Life in Mexico

Description

Born in Scotland, Frances Calderón de La Barca was married to a Spanish diplomat in the mid-1800s, leaving for a long, 2-year adventure in Mexico that completely transformed her life. Originally written in 1843, the autobiography is considered by experts as one of the most well-written and influential accounts of life in a Latin American country from that time period.

Frances was born in 1904, as a 5th child, to a large family living in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her upper-class parents were able to provide her with a proper education and upbringing, and despite the fact that her father’s law office faced bankruptcy, the family was still able to thrive, traveling first to Normandy, then to America, where Frances’ mother remarried, after the death of her father.

The author wrote Life in Mexico as a travel narrative containing no less than 54 of her letters wrote during the two years she had spent journeying through Mexico. Due to her advanced education, Frances was in the unique position to offer a detailed overview not only of the landscape and culture of Mexico, that she experienced firsthand, but also of the political, historical and ethnographical aspects of the country – all shown through the unique perspective of an empowered Scottish woman.

Appalled by the violence she witnessed throughout the country, she enjoyed making fun of the political male elite of the country and found herself talking more about the simple folk, and their often trying difficulties. From women fleeing before violence, to the harsh, restrictive treatment of nuns and the difficult conditions that patriarchal rule has imposed upon the country, Frances feels deep sympathy for the female population of Mexico,and finds herself strongly opposing many of the decisions that the male elite ruling the country usually found as “natural.”


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