Mexico Since Independence

Dr. A. Lauria-Santiago
Contact Info

GOALS AND APPROACH: This course will provide students an advanced introduction to the "national" political and economic history of Mexico while also covering many local and regional experiences. Among the topics we will examine are: the legacy of Mexico's path to independence, centralism and federalism in the formation of the state in the ninetenth century, peasant struggles over land and sovereignty, economic development and modernization; authoritarian rule and struggles for democratization; the Mexican Revolution; relations with the United States; populism; the post-revolutionary state; the rise, rule and decline of the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI), and recent reformist and revolutionary challenges to the state and neo-liberal policies.

REQUIREMENTS
Your enrollment in this course constitutes an agreement that you will follow the guidelines presented below. I expect a reasonable degree of enthusiasm and interest from you. You will have to complete all requirements in order to receive a grade in this course. I expect you to come to all class sessions on time, prepared, and ready to participate in discussions. You will be expected to spend between six and eight hours each week completing the readings and requirements for this course.

Please note: I consistently screen papers for various forms of plagiarism and refer plagiarism cases to the Dean without hesitation. Please make sure that the work you hand is was written by you and not borrowed, purchased, cut and pasted from the web, or simply the result of stringing together notes from other people's work.

• Participation:  Your participation in class activities, including attendance, will be an important component of your final grade. The short assignments that form part of the participation grade include short response papers. They should be about one page long and reflect some thinking, coherent questioning, analysis or reflections upon some aspect of that week's readings.
• Determination of Grade:
  • Class participation, map exercises, and short written assignments (25%)
  • Two discussion papers (25% each)
  • One final exam (25%)
• In the calculation of the final grade of borderline cases, improvement and dynamic class participation will be decisive factors. I consider all students equally capable of successfully completing the requirements for this class with an above average grade, which does not mean you will receive a B for mediocre work.
• Discussion Papers: I will provide the topic for these papers. They will be based on class readings and discussion and need to be 5-7 pages in length and reflect your participation in class, your completion of readings, and your own analysis of the materials. Late papers will be penalized for each day of lateness at the rate of a third of a grade per day (B to B-, B- to C+, A to A-, etc.).
• Web Content: there will be assigned web-based materials for you to examine. Some of these materials will be presented in class but others will be for individual browsing. These materials are as essential to the course as any other assigned reading. You should check this web page at least once a week for revisions and the posting of assignments.
• ERES password is "zapatista"

BOOKS REQUIRED FOR THIS COURSE
The following books are available at the bookstore. They are listed more or less in the order we will use them. Other readings not ordered by the bookstore are available on reserve.

• Timothy J. Henderson and Gilbert M. Joseph. The Mexico Reader. Duke University Press.
  • Colin M. MacLachlan and William H. Beezley. El Gran Pueblo: A History of Greater Mexico, 3rd Edition.
• Andres Resendez. Changing National Identities at the Frontier: Texas and New Mexico, 1800-1850. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
  • John Tutino. From Insurrection to Revolution in Mexico. Princeton University Press; Reprint edition.
• William H. Beezley. Judas at the Jockey Club: And Other Episodes of Porfirian Mexico. University of Nebraska Press; 2nd edition. 2004.
  
  • Jennie Purnell. Popular Movements and State Formation in Revolutionary Mexico: The Agraristas and Cristeros of Michoacan.
• Julia Preston. Opening Mexico: The Making of a Democracy. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2004.

ORGANIZATION AND SCHEDULE

I. Creation of the Mexican Nation-State, 1810-1910

Week 1: [Sept. 2]  Introduction:  New Spain During the late Eighteenth Century

• Maclachlan. El Gran Pueblo. Chap. 1.
• Tutino. From Insurrection to Revolution. Chap. 2.
• Michael Meyer and William Beezley, eds. The Oxford History of Mexico. Chaps. 4, 6. [E-Res]
• Maps of Mexico--Study them here
• Map and other assignment for next Tuesday
• Powerpoint Slides--Use Internet Explorer to view
• Discussion Questions


Week 2: [Sept. 7, 9] Independence and the Conflicted Emergence of the Mexican Nation-State

• Tutino. From Insurrection to Revolution. Chap. 3-5.
• Resendez. Changing National Identities at the Frontier. Chaps.
• Henderson and Joseph. The Mexico Reader. pp. tba.
• Write a short summary of any of the non-textbook readings for this week, choose the one you find most interesting, explain why.
• Maps for this week--Study them here
• Powerpoint Slides
• Discussion Questions
• Chronology of Mexican Independence

Web Sites to examine:

• Mexico: from Empire to Revolution (Getty Research Institute)
• Nineteenth-Century History

Week 3: [Sept.14, 16] Regional Strife, Foreign Intervention and Civil War

• Maclachlan. El Gran Pueblo. Chaps. 2-3.
• David Weber, The Mexican Frontier. Chap. on ERES
  
• Tutino. Chap. 6.
• Henderson and Joseph. The Mexico Reader. 170-238; Read three of the short readings within these pages (there are about ten).
• Semester-long Project

Web Sites to examine:

Invasión Yanqui: The Mexican War -- An excellent online exhibit

The Mexican-America War Memorial

Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo

Week 4: [Sept. 21, 23]  State and Elites During the Porfiriato, 1876-1910

• Maclachlan. El Gran Pueblo. Chaps. 4-5.
• Beezley. Judas at the Jockey Club: And Other Episodes of Porfirian Mexico. Entire.
• Henderson and Joseph. The Mexico Reader. pp. tba.
• Discussion Questions
 
Week 5: [Sept. 28, 30]  The Impact of Porfirian Modernization on the Peasants and Workers, Women, Indigenous Peoples
 
• Maclachlan. El Gran Pueblo. Chap. 6.
• Tutino. From Insurrection to Revolution. Chap. 7-8.
• Select one of these:
  • Evelyn Hu-DeHart. "Yaqui Resistance to Mexican Expansion." in John Kicza. The Indian in Latin American History. Chap. 7. [Reserve]
  • William E. French. "Prostitutes and Guardian Angels: Women, Work, and the Family in Porfirian Mexico." The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 72, No. 4. (Nov., 1992), pp. 529-553.
• Henderson and Joseph. The Mexico Reader. "Porfirio Diaz visits Yucatan" and two other readings from pp. 270-297.
  
• Discussion Questions
• First paper assignment!

II. The Revolution: Civil Wars, Political Conflict, and the Formation of a New National State, 1910-1940

Week 6: [Oct 5, 7]  The "Armed Stage" of the Revolution, 1911-1917

• Maclachlan. El Gran Pueblo. Chap. 7.
• Tutino. Chap. 9.
• Henderson and Joseph. The Mexico Reader. intro on p. 333; Pancho Villa by John Reed
  The Constitution of 1917; and any other selection between pages 333-401.

Web Sites to examine:

• General Chronology on the Mexican Revolution
• Detailed Chronology of the Mexican Revolution
• The Zapatista Plan de Ayala
• The origins and the radicalism of the 1917 Constitution
• The Constitution of 1917
• Emiliano Zapata Web Site
• Photo-essay--The Revolution on the Border
• Photo-essay--Pancho Villa

Week 7: [Oct 14]  The Struggle over a New Order, 1917-1937

• Maclachlan. El Gran Pueblo. Chap. 8.
• Purnell. Popular Movements and State Formation. Chaps.1-4
• Henderson and Joseph. The Mexico Reader. pp. tba.
  • Discussion questions for next two weeks

Week 8: [Oct 19, 21]  Consolidation of the Party of the Revolution and the New State, 1938-1940

• Maclachlan. El Gran Pueblo. Chap. 9.
• Purnell. Popular Movements and State Formation. Chaps. 5-7.

Week 9: [Oct 26, 28] Construction of the PRI's Hegemony and State-based Development, 1940-1968

Maclachlan. El Gran Pueblo. Chap. 10.

Allan Knight. [Reserve]

Luis Gonzalez, San José de Gracia: Mexican Village in Transition, Chap. TBA

Henderson and Joseph. The Mexico Reader. pp. tba.

Jeffrey Rubin. "Decentering the Regime: Culture and Regional Politics in Mexico." Latin American Research Review, Vol. 31, No. 3. (1996), pp. 85-126.

Week 10: [Nov 2, 4]  Cracks in the "Mexican Miracle," 1940-1960s

Maclachlan. El Gran Pueblo. Chap. 11.

Henderson and Joseph. The Mexico Reader. pp. tba.

Preston. Opening Mexico. Chaps. 2-3.

For Thursday: Write a short one page response on how Preston differs from our own (and other readings) treatment of Mexican history 1910-1960s (Textbook chapters 10-11).

Web Sites to examine:

PRI web page

Week 11: [Nov 9, 11]  Peasants, Workers and the State in the Era of the PRI

• "Labor Protest in Mexico."
• Kay. "Trying on the Emperor's New Clothes? Concertacion and Neoliberal Restructuring in the Semiperiphery." 2003.
• Roxborough and Bizbert. "Union Locals in Mexico: the 'New Unionism' in Steel and Automobiles." 1983.
• Middlebrook. "Union Democratization in the Mexican Automobile Industry: A Reappraisal." 1989.
• Second Paper Due on Nov 24!
  

IV. State and Society in Mexico since 1985

Week 12: [Nov 16, 18]  The US/Mexico Border

Pick one of these books on the US/Mexico Border, get it at the library, order it (early!) through Amazon.com or other bookseller. Write a 2 page evaluation of the entire book , be prepared to discuss it in class this week.

Ramon Eduardo Ruiz. On the Rim of Mexico.

Nicholas J. Cull, Editor Davíd Carrasco, Eds. Alambrista and the U.S.-Mexico Border: Film, Music, and Stories of Undocumented Immigrants .

Miriam Davidson.Lives on the Line: Dispatches from the U.S.-Mexico Border.

Luis Alberto Urrea, John Lueders-Booth. By the Lake of Sleeping Children: The Secret Life of the Mexican Border.

Ruben Martinez. Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail.


Luis Alberto Urrea. Across the Wire : Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border.


Luis Humberto Crosthwaite, John William Byrd, Bobby Byrd. Puro Border: Dispatches, Snapshots, & Graffiti from the US/Mexico Border.

David E. Lorey. The U.S.-Mexican Border in the Twentieth Century: A History of Economic and Social Transformation.

Ken Ellingwood. Hard Line: Life and Death on the U.S.-Mexico Border.

Week 13: [Nov 23] The PRI and Mexican Society 1980-1997

Maclachlan. El Gran Pueblo. Chap. 12.

Week 14: [Nov 30, Dec 2] Democratizing Development: Insurgencies and Social Movemenets 1980-90

• Maclachlan. El Gran Pueblo. "Converging Cultures."
• Preston. Opening Mexico. Chaps. 4-6, 9, 11, 14, 15.

Week 15: [Dec 7] Review and Catch up

• Preston. Opening Mexico. Chap. 16.