Memories of a Hyphenated Man

Abstract

Ramón Eduardo Ruiz Urueta, a Mexicanist historian, writes in his memoir of how the “hyphenated man is an alienated man: peace of mind is a mirage because his peculiar cultural perspective is out of step with sundry patriots, and, yes, historians” (p. 221). If Ruiz’s position as an American of Mexican ancestry precluded a certain kind of peace of mind, nevertheless it proved a source of personal strength and informed his scholarship in a positive way. This theme recurs throughout his autobiography, even shaping his story: that of a Mexican American raised near San Diego, coming of age there in the 1930s, participating in WWII as a young man, already deciding to study, teach, and write history. As he reflected in the epilogue, “Sitting astride two horses that pull in opposite directions . . . has made me a better scholar. . . . Filling in gaps and cracks in the histories of peripheral countries . . . requires minds free of Western taboos and, most important, language proficiency else the opportunity is denied” (p. 220). Memories of a Hyphenated Man thus presents the personal story of one of the first Mexican Americans to become a professional historian specializing in Mexican and Latin American history. It does so by ably linking personal impressions with the larger historical context, whether that of San Diego’s Mexican American communities before 1941, Army Air Force bases located in the Southwest and on Guam during that war, graduate student life at Berkeley in the late 1940s and early 1950s, teaching at Smith, or finally the challenges and tensions arising from promoting affirmative action at UCSD, where Ruiz chaired the history department from 1971 to 1976. In this story, the author’s Mexican background structures both his identity and experiences, in a country and at a time when prejudicial attitudes against Mexican Americans have been extensive.Ruiz narrates poignantly the incidents of discrimination that he experienced, such as in high school, or when the navy and marines rejected his applications to enlist for officer training; or his experience of isolation resulting from being Mexican in an alien environment (such as when he passed through Los Angeles soon after the “zoot suit riots” of June 1943). It is the experiential basis for his advocacy of affirmative action and sense of solidarity with Chicanos (although he has “never thought of [himself] as a Chicano,” p. 200). It also undergirds his belief in the need for self-determining action: “We of Mexican ancestry must stand up for ourselves; if we want the gates of the academy opened for students of our flesh and blood, we must do it ourselves” (p. 214). One might disagree with his support of affirmative action or find the language he uses to discuss it too blunt; yet Ruiz’s account enables the reader to understand why he concluded, “In the absence of anything better, affirmative action was a good idea” (p. 215).Perhaps because Ruiz is writing a personal memoir (one presumably not intended just for the specialist), he describes only briefly his own major works of scholarship. He mentions some of the motivations of his writing projects: Triumphs and Tragedy is a book about Ruiz’s “padres, their forefathers, and the ancestors before them,” “passionately written” and inspired in part by Justo Sierra (p. 212); however, the thesis of The Great Rebellion—that the Mexican civil wars of 1911–20 amounted not to a social revolution but to a “truncated rebellion of the bourgeoisie” (p. 211)—is barely discussed in one paragraph. In view of the author’s attempt to write histories of Mexico “with the eye of an insider” (as he describes his approach in relation to undertaking Triumphs and Tragedies, p. 212), a lengthier discussion of the studies mentioned (addressing in greater detail how the perspective drawn from a Mexican background influenced his interpretations) could have been especially interesting. Nevertheless, if the historian might prefer further analyses of such works, Memories of a Hyphenated Man will not disappoint the reader interested in the testimonial of a determined Mexican American historian and his (historically) informed commentary about contemporary America since the 1930s, one written (despite some use of trite phrases) in a simple and effective style.