War along the Border

In 1910 Francisco Madero, in exile in San Antonio, Texas, launched a revolution that changed the face of Mexico. The conflict also unleashed violence and instigated political actions that kept that nation unsettled for more than a decade. As in other major uprisings around the world, the revolution’s effects were not contained within the borders of the embattled country. Indeed, the Mexican Revolution touched communities on the Texas side of the Rio Grande from Brownsville to El Paso. Fleeing refugees swelled the populations of South Texas towns and villages and introduced nationalist activity as exiles and refugees sought to extend moral, financial, and even military aid to those they supported in Mexico. Raiders from Mexico clashed with Texas ranchers over livestock and property, and bystanders as well as partisans died in the conflict.
One hundred years later, Mexico celebrated the memory of the revolution, and scholars in Mexico and the United States sought to understand the effects of the violence on their own communities. War along the Border, edited by noted Tejano scholar Arnoldo De León, is the result of an important conference hosted by the University of Houston’s Center for Mexican American Studies.
Scholars contributing to this volume consider topics ranging from the effects of the Mexican Revolution on Tejano and African American communities to its impact on Texas’ economy and agriculture. Other essays consider the ways that Mexican Americans north of the border affected the course of the revolution itself. The work collected in this important book not only recaps the scholarship done to date but also suggests fruitful lines for future inquiry. War along the Border suggests new ways of looking at a watershed moment in Mexican American history and reaffirms the trans-national scope of Texas history.

Table of Contents:

Foreword, Tatcho Mindiola

Introduction, Arnoldo De León

Beyond Borders: Causes and Consequences of the Mexican Revolution, Paul Hart

The Mexican Revolution’s Impact on Tejano Communities: The Historiographic Record, Arnoldo De León

La Rinchada: Revolution, Revenge, and the Rangers, 1910–1920, Richard Ribb

The Mexican Revolution, Revolución de Texas, and Matanza de 1915, Trinidad Gonzales

The El Paso Race Riot of 1916, Miguel A. Levario

The Mexican Revolution and the Women of El México de Afuera, the Pan American Round Table, and the Cruz Azul Mexicana, Juanita Luna Lawhn

Women’s Labor and Activism in the Greater Mexican Borderlands, 1910–1930, Sonia Hernández

Salt of the Earth: The Immigrant Experience of Gerónimo Treviño, Roberto R. Treviño

Sleuthing Immigrant Origins: Felix Tijerina and His Mexican Revolution Roots, Thomas H. Kreneck

“The Population Is Overwhelmingly Mexican; Most of It Is in Sympathy with the Revolution . . . .”: Mexico’s Revolution of 1910 and the Tejano Community in the Big Bend, John Eusebio Klingemann

Smuggling in Dangerous Times: Revolution and Communities in the Tejano Borderlands, George T. Díaz

Eureka! The Mexican Revolution in African American Context, 1910–1920, Gerald Horne and Margaret Stevens

Understanding Greater Revolutionary Mexico: The Case for a Transnational Border History, Raúl A. Ramos

Selected Bibliography

About the Contributors

Index