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introduction The Mexican Revolution John Mason Hart This fine collection of essays provides an essential understanding of the twentieth century’s first monumental social and political upheaval. The deeper nature of the revolution—the altering of class relationships, immigration and its influence on the border population, the survival strategies of the oligarchy, the fate of revolutionary peasants and workers, the depth and extent of nationalism, the nature of genderized outcomes, and the transformation of the Mexican regime—are all discussed here with vivid insights. The Mexican Revolution resonates today as one of the fateful episodes in the nation’s history, second only to the Spanish invasion of the early sixteenth century, in which the conquistadores and those who immediately followed defeated a complex of civilizations. The Spaniards brought new economies, technologies, ethnic relationships, language, and religion to the masses. That process, as it relates to the revolution, resulted in social and political inequalities that were contradicted by the higher ideals of the village padres, with their role in the creation of the municipio libre and its asamblea popular, and by the rise of secular intellectual pluralism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The material conditions that led to the revolution became acute during the porfiriato (1876–1910), when the regime’s notion of bifurcated development resulted in formal education for the few but continued illiteracy for the masses, as well as the construction of infrastructure to provide transportation for rural products in agriculture, mining, and timber, which were produced on a large scale, while leaving rural settlements with ages-old trails. This unequal system concentrated wealth in the hands of 7,200 hacienda owners and some 45,000 rancheros, less than 1 percent of the rural population, while leaving more than 11,000,000 rural workers underemployed, destitute, and oppressed by debt peonage and even slavery. At the same time, some 162 foreign capitalists came to control more than 80 percent of the nation’s frontiers and coastlines and, with concentrated investments, 22 percent of the national surface, including 2 • introduction virtually all of the strategic resources. The extent of their indirect control via mortgages, trading arrangements, and financial contracts is still not known. The revolution resulted in the nationalization of more than 150 million acres of elite and foreign-held lands. By 1940 the Mexican oligarchy had lost most of its hold over agricultural and timberlands, and the foreigners had lost their entire presence on the frontier regions, most of their ownership of strategic resources, and even infrastructure. From ruralYucatán to Soconusco in Chiapas, to Zacatepec in Morelos, to Mante in Tamaulipas, to Madero in Chihuahua, and to Nacozari in Sonora, an amalgam of local and state elites, workers, and campesinos, in the form of pueblos and cooperatives, had occupied these parts of the nation’s economy. Despite rollbacks and the reemergence of oligarchic control in more recent times, these organizations still exist and periodically still openly challenge the political authority emanating from Mexico City and the state capitals. One of the great strengths of these chapters is the insight they provide for the border regions encompassing both the northern tier of Mexican states and the American Southwest. Nicholas Villanueva Jr. presents the display of racist public outrage involving the murder charges against León Martínez Jr. as a useful case study of the nature of unrest that took place in the United States as a result of the Mexican Revolution. That unrest ranged from protest marches in New York City to lynch mobs in Texas. The charges that Mexicans were a “savage race” derived from the history of “Indian wars” almost endlessly waged in the United States prior to the twentieth century. After all, the Mexicans were almost entirely mestizos, viewed as half Indians or semisavages. Racism in Texas was part of our way of life at the time, and the fact that many Mexican rebels were anarchists only compounded the problem. The crimes committed on US soil against Mexicans contributed to the attacks against North Americans in Mexico. These events became wildly exaggerated. In fact, while tens of thousands fled Mexico and widespread property confiscations occurred, only 365 US citizens were killed in Mexico between 1910 and 1920. Meanwhile, demagogues fed public panic with sometimes outright fraudulent claims. Immediate and historical circumstances victimized Martínez. Francisco Balderrama amplifies our understanding by analyzing the situation in Los Angeles, California. At the same time that anti-Mexican sentiment was exploding with such force, cities such as Los...

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