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Information and Ideas / Command of Evidence Difficulty: Hard

In the twentieth century, ethnographers made a concerted effort to collect Mexican American folklore, but they did not always agree about that folklore’s origins. Scholars such as Aurelio Espinosa claimed that Mexican American folklore derived largely from the folklore of Spain, which ruled Mexico and what is now the southwestern United States from the sixteenth to early nineteenth centuries. Scholars such as Américo Paredes, by contrast, argued that while some Spanish influence is undeniable, Mexican American folklore is mainly the product of the ongoing interactions of various cultures in Mexico and the United States.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support Paredes’s argument?

The folklore that the ethnographers collected included several songs written in the form of a décima, a type of poem originating in late sixteenth-century Spain.

Much of the folklore that the ethnographers collected had similar elements from region to region.

Most of the folklore that the ethnographers collected was previously unknown to scholars.

Most of the folklore that the ethnographers collected consisted of corridos—ballads about history and social life—of a clearly recent origin.

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Explanation

Choice D is the best answer because it presents a finding that, if true, would support Paredes’s argument that Mexican-American folklore is mostly the result of cultural interactions in Mexico and the United States rather than an adaptation of Spanish folklore. The text describes a disagreement among scholars about whether Mexican-American folklore mostly derived from the folklore of Spain or originated in Mexico and the United States as cultures there have interacted. The latter view is the argument that Paredes puts forward. If Mexican-American folklore collected in the twentieth century mostly consists of ballads about history and social life that originated recently, then that would support Paredes’s argument, since it would suggest that the folklore mostly arose after Spanish rule ended in the early nineteenth century and that the folklore reflects cultural interactions in Mexico and the United States rather than traditions from Spain.

Choice A is incorrect because the inclusion of songs influenced by sixteenth-century Spanish poetry among Mexican-American folklore collected in the twentieth century would not support Paredes’s view that the folklore was the result of cultural interactions in Mexico and the United States rather than an offshoot of Spanish folklore. If anything, the presence of such songs among the folklore collected in the twentieth century would weaken Paredes’s argument, since it would reflect the influence of Spanish culture on the folklore. Choice B is incorrect because the mere presence of similarities in Mexican-American folklore across regions would not be sufficient to draw a conclusion about where the folklore originated, let alone to support Paredes’s argument that the folklore reflects cultural interactions in Mexico and the United States. In fact, since Paredes argued that Mexican-American folklore is the product of various cultures interacting in Mexico and the United States, he would likely expect there to be regional variations in folklore as different cultures have interacted in different places. Choice C is incorrect because scholars’ previous ignorance of the folklore would have no bearing on Paredes’s argument that Mexican-American folklore mostly reflects cultural interactions in Mexico and the United States. The folklore’s origins are independent of scholars’ knowledge of the folklore.