Classing horses

As a parenthropologist, I am thinking about what it means for little girls today to be "horse crazy" - and of course, I am asking why American middle-class girls, like my daughter and her friends, read books that tell stories about girls and horses, play with toy horses, beg for horseback riding lessons (not to mention ponies), and so on. Here are my continuing notes on this topic.

Today, I am wondering about the classed dimensions of the horse world. Michael Korda, in his 2004 book, Horse People, notes that more than 5 million households in the United States own a horse or horses - and that the U.S. population of horses stands around 13.5 million. "That seems like a lot of horses in a country where most people had made the switch to the automobile by the end of World War I and in which horses – with a few exceptions like police horses, or carriage horses in places like New York’s Central Park, or among the Amish, are no longer working animals, strictly speaking" (1).

The number of horses suggests that the sociological reality of owning (or at least caring for) a horse involves a certain amount of diversity - but it also makes me think about horses as symbols of particular kinds of lives.

One kind of life that horses represent is an English aristocratic life, as Korda suggests:

“In England, you have to understand," Margaret says – giving me a look that means, Take this seriously! – “there’s a whole lifestyle that revolves around ponies, like the one in the Thelwell cartoons, full of cross-looking little girls in pigtails, with velvet hard hats and jodhpur boots, and tiny, fat Shetland ponies, each with a mind of its own. In the English countryside, a pony gets passed on from child to child as it gets outgrown, like clothes in a large family, so most of them don’t stay at one place all that long” (75).

From a child’s point of view, a pony in those days involved some of the same desires that center on learning to drive and owning a car today for teenage Americans – freedom to come and go as you please, responsibility (“You can have it, but you have to look after it”), a sense of power and control, on top of which, unlike a car, a pony is warm, furry, accepts – indeed expects – treats, and responds to love, affection, and attention (76).

The whole notion of a little girl and her pony is deeply entrenched in English life, and also provides an early statement about class, status, and athletic ability, very much part of the Diana the Huntress syndrome that permeates a certain stratum of English society when it comes to little girls (77).

An Anglo-American aristocratic life becomes represented in The Private Passion of Jackie Kennedy Onassis: Portrait of a Rider, by Vicky Moon (2005):

Almost every little girl dreams about owning a pony, but for Jacqueline Bouvier, it was a given…. In the privileged circle into which she was born, riding was a necessary social grace, as was playing a decent game of tennis, knowing which fork to use, and writing a proper thank-you note.

In other words, horses seem to represent the good life - and the accessibility of horses to the daughters of middle-class families (as well as aristocratic families) becomes a sign of social mobility.

Also, the riding ability of the girls themselves itself might serve social mobility: In Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (1871), the poor-but-genteel March girls manage to become accomplished riders, even without their own stable of horses, and they are invited on riding parties, at which their skills are praised. Amy is mortified, however, when, on their round of calls to the wealthier families in their neighborhood, Jo reveals that they practiced on a saddle mounted on a low-lying branch of an apple tree.

In the 1940 film, "The Philadelphia Story," the aristocratic Tracy's "man of the people" fiance is shown to be lacking in class because he cannot ride a horse.

Domesticating horses

From the back flap of Kathleen Duey's Katie and the Mustang, which Beanie is reading currently:

Girls throughout history, in almost every country, have grown up trusting horses with their friendship, their secrets, and even their very lives.

I begin my parenthropological examination of this quote with questions about when, where, and why horses were domesticated - which happen to be exactly the questions that archaeologist David Anthony addresses in his 2007 book, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language.

Chapter 10 is titled "The Domestication of the Horse and the Origins of Riding: The Tale of the Teeth," which begins with a story about how finding the answers to larger questions require finding the answers to smaller questions. It goes back to the wisdom of looking at a horse's teeth. "Bit wear is important, because other kinds of evidence have proven uncertain guides to early horse domestication. Genetic evidence, which we might hope would solve the problem, does not help much" (Anthony 2007:196).

The female bloodline of modern domesticated horses show extreme diversity.... Wild mares must have been taken into domesticated horse herds in many different places at different times. Meanwhile, the male aspect of modern horse DNA, which is passed unchanged on the Y chromosome from sire to colt, shows remarkable homogeneity. It is possible that just a single wild stallion was domesticated (Anthony 2007:196).

Wild horses were likely to have lived across the Northern Hemisphere, but became extinct in North America 10 to 14,000 years ago, with climate change.

Evidence of the domestication of horses has been found in the Eurasian steppes, located north of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea.

What was the incentive to tame wild horses if people already had cattle and sheep? Was it for transportation? Almost certainly not. Horses were large, powerful, aggressive animals, more inclined to flee or fight than to carry a human. Riding probably developed only after horses were already familiar as domesticated animals that could be controlled. The initial incentive probably was the desire for a cheap source of winter meat (Anthony 2007:200).

Surprising as it might seem - it was to me - I think this bit of information about the domestication of horses is relevant to the stories that girls like Beanie and me love(d). In books like Katie and the Mustang or the American Girl story, Meet Felicity, a wild horse, in fact a stallion, becomes tamed through the care of a young girl. This fiction seems to be an echo of a larger fiction about why horses became domesticated in the first place. Consider that, in human history, the significance of horses has changed. They have become sentimentalized and romanticized.

Neigh, neigh

Took Beanie to the library this morning to borrow a book. She finished Kate DiCamillo's The Tale of Despereaux, which she immediately followed with DiCamillo's The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Beanie, who likes to remind me that she will have her half birthday on my full birthday, in two weeks, making her 6.5 years to my 40 years, tells me that she likes stories that have sad, but happy endings.

So, of course, the book that she selected this morning had to be a book about a girl and a horse. Also, not just any girl, but a misunderstood orphan, and not just any horse, but a mustang too wild for any man to handle, but that the kindness of a courageous girl could tame. Sigh. If you are 40 years old, like me, then you know this story already - and have loved and cried over its iterations.

The book that Beanie is reading is titled Katie and the Mustang, and it is the first of four parts in a series called Hoofbeats by Kathleen Duey, who is quoted on the book flap as suggesting:

Girls throughout history, in almost every country, have grown up trusting horses with their friendship, their secrets, and even their very lives. The Hoofbeats books are about that trust.

In future posts, I want to consider, as a parenthropologist, Duey's claims about the relationship between girls and horses. My hunch is that it is part of an American middle-class experience, which clearly seems connected with fantasies about the American frontier and anxieties about urbanization and industrialization - not to mention gender - but I am willing to be proven a chronic overthinker who is plain wrong on this.

Here is an essay that considers the question, Why do girls love horses?

By the way, a bit of advice on pursuing this topic - typing "girls and horses" into google yields some results that you never wanted to know existed, along the lines of the historical rumors surrounding Catherine the Great's demise.

Terrestrial life

From Bertrand Russell's The Conquest of Happiness:

I do not like mystical language, and yet I hardly know how to express what I mean without employing phrases that sound poetic rather than scientific. Whatever we may wish to think, we are creatures of Earth; our life is part of the life of the Earth, and we draw our nourishment from it just as the plants and animals do. The rhythm of Earth life is slow; autumn and winter are as essential to it as spring and summer, and rest is as essential as motion.

This just about says all there is to say about the worth of our week at Wellfleet.

It was a time for moving slowly, resting, and taking note: Walking and sitting in the sand, feeling its grit and its fineness, and its weight. Feeling the effects of sun and water on your skin. Feeling the surprise of losing your footing in the waves. Experiencing all of this with Beanie and Bubbie's hands gripped in mine - and occasionally, feeling their hands slip free to take hold of stones and shells.

I have a wish right now to take this holiday and try to make it live on somehow...

Wishes I make tend to be granted through books.

This morning, Beanie and I stopped at our excellent local bookstore and I found this book - The Nature Connection: An Outdoor Workbook for Kids, Families, and Classrooms by Clare Walker Leslie.

"I came to my study of nature knowing nothing," Leslie writes. "I spent my days indoors, not roaming about outside."

As a parent, this is a book that makes me feel like I can tell my kids to play outside - then follow them out the door.

The book is a guide to keeping a nature journal - drawing pictures, noting dates and times and writing short entries on "What I Saw" or "Enjoying Nature Surprises," and composing stories and poems. In short, it is about the kinds of things my kids already enjoy doing.

The first part of the book is called "How to Be a Naturalist" and suggests activities on keeping a nature journal. The second part is called "Learning the Sky," and moves from weather and the sun and the moon to the tides to constellations. I esp. like the "Moon Journal," tracking the phases, and the "Naming the Moons," explaining Algonquin traditions surrounding the cycles.

The bulk of the book is devoted to a month-by-month guide to "Exploring Nature," with activities particular to each season - like a "Snowflake Study" featured in January and a "Search for Water" in August.

Free worksheets for a number of the chapters are available, here, at the publisher's Web site.

The book seems to be part of a larger movement to inspire us all to see nature wherever it is.

As a cultural anthropologist, I could add "whatever it is," but I will restrain myself. For now...

Junie B. Jones, Structuralist

Took last week off. Visited StraightMan's parents and grandmother. Almost six-hour flight there (and a little less than that on the return). Plied Bubbie with screen time, including in-flight DirecTV but Beanie quickly tired of this and buried herself in a book. Good traveler and good reader, that Beanie.

While at her grandparents, she found her cousin's copy of Junie B. Jones Smells Something Fishy.

For those, like myself, not especially well read in "starter" chapter books, Junie B. Jones is the title character in a series that chronicles her adventures and misadventures, first in kindergarten, then in first grade.

A quirk of the book to which Beanie objected is the use of "mistakes" to lend authenticity to Junie B's voice, like saying "runned" instead" of "ran." Beanie felt, I believe, condescended to: "That's not how you say it. Even I know that."

Beanie is the kind of kid who, following the lead of her teachers, on whom she fixes her laser-like attentions, describes words as "rule breakers."

In Junie B. Jones Smells Something Fishy, the kindergarteners have a Pet Day. When Junie discovers that her goldfish has died, she decides to take a frozen fishstick to school as her pet.

Again, Beanie objected: "Why would she not know that a fishstick is not a pet?"

Because I am amused and because I am half-distracted with trying to form a pancake man in the griddle for her breakfast, I ask her: "What makes a fishstick not a pet?"

"Because it is a food."

Because I am an anthropologist as well as a parent, I cannot help it: A teaching moment in structuralism ensues:

Some animals can be pets and some animals can be food. On the point that pets cannot be food, Beanie wholeheartedly agreed with Junie B.

Not to mention the observations of Claude Levi-Strauss and Edmund Leach. Levi-Strauss, described often as the "father" of structuralist anthropology, famously said that "animals are good to think with," meaning that they force us to unpack our assumptions about people and what we take for granted as distinguishing "us" and "them." (This is a reason why StraightMan and I correct ourselves, a bit tongue in cheek, when we talk about animals and humans with Beanie - "I mean, non-human animals and humans." A family of hopeless geeks.) Leach, who acted as chief interpreter of French structuralism in British social anthropology, wrote about which names of animals were used as insults in English - for example, "dogs" and "rats," but not "lions" and "zebras" - and the kinds of relationships those particular (non-human) animals have with humans. It seems that familiarity, if not domestication, breeds contempt?

When I suggested to Beanie that people a long time ago or in other places around the world even right now could have different ideas about what animals can be "pets" and what animals can be "foods," she declared that this made sense.

She pointed out also that one of her best friends is vegetarian, which means that she does not think that any animal can (or ought to) be food.

On being 6+ years old

We are a cable-free family. Which generally works for us b/c StraightMan and I hardly have time to watch much tube during the teaching year. When we do, we prefer to skip the ads, and to anticipate liking, more or less, what we will watch. Like an entire season of "30 Rock"! On top of which, our squeam threshold has dropped considerably after becoming parents. Why must threatened harm to a child be used as a plot point for suspense?

So, our kids hardly even know how to watch TV. Not in the sense that they do not sit bug-eyed in front of the set, but rather that they do not quite "get" that you cannot pause a show in progress, repeat an episode you liked, or choose a show other than the ones being aired currently. They find watching "regular TV" a bit frustrating.

21st century children.

For the last month, they were engrossed with "Rolie Polie Olie," a cartoon about a family of robots that mixes metaphor, imagery, and voice and sound effects from 1950s-style family situation comedy. To be fair, it was Bubbie who sat in such thrall, watching the same DVD over and over and over during morning screen time. (I take a little time rousing, so StraightMan lets them watch while they eat their Cheerios and he drinks his coffee and checks his e-mail. Morning screen time serves us all well, I think.) Eventually, Beanie heaved a sigh and trudged off to her drawing table, where she planned curriculum and created math worksheets for her dolls. (See? How morning screen time translates into choosing other forms of amusement.) StraightMan and I were right there with her.

Then Netflix delivered a new treat last week - a DVD of the animated series based on the "Olivia" books. Which has been a huge hit in our house. (Esp. as StraightMan just left for a three-week NEH seminar.) There is a big sister and a little brother ("little bother") and the big sister and little brother in our house seem both to relate to the stories.

In fact, I feel like a lot of "Olivia" is pitch-perfect in capturing what life is like with / for a 6-year-old girl who is just bursting with brightness and energy and confidence. Olivia is described on book jackets and such as "bossy," but I do not think that is quite accurate or fair. What I see in Olivia, and in Beanie, is wanting everyone around her to be and do and feel together what just seems so worth sharing. Which, admittedly, can come across as "bossy," esp. if / when you are the little brother.

So, I like "Olivia" as much I like Lily in the Kevin Henkes books and Frances in the Russell Hoban books. They are about spirited and unafraid girls - a bit bossy, but not really all that bratty - and I realize that I am projecting or even romanticizing what I find remarkable in my own girl, but I have to say: The enthusiasm! The exuberance! Also, the poise that comes with the knowledge that life is good b/c you have friends to play with and grown-ups who look after you.

Those are the ups of being 6+ years old. At least for me, the downs include the constant stream of riddles, jokes, plays on words, and loud commentary and questioning on whatever it is that I am doing. (In a McDonald's restroom: "Mommy, are you peeing? Why is peeing so much louder here than at home? It almost scares me. It's so loud.")

Ahem. It seems to me like 6+ years old is a good age to be.

The problema with Skippyjon Jones

Then using his very best Spanish accent, he said, ‘My ears are too beeg for my head. My head ees too beeg for my body. I am not a Siamese cat…. I am a chihuahua!
-- Skippyjon Jones (2003)

As an anthropologist, I have two words to describe the above passage: Mock Spanish.

You know Mock Spanish. If you are born-and/or-bred American - English-speaking and monolingual - then you have heard it on the playground and even in the classroom as well as at the supermarket or at the water cooler. You might be able to recall recent instances of speaking it. For example, said without ambivalence or ambiguity as a flat denial to requests for candy, car, or casual sex: "No way, Jose." Or, delivered in a comparable dead pan, part cyborg and part Austrian: "Hasta la vista, baby."

Mock Spanish is not necessarily a direct mockery of Spanish or of speakers of Spanish.

"Speakers of Mock Spanish are likely to view their use of Spanish as indexing positive personal qualities," writes Rusty Barrett, a linguistic anthropologist, in a 2006 article, "Language Ideology and Racial Inequality: Competing Functions of Spanish in an Anglo-Owned Mexican Restaurant." In other words, when Anglos (a term that is meant to contrast with Latinos) use Mock Spanish, they are "just joking" or even exhibiting their easy familiarity with another language and culture.

This is why the suggestion that Mock Spanish might be "racist" inspires insistent objections, including accusations about "political correctness." For Anglos, Mock Spanish is a sign of education and open-mindedness - the opposite of the ignorance and closed-mindedness associated with "racism."

Even more important, Mock Spanish is a sign of having a sense of humor. There is no meanness intended here, the reasoning goes - just a bit of fun.

Yet, the yuks of Mock Spanish derive from stereotypes about Latinos that circulate among Anglos. Familiar uses of Mock Spanish include the "borrowing" of words like manana, which for Spanish speakers refers simply to "tomorrow," but for Anglos connotes procrastination. In other instances, borrowings include obscene or vulgar terms like "cojones" or "caca."

Or consider this equation for constructing Mock Spanish: "el" + English word + "o" - which yields such formulations as "el cheapo" or "el stupido."

Stereotypes about Latinos might not be referenced directly in Mock Spanish, but linguistic anthropologist Jane Hill noted that "the negative residue of meaning" remains attached to its uses. "Those who hear Mock Spanish jokes, for instance, cannot possibly 'get' them - that is, the jokes will not be funny - unless the hearer has instant, unreflecting access to a cultural model of 'Spanish speakers' that includes the negative residue," Hill wrote in her 1995 article, "Mock Spanish: A Site for the Indexical Reproduction of Racism in American English," which introduced the term and the concept to scholars.

Here is where we need to consider "racism." Again, I quote from Hill's 1995 article: "To find an action or utterance is 'racist,' one does not have to demonstrate that the racism is consciously intended. Racism is judged, instead, by its effects: of successful discrimination and exclusion of members of the racialized group from goods and resources enjoyed by the racializing group."

We need to consider that racism is not now, and in fact might never have been, only about "hate." Hill suggests that a significant reason for why we need to pay attention to Mock Spanish is this: "In a society where for at least the last 20 years to be called a 'racist' is a dire insult, and where opinion leaders almost universally concur that 'racism' is unacceptable, how is racism continually reproduced?"

At this point, let us return to Exhibit A: Skippyjon Jones.

"Yip, Yippee, Yippito!
It's the end of Alfredo Buzzito!
Skippito is here,
We have nothing to fear.
Adios to the bad Bumblebeeto!"

Then all of the Chimichangos went crazy loco.
First they had a fiesta.
Then they took a siesta.
But after waking up, the Chimichangos got down to serious bees-ness.
-- Skippyjon Jones

On the one hand, the rhymes here are catchy and to be honest, clever. For example, the use of "bees-ness" not only references a "Spanish accent," but also the character of Alfredo Buzzito, the bad Bumblebeeto.

On the other hand, Skippyjon Jones not only (indirectly) references well worn stereotypes that are instantly and unreflectingly accessible to the grown-up's reading the book to their children, but it also reproduces them for another generation - in the form of what might be experienced otherwise as an entertaining, gentle, and sweet little story.

I think it proves Hill's point that parents, writing reviews on amazon, will praise this book because it "introduces" Spanish words to their children - and that the critics become accused of missing the point of the story and being self-righteous and having no sense of humor. In fact, the expectation that a children's book must be innocent seems to be used as itself a defense of Mock Spanish. That is, because this is "just" a children's book, it cannot possibly contain "racism."

It is exactly because I find the book, with its use of Mock Spanish, to be catchy and clever and cute that I also find it concerning.