Speaking for Themselves

Abstract

Engaging the gendered elements of Californio ranchero culture, this article shows how Californio liberalism influenced sociocultural determinations of respectable womanhood and propriety in early nineteenth-century Los Angeles. By examining the testimonios and court cases of elite and nonelite women engaged in or accused of transgressive gender behavior, the author centers the lives and experiences of women within Californio ranchero culture to argue that despite patriarchal regulation, elite Californio women, or rancheras, used their racialized class privilege to define a hegemonic ranchera femininity while simultaneously influencing, reinforcing, and circumventing Californio discourses of gendered respectability and proper womanhood. The article shows how these discourses and sociocultural systems—such as the court, community, and family—together determined whether a woman stood within the boundaries of gender propriety as a “good woman” or outside them as a “bad woman.” It shows the interrelatedness of the gendered dynamics of nation building at a localized level, specifically through women’s experiences, and illustrates women’s integral role as complex and consequential participants in the discursive contouring of hegemonic womanhood.