Jovita González

Jovita González (January 18, 1904 – 1983) was a well-respected Mexican-American folklorist, educator, and writer, best known for writing Caballero: A Historical Novel (co-written with Margaret Eimer, pseudonym Eve Raleigh). González was also involved in the commencement in the League of United Latin American Citizens and was the first female and the first Mexican-American to be the president of the Texas Folklore Society from 1930 to 1932. She saw a disconnect between Mexican-Americans and Anglos so in a lot of her work, she promoted Mexican culture and tried to ease the tensions between each group. In 1910, when she was just 6 years old, her parents decided to move their family from Roma to San-Antonio so they could receive a better education. González experienced this large influx of immigrants while living in San Antonio.

Education

After finishing high school, she enrolled in the University of Texas at Austin but she returned home after her freshman year because she did not have the funds to pay for her education. As a result, she spent a couple of years teaching as "a Head Teacher of a two-teacher school." After graduating from Our Lady of the Lake with a Bachelor of Arts (1927) and teaching at Saint Mary's Hall for a couple of years, she was awarded the Lapham Scholarship to fund her education to get her master's degree from the University of Texas at Austin. In the summer of 1929, Gonzaléz spent her time traveling through "the remotest regions of Webb, Zapata, and Starr Counties." A research grant from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1934 the Newman Club, the Latin American Club, She was elected as vice president in 1928 and as president in both 1930 and 1931. She added tales and songs "of the masculine world of the vaqueros." In 1939, El Progreso publisher Rodolfo Mirabal recruited Mireles, Caballero is “a historical romance that inscribes and interprets the impact of the US power and culture on the former Mexican northern provinces as they were being politically redefined into the American Southwest in the mid-nineteenth century”. Eimer and González had originally met in Del Rio, Texas, and continued to collaboratively write the novel through mailing the manuscripts after the two relocated to different cities. Unfortunately, Caballero was never published within the lifetimes of either Eimer or González. The novel is set during the U.S.-Mexico War, and critiques some aspects of U.S. colonization, but it also critiques the patriarchal structure of the Tejano hacienda system. The narrative centers on the Mendoza y Soria daughters as desiring subjects when they insist on marrying against their father's will. Like González's other works, the novel critiques U.S. historical narratives and modernity itself through an alternative Tejana cultural memory.

Among My People "Among my People" was another one of Gonzaléz's contributions to the Texas Folklore Society. By retelling this tale in English with a few Spanish words, González gave English speaking readers the opportunity to understand the Mexican culture as well as see the uniqueness in the narrator of the tale. It was published in Pure Mexicano, J. Frank Dobie's anthology. After her retirement, she attempted to write her autobiography, yet was unsuccessful due to her diabetes and chronic depression, and eventually left the project unfinished as a thirteen-page outline. In 1983, González died of natural causes in Corpus Christi. The Mexican Americans in Texas History Conference, organized by the Texas State Historical Association, honored González in 1991. Her works are currently held at the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas at Austin and also in the Southwestern Writers Collection at the Texas State University-San Marcos.