Figure094

Citation

Unknown Photographer. “woman holding book.” circa 1850-1855. Gregory Fried Collection. Mirror of Race, 7 July 2022, mirrorofrace.bc.edu/items/show/274. Accessed 30 Apr. 2024.

Title

woman holding book

Subject

unknown

Creator

Unknown Photographer

Date

circa 1850-1855

Type

studio portrait

Identifier

Figure094

Rights Holder

Gregory Fried Collection

Original Format

daguerreotype

Physical Dimensions

Sixth Plate (2.75 x 3.25 inches)

Factual Commentary

In early photographs, people often would pose with objects that had special meaning to them, such as tools of a trade, or, as in this case, a book. This woman holds Frosts Pictorial History of California, by John Frost, first published in 1850. She is probably a “Californio,” a Latina native to California, resident after the American annexation following the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. This daguerreotype dates to the early 1850s, soon after the Gold Rush, the war, and the annexation of California as a state in 1850.

Interpretive Commentary

The question of how Latinos, or Hispanics, fit in with the American construction of race is a complex one. Latinos have certainly suffered from racial prejudice in this nation’s history, but at the same time, Latinos do not fall neatly into the standard racial categories familiar to America. Some Latinos do indeed have dark skin, but other Latinos also have European, African, Native, and even Asian roots ― or mixtures of these. Latinos often define themselves ethnically and nationally rather than racially.

Nevertheless, Latinos from other parts of the Americas, who come to the United States as immigrants, often bring with them very different social constructions of race that vary from country to country. And of course, other Latinos, such as the woman in this daguerreotype, have roots in the territory of the United States that reach back before this nation’s founding. Given this complexity, the Latino experience of the question of race also has the potential to help Americans see how arbitrary race is as a social construction, and so perhaps the growth of Latinos in the United States will contribute to a dissolution of our entrenches racial categories.

Alternative Title

Collection

Mirror of Race