BY ALY S. GRANT
This Nov. 20th, the 114th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution is celebrated marking one of the most important movements in Mexican history. Before 1911, Mexico was being governed by Porfirio Diaz who had been in power for 35 years.
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During his regime, President Porfirio Díaz and his administration (1876-1911) modernized Mexico’s economy and industry. International companies invested in the mines in northern Mexico, while in the central and southern regions, other companies restructured farmland and made it more productive through the use of new agricultural techniques and machinery. Foreign investors built railways, thereby contributing to an improvement in exports. As the country progressed, its banking system saw a capital increase. Mexico was able to pay its international debt and rebuild its infrastructure.
Mexico progressed economically for some, but many more were left on the sidelines. The elites gained wealth and influence, but the majority of the population had to accept the new situation, working hard to survive. The arrival of new farms and companies in rural areas caused mestizo farmers and miners to become laborers and some Indigenous peoples to become sharecroppers. European and American landowners and companies hired foremen in charge of supervising the work in their facilities. The Díaz government created a rural police force (known as Rurales) and deployed federal troops to maintain order throughout the country. The modernization of the country produced a growth in injustice and social inequalities.
It was then that, as a result of the exhaustion of abuse, hunger and excessive work without fair remuneration, the Mexican Revolution arose with the motto “The land belongs to those who work it” and they took up arms.
In this fight, the role of women was highly important, they participated directly in it. They were known as Adelitas, after their leader Adela Velarde. She was a brave woman and activist who, at the age of 15, joined the ranks of the Mexican Revolution, supporting the Mexican Association of the White Cross in nursing work. She was the daughter of a very rich man, who was against the inequality that she lived firsthand watching her father’s workers.
The soldaderas or Adelitas were mothers, daughters and wives who abandoned their roles and took up arms to fight against the social injustice that oppressed day laborers.
These brave revolutionary women almost always came from the lowest social strata; those who were mothers were accompanied by their daughters and sons, some still on their laps wrapped in their shawls. In most cases they adopted masculine behaviors, distancing femininity from them, to avoid suffering abuse.
These women became an obligatory reference in that armed struggle: supportive, brave, dedicated, willing to do anything to defend what was theirs: their few belongings, the food they got out there, their children and their family.
Many of them served as nurses and dedicated themselves to caring for the wounded, some acted as spies, and others provided food to the camps. However, many of them became warriors, who bravely took up machetes, firearms or whatever they had at hand on the battlefield.
Even some troops were led by them, some soldaderas served as leaders of the troops in the field. At the time of the revolution, women were thought to be harmless, therefore they were not detained when traveling through Mexico. Some revolutionaries took advantage of this by assigning them the job of carrying supplies around the country, commonly ammunition.
The soldaderas showed strength and capability when working with the soldiers. Similar to women in the United States after World War II, soldaderas could not have the gender roles of the past.
To commemorate this date, there is a parade in almost every city of the country, in which there is the participation of several groups such as The army, the navy, the national guard, as well as educational institutions, charro associations, civil organizations, groups of Indigenous peoples everybody wearing their folk customs.
By the way, it is a non-labor day. Even when November 20th is on Wednesday it will be moved to the third Monday in November to create a long weekend. So don’t expect your employees to show up on November 18 to work, unless you want to triple their salary.
