Read and write a summary of the article "Paredes and the Hero: The North American Cowboy Revisited" by Beverly J. Stoeltje.Your summary should cover the main points of the article in 1-2 paragraphs. In 1-2 final paragraphs present your own views on the article.
Paredes and the Hero: The North American Cowboy Revisited Paredes and the Hero: The North American Cowboy Revisited Beverly J. Stoeltje Journal of American Folklore, Volume 125, Number 495, Winter 2012, pp. 45-68 (Article) Published by American Folklore Society For additional information about this article [ Access provided at 24 Jul 2020 16:45 GMT from Oregon State University Libraries ] https://muse.jhu.edu/article/465599 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/465599 Journal of American Folklore 125(495):45–68 Copyright © 2012 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois beverly J. Stoeltje Paredes and the hero: The north American cowboy revisited Américo Paredes’s contributions to folklore featured the recognition of power rela- tions in his methodology and the analysis of the construction of symbolic forms for political purposes, all of this well in advance of the introduction of these concepts into academic discourse. Specifically, he analyzed the North American cowboy and the shaping of that figure into a hero in response to “a craving for a strong national identity.” Building on that argument, I examine a struggle between busi- nessmen and rodeo cowboys over the production of professional rodeo perfor- mances, a struggle that echoed similar power relations between large capital and workers in the United States at that time (the 1920s and 1930s). The cowboy contestation took the form of strikes against specific rodeos. Using data from hoofs and horns (a publication of the period), the paper explores this national perfor- mance conflict as a difference in perception over the meaning of the cowboy, whether a sign available for capital to exploit or a performer deserving a living wage in return for his performance. out of the conflict that arose on the new border came men like Gregorio cortez. legends were told about these men, and ballads were sung in their memory. —Américo Paredes1 participating in the celebration of the groundbreaking study, With His Pistol in His Hand, presents the welcome opportunity to honor its author, Américo Paredes, not only for his signature work, but also for the extensive reach of his ideas and his effect on future research. not only did Paredes challenge existing scholarly theories and popular stereotypes with his 1958 study of the Gregorio cortez complex, but he also brought his critical eye to the image of the cowboy as an American folk hero. he distinguished between a hero of the people such as Gregorio cortez and the creation of a heroic figure by external forces to serve hegemonic purposes. long before the new historians of the American west created an uproar with their revisionist studies,2 Paredes demonstrated the flaws in the romantic view of the west as the cradle of democracy and the cowboy as its singing, gunslinging hero. beverly J. Stoeltje is Professor of Anthropology and Folklore & ethnomusicology at indiana university, bloomington. She is affiliated faculty with the African Studies Program, American Studies, and Gender Studies JAF 125_1 text.indd 45 12/16/11 2:24 PM 46 Journal of American Folklore 125 (2012) his approach was influential on me as a student in the newly minted Folklore Pro- gram at the university of texas in 1971. moreover, he directed my dissertation, an ethnographic study of the texas cowboy reunion and rodeo in west texas. Following his model, i investigated the historical background of the cattle ranch, imported to texas and mexico by the Spanish, in addition to the ethnographic research.3 Focusing on inequality and relations of power in the early years of the large corporate ranches of west texas and the western united States, i argued that these social relationships were transformed into symbolic action and expressed in the performance of rodeo. building on that earlier work, in this paper i have shifted my attention to the rodeo cowboy of the 1930s and the transition period during which rodeo became a profes- sional form of entertainment. in this period, businessmen and rodeo producers orga- nized rodeos in cities across the country with little regard for the cowboy performer. As a consequence, a serious struggle between these entrepreneurs and the itinerant but organized cowboys characterized this decade, at the end of which the cowboy had been transformed into a romantic, heroic figure, performing on the national stage. These circumstances could only occur within the context of much larger changes taking place throughout the country as well as on ranches of the west. moreover, identification of the issue and its analysis requires a method that permits the recogni- tion of and serious study of conflict. let me return, then, to some brief comments on the scholarly method Paredes employed and later to his articles relevant to “the hero,” before proceeding to examine the conflict over the rodeo cowboy. his method emphasized the close examination of texts and events, the incorporation of historical contexts, and the identification of structures of inequality. This method and the philosophy it rested on linked social relations of power and the expression of conflict through communication, specific folklore genres. in this, Paredes broke out of the existing paradigms for research in folklore with a “bold challenge to traditionalist understandings,” as richard bauman (1993:xiv) has explained in his introduction to Folklore and Culture on the Texas-Mexican Border, a collection of Paredes’s previously published articles. bauman describes the discipline of folklore as having been too susceptible to serving as an instrument of hegemonic containment by promulgat- ing an image of the folk as romantically quaint, simple, anachronistic, and colorful at best, debased and backward at worst. Paredes’s writings have offered an eloquent counterstatement, documenting and valorizing a culture and tradition of resistance, of standing up for one’s rights in defiance of the forces of domination. (bauman 1993:xiv–xv) Paredes characteristically identified the significance of power relations, whether the topic was the Anglo takeover of mexican ranches or the biases encapsulated in the scholarship of Anglos about mexicans. Although he did not label his methodology, we might consider it a method for the study of class, conflict, and inequality—how research on conflict in folk or popular culture reveals relations of power and traces the emergence and development of class in specific socioeconomic settings. his influence also had an effect on the relationship between the identity of the scholar and the research topic. he represented a person who studied his own culture. while JAF 125_1 text.indd 46 12/16/11 2:24 PM not unusual in the field of folklore, few scholars who were members of minority groups studied their own culture (or anyone else’s), and certainly folklorists did not address the politics of racism and inequality. Paredes not only succeeded in bringing about a paradigm shift, but he served as a model for conducting research in one’s own culture, illustrating how to identify the important in the local and familiar and match it with the significant in a larger context.4 Cowboys, Custom, and Capitalism The figure of the cowboy emerged from a historical context that has produced a vast quantity of literature, scholarly and romantic. consistent with the method practiced by Paredes, i will introduce some selected factors from this historical context that provide the institutional and economic background for the rodeo cowboy. As histo- rians have widely acknowledged, the institution of the cattle ranch was imported by the Spanish to the western hemisphere and cultivated by the mexicans who lived in what is now “the Southwest” and “the west,” especially southern texas and southern california. The principles and practices of the institution were maintained after mex- icans gained their independence from Spain, and even after texas declared its inde- pendence from mexico and Anglos took over the majority of the ranches in southern texas. even the texas government followed the Spanish system in its distribution of large portions of land to those who would settle and raise cattle and in its maintenance of the legal system known as community property. As David montejano (1987) has so ably demonstrated, the South texas ranches differed significantly from those in the texas Panhandle. yet, the principles and prac- tices that governed ranching in both regions could most accurately be described as a system that operated according to custom. in South texas, the ranch model con- tinued to operate much like a hacienda with peons and their families living on the ranch where they were provided for by a patron, and vaqueros from families in the surrounding region working for wages, most often. however, several generations of the same family lived on the large ranches or worked for them and developed long- term relationships that resembled kinship.5 in the Panhandle region, the hacienda model was never established, but those who were engaged in cattle raising also followed customary practices until the introduction of the corporate ranch. The familiar term, the “open range” serves as an example: for a short period in history, much of the grassland of the west was not privately owned but was available for use. individuals could develop a herd of cattle, place their brand on them, and let them roam free with no charge for the grass and water they used. During this time, an individual might work as a cowboy for a cattleman who owned a large herd and be paid in kind (with a few cattle), and then develop his own herd, using the land free of charge. others acquired their herd by claiming “maverick” calves, those that were weaned but did not have a brand placed on them, as they roamed freely on the unfenced range. During the civil war, unclaimed cattle herds expanded on the open range, and after the war, large numbers of Southern people migrated to texas to work as cowboys, with the hope of claiming some of those cattle. During this Stoeltje, Parades and the Hero 47 JAF 125_1 text.indd 47 12/16/11 2:24 PM 48 Journal of American Folklore 125 (2012) early period, those who arrived in texas as a cowboy, whether in South texas or west texas, had the potential to become a cattleman, and indeed some of the biggest names of cattle ranchers in texas were individuals who arrived with little or nothing in the way of capital and became the owners of large cattle ranches (charles Goodnight and Shanghai Pierce, for example). This period during which custom governed the open range (a practice of land use that might be considered “the commons” today) witnessed radical change when private property became the norm. when the state of texas imposed a fee of a few cents an acre on its