Week 3: The Totally Unbelievable Events of Catalina de Erauso

In week three, we discussed quite a bit about Casta Paintings and Catalina de Erauso’s autobiography, “Lieutenant Nun.” I’ll start off with the Casta paintings since they’re the most prominent in my memory.

When I was looking at the Casta paintings I could almost feel the frustration of the artists trying to place people into racial categories. There were too many mixes of people, too much difference in class and gender and race, etc.… and the more divisive lines the artists tried to create, the more they were blurred. The very form of a Casta painting (a grid) attempts to put everyone into boxes, but the more lines they tried to create, the more blurred the boxes became. It was a futile task, casta paintings simply could not provide a permanent place for everyone.

And in almost complete contradistinction, Catalina de Erauso’s autobiography seemed way too unreal. Honestly, it seemed like they were taken from a 99 cent action adventure novel, rather than real events of someone’s life. Erauso was always coincidentally in the right spot at the right time. She was always being taken in by aunts and uncles who didn’t know her, or coming dangerously close to discovery by her father. Also don’t get me started on the fact that she killed her brother… how does that happen?? But I could’ve let that slide… although uncommon, those things happen. However, the main reason why I felt that Erauso’s story was fabricated was because she wasn’t executed for her actions. Disguising herself as a man, living the life of a soldier, running away from her convent… these are all actions punishable by death in the 1600’s. I mean women have been killed for a lot less… And the Pope, especially the actual, literal Pope, pardoning her? There’s just no way. Erauso essentially ran away from God and her duties to the Church, and the Catholic Church allowed that type of disobedience? From the stories we’ve read about the Church, they really aren’t as forgiving as they say they are, so I just can’t believe she got off easy. And I just remembered that Erauso took part in a lot of lesbian activity so now it just seems even more unbelievable.

Nevertheless, disregarding the truthfulness (or lack thereof) of Catalina de Erauso’s life… her story and the Casta paintings served multiple purposes rather than just entertainment for me. They were narratives that showed the tensions in the new and old world. Tensions of representation and belonging. Both demonstrated the always evident racial and gender distinctions in Latin America as well as class warfare. They revealed the cracks beneath the surface, disproving the notion that there is one Latin America as so many believe, which is something we’ve been discussing since the start of class. It forces us to question what our notions of Latin America are and what/who Latin America is comprised of.