Mythologizing the Past While Discriminating in the Present

Title

Mythologizing the Past While Discriminating in the Present

Description

Ironically, in the 1920s and 1930s, at a time when Mexicans were being pushed to the economic and geographic periphery of San José, Anglo city boosters promoted a parade, Fiesta de las Rosas, celebrating the region’s so-called Spanish (European) or “civilized” history. The event started as The Rose Carnival in 1896 and became the Fiesta de las Rosas in 1926 and lasted until 1933.

In this instance, as historian Stephen Pitti notes, Anglo citizens connected their shared European white heritage with an imaginary Spanish-European California, an explicitly non-Mexican past. A few of the region’s remaining Californios were considered worthy of celebration, such as Santa Clara’s Encarnación Pinedo. Historian/journalist Carey McWilliams observed that the Anglo population considered these particular Californios to be the living embodiment of the “Spanish fantasy heritage.”

During the 1910s and 1920s, fiesta parades took place throughout California and were wildly popular, particularly in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara; some continue on today. Celebrations and theatrical performances using the themes of California’s mythical past were held throughout California in plays like “The Mission,'' by John S. McGroarty.

Santa Clara County hosted its first performance of “The Mission'' in 1915 at Santa Clara University. As PItti states, concerns over racial miscegenation and inter-racial romance were followed by two Fiesta plays that celebrated European White (Spanish or English) conquest over Mestizos and Indians, “La Rosa del Rancho, a Love Story of Early San José” (1927) and “The Madonna of Monterey” (1930). Anglos and ethnic whites played all the Spanish roles. For the audience, these celebrations affirmed the dominance of white European culture over the darker skinned Mexican “peons,” who were securely marginalized.

Additional Online Information

Fiesta de las Rosas Collection — Calisphere

“Fiesta De Las Rosas”

Fiesta De Las Rosas Parade - 1929

Identifier

B4SV Exhibit Topic Four: Slide 011