Historians dismiss Agustín Itúrbide with a few lines and most Mexicans have never heard of him. He deserves better. Factually, he was the one who cut the chains that bound Mexico in servitude to Spain. Perhaps historians are uneasy with him because he proposed an Empire rather than a Republic. In fairness to him we […]
Continue ReadingAsked to identify Francisco “Pancho” Villa, most people living North of the Rio Grande and even some Mexicans would call him a “bandido” but a careful examination of his career reveals simply a man willing to break the law to further a cause. In many ways, he remains an enigma. Born in San Juan del Rio, Durango, […]
Continue Reading“The evil men do lives after them, the good is often interred with their bones.” These words of Shakespeare may well describe the future of U.S. President Bill Clinton, but in writing about Mexican President Benito Juarez I would paraphrase these words to read, “The good that he did lives after him, the damage was […]
Continue ReadingIt was just about five years ago that my friends started to disappear from the streets of the little Mexican villages on the shores of Lake Chapala where I had retired some three years earlier. At first I thought they were sick or had moved back to the “old country” but then I met a […]
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The dictionary defines the word Caudillo as “a politician backed by a military force” and a study of Mexican history reveals a country that from its very beginning until well into the 20th Century was controlled by men whose had seized power by force rather than through the electoral process. Another definition of Caudillo is “strongman” and in this […]
Continue ReadingMarried just seven years at the time of their acceptance of the throne in Mexico, Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian and Archduchess Maria Charlotte were both of royal blood, young, well educated, and happily in love. He was son of the ruler of Austria, and related by blood or marriage to every ruling family in Europe, she […]
Continue Reading In many ways, Porfirio Díaz is an enigma. Although he always gave lip service to democracy, during the thirty-five years that he controlled Mexico (1876 – 1911) he rode rough shod over freedom of speech, controlled the press, exiled dissidents and jailed opponents without trials. His first formal education headed him toward the priesthood but […]
Continue ReadingAs many as 62 indigenous languages are still spoken in Mexico. Most people realize that the national language of Mexico is Spanish and that Mexico is the world’s largest Spanish speaking country. In fact, its population, now numbering 100 million, represents about one-third of all the 330 million or so Spanish speakers in the world. […]
Continue ReadingThe Vanilla Festival is held in early summer every year in Papantla, Veracruz. The origins of the festival pre-date the Spanish conquest. Its timing is now tied to the Catholic celebration of the Feast of Corpus Christi (Body of Christ), sixty days after Easter. Papantla is the heart of Mexico’s vanilla-growing region. Vanilla, surely one […]
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The small town of Nacozari occupies a valley nestled in the foothills of the Western Sierra Madre (Sierra Madre Occidental) in the state of Sonora. A hundred years ago this month, a young locomotive driver had to make a desperate decision: save his own life or try to save the lives of hundreds in his […]
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