Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands

Although Francisco Villa and Emiliano Zapata are often the most recognized figures of the Mexican Revolution, Ricardo Flores Magón and the magonistas, the rebels he led, were seminal in sparking the 1910 social revolt. Bad Mexicans follows the magonistas from their early intellectual dissent to their final acts of rebellion through both the written word and armed struggle. Kelly Lytle Hernández argues that the magonistas’ activism to end dictatorship, redistribute land, and nationalize industries in Mexico challenged US imperial interests by jeopardizing investments south of the border. By examining the cross-border insurgency of the magonistas and the binational counterinsurgency campaign against them, Lytle Hernández positions the Mexican Revolution and the magonistas as central components in understanding the origins of US imperialism, border policing, and Mexican migration to the United States.Bad Mexicans is divided into four sections. The first part describes the US investment in dictator Porfirio Díaz's Mexico, situates Mexico in the global economy, tells the Flores Magón family story, and discusses the creation of Regeneración, the magonistas’ publication. The second part follows magonistas in their exile to the Brown Belt and exposes the unsuccessful efforts of the Porfirian regime and its US allies to apprehend them. Part three narrates the Porfirian-US counterinsurgency campaign that involved intercepting the magonistas’ mail, spying on them, and kidnapping them. In the final part, transnational alliances on both sides of the physical and ideological border become more evident. While Díaz's regime obtained US support to police the borderlands, magonistas were accompanied, funded, and represented in courts by US individuals with socialist ideals. Just as Díaz lost Roosevelt's support when he denied authorization for a US military base in Mexico, Flores Magón lost the favor of many as his anarchist political ideals radicalized during and after Francisco Madero's presidency. Bad Mexicans concludes with Ricardo Flores Magón's death while imprisoned in Kansas in 1922.With the same diligence that the Porfirista regime and its US spies stole magonistas’ letters, cracked their codes, and read every Regeneración issue to enlarge the rebels’ archive in Mexico City, Lytle Hernández used these same sources to narrate how individuals in Mexico and the United States battled Mexican dictatorship and US imperialism, sparking a revolution. She contextualizes magonistas within a broader framework of injustice. In this context, the forced displacement of Yaqui people from their lands in northern Mexico to promote US investment and the lynchings of Mexicans in the US Brown Belt during the Juan Crow era reflect similar patterns of discrimination and exploitation. Furthermore, Lytle Hernández shows how undemocratic practices prevailed on both sides of the border to uphold oppression. While magonistas in exile in San Antonio denounced the undemocratic nature of the Porfirista regime Mexico in 1904, until seven years earlier Mexicans north of the border had also been denied the right to vote in the United States. It was not until 1897 that a federal judge affirmed the United States's obligation under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo to recognize US Mexicans’ eligibility for US citizenship and, therefore, their right to vote.While Lytle Hernández's compelling narrative promotes the reader's empathy for the magonistas and their struggle, she avoids portraying the actors in a simplistic narrative. Bad Mexicans complicates both the figure of Ricardo Flores Magón and the actions of the magonistas. Despite the influence of anarcho-feminism, the financial support of some women, and the vigorous activism of many more, magonistas managed to relegate female participation to a secondary role in a hierarchy that privileged men. Magonistas also displayed deep-seated homophobia. Toward the book's conclusion, acts initially seen as expressions of Ricardo Flores Magón's untamable principles may be reevaluated in light of his stubbornness and vindictiveness. Similarly, the reader will encounter the irony of awaiting a spontaneous revolt while hesitating to take up arms when the moment comes. Although potent, his pen was the only weapon Ricardo Flores Magón ever wielded (305).Specialists in Porfirian and revolutionary Mexico and historians of the United States who are less familiar with magonista political thought might appreciate a more detailed analysis of their anarchist beliefs. Nevertheless, such examination is not indispensable for Lytle Hernández to achieve her primary goal. In Bad Mexicans, she successfully positions magonistas as significant figures in both Mexican and US history. The decade-long struggle in Mexico sparked mass migration to the United States and threatened US imperialism. In Kelly Lytle Hernández's words, it reshaped the identity of the United States as a people (8). Hence, the intellectual leaders who played a pivotal role in igniting the Mexican Revolution are an integral part of US history too.