Las Soldaderas

Las Soldaderas: Women of the Mexican Revolution by Elena Poniatowska
Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press http://www.cincopuntos.com/
ISBN: 1-933693-04-5

Originally published in Mexico as Las Soldaderas, a coedition of Ediciones ERA and Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, © copyright 1999


Anyone who knows me even just a bit knows that Elena Poniatowska is my favorite author and hero. She, along with Eduardo Galeano have opened my eyes over the years and have given me the strength to fight for indigenous rights, immigrant rights, and the lifelong battle to regain and preserve our lost traditions and culture. Her writings on the Mexico earthquake, Nothing, Nobody and on the 1968 massacre of unarmed student protestors at Tlateloco, Massacre in Mexico moved me greatly, changed how I viewed the world, my Chicanismo, put a fire in my soul and were my first introduction to her work. Those books made me a lifelong fan and avid reader of anything she writes. Imagine how excited I was to find this little book through Cinco Puntos Press!

The soldaderas of the Mexican Revolution have always fascinated me. There are stories in my family of them and I’ve always wanted to know more. Elizabeth Salas, in her excellent book Soldaderas in the Mexican Military fed some of my thirst for knowledge of these extraordinary women as did Ms. Poniatowska’s Hasta No Verte, Jesus Mio her biographical book about the experiences of an actual soldadera in the revolution. Still, I found myself wanting to know even more. I have dreams of the soldaderas, they want more, they want their stories to be out there, to be told. This book is one of the answers to them.

Ponitowska writes, “Without the soldaderas, there is no Mexican Revolution – they kept it alive and fertile like the earth.”

I believe her. Her narrative of the amazing contributions and tribulations of these valiant women really give you the feel of what it was like to march hungry, search a battlefield for your man, to really suffer as they did, to be fierce and indominiatble. I stand amazed at how much they did, how strong they were and how little they were valued by most people.



This little book is crammed with photos from the incredible collection of Agustin Victor Casasola in the Fototeca Nacional of the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico. The incredible photos of the time give voice and face to these women. There are tenderness, anger, rage, sadness, determination, weariness, happiness, romance and excitement. There are young women with rifles, holding baskets of food, setting up camps. These women were EVERYWHERE in that revolution on all of the fighting sides.

I learned of Nellie Campobello, the only female novelist of the Revolution who was also a soldadera and was amazed that I had never heard of her. There are a lot of little details like that in the book, little bits of information that are tremendous in what light they give to the darkness of knowledge I have about them. Finding out about Nellie has me on a quest to find out more, to dig deeper, to go to Mexico and dig up her writings. I want to see for myself, read for myself a soldadera’s memories.

I could go on for days about this important little book, but I won’t. Run over to Cinco Puntos or your local independent bookstore like Tia Chucha’s or Imix and buy it now. You NEED this book. The Soldaderas need you to know them.

Massacre in Mexico

Writing the review for Paco Ignacio Taibo’s book, “68 made me start thinking about another book I read years ago on Tlatelolco – Elena Poniatowska’s masterpiece entitled Massacre in Mexico. I went over to my shelf and pulled it down to re-read it. Wow! It still packs a punch and makes a deep impact.

Elena Poniatowska’s chronicle of the 1968 massacre at Tlatelolco is an astounding and must read book. An estimated 325 unarmed students were shot and bayoneted that night by Mexican police and Army troops in what had been a peaceful protest about the lack of political freedom and the one-party government. La Plaza de las Tres Culturas has been called Mexico’s Tianamen Square. The President at the time was Gustavo Diaz Ordaz.

Ms. Poniatowska calls it a “collage of voices bearing historical witness” and truly it is. The book is packed with first person accounts and interviews from witnesses, students and people anxiously looking for their children, wives, husbands and friends. In startling black and white photos, Poniatowska takes us there, back in time to that bloody October. There are photos of bodies lying in pools of blood, of police hauling students off to jail, of people crying, in agony, in despair.

Be prepared to cry, to rage, to be haunted for this is a brutally honest look at what happened in Mexico City that day. The voices beg out for justice, they ask why and they grieve. Some of the stories are just so heartbreaking that I have to stop, catch my breath and wipe my eyes.

Octavio Paz wrote the touching forward to this amazing chronicle. This is another must for any library, especially a Chicano one.

The Zapatista Reader

The Zapatista Reader is one of the most amazing collection of essays, interviews, stories and insights by some of the greatest writers of our time: Jose Saramago, Paco Taibo II, Octavio Paz, Naomi Klein, Elena Ponitowska, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carlos Monsavais, Manuel Vazquez Montalban, John Berger, Andrew Kopkind, Eduardo Galenao, Alma Guillermoprieto, Pascal Beltran Del Rio, Saul Kandau, Jorge Mancillas, John Ross, Regis Debray, Jose de la Colina, Mike Gonzalez and many more.

There is a brief historical timeline and an introduction by Tom Hayden who also serves as editor of the collection. This is an invaluable resource for anyone wanting to learn of the Zapatista movement. Some of the finest reporting and commentary ever are in this collection. It contains eyewitness accounts of the day the Zapatistas took the world by storm, January 1, 1994, the writings of Subcommandante Marcos and essays by some very fine and thoughtful writers.

Paco Taibo II, back in March of 1994 whose article originally published in The Nation, appears in this book and his thoughts of what is happening around him are wonderful. He is awed by this development and angered for the people of Chiapas. He states in this article, “Chiapas lies at the asshole of world, where Jesus Christ lost his serape and John Wayne lost his horse.” He says of living in Mexico City at the time of the uprising, “I haven’t left the house in three days except to buy the newspaper. I talk on the phone, listen to the radio, watch television with the fascination of a blind man seeing an image for the first time."

Eduardo Galeano in his Chiapas Chronicle which originally appeared in La Jornada on August 7, 1996, says “Marcos, the spokesperson, came from elsewhere. He spoke to them; they did not understand. Then he entered the mist, he learned to listen and was able to speak. Now he speaks from them: His is the voice of voices.”

There are less poetic parts of this books, statistics and important pieces of information. It is remarkable to have all these articles and essays compiled into a single book. Now, as the Zapatista battle is in the middle of their 11th year, as Marcos has issued a Red Alert, this book is more important than ever in the war against oblivion. It should be in every Xicano library, it should be read and re-read, quoted and used. It is the thread to keep pulling, it will lead to more and more books on the movement, research and give impetus to find out more.

Nothing, Nobody: The Voices of the Mexico City Earthquake

To me there is no greater woman journalist than Mexico’s beloved Elena Poniatowska. Every book I read of hers touches me in so many ways. This book in particular haunts my days and nights. Nothing, Nobody is the chronicle of the earthquake in September of 1985 that devastated Mexico City.

It is the story of the search for bodies amongst the rubble and the Mexican government’s failure to respond. There is such poignancy in the writing, the post-earthquake testimonies from survivors, from aid workers and most of all, from the people who never did find their loved ones. It is a story of the heroism that exists in even the most insignificant of us. There is courage in the face of disaster, hope and hopelessness.

As if the testimonies and the stories in this book weren’t enough to touch the heart, to outrage the mind, there are photos of the devastation, of the faces of the people, of the tears.

Ms. Poniatowska weaves together each story with her usual mastery. She is able to put a face on the side of Mexico that gets shoved under the carpet – the poor Mexican. This book was written pre-Zapatista uprising and I feel that by reading Elena Poniatowska’s fascinating chronicles of important events in the years leading up to it, we can all better understand why the Zapatista movement had to happen. There are many books about it and many opinions on why – but I think that all we need to do is read books like this to see the face of the forgotten, to feel their pain and frustration, to know them intimately. Once we do that, there is no need to suppose or wonder about the worthiness of the fight against oblivion – we just know.