of Uruapán, Michoacán, that evokes for Mistral nature and culture of the indigenous people. • But she also sees points of encounter with literature and Western culture: “Sin saberlo, el artista indio sigue en su pobre jícara la norma espiritual que siguen algunos artistas de la palabra en sus creaciones. Fondo negro de betún tienen las figuras escarlatas del Dante en el Infierno; fondo negro también las siluetas en rojo de Dostoiewski” (82).

10. “Las jícaras de Uruapán” • Mistral also highlights that since this artistic work does not require physical strength, it has been traditionally a women’s work. • By praising the marginal figure of the Indian woman as mother and creator of an ancestral and unique art, she contrasts it with the mechanical reproduction of modern art. • But precisely for its aesthetic simplicity and powerful imagination, Mistral also discovers similarities with the avant-garde: “Hace años, cuando el dibujo era todavía una cosa pedante por el exceso presuntuoso de exactitud debieron parecer descuidadas estas figuras ingenuas. Pero el concepto del dibujo ha cambiado, ha vuelto al primitivismo inocente y dichoso, y la decoración del indio resulta ahora una labor perfecta” (83).

11. “Las jícaras de Uruapán” • In harmony with the artistic tendencies of her time, Mistral gives her prose a particular approach where the theme of motherhood as a nurturing and creative force allows her to move beyond racial, sexual and cultural boundaries. • Overall Lecturas para mujeres, as the title says, is an anthology for women. Her author wishes to create a sense of community across national frontiers as she addresses Latin American women as her “familia espiritual” (XV).

12. Conclusion • In her book Lecturas para mujeres, Mistral appropriates the foundational discourses created by male intellectuals and tailors it to the specific purpose of instructing women. • Motherhood and domestic space are highlighted both aesthetically and politically in her writing. Although they continue to symbolize traditional values, however, these notions are also specifically deployed to educate and empower the new model female citizen in Mexico as well as in the rest of Latin America. • From a marginal position as a Chilean schoolteacher and intellectual, Mistral intervenes subtlety in the post-Revolutionary nationalistic discourse by unveiling unresolved topics such as the political and cultural participation of women and indigenous people. • The conciliatory spirit of Mistral’s writings trascends social divisions to reflect her Latin Americanist thought, inspired by Simón Bolívar’s dream of Latin American unity.

13. Bibliography • Concha, Jaime. Gabriela Mistral. Madrid: Júcar, 1987. • Daydí-Tolson, Santiago. “Biography. Gabriela Mistral 1889-1957.” The Poetry Foundation. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gabriela-mistral • Fiol-Matta, Licia. A Queer Mother for the Nation. The State and Gabriela Mistral. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2002. • Horan, Elizabeth. “Matrilineage, Matrilanguage: Gabriela Mistral’s Intimate Audience of Women”. Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos 14.3 (1990): 447-457. • Mistral, Gabriela. Lecturas para mujeres. México: Porrúa, 1967. • ___. Recados: Contando a Chile. Selección, prólogo y notas de Alfonso M. Escudero. Santiago de Chile: Del Pacífico, 1957. • Peña, Karen. Poetry and the Realm of the Public Intellectual. The alternative destinies of Gabriela Mistral, Cecília Meireles and Rosario Castellanos. London: Legenda, 2007. • Pizarro, Ana. Gabriela Mistral. El proyecto de Lucila. Santiago de Chile: Lom, 2005. • Valenzuela Fuenzalida, Álvaro M. Elqui y México, Patrias Pedagógicas de Gabriela Mistral. Valparaíso: Ediciones Universitarias de Valparaíso, 2009.