header by Emerson Taymor, 2005


1. Pre-Columbian Mexico

2. The Conquest

3. Colonial Mexico

4. The Nineteenth Century

5. The Revolution

6. Mexico Since 1920

7. Theories of Mexicanidad

8. Borderlands and comparative history

 

 

 

Chapter 6: Mexico Since 1920

Section A: General 20th century

  1. review of leaders and movements since 1911
  2. Political timeline, 1910-2006
  3. PRI victory margins, 1917-
  4. Chasteen, “Cultivating non-European Roots": a collection of primary sources

Section B: Plutarco Elías Calles and the church question

  1. Calles, Mexico Before the World (speeches and proclamations)
  2. Calles, "The Church Question" (1926)
  3. Jürgen Buchenau on the background of Calles's anti-clerical beliefs, from Plutarco Elías Calles and the Mexican Revolution
  4. Roberto Blancarte, "Personal Enemies of God": on the anticlerical movement in Mexico, 1915-1940
  5. Robert Curley, "Anticlericalism and Public Space in Revolutionary Jalisco"
  6. Adrian Bantjes, "Mexican Revolutionary Anti-Clericalism: Concepts and Typologies"
  7. profile of a typical anti-clerical activist
  8. The Cristero Revolt, 1926-1929
  9. journalist Chester Chope recalls the culture of El Paso during the 1920s (1968)
  10. Calles, "The Legal Challenges of the Post-Revolutionary State" (1928)
  11. Pope Pius XI, "Acerba Animi," protesting the treatment of the church (1932)
  12. Calles declares war on drugs (1925) 
  13. Roderic Ai Camp on the consequences of the assassination of Álvaro Obregón

Section C: Lázaro Cárdenas and Oil Nationalization

  1. Oxford History of Mexico, “Oil Nationalization”
  2. Roderic Ai Camp on oil nationalization
  3. Newspaper articles on oil nationalization (1 2 3 4 5 6 7)
  4. Time Magazines’s coverage of oil nationalization (1940)
  5. A good summary of newspaper coverage from the time (particularly the Mexican press)
  6. Waldo, “Cardenas of Mexico” (from Foreign Affairs 1939) (current article) (see especially pp. 91, 98-101)
  7. Excerpt from Daniel Yergin, The Prize on oil nationalization
  8.  Excerpt from  Nathaniel and Sylvia Weyl, The Reconquest of Mexico (1939)
  9.  Excerpt from Frank Kluckhohn, The Mexican Challenge (1939)
  10.  Lázaro Cárdenas, radio address (1939)
  11. Amalia Solórzano de Cárdenas remembers oil expropriation
  12.  A selection of cartoons from the US press on oil nationalization
  13.  Maurer, "The Empire Struck Back: The Mexican Oil Expropriation of 1938 Reconsidered"
  14.  A SJSU economics professor opposes oil nationalization

Section D: Mexico at Mid-Century

  1. Foster, “Review of Mid-Century Progress”
  2. the growth of the middle class; statistics on economic development, both from Beezley and MacLachlan, Mexico: The Essentials
  3. Oxford History of Mexico: "How the PRI Worked"
  4. "The False Miracle," from Ramón Eduardo Ruiz, Triumphs and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People (1993)
  5. Gruson, "Mexican Opposition Groups Fight the Party in Power" (1952)
  6. Lowry, "Communism to the South of Us" (1948)
  7. Warren, "Discovering Mexico" (1946)
  8. Ross on the PRI at midcentury
  9. Michael Clancy, "Mexican Tourism: Export Growth and Structural Change Since 1970"
  10. "Mexican Poverty Hidden by Facade" (1953)
  11. Synopsis of Luis Bunuel film Los Olvidados
  12. NY Times review of Los Olvidados
  13.  Rodriguez, from Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds, on the bracero program
  14.  The bracero agreement
  15. Museum of American History: Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program, 1942-64
  16. Bracero Archive primary sources
  17. UCLA Bracero archive
  18. Los Angeles puts up bracero monument (2019)
  19. Los Angeles Times apologizes for its coverage of "Operation Wetback"
  20. Los Angeles Times looks back at federal deportation efforts in the 1950s, known as "Operation Wetback"
  21. Los Angeles Times coverage a year later
  22.  Chasteen, “Guerrilla Warfare”: a collection of primary sources
  23.  Chasteen, “Cold War Visions”: a collection of primary sources

Section E: 1960s

  1. Images of 60s youth culture
  2. Roderic Ai Camp on the 1964 electoral reforms
  3. The 1968 Olympics
  4. Mexico’s 1968 Massacre: NPR story with pictures: what really happened in 1968? (NPR's listening guide to the program, with questions you can answer.)
  5. Excerpt from Zolov on 1968 Massacre
  6. US State Department, "Massacre in Mexico"
  7. New York Times coverage 1 2 3
  8. Los Angeles Times coverage
  9. Washington Post 1 2 3 4
  10. Preston and Dillon , “Tlatelolco, 1968” (on Tlatelolco)
  11. Excerpt from Hoffer, Something in the Air, on the 1968 Olympics
  12. Luis Echeverría and the 1970 election
  13. the significance of the guayabera
  14. the 1971 Corpus Christi massacre
  15. Mexican Government Official Report, "Dirty War" (2006)
  16. Luis Valdez, "Tale of La Raza" (1966)

Section F: The 1985 Earthquake and after

  1. Pictures of the 1985 earthquake
  2. Excerpt from Ross “El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City” (1985 earthquake)
  3. Poniatowska, interviews with earthquake survivors
  4. Julia Preston and Samuel Dillon, "Earthquake, 1985," in Opening Mexico (2004)
  5. Solnit, "The City Belongs to Everyone"
  6. Pictures of Super Barrio and El Santo
  7. Beale, "Who's That Masked Man and Where Did He Learn to Wrestle Like That?"
  8. Luhnow, "Mexico's Political Superheroes”
  9. Collection of articles on the 1988 election
  10. Roderic Ai Camp on the 1988 election
  11. Roderic Ai Camp on Mexico as a "semi-authoritarian state"

Section G: the environment

  1. environmental groups oppose NAFTA (1993)
  2. Simon, "The Sinking City" (1997)
  3. the growth of Ciudad Neza in Mexico City, from Beezley and MacLachlan, Mexico: The Essentials
  4. Nina Lakhani, "Racism at Heart of US Failure to Tackle Deadly Heatwaves" (2023)--how racism infects how the US deals with climate change

Section H: NAFTA and the Zapatistas

  1. Roderic Ai Camp, summary of the Zapatista movement and its consequences
  2. E. Bradford Burns, "Forward Into the Past," Latin America: An Interpretive History
  3. Langewiesche “The Maquiladoras” (1993)
  4. Choices program: background on NAFTA
  5. Clinton administration's statement on NAFTA's effect on the US economy (1993)
  6.  Baum, "The Man Who Took My Job" (2000)
  7. 10-year report card on NAFTA
  8.  Tepoztecan People, “Open Letter of Protest”
  9.  EZLN, "First Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle"
  10.  EZLN, "Second Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle"
  11. The Aguas Blancas Massacre (1995)
  12. The Acteal Massacre (1997)
  13.  BBC, “Mexico Welcomes Zapatistas' Tour” (2006)
  14.  EZLN views past and future (1992)
  15.  EZLN Demands at the Dialogue Table (1994)
  16. Schools for Chiapas site (a whole bunch of resources)
  17. Rossana Fuentes-Berain, "Where Roma Soap Meets Dove," New York Times (2004)
  18. Subcomandate Marcos invites Inter Milan to play a friendly with the Zapatistas' team (2005)
  19.  Uchitelle, “NAFTA's surprising effects on undocumented immigration” (2007)
  20. NAFTA at 20, a report (2013)
  21. Mexico’s future economic options debate: option 1; option 2; option 3
  22. What would it cost to unwind NAFTA? (New York Times, 2016)
  23. President Enrique Peña Nieto argues that Mexico must reverse its oil-nationalization policies (2013)
  24. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, "The Silent Complicity of Peña Nieto's Administration" (2017)
  25. Victoria Dorenlas, new symbol of Mexican womanhood
  26. David Harvey on neoliberalism in Mexico, from A Brief History of Neoliberalism
  27. Ana Swanson and Jim Tankerley, "Trump Just Signed the USMCA. Here's What's in the New NAFTA," New York Times (Jan. 21, 2020)
  28. The Balance: NAFTA pros and cons

Section I: Immigration and Border Issues

  1. US immigration policy through the 1980s, from Beezley and MacLachlan, Mexico: The Essentials
  2. Gutierrez, "Illegal Immigration and Border Enforcement in Historical Perspective"
  3. Jorge Durand, "Mexican Immigration to the United States: Continuities and Changes" (2001)
  4. Library of Congress page on Mexican immigration
  5. photos of the border from the 1930s by Dorothea Lange
  6. Alex Wagner, "America's Forgotten History of Illegal Deportations," Atlantic (Mar. 2017)
  7. Hellman, "Pedro P., Coyote" (1990s)
  8. David Bacon, "From Perote to Tar Heel," from The Right to Stay Home: How U.S. Policy Drives Mexican Immigration (2013); "You Don't Need to be a Doctor or Scientist to Smell the Stench": personal narratives by Fausto Limon, David Ceja, and Guadalupe Marroquin
  9.  Bowden, “The U.S.-Mexico Border” (2007)
  10. Noam Chomsky on the US-Mexico border (2013)
  11.  Hendricks, “Jacumba: ‘The Border is a Sham’” ( Minutemen)
  12.  Tobar, “Where Green Chiles Roam” (crossing the border)
  13.  Archibold, “Far From Home, Mexicans Sing Age-Old Ballads of a New Life” (recent corridos) (New York Times, 2007)
  14.  Wilkinson, “Immigration Blues: on the road with Los Tigres del Norte”
  15. Border photos from alum Sam Roberge ('05), who did an internship with ICE
  16. "The Facts About Immigration," New Yorker (2017)
  17. review of Felipe Fernández-Armesto, "Our America" (2014)
  18. Ana Raquel Minian, "We Already Have a Big, Beautiful Wall," (on Mexico's history as a barrier to immigration) Washington Post (Feb. 5, 2018)

Section J: The Drug War

  1. Drug policies of the 1960s and 70s; drug policies from the 80s onward, both from Beezley and MacLachlan, Mexico: The Essentials
  2.  Quinones, "State of War" (on the drug war; Foreign Policy [2009])
  3.  LA Times special page on the drug war
  4.  John Hudak, "Richard Nixon Fires the Opening Shots in the War on Drugs," from Marijuana: A Short History
  5.  Longform.org's collection of longer pieces on the drug war
  6.  Finnegan, “Silver or Lead” (2010) (drug war today)
  7.  Taibo II, "Narcoviolence in Mexico: Eight Theses and Many Questions"
  8.  Lida on Santa Muerte and religion in Mexico today
  9. Ann Neumann, "The Narco Saint: How a Mexican Folk Idol Got Conscripted into the Drug Wars," The Baffler (2018)
  10. Lyrics translated and explained to Los Tigres del Norte, "La Granja"; watch the video
  11. Enrique Krauze, "Mexico's Vigilantes on the March"
  12. Alma Guillermoprieto, "Making the Dogs Dance" (about the escape of drug kingpin Joaquín Guzmán Loera, "El Chapo"

Section K : Contemporary Culture

  1. indigenous survivals: linguistic diversity of Mexico; what languages are spoken in Mexico?
  2. Roderic Ai Camp on contemporary Mexican religious beliefs
  3. Camp on the changes in religion since 1890
  4. the return of the Virgin of Guadalupe in 2007, from Beezley and MacLachlan, Mexico: The Essentials
  5. recent graphic of La Virgen being detained by ICE
  6. new artistic interpretations of La Virgen
  7. Josh Kun, "A Good Beat and You Can Protest to It" (2006; on music)
  8. Rubén Martínez, "Corazón del Rocanrol" (1990)
  9. Walter Thompson-Hernández, "Oaxacan Rap Has a Female Voice, Finally," New York Times (Oct. 27, 2018)
  10.  Song lyrics (Rage Against the Machine, Molotov, Jaguares, Manu Chao, Maldita Vecindad, Jae-P)
  11.  SF's mural tour of the Mission
  12. recent survey: what do Americans think of when they think of Mexico? The complete survey.
  13. Krauze, "PRI Game" (on the history of soccer)
  14. Taryn White, "Just Across the Border, This Mexican Community Also Celebrates Juneteenth," National Geographic (June 2021)
  15. Jackie Bryant, "Can Mexican Corn Be Saved?" from Parts Unknown
  16. Christy Thornton, "Chasing the Murderers of Ayotzinapa's 43," NACLA Report on the Americas (2018)
  17. Jon Lee Anderson, "A New Revolution in Mexico," on Mexico's embrace of López Obrador, New Yorker (June 25, 2018)
  18. Rick Noack, "Why Mexicans Chose López Obrador as Their Leader, in Four Charts," Washington Post (July 2, 2018)
  19. Gustavo Arellano, "The New Generation of Smug American Expats in Mexico Needs to Face the Truth," LA Times (Aug. 2022)