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They sought a country;: Mennonite colonization in Mexico. With an appendix on Mennonite colonization in British Honduras
387 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1971
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January 12, 2025
Just finished Harry Sawatzky’s *They Sought a Country: Mennonite Colonization in Mexico*. Migration is a fraught thing, and the conservative Manitoban Mennonites who migrated to Mexico in the 1920s overpaid for land; had difficulty negotiating privileges (to run their own schools, speak their own language, and not fight in the military) with President Obregón; got hit with the Great Depression; dealt with land squatters, understandable local resentment, and the aftermath of the 1910-20 Mexican Revolution; took too long to adjust their agricultural practices to a new environment (stubborn efforts to cultivate wheat and rye didn’t work very well). And the list goes on . . . . Through it all, the Mennonite population in Mexico grew from 6,000 to 30,000 in the forty years before this book was published in 1971. Now there are about 75,000.
This book is as technical (on crops, economics, insects, weeds, politics) as it is poignant (although there are moments). So here’s the money quote:
“The soils of the alluvial fans flanking the surrounding hills of volcanic andesites and tuffs are calcium-rich abodes of varying texture, ranging in color, within the colony, from light brown on the higher elevations to near-black and with a chernozem-like appearance in the area adjacent to the lagunas.”
A few other more interesting passages:
“The culinary variety in the Mennonite kitchen, never large in the first place, thus becomes narrower still. Although the beans, peppers, and tortillas characteristic of Mexico, have long been accepted, the Mennonite diet continues to be heavily predicated upon potatoes and white bread, together with pork for those whose means permit.”
“Many children and teenagers looked ‘peaked,’ a condition described by Mexican doctors as being largely owing to improper diet. The consensus of opinion from them is that if these youngsters would be fed more milk, oatmeal, and beans instead of white bread and coffee it would represent a great dietary improvement. Infant mortality is high. In three colonies—Ojo del Yegua, Hague, and Swift Current—it averaged 9.7 percent from 1950 to 1964.”
On how they spend their Sunday afternoons: “When church is out, invitations may be extended, particularly to those from other villages, to come to dinner and stay the afternoon to visit (spazieren). The visitors’ horses are always unharnessed and put up and fed in the barn. After dinner and possibly a nap, host and guests retire to the parlor (grosze Stube). Bowls of roasted sunflower seeds are handed around, the men may light cigarettes, and soon the room is littered with hulls and redolent of smoke. Neighbors, if they drop in, enter without knocking and join in the visit. Later the men may be offered a schnapps by their host. Vesper is served, and soon the guests make their way homeward.”
“Altkolonier [Old Colony] graves are not mounded, there are no ornamental plants, and no marker to the dead is ever raised.”
“Mennonite children read almost exclusively from the Old Testament. The fatalism with which misfortune is borne and the docility with which sanctions such as the ban and shunning are endured is amazing.”
This book is as technical (on crops, economics, insects, weeds, politics) as it is poignant (although there are moments). So here’s the money quote:
“The soils of the alluvial fans flanking the surrounding hills of volcanic andesites and tuffs are calcium-rich abodes of varying texture, ranging in color, within the colony, from light brown on the higher elevations to near-black and with a chernozem-like appearance in the area adjacent to the lagunas.”
A few other more interesting passages:
“The culinary variety in the Mennonite kitchen, never large in the first place, thus becomes narrower still. Although the beans, peppers, and tortillas characteristic of Mexico, have long been accepted, the Mennonite diet continues to be heavily predicated upon potatoes and white bread, together with pork for those whose means permit.”
“Many children and teenagers looked ‘peaked,’ a condition described by Mexican doctors as being largely owing to improper diet. The consensus of opinion from them is that if these youngsters would be fed more milk, oatmeal, and beans instead of white bread and coffee it would represent a great dietary improvement. Infant mortality is high. In three colonies—Ojo del Yegua, Hague, and Swift Current—it averaged 9.7 percent from 1950 to 1964.”
On how they spend their Sunday afternoons: “When church is out, invitations may be extended, particularly to those from other villages, to come to dinner and stay the afternoon to visit (spazieren). The visitors’ horses are always unharnessed and put up and fed in the barn. After dinner and possibly a nap, host and guests retire to the parlor (grosze Stube). Bowls of roasted sunflower seeds are handed around, the men may light cigarettes, and soon the room is littered with hulls and redolent of smoke. Neighbors, if they drop in, enter without knocking and join in the visit. Later the men may be offered a schnapps by their host. Vesper is served, and soon the guests make their way homeward.”
“Altkolonier [Old Colony] graves are not mounded, there are no ornamental plants, and no marker to the dead is ever raised.”
“Mennonite children read almost exclusively from the Old Testament. The fatalism with which misfortune is borne and the docility with which sanctions such as the ban and shunning are endured is amazing.”
Displaying 1 of 1 review