The Mexican Revolution of 1910 overthrew the dictatorship of General Porfirio Díaz and replaced it with generals who created a powerful political party, promised sweeping social reforms and slowly rebuilt the economy. The essays published in this volume focus on the impact of the revolution along the border between Mexico and the United States, and the process of political consolidation from 1920 to 1940.
Since independence, the economy of northern Mexico and the United States has been intertwined, and investment by US companies significantly increased during the Porfiriato. Some historians have viewed US investment as disruptive and an important cause of the revolution. Miguel Ángel González-Quiroga's study of the city of Monterrey, an industrial hub near the border, suggests otherwise. Elites and workers welcomed US companies, favoured prosperity and stability over revolution, and praised US Consul Mark Hanna for his humanitarian efforts during the conflict.
Don M. Coerver's essay summarises hostilities along the Texas–Mexico border and Governor Oscar Colquitt's disputes with Washington over funding and deployment of the Texas Rangers and the Texas National Guard. The border region was a significant theatre of war, an area of political intrigue and a smuggling corridor. US troops stationed at Fort Bliss in El Paso periodically clashed with revolutionaries, and Guard and Ranger units policed South Texas. At one point, Colquitt almost lost federal funding when the Guard was accused of selling discontinued firearms to Mexican revolutionaries. Beyond political and military issues, topics that deserve further discussion include the social consequences of militarisation in South Texas, and the politics and economics of smuggling on both sides of the border.
Linda B. Hall shows how concerns over race, border security and political radicalism shaped US immigration policy toward Mexico from 1920 to 1925. Politicians viewed the Mexican border as the gateway to the United States for undesirables from around the globe, and as an escape route for criminals and radicals fleeing US law enforcement. Congress responded by increasing the size of the border patrol and requiring Mexican immigrants to pay a head tax of $8 and a visa fee of $10, which likely encouraged evasion and increased the number of illegal entries.
Nicholas Villanueva Jr. discusses the criminal case of León Martínez Jr., a teenager executed for murdering a white woman in Pecos, Texas, on 11 May 1914. Villanueva demonstrates the influence of racism and mob violence on the criminal justice system in Texas, and he links increased hostility toward Mexicans to concern over the Mexican Revolution. Martínez, a 15-year-old who worked in a local grocery store, was seen speaking with the victim earlier in the day. He was later captured by a mob and forced to sign a confession. Martínez's family raised $50,000 for his defence, an impressive sign of solidarity in the Mexican-American community. Throughout the judicial proceedings, mobs intimidated lawyers, judges and juries, apparently without fear of arrest or criminal prosecution.
Francisco E. Balderrama's essay draws on interviews to recreate aspects of life in the Mexican community in Los Angeles in the 1930s. Immigrants had fled the revolution, which they vividly remembered, and frequently became US citizens. However, the racist discourse of the Depression era branded all Mexicans as illegal aliens and blamed them for high unemployment. Balderrama estimates that one-third of Los Angeles' Spanish-speaking population was rounded up by local authorities and repatriated to Mexico, including many US citizens. On a national scale, approximately 1,000,000 Mexicans and Mexican-Americans suffered repatriation. Civil rights violations by police, including questionable shootings, drew protests on both sides of the border.
Jurgen Buchenau analyses Mexican presidential politics during the Maximato (1928–34), when former president Plutarco Elías Calles ruled from behind the scenes. Following president-elect Álvaro Obregón's assassination in 1928, Calles oversaw the creation of the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (National Revolutionary Party, PNR) to select presidents and to reduce civil conflict. During the Maximato, Buchenau argues that Calles' influence fluctuated. He exercised little control over Interim President Emilio Portes Gil (1928–30), an Obregonista appointed by Congress; heavily influenced Pascual Ortiz Rubio (1930–2), a close associate; and lost clout under Abelardo Rodríguez (1932–4), who built political networks during Calles' long trips abroad and periodic illnesses. Buchenau observes that Mexico remained a weak state during the 1930s and that powerful individuals competed for political control at the local and regional levels.
Carlos Martínez Assad discusses the growing power of the executive branch during the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40). Martínez notes that Cárdenas strengthened the presidency and the PNR by pushing aside Calles and powerful regional bosses, and by incorporating peasants, workers, middle sectors and the military into the formal party structure. These changes gave greater legitimacy to the ruling party and created a stronger state.
Stephen E. Lewis' essay shows how local elites blocked Cardenista reforms in Chiapas. Elites collaborated to stop programmes that would have benefited Maya peasants but reduced planters' profit margins. Schoolteachers, who were the shock troops of reform, promoted socialist education, agrarian reform, workers' rights, health care and secularism. Elites responded by burning down schools, taking teachers to court, and having them beaten and murdered. After 1938, Cárdenas retreated from radical reformism and Chiapas' elites consolidated their political control. The blunting of reforms shows the limits of federal authority in areas with local elites capable of protecting their interests. Lewis ends with the observation that capitalist development during the Porfiriato changed Chiapas more than the revolution, a generalisation that also holds for Monterrey.
Thomas Benjamin reflects on the scholarly, artistic and popular portrayal of the revolution, which began shortly after the shooting had stopped. Zapatista and Villista spokesmen portrayed their leaders as social revolutionaries and Carranza as a counter-revolutionary, a refrain later endorsed by some historians. In the 1920s Diego Rivera's murals depicted the revolution as class conflict enflamed by US imperialism, a viewpoint echoed by many on the left. The post-war, PRI-led consolidation inspired critical analyses of the revolutionary process by historians and journalists, which sharpened following the Tlatelolco Massacre in 1968. In recent decades, scholars writing from a variety of analytical perspectives have enhanced our understanding of the revolution without providing the final word.
