Cinco de Mayo and the Rise of Modern Mexico (2022)

[0] We have a phrase, if we don't know where we come from, we don't know where we go.

[1] In Spanish, if we don't know where we come, we don't know where we're in the historic center of Mexico's capital, Mexico City, a massive city of over 8 million people, with tour guide Ismail Rivera.

[2] Hello, good afternoon.

[3] My name is Ismail Rivera.

[4] I was born in Mexico City.

[5] I can't help but go on a historic tour of pretty much everywhere I visit now.

[6] Underneath here, there's three Aztec temples, dedicated to the sun, to the wind.

[7] Ismail guides us through winding streets, past towering Gothic churches, ancient Aztec temple sites, ornately engraved Spanish colonial arches, a salsa class in one square, and a busy market with taco vendors every two feet.

[8] The smell is delicious, like unreal.

[9] And then we find ourselves in a quieter place, surrounded by tall trees, fountains with statues of Greek gods, and these vibrant purple flowers called Hacarandas.

[10] This is Alameda Park.

[11] It was the first one in American continent.

[12] Alameda Central Park was built in the 16th century.

[13] It sits right off of Cinco de Mayo Avenue.

[14] And Diego Rivera paints a mural about this, this park.

[15] Diego Rivera, who's considered one of the greatest Mexican painters of the 20th century, called this mural, Sueño de una Tarde dominical in the Alameda Central.

[16] Dream of a Sunday afternoon in Alameda Central.

[17] A replica of the mural stretches maybe 50 feet long across the side of a building at one end of the park.

[18] It's divided in different periods, the period, corresponding period, colonial period.

[19] The mural basically tells the entire history of Mexico, from the fall of the Aztec Empire in the 16th century when the Spanish conquerors arrived, to a revolution in the 20th century in images, like a modern -day cave painting.

[20] It's a swirl of colors with a tightly packed crowd of people all along the bottom.

[21] The faces are indigenous, African, and European, central characters from Mexico's past.

[22] We're seeing a guy with a blood in hands.

[23] He's Hernan Cortez.

[24] The leader of the Spanish invasion.

[25] And the blood is the blood of the name.

[26] And as you move right across the mural, you see the influence of Catholicism on Mexico.

[27] A nun in a black -hooded veil.

[28] Then you see an American general in uniform.

[29] They were the war between the U .S. and Mexico.

[30] There's men in suits, gunslinging farmers and sombreros, women in Victorian gowns, alongside women in traditional weeple dresses, including...

[31] But perhaps the most striking character is a man who sits right around the middle.

[32] of the mural and looms above all the other characters.

[33] He has a head of bright white hair with an impressive mustache to match and is dressed in a dark blue military uniform overrun with medals.

[34] He is Porfirio Diaz.

[35] Porfidio Diaz, the general who ruled Mexico for 35 years.

[36] Porfidio Diaz is at the center of the mural and of modern Mexican history thanks to a single day in May. May 5th.

[37] 1862.

[38] May 5th, Cinco de Mayo.

[39] On that day, an epic battle was fought, a battle fought and won by Mexicans against foreign aggression, a battle that helped shape the future of Mexico and the U .S. And that battle is led by several generals, but one of them was Porfillo -Diaz.

[40] That is what we celebrate when we celebrate Cinco de Mayo.

[41] This is Kelly Lydell Hernandez.

[42] She's a professor of history at UCLA and author of a new book called Bad Mexicans, Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderland.

[43] Colorful dancers and dozens of bands will be performing up and down San Diego Avenue through the heart of...

[44] So I grew up in San Diego, California.

[45] The largest Cinco de Mayo event on the West Coast.

[46] And, oh gosh, you know, I don't know if I remember a lot about Cinco de Mayo outside of a couple school festivals, maybe a couple things at local fairs.

[47] As a child, you know, a regular African -American kid growing up in the borderlands, I witnessed a lot of what was happening around the border and immigration and border policing as I was growing up.

[48] But Kelly says she learned very little about Mexican history in school.

[49] And Cinco de Mayo remained this abstract thing, a fun party in the San Diego streets, divorced from a particular time and place.

[50] until she studied that history as an adult.

[51] What is Cinco de Mayo?

[52] Cinco de Mayo is a celebration of the Mexican victory in one bottle.

[53] Happening now, thousands flooding downtown Tulsa celebrating Cinco de Mayo.

[54] And now it's like some patric days, you know.

[55] Bringing smiles and also big business to different restaurants.

[56] Cinco de Mayo sale.

[57] We just take a shot here to get the things started.

[58] Cervesa, fiesta, whatever.

[59] This is Maricio Tenorio Trio Trio.

[60] He's a history professor at the University of Chicago.

[61] I'm also professor at the Center of Investigation and Docencia Economic in Mexico, City.

[62] Growing up in Mexico City, Maricio had a similar experience to Kelly Lytle Hernandez, but in reverse, on the other side of the border.

[63] For a long time, he wasn't taught much about U .S. history.

[64] It's all about Mexico.

[65] Mexico, a very, you know, self -contradictory.

[66] And the problem is Mexico, the U .S. and Canada have shared a common history for a long time.

[67] And Cinco de Mayo is one of those things because it represents historically a common past between Mexican and Americans.

[68] But what does it mean to share a common past?

[69] Where does the story of one country end and the other begin?

[70] Does history have a border?

[71] I'm Rand Abdel -Fattah.

[72] I'm Ramtín -Aidav -Avastah.

[73] And on this episode of ThruLine from NPR, we're traveling back to the original Cinco de Mayo and exploring how it helped shape the future of two young border nations as they were figuring out who to become in a rapidly changing world that was shedding old empires and making way for a new economic order.

[74] Hi, this is Jeff in Kawasaki, Japan, and you're listening to ThruLine from NPR.

[75] Part 1.

[76] The first Cinco de Mayo.

[77] Porfio Diaz was born in 1830 in Oaxaca, Mexico.

[78] Oaxaca is a state in the south of Mexico along the Pacific coasts.

[79] It's known for beautiful mountains and large indigenous communities.

[80] It's here that Porfirio Diaz, the guy with a head of white hair and chest full of metals at the top of that mural, grew up.

[81] His dad died when he was three years old.

[82] leaving his mother to raise him and his siblings.

[83] He, like many Mexicans during the time, was hungry.

[84] Poorly Isles and underfed.

[85] And he had to struggle to make his way through life.

[86] During this time, not only is Mexico struggling economically, but it's pretty much constantly at war, civil war in particular.

[87] Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, and almost immediately.

[88] Two major factions among Mexicans, the conservatives and the liberals start to do battle with one another for control over the Mexican state.

[89] And it flips back and forth.

[90] There are 50 coups in Mexico.

[91] Porfio Diaz grows up while Mexico's in this crisis of hunger, of disease, of war, of poverty.

[92] Much like its neighbor to the north, the U .S., this newly minted nation was facing an identity crisis, trying to figure out who it wanted to be now that it was no longer a colony and grappling with what to do with the system the Spanish had left behind.

[93] The Spanish developed a system called the Costa system.

[94] This Costa or caste system set up a racial hierarchy in Mexico.

[95] With people of Spanish descent at the top, mixed race populations in the middle, known as mulattoes and mestizos.

[96] Indigenous and African people were at the bottom.

[97] Porfirio Diaz was mestizo.

[98] The CASA system helped create a parallel economic system, with most of the wealth concentrated in the hands of people of Spanish descent.

[99] And after independence, a lot of the internal battles centered on the system.

[100] Conservatives wanted to preserve the old way of doing things, and liberals wanted to create a new, more equal system.

[101] Amid the chaos, Porfidio's mother sent him and his brother off to seminary, hoping they would become priests and be shielded from all the turmoil.

[102] Porfidio reluctantly agreed.

[103] Porfio Diaz was not really determined to be a man of faith.

[104] Instead, he was really into athletics.

[105] He built a home gym for him and his brother.

[106] That's who Porfio Diaz was.

[107] And in 1846, while Porfidio was stuck in seminary, something happened that sent a jolt of inspiration through him.

[108] The United States decides to invade Mexico and to seize the northern half of the Mexican land base.

[109] And after two bloody years of fighting, in 1848, Mexico was forced to give up a huge chunk of its land to the U .S., increasing the size of the U .S. by one -third.

[110] So the United States had already acquired Texas by the beginning of the U .S.-Mexico War, but at the U. At the end of the war, was able to seize California, what became California, Arizona, New Mexico, parts of Colorado, Utah, Nevada.

[111] I mean, a massive amount of land, I think it's about 330 million acres.

[112] The Mexican -American War was a founding moment for both.

[113] Mexico was a nation and Mexican nationalism.

[114] But it is also a very important founding moment for the United States.

[115] This is, in fact, the great America.

[116] imperial war.

[117] It was the birth of a new empire that was only beginning to define itself.

[118] Just like Porfirio Diaz.

[119] At age 19, he drops out of seminary and...

[120] He joins the liberal faction and emerges as a quite influential and successful general in the liberal army.

[121] It's in those battles that Porfirio Diaz built his reputation.

[122] On one hand, he was always sure to feed his frontline troops first.

[123] So he knew how to build loyalty in that sense.

[124] But he also often used high levels of violence to compel people to obey his commands.

[125] And so he had both of those sides to him, and it made him both a wildly popular and feared man. Porfirio was willing to do whatever it took to advance the liberal cause.

[126] And this attitude made Porfirio's mentor, Benito Juarez, who was influential in liberal politics, kind of nervous.

[127] He once said, quote, if we're not careful, Porfigo could kill us while crying.

[128] In 1861, Benito Juarez became president of Mexico, the same year that Abraham Lincoln became president of the United States.

[129] Lincoln and Juarez had a lot in common as leaders.

[130] Both were defenders of a vision of equality and liberation.

[131] Internal conflicts raged on both sides of the border.

[132] In the U .S., the people of South Carolina, Mississippi, the people of Alabama, Texas.

[133] Seven states in the southern U .S. seceded from the Union.

[134] Our decision is made.

[135] We embrace the alternative of separation.

[136] Soon after, the American Civil War broke out.

[137] And in Mexico, conservatives reached out to France for help taking back their country.

[138] Napoleon III had been waiting for an opportunity to rebuild the French Empire in the Americas.

[139] And that is the moment that Napoleon III decides to strike in Mexico.

[140] They dock at the ports of Veracruz and Tampico, and they have to march across Mexico to Mexico City to occupy the heart of the country.

[141] A 250 -mile journey.

[142] And along the way, face extraordinary and constant.

[143] guerrilla fighting from the liberals, led by Benito Juarez, Porfillo -Diaz, and many others, who are, you know, attacking the caravans along the way to Mexico City.

[144] The resistance slowed down the French, but didn't stop them.

[145] And after weeks of battles across the Mexican countryside, the French reached the town of Puebla, the final stop before Mexico City.

[146] and on May 5th, 1862, Cinco de Mayo, the Battle of Puebla began.

[147] There were liberal troops stationed all around the city of Puebla.

[148] And around noon, the French troops descend upon the city.

[149] They kick in basically the front barricades and the back barricades.

[150] And they are overrunning.

[151] the city.

[152] And Porfio Diaz and his troops comprised mostly of indigenous fighters.

[153] We're hiding in a church in the center of town.

[154] And just at the right moment, they came crashing out of that church and they led hand -to -hand battles across the city that were extraordinarily lethal.

[155] I mean, hundreds died within hours.

[156] But it was enough to force the French into retreat and Rio Diaz chased them down.

[157] This victory in Puebla became very important because it's the symbol winning at least one episode in a difficult moment to a very famous army, the French army.

[158] An indigenous army besting and defeating the French.

[159] Which then was interpreted by Mexican communities in the U .S. was a very important moment both because they are Mexicans and because they are Americans.

[160] They viewed the fight against the French in Mexico and the fight against the Confederacy in the U .S. as two sides of the same coin, the fate of one intimately linked with the fate of the other.

[161] And it was no accident people were hearing about this battle, even across the border.

[162] In the U .S., Porfirio Diaz was making sure of that.

[163] He's a brilliant communication strategist, And he strategically turned the Cinque de Mayo festival or celebration into a celebration of his power and his reign and made it something that was celebrated across Mexico and even in diasporic Mexican communities in the United States.

[164] Just as fast as his stardom grew, so too did his political power.

[165] And at a certain point, he begins to challenge his former mentor in particular, Benito Juarez, for the president.

[166] And when he failed to win against them in elections, he turns fairly quickly to the military in Kutataz.

[167] So he staged a coup.

[168] But it failed.

[169] And afterwards, he began raising money from Mexican exiles and U .S. investors.

[170] Then Porfirio Diaz launched a second coup.

[171] And the second in 1876 is successful.

[172] For the common man or woman in Mexico, this was just another coup d 'etat.

[173] They have seen plenty of them.

[174] So it was just business as usual.

[175] But before long, they would come to realize it was anything but that.

[176] Coming up, a dictator is born, and across the border, a new revolt takes shape.

[177] This is McKinza George.

[178] I'm from Halifax.

[179] Nova Scotia, and you're listening to ThruLine from NPR.

[180] Part 2.

[181] Laboratory of Empire.

[182] It's 1893, and Margarita Magone has just been evicted from her home in Mexico City, forced to wade through the muddy streets for days in search of a new place to live.

[183] She eventually settles in a neighborhood one American journalist calls a microbic spot, which should be avoided.

[184] But it'll have to do.

[185] Margarita Magone once had high hopes for her life back when she was growing up in Oaxaca the same world Porfirio Diaz had grown up in and she had actually fought in the liberal army beside Profio Diaz it was on the battlefields against the French where she met her husband, Deodor deodor Flores and after the victory at the Battle of Puebla on Cinco de Mayo Dei Ado had marched into Mexico City alongside Porfidio Diaz The family actually moved from Oaxaca to Mexico City once Porfayal -Diaz becomes president with the hope and expectation that the father of Teodororo Flores would be able to get a job and have some financial security in Mexico City under the Diaz administration.

[186] But pretty quickly, that hope began to fall apart.

[187] Margarita's husband, Deiadoro Flores, stopped receiving his government pension.

[188] And when he reached, out to Porfirio Diaz about it.

[189] He does little more than send a signed photograph of himself back to the family, and the family continues to spin into financial disaster until Tiodoro passes, he dies, leaving the family, and dire straits.

[190] Margarita was on her own, trying to raise her three sons.

[191] Jesus, Ricardo, and Enrique Flores Mevon.

[192] and they were born, you know, just prior to or early in the Diaz administration.

[193] Bofidio Diaz became president in 1877 and would stay president for most of the next 35 years.

[194] So as the Florida's Magone brothers grew up, Bofidio Diaz loomed large over their lives, just as he did in the lives of every person in Mexico during that time.

[195] He was the never -ending president, determined to stay in power and remake Mexico for the modern era.

[196] First thing he does is he shuts down what had really become a bandit economy.

[197] And he runs around, I'm arresting and, frankly, having murdered, many of the people and merchants who were involved in the bandit economy.

[198] That bandit economy, paired with all the political turmoil, had destabilized Mexico, since independence.

[199] And Porfirio Diaz was coming in and saying, we need to have order to have progress.

[200] Orden and progresso quickly became his motto.

[201] Once he gets control of all of that, you know, then he's able to turn toward domestic economic development.

[202] And this is where U .S. investors are really, really important.

[203] He invited U .S. investors to come to Mexico and tap into its many recent.

[204] resources, land, ports, minerals, which was great timing for the U .S. who was looking to build its economic empire.

[205] The first people to respond to this invitation, really open invitation, are the railroad barons, right?

[206] We finished the transcontinental railroad and the people who had led the construction, really look up and look around and say, what's next?

[207] And as soon as Portillo -Diaz reaches out, they reach back and they begin to build the railroads into Mexico.

[208] And by 1885, you get the first railroad that's connecting Mexico City to the United States.

[209] And those railroads are the first penetration that makes it possible for the building of a U .S.-Mexican economy.

[210] It was the Gilded Age, the era of mass industrialization.

[211] And more and more American and European investors started showing up.

[212] in Mexico, including so -called robber barons like Rockefeller and Guggenheim, investing in everything from mining to oil to agriculture.

[213] And that's the signature piece of the Diaz administration is the penetration of the Mexican economy by U .S. investors and turning it into, quote, a treasure house for the world.

[214] On the surface, all this investment was great for Mexico, building up its infrastructure and bringing much -needed peace to the country after decades of instability.

[215] But there was an underbelly to all of this.

[216] Ricardo Flores Magone, Margarita's middle son, was away at law school around the time she was forced to wade through the muddy streets of Mexico City, looking for a place to stay.

[217] Feeling lost and confused, he dropped out of law school and...