The Mexican Revolution: Conflict and Consolidation, 1910-1940

266 Pages·2013·19.932 MB·English

by  Douglas W. Richmond, Sam W. Haynes

The Mexican Revolution
number forty-four
Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lectures
The Mexican
Revolution
ConfliCT and ConsolidaTion, 1910–1940
Edited by Douglas W. Richmond & Sam W. Haynes
Introduction by John Mason Hart
Contributors:
Nicholas Villanueva Jr.
Don M. Coerver
Miguel Ángel González-Quiroga
Linda B. Hall
Francisco E. Balderrama
Jürgen Buchenau
Stephen E. Lewis
Carlos Martínez Assad
Thomas Benjamin

Published for the University of Texas at Arlington
by Texas A&M University Press
College Station
Copyright © 2013
by the University of Texas at Arlington
Manufactured in the United States of America
All rights reserved
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
The Mexican Revolution : conflict and consolidation, 1910–1940 / edited by
Douglas W. Richmond and Sam W. Haynes ; introduction by John Mason Hart ;
contributors: Nicholas Villanueva Jr. . . . [et al.].—1st ed.
p. cm.—(Walter Prescott Webb memorial lectures ; 44)
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-60344-816-1 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-60344-816-0 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-60344-955-7 (ebook-c)
ISBN-10: 1-60344-955-8 (ebook-c)
1. Mexico—History—Revolution, 1910–1920—Influence. 2. Mexico—History—
Revolution, 1910–1920—Political aspects. 3. Mexico—History—Revolution,
1910–1920 Social aspects. 4. Mexican-American Border Region—History—20th
century. 5. Mexican-American Border Region—Ethnic relations—Political a
spects—History—20th century. 6. Nationalism—Mexico—History—20th century.
7. Mexico—History—1910–1946. 8. Texas—History—1846–1950.
I. Richmond, Douglas W., 1946- II. Haynes, Sam W. (Sam Walter), 1956-
III. Villanueva, Nicholas. IV. Series: Walter Prescott Webb memorial lectures ; 44.
F1234.M584 2013
972.08'16—dc23
2012029169
Contents
Preface vii
Introduction: The Mexican Revolution
John Mason Hart 1
1. Decade of Disorder: The Execution of León Martínez Jr. and Mexi-
can/Anglo Race Relations in Texas during the First Four Years of the
Mexican Revolution
Nicholas Villanueva Jr. 7
2. “Wire Me before Shooting”: Federalism in (In)action—The Texas-
Mexico Border during the Revolution, 1910–1920
Don M. Coerver 35
3. The Rhetoric and Reality of Nationalism: Monterrey in the
Revolution
Miguel Ángel González-Quiroga 58
4. Creating a Schizophrenic Border: Migration and Perception,
1920–1925
Linda B. Hall 89
5. Revolutionary Mexican Nationalism and the Mexican Immigrant
Community in Los Angeles during the Great Depression: Memory,
Identity, and Survival
Francisco E. Balderrama 117
6. From the Caudillo to Tata Lázaro: The Maximato in Perspective,
1928–1934
Jürgen Buchenau 135
7. Revolution without Resonance? Mexico’s “Fiesta of Bullets” and Its
Aftermath in Chiapas, 1910–1940
Stephen E. Lewis 161
8. Back to Centralism, 1920–1940
Carlos Martínez Assad 187
9. The Mexican Revolution: One Century of Reflections, 1910–2010
Thomas Benjamin 212
About the Contributors 241
Index 245

Preface
The Mexican Revolution is one of the seminal chapters in the history of Mexico.
More than any other single event, the revolution was responsible for creat-
ing the modern Mexican nation-state by contributing to a greater degree of
democratization, land reform, anticlericalism, and other far-reaching changes
in Mexican society. In addition, the civil war, which began in 1910 and lasted
more than a decade, had a profound impact on formal and informal relations
between the United States and Mexico. Resulting in the flight of hundreds of
thousands of refugees, the rebellion prompted the first major northern migra-
tion of Mexican citizens. In so doing, it permanently changed the demograph-
ics of the American Southwest, energizing and shaping Latino culture in the
United States.
In 2008, history professor Douglas W. Richmond of the University of Texas
at Arlington conceived of the idea of making the Mexican Revolution the focus
of the 2010 Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lectures, held annually by his
department. Richard Francaviglia, then serving as director of the Center for
Greater Southwestern Studies at UT Arlington, also began planning a series
of events to commemorate the centennial of the revolution. Although Dr.
Francaviglia retired the following year, work on the program continued under
new director Sam W. Haynes. In its final form, the program consisted of a
workshop on the Mexican Revolution for secondary-school teachers, a major
photographic exhibit on the events of 1910–1921, and a two-day series of
lectures featuring scholars from the United States and Mexico. Cosponsored by
the UT Arlington history department and the Center for Greater Southwestern
Studies, the chapters in this volume were presentations made on March 10–11
as part of the 45th annual Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lectures.
The historians featured in this anthology have written and researched
extensively on twentieth-century Mexico. The introduction to the volume
was written by John Mason Hart, the John and Rebecca Moores Professor
of History at the University of Houston, widely regarded as one of the fore-
most authorities on the revolutionary period. In the first chapter, Nicholas
Villanueva Jr., winner of the 2010 Webb-Smith Essay Competition, held in
conjunction with the Webb Lectures, examines the case of León Martínez, an
El Paso youth who was executed for the murder of an Anglo woman, thereby
raising questions about the fate of ethnic Mexicans living in Texas during
the early years of the Mexican Revolution. Don Coerver of Texas Christian
University discusses how US and Mexican officials along the border sought
to deal with the outbreak of violence after 1910 and the extent to which they
were successful in coordinating their efforts. Well-known Monterrey historian
Miguel Ángel González-Quiroga examines the role of Monterrey during the
conflict, emphasizing that many of its citizens preferred the goals of economic
development and increased commercial relations with the United States to
the goals of the revolution. Linda B. Hall of the University of New Mexico
discusses the US government’s response to the arrival of Mexican immigrants
and its prosecution of those who were suspected of criminal activity. Fran-
cisco Balderrama, California State University at Los Angeles, explains how
Mexican immigrants became a convenient scapegoat for communities in the
Southwest, such as Los Angeles, which were suffering economic hardship
during the Depression. This led to widespread repatriation drives, with the
result that one million Mexicans were illegally returned to Mexico. Professor
Jürgen Buchenau of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte analyzes
several significant leaders from the state of Sonora who controlled Mexico
from 1920 to 1934 by means of astute political maneuvering and decisive
military campaigns while championing the working class, anticlericalism, and
education. Stephen Lewis of California State University at Chico examines the
marginal, ethnically diverse state of Chiapas, which fiercely resisted the land,
labor, and educational reforms commonly associated with the revolution. The
violence that broke out in Chiapas at the end of the twentieth century may be
attributed at least in part, Lewis maintains, to the compromised nature of the
revolution’s reforms. Dr. Carlos Martínez Assad of the Universidad Nacional
Autónoma de México examines the postrevolutionary return to centralism in
the 1920s and 1930s, when President Lázaro Cárdenas initiated the process
of limiting the power of regional leaders by consolidating the authority of the
national government’s political party, the Partido de la Revolución Mexicana.
The final chapter in this anthology is by Thomas Benjamin, Central Michigan
University, who presented the Webb Lectures’ keynote address, “Whither the
Mexican Revolution? The Revolution as Legacy and Project.” In this fitting
postscript, Benjamin examines the memory and the legacy of the revolution and
considers how they can be used by those seeking a progressive transformation
of Mexico in the twenty-first century.
The photographs in this volume have been selected from three separate
collections, all of which were exhibited on campus during the Mexican Revo-
lution centennial program at the Center for Greater Southwestern Studies. In
the spring of 2010 the UT Arlington Library was the venue for “Mexico: The
Revolution and Beyond,” a touring exhibit of more than 90 images from the
Archivo Casasola, one of the world’s first news-photography agencies, on loan
viii  •  preface
from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) in Mexico
City. The Center for Greater Southwestern Studies also secured “La Tierra y
su Gente: The Rio Grande Photographs of Robert Runyon,” a collection of
32 images by Brownsville commercial photographer Robert Runyon from the
archives of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, UT Austin. To
complement these two exhibits, the Center for Greater Southwestern Studies,
working with the staff of the Central Library’s Special Collections, produced an
exhibit of its own, “Images of Conflict, 1910–1921,” a selection of 40 images
of various aspects of the revolution, from the Porfiriato to the Obregón years.
Together, these three exhibits—totaling 162 images—provided a unique and
compelling visual chronicle of life in Mexico and along its border with the
United States in the early decades of the twentieth century.
A great many people helped to make the 45th annual Walter Prescott
Webb Memorial Lectures and the Mexican Revolution centennial program
possible. The Webb volumes are supported by a generous endowment from
C. B. Smith Sr., a former student of Walter Prescott Webb, and supplemented
by the Rudolf Hermanns Endowment for the Liberal Arts. In addition, the
centennial program received generous financial support from the Summerlee
Foundation, Humanities Texas, and UT Arlington’s College of Liberal Arts,
the Graduate School, and the Office of the Provost. A great many people also
worked to make the program a success. We would like to thank Department
of History chair Robert Fairbanks, Webb Lectures committee chair Joyce
Goldberg, and graduate student Merry Jett, who served as assistant to the Webb
Lectures committee. Introductions for the featured speakers were delivered
by Chris Conway (associate professor of modern languages, UT Arlington),
Aaron Navarro (associate professor of history, University of North Texas),
José Ángel Gutiérrez (professor of political science, UT Arlington), Monica
Rankin (associate professor, School of Arts and Humanities, University of
Texas at Dallas), and Ron Tyler (director, Amon Carter Museum). We also
wish to thank the Mexican Consulate, Dallas, and particularly cultural affairs
program officer Adolfo Ayuso Audry and Astrid Galván Segura, who were
instrumental in bringing the traveling exhibit “Mexico: The Revolution and
Beyond” to campus. A reception to mark the opening of the Casasola exhibit
was sponsored by the Center for Mexican American Studies. We would also
like to thank Gerald Saxon, dean of the library, who made the library’s facili-
ties available to the Center for Greater Southwestern Studies for the Mexican
Revolution centennial program. Two members of the Special Collections staff,
Cathy Spitzenberger and Brenda McClurkin, assisted Sam Haynes, director of
the center, with the “Images of Conflict, 1910–1921” exhibit. Erin O’Malley,
the library’s Exhibits Coordinator, deserves special mention for her work in
preface  •  ix