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Durante la primera mitad del siglo XX, la capital mexicana experimentó un crecimiento demográfico inusitado. Entre otros aspectos, la migración y el proceso de industrialización llevaron a preocupaciones morales sobre la transformación del espacio urbano y el surgimiento de la mujer moderna. Por su parte, el estado mexicano asoció la epidemia de sífilis de la década de los años veinte con la proliferación de la prostitución. Este marco social propició una abundante producción de cine y música prostibularia que se expresó a través de géneros como el bolero, el danzón y el fox-trot. A través de la proyección en la pantalla de un tema tabú como la prostitución, se reprodujeron mensajes más o menos moralizantes que reforzaban la noción de familia patriarcal y la preservación de la virginidad femenina. Uno de los ejemplos más representativos de este tipo de filmes es Santa (1931). La censura de los géneros musicales prostibularios por parte de los folcloristas mexicanos se alineaba con el modelo de familia promovido por el estado posrevolucionario que reconocía en las mujeres a las encargadas de salvaguardar los valores familiares. El cine y la música de temática prostibularia dejó escaso o nulo espacio para abordar tramas distintas a las del amor romántico, expresado habitualmente por personajes masculinos enamorados las prostitutas, que terminaban siendo los verdaderos protagonistas de estas historias.

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of his death in 2019, Netflix released two limited series focused on Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio and his assassination. 1994 (directed by Diego Enrique Osorno) and Crime Diaries: The Candidate (Historia de un crimen: Colosio, directed by Hiromi Kamata and Natalia Beristáin) are, respectively, a documentary series and a drama, both delving into the political conjuncture surrounding both Colosio’s candidacy and the investigations subsequent to his assassination. Since his dramatic death, the image of Colosio has maintained its associations with heroism and his unrealized presidency has come to embody the “México que no fue,” a radically innovated Mexican state that never was and, possibly, will never be. Both series rely on the exploitation of original footage and underlying political takes on the events. This analysis will critically compare the two series from three main thematic perspectives: the Mexican political context at the time of the assassination; Colosio’s characterization and private life; and the procedural aspects of the investigations.

This paper is aimed to analyze the fascist regime as a key transnational phenomenon in the political scenario of the first half of the 20th century, based on a global historiographic approach. Firstly, we review the historical trajectory of fascism in Italy, from its movement stage to the decline of Mussolini’s dictatorship, emphasizing its electoral and legislative dynamics. Immediately we bring the lens closer to the emission of the nationalist discourse and the creation of the corporative devices and the authoritarian mechanisms radiated from Rome and, finally, we reconstruct both the reception that this “third way” had in the post-revolutionary Mexican State, and its impact in the cultural and identity dynamics of the Italian diaspora of the Chipilo colony in the Mexican state of Puebla.

Resumen Esta investigación expone el proceso de conformación y desmantelamiento de la estructura de defensa erigida por el naciente Estado mexicano a lo largo del siglo XIX en las costas y caminos de la provincia de Veracruz. Desde este prisma, las fortificaciones que integraron este dispositivo representan una metáfora de la voluntad de los sucesivos gobiernos para hacer frente a las amenazas del exterior y preservar su integridad, propósitos que una vez conseguidos, dejaron en la obsolescencia a estos inmuebles, "víctimas" de las innovaciones en la tecnología bélica y el pleno reconocimiento internacional alcanzado por el país durante el porfiriato. Abstract This study presents the conformation and dismantling process of the defense structure established throughout the 19th century by the nascent Mexican State on the coasts and roads of the province of Veracruz. From this point of view, the fortifications that took part in this system represent a metaphor for the successive governments' will to face foreign threats and preserve their integrity. Once purposes were achieved, they left these buildings in obsolescence, "victims" of war technology innovations and full international recognition accomplished by the country during the Porfiriato. Resumo Esta pesquisa expõe o processo de conformação e desmantelamento da estrutura de defesa erguida pelo nascente Estado mexicano ao longo do século XIX nas estradas da província de Veracruz. Nessa perspectiva, as fortificações que compunham este dispositivo representam uma metáfora da vontade de sucessivos governos de enfrentar ameaças do exterior e preservar sua integridade, propósitos que uma vez alcançados, tornaram esses edifícios obsoletos, "vítimas" das inovações em tecnologia de guerra e o pleno reconhecimento internacional conquistado pelo país durante o Porfiriato. Résumé Cette recherche expose le processus de conformation et démantèlement de la structure de défense instituée par le nouvel État mexicain tout au long du XIX siècle sur les côtes et les routes de la province de Veracruz. De ce point de vue, les forteresses qui ont intégré ce dispositif, représentent une métaphore de la volonté des gouvernements postérieurs, pour faire face aux menaces de l'étranger et préserver leur intégrité ; une fois atteints ces buts, ils laissent dans l'obsolescence ces immeubles « victimes » des innovations en technologie guerrière et la totale reconnaissance internationale obtenue par le pays durant le porfiriato.

This article examines how an expanding Mexican state sought the insights of ethnographic theory and practice between the 1940s and 1950s. Focusing on the Instituto Nacional Indigenista Coordinating...

This article explores how the Mexican state gathered, archived and destroyed information. It focuses on the US–Mexico campaign against foot-and-mouth disease between 1947 and 1952, whose paper archive Mexican officials burned near the successful conclusion of the campaign. This article argues that several factors shaped the context for this documentary bonfire and made the 1940s a key point of inflection in Mexico’s history of official information-gathering: the dominant party’s system of elite power-sharing, the growth of a reading public and the regime’s drift rightward. At the same time, the nature of the foot-and-mouth disease campaign itself ensured that, despite its possible uses, the archive was particularly sensitive, providing evidence of the embarrassing gaps that began to yawn between the state’s language of revolutionary nationalism and its political practise. Indeed, the bonfire represented the culmination of practises Mexican officials had already developed throughout the campaign to reconcile the demands of legibility and deniability, hemispheric integration and nationalism, political stability and state capacity. More broadly, the case illustrates the uneven effects of US assistance on the development of state capacity, the authoritarian but institutionally weak character of the early PRIísta state, and the role of archives in maintaining a coherent image of state sovereignty.

The cultural tradition of stuccoed and polychromatic murals in central Mexico dates back to Early Classic Teotihuacan and continued into the subsequent Epiclassic period, with the stunning murals from Cacaxtla as the most famous and well-studied example. In this paper, we present three examples of stuccoed and richly painted benches or thrones from the mayor Epiclassic site of Xochicalco in the Mexican state of Morelos. A careful iconographic and epigraphic analysis of the imagery, as well as the associated hieroglyphic signs from one of the benches, leads us to suggest that these benches played a pivotal role in displaying the religious, mythological, and historical underpinnings of hierarchical power at Xochicalco. Based on comparisons with benches and seats from Classic Maya culture and, in particular, the contemporaneous Terminal Classic city of Chichen Itza, which was deeply involved in interregional relations with central Mexico, we also suggest that the Xochicalco benches may even have served as royal seats or thrones.

Resumen El artículo ofrece un recuento sobre las trasformaciones de los servicios sanitarios, hospitalarios, el cuidado y la asistencia en México. Advierte la existencia de una legislación concerniente a la salud y asistencia públicas; y una práctica defacto que adquiere características propias de una política pública evidenciadas desde el Virreinato de la Nueva España. El enfoque se apoya en documentos históricos e investigaciones previas que constatan la existencia de una política pública, normada y ejecutada conjuntamente entre la Iglesia y el Estado durante el periodo colonial, y después por el Estado mexicano. Sin embargo, unas u otras vieron mermadas los resultados de su ejecución, por causas y particularidades propias de sus respectivos momentos históricos. De manera particular, durante el Porfiriato, las razones del fracaso de las políticas de salud no yacen en factores económicos ni en la inestabilidad política, tampoco en el enfrentamiento de poderes de diversa índole, como en la Colonia, sino al hecho innegable de su objetivo como instrumento de control y no de bienestar social. Abstract The article offers a historical account of the transformations of sanitary services, hospital care, attention and support in Mexico. It remarks the exitance of health and public assistance legislations; and a practice that factually acquire characteristics that relate to public policies from the viceroyalty of New Spain. The approach of this article is sustained by historical documents and previous investigations that demonstrate the presence of public policies, regulated and executed by the Church and the State alongside during the colonial period, and then by the Mexican State. Nevertheless, some saw the results of their execution depleted, due to causes and specificities of their respective historical moments. Particularly, during the Porfiriato, the cause for the failure of health policies was not on account of economic factors or political instability, nor of confrontation of power of diverse nature, such as in the Colony, but to the undeniable fact that their aim was to use health policies as instruments of control and not of social welfare. Resumo O artigo oferece um relato sobre as transformações dos serviços sanitários, hospitalários, o cuidado e a assistência no México. Adverte a existência de uma legislação no que se refere à saúde e a assistência públicas; e uma prática defacto que adquire características próprias de uma política pública evidenciadas desde o Vice-reinado da Nova Espanha. O enfoque está baseado em documentos históricos e pesquisas prévias que evidenciam a existência de uma política pública, regulamentada e executada em conjunto entre a Igreja e o Estado durante a época colonial, e depois pelo Estado Mexicano. Porém, umas ou outras viram diminuídos os resultados da sua execução, por causas e particularidades próprias de seus respectivos momentos históricos. De maneira particular, durante o Porfiriato, as razões do fracasso das políticas públicas de saúde não jazem em fatores econômicos nem na instabilidade política, também não no confrontamento dos poderes de diversa índole, como na época Colonial, senão no fato inegável de seu objetivo como instrumento de controle e não do bem-estar social.

Santa Muerte is a Mexican folk saint who personifies death. Santa Muerte has been depicted as a narcosaint, that is to say a saint propitiated only by those who belong to drug cartels, in particular by the Mexican State. As a consequence, the Mexican army, under orders from the Mexican State, has obliterated thousands of shrines dedicated to the folk saint across the country. However, as we evince, the popular figure has followers in all camps involved in the drug war. Both narcos and those who fight them, prisoners and prison guards, venerate the folk saint, turning to her for spiritual favours, protection and even to predict death. This diverse group of people, although divided by their differing positions in the drug war, turns to her for parallel reasons, to explain, predict and control events. As such, Santa Muerte rather than being a narcosaint should be considered the Matron Saint of the Drug War.

El artículo da cuenta de la evolución del término “democracia” en México entre principios y mediados del siglo XIX. A principios de siglo, la democracia se asociaba a la revolución francesa; era sinónimo de demagogia e inestabilidad. En los debates en torno al Acta Constitutiva y la Constitución de 1823-1824, la democracia fue un término poco utilizado. Por el contrario, la palabra apareció muchas veces en el Congreso Constituyente de 1856-1857, pues comenzaba a utilizarse como sinónimo de elecciones representativas y del sistema republicano. El artículo da cuenta de la evolución en el uso del término en los textos de Mariano Otero en los 1840, el congreso constituyente fallido de 1842 y otras publicaciones de los 1850. Finalmente, analiza los distintos usos que se le dieron a la palabra en el Congreso Constituyente de 1856-1857. A partir de este momento, la democracia quedaría asociada al discurso oficial del Estado mexicano, junto al liberalismo y el federalismo.

Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions:Northern Pame (autonym: Xi’iuy) is an Otopamean language situated in the Mexican state of San Luís Potosí. Today over 90% of the Pame population speaks Spanish, and two-year-old children only speak Northern Pame in two Northern Pame villages. The paper explores differences in two-year-old Pame children’s production of words in Northern Pame and Spanish in order to assess the possibility that developmental constraints and/or language shift influence the form and distribution of the children’s words in the two languages.Design/Methodology/Approach:The study is based on video recordings of five Northern Pame children around the age of 2;0. The adult speakers included one father and four mothers. Four hours of production data were analyzed from each of the five children.Data and Analysis:We analyzed the following: (1) the proportion of major lexical categories; (2) the use of the Spanish copula ser in Pame; (3) the mean segmental length of words in Pame and Spanish; and (4) the syllable structure of words in Pame and Spanish.Findings/Conclusions:The overall results demonstrate that the children’s Pame and Spanish words have distinct linguistic properties.Originality:The study is the first to report acquisition data for the Northern Pame language. Northern Pame differs from Spanish on a wide range of lexical and grammatical features. The analysis includes four lexical features. The outcomes for these four features produce a multi-dimensional measure of language differentiation.Significance/Implications:The study shows that Northern Pame parents are successfully passing their home language to their children despite pressure from the contact language. The children acquired the features of Pame words even though some mothers produced over 40% of their nouns in Spanish. The Spanish vocabulary does not inhibit the children’s developing Pame lexical structures.

Este trabajo abordará el movimiento mexicano de solidaridad con el pueblo de Nicaragua durante la insurrección sandinista (1977-1979), aportando elementos para el estudio de la historia transnacional de la revolución en Nicaragua y su impacto en la vida política mexicana. Se abordará el movimiento de solidaridad como un proceso heterogéneo dominado por tres actores fundamentales: el FSLN, el Estado mexicano y la izquierda política mexicana, cada uno intentando avanzar sus intereses particulares mediante la movilización política y el uso de la retórica de solidaridad. Se estudiarán algunos temas relacionados con la izquierda partidista y sindical en el contexto de la reforma política de 1977, el gobierno de José López Portillo y su política hacia el FSLN y la izquierda mexicana, así como los esfuerzos de propaganda y activismo del Sandinismo en México.

The article deals with the local-specific features of the functioning of grammatical forms in the Spanish language of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Examples of the influence of Native American languages on the grammatical structure of the Spanish language are analyzed and given. The co-existence of the dominant Spanish and Indian languages had an impact on the Mexican variant of Spanish. During the three hundred years of Spanish colonization, the cultural diversity of the State of Oaxaca was mixed and expanded. Thus, a mixture of Spanish, autochthonous and African groups emerged, which defined the language of the residents of the region in particular. The implementation of language units in the state is characterized by a peculiarity that is expressed at the grammatical level. The purpose of the article is to analyze the influence of Indian languages on the grammatical structure of Spanish in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. The research was based on articles, fiction written by Oaxaca authors. Textbooks on grammar of autochthonous languages of the Oto-Manguean group were studied. Interviews with governors, poets, state linguists and Oaxacan speakers in markets, streets, cafes were analyzed. As a result of the study, the Oaxaca resident’s speech revealed grammatical features influenced by Indian languages that distinguish local speech from that of the capital. As a result of the findings, there are prospects for further research into the influence of indigenous languages on Spanish in the State of Oaxaca.

According to official sources, Chiapas has by far the lowest case rate and lowest number of reported deaths from COVID-19 per 100,000 of any Mexican state. However, the perception of little danger ...

El artículo analiza la labor de la Oficina de Estudios Especiales en la formación de las ciencias del suelo y para la creación de tecnologías fertilizantes para la agricultura del maíz en México. Estudia, además, las políticas públicas que implementó el Estado mexicano para la construcción de una industria de fertilizantes, así como los alcances y problemáticas de su difusión en el cultivo del maíz en el Occidente de México., The article analyzes the work of the Office of Special Studies in the formation of soil sciences and the creation of fertilizer technologies for corn agriculture in Mexico. It also studies the public policies that the Mexican State implemented for the construction of the fertilizer industry, as well as the scope and problems of its spread in the cultivation of corn in Western Mexico., Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación

Studies of political transnationalism have focused on the rapprochement and increased attention that the Mexican state has directed at the Mexican diaspora in the United States (see Iskander in Creative state: forty years of migration and development policy in Morocco and Mexico, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2010; Delano in Mexico and its diaspora in the United States: policies of emigration since 1848, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2011). In the context of the slow and painful democratic transition in Mexican politics, scholars and state actors have speculated that Mexican migrants in the United States are politically up for grabs, with no clear preference for any one particular Mexican party. Following the dubious return to power of the formerly hegemonic Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) from 2012 to 2018, this essay tracks Mexican migrants’ views of the Pena Nieto administration using original public opinion survey data. Focusing on two of the flashpoints of the outgoing presidential administration in Mexico—namely the energy sector reforms and the case of the disappeared students from Ayotzinapa—this essay asks, how do Mexican migrants in the United States view the political performance of the Pena Nieto administration? Drawing on unpublished survey data tracing US-based Mexican migrants’ political assessment of the recently defeated PRI administration—from its ominous political ascension to its handling of structural reforms and egregious human rights crises—this essay argues that Mexican migrants’ views of the Pena Nieto administration were transnationally tinged by blood and oil.

For his debut column, new FQ contributing editor Manuel Betancourt examines three recent Mexican films—Las niñas bien (The Good Girls, Alejandra Márquez Abella, 2018), Esto no es Berlín (This Is Not Berlin, Hari Sama, 2019), and Museo (Alonso Ruiz Palacios, 2018)—that trace the changing social and economic forces that fractured Mexico during the 1980s. Focusing on characters and stories that are seldom at the heart of historical chronicles, these narratives anchor revisionist approaches that lead audiences to the margins: to take women's experiences seriously, to find value in queer radical thinking, and to question colonial discourse, all the while pushing back against any kind of monolithic understanding of Mexican state discourse.

Este artículo estudia la conformación de las burocracias policiales en la ciudad de México de 1870 a 1920. Este sector se transformó durante el periodo de construcción del Estado mexicano. Enmarcado en el proceso modernizador de los cuerpos de seguridad urbanos, se presta atención al caso de las comisarías. Dentro de ese nodo del poder policial, identifica los perfiles sociales de los empleados públicos, analiza los mecanismos de reclutamiento, así como las funciones y condiciones bajo las cuales laboraba el personal de oficina. En esencia, plantea la necesidad de conocer cómo las prácticas generaron un orden distinto al planteado en los reglamentos. Ese orden alterno permite entender algunas características de las burocracias mexicanas.

About 90 million years ago, an unusual shark cruised the shallow sea covering what is now Vallecillo, in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon. After the animal died, conditions on the sea floor were just right to preserve its soft tissue and long, winglike fins. Described last month in Science, the shark, named Aquilolamna milarcae, made headlines around the world for its surprising similarities to today9s plankton-eating manta rays. But for some paleontologists, the publication—by a team of mostly European scientists—also raises thorny questions about the role of private collections in their field and lingering scientific colonialism. The paper originally said the specimen was purchased by a collector, which is illegal under Mexican law. And a public museum founded by the collector, where the fossil was said to be accessible for study by other researchers, is not scheduled to open until later this year. Science published an Erratum last week, indicating the current location of the fossil. The controversy over A. milarcae comes at a moment when some paleontologists are pushing to eliminate the remnants of colonial practices, an issue that inflames the debate over the paper. In Mexico, paleontologists say the paper has served as a wake-up call.

El ensayo busca identificar las causas que, a partir de la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII, llevaron a la desintegración del modelo comercial que desde 1580 hasta 1750 colocó a México y su Pacífico como epicentro. Primeramente, el trabajo brinda los elementos centrales del tejido comercial imperial con centralidad en la Nueva España. Posteriormente, se analizan las razones de la decadencia del Pacífico, en tanto espacio autónomo. Se propone que la ruta por el Cabo de Hornos inaugurada en 1750 por España resultó un golpe de gracia al eje interoceánico novohispano integrado por Acapulco, la Ciudad de México y Veracruz. Asimismo, se sostiene que la contracción del eje novohispano perduró hasta el período de emancipación del estado mexicano. Por último, se sugiere que la revolución del comercio y consumo atlántico generado por la expansión europea sobre el Pacífico, provocó la pérdida de la centralidad mexicana en el escenario global de comercio y su reposicionamiento como periferia.

El trabajo que ofrecemos a continuación es un análisis histórico de la presencia del dicloro difenil tricloroetano (DDT) en México, específicamente acerca de las implicaciones que tuvo dentro de dos programas de desarrollo social impulsados por el Estado mexicano a partir de la década de 1940 y en el establecimiento de la industria agroquímica estatal. El DDT fue introducido en México a principios de la década de 1940 como una de las principales herramientas tecnológicas de los programas sanitario y agronómico concebidos por la Fundación Rockefeller, quien señalaría a la malaria y a la baja producción agrícola como dos problemas críticos para el país. La integración de estos programas al sistema político y económico propició la creación de instituciones y de una industria agroquímica nacional que permitieron al DDT una vigencia en México por más de 50 años.

The author of this study has combed through the archives to bring to light the intricate connections between artists, the Mexican State, and their respective ideologies, which were not always mutua...

The fictional works of Yuri Herrera (Actopan, 1970) have been recognized for its importance to the contemporary Mexican literature cannon. For this reason, they have been subject to numerous critic analyses, in particular, his novel Trabajos del reino (2004) given its relevancy in the further development of what has been called the “narconovela” literary genre. This paper proposes an analysis of the beforementioned novel along with La transmigración de los cuerpos (2013) on how they both contribute to the building of the official narrative sustained by the Mexican State in the frame of its “war on drugs” and in which ways these narratives also build the notion of a market of necrophilic exchanges or “necromarket”. La obra ficcional de Yuri Herrera (Actopan, 1970) es una de las más destacadas en las letras mexicanas contemporáneas y como tal ha sido sometida a numerosos análisis críticos. Objeto particular de mucha de esta producción crítica ha sido su primera novela, Trabajos del reino (2004) dado en parte la relevancia que tuvo para el desarrollo de lo que luego fue llamado el género de la “narconovela”. Este artículo se propone analizar cómo dicha novela y también La transmigración de los cuerpos (2013) aportan a la construcción de ciertos aspectos del relato oficial del Estado mexicano en el marco de su “guerra contra las drogas” y de qué maneras se construye en estas ficciones la noción de un mercado de intercambios necrofílicos o “necromercado”. University of Toronto

The historiographic gap regarding the Chiapanecan nineteenth century, which is a period that was fundamental for the definition of this territory’s future within the new Mexican State, has begun to be bridged in recent times with new research based on primary sources that contribute first-hand knowledge devoted to revisiting statements that have been repeated as fixed truths. For this reason, the publication of two books that deal with the annexation of Chiapas as Mexican territory is a historiographic milestone that will revitalize the readers’ understanding of a key period in the past.

This article reconstructs and analyzes the role of the Knights of Columbus in Mexico’s Cristero War. Founded in Connecticut in 1882, the Order quickly expanded into Mexico, establishing its first chapters there in 1905. Within two decades, the Mexican Caballeros de Colón had become one of the country’s most prominent and politically active Catholic lay organizations. During the Cristero War (1926–1929), the Mexican and U.S. Knights collaborated in order to resist the anticlerical Mexican state. In the process, the organization connected and politicized Catholics who supported the Cristero cause. By tracing the expansion of the Knights of Columbus from the United States into Mexico, and then following the Mexican Knights back into exile in the United States, this article demonstrates how transnational political activism shaped the lives of Catholics on both sides of the border. Este artículo reconstruye y analiza el papel que jugó la orden llamada Knights of Columbus en la Guerra Cristera de México. Fundada en Connecticut en 1882, dicha orden se expandió rápidamente a México y estableció sus primeros capítulos ahí en 1905. En el lapso de dos décadas, los “Caballeros de Colón” mexicanos se convirtieron en una de las organizaciones católicas laicas más prominentes y con mayor actividad política del país. Durante la Guerra Cristera (1926–1929), los Caballeros mexicanos y estadounidenses colaboraron con el fin de resistir al Estado mexicano anticlerical. En este proceso, la organización conectó y politizó a los católicos que apoyaban la causa cristera. Al rastrear la expansión de los Caballeros de Colón de los Estados Unidos a México y al seguir sus pasos de regreso al exilio en Estados Unidos, este artículo demuestra cómo el activismo político transnacional conformó las vidas de los católicos a ambos lados de la frontera.

¿Cuál es la propuesta de una gestión por resultados (GPR) promovida por el gobierno federal mexicano y cómo se ha aplicado? Este artículo presenta la teoría de una gestión por y para resultados con impactos en la competitividad y bienestar. Se plantea un análisis de los elementos conceptuales del modelo y los procesos de integración conceptual y operativa de dicho modelo en el caso de Brasil y en el gobierno federal mexicano, particularmente en el estado de Baja California. Obteniendo como principal hallazgo la necesidad de fortalecer competencias institucionales en materia de GPR y con ello incidir en los procesos de competitividad y bienestar en el ámbito estatal, para interiorizar una visión de cambio estratégico, la atención al cambio cultural en términos de una eficaz transparencia, rendición de cuentas y controles anticorrupción, su implementación eficiente y con un enfoque transversal, basado en los elementos de gestión.

In recent years, violence related to the so-called Mexican Drug War has escalated to unprecedented levels. As cartels seek to undermine the sovereignty of the Mexican State, they convey their message of social control to the public through various means, including corpse messaging, or leaving threatening and signatory messages on or around the bodies of their victims. Cartels use intimidation and brutality to scare the public into complicity, paralyzing its will to act by making violence a pertinent presence in quotidian Mexican life. This ever-present threat makes for an interesting relationship between the cartels and Mexican citizens. While self-defense militias have formed recently, many citizens seem to revere their social captors, or at least view them as the better of two evils, recognizing the criminal organizations as more legitimate authoritative figures than the Mexican officials, and the propaganda of the narcoculture industry perpetuates this reverence. This paper frames cartels as a ‘counter...

This text raises a discussion about the lack of vehicular images of the historical memory of the 1968 massacre at Tlatelolco. Fifty years after the massacre occurring on October 2, 1968 in Mexico City, there have been no reconstructions of identity-shaping visuals around this event, considered a turning point for the modern Mexican State. This is in contrast to the abundant imagery created around the Mexican Revolution, the founding event of Modern Mexico, or the splendor of modernization, handily characterized by the film industry during the Miguel Aleman presidency. Using as a case study the film Rojo Amanecer by Jorge Fons, written by Xavier Robles and Guadalupe Ortega, we can problematize this visual language as well as contextualize it as a fiction that, eventually, would contribute to the referential images of the event, while at once recognizing the images’ symbolic weight does not refer to immediate memory nor do they form part of a visual discourse of that October night. We believe this absence is due to the breakdown of the memory of the third generation after the event, a phenomenon that Marianne Hirsch has called postmemory, an analytical concept used to explain the intra- and transgenerational processes and barriers.

El objetivo de este artículo es analizar cómo a mediados del siglo XX las políticas nacionales mexicanas y estadounidenses alteraron la dinámica regional transfronteriza de la ganadería del norte de Coahuila. El estudio se centra en las tensiones políticas y económicas generadas por el cierre de la frontera a raíz de la crisis sanitaria de 1947, para explicar que el repliegue territorial de la ganadería coahuilense, en un contexto ambiental poco favorable, produjo las condiciones que frenaron su dinamismo en los siguientes años. El artículo cierra alrededor de 1982, cuando el Estado mexicano comenzó a disminuir las regulaciones económicas que dieron pie a políticas de libre comercio.

In 2014, the Zapatistas (EZLN) celebrated the twentieth anniversary of their 1 January uprising in Chiapas against the Mexican state and the imposition of the North American Free Trade Agreement. T...

In this essay, I complicate the standard political economic narrative of Mexico's ‘stabilizing development’ as one of successful state intervention which managed to tame capitalism. In the first section, I ask whether it is possible that years of literature on the need for strong states, developmental states, and interventionist states have not blinded us to some of the actual functions of the post-war Mexican state, namely as a sink or channel for capital accumulated in the global North, and whether the present role of the state in Mexico might be much more like its past incarnations than we have been led to believe. In the second section, through a close reading of the 2013 housing crisis in Mexico, I test whether there is anything to the assertion of a similarity between the state of Mexico's post-war ‘stabilizing development’ and the current financialized one. By way of conclusion, I press a case for a political imaginary beyond state regulation of capital.

Within the past 10 years, archaeological discoveries in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas have opened up a vast philosophical and zoological quest to understand what happened 4000–5000 years ago across northern Mexico and how several tribes, heretofore unknown to history, came upon the scene and then vanished with no apparent intermixing with any groups outside their own. Their artistic legacy invites deep perplexity mirroring the condition of all human existence and the biological sciences which seek to define that existence within the confines of evolutionary theories.

A cultural study of the origins of cuisine from the P’urhepecha region, in the Mexican state of Michoacan, visible in contemporary cuisine and community practices. Considerations of agricultural products and cultural practices, related to traditional cuisine from the preHispanic to the contemporary era. Resumen: Estudio historico y cultural de los origenes de la cocina de la region p’urhepecha del estado mexicano de Michoacan a traves de la cocina contemporanea y sus practicas comunitarias. Consideraciones de productos agricolas y practicas culturales relacionadas con la cocina tradicional desde la epoca prehispanica hasta la contemporanea.

Reacting to migrants’ many, ongoing involvements with their home communities, sending states have increasingly adopted policies designed to resolve the problems of citizens living abroad and to respond to expatriates’ search for engagement, doing so in ways that best meet home state leaders’ goals. This article seeks to understand the factors shaping this interaction between sending states and emigrants abroad by studying two contrasting aspects of the Mexican experience—expatriate voting, a relatively new development, and provision of the matricula consular, a long-standing component of traditional consular services, though one that has recently been transformed. Focusing on the complex set of interactions linking migrants, sending states, and receiving states, the article identifies the key differences and similarities between these two policies. Both policies suffered from a capacity deficit inherent in sending state efforts to connect with nationals living in a territory that the home country cannot control; both also generated conflict over membership and rights. Nonetheless, Mexico’s efforts to resolve the immigrants’ identification problems in the receiving society proved useful to millions; by contrast, a tiny proportion of emigrants took advantage of the first opportunity to vote from abroad. These diverging experiences demonstrate that sending states can exercise influence when intervening on the receiving society side, where the embeddedness of the immigrant population provides a source of leverage. By contrast, the search to re-engage the emigrants back home encounters greater difficulties and yields poorer results, as the emigrants’ extra-territorial status impedes the effort to sustain the connection to the people and places left behind. In the end, the article shows that extension to the territory of another state yields far more constraints than those found on home soil as well as unpredictable reactions from receiving states and their peoples, not to speak of nationals who no longer perceive the migrants as full members of the society they left.

This paper focuses on struggles by Mexican indigenous communities to defend their patrimony and guarantee their own security in an environment dominated by the parallel power of organized crime, paramilitary violence, impunity, and a neo-extractivist economy. After reviewing the relationships between the radicalization of indigenous autonomy demands and transformations of the Mexican state, analysis focuses on recent developments involving a Nahua community on the Pacific coast of Michoacan state that has a long history of successful defence of its communal lands, alongside a Purepecha community in the central highlands that has been its longstanding ally. The violence of external actors reflects the penetration of all levels of government by organized crime, but violence is not a new historical experience in this region. What has changed is that the capacity of these communities to resist has been affected by their internal disarticulation by the same forces.

Three new books on Mexican art and visual production by Mary Coffey, Adriana Zavala, and Shelley Garrigan situate themselves explicitly at the intersection between art history, social history, lite...

The study of early transnational connections between Chicago-based Mexican organizations and the Mexican government is important for understanding the roots of contemporary practices of civic binationality in the city of Chicago. This article presents a historical analysis of Mexican migrant organizations in the city of Chicago and the metropolitan area to understand continuities, similarities and differences between contemporary Mexican hometown associations and early-twentieth-century organizations. Using original archival sources to map the historical evolution of Mexican migrant organizations, the article demonstrates that contemporary Mexican hometown associations established in the 1980s are not an entirely new phenomenon. While every migratory wave had its unique transnational characteristics, early-migrant organizations engaged in transnational practices with the Mexican state through the consulate and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; neither established working collaborations with state governments and municipalities nor used topophilic identities as organizing banners.

El artículo se propone estudiar la línea política del Partico Comunista Mexicano frente a la realidad internacional de los primeros años de la Guerra Fría (1947-1950). El PCM atraviesa una larga crisis entre 1940 y 1960, que condiciona su accionar y lo empuja a una declinación en sus relaciones con las masas populares y una debilidad orgánica muy acentuada. La influencia de la concepción browderista no le permite abordar adecuadamente las relaciones con el estado mexicano ni plantear una estrategia revolucionaria. Su crisis también está relacionada con la acentuación de la dependencia a los mandatos recibidos de la Kominform, el nuevo organismo de conducción del movimiento comunista internacional. El artículo estudia el desarrollo del contexto internacional en el surgimiento de la Guerra Fría, la respuesta soviética desde el movimiento comunista internacional y la línea política establecida a partir de 1947 del Movimiento Internacional por la Paz. Muestra las características de la dirección de Dionisio Encina como ejemplo de las formas adoptadas por el estalinismo maduro, su incapacidad, falta de autonomía y servilismo a los dictados soviéticos y la política establecida en cumplimiento de las directivas de la Kominform a través de Congresos partidarios y plenos del Comité Central. Por último, estudia los Congresos por la Paz en Wroclaw, París y México como escenarios de la política aplicada en el periodo estudiado.

This article explores the circuits of migration among American prostitutes in Mexican border towns between the years 1910 and 1930. After California’s Progressive movement shut down the state’s red light districts, American prostitutes found that the vice districts of Mexicali and Tijuana offered opportunities for economic and social advancement not available to them in the United States. As transnational subjects, these U.S. women exploited the ethno-cultural complexities of the border to claim “whiteness” as “Americans” and yet also relied on the Mexican state to guarantee their rights and liberties. Their story contributes to scholarly debates about prostitution and speaks to the absence of research on American women in the historiography of the twentieth-century U.S.-Mexican border.

Analysis of the reorganization of museums carried out by the Mexican State between 1944, the year of the inauguration of the refounded National Museum of History, and 1964, when the Anthropological and Vicerroyal national museums were inaugurated. The «narrative of the nation» underlying those inaugurations is also analyzed.Análisis de la reordenación museística llevada a cabo por el Estado mexicano entre 1944, inauguración del refundado Museo Nacional de Historia, y 1964, inauguración de los museos nacionales de Antropología y del Virreinato, y del relato de nación que la sustenta.

On a hopeful September day in 1912, Gim Pon, a twenty-five year old Chinese man from Canton, boarded the steamship Siberia in Hong Kong harbor to sail west across the Pacific. The Siberia docked briefly in San Francisco, but Gim Pon's destination, and that of seven fellow Chinese travelers, was not California but the northern Mexican state of Sonora. In the early twentieth century, thousands of men like Gim Pon immigrated to Mexico, boosting the Chinese population there from slightly over 1,000 in 1895 to more than 24,000 in the mid-1920s. Sonora, which hugs Arizona at the United States/Mexico border, was a popular destination, and hosted the largest Chinese population of any Mexican state through the 1920s. Once in Sonora, Gim Pon adapted to life in Mexico: he changed his name to Francisco Gim, learned Spanish, and became naturalized as a Mexican citizen on February 27, 1920. Most importantly, he formed a family with Julia Delgado.

This article discusses the sustained and increasingly institutionalized transnational practice of repatriating the bodies of deceased Mexican migrants from the United States to their hometowns in Mexico. Far from being a strictly private transnational practice, migrants’ desire for a posthumous return and burial in their homelands is popularly expressed in the memories, music, and everyday exchanges of the Mexican diaspora. Drawing on transnational ethnographic research in Los Angeles, California, and Zacatecas, Mexico, this article documents how the Mexican state has institutionalized this process at the transnational, national, state, and municipal levels of governance. Last, the article discusses the role of migrant family and social networks in these repatriations. The goals of this article are to provide a preliminary cultural and institutional understanding of the practice of repatriating cadavers from the United States to Mexico and to discuss the implications of this process for the scholarly debate on migrant transnationalism.

A report from the 2009 Morelia Film Festival, in the Mexican state of Michoacán. Three themes recurred in the films screened: the murderous legacy of the past, present-day anxiety, and pastoralism—which converge in Julián Hernández's outstanding Enraged Sun, Enraged Sky.