Arise!: Global Radicalism in the Era of the Mexican Revolution

336 Pages·2022·7.697 MB·English

by  Christina Heatherton

Arise!
american crossroads
Edited by Earl Lewis, George Lipsitz, George Sánchez, Dana
Takagi, Laura Briggs, and Nikhil Pal Singh
Arise!
global radicalism in the era of
the mexican revolution
Christina Heatherton
university of california press
University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2022 by Christina Heatherton
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Heatherton, Christina, author. Title: Arise! : global radicalism in
the era of the Mexican Revolution / Christina Heatherton. Other titles:
American crossroads ; 66. Description: Oakland, California : University
of California Press, [2022] | Series: American crossroads ; 66 | Includes
bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2022003327
(print) | lccn 2022003328 (ebook) | isbn 9780520287877 (cloth) | isbn
9780520287884 (paperback) | isbn 9780520962880 (ebook) Subjects: lcsh:
Radicalism—Mexico—History—20th century. | Globalization—Mexico—
History—20th century. | Revolutions—Mexico—History—20th century.
| Socialism—Mexico—History—20th century. | Mexico—Politics and
government—20th century. Classification: lcc hn120.z9 r34 2022 (print) |
lcc hn120.z9 (ebook) | ddc 303.48/409720904—dc23/eng/20220210 LC
record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022003327 LC ebook record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2022003328
Manufactured in the United States of America
31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Jordan T. Camp

contents
Introduction: How to Make a Rope 1
1 • How to Make a Flag: Internationalism and the
Pivot of 1848 21
2 • How to Make a Map: Small Shareholders and Global
Radicals in Revolutionary Mexico 47
3 • How to Make a University: Ricardo Flores Magón and
Internationalism in Leavenworth Penitentiary 72
4 • How to Make Love: Alexandra Kollontai and the
Nationalization of Women 97
5 • How to Make a Living: Dorothy Healey and Southern
California Struggles for Relief and Revolution 122
6 • How to Make a Dress: Elizabeth Catlett, Radical
Pedagogy, and Cultural Resistance 145
Conclusion: How to Make History 175
Acknowledgments 185
Notes 193
Bibliography 245
Index 283

praise for arise!
“ This book is a workers’ story of construction: making a flag, making a map, making a
university, making love, making a dress, and making history. The men and women—
Enrique and Ricardo Flores Magón, Dorothy Healey, Elizabeth Catlett, Paul Shinsei
Kōchi, Alexandra Kollontai, and M. N. Roy, to name only a few—are brilliant, brave,
and colorful; the ideas are respectful, wise, fresh, tender, and indomitable; the spirit of
the writing throughout is as free as the Mexican muralists and as glorious as the hymn
that gives this book its title. You can hear in the background the roar of Pacific break-
ers, the clang of the closing prison gate, the factory whistle, the rhythmic rattle of a
continental freight train. The reverberations continue: ‘Awaken and arise,’ they say!”
Peter Linebaugh, author of Red Round Globe Hot Burning
“ Set against the backdrop of the twentieth century’s first revolutionary conflagration, the
Mexican Revolution, Arise! tells the story of global capitalism’s polyglot gravediggers and
their struggle to overcome difference and distance to build a better world. We are living
through a time when race, ethnicity, and nationality are presented as impermeable and
intractable, but Heatherton culls multiple archives to present a different history forged
through solidarity and struggle. In gorgeous prose, written with conviction and author-
ity, Heatherton distills how the circuits of capital and empire created tremendous wealth
and power for some but also tremendous enemies and powerful struggles that conjoined
the oppressed in an international struggle from below.”
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real
Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership
“ This lucid and compelling account shows the Mexican Revolution as a beacon for the
most important global radical movements of its time. Like the other great revolutions
of the modern era, the Mexican Revolution contained multitudes, and Arise! intro-
duces them to us, not only as inspiring figures from the past, but also as harbingers of
a better future.”
Angela Zimmerman, author of Alabama in Africa: Booker T. Washington, the
German Empire, and the Globalization of the New South