Brave Old Spaniards and Indolent Mexicans: J. Ross Browne, Harper's New Monthly Magazine, and the Social Construction of Off-Whiteness in the 1860s

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine J. Ross Browne's construction of racial identity in the territories acquired by the United States after its war with Mexico in 1846–1848. The intent is to reveal the interaction between a journalist's social identity and his construction of the social reality of race relations by examining the most widely circulated works, personal trajectory, surrounding cultural influences, and private correspondence by Browne, one of the earliest Anglo journalists to chronicle American development of the Mexican Borderlands based on firsthand experience. The research method was cultural contrapuntal reading, which employs a combination of Marion Marzolf's content assessment and Edward Said's contrapuntal reading. Browne cast Spanish California elites as bringers of European progress and helpers to the Anglo American government and business leaders, Mexican peons as a cheap labor force for mining interests, and Spanish ladies and mixed-race temptresses as objects of desire.