The coming of the Mexican Revolution is hardly a new subject for historians. For decades, they have debated what ignited the decade-long conflict, from 1910 to 1920, and what interests propelled it. Were its main protagonists middle- and upper-class reformers, outlaws in the north, rural peasants in the south, or urban workers? Were they fighting only for Díaz’s removal from office and the restoration of democratic elections, or were they interested in a more fundamental transformation? These factions tussled for power and sometimes assassinated one another as they vied to shape and reshape post-Díaz Mexico.
Lytle Hernández’s contribution is her focus on the radical magonistas and the U.S. government’s collaboration with Díaz to combat them. Historians and politicians have long recognized them as “precursors” of the Revolution. Political radicals on both sides of the Atlantic have expressed admiration for the magonistas for a century. The magonistas have received some attention, but less than figures such as Francisco (Pancho) Villa, a leader of the División del Norte, of Chihuahua, Mexico. Photographers, filmmakers, and journalists followed his exploits. He was a revolutionary made for Hollywood. So was Emiliano Zapata, the agrarian leader from Morelos, Mexico, who inspired Elia Kazan’s 1952 film, “Viva Zapata!,” starring Marlon Brando as a rather unconvincing Zapata.
There is no Hollywood movie about the magonistas, although reading “Bad Mexicans” is like watching one. It moves from scene to scene as characters make bold proclamations, write letters in code, escape the grasp of government agents, become romantically involved, slander one another, get arrested and imprisoned, and live and die by the sword—and gun, and pen. The scene of Flores Magón’s August, 1907, arrest is particularly dramatic. Two private detectives had been tracking Flores Magón for months. By the time they caught up with him, they had enlisted the help of the Los Angeles Police Department. Two Mexican American L.A.P.D. detectives, Tomás Rico and J. F. Talamantes, busted into the home where he was staying, and an hour-long brawl ensued. They broke dishes and chairs inside, then spilled out into the yard, where Flores Magón fell to the ground, bloody and unconscious. Rico and Talamantes tied Flores Magón down with ropes. Once he was revived, Flores Magón kicked and screamed—like a “clawing cat,” the Los Angeles Times reported—the whole way to jail. The Los Angeles businessman Edward Doheny, the owner of a Mexican company that produced a majority of Mexico’s oil, celebrated by hosting a lavish party.
Rico and Talamantes had arrested Flores Magón with neither a warrant nor formal charges, making it seem for a brief period that he would be released. But the Mexican and U.S. governments had been devising a plan that proved successful: Flores Magón would be charged with violating the U.S. Neutrality Act, for attempting to incite a revolution in Mexico, a friendly nation, from within the United States.