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Ramona, by Helen Hunt Jackson, and The Squatter and the Don, by Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton, are very similar novels which were written to accomplish similar goals. Ramona tells the story of lovers who seemingly have the whole world against them and The Squatter and the Don chronicles the life of a Mexican-American family under the rule of the United States government. ... Ramona and The Squatter and the Don both tried to bring events in California to the front of American popular culture by writing stories from the non-dominant point of view at the time, but Ramona was more focused on the plight of the Indians and was a larger success, as it was better received by it’s target audience, than The Squatter and the Don, which focused more on the robber baron culture. ... I think that The Squatter and the Don was written with the intent to provide another viewpoint on current events of the time. ...
Helen Hunt Jackson also tried to bring light to the injustices that were occurring in California but her focus was more on the injustices being committed against the Indians there, as opposed to the more Mexican-American focused The Squatter and the Don. This differing focus was clear in Ramona where there was no mention of the robber barons or the intercontinental railroad and a lot of time spent discussing Alessandro and his people’s plight. Conversely there is little mention of Indians in The Squatter and the Don. ... Jackson took what she observed in that travel and tried to illustrate it to the readers through events that befall Alessandro and Ramona. ...
Helen Hunt Jackson uses several key story points in Ramona to try and change Americans’ general attitudes towards then current events in California. ... Helen Hunt Jackson wrote Ramona to help change the misconceptions of Indians and Mexican Americans by providing point of view that wasn’t represented in the popular culture of the time. ... After this Ramona and Alessandro moved to San Pasquale where again they lost everything they worked for when an American showed up with the deed to the property they were living on. ...
Several characters in Ramona were designed to represent groups in America at the time and change the reader’s perception of those groups. ... Even the Senora never attacks his character; she blames Ramona for any of the trouble their love caused. ... In fact Aunt Ri doesn’t even believe that the government would do the things that Alessandro and Ramona tell her about. ... ” (Jackson 286) which describes Aunt Ri’s reaction to first meeting Alessandro and Ramona. ... Ramona was written with the target audience being the members of the mainstream American culture.
Approximate Word count = 2238
Approximate Pages = 9
(250 words per page double spaced)
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