The Mexico reader: history, culture, politics

I. The search for "Lo Mexicano". The Mexican character / Joel Poinsett

The cosmic race / José Vasconcelos

The sons of La Malinche / Octavio Paz

The problem of national culture / Guillermo Bonfil Batalla

How to tame a wild tongue / Gloria Anzaldúa

Mexico City, 1992 / Alma Guillermoprieto

Two Ranchera songs / José Alfredo Jiménez and Cuco Sánchez

II. Ancient civilizations. The origins of the Aztec / Anonymous

The Feast of the Flaying of Men / Inga Clendinnen

The Totocalli (Motecuhzoma's 'Zoo') / Andrés Bustamante Agudelo and Israel Elizalde Méndez

The meaning of maize for the Maya / J. Eric Thompson

Omens foretelling the conquest / Anonymous

III. Conquest and colony. The Spaniards' entry into Tenochtitlán / Bernal Díaz del Castillo and Hernán Cortés

Cortés and Montezuma / J.H. Elliott

The Battles of Tenochtitlán and Tlatelolco / Anonymous

The spiritual conquest / Fray Jerónimo de Mendieta

Why the Indians are dying / Alonso de Zorita

A Baroque Archbishop-Viceroy / Irving Leonard

On men's hypocrisy / Sor Juana

Whites, Negros, castes / Alexander von Humboldt

The itching parrot, the priest, and the subdelegate / José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi

IV. Trials of the young Republic. The siege of Guanajuato / Lucas Alamán

Sentiments of the nation / José María Morelos

Plan of Iguala / Agustín de Iturbide

Women and war in Mexico / Frances Calderón de la Barca

The glorious revolution of 1844 / Guillermo Prieto

Décimas dedicated to Santa Anna's leg / Anonymous

A conservative profession of faith / The editors of El Tiempo

Considerations relating to the political and social situation / Mariano Otero

Liberals and the land / Luis González y González

Standard plots and rural resistance / Raymond B. Craib

Offer of the crown to Maximilian / Junta of Conservative Notables

A letter from Mexico / Empress Carlotta

The triumph of the Republic / Benito Juárez

Porfirio Díaz visits Yucatán / Channing Arnold and Frederick J. Tabor Frost

Scenes from a lumber camp / B. Traven

President Díaz, hero of the Americas / James Creelman

Gift of the skeletons / Anonymous

V. Revolution. Land and liberty / Ricardo Flores Magón

Plan of Ayala / Emiliano Zapata

The restoration of the Ejido / Luis Cabrera

Zapatistas in the palace / Martín Luis Guzmán

Mexico has been turned into a hell / William O. Jenkins

Pancho Villa / John Reed

La punitiva / Anonymous

Pedro Martínez / Oscar Lewis

Amelio Robles's gender battles in the Zapatista Army / Gabriela Cano

Juan the Chamula / Ricardo Pozas

The Constitution of 1917 : Articles 27 and 123

An agrarian encounter / Rosalie Evans

Ode to Cuauhtémoc / Carlos Pellicer

The socialist ABC's / Anonymous

The ballad of Valentín de la Sierra / Anonymous

Mexico must become a nation of institutions and laws / Plutarco Elías Calles

The formation of the single-party state / Carlos Fuentes

The rough and tumble career of Pedro Crespo / Gilbert M. Joseph and Allen Wells

A convention in Zacapu / Salvador Lemus Fernández

The agrarian reform in La Laguna / Fernando Benítez

The oil expropriation / Josephus Daniels

VI. The perils of modernity.They gave us the land / Juan Rulfo

Mexico's crisis / Daniel Cosío Villegas

Struggles of a campesino leader / Rubén Jaramillo

Art and corruption / David Alfaro Siqueiros

The two faces of Acapulco during the Golden Age / Andrew Sackett

The dark deeds of "El Negro" Durazo / José González G

The sinking city / Joel Simon

Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl / Roberto Vallarino

Roma exposes Mexico's darkest secrets / Marcela García

Modesta Gómez / Rosario Castellanos

La Costa Chica and the struggles of Mexico's "third root" / Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran

Afro-Mexican militancy on the Costa Chica

VII. From the ruins. The student movement of 1968 / Elena Poniatowska

El Santo's strange career / Anne Rubenstein

After the earthquake / Victims' Coordinating Council

Letters to Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas / Anonymous

Identity hour / Carlos Monsiváis

The political manifesto of the COCEI of Juchitan, Oaxaca / The COCEI

Women of Juchitán / Jeffrey W. Rubin

EZLN demands at the dialogue table / Zapatista Army of National Liberation

A Tzotzil chronicle / Marián Peres Tsu

Debtors' revenge / Heather Williams

VIII. The border and beyond. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Plan of San Diego / Anonymous

The "wetback invasion" / Timothy J. Henderson

The high cost of deportation / Julia Preston

A Honduran teenager's odyssey across borders / Sonia Nazario

Two poems about immigrant life / Pat Mora and Gina Valdés

The Maquiladora workers of Juárez find their voice / David Bacon

Dompe days / Luis Alberto Urrea

Two songs about drug smuggling / Paulino Vargas and Chalino Sánchez

"We are more American" / Enrique Valencia

IX. From the perfect dictatorship to an imperfect democracy. Mexicans would not be bought, coerced / Wayne A. Cornelius

Assessing NAFTA : before and after / Mark Weisbrot and Vicente Fox

Ayotzinapa : a father's testimony / John Gibler

The narco who died twice / Ioan Grillo

The promise and peril of López Obrador / Denise Dresser

AMLO on corruption / Andrés Manuel López Obrador

Traditional medicine in modern Mexico and the challenge of COVID-19 / Gabriela Soto

Laveaga and the Nich Ixim Midwives Movement

Should I die abroad, bring me back to Mexico / Jorge Ramos.