A Time of Justice – Praxedis Guerrero
Praxedis Gilberto Guerrero died on the morning of December 30, 1910. He died a hero for the cause of revolution in his deeply troubled homeland, Mexico.
The Journal
The Pyramid of Capitalist System
“The Pyramid of Capitalist System” was a popular poster that was first printed in In 1911, to graphically illustrate the place of the worker at the bottom of a capitalist society, while supporting all levels above. It also illustrates that the infographic is not such a new invention.
What Anarchy Was Not
Anarchism is not vandalism, or terrorism. It is a loose-knit worker’s movement beginning in Europe of the early-mid 19th century, and coming to the United States and Latin America in later decades. Focusing on developing a workers’ culture with information and ideas conveyed through workers’ newspapers and leaflets, anarchists were not interested in nipping at […]
The Demise of Native Californians
Southern California Native people suffered brutally at the hands of newcomers to the area beginning in the late 18th century with the arrival of Spanish missionaries, followed by Mexican “Californio” rancheros, followed by Americans and other European immigrants starting in the early-mid 19th century. Until the arrival of these immigrants to the New World, California […]
Las Soldaderas
Women played an extremely important part of the campesino armies of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. “Las soldaderas” followed the ragtag troops of these generals everywhere they fought, bringing their families along and caring for their children and husband-fighters. But they also themselves were fierce and determined fighters.
Revolution or Revelation?
“The Mexican Revolution stripped away the veneer of order and peace – the Pax Porfiriana – that had masked the social unrest percolating beneath the surface of President Díaz’s long reign. In his 1990 Nobel Prize lecture, Mexican writer Octavio Paz noted that the revolution ‘was not the work of a group of ideologists intent […]
The Plan of San Luis Potosi
In September 1910, Porfirio Díaz, Mexico’s longtime president, staged the Fiestas del Centenario, or Centennial Festivals, to mark the hundredth anniversary of Mexico’s independence from Spain. Designed to showcase Mexico’s development into a modern nation, the celebrations were held amid widespread social unrest. Only a few months later the revolutionary leader Francisco Madero issued his […]
War Criminal
Syrian President Assad is nothing less than a war criminal and should be tried in the World Court for crimes against his citizens, thousands of whom have died in the bombings and shellings Assad has ordered of dissident Syrian towns and neighborhoods for many bloody months. He has conducted systematic massacres of freedom fighters and […]
Vaclev Havel 1936-2011
This holiday week also marks the passing of one of the great freedom fighters of the last fifty years. As a dissident playwright in what was then the satellite country of Czechoslovakia in the Soviet Union – an empire of incredible and brutal suppression of individual rights and free self-expression – Havel courageously led the […]
Michael Heralda: Passing on a Native Philosphy Through Stories
The story of Weaving the Past: Journey of Discovery is also a story of heritage and ethnic roots. On this Saturday at 4:30pm at the Autry National Museum (Griffith Park, LA) do not miss an opportunity to learn how to access your own “indigenous” roots, through a fantastic presentation with Michael Heralda, an Angeleno with […]