Mexican History Essay Example

mining industry produced silver, iron ore, copper, and sulfur.

Diaz also tackled Mexico’s problem with the smuggling of goods across the Mexican United States boarder which had cost Mexico several hundred thousand dollar a year in import export taxes. The Diaz administration looked to give Mexico all the amenities of a modern state with telephones, cars, tramways, and public works departments. The Diaz administration updated the postal service which had been very slow and updated the foreign relations department.

President Diaz stayed in power for over three decades and he achieved this by controlling the government at all levels. Diaz manipulated local and state election to ensure that his supporters would win. Diaz also controlled the media by jailing descanting journalists and closing papers that ran material that was negative towards the Diaz campaign.

Diaz also pitted opponents against each other and by shifting powerful generals who could threaten his power to different zones to keep them from gaining too much power. Diaz also increased the size of the rurales to help the local police and the military keep peace and to force his decisions on the country. The rurales worked effectively doing what Diaz commissioned them to do.

Diaz’s push for the modernization of Mexico and attracting foreign investment made Mexico profitable but much of this came at the expense of the poor and the indigenous peoples of Mexico. Land laws like the Tierra Baldies forced natives off the lands which they had lived on for generations. In the country there were large haciendas owned by wealthy Mexicans known as haciendados. After the loss of their lands because of the Tierra baldies, natives had no choice but to

work for low wages on these ranches.

Because of the Diaz government’s interest in impressing foreign tourist to get investments, laws began to change, making the common behaviors of the poor and indigenous to be considered criminal so they could be arrested. This was an attempt to get rid of what the government believed was holding Mexico back from becoming a modern society. The Diaz administration began riding the streets of any visible signs of these behaviors so foreigners and the wealthy would not be bothered by them, there by hampering foreign investment.

Prostitutes and beggars as well as the homeless were forced to move from the main streets, but this did not always work. But Diaz had a hard time when it came to the Mexican bullfights which was a long running tradition which Mexicans of all social classes would attend. Diaz wanted to keep this tradition alive but foreigners found the bullfights to be barbaric. Diaz ultimately wanted to impress the international community with the modern state of Mexican society and eventually removed bullfighting from the large cities where tourist would be. Baseball was introduced to Mexico around the same time and became a large success.

Diaz‘s want for progress and order changed Mexican society greatly but only brought improvement to the lives of the wealthy at the expense of the poor and the indigenous. Diaz’s use of the police and his control of the electoral process and obsession with making Mexico modern through catering to foreign investors and appropriating native lands for sale to entrepreneurial investors pushed many Mexicans too far and by the early nineteen hundreds a serious push back began to take place.

The

attempts at modernizing Mexico never made its way to the everyday worker. Working conditions in factories were terrible and the hours were long. Complaints to Diaz by workers were not taken seriously and Diaz often sided with the owners of the factories. Diaz used the military and rurales to deal with rebellions, but ultimately had to negotiate with rebels to step down.

After the Mexican Revolution of the early twentieth century the Mexican Government changed from focusing on the modernization of Mexico at the expense of the poor and indigenous and began focusing on making Mexico modern while returning lands to the indigenous and working to help the poor factory workers. The government began to embrace the culture of the countries indigenous through paintings, music and archeology.

There was also an increase in the education of both men and women with a large focus on reading and socialist ideals. The government also wanted to push the idea of the modern woman. These women wanted to experience life beyond becoming married and raising a family like the traditional Mexican female. This also played into the government’s anti Catholicism views.

The modern women concept separated women from what the government viewed as the oppression of women by the church. Much of this resentment of the church comes from the churches treatment of the indigenous and the churches control of large portions of land in Mexico and its wealth.

There was a large art movement during this time. Artist like Diego Rivera, the most famous visual artist of Mexico, painted murals on public buildings depicting the indigenous people and their culture in positive ways. Rivera also traveled to Europe and painted murals

in the United States. Rivera murals also showed the poor working in factories and promoted the Socialist idea of an egalitarian society where the workers controlled the means of production.

Frida Kahlo the wife of Rivera also painted but her work was more personal and for herself. These painting were self portraits and often reflected the accident she had as a young women which left her in a wheel chair.

The court systems began to favor the poor and indigenous more often and to a lesser extent women who wanted to divorce their husbands or force them to marry them as they promised them.

After the revolution the New Mexican government wanted to promote nationalism and began to have a negative view of foreign influences especially the United States which they associated with capitalism. The New Mexican government looked for Mexico to form a defined culture that they could say was definitively Mexican.

Comic books like Pepin became popular in Mexico with themes of love and adventure. These comic books used real live situations and real places in Mexico to relate to their audiences. These comic books also tackled the problems of the new modern Mexico like citizen from the more traditional villages of Mexico moving to the modern cities. Many of the comic books helped the new members of the city to assimilate to the ways of the cities.

Government officials like Jose Vasconcelos, secretary of education commissioned artists from all over Mexico to decorate public buildings walls with murals promoting Mexican nationalism and indigenous ways of life. This was used to share the arts with everyone since before the revolution the arts could only be enjoyed by the

wealthy who could afford to buy a painting. Carlos Chavez a Mexican composer brought the nationalism to music.

Chavez was the director of the national conservatory of music in Mexico. Chavez made Symphonies like Sinfonia India and Xochipili- Macuilxo which used indigenous instruments. Chavez also collaborated with other artists like Silvestre Revueltas who created music for movies including Redes which focused on the struggle of fishermen in Vera Cruz dealing with large business and bad managers. These musicians’ works reflected the new views that Mexico’s government had toward being associated culturally with its indigenous past.

Mexican anthropologist and archaeologist studied Mexico’s indigenous past as well as the lives of the indigenous of modern Mexico. These intellectuals rejected the old theories of racial inferiority of the nineteenth century. Instead they focused on the achievements of the indigenous past by recovering indigenous art to bring pride to the present day indigenous. In 1936 the Mexican government created the Departamento Autonomo de Asuntos Indigenous, which worked to bring valor to the indigenous culture.

The Mexican government also used radio transmissions to promote their new cultural nationalism views. The Department of Education also used radio in primary schools. In 1937 the government created the radio program La Hora Nacional. This program was used to promote information about Mexican culture to the citizens.

The education system in rural Mexico promoted the ideals of nationalism to the students. These schools faced challenges with the church that controlled cultural life in the rural villages. Narciso Bassols the secretary of education created a new school curriculum which focused on socialist ideas. Education funding was increased and more Mexicans became literate. The new curriculum was also an attempt

to promote cultural nationality and to bring the rural villages into modern society. These schools also provided women with education to help raise their children.

The post revolution Mexican Government cared about Mexico and its people as a nation together as one. This idea was very different from the vision that Porfiriato government that only cared about making Mexico modern and sought to silence the indigenous past of Mexico and hide the existence of Mexico’s poor.