In recent years literary and cultural critics have begun to explore and open up new frontiers, particularly in the areas of what have previously been considered marginal literatures. This has included attempts to recuperate documents which have been ignored or simply considered non-literary, such as oral testimonies, diaries, and travel narratives. The results of this type of research and writing are illustrated by two 1993 collections of essays treating Chicano Literature: Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage, edited by Genaro Padilla and Ramón Gutiérrez, and Reconstructing Chicano/a Literary Heritage: Hispanic Colonial Literature of the Southwest, edited by María Herrera-Sobek. These essays retrieve and study colonial and modern-era documents in order to redefine the social and cultural boundaries of U.S.-Hispanic literary history. Traditional studies done on the earliest periods of Chicano literary history have emphasized folkloric and oral expressions, such as the legend of the Llorona (the weeping woman) and the corrido (ballad) of Gregorio Cortez. However, a recent study on Mexican-American autobiography, My History, Not Yours: The Formation of Mexican American Autobiography (1993) by Genaro Padilla, demonstrates the importance of examining previously neglected cultural materials.

My History, Not Yours is the only major literary study to analyze nineteenth and early twentieth-century Chicano autobiography. Padilla primarily focuses on two areas: 1) examining extensive materials from the collection of written and oral histories of Californios that Hubert Bancroft collected for his project on the history of California; and 2) studying New Mexican Mexican-American autobiography which he reveals as the view of a colonized, yet resistant community. His study, then, examines an important body of literature not analyzed by other scholars whose work concentrated on literary works written from the 1960's to the present.

My study focuses on two Californio autobiographies, Vida y aventuras de California de Don Agustín Janssens (The Life and Adventures in California of Don Agustín Janssens, 1834-1856 and Boyhood Days: Ygnacio Villegas' Reminiscences of California in the 1850s which have not been the subject of any literary study. The first text was written in Spanish, but is only available in its English translation. On the other hand, the second work was written in English, but was not published until 1983. The first text is a historical and personal account edited by Thomas Savage, an assistant of noted businessman and history buff Hubert H. Bancroft. It is based on Janssens' oral testimony as well as his unpublished autobiography entitled Libro de lo que me ha pasado en mi vida[Book of What Has Happened in My Life]. The second work is a collection of autobiographical sketches written by Ignacio Pedro Villegas in 1895 but unpublished until 1927 when they appeared in the Salinas Daily Journal and the Hollister Free Lance. Villegas, raised on a ranch in northern California, was an avid reader with diversified interests, such as law and the study of environment. He attended Santa Clara College and later became a telegraph operator and train station agent in the Salinas Valley. After his retirement he served as a Notary Public and Justice of the Peace. Life and Adventures in California and Boyhood Days reconstruct the conditions of Californio culture in order to show how their social status was quickly transformed from the center to the periphery.

In 1834 Janssens joined an expedition known as the Compañía Cosmpolita [Cosmopolitan Company], led by José María Padrés, in order to establish a colony in California. The northern frontier was perceived as a backwater and peripheral province to the rest of Mexico. Janssens states, "el pueblo creía que íbamos como desterrados a un desierto pues en aquel tiempo hablar en México de California era como decir el fin del mundo" [The people believed that we were going into exile because during those days to speak about California in Mexico was to say that it was the end of the world] (14). On the other hand, one of the organizers, José María Hijar, identified it as "la verdadera Tierra de Promisión" [The true promised land] (20). To describe California as "the promised land" in this period was a leap of the imagination. Yet others agreed: Villegas describes California in Boyhood Days as edenic territory: "Game of all kinds could be killed in the pine woods back of town, and the swamps swarmed with ducks and water fowl, so eating was an easy matter" (15).

This typing of California as a marvelous possession also provided for a utopian ideology used to solve Mexico’s economic, political and social problems. The colonization movement north was seized upon as a way to bring wealth and stability: for instance, the Compañía Cosmopolita [Cosmopolitan Company] was sponsored by the Mexican government which, in return, expected financial and material recompense. Individuals had similar expectations. For Janssens, the trip to California was successful since his knowledge of distilleries enabled him to utilize the mission system as a labor force to establish himself as a wine entrepreneur. Thus, the Mexican frontier from California to Texas become a geographic and political utopia as well as a solution to the internal social problems of Mexico.

These Californio autobiographies describe almost as characters in a fictional narrative the historical and influential people of California as well its more unusual citizens, such as vaqueros, bandits, social dissenters, elegant and beautiful ladies, and religious and political figures. These characters simultaneously create interest in the story and provide the reader with a social and cultural reconstruction of the period and place.

One of the most popular religious figures to appear in these and other Californio autobiographies is Friar José María Zalvidea. He is presented as a saintly man but he is also stated to have unusual powers such as supernatural capacities. Janssens says:

Muchas cosas se le atribuían que eran incomprensibles...y de ser ciertas, deberíamos considerarle poseído del don de doble vista... me inclinaba a creer que muchas de esas cosas fueran exageradas o nunca pasaron--pero esto no quita que el padre Zalvidea haya sido una gran figura en la escena histórica de California. (31)

[Many inconceivable things were attributed to him...if they were true, we would credit him of possessing the give of a dual vision...I was inclined to believe that many of these things were exaggerated or never occurred--but this does not reflect in the fact that Father Zalvidea was a great figure in the history of California.]

These observations reveal Janssens's ambivalence. Although he recognizes the friar's importance, he distances himself from the popular beliefs and magical powers attributed to the man. Janssens' depiction of Zalvidea as an ambivalent figure is important since Bancroft cites it word for word in his own historical work California Pastoral: 1769-1849 (1888) so that he can portray Zalvidea as a psychologically unstable individual. Bancroft's California Pastoral as well as his History of California (1884-1889) became the authoritative histories for this period and narratives such as Janssens' and Villegas' were displaced. Thus, historical narratives as well as travel guides which represented the dominant point of view acquired a new authority. The reinterpretation of Father Zalvidea illustrates the shift in economic, political and cultural control in the Southwest from the Mexican to the United States government. It also shows how the new dominant ideology uses Chicano heritage and cultural imagery, but through a negative portrayal which still holds today.

The representation of unique or atypical persons who acquired fame due to distinctive behavior is another narrative device utilized by Californio autobiographers. Janssens identifies Don Carlos Castro, an eccentric Californio from San Juan Bautista who is portrayed as an amusing but dubious individual. Castro's actions oscillate between confrontation and hospitality, characteristics which typify the political and social status of California in its relationship to Mexico and the United States. Janssens recounts:

Comenzó Castro a insultarnos; lo primero que nos dijo fue que veníamos huídos; contesté que no, y en prueba de mi acierto presenté mi pasaporte... Después dijo que el General [José Castro] no era mejor que nosotros...traté de sobrellevar con calura lo que nos hacía el viejo Castro aunque estábamos cansados de sus insultos que eran inaguantables, pues hasta cholos nos llamó. (46)

[Castro began to insult us; the first thing he said to us was that we were running away; I told him that it was not true, and to prove it, I showed him my passport...Then he said that the General [José Castro] was not better than we were....I tried to calmly bear his actions, although we were annoyed by his insults which there were intolerable. He even called us Cholos.]

Castro's observations mark the political and social differences between Californios and Mexicans. As Janssens implies, cholo is a pejorative word and he uses it to describe Manuel Milcheltorena's troops: "A esa tropa de Californios le habían puesto el epiteto de cholos. En verdad que esos soldados eran algo rateros, pero nunca tomaron cosas de valor" [The Cholo epithet was used to name that California troop. It is true that those soldiers were sort of robbers, but they never took valuable things] (177-78). This serio-comic encounter between Don Carlos Castro and Don Agustín Janssens is an example of two opposing views which clearly mark a center and the periphery, the dominant and the marginal.

Villegas chose to portray a different type of marginalized figure in Boyhood Days: the bandit Joaquín Murrieta. Murrieta has been the subject of many historical and literary works, including two by Pablo Neruda. Villegas expresses great admiration for Murrieta and believes him to be the victim of racial and judicial injustice. He describes him as a "quiet, affable fellow, well-liked by everybody" and that "everything went well until his wife was outraged by some Americans and no attention was paid to the act as she was only a Mexican" (43-44). Villegas identifies xenophobia as the principal cause of the robber bandit's rebellious acts. Of course, given my previous conclusions I prefer to say that they were the heroic deeds of a freedom fighter. As the migration to California increased, Mexicans became the victims of an anti-foreign sentiment, especially when Spanish was spoken. Villegas recounts:

The anti-foreign agitation that started just as soon as foreigners came to the mines had much to do with men like Murrieta. The feeling at the mines was very bitter against anyone coming from south of the Rio Grande or, in other words, who spoke Spanish. They were run out of most of the mining camps, mistreated and oftentimes killed by self-appointed vigilance committees who took it upon themselves to see that no foreigner worked. Under these conditions many Mexicans became desperate and stole and killed to get money and food. (44)

The economic and social frustrations of the North American frontiersman, hungry for his own marvelous possessions, caused the emergence of social dissenters such as Murrieta, Tiburcio Vásquez and Gregorio Cortés. Villegas' own memories of Murrieta dramatize the conflicts rooted in racial, political and economic tensions which had important social and historical ramifications.

This inclusion of outlaws in a personal narrative accompanies a similar transformation in the representation of California. As the social and political order is inverted by new cultural values, the vision of California as a Garden of Eden goes through a transformation to become a world-up-side down. Villegas' description of the Las Aromas Rancho illustrates this:

In the hills southwest of Aromas, which are thickly wooded, were many human skeletons and corpses with dismembered limbs, thighs, legs, arms, and heads detached from the bodies, many partly gnawed over by the wild animals. It was a veritable charnel house and a ghastly sight to view the corpses in the secluded spots--especially when one had known some of them and realized that the killing was a thirst for blood. (19)

This depiction discloses the memory of an edenic site and a nostalgic narrative voice that Chicano autobiographers often employ in their works. Renato Rosaldo has noted in Culture and Truth that this is a recurring theme in Chicano literature, present from Américo Paredes to Ernesto Galarza to Sandra Cisneros.

These autobiographical works are important because they document the intellectual reformation and cultural deformation of Californios which anticipates similar cultural transformations that have occurred in Chicano culture. Villegas is a precursor of Richard Rodríguez. He provides early testimony of the change in the dominant language from Spanish to English. Although fluent in both and familiar with their literary traditions, he preferred to read literature written in English. Villegas states: "I was always hungry for reading matter and was thankful that I had learned English along with Spanish, because one seldom ever saw a publication of any kind in Spanish that was worthwhile" (67).

Villegas was also aware of the social prejudices inherent in the English language. He preferred to read British newspapers, procurable in Monterey, and English classics. While taking a trip, he declares: "I spent all my time lying or sitting reading Defoe's narrative of Robinson Crusoe, which an American had loaned me in San Jose. I was so absorbed in this wonderful production that I forgot hunger, thirst and the slow walk of the oxen" (25). His fondness for English authors is subsequently revealed: "I enjoyed the solitude and had a chance to read Robinson Crusoe for the fifth time and Pilgrim's Progress several times" (34). Villegas had obtained his copy of The Pilgrim's Progress from a scientist who exchanged it for a bird with a broken wing.

I asked him if he had books. He stated that he had left several at Monterey with Thomas Larkin, the American consul, and I could have Pilgrim's Progress. I turned heaven and earth until my father took a trip to Monterey and obtained the wonderful book. (34-35)

Villegas' appreciation for these and other books is heightened by the difficulty of obtaining reading material in the frontier. He states:

I was by nature hungry for reading, but had no chance to get books. I used to hover around the caravans as they camped by father's store to see if they had anything to read, but none ever had any. The space on their pack animals was too valuable to carry books. (35-36)

In conclusion, these Californio autobiographies are cultural tools that must be recovered and examined by scholars who wish to reconstruct the history of Chicanos and their literature. As Genaro Padilla has noted in his article, "The Recovery of Chicano Nineteenth-Century Autobiography," these narratives are "enunciations by individuals whose voices have not been merely forgotten, but, like the people themselves, suppressed" (294). Just like the notes of an ethnographer which are never integrated into the text, the voices of the Californios became mere echoing references and footnotes in Hubert H. Bancroft's works. This is especially evident in his History of California and Pastoral California, books which present romanticized and racist views of Native Americans, Mexicans, and Californios. Janssens' and Villegas' works portray distinctive social classes and geopolitical spaces which actively contributed in a positive manner to the borderlands of identity in the Nineteenth Century. Life and Adventures in California of Don Agustín Janssens depicts the social order of an Southern Californio aristocrat who participated in the Mexican and American political government. Boyhood Days: Ygnacio Villegas' Reminiscences of California in the 1850s portrays the daily life of Northern California and shows the social and cultural transition of California from Mexican to Anglo-American and Mexican-American cultures. Janssens and Villegas serve as writers, observers and narrators of the political, socio-cultural and historical transformations of this period. It is my belief that the recuperation and analysis of these autobiographies is essential since they represent the diverse literary history and formation of Chicano cultural expression and identity. These writings represent a resistance to a monocultural, dominant society which is defined exclusively by Anglo economic, political and cultural interests. Moreover, these two Californio autobiographies and others like them, provide a necessary background for understanding cultural issues inherent in the existence of our multi-cultural society.