Jovita González

Birth and childhood

Jovita González was born on January 18, 1904 on her grandparents’ ranch in Roma, Texas, located near the Texas-Mexico borderland. In her earliest years spent on her grandparents’ ranch, González heard tales of the people who worked for her grandfather. These stories later became a creative influence upon her work as a folklorist, teacher, and writer. She later moved with her family to San Antonio, Texas in 1910. This happened to be during the Mexican revolution when many Mexican immigrants were fleeing their country into areas of Texas. González experienced this large influx of immigrants while living in San Antonio. After graduating from high school, González spent two years completing her teaching certificate and set off to teach in South Texas. She, however, returned to San Antonio after just a year of teaching on the border.

Colleges, organizations, and societies

Originally attending the University of Texas at Austin for a year, González experienced a lack of funds and instead enrolled in the Spanish program of Lady of Our Lake (Now Our Lady of the Lake University) in San Antonio in 1927 where she was able to attain a scholarship. She was affiliated with the Junta del Club de Bellas Artes, most likely a middle-class organization of Mexican-descent women. However, she still studied Spanish at the University of Texas during the summers and it was there in the summer of 1925 that she met J. Frank Dobie. The two shared an interest in folklore of the Texas-Mexican border. Due to Dobie’s encouragement, González wrote folklore studies that were later published in the Folklore Publications and the Southwest Review. Dobie also provided references for her scholarships, underwrote bank loans for her, and he and his wife even invited her to dinners in their home. “González was one of about thirty students of Mexican descent from the Rio Grande valley to attend the University of Texas in 1930 and one of 250 from the state”. Member of the Newman Club and the Latin American Club, González was very involved in the university. González was also involved in the Texas Folklore Society, in which Dobie helped restore in 1922. “With Dobie’s endorsement, González was elected to serve as the Texas Folklore Society’s vice president in 1928, and as president for two terms from 1930 to 1932”. She was the first female and Mexican in the society to become president. After acquiring her B.A. from Lady of the Lake University in 1927, González then studies for two years at Saint Mary’s Hall, an Episcopal school for girls, until she was eventually awarded the Lapham Scholarship to research on the border of Texas and Mexico to work on her M.A. at the University of Texas in Austin. In 1930, she wrote her master’s thesis on “Social Life in Cameron, Starr, and the Zapata Counties”. Her thesis was “one of a few produced at the time that did not view Mexicans as a social problem”. González acquired a research grant from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1934 to conduct her study that was advised/directed by Eugene C. Barker.

Marriage, published works, and teaching

It was at the University of Texas in Austin that González met her husband Edmundo E. Mireles. They were married in 1935 in San Antonio but then moved to Del Rio, Texas where Mireles became the principal of San Felipe High School and she an English teacher and the head of the English department. It was in Del Rio where González met Margaret Eimer, the co-author for her book Caballero: A Historical Novel. In 1939, El Progreso publisher Rodolfo Mirabal recruited Mireles, therefore the married couple relocated to Corpus Christi, Texas where they wrote two sets of books, Mi Libro Español (books 1-3) and El Español Elemental for grade schools. González was involved in the Spanish Institute Mireles founded and the Corpus Christi Spanish Program that promoted Spanish-teaching in public schools. González was involved in the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a league in which Mireles was actually one of the founders. “She was also active as club sponsor for Los Conquistadores, Los Colonizadores, and Los Pan Americanos”. Her early published works include “Folklore of the Texas-Mexican Vaquero” (1927), “America Invades the Border Town” (1930), “Among My People” (1932), and “With the Coming of the Barbed Wire Came Hunger,” along with other pieces in "Puro Mexicano" with Dobie as an editor. “Latin Americans” was written in 1937 for Our Racial and National Minorities: Their History, Contributions, and Present Problems. González was the first person of Mexican descent to write on the topic.

Caballero

In the late 1930s and throughout the 1940s, González, in collaboration with Margaret Eimer (pseudonym Eve Raleigh), wrote the historical novel Caballero. Caballero is “a historical romance that inscribes and interprets the impact of the US power and culture on the former Mexican northern provinces as they were being politically redefined into the American Southwest in the mid-nineteenth century”. Eimer and González had originally met in Del Rio, Texas, and continued to collaboratively write the novel through mailing the manuscripts after the two relocated to different cities. González spent twelve years compiling information for Caballero from memoirs, family history, and historical sources while conducting research for her master’s thesis at the University of Texas. Unfortunately, Caballero was never published within the lifetimes of either Eimer or González.

Retirement, attempted autobiography, and death

González continued to teach Spanish and Texas History at W.B. Ray High school in Corpus Christi until her retirement in 1967. After her retirement, she attempted to write her autobiography, yet was unsuccessful due to her diabetes and chronic depression, and eventually left the project unfinished as a thirteen-page outline. In 1983, González died of natural causes in Corpus Christi. The Mexican Americans in Texas History Conference, organized by the Texas State Historical Association, honored González in 1991. Her works are currently held at the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas at Austin and also in the Southwestern Writers Collection at the Texas State University-San Marcos.