War along the Border: The Mexican Revolution and Tejano Communities

Introduction

Foreword | viii in the collection reveal is that during the 1910s there was a war on the Texas–Mexico border, Mexico seemed on the brink, and anti-Mexican sentiment in Texas was high. A hundred years later, in 2010, there is a war on the Texas–Mexico border, Mexico seems on the brink, and antiMexican sentiment is high.Clichés abound.Have we not learned anything from history? Does history repeat itself ? Does history move in circles? To be sure the circumstances between 1910 and 2010 are very different, but can it be that the more things change, the more they stay the same? One major difference is that Mexican Americans in Texas today are larger in number (close to 10 million by some estimates) and possess more political and economic power than they did in 1910. Our power, however, like our scholarship, is still nascent, and much more remains to be accomplished. It is our hope that the essays presented here will stimulate more research on how the Mexican Revolution affected Mexican Americans specifically and on Mexico–Mexican American relations in general.The Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Houston is pleased to have participated in this discussion and contributed to bringing new knowledge to the public through its Monograph Series. Tatcho Mindiola, Director Center for Mexican American Studies University of Houston War along the Border Introduction ARNOLDO DE LEÓN In late 1910, a fateful revolution burst forth in Mexico. Today, some observers tout the uprising as matching in scope the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Chinese Revolution of 1949, the Cuban Revolution of 1959, and the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The Revolution of 1910, now a century past, continues to fascinate scholars,attract history majors to courses on the subject,and take up much shelf space in university libraries across the globe. The basic facts of the Revolution are fairly well-known. Its origins lay in the massive discontent existing throughout the land against the dictator Porfirio Díaz (1876–1911).Landless campesinos felt angered with land theft, peones with hacienda life, laborers with industrial conditions in factories,the literati with intellectual suppression, political dissenters with disfranchisement, educators with illiteracy, and so on. It was an unlikely figure by the name of Francisco I. Madero who galvanized the many restive elements throughout Mexico and started the Revolution from his place of exile in San Antonio. From Texas he issued the Plan de San Luis Potosí, calling for a nationwide uprising of his compatriots against Díaz to occur on the 20th day of November 1910. Those familiar with the history of the Revolution know that Díaz submitted to revolutionary forces, resigning his office in May 1911, that Madero assumed the presidency in Novem- Arnoldo De León | 2 ber 1911, only to face assassination in February 1913, and that Victoriano Huerta, who coordinated the plan leading to Madero’s murder, succeeded to the presidency (only to be forcibly removed from the executive by insurgent armies in August 1914). Known also is that Mexico, shortly after Madero took over the reins of government, slipped into internecine fighting and that subsequently leaders in command of this or that revolutionary faction were Francisco (Pancho)Villa, Emiliano Zapata, Pascual Orozco, andVenustiano Carranza, among others. Of equal understanding is that those who fought in the Revolution did so for different purposes, among them to achieve land reform,hold free elections,require separation of church and state,bring an end to foreign domination of Mexico’s infrastructure ,introduce unionization,and the like.They did so fiercely,and the Revolution quickly deteriorated into forced conscription, disruption of homes and communities,sustained violence,chaotic economic conditions, widespread hunger, and much misery. In the year 2010, the nation of Mexico commemorated the onehundredth anniversary of the Revolution. Citizens rightfully celebrated the ousting of Díaz the dictator, the decline of peonage as a feudal system, gains made by labor union members, land reform, anticlericalism, and the termination of foreign ownership of the nation’s natural resources.They observed the relative calm that had reigned over the country during the course of a century. Throughout the United States, Mexican American communities in 2010 also paid homage to the Mexican Revolution. It seemed fitting that Mexican Americans too observe the many principles embodied in the rebellion , which...