Arnoldo De León - War along the Border: The Mexican Revolution and Tejano Communities

Edited by Arnoldo De Len

TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY PRESS | COLLEGE STATION

Copyright 2012 by University of HoustonCenter for Mexican American Studies
Manufactured in the United States of America

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First edition

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). Binding materials have been chosen for durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

War along the border : the Mexican Revolution and Tejano communities / edited by Arnoldo

De Len. 1st ed.

p. cm. (University of Houston series in Mexican American studies ; no. 6)

Several of the papers in this collection were read... [at] a symposium held in September 2010 by the University of Houstons Center for Mexican American Studies.Introd.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60344-524-5 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 1-60344-524-2 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN-13: 978-1-60344-525-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 1-60344-525-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)

e-ISBN-13: 978-1-60344-569-6

e-ISBN-10: 1-60344-569-2

e-ISBN-13: 978-1-60344-570-2

e-ISBN-10: 1-60344-570-6

1. Mexican AmericansTexasHistory20th centuryCongresses. 2. MexicoHistoryRevolution, 19101920Mexican AmericansCongresses. 3. MexicoHistoryRevolution, 19101920Social aspectsCongresses. 4. Mexican American womenTexasHistory20th centuryCongresses. 5. TexasHistory18461950Congresses. 6. Mexican-American Border RegionHistory20th centuryCongresses. 7. MexicoHistoryRevolution, 19101920African AmericansCongresses. 8. MexicoHistoryRevolution, 19101920RefugeesTexasCongresses. I. De Len, Arnoldo, 1945II. University of Houston. Center for Mexican American Studies. III. Series: University of Houston series in Mexican American studies; no. 6.

F395.M5W37 2011

972.0816dc23

2011018192

Mexican American communities in the United States owe much to la frontera. The TexasMexico border has given people on both its sides the distinctive style of music known as conjunto, led to the making of delectable Tex-Mex dishes, kept popular the vaquero style of dress, acted as an arena where Spanish and English blend, and ultimately has created a syncretic Chicano identity. Due to cultural and historic influences, Mexican American communities throughout the United States annually observe some of Mexicos epochal events, among them the day on which the Virgen de Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego (December 12), the day on which Mexico declared independence from Spain (the Diez y Seis de Septiembre), and the day in 1862 when Mexican forces inflicted a defeat on the French army at Puebla (the Cinco de Mayo). In the year 2010, numerous Mexican American communities in Texas, and indeed nationally, commemorated the hundredth anniversary of the Mexican Revolution. Unfortunately, scholarship at times does not give deserved attention to aspects of these historic episodes. To our knowledge, for instance, War along the Border: The Mexican Revolution and Tejano Communities represents the first treatment of how the Mexican Revolution of 1910 affected the economic, cultural, and political climate of Mexican Americans in Texas. What the essays in the collection reveal is that during the 1910s there was a war on the TexasMexico 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 TexasMexico border, Mexico seems on the brink, and anti-Mexican sentiment is high. Clichs 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 MexicoMexican 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

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 Daz (18761911). 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 Potos, calling for a nationwide uprising of his compatriots against Daz to occur on the 20th day of November 1910.

Those familiar with the history of the Revolution know that Daz submitted to revolutionary forces, resigning his office in May 1911, that Madero assumed the presidency in November 1911, only to face assassination in February 1913, and that Victoriano Huerta, who coordinated the plan leading to Maderos 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, and Venustiano 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 Mexicos 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 one-hundredth anniversary of the Revolution. Citizens rightfully celebrated the ousting of Daz 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 nations natural resources. They observed the relative calm that had reigned over the country during the course of a century.