ABSTRACT
In this chapter I explore how John Xántus reconstructs his identity in the emerging epistolary travel and scientifi c narrative during his stay in Cabo San Lucas, California in 1859 to 1861. Xántus chronicled much of his experience in stories, using themes and narrative techniques that envisage the author’s self-defi nition as an actor in nineteenth-century travel writing. During his journey, he encountered other cultures, learned to consider his own ethnic background critically, and developed trans-ethnic attitudes to viewing the other. Ann Zwinger edited fi fty-eight letters from this trip in a volume titled: Xántus: The Letters of John Xántus to Spencer Fullerton Baird, from San Francisco and Cabo San Lucas, 1859-1861. Discussing selected textual examples from the Xántus-Baird correspondence, I seek to illustrate, from a narrative and conversational-analysis perspective, the role of small stories in culture trade that construct trans-ethnic identities. Small stories, defi ned as talk-(or narrative-)in-interaction, cover less frequently examined narrative activities such as “tellings of ongoing events, future or hypothetical events, shared (known) events, but also allusions to telling, deferrals of telling, and refusals to tell” (Georgakopoulou vii).
