Context:
The conquest and settlement of the northern part of Mexico by the US in the 1840’s is a relatively recent event in the history of La Raza on this continent. The US tries to represent the current border between the US and Mexico as fixed and eternal, to hide the historic and continuous relationship between Chicano/ Mejicano struggle within the US and Mejicano struggle in Mexico. This poster, produced in 1981 at the El Paso/Juarez conference (poster 115) shows that the heroes of the chicano and mexicano movements transcend the imperialist borders established by the US. Center: Francisco โPancho Villa, a leader in the Mexican Revolution. Top left: Ricardo Flores Magon, one of three brothers, was a noted anarchist and revolutionary thinker. Top Center: Genaro Vasquez Rojas, leader of the guerrilla organization, Asociaciรณn Nacional Revolucionaria (National Revolutionary Association), developed out of the state of Guerrero. Top right is a pecan sheller from an historic strike in San Antonio in the 1930โs. Center right is Valentina Ramirez Avitia, also known as a soldadera, a woman who fought in the Mexican revolution under the name Juan Ramirez, when women were not allowed to join the army. Bottom left, Ricardo Falcon, a student and a leader of the Chicano movement, was killed in a racist incident in 1972. Center left, Juana Belen Gutierrez de Mendoza, Mexican anarchist, feminist, and journalist, and a Caxcan Indian from the state of Durango