La Malinche - harlot or heroine?
December 1997 "El Ojo del Lago" Guadalajara-Lakeside Volume 14, Number 4 With permission.
"La Malinche." Slave, interpreter, secretary, mistress, mother of the first "Mexican." her very name...
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The artist as activist: David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896–1974)
With the possible exception of André Malraux, no individual associated with the arts has been involved in direct political action more than David Alfaro Siqueiros. Student agitator, soldier, leader of...
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Slavery in Mexico
According to the reports of the first Europeans to visit the New World, slavery was almost universal in what is now Mexico and Central America. Theoretically, with the arrival of Europeans, that should...
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The Tarahumaras - an endangered people
"We, "The People, are an Independent Nation that does not recognize
the sovereignty or control of the Mexican Government."
This remarkable sentence was the opening statement of a p...
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The Devil's Highway: A True Story by Luis Alberto Urrea
This is the story of a group of men who have become known as the Yuma 14. They are the fourteen illegal immigrants who died attempting to cross the Arizona border in May, 2001. And what a terrible and upsetting story it is. Unknown numbers of these illegal immigrants die every year making the dangerous crossing on foot over one of the most inhospitable stretches of terrain in the world. But the Yuma 14 constituted the largest known number of such immigrants to die at one time.
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San Miguel and the War of Independence by Mamie Spiegel
Ms. Spiegel's account mainly covers what she calls the viceregal period, also known as the colonial era, which lasted from 1521 to 1821. Mexico at that time was the richest and most populous of Spain's overseas dominions. It was at the end of this period, in 1810, that the War of Independence erupted with San Miguel and the nearby town of Dolores being the focal points of that outbreak. The war was to last eleven years.
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Murder in Mexico: an English family during the Revolution
Julia Swanson tells the extraordinary tale of her English grandfather and his family who were tragically caught up in the violence of the Mexican Revolution.
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Did You Know? Blacks outnumbered Spaniards until after 1810
By common consent, the history of blacks in Mexico is a long one. The first black slave to set foot in Mexico is thought to have been Juan Cortés. He accompanied the conquistadors in 1519. It has been...
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Blacks In Mexico - A Brief Overview
To begin a discussion of the Black Experience in Mexico, it is important to establish the quantitative significance of the black slave population in the colonial era. One of the most frequent responses...
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African Roots Stretch Deep Into Mexico
March 3, 1996 -- In Mexico, various Indian peoples still play ancient instruments. And their songs and dances -- which tell of uprisings against their masters -- pay tribute to their ancestors.
The...
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Bobby Vaughn's homepage: Afro-Mexicans of Costa Chica
Afro-Mexicans of the Costa Chica
The purpose of these web pages is to introduce you to the culture and unique experience of Mexicans of African descent. If you are like most pe...
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The Costa Chica Of Guerrero And Oaxaca
The Costa Chica (short coast in Spanish) is one of two regions in Mexico with significant black communities, the other being the state of Veracruz on the Gulf coast. The Costa Chica is a 200-mile long ...
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Mexico's Zapatista Movement - then and now
The only thing that is definitely known about Subcomandante Marcos, the ski-masked mystery man who leads the Zapatista rebels in the jungles of Chiapas, is that he is an intellectual. Conflicting sourc...
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Ojo Del Lago - The Tarahumaras: And Endangered Species
Never conquered by the Aztecs and despite being defeated by Mexican armies, the Tarahumaras still consider themselves an independant nation. So strong is this conviction that in the Fifties they more t...
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Did you know? The Green Revolution began in Mexico
Most people probably have a vague idea that the Green Revolution was something to do with improving crops in the developing world, but how many realize that it began in Mexico? In fact, the Green Revol...
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