Frances Calderon de la Barca’s ‘Life in Mexico’

Frances Calderon de la Barca was born to a family of noble landowners in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1804. After her father declared bankruptcy, her family traveled through Europe, before settling down in the United States. After opening a school with her family members in Boston, the family relocated to New York City, where Fanny would meet her husband, Don Angel Calderon de la Barca. Calderon de la Barca was born to Spanish parents in Buenos Aires, Argentina. After fighting in the Napoleonic wars, he was designated as the first Spanish minister to Mexico after their independence. Fanny Calderon de la Barca’s Life in Mexico is a collection of letters sent from her to family members during her time accompanying her husband in Mexico. 

In her letters, Calderon de la Barca focuses heavily on the Spanish influences of Mexican society, rather than the indigenous peoples and cultures. The author places high importance on the arts, particularly performances in European languages, saying, “Fine voices are said to be extremely common, as is natural in a country peopled from Spain; and the opera, while it lasted, contributed greatly to the cultivation of musical taste,” (79). When Calderon de la Barca does speak of pre-colonial history of Mexico, where she explains the story of “the last of the Aztec emperors,” she uses the essentialist, orientalist language to describe him in a primitive light. She introduces a legend of the emperor’s lost love haunting the nearby lands, and says, “I think she would be afraid of meeting the wrathful spirit of the Indian emperor,” (81). Without explaining why this so-called spirit may be “wrathful,” she glosses over the effects colonial powers on the Aztec people. 

Works Cited:

Calderon de la Barca, Frances. Life in Mexico. Oakland: University of California Press, 1982. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1pndx4.5#metadata_info_tab_contents.