Mexico s Nobodies The Cultural Legacy of the

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 México’s Nobodies

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 SUNY series, Genders in the Global South
————
Debra A. Castillo and Shelley Feldman, editors

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 México’s Nobodies
The Cultural Legacy of the Soldadera
and Afro-Mexican Women

B. Christine Arce

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 Cover Art: “Carmen Robles, soldadera,” México 1913. © #186387 CONACULTA.
INAH.SINAFO.FN.MÉXICO, Archivo Casasola. Dry gelatin plate.

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2017 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever

without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic,
electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise
without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY

www.sunypress.edu

Production, Diane Ganeles

Marketing, Michael Campochiaro

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Arce, B. Christine, 1974– author.

Title: México’s nobodies : the cultural legacy of the soldadera and
Afro-Mexican women / B. Christine Arce.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2017. | Series:
SUNY series, Genders in the global South | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016021650 (print) | LCCN 2016053183 (ebook) | ISBN
9781438463575 (hardcover : alkaline paper) | ISBN 9781438463599 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Women—Mexico—History. | Women, Black—Mexico—History. |
Racially mixed women—Mexico—History. | Women soldiers—Mexico—History.
| Women revolutionaries—Mexico—History. | Sex role—Mexico—History. |
Mexico—Race relations. | Women in art. | Blacks in art. | Art and
society—Mexico—History.
Classification: LCC HQ1462.A63 2017 (print) | LCC HQ1462 (ebook) | DDC
305.40972—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016021650

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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 I dedicate this book to the spirit and living memory of my father,
Simeón Arce González, who did not make it to the end, but
tried his best; to my grandmother Carmen González Razo, who
is now reunited with her son, and was as strong and resilient as
the soldaderas; and to my best friend, grandma Christine Dow
Retelsdorf.

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34281_SP_ARC_FM_00i-xviii.indd 6 11/17/16 2:07 PM
 Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction: The Paradox of Invisibility 1

Part One: Entre Adelitas y Cucarachas:

The Soldadera as Trope in the Mexican Revolution

Chapter 1
Soldaderas and the Making of Revolutionary Spaces 37

Chapter 2
The Many Faces of the Soldadera and the Adelita Complex 79

Chapter 3
Beyond the “Custom of Her Sex and Country” 115

Part Two: The Blacks in the Closet

Chapter 4
Black Magic and the Inquisition: The Legend of La Mulata
de Córdoba and the Case of Antonia de Soto 147

Chapter 5
“Dios pinta como quiere”: Blackness and Redress in Mexican
Golden Age Film 185

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 viii Contents

Chapter 6
The Music of the Afro-Mexican Universe and the
Dialectics of Son 225

Conclusion: To Be Expressed Otherwise 273

Notes 283

Bibliography 301

Index 317

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 Illustrations

Fig. 1.1 “Soldaderas on the platform at the Buenavista train

station,” México City, D.F., April 1912; Gerónimo
Hernández. © #5670 CONACULTA. INAH.SINAFO.
FN.MÉXICO, Archivo Casasola. Dry gelatin plate. 38

Fig. 1.2 “Soldier and soldaderas on the roof of railcar,” México

City, D.F., 1914. © #474156, CONACULTA. INAH.
SINAFO.FN.MÉXICO, Archivo Casasola. Silver
impression over gelatin. 42

Fig. 1.3 “Soldaderas prepare food on the roof of a railcar,”

México City, D.F., 1914. © #6388 CONACULTA. INAH.
SINAFO.FN.MÉXICO, Archivo Casasola. Nitrate film
negative. 44

Fig. 1.4 “Federal soldiers and their families on the roof of

the railcars,” México City, D.F., 1914. © #5600
CONACULTA. INAH.SINAFO.FN.MÉXICO,
Archivo Casasola. Dry gelatin plate. 46

Fig. 1.5 “Soldier and soldaderas in a train car,” México, 1914.

© #474156 CONACULTA. INAH.SINAFO.FN.
MÉXICO, Archivo Casasola. Silver impression over
gelatin. 48

Fig. 1.6 “Federal soldiers, soldaderas and the railway

administrator on the platform of the train,” México
City, D.F., April 1913. © #6293 CONACULTA.
INAH.SINAFO.FN.MÉXICO, Archivo Casasola.
Dry gelatin plate. 49

ix

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 x Illustrations

Fig. 1.7 “Madero’s troops in the patios of Buenavista train

station,” México City, D.F., 1910. © #5774
CONACULTA. INAH.SINAFO.FN.MÉXICO,
Archivo Casasola. Dry gelatin plate. 51

Fig. 1.8 “Troops and their families watching an opera

presented to the Army troops,” México City, D.F.,
October 10, 1921. © #6399 CONACULTA. INAH.
SINAFO.FN.MÉXICO, Archivo Casasola. Nitrate film
negative. 52

Fig. 1.9 “Soldaderas at a military camp,” México City, D.F.,

1914. © #5886 CONACULTA. INAH.SINAFO.FN.
MÉXICO, Archivo Casasola. Nitrate film negative. 53

Fig. 1.10 “Soldaderas departing from the ‘Piedad’ Barracks of

the 180th Batallion with carts and artillery,” México
City, D.F., 1914. © #6234 CONACULTA. INAH.
SINAFO.FN.MÉXICO, Archivo Casasola. Dry gelatin
plate. 55

Fig. 1.11 “Portrait of a revolutionary girl holding a rifle,”

México City, D.F., 1913. © #33348 CONACULTA.
INAH. SINAFO.FN.MÉXICO, Archivo Casasola.
Negative of security film. 57

Fig. 1.12 “Zapatista soldaderas in Xochimilco,” August 1914,

México City, D.F. © #451107 CONACULTA. INAH.
SINAFO.FN.MÉXICO, Archivo Casasola. Silver
impression over gelatin. 60

Fig. 1.13 “Soldaderas in firing position against the men of

José Inés Chávez García,” Michoacán, México, 1917.
© #63945 CONACULTA. INAH. SINAFO.FN.MÉXICO,
Archivo Casasola. Negative of security film. In
Photographing the Mexican Revolution, John Mraz identifies
original image as follows: “Soldaderas learning how to
defend themselves,” Ario, Michocán, February 1914;
J. Guerrero, La Ilustración Semanal, March 3, 1914. 61

Fig. 1.14 “Portrait of the revolutionary Coronela Amelio Robles,

smoking in a room,” México City, D.F., 1914. © #33492

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 Illustrations xi

CONACULTA. INAH. SINAFO.FN.MÉXICO, Archivo

Casasola. Gelatin over nitrate film. 63

Fig. 1.15 “Soldadera kisses a soldier,” México City, D.F., 1913.

© #6212 CONACULTA. INAH. SINAFO.FN.MÉXICO,
Archivo Casasola. Dry gelatin plate. Agustín and Gustavo
Casasola caption this image as “Soldadera congratulates
her ‘Juan’ for returning unscathed after the Battle of
Rellano” in Historia Gráfica de la Revolución (447). 67

Fig. 1.16 “Soldadera with flag and sword in a train station,”

México 1914. © #287639 CONACULTA. INAH.
SINAFO.FN.MÉXICO, Archivo Casasola. Security film. 69

Fig. 1.17 “Soldaderas on the platform at the Buenavista train

station,” México City, D.F., April 1912; Gerónimo
Hernández. © #5670 CONACULTA. INAH.SINAFO.
FN.MÉXICO, Archivo Casasola. Dry gelatin plate. 72

Fig. 1.18 “Revolutionaries and soldaderas,” México, 1915.

© #186449 CONACULTA. INAH. SINAFO.FN.MÉXICO,
Archivo Casasola. Series: Emiliano Zapata. Security film. 75

Fig. 2.1 “A soldier says goodbye to his wife at the Buenavista

train station,” México City, D.F., 1913. © #6094
CONACULTA. INAH. SINAFO.FN.MÉXICO,
Archivo Casasola. Dry gelatin plate. 86

Fig. 2.2 “Valentina Ramírez, soldadera,” Sinaloa, México, 1911.

© #68115 CONACULTA. INAH. SINAFO.FN.MÉXICO,
Archivo Casasola. Nitrate film negative. 88

Fig. 2.3 “Federal soldier says goodbye to a woman,” México City,

D.F., 1914. © #6342 CONACULTA. INAH. SINAFO.
FN.MÉXICO, Archivo Casasola. Dry gelatin plate. 102

Fig. 3.1 “Federal Soldier and his family,” México City, D.F.,
1915. © #5015 CONACULTA. INAH. SINAFO.
FN.MÉXICO, Archivo Casasola. Dry gelatin plate. 115

Fig. 3.2 “Carmen Robles, soldadera,” México 1913. © #186387

CONACULTA. INAH.SINAFO.FN.MÉXICO, Archivo
Casasola. Dry gelatin plate. While the Fototeca has
identified this image as Carmen Robles, the name of this

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 xii Illustrations

woman is still under debate. For example, the Casasola

brothers and the Chicago Museum of Mexican Art
identify this image as, “Portrait of a Female Soldier from
Michoacán, 1910” (242). 138

Fig. 5.1 “Revolutionaries and soldadera in front of a home,”

México, 1914. © #33833 CONACULTA. INAH. SINAFO.
FN.MÉXICO, Archivo Casasola. Nitrate film negative. In
Photographing the Mexican Revolution John Mraz identifies
this image as “Zapatista colonel Carmen Robles, Guerrero,
ca. 1913.” Likewise, Agustín and Gustavo Casasola identify
her as revolutionary leader Carmen Robles with her
chief officers after the battle of Iguala, Guerrero (750). 188

Fig. 6.1 “Toña la Negra in publicity poster for her first tour of
Cuba at the beginning of the 1940s.” Courtesy of the
Fototeca of Veracruz/IVEC, n.d. 226

Fig. 6.2 “Toña la Negra next to the carnival court of the ‘ugly’
King.” Courtesy of the Fototeca of Veracruz/IVEC, n.d. 250

Fig. 6.3 “Toña la Negra and Celia Cruz.” Courtesy of the

Fototeca of Veracruz/IVEC and Rafael Figueroa, n.d. 253

Fig. 6.4 “Toña la Negra in publicity photo from her early

period.” Courtesy of the Fototeca of Veracruz/IVEC, n.d. 254

Fig. 6.5 “Toña la Negra and Agustín Lara enjoying the applause
after a performance in Veracruz.” Courtesy of the
Fototeca of Veracruz/IVEC, n.d. 255

Fig. 6.6 “Toña la Negra playing Marta la mulata alongside

Antonieta Pons, one of the famous Cuban rumberas
in the film Konga Roja,” 1943. Courtesy of Filmoteca
of the UNAM #1061-10. 258

Fig. 6.7 “Toña la Negra at the piano.” Courtesy of the Fototeca

of Veracruz/IVEC, n.d. 261

Fig. 6.8 “Toña la Negra between Pedro Vargas (left) and

Agustín Lara (right), in the film dedicated to Lara’s
love life, Mujeres en mi vida,” 1949. Courtesy of the
Filmoteca of the UNAM #1364-38. 264

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 Illustrations xiii

Fig. 6.9 “Toña la Negra singing with Agustín Lara in the film,
La mujer que yo amé,” 1950. Courtesy of the Filmoteca
of the UNAM #3193-8. 266

Fig. 6.10 “Toña la Negra accompanied by Son Clave de Oro in

another landmark rumbera film, Humo en los ojos,”
1946. Her face is visibly whitened for this performance
despite wearing traditional jarocha dress. Courtesy of
the Filmoteca of the UNAM #2467-8. 269

Fig. C.1 Foreground: Installation of “Kevlar Fighting Costumes.”

Left Background: “Soldadera” film installation. Right
background: “Kevlar rebozo,” Vincent Price Art
Museum, Los Angeles California, May 16–August 1,
2015. Courtesy of artist Nao Bustamante. Photo by
Dale Griner. 000

Fig. C.2 “Installation piece ‘Chac-Mool.’ Video still of Leandra

Becerra Lumbreras drumming.” Vincent Price Art
Museum, Los Angeles California, May 16–August 1,
2015. Courtesy of artist Nao Bustamante. 000

Fig. C.3 “Chac-Mool contraption.” The viewfinder exhibits

video loop of Leandra Becerra Lumbreras drumming.
Vincent Price Art Museum, Los Angeles California,
May 16–August 1, 2015. Courtesy of artist Nao
Bustamante. Photo by Dale Griner. 000

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34281_SP_ARC_FM_00i-xviii.indd 14 11/17/16 2:08 PM
 Acknowledgments

This book would have been impossible without the stalwart support of my
family, my incredible mother Bridget, father Simeón, sister Lisa Carmen,
grandmother Christine, partner Carlos, and son Santiago. My mother and
Lisa rearranged their lives in order to take turns watching my son so that I
could work, a sacrifice I will never forget, and without which the book in its
present form would have been impossible. I am proud, indeed honored, by
how many people contributed to this project and whose influence and acuity
helped me to formulate the ideas presented here, and I apologize to anyone
who is not mentioned by name. First and foremost, Francine Masiello and
José Rabasa both saw this project evolve from a dissertation into the book
you now hold. Francine’s love of poetry wove its way into my readings, as did
her keen perspective and ability to pull apart incomplete ideas, and equally
amazing talent to help you build them back up again. She is the epitome of
what it means to be a mentor, guide, interlocutor, and friend. I continue to
learn from her grace, robust humor, and creativity. José’s intellectual generos-
ity and passion, his theories of knowledge and subalternity were seminal to
the shape my work would take and some of the core ideas I put forth in this
book. I am forever in their debt.
This book passed through the hands of many brilliant people and
in the course of its itinerancy improved it in innumerable ways. I’d like to
thank George Yúdice for his careful and painstaking reading of every chapter,
providing rigorous insights and necessary criticisms; he too was an exemplary
mentor, colleague, and amazing friend whose dedication and support has
been a source of admiration. All of my colleagues at the University of Miami
deserve special mention; but in particular, Subha Xavier, Lillian Manzor,
Elena Grau-Lleveria, Gema Pérez Sánchez, Cristina Civantos, Andrew Lynch,
Yvonne Gavela, Eduardo Negueruela, Joel Nickels, Donette Francis, and Tracy
Devine Guzmán. I am indebted to Doris Careaga and Sara Gusky for their
fine work, which, in turn, kept me inspired. Infinite thanks to my friend,

xv

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 xvi Acknowledgments

comadre, and interlocutor Anna Deeny Morales for reading many iterations
of the introduction and providing her creative, poetic, and unrelenting eye.
My gratitude to the fierce women of SWAG who helped me recover my voice
and situate myself in the process—Dania Abreu-Torres, Michelle Nasser, and
the unstoppable Zeli Rivas. All inspiring women of color whose scholarship
and insights were critical for the development of this book over the course
of many years of lucha y comadraje.
A heartfelt thanks to John Sullivan of IDIEZ, whose sociolinguistic
insights on Náhuatl and indigenous thought in general provided the armature
for many of the ideas present in this book. Many programs and institutions
deserve special mention for supporting the research that went into this
project: the UC Berkeley Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the UC
Berkeley Center for Race and Gender for a fellowship that allowed me to
conduct the initial research for the second part of the book, the University
of Miami Center for the Humanities faculty fellowship that allowed me to
streamline the manuscript, and the members of the group who read early
versions of the first part of the book. Thanks to John Funchion for turning
me on to Rancière and to Tim Watson for his careful comments. In addition,
the University of Miami Max Orovitz and Provost research fellowship allowed
me to travel on two separate occasions to conduct research in México at the
Archivo General de la Nación.
Infinite gratitude to Rafael Figueroa who made all of the images of Toña
la Negra available to me in addition to helping me locate obscure material;
he is a wonderful collaborator and friend. Many thanks to Julio Ramos for
his generous, thorough, and invaluable readings of chapters 4 and 6, which
he finished in record time. A debt of gratitude to José Salgado, whose support
of this project was critical and whose brilliant insights are unmatched. There
are countless people who have contributed to my project along the way by
engaging in vital and enriching dialogues that helped me formulate and solidify
my arguments: Sonia Montes, José Amador, Damon Scott, Constanza Svidler,
Heather McMichael, Nadia Celis, Kristen Block, Rakhel Villamil-Acera, Arturo
Motta, Ifeona Fulani, and Gabriela Erandi Rico-Spears. To my soldaderas in
arms, Sonia Barrios Tinoco, whose intellectual support and friendship has been
unwielding, to Sarah Schoellkopf, whose vitality and emotional support pushed
me forward, and to Beatriz Castro-Ferrer, I owe my renewed spirit. Thanks to
Vivianne Mahieux, whose readings were incisive and whose enthusiasm was a
personal and professional source of energy. I thank all the other anonymous
readers who helped tighten what was at times unwieldy and whose superb
insights have enriched the book beyond measure. A special debt of gratitude
to my editor Beth Bouloukos for her support, brilliance, and patience, and
to the series editors of Genders in the Global South, Debra A. Castillo and
Shelley Feldman, whose scholarship I have admired greatly for many years; it

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 Acknowledgments xvii

is an honor for me to be included in their series. Warm thanks to my friends

Jessica Munoz and Lee Davis for reading early versions of the first chapters
and for their personal support during this process. For the encouragement
of all my friends, who either sent me messages or provided childcare so I
could squeeze in a few more hours, your help will never be forgotten: Karina
Xavier, Claudia Pozo, Marina Crouse, Megan Garber, Carla and Tom, Joy
Regueira, Vicki Woods, Sweetjoy Hachuela, Caroline Faria, Mitzi Carter, and
Jason and Leilani Pearl. I thank my grandmother and tocaya Christine, who
never stopped believing in me even when she thought I was too wordy; my
grandmother Carmen, whose spirit I felt in my research; and my father, whose
love, commitment, and knowledge inspired everything I did in this book, even
if he didn’t realize it. He was unable to see it finished, but I know he loved
helping me through it—accompanying me on research trips to Veracruz, and
listening to several of my conference talks with my dedicated mother. And
I thank Carlos, who has been there from the beginning and seen it through
to the end—his insights are in every chapter and his care of our son made it
possible. Finally, I thank the light of my life, my son Santiago Emiliano, who
has patiently waited through the first four years of his life to see this finished
and finally get my full attention.
Acknowledgments are due to the SINAFO-INAH (Fototeca of the
National Institute of Anthropology and History of México), the Fototeca of
Veracruz and IVEC (Institute of Culture of Veracruz) and the Filmoteca of
the National Autonomous University of México (UNAM) for their permission
to reproduce images from their respective collections. Images from the
Soldadera Exhibition held at the Vincent Price Museum are courtesy of the
artist, Nao Bustamante. A section of chapter 5 was first published as “La
Negra Angustias: The Mulata in Mexican Literature and Film” in Callaloo 35.4
(2012), 1085–1102, copyright © 2013, and is reprinted with the permission
of Johns Hopkins University Press. Parts of an early version of chapter 6
were first published as “Entre la Habana y Veracruz: Toña la Negra and
the Transnational Circuits of Música Tropical” in Archipelagos of Sound:
Transnational Caribbeanities, Women and Music (2012) and is reprinted with
the permission of University of West Indies Press.

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34281_SP_ARC_FM_00i-xviii.indd 18 11/17/16 2:08 PM
 Introduction

The Paradox of Invisibility

La cucaracha, la cucaracha / ya no puede patalear

porque del viento una racha / de patas la hizo voltear.

[The cockroach, the cockroach / Can no longer crawl

Because a strong gale / has flipped her onto her backside] (357)1
—“La vida y muerte de la cucaracha”
[The Life and Death of the Cockroach],
Corrido Zapatista, 1917

Negrita de mis pesares / ojos de papel volando

Negrita de mis pesares / ojos de papel volando.
A todos diles que sí / pero no les digas cuando
Así me dijiste a mí / ¡por eso vivo penando!

[Little black woman of my sorrow / with flickering paper eyes,

Say yes to them all / but don’t say when,
Just like you said to me / which is why I live in grief!]
—“El son de la negra”
[The Son of the Black Woman],
Blas Galindo, 19402

Metaphor consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something

else.
—Aristotle, Poetics 1457b

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 2 México’s Nobodies

Some might argue that nobody worships their mothers and virgins more than
Mexicans, and there is no doubt that for the last five hundred years no saint
has been more revered than the Virgin of Guadalupe. On the other hand, “La
Cucaracha” [The Cockroach] is a Mexican folk song inspired by a raucous
camp follower that can be heard in everything from children’s toys to the horn
of a lowrider. But these maligned women were more than just bawdy camp
tramps doped up on weed. While the ring of the cucaracha melody resonates
in ears across the globe and the image of the Virgin is ubiquitous, Mexican
women, in their capacity as warriors, as soldaderas,3 have been lamentably
ignored. I first read about these women in a few paragraphs from a textbook
on Mexican history that exceeded more than five hundred entries. As my
research continued, I realized that these women had many names, roles, and
avatars. More importantly, however, they were influential actors in both the
Independence Movement of 1810 and the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Their
images, as cucarachas or seductresses, reverberated throughout the Mexican
cultural imaginary despite their general invisibility in official history. Like-
wise, blacks have been in México since the Spanish invasion. One of the first
conquistadors, Juan Garrido, was black and yet, until recently, he and other
Afro-Mexicans have been dismissed as culturally irrelevant, if considered at
all despite the burgeoning historiography recuperating their contributions to
Mexican culture. Indians, on the other hand, have been romantically included
in their metonymic capacity as exotic icons of the past. They are relevant as
small parts of a mestizo whole in which their infantilized “noble passivity”
constitutes the acceptable part of a “cosmic race” that celebrates Indian his-
tory only in its glorious antiquity.
Inspired by these elisions and contradictions, this book aims to link
these anonymous people who have become figures in Mexican culture and
that, paradoxically, have overwhelmed the country’s social and aesthetic
imaginary: the soldadera (female camp followers of the Mexican Revolu-
tion), the mulatas (women of African and Spanish ancestry),4 and the Afro-
Caribbean rhythms performed by artists such as Toña la Negra. Though
different, all share one undeniable attribute: they have been relegated to the
margins of México’s official memory and history despite the fact that their
figures flood the arts. Corridos, novels, murals, photography, films, theater,
and music refer to them without respite. The arts incessantly breathe their
presence into culture, especially at moments of fracture in the hegemony of
the national narrative, and in this way the bodies of these marginal subjects
are figured and disfigured by the tropological forms their representations have
taken by means of metonymy, mythification, or caricature. The fractures in
the national narrative occasioned by large-scale revolution, regional insurrec-
tion, or racial panic conversely allow each of these figures, in different ways,
to slip through. Such a process leads to a tension that allows for their pres-
ence to be felt while simultaneously impoverishing it through flat character

SP_ARC_INT_001-034.indd 2 11/17/16 2:07 PM

 Introduction 3

portrayals and stereotype. This book unravels the striking paradox constituted
by the concomitant erasure (in official circles) and ongoing fascination (in
the popular imagination) with those nameless people who both define and
fall outside of traditional norms of Mexicanness. As such, this study seeks to
reveal the ways in which cultural production has contoured what it means
to be a woman, black, indigenous, mixed-race, or a peasant in México as
well as examine how these figurations contribute to the construction of the
social, political, and cultural world. Like the ballad in the epigraph, which
is a Zapatista version of the traditional “Cucaracha” corrido (a song that is
now universally representative of Mexican folklore), or the “Son de la Negra,”
the son jaliciense cited about a seductive black woman (one of the most
popular in the mariachi repertoire), the stunning paradox that constitutes
their simultaneous presence and absence is what inspires the chapters in this
book. People who abound as nameless figures in diverse forms of Mexican
cultural production—from novels, film, music, photography, murals, theatre
to popular balladry—elucidate how the aesthetic realm, in all of its forms
and manifestations, exercises a singularly decisive role in creating history and
imagining selfhood, both individual and communal.
The national narrative that is fed to school children in the elementary
primers, that monumentalizes a few heroes at the expense of others, neglects
the anonymous many who helped create this problematic sense of “nation.”
There is an inherent movement, a fundamental rhythm and counter-rhythm,
or “discurrere,”5 that moves itself in and out of the variegated fabrics and
forms we call culture. This movement is sensorial: it moves through the visual,
auditory, and physical domains that define human activity. Above all, it moves
through the diverse domains of the aesthetic realm; it is manifested in the
visual scenarios created by the physical presence of soldaderas in the public
sphere, the legends of mulata witches that whisper the presence of Africans
despite the nation’s historical amnesia regarding slavery. All of these people
embody a movement of ideas, sounds, scenarios, life forms, histories, legends,
myths, and images by disrupting the inviolability of a national narrative in the
grip of what was once (and may be again) an authoritarian one-party regime.
In the chapters that follow we encounter many individuals and study
different renditions of the same story. She is a beautiful mulata, possessor
of an intense gaze that renders those men who look at her impotent to her
charms. She lives on the edge of town and mysteriously prepares potions
that have miraculous effects on her patients. This is México’s colonial legend
of the Mulata de Córdoba. Her dangerous beauty became the inspiration for
poetry, film, and even an opera produced by some of México’s most illustri-
ous artists. Alongside the enchanting Mulata existed “wretched” soldaderas
(some mulatas themselves) who many called cucarachas or adelitas, trudging
stolidly behind (but also next to) their male counterparts in one of the most
important revolutions of the twentieth century. These women collected water,

SP_ARC_INT_001-034.indd 3 11/17/16 2:07 PM

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