Feminine-Voiced Balladry of New Mexico: Genealogy, Poetics, and Recovery of La Indita de Juliana Ortega, La Finada de Paula Angel, and El Corrido de la Votación

Abstract

“Feminine-Voiced Balladry of New Mexico: Genealogy, Poetics, and Recovery of La indita de Juliana Ortega, La finada de Paula Ángel, and El corrido de la votación,” is the first study which analyzes the poetics of three primary sources of feminine-voiced balladry of New Mexico from 1851-1920. I study both the poetics and the female protagonists in each ballad which detail the fight for women’s suffrage, body politics, and the moral economy of Mexican-American women known as nuevomexicanas. I utilize the folkloric record as the primary vehicle for understanding both the struggles women faced and the context in which they faced them. I show how nuevomexicanas navigated a liminal space in the U.S. Southwest Borderlands—an interstitial space of convergent cultures, norms, language and worldviews. Results reveal how important expressive cultural devices such as oral balladry were for borderlands communities to express their laments, to mobilize with other women of color, and to express social injustices. This project responds to the urgent need to recover Mexican-American women’s voices during the mid-nineteenth to early-twentieth century of the U.S. Southwest Borderlands, a pivotal moment of transformation that continues to impact the racialized and gendered hierarchies of the region.