Tenures of Land and Light [Mexico: 1900 and After]

History comes to a head in a moment of disaster, in the time of the disaster that structures the danger of history. In the almost-no-time of this breakdown, thinking comes to a standstill. It experiences itself as interruption.... One can no more escape this obligation to think than one can escape the obligation to act. And what must be thought and acted upon, under the illumination or darkness of these questions, is the possible convergence of photography and history . . .

—Eduardo Cadava, Words of Light

There is something superior to the spectacular sense of the aesthetes, and it is the life sense [sentido vital] of the moralists who know the world is still in the making, that we are involved in the manufacture, and it is in perfecting it that we should spend our faith and breathing.

—Antonio Caso, Problemas Filosóficos¹

"Remarkable Exhibition"

By 1909, President Porfirio Díaz, now at the autumnal age of 79, had governed Mexico like "the stern wise parent of his people" for over a span of 30 years, and all but one brief interim (Brenner and Leighton 1996, 8); but opposition had begun to pose serious threats to his administration—insurgent actors and civilians heretofore having met the fate of thwarting violence, or having sought the asylum of exile. A seasoned general, Porfirio Díaz had had 20 years of military experience when he revolted against the Republic of Benito Juárez in 1871. Having gained the power of the presidency in 1877 and consolidated it by 1884, he certified his position, term after consecutive term, thanks not only to shady balloting practices and a loophole in the 1857 Constitution, but by dint also of rhetorical ploys and repeated retractions of his reelection promises.

To perpetuate his power, Díaz had surrounded himself with an influential group of experts in finance and public administration. Commanded by his secretary of the treasury, José Yves Limantour, this collective ruling elite came to be christened, derisively, as "los científicos." In a land ravaged by extreme indigence, rampant illiteracy, and visible racial disparity—tenacious residues of the colonial experience—these men of affairs were, under the banner of scientific advancement, privileging material progress and technological modernization. In the hands of "los científicos," public policy increasingly reflected the questionable progressive aims for societal evolution as determined by a privileged class invested in the principles of European positivism. Peace and order were established through social repression, surveillance of the press, ineffective suffrage, and a mollification of the Catholic Church.

Spanning a 30-year period in which the country's populace doubled to 15 million, the Díaz regime also was a time of remarkable material and technological expansion. Vast railway systems were constructed to transport passengers and freight across the domestic realm and at the international level. Foreign companies like U.S. Standard Oil and the British-owned Huasteca Petroleum Company first drilled for, then readily industrialized and traded in the coveted merchandise of energy. Mexico City was rapidly modernized: horse-drawn streetcars were replaced by automobiles and trolleys lining the avenues and plazas. Tobacco factories, textile mills, and bottling plants—to name only a few—were built, prompting immigration from the urban outskirts and rural provinces. French-inspired structural redesign of the city center created an urban space that formed at once a contrast and continuum with the colonial-built environment and the vernacular architecture of the outlying neighborhoods. Because Mexico City was notoriously prone to floods, large-scale public works included a massive drainage system, in addition to monuments raised along the Paseo de la Reforma (Rosenthal 2000, 42) and a highly visible penitentiary whose punitive meanings were in no way inconspicuous.

Commonly referred to as the "Strong Man of the Americas," Díaz and his "científicos" produced an image of Mexico as a site of unwavering progress and a dependable place to do business. Foreign investment swelled, especially from the United States—but as more than one observer has remarked, not entirely free of patriotic scrutiny (Krauze 1987, 10). The Díaz administration...