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

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: We stand between -- El Porfiriato -- If we're not careful -- Order and progress -- Den of thieves -- We won't be silenced -- The Constitution is dead -- We will be revolutionaries -- The Brown Belt -- Send the secret police -- We return to the fight -- What I believe -- Cananea -- No alarm in Mexico -- Send five dollars for the machine -- The Jimenez Raid -- Running down the revolutionists -- Something unusual -- The death of Juan José Arredondo -- The dead letter office -- We knew his whereabouts continuously -- The kidnapping of Manuel Sarabia -- El alma de todo -- The United States vs. Ricardo Flores Magón -- Tierra y libertad! -- The people's cause -- An attempt to precipitate a general disturbance -- The Bureau of Investigation -- A tremendous shock to the American people -- The revolution begins -- Conclusion: always a rebel -- Appendix: Rebel pseudonyms and code names.

"Rebel historian" Kelly Lytle Hernández reframes our understanding of U.S. history in this groundbreaking narrative of revolution in the borderlands. Bad Mexicans tells the dramatic story of the magonistas, the migrant rebels who sparked the 1910 Mexican Revolution from the United States. Led by a brilliant but ill-tempered radical named Ricardo Flores Magón, the magonistas were a motley band of journalists, miners, migrant workers, and more, who organized thousands of Mexican workers-and American dissidents-to their cause. Determined to oust Mexico's dictator, Porfirio Díaz, who encouraged the plunder of his country by U.S. imperialists such as Guggenheim and Rockefeller, the rebels had to outrun and outsmart the swarm of U. S. authorities vested in protecting the Diaz regime. The U.S. Departments of War, State, Treasury, and Justice as well as police, sheriffs, and spies, hunted the magonistas across the country. Capturing Ricardo Flores Magón was one of the FBI's first cases. But the magonistas persevered. They lived in hiding, wrote in secret code, and launched armed raids into Mexico until they ignited the world's first social revolution of the twentieth century. Taking readers to the frontlines of the magonista uprising and the counterinsurgency campaign that failed to stop them, Kelly Lytle Hernández puts the magonista revolt at the heart of U.S. history. Long ignored by textbooks, the magonistas threatened to undo the rise of Anglo-American power, on both sides of the border, and inspired a revolution that gave birth to the Mexican-American population, making the magonistas' story integral to modern American life"-- Provided by publisher.