Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

are we there yet? testimonial literature 321
Methodology [. . .] Unknown to me, at the same time I was working
in San Antonio, Judith Friedlander was doing a parallel investigation
in a neighboring village. Though she fi nished her research years before I
fi nished mine, our two studies are similar in a number of ways. The most
important of these similarities is that Doña Zeferina, the main fi gure in
Dr. Friedlander’s published research on Hueyapán, is remarkably similar to
Celsa. Our two studies differ, however, on the choice of storyteller. Whereas
in Friedlander’s book it is the author herself who narrates the story in the
third person with only a few quotes from her informant, in Celsa’s World
it is Celsa who tells the story exclusively in the fi rst person, except for this
preface [. . .].
One of the valid ways of studying the past is to listen to what the actual
participants have to say about it. If history is going to have any importance
as a human lesson, only participants who experienced or observed an event
or series of events can tell us their meaning in terms to which we can relate
personally. For this reason I believe that the best way of entering Celsa’s
intimate world, which is alien for the most part to ours, is to let her tell
the story [. . .].
The Village My introduction to the village of San Antonio came
in 1961 when, as a member of a small anthropological fi eld study group
from the University of Illinois, I was led into the village by our professor,
Dr. Oscar Lewis. In those days the community was accessible only by foot
through a narrow mountain pass, along a path through cultivated fi elds,
and over several small streams. Even though as graduate students we had
studied cultural shock in the classroom, it remained only an academic topic
until the day we arrived in the village. In no way was I prepared for the
life I found in San Antonio. Its variance with the world I knew was nearly
unbridgeable though the village was only 100 kilometers from downtown
Mexico City. Without potable water, electricity, or road, the village seemed
to belong to another time period in history. Nevertheless, one other student
and I decided to live in the village for the summer; the others commuted
from Tepoztlán several times a week. Needless to say, we were a novelty to
the villagers and were studied as much by them as we studied the village.
Living in the very heart of the community gave us a great view of everything
but more importantly won the respect of the villagers who considered
us as being brave for moving into a poor village.
One of the fi rst villagers I met was Celsa. Though initially hired as a
cook and laundress, Celsa soon proved to be much more valuable as an
informant, and she became my primary source of information on village