Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes’s novel The Death of Artemio Cruz (1962) ranks among the most significant works of the Latin American literary boom. This was a period of the 1960s and 1970s during which Fuentes, along with other writers including Julio Cortazar, Jorge Luis Borges, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, rose to international prominence. The Washington Post said of the novel, “Modeled partly on Orson Welles’s 1941 movie ‘Citizen Kane’ The Death of Artemio Cruz recounts the deathbed reflections of a shrewd newspaper magnate and ex-revolutionary whose wealth and political power grow in direct proportion to his moral decay. It is considered by many critics to be the best novel written about Mexico’s 1910 Revolution and was among the first Latin American novels to employ a stream-of-consciousness narrative.”
The book paints a picture of twentieth century Mexico filtered through the perspective of the life of Artemio Cruz. Cruz is a soldier in the Mexican Revolution and is devoted to redistributing the land in order that peasants can be afforded the opportunity to live a better life. The success of the revolution by the eve of the 1920s has left a series of battles between rebel factions in opposition to each other with no end to the turmoil in sight. It is 1942 before it can be said that the unrest has truly subsided. Following an incident involving the betrayal of another soldier, Cruz blackmails the man’s sister into marrying him so that he is able to secure a place in a
As he recounts it in Midnight in Mexico Alfredo Corchado’s experience exemplifies the failures of development and the decline of one-party rule under the PRI. In the book Corchado speaks of how he remembers as a child that Mexico was always on a verge of a great political change and country transformation. Yet he noted that it had never come indicating the people of Mexico also felt as if the change would never come as well. He also cites that in January 1994 people of Mayan descent would rebel against the government because they believed the government only acted in the interests of the privileged few and ignored the poverty and trampled on traditions.
De Leon is attempting to demonstrate that Mexican Americans, during the World War I years and the 1920s, expected to become more socially integrated, accepted, and acculturated into American Society, especially Texas, where there were large numbers of Mexican Americans, and an age of modernity was taking place. De Leon, highlights the endeavour that Mexican Americans took to display their patriotism by helping the United States defeat the axis powers during World War I, in order to become more accepted and experience less stifling social conditions in Texas, and also becoming involved and represented in politics and the workplace. De Leon emphasized how Texas Mexicans contributed to the war effort as combatants, by volunteering in the armed
This journal article tells us the story of Pancho Villa and his aim to a land reform and how he went about it with an agrarian reform in 1913 but even though he makes an attempt to portray Pancho Villa as an agrarian revolutionary it isn't convincing enough. The value of this, is that since it's a secondary source we are able to get a more analized view of his aim and we also get a very detailed explanation of the social, political, and economic stages and in this journal article Friedrich Katz analyzes some primary sources like memoirs and newspapers of that time period. Since it's not a primary source it has a limitation since we are getting the detail picture through the description of Friedrich Katz and not Pancho Villa and we are confronted by an attempt of Friedrich Katz to portray Francisco Villa as an agrarian revolutionary so we can see that what Katz writes in his journal article is just information to support why Francisco Villa was an agrarian revolutionary which can lead for Katz to analyze documents that would prove otherwise even though it would help us understand the whole
In his work “The Underdogs”, Mariano Azuela is able to master the spirit of villismo regarding both its theoretic, underlying principles as well as the movement’s subsequent physical manifestations. Though significant characters conduct themselves in a manner consistent with the humble agrarian spirit central to villismo’s origin, characters in this text also exhibit the disruptive, callous behavior that is more characteristic of the federalist forces and dictatorships they aimed to unseat. Moreover, Demetrio’s degenerating understanding of the reason he’s fighting, coupled with his few instances of immorality, symbolizes the collapse of villismo morality into its culminating bandit-ridden reality. Cowboys, farmers, and other agrarian people suffering from land and labor oppression united together as the diverse “pieces of a great social movement [to] exalt their motherland” . Demetrio and Solis embody this original character of villismo revolution, as they maintain a moral, humanitarian compass throughout the novel.
In the essay "Children of Mexico," the author, Richard Rodriguez, achieves the effect of relaying his bittersweet feeling regarding how Mexicans stubbornly hold on to their past and heritage by not only relaying many personal experiences and images, but also by using an effective blend of formal and informal tone and a diction that provides a bittersweet tone. Among the variety of ways this is done, one is through repetitive reference to fog. The word is used many times in the essay, especially in segments relating to Mexican-Americans returning to Mexico for the winter. One of the more potent uses reads as follows: "The fog closes in, condenses, and drips day and night from the bare limbs of trees.
The foundation and development of a human being stems from the individual’s position within his/her life (for instance, his/her opinion, stance, about oneself in regards to his/her own expectations) and within his/her communities as a member of a household, a race or even as a gender. The key factor of this notion, take in consideration the vast knowledge a person can evaluate against their own understanding. A person emerge into the world as a blank slate that unconsciously and continuously devouring and weaving in stories told in voices that evokes correlation identification with an image created by a mother, father, brothers, sister, aunt, uncle, cousins, grandma, grandpa, and even nicknamed strangers into their root and skin. An open-minded
Throughout the Porfirian era Mexico had struggled to develop as a country and move towards any steps of progress up until the year of 1910. In William H. Beezley’s book Judas at the Jockey Club he considers this period on Mexican history to begin around 1876 and he points out many of the social, economic, and political factors that helped shape the foundation for modern Mexico. Beezley also looks at some of the regular aspects of the daily lives of Mexicans. Whether it be the sports and recreations, ceremonies and celebrations, or jobs and work that are part of the Mexicans everyday live, he uses these aspects to illustrate the extent of the two main culture groups of Mexican society. The two main culture groups in Mexico were the Los de Arriba,
In the novel Insurgent Mexico, John Reed travels south of the border to experience the Mexican Revolution first hand while traveling in the year 1914. Reed was a journalist writing for Metropolitan and was ordered to bring back his work to publish in the United States. During this time Reed travelled to many places and met all different types of people from war generals, to peones, to Indians and many others. Reed has described his time in Mexico as the “most satisfactory period” in his life (Publisher’s Note), and it can be reflected through the stories he shares in Insurgent Mexico about his traveling companions and his experiences. Some moments were very serious, and at times even dangerous, while others were light hearted and amusing for
The author divides this book into three different parts. In the first part, he communicates to the reader how students with high leveled education and others get together to challenge the high-powered Anglos and Mexican American. In the second part, he examines how the Chicano movement flourished and how women and ex-gang members attempted to join the political world. In the final part, Montejano decided to include his point of view on how the political leaders that failed could’ve made a difference in the political world. This book was full of surprises, the way Montejano quotes actual people is just beautiful.
Situated near the U.S.-Mexico border during the early twentieth century is the fictional setting of Fort Jones, the outskirts of which is where Americo Paredes’ short story “Macaria’s Daughter” takes place. Emblematic of the disappropriation of Mexican land, as well as the increased marginalization of the Mexican people, the overbearing presence of Fort Jones reveals the struggle for preservation that characterizes the Mexican-American community of the story. “Macaria’s Daughter” is the tragic account of what happens in a small community when the upholding of Mexican values and institutions, and opposition to Anglo-American culture, become more important than a young woman’s life. In this essay, I will argue that “Macaria’s Daughter” is a text
During the Chicano Nationalist Movement, a well-known speaker, Rodolfo ‘Corky’ Gonzales, delivered a speech titled Chicano Nationalism: Victory for La Raza. In this speech, Rodolfo Gonzales tries to unify the Latin American people within the United States by using the idea of a family and to create a new political organization for the Chicano people. This speech was a cumulation of various ideas which stemmed from his own life, the experiences of the Chicano people, and the Chicano Nationalist Movement in general. Each of these factors contributed to the context of the speech and how the ideas within the speech are presented by Rodolfo Gonzales. Rodolfo ‘Corky’ Gonzales was born to Federico and Indalesia Gonzales, two Mexican immigrants, on June 18, 1928.
Jovita Gonzalez & Eve Raleigh’s Caballero: A Historical Novel, took place during the Mexican American War. While military officials from the United States were occupying Texas, Mexican men such as Don Santiago de Mendoza y Soria resisted the presence of the Americano. The novel focuses on the many injustices that occur within the Mexican population. One main problem that is presented is the social viewing of race and class. Mexican people with Spanish ancestry were more likely to be respected or accepted, while those whose blood was mixed were perceived as inferior.
In order to write this book, the author clearly uses different manuscripts and papers that helped him to explain and show the situation of this social movement. He also uses and gets information from people that were living those situations, for instance in Chapter one, he mentions a note from Journalist Ruiz Ibañez: “Contrary to the common belief that those groups are composed of “punks” and hoodlums….”1. Related to him, he is an American historian and sociology that obtained his sociology and political science degrees in the University of Texas at Austin and Yale University, as well. Currently, he is a professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and he is president of the Center for Latino Policy Research. He wrote not only Quixote’s Soldiers but also, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1986.
“Aztlan, Cibola and Frontier New Spain” is a chapter in Between the Conquests written by John R. Chavez. In this chapter Chavez states how Chicano and other indigenous American ancestors had migrated and how the migration help form an important part of the Chicanos image of themselves as a natives of the south. “The Racial Politics behind the Settlement of New Mexico” is the second chapter by Martha Menchaca.
Octavio Paz, a Mexican poet and essayist, is one of the many philosophers with a written piece regarding his understanding of Lo Mexicano. Paz’s “Sons of La Malinche” was first published in the Labyrinth of Solitude in 1950 and is a rather grim interpretation of the Mexican character, however, it captures the crisis of identity that Mexico was burdened with after the conquest. Paz uses the Spanish term “chingar,” (when literally translated means “to screw, to violate”) and its associated phrases to understand the conquest and the effect