Walter Mignolo reminds us that the formation of Latin American identity was entangled with Europe from its beginning: «The geopolitical configurations of the subcontinent imaginary and the name were not the inventions of enlightened Latin American intellectuals in search of their identity, but also of a new configuration of an imperial field of forces: Spain and Portugal in decay; France and England in their hegemonic imperial stage; and the United States, with a clear perspective of their 'manifest destiny' and project of their future imperial power» (133).

For comparisons of the sibling's choice of topics and writing styles, see Bonnie Frederick's article on the differences between their travel narratives. Also see María Rosa Lojo's analysis of the sibling's familial and societal positions and their subsequent authorial decisions.

I cannot verify for certain that this article is the same one from which Mizraje quotes. Mizraje herself does not provide bibliographical references for her book, and the book from which I took the article by Sarmiento, Las escritoras, only provides a footnote referencing his Obras completas, volume XLVI. According to this source, the article appeared in El Nacional on July 11, 1879. Hanway also quotes from this article, and does not include the Spanish original in her list of works cited. I also do not know the original newspaper title of the article.

Although not grammatically phrased as a question, this sentence is punctuated as one in the original text.

See Masiello's Between Civilization and Barbarism and David Viñas for excellent readings of the domestic in this novel. Also see Hanway's comparison of the space of the nation and the trope of the degraded mother in El médico and Sarmiento's Recuerdos de provincia.

Sylvia Molloy provides an excellent analysis of many Spanish American autobiographies in her At Face Value, which, like Piglia's essay as quoted above, investigates questions of identity and the tensions between self and other that are present in the tactics of memory and repression used by the various authors examined. Piglia himself has edited a selection of autobiographical texts and written a preface to them in his book Yo.

This xenophobic attitude towards Argentina's inhabitants is similar to Mónica Szurmuk's assessment of Eduarda's North American racism, as evidenced in her Recuerdos de viaje. Szurmuk argues: «Underneath its superficial charm, there is, however, a complex structure that draws its input from the most reactionary discourses available at the time, which naturalize power, discrimination, racism, and xenophobia» (66).

This technique was certainly not uncommon or unprecedented. Nonetheless, it should be noted that it was often used by women writers of the period. Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda's Sab (written in Spain), for example, offers numerous explanatory footnotes about local customs, plants, and animals for her European audience.

According to Francine Masiello, Pablo's, publishing history raises «the problem of where and how to speak of the state and [...] the problem of the authority of female language» («Lost» 74).

Victoria Ocampo, Norah Lange, and Jorge Luis Borges are celebrated instances of this multilingual upbringing. For a fascinating discussion of Ocampo's fluencies, see Beatriz Sarlo's chapter on her in La máquina cultural.