THE PRESENTATION OF SELF THROUGH 1SURROGATES
IN LATIN-AMERICAN LIFE
Octavio Romano
Behavioral Sciences Division
School of Public Health
University of California, Berkeley
Throughout Latin-American life, and among the people of Mexican
descent in the United States, people often use personal intermediaries when
they intend to deal with others. Such interpersonal activity is brought into
play in a relatively wide variety of situations which call for particular
kinds of communications and calculated negotiations. This aspect of Latin-
American social interaction has been-commented upon by many writers, as, for
example, Oscar Lewis who has written that, It. . . although Teopztecans are
turned within themselves, they are not dreamers.  T     are an indirect eople;
th   frequently rely upon the use of intermediaries and upon formality   (1951:
418, my emphasis).
Much along the same lines, George Foster has written that, "Basic to
an understanding of the patron-client relationship . . ." in Tzintzuntzan,
is the concept of a palanca, or lever. A palanca, then, is a go-
between" (1963:1292). Foster then goes on to say that god-parents, co-parents,
friendsand saints are among the many who at one time or another perform the
role of go-between.
Perhaps the most widely known social situation in which Latin-Americans
use the device of a go-between concerns the ubiquitous matrimonial intermedi-
aries who lend themselves as temporary liaisons between a prospective groom
and his desired girl's family.  In her recent paper, "Opposition and Alliance
in a Mexican Town," May Nordquist Diaz has extensively discussed such inter-
familial negotiations. She has written that, in negotiations between two
families with matrimony in mind, ". . . the ceremonies resemble diplomatic
proceedings between two sovereignoand distinct units. Direct communication
can take place only with the help of a mediator; often it could not take
place at all without the tact and the manipulations of a practiced diplomat,
for the affinal groups are expected to be not only distant but openly hostile
as well" (1964:184, -my emphasis).
In the course of doing field work in Frontera, Texas, I was asked to
be a matrimonial intermediary, portador in the local language, along with a
Senior Lopez, the local resident who was most often asked to perform such
tasks. The following, from field notes, is an abbreviated account of that
experience.
During the afternoon, Senior Lopez came over and asked me if I had
anything planned for that evening. I replied that I didn't, and he then said
with a smile that someone wanted him and me to go ask for a girl's hand. We
arranged to meet at seven-thirty that evening. Later, Senior Lopez arrived
with another man of some 35 years of age who turned out to be the brother of
the boy making the request through us. Our goal was a community about fifteen
miles to the west of Frontera, but our first stop was in Frontera itself, at
the Tecolote Bar where the older brother of the prospective groom bought some
76
beer for the portadores. "This is to take the fear away, and to give you
courage,"s he said. }le drinking the beer on the way, Senor Lopez asked a
series of casually detailed questions concerning the length of time the
couple had known each other, whether or not they were in accord with our mis-
sion, and whether or not the girl's family knew that we were to visit that
evening. In addition, Sen'or Lopez inquired about the boy's work and his
general economic situation. This was followed by a few questions concerning
the length of the courtship. When the older brother had replied to all of
the questions, Se'nor Lopez repeated that he certainly wished that all had
been properly arranged and that we would not all get thrown out of the girl's
house. Everyone laughed somewhat nervously.
A short while later, Senior Lopez asked the older brother to repeat
all of the essential information once more. General nervousness prevailed,
and more jokes were made about getting thrown out of the house. Upon arriv-
ing we drove to a small house in front of which two brothers of the girl were
conversing. We were asked to enter. The mother, since the father was
deceased, came out to receive us in the living room of the three room house.
She and her oldest son remained in the living room. We talked with them.
For the better part of the first half hour, the conversation was more
or less conventional, covering such topics as the weather, the recent rains,
the crops, and prospects for work. This was followed by a fairly detailed,
but seemingly very casual, account of the memberships of the two families in-
volved.  Throughout the conversation we deferred to the hosts.  Finally,
Se'nor Lopez moved to a chair near the older brother of the girl and addressed
himself to him, not to the mother.  In a semi-formal language he explained
our mission.  His message was interspersed with formalistic and ritualistic
phrases extolling the virtues of matrimony from both the secular and the reli-
gious points of view. The mother and her oldest son listened without inter-
ruption until he was through. They then excused themselves and left for the
next room, presumably to confer and to check with the daughter. We remained
sitting without saying a word for some ten minutes. The mother and son
returned to inform Senor Lopez that they would take the matter into considera-
tion. Senior Lopez inquired about a possible date upon which we could return
for their answer. The older son said, "Do not trouble yourselves to travel
this far.  We will go see you in Frontera in fifteen days."  This agreed upon,
the visit ended and we walked outside, the mother remaining indoors. The
girl whose hand had been requested had not come into the room during the en-
tire visit. Then the portadores and the girl's older brother went to a bar
for a beer. Talk about the visit and our purpose there was completely
avoided in the presence of the girl's brother.
On the way home everybody noticeably relaxed and joked about how well
the visit had come off, and how well we had been received, When I asked
Senor Lopez for his judgment of the possible results he said, "Well, like the
Americanos say, es un cinch." We all laughed.
A few days later I was talking about the subject of courtship and
such visits with a small group of boys in their late teens. I asked them
about what happened when one or another of them decided he wanted to marry.
77
Emilio:  "The boy tells his father. Then, the father can go ask for
the girl if he wants to, or he can send someone else.  In the majority of
cases someone else is sent. Here in Frontera people have always chosen one
of four men who are known as the portadores of the community."
Urbano: "They get paid, you know. One pays them what one can. They
deserve payment, after all it's a risk."
There was general laughter over this last remark, as there almost
always is, so I asked why it should be such risky business.
Urbano:  "Well, if they are run out of the house, it is they [the
portadoreswho take the shame" (Si salen corridos, ellos son los     e llevan
la ver2Uenza).
Everyone in the group agreed with this evaluation of the situation.
Matrimonial intermediaries have been observed elsewhere in Latin-
America.  C. Guiteras Holmes, for example, has spoken of the embajadores, or
the "embassadors," who function as such for the prospective bride in Sayula,
Mexico (1952:176-177); and John Gillen has identified the practice in Moche,
Peru (1947).  In their comprehensive work on a Columbian mestizo village,
Gerardo and Alicia Reichel-Dolmatoff have made reference to the use of per-
sonal intermediaries in a wide range of situations involving interpersonal
relations (1961).
Although such Latin-American intermediary activity is frequently men-
tioned in literature, detailed and systematically analytic accounts of this
behavior, such as that presented by M. N. Diaz, are relatively rare. Most
probably this is primarily due to the fact that communications through third
parties are normally conducted upon mutually agreed conditions of relative
secrecy. Nevertheless, from existing information certain questions can be
raised and certain conclusions can be indicated. First, one may ask, "What
is the range of social situations in which intermediaries are used?" Second,
"What is the nature of this particular social mechanism and of the individuals
who make use of it?" And third, "What theoretical importance does this activ-
ity have in anthropological theory?"
In answer to the first question which concerns the range of social
situations in which the intermediary is called into action, we have examples
from Tepoztlan. Here, a young man may send his mother to collect wages that
are due him (Lewis 1951:112)--for who can refuse a mother? Here, also, some
young men may approach or communicate with a girl through in intermediary
(Ibid:4OO), much as is done throughout Latin-America. Already mentioned, of
course, is the existence of the patron-client relationship in Tzintzuntzan in
which the client sends an intermediary to represent him on a number of occa-
sions. In the Colombian village of Aritama, intermediaries are used for the
following reasons: to request a man to be a compadre; to establish or re-
establish credit, especially for individuals who are not well known in the
village; to request participation from neighbors in traditional cooperative
labor; to collect wages due; to request a loan from an employer; to collect a
debt; to request the services of a healer; and to communicate with relatives
78
or a spouse following a quarrel and the cessation of speaking relations
(Reichel-Dolmatoff 1961).
Among the Mexican-Americans in South Texas, an intermediary is used
in the following situations: when an individual requests admission or read-
mission into the local Men's Mutual Aid Society; when requesting a girl in
marriage; when requesting a loan; when asking a politician for a political-
favor; when a saint or a folk-saint is asked to intervene in one's behalf;
and when communicating with a relative or spouse following a cessation of
speaking relations.
From these examples of intermediary activity, two general patterns of
interaction emerge. First, intermediaries appear to be used primarily in
those situations in which one person is requesting something of another. Un-
der such circumstances, then, the person making the request withholds himself
from a face-to-face encounter and sends another person to present his case.
This being so, the selection of a representative most often is oriented to-
ward the selection of an individual who will present the case in its most
favorable or impressive light, of which more later.
The second pattern which emerges from intermediary activity makes it
apparent that the device fundamentally constitutes a means by which people
can communicate with non-kin, as the overwhelming number of cases cited indi-
cate. The exception, of course, is that situation in which relatives, or a
married couple, have ceased to talk to one another. Most interesting here is
the fact that an essentially non-kin communicating device is used to communi-
cate with kin, as if to indicate that during such a breach of intrafamilial
relations, the expected recognition of kinship has ceased to exist.
Turning now to the second question which involves the nature of this
social mechanism and the people who make use of it, we may view intermediary
activity now from a more individual and personal point of view. Why, in the
first place, send another person to speak for you? Clearly the reasons for
this are many. Tepoztecans, for example, consider it to be personally humil-
iating to have to ask for employment (Lewis 1951:112), and also when they
have to ask for a loan (Ibid.172). In Aritama the situation is much the same,
for here too many individuals appear to be hyper-reluctant to admit to another
person that they are in need of anything whatsoever. For example, the
Reichel-Dolmatoffs write,
That . . . hired labor presents many problems is to be expected. The
first difficulty arises as soon as the employer begins to look for
laborers. Very rarely, practically never, can a person be approached
directly and asked to work for a certain time and wage. This would be
embarrassing for both parties and most humiliating for the one who is
offered the work. The latter is likely to refuse, to feel offended, or
even to answer haughtily, "I myself am looking for hired help."  Such
arrangements, therefore, must be made through an intermediary--a rela-
tive, a friend, or a compadre who, with the necessary diplomacy and
caution, suggests that the one accept the work and the conditions of-
fered by the other (1961:262, my emphasis).
One reason for utilizing a go-between, therefore, is to maintain in
some fashion the reality or the fiction that one of the parties involved is
79
not in such desperate straits that he will humiliate himself by asking person-
ally for a favor. This type of behavior, therefore, may be called an effort
at impression management (Goffman 1959) insofar as it involves the goal of
conveying or controlling an impression of the self. It differs from Goffnan's
formulations, however, in that here a third party is utilized to achieve a
similar end.
From the standpoint of the actual participants, perhaps even more im-
portant than the humiliation of finding it necessary to ask something from
someone else, is the ever present possibility of refusal. Thus it has been
said that Tepoztecan boys whose advances have been refused by a girl,
have been known to get drunk for days because of the humiliation"
(Lewis 1951:400); and again, ". . . there is always the possibility of the
marriage request being refused" (ibid.:h05).  In a strikingly similar vein,
the Reichel-Dolmatoffs forcefully write that in Aritama the refusal to be a
padrino is considered to be a very great offense (1961:172). It is also an
offense in Aritama to refuse a request to participate in cooperative labor
(ibid.:257), or to personally attempt to collect payment for a loan (ibid.:
4175)T And, as young Urbano said in South Texas, if matrimonial intermediaries
are run out of the house, it is th   who take the shame. In Frontera, then,
as it probably is elsewhere in Latin-America, this mechanism of displacing the
shame through the use of a third party tends to preserve the integrity of the
requesting party or parties. This is perhaps the principal reason for the
nervous joking that often takes place during such activities in Frontera. It
is also the reason why an intermediary worth his mettle carefully informs him-
self and assures himself that the negotiations will probably go well in the
diplomatic endeavor. In any event, if a request is refused through a third
party, the person making the request has not been directly refused. There-
fore, he is not required to "save face" by replying in kind.
Nevertheless, the possibilities of refusal and humiliation call for a
kind of intermediary maneuvering which involves complex rules of social diplo-
macy. Basic to such maneuvering in most, if not all, of the cases of interme-
diary activity is the fact that the delegate selected is expected or believed
to be relatively neutral during negotiations. For example, Diaz writes that,
The groom selects someone to present his case to the bride's family.
The delegate may be a relative, but no particular kinsman is preferred,
although ordinarily neither his father nor his brothers are expected to
perform this service. Again a certain amount of "neutrality is expected
of the peacemaker (1964W.180I my emphasis).
Relative neutrality for the intermediary is also achieved in Aritama.
The Dolmatoffs write,
A person should never try to collect a debt and never, in any way,
remind the debtor of his obligations by asking him to fulfill them. One
has to wait until he is paid. Sometimes one might send an "innocent"
intermediary, such as a child or a complete stranger . . . (1961:445, my
emphasis) .
Ideally, then, the intermediary should not take personal sides in any
transaction to the explicit exclusion of the other. Should he do so, he is
thereby involved on a one-to-one basis and the rules of the diplomatic role
have been changed. Thus he has jeopardized and subverted the very purpose
80
which he is supposed to serve. Most commonly, then, the principal task of
the intermediary is to convey the impression desired by the person or persons
who have sent him on his mission. It is because of this expected neutrality,
plus the fact that the responsibility is to convey an image of another person,
and because such activities can and often are manipulated toward desired ends,
that I have chosen to characterize intermediaries as surrogates for the self.
The degree to which such activities are manipulated constitutes impression
management.
An excellent case in point is the account provided by Diaz when she
describes the negotiations between the representative of a groom and the par-
ents of the girl whom he has stolen. In this situation, the intermediary is
asking the girl's parents too accept the fact as accomplished, and to give
their blessing to the intended union. At this point, the groom's representa-
tive pictures him as a good but impetuous boy, one who has seen the error of
his ways, a boy who is eager to make amends, and one whose family, after all,
is honorable (ibid.:181).
During similar occasions in Frontera, the impressions conveyed by an
intermediary may include the fact or fiction that a prospective son-in-law is
quite ready to settle down, that he is a man like any other and is in need of
a wife, that he is ready to take his place in the natural order of things,
and that he has actually spoken very little to the girl whom he intends to
marry. This last remark is intended to convey the notion that if two young
people have hardly had time to talk to one another they have hardly had. time
for anything else. Thus, everyone's honor is preserved through this very real
or very fictional verbal device.
There is still another dimension to the use of surrogates when one
views them as a tool for managing impressions. This concerns the very wide-
spread reluctance of Latin-Americans to justify or excuse their behavior to
another person, particularly if-that other person is not a relative.. However,
the surrogate for the self can be requested to convey any justifications
which a given individual may deem essential for the successful completion of
a transaction.  While requesting a loan, for example, an individual may be
very reluctant to admit dire need. But he may convey this notion to his
intermediary who, in turn, expresses it to the person to whom he has been
sent. The worthy intermediary accomplishes this in as neutral a manner as
possible, almost in the form of casual and subsidiary observations. Never
should he explicitly state that he has been told to say such a thing.
In addition, it is generally considered very bad form to boast, to
exaggerate, or to picture oneself in a better light than one's neighbors.
Once again, however, through the proper use of a surrogate this can be judi-
ciously accomplished.
Probably the most complicated mateuver in such transactions involves
what may be termed double impression management.  By this I refer to those
cases in which a person who selects a surrogate expects to make an impression
upon the person selected, as well as upon the one to whom he is being sent.
In politics, for example, this is very often the case. In effect, here -the.
person seeking a favor is saying to his surrogate, "You are more important
than I am. You can talk to those people. You know how to talk to them."
Finally, a surrogate can be utilized not only to-convey desired infor-
matlon, but he can also be used as a mechanism for withholding information.-
For example, it is common for an individual to tactfully request his repre-
sentative to withhold certain bits of information or to avoid certain subjects.
Thus, a surrogate may be asked not to mention an "unfortunate" incident in the
past, or not to mention that the person requesting a loan has recently re-
ceived money from another source. Similarly, a surrogate may be asked not to
mention that the person who has sent him to ask for a girl's hand had been
refused'unceremoniously in another village. In'this manner, another degree-
of. control has been exercised.
To summarize the management of impressions through surrogates, an
individual may present a picture of himself in three principal ways. First,
he may have himself presented in a ritualistic, stereotypic and culturally
prescribed way. Second, he may use the surrogate as a device by which he can
boast in an acceptable manner. Third, he may choose to withhold basic or
pertinent information for a variety of reasons.
Now, one may ask, what significance does intermediary activity have
from the standpoint of anthropological theory?
First, such activity can be viewed as a mechanism through which the
ever-present possibility of open conflict as the result of a humiliating re-
fusal is minimized, thus' introducing an element of stability in a potentially
unstable situation. Furthermore, the very same mechanism also can be used to
re-establish severed relations, as often is the case with husbands, wives,
and relatives. In short, intermediary activity may be a social device for
conflict avoidance as well as conflict resolution.
Second, a dimension of the dyadic contractual relationship (Foster
1961) is found in the use of intermediaries. For example, if a man asks a
compadre to serve as a go-between, and the request is accepted, the dyadic
co-parent relationship is thereby further cemented; and, if the compadre-
surrogate is successful in his mission, the situation is now one of a double
favor granted. One favor has been to agree to serve as the intermediary, and
the other has come from the person to whom he has been sent. But no matter
who is selected to serve in the capacity of intermediary, in such situations
there are always a minimum of three persons who are fundamentally involved.
This being the case, it can be said that in a wide variety of social circum-
stances the basic connecting, or catalytic, link between different elements
in Latin-American social structure is a transitory triad.
Third, and finally, surrogative activity may also constitute an inte-
gral part of the on-going process of role transition. In other words, when
the surrogative task is done successfully, and the two principals once again
meet face to face, often it will be in a new social context which involves
roles that are different from those they occupied prior to the initiation of
the negotiations. For now a young man is no longer a neighbor's son, or a
suitor. He is now a son-in-law, a brother-in-law, a husband. Similarly, a
man may no longer be just a neighbor. He is now a member of the Men's Mutual
Aid Society, a comrade, a colleague.  Similar transitions take place from
neighbor to member of a cooperative work group. And due to such role transi-
tions, new reciprocal relationships are now called for, with new role expecta-
82
tions and new demands. In short, when a surrogate goes out to perform his
task, it is often a signal that a shift in the membership of some structural
segments of the social order is in the offing. And when the intermediary
returns with a favorable response, quite often a new structural re-alignment
has been accomplished.
ENDNOTE
1Rgsearch for this paper was supported in part by National Institute
of Mental Health Grant 5 T1 MH-8104, and it is a modified version of a paper
delivered at the 1964 Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Associa-
tion at Detroit, Michigan. I am grateful to Noel Chrisran, Tom Lanagan, and
Lucile Newman for their comments.
REFERENCES
DIAZ, MAY NORDQUIST
1964 Opposition and alliance in a Mexican town. Ethnology Vol. III
179-184.
FOSTER, GEORGE M.
1961   The dyadic contract: a model for the social structure of a
Mexican peasant village. American Anthropologist 63:1173-1192.
1963   The dyadic contract in Tzintzuntzan, II:  patron-c lient relation-
ship. American Anthropologist 65:1280-1294.
GILLEN, JOHN
1947   Moche:  a Peruvian coastal community.  Institute of Social Anthro-
pology, Publication No. 3, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington,
D.C.
GOFFMAN, ERVING
1959   The presentation of self in everyday life.  Garden City, New York,
Doubleday & Company.
HOLMES, C. GUITERAS
1952   Sayula, Temas de Mexico--Serie Geografia, Sociedad Mexicana da
Geograf ia y Estadistica, Mexico.
REICHEL-DOLMATOFF, GERARDO and ALICIA
1964   The people of Aritama.  Chicago, University of Chicago Press.