Affirmative action can be defined as a process in which members of a certain ethnicity are compensated for the discrimination and second-class citizen status that their ancestors have endured in the past. In recent Mexican history, there have been strenuous efforts to glorify Mexico’s indigenous heritage while at the same time downplaying the achievements of […]
Continue ReadingOn March 5, 1947 President Harry S. Truman was on the next to last day of a three-day whirlwind visit to Mexico. Departing from his prepared agenda, he announced that he wanted to make a stop at Mexico City’s historic Chapultepec Castle. As the motorcade came to a halt by a grove of trees, Truman […]
Continue ReadingThe term “Utopia” generally has the connotation of a society that is hopelessly visionary and impractical. This is because most of these societies — Plato’s Republic, St. Augustine’s City of God and Sir Thomas More’s Utopia — never existed outside the minds and published works of their creators. However, a real-life Utopia existed in Mexico […]
Continue ReadingIf Diogenes, wielding his famous lamp, ever came into a gallery of Mexican presidents, he wouldn’t come away completely empty-handed. In his quest for an honest man, he would snare at least two for his collection: Benito Juárez and Lázaro Cárdenas. Since Juárez is the subject of another profile in this series, the focus here will be on […]
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In art as in life, Diego Rivera was a man constantly in rebellion. At 16, he left the prestigious San Carlos Academy in Mexico City in protest against the academy’s emphasis on representational art. He became an avid Marxist but outraged the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union by welcoming Trotsky to Mexico. Rivera shocked […]
Continue ReadingThe term ” corregidor” is normally associated with an island in the Philippines that witnessed one of the most dramatic and tragic episodes of the Second World War — when a starving, outgunned, and outnumbered band of American and Filipino soldiers finally surrendered to a Japanese invasion force after heroic but futile resistance. But how did […]
Continue ReadingIt is hardly coincidence that the Chiapas rebels under Subcomandante Marcos call themselves Zapatistas and not Villistas or Carrancistas or Obregonistas or even Maderistas — to name other illustrious figures from the Mexican Revolution. Of all the revolutionary leaders, Emiliano Zapata was the most radical and the most committed to social justice. Detractors say that […]
Continue ReadingIn any political struggle, the spectator’s first instinct is to look for a hero and a villain. But you don’t always encounter a good guy-bad guy matchup. Though the Soviet Union was our ally in the war against a mega-meanie like Hitler, Stalin was later unmasked as a paranoid tyrant and mass murderer whose malefactions […]
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Born in 1859 as one of fifteen children of a wealthy landowner. Well educated. Entered politics as a municipal president. Later served as a state legislator, federal deputy and state governor under Díaz. Joined with Madero in 1909 to plan an armed rebellion against Díaz. Minister of war in Madero’s provisional government and later interim […]
Continue ReadingNote: Click images for summary biographies of the key individuals Mexico in September 1910 could be compared to a shiny apple whose glossy skin conceals a putrifying interior. But the corruption underneath was still a secret to the rest of the world. Porfirio Díaz, the old dictator who had held power since 1876, was probably […]
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