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Imagining Mexico in 1910: Visions of the Patria in the Centennial Celebration in Mexico City*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2007

MICHAEl J. GONZALES
MICHAEl J. GONZALES
Affiliation:
Michael J. Gonzales is Presidential Research Professor and Director of the Center for Latino and Latin American Studies at Northern Illinois University.
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Abstract

Mexico's 1910 Centenario reflected a popular trend in Western Europe and its former colonies to use centenaries of important historical events to promote political programmes and philosophies through the construction of historical memory. Centennial organisers in Mexico linked Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and José Maria Morelos to President Porfirio Díaz in words and symbols, and associated state formation and civic culture with Liberal leaders and policies, such as public education, material progress and secularism. The planners also promoted Morelos as a mestizo icon and symbol for national identity and integration, while they simultaneously celebrated Mexico's pre-Columbian cultures and criticised contemporary natives as impediments to progress. The Centennial's audience included hundreds of thousands of Mexicans as well as foreigners from around the globe, who came away with different impressions based on their cultural perspectives, political philosophies and material interests. Following the overthrow of Díaz in 1911, Mexico's revolutionary governments continued to use Independence Day celebrations to promote their programmes, including some whose origins lay in the Porfiriato. As we approach the bicentenary of Latin American independence, competing visions of patrias will likely surface and provide insights into the construction of historical memory and contemporary political discourse.

Resumen: El Centenario de 1910 de México refleja una tendencia popular en Europa Occidental y sus antiguas colonias de usar centenarios de eventos históricos importantes para promover programas políticos e ideales a través de la construcción de la memoria histórica. Los organizadores del Centenario en México vinculan a Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla y José María Morelos al presidente Porfirio Díaz en palabras y símbolos, y asocian la formación estatal y la cultura cívica con líderes liberales y políticas nacionales, como la educación pública, el progreso material y el secularismo. Los organizadores también promueven a Morelos, un icono mestizo y símbolo de identidad nacional e integración y celebran a las culturas prehispánicas mexicanas mientras que simultáneamente critican a los nativos contemporáneos como un impedimento al progreso. El público para el Centenario está compuesto por cientos de miles de mexicanos así como de extranjeros de todo el mundo, quienes se fueron con diferentes impresiones basadas en sus perspectivas culturales, ideas políticas e intereses materiales. Tras el derrocamiento de Díaz en 1911, el gobierno revolucionario de México siguió utilizando la celebración del Día de la Independencia para promover sus programas, algunos de los cuales incluso se originaron en el profiriato. En la medida que nos acercamos al bicentenario de la independencia de América Latina, es posible que emerjan visiones contrarias de lo que es la patria, lo que dará una mejor idea de cómo se construye la memoria histórica y el discurso político contemporáneo.

Palabras clave: México, Porfirio Díaz, centenario, independencia, construcción nacional, construcción estatal, liberalismo, mestizaje.

Resumo: O centenário mexicano de 1910 refletia uma tendência popular na Europa ocidental e suas antigas colônias de usar centenários de eventos históricos importantes para promover programas e filosofias políticas, através da construção da memória histórica. No México, organizadores de centenários ligaram Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla e José Maria Morelos ao Presidente Porfirio Díaz com palavras e símbolos, além de associar a formação do estado e da cultura cívica com líderes e políticas liberais, como a educação pública, o progresso material e o secularismo. Os planejadores também promoveram Morelos a um ícone mestiço, um símbolo da identidade e integração nacional, enquanto simultaneamente celebravam as culturas pré-colombianas do México e criticavam nativos contemporâneos por serem obstáculos ao progresso. O público do centenário incluía centenas de milhares de mexicanos, assim como estrangeiros do mundo todo que partiram com diferentes impressões baseadas em suas perspectivas culturais, filosofias políticas e interesses materiais. Após a derrubada de Díaz em 1911, os governos revolucionários do México continuaram a utilizar as comemorações do Dia da Independência para promover seus programas, inclusive aqueles cujas origens se encontravam no porfiriato. Ao nos aproximar do bicentenário da independência latino-americana visões rivais de pátrias provavelmente irão emergir e nos suprir com uma visão mais aguçada a respeito da construção da memória histórica e de discursos políticos contemporâneos.

Palavras-chave: México, Porfirio Díaz, centenário, independência, formação da nação, estruturação do estado, liberalismo, mestizaje

Keywords

MexicoPorfirio Díazcentennialindependencenation buildingstate buildingLiberalismmestizaje
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , August 2007 , pp. 495 - 533
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

1  El Tiempo, 17 Sept. 1910.

2  García, Génaro (ed.), Crónica oficial de las fiestas del Primer Centenario de la Independencia de México (Mexico City, 1911), pp. 142–50Google Scholar.

3  Starr, Frederick, Mexico and the United States (Chicago, 1914), p. 34Google Scholar. Starr was a distinguished anthropologist and future president of the University of Chicago.

4  Ibid., p. 61.

5  El Diario, 15 Sept. 1910. Officially, Mexican Independence Day is 16 September but Mexicans traditionally began celebrating it the preceding evening, culminating in the traditional Grito at midnight. Díaz governed from 1876 to 1880 and from 1884 to 1911. From 1880 to 1884 his close friend, General Manuel González, occupied the presidency because the constitution, and Díaz's advocacy of no re-election before 1876, compelled him to step aside. In 1884 the constitution was amended to allow Díaz to succeed himself. Liberals had governed continuously since the Restored Republic in 1867, following Benito Juárez's overthrow of the Emperor Maximilian.

6  Quinault, Roland, ‘The Cult of the Centenary, c. 1784–1914’, Historical Research, vol. 71, no. 176 (Oct. 1998), pp. 303–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robert Gildea, The Past in French History (New Haven, 1994), Introduction.

7  Costeloe, Michael, ‘The Junta Patriótica and the Celebration of Independence in Mexico City, 1825–1855’, in Beezley, William H. and Lorey, David E. (eds.), Viva Mexico! Viva La Independencia! Celebrations of September 16 (Wilmington, 2001), ppGoogle Scholar. 43–77; Javier Rodríguez Piña, ‘Conservatives Contest the Meaning of Independence, 1846–1855’, in ibid., pp. 101–31; Duncan, Robert H., ‘Embracing a Suitable Past: Independence Celebrations under Mexico's Second Empire, 1864–66’, Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 30, no. 2 (1998), pp. 249–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thomson, Guy, ‘Liberalism and Nation-Building in Mexico and Spain during the Nineteenth Century’, in Dunkerley, James (ed.), Studies in the Formation of the Nation State in Latin America (London, 2002), pp. 189–211Google Scholar. This valuable collection of essays also features an important contribution by Knight, Alan, ‘The Weight of the State in Modern Mexico’, pp. 212–53. For a review essay of relevant literature see Michiel Baud, ‘Beyond Benedict Anderson: Nation-Building and Popular Democracy in Latin America’, International Review of Social History, vol. 50, no. 3 (2005), pp. 485–99Google Scholar.

8  Sergio Alejandro Canedo Gamboa, ‘The First Independence Celebrations in San Luis Potosi, 1824–1847’, in Beezley and Lorey (eds.), Viva Mexico!, pp. 77–87. For a discussion of the largest colonial-era public festivals in Mexico City, see Curcio-Nagy, Linda A., The Great Festivals of Colonial Mexico City: Performing Power and Identity (Albuquerque, 2004)Google Scholar.

9  Tenorio-Trillo, Mauricio, Mexico at the World's Fairs: Crafting a Modern Nation (Berkeley, 1993)Google Scholar. On the 1910 Centennial, see Tenorio-Trillo, Mauricio, ‘1910 Mexico City: Space and Nation in the City of the Centenario’, Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 28, no. 3 (1996), pp. 75–105CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which provides an excellent discussion of the transformation of Mexico City; and Lempérière, Annick, ‘Los dos centenarios de la independencia mexicana (1910–1921): de la historia patria a la antropología cultural’, Historia Mexicana, vol. 45, no. 2 (1995), pp. 317–53Google Scholar.

10  The term ‘Indian’ is used with reluctance here as a generic expression to describe Mexico's mostly rural population that was genetically indigenous and spoke pre-Columbian languages. Nevertheless, it is important to note that persons with these characteristics could be viewed as mestizos, depending on their degree of acculturation. In the end, Indians were more socially than racially constructed by outsiders. In addition, Indians themselves lacked any sense of shared pan-Indian consciousness, and identified with their local communities and leaders. Those who migrated to urban areas, of course, struggled to maintain these ties and experienced faster rates of acculturation. In 1910, the national census estimated that Indians constituted one-third of the national population, which Manuel Gamio doubled by including central Mexico's large bi-lingual population. Needless to say, the term ‘mestizo’ was also more socially than racially constructed, and referred to persons of mixed indigenous and European heritage as well as to acculturated natives. See Knight, Alan, ‘Racism, Revolution, and Indigenismo: Mexico, 1910–1940’, in Graham, Richard (ed.), The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870–1940 (Austin, 1990), pp. 72–8Google Scholar.

11  The most comprehensive analysis of the Mexican Revolution remains Knight, Alan, The Mexican Revolution, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1986Google Scholar). Readers seeking a more synthetic discussion can consult Gonzales, Michael J., The Mexican Revolution, 1910–1940 (Albuquerque, 2002Google Scholar). On the 1921 Centennial, see Lacy, Elaine C., ‘The 1921 Centennial Celebration of Mexico's Independence: State Building and Popular Negotiation’, in Beezley, and Lorey, (eds.), Viva Mexico!, pp. 199–233Google Scholar. Public education as revolutionary policymaking and contested cultural terrain is discussed by Kay Vaughan, Mary, The State, Education, and Social Class in Mexico, 1880–1928 (DeKalb, 1982)Google Scholar; Kay Vaughan, Mary, Cultural Politics in Revolution: Teachers, Peasants, and Schools in Mexico, 1930–1940 (Tucson, 1997)Google Scholar; and Rockwell, Elsie, ‘Schools of the Revolution: Enacting and Contesting State Forms in Tlaxcala, 1910–1930’, in Joseph, Gilbert M. and Nugent, Daniel (eds.), Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico (Durham, 1994), pp. 170–209Google Scholar. On anti-clericalism and Church-State conflict see Jean A. Meyer, trans. Richard Southern, The Cristero Rebellion: The Mexican People Between Church and State (Cambridge, 1976). Perhaps the most graphic examples of state-sponsored demonising of Díaz and the Porfirians are the famous murals of Diego Rivera that decorate government buildings in downtown Mexico City.

12  Gildea, The Past in French History, chaps. I and V; Simpson, Martin, ‘Taming the Revolution? Legitimists and the Centenary of 1789’, English Historical Review, vol. 120, no. 486 (2005), pp. 340–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rearick, Charles, ‘Festivals in Modern France: The Experience of the Third Republic’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 12, no. 3 (1977), pp. 435–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rearick, Charles, ‘Festivals and Politics: The Michelet Centennial of 1898’, in Laqueur, Thomas and Mosse, George L. (eds.), Historians in Politics (Beverly Hills, 1974), pp. 59–79Google Scholar.

13  On the Hidalgo Rebellion and related events, see Young, Eric Van, The Other Rebellion: Popular Violence, Ideology, and the Mexican Struggle for Independence, 1810–1821 (Stanford, 2001)Google Scholar. One of Hidalgo's early critics was the Conservative politician and historian, Lucas Alamán: see his Historia de Méjico, vol. II (Mexico, 1942), first published between 1844 and 1849. Van Young is currently writing a biography of Alamán. On Iturbide, see Anna, Timothy E., The Mexican Empire of Iturbide (Lincoln, 1990)Google Scholar. Important books on the period of the ‘Reform’ include Margaret Chowning, Wealth and Power in Provincial Mexico: Michoacán from the Late Colony to the Revolution (Stanford, 1999), and Mallon, Florencia E., Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley, 1995)Google Scholar.

14  Foner, Philip S., ‘Black Participation in the Centennial of 1876’, Phylon, vol. 39, no. 4 (1978), pp. 282–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15  Nasson, Bill, ‘Commemorating the Anglo-Boer War in the Post-Apartheid South Africa’, Radical History, vol. 78 (2000), p. 151Google Scholar.

16  Ibid., pp. 160–1.

17  Ibid., pp. 149–65; Grundlingh, Albert, ‘Reframing Remembrance: The Politics of the Centenary Commemoration of the South African War of 1899–1902’, Journal of South African Studies, vol. 30, no. 2 (2004), pp. 359–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18  The quotations are from BBC News: news.bbc.co.uk’, 22 Jan. 2006. For a recent assessment of the Morales government, see Dunkerley, James, ‘Evo Morales, the “Two Bolivias” and the Third Bolivian Revolution’, Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 39, no. 1 (2007), pp. 139–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19  The ten-member committee consisted of Guillermo Landa y Escandón (president), Francisco D. Barroso, Serapion Fernández, Romulado Pasquel, Fernando Pimentel y Fagoaga, Eugenio Rascón, Rafael Rebollar, Carlos Rivas, Manuel Vázquez Tagle, and José Casarín (secretary): see Memoria de los trabajos emprendidos y llevados a cabo por la comision n. del centenario de la independencia designada por el presidente de la república el 1 de abril de 1907 (Mexico City, 1910), p. 1.

20  Ibid., p. 2.

21  de Medina y Ormaechea, Antonio A., Iniciativa para celebrar el primir centenario de la independencia de México con una exposición universal (Mexico City, 1893)Google Scholar.

22  For the 1889 Paris Exposition, for example, the Mexican government spent 1,900,000 pesos on the Mexican Pavilion and related activities, more than any other foreign country: Tenorio-Trillo, Mexico at the World's Fairs, p. 50.

23  Programa General de las Festividades del Primer Centenario de la Proclamación de la Independencia de México (Mexico City, 1910); Garcia (ed.), Crónica Oficial.

24  Memoria de los trabajos, pp. 63–99. In addition to the national commission, there were 31 Comisiones Centrales, 301 Comisiones de Distrito, and 1,615 Comisiones Municipales: see Memoria de los trabajos, p. 100. Although it is beyond the scope of this paper, celebrations of Liberal viewpoints in the provinces could have encountered resistance in areas where the Catholic Church, religious lay organisations and/or conservative civic organisations were strongest. On the subject of civic and lay organisations, see the provocative book by Forment, Carlos, Democracy in Latin America, 1760–1900. Vol. I, Civic Selfhood and Public Life in Mexico and Peru (Chicago, 2003)Google Scholar.

25  Costeloe, ‘The Junta Patrióticas, 1825–1855’, in Beezley and Lorey (eds.), Viva Mexico!, pp. 43–75; Rodríguez Piña, ‘Conservatives Contest the Meaning of Independence, 1846–1855’, in ibid., pp. 101–31.

26  Beezley, , ‘New Celebrations of Independence’, in Beezley, and Lorey, (eds.), Viva Mexico!, pp. 131–41Google Scholar.

27  García (ed.), Crónica Oficial, p. 59, and below. Improving public hygiene was a theme of the Centennial, while the tribute to Humboldt complimented the regime's support of public education and scholarship. As a gesture of reconciliation, France also returned the keys to Mexico City that had been taken during the Second Empire. See, El Imparcial, Sept. 18, 1910. On the US colony in Mexico City see, Schell, William Jr., Integral Outsiders: The American Colony in Mexico City, 1876–1911 (Wilmington, 2001)Google Scholar.

28  García, ed., Crónica Oficial, p. 59.

29  Tenorio-Trillo, Mexico at the World's Fairs, p. 50.

30  Tenorio-Trillo, ‘1910 Mexico City’, pp. 79–88.

31  Barbara A. Tenenbaum, ‘Streetwise History’, pp. 128–43.

32  Johns, Michael, The City of Mexico in the Age of Díaz (Austin, 1997), p. 7Google Scholar.

33  Ibid., pp. 10–11.

34  Ibid., pp. 10–13.

35  Ibid., pp. 43–4, 51–2. Excellent analyses of the living and working conditions of Mexico City's poor can be found in Pablo Piccato, City of Suspects: Crime in Mexico City, 1900–1931 (Durham, 2001), pp. 13–50; and Lear, John, Workers, Neighbors, and Citizens: The Revolution in Mexico City (Lincoln, 2001), pp. 13–143Google Scholar.

36  Johns, The City of Mexico, pp. 53–6; González Navarro, Moisés, Historia moderna de México. El Porfiriato. La vida social. (Mexico City, 1957), pp. 396–7Google Scholar; Piccato, City of Suspects, pp. 13–50.

37  Starr, Mexico and the United States, p. 34.

38  Santo Domingo accepted the invitation but failed to send a delegation. Nicaragua also accepted but did not send a delegation because the government was overthrown. However, the well-known poet Ruben Dario, who had been appointed special envoy before the coup, appeared on the scene and was treated as a special guest of honour. In all, 28 nations attended the Centennial. Six sent special diplomatic missions (Italy, Japan, the United States, Germany, Spain and France); 18 appointed special envoys (Honduras, Bolivia, Austria, Cuba, Costa Rica, Russia, Portugal, The Netherlands, Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, Panama, Brazil, Belgium, Chile, Argentina, Norway and Uruguay); and 3 were represented by nationals residing in Mexico (Switzerland, Colombia and Venezuela): Programa General; García (ed.), Crónica Oficial, pp. 1–32; Tenorio-Trillo, ‘1910 Mexico City’, p. 47, n. 90.

39  Hamilton Holt, ‘Mexico’, The Independent, 13 Oct. 1910, p. 804. The entire US delegation consisted of Guild, Representative David J. Foster of Vermont; Senator Lee S. Overman of North Carolina; Senator Simon Guggenheim of Colorado (the Guggenheims had extensive investments in Mexico through ASARCO); Senator Coe I. Crawford of South Dakota; Representative William M. Howard of Georgia; Representative Edwin Denby of Michigan; Judge James W. Girard of the Supreme Court of New York; General Harrison Gray Otis of Los Angeles; Mr. Charles Alexander Rock of Pittsburgh; and Mr. Hobart J. Shanley of Vermont. Family members accompanied many of the delegates. See ‘Mexico: The Centennial Celebration’, Bulletin of the International Bureau of the American Republics, Sept. 1910, pp. 538–9.

40  García (ed.), Crónica Oficial, pp. 70–1. El Imparcial considered Polavieja, a veteran of Spain's military campaigns in Northern Africa, as the ideal person to present Díaz with the award: El Imparcial, 18 Sept. 1910.

41  The Mexican Herald, 4 Sept. 1910.

42  Curcio-Nagy, writes: ‘These festivals were designed as tools of cultural hegemony in that Spanish officials sought to utilize festivals and their message as a means of social control. The Spanish ruling elite sought to dominate subject peoples culturally, inducing submission, and encourage the acceptance of their political agenda’: The Great Festivals, pp. 2–3Google Scholar.

43  García (ed.), Crónica Oficial, pp. 46–50; Tenorio-Trillo, ‘Mexico City in 1910’, pp. 98–9.

44  García (ed.), Crónica Oficial, pp. 46–50; Memoria de los trabajos, pp. 6–9, for photographs of the Desfile Historico with participants in period costume.

45  Ibid. García states that 288 persons participated in the procession, although the original plan called for 800: Tenorio-Trillo, ‘Mexico City in 1910’, p. 98, fn. 76. See Memoria de los trabajos, pp. 9–29, for photographs of the Desfile Histórico with participants in period costume. In the colonial version of the ceremony, the procession ended at the Cathedral and included a religious procession. De-emphasising the Church's role was consistent with Liberal policy and programming of the Centennial. On the colonial ceremony, see Curcio-Nagy, The Great Festivals, pp. 78–9.

46  García (ed.), Crónica Oficial, pp. 46–50.

47  El Diario, 16 Sept. 1910.

48  The Ley Lerdo was intended to dissolve Church estates but was also applied to village communal property in some regions. The privatisation of public lands, authorised by Díaz, denied villagers access to public land and water resources sometimes essential to their survival. As a rule, pressure on villagers to sell out to large landowners increased during periods of rising prices for agricultural products, especially during the Porfiriato. See Francie R. Chassen-López, From Liberal to Revolutionary Oaxaca. The View from the South, Mexico 1867–1911 (College Station, 2004); Chowning, Wealth and Power in Provincial Mexico; Robert H. Holden, Mexico and the Survey of Public Lands: The Management of Modernization, 1876–1911 (DeKalb, 1994); Tutino, John, From Insurrection to Revolution in Mexico: Social Bases of Agrarian Violence, 1750–1940 (Princeton, 1986)Google Scholar; and Womack, John Jr., Zapata and the Mexican Revolution (New York, 1968Google Scholar). Mallon, Peasant and Nation, discusses Liberals' relations with selected indigenous communities during the struggle against the French. Conservatives expressed more paternalistic attitudes toward natives, but they also exploited Indian land and labour.

49  Tenorio-Trillo, ‘Mexico City in 1910’, p. 99.

50  El Tiempo, 27 Aug. 1910.

51  Tenorio-Trillo, ‘Mexico City in 1910’, p. 99.

52  El Tiempo, 29 Sept. 1910. That same year, however, Liberals diminished Iturbide in the public eye when they removed a reference to him from the national anthem. In the seventh stanza, the verse was changed from ‘de Iturbide la sacra bandera’ to ‘de la patria la sacra bandera’: see Tenorio-Trillo, ‘Mexico City in 1910’, p. 102, and fn. 92.

53  El Diario, 16 Sept. 1910; La Patria, 17 Sept. 1910, ‘Informe leido por el cuidadano Presidente de la Republica al abrirse el primer período de sesiones de 25 Congreso de la Unión’. Crowd control also proved a problem in 1895 during the lavish state funeral of Manuel Romero Rubio, a prominent Porfirian and Díaz's father-in-law: see Esposito, Matthew D., ‘Death and Disorder in Mexico City: The State Funeral of Manuel Romero Rubio,’ in Beezley, William H. and Curcio-Nagy, Linda A. (eds.), Latin American Popular Culture: An Introduction (Wilmington, 2000), pp. 87–105Google Scholar. In addition, between 1920 and 1940, crowds celebrating Revolution Day (November 20) sustained injuries from gunshots fired into the air, knife fights, car accidents, and other incidents: see David E. Lorey, ‘Postrevolutionary Contexts for Independence Day: The ‘Problem’ of Order and Invention of Revolution Day, 1920–1940s’, in Beezley and Lorey (eds.), Viva Mexico!, pp. 233–49.

54  García (ed.), Crónica Oficial, pp. 128–32.

55  El Diario, 5 Sept. 1910.

56  The French-owned ‘El Palacio de Hierro’ department store set the standard for high-end merchandising in the capital, and elites coveted French clothing and cosmetics: see Buchenau, Jürgen, Tools of Progress: A German Merchant Family in Mexico City, 1865-Present (Albuquerque, 2004), p. 53Google Scholar.

57  García (ed.), Crónica Oficial, pp. 128–32.

58  Vasconcelos, José, La raza cósmica, misión de la raza iberoamericana (Paris, 1925).Google Scholar

59  Mario Cerutti, Empresarios españoles y sociedad capitalista en México (1840–1920) (Asturias, 1995). With the outbreak of the Revolution, the Spanish and Chinese communities, more than any other foreign colonies in Mexico, suffered from targeted mob violence: see Knight, The Mexican Revolution, vol. I (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 87, 207–8, 212–3; Cerutti, Empresarios españoles, pp. 177–91. According to Leonor Ludlow, Spaniards claimed 69,000,000 pesos in property losses during the Revolution: see ‘Empresarios y banqueros: entre el Porfiriato y la Revolución,’ in Clara Lida (ed.), Una inmigración privilegiada. Comerciantes, empresarios y profesionales en México en los siglos XIX y XX (Madrid, 1994), cited in Cerutti, Empresarios españoles, p. 181.

60  González Navarro, Historia moderna de México, p. 702.

61  Clarence A. Miller to the Assistant Secretary of State, Tampico to Washington, D.C., 17 Sept. 1910, 812.00/346, US National Archives: RG59, Washington DC.

62  García (ed.), Crónica Oficial, p. 70; El Imparcial, 18 Sept. 1910. Díaz also received the Collar of St. Olaf from the King of Norway, the first time a non-European had received the honour: El Imparcial, 28 Sept. 1910.

63  García (ed.), Crónica Oficial, pp. 70–5.

64  El Diario, 18 Sept. 1910.

65  García (ed.), Crónica Oficial, p. 70.

66  Ibid., pp. 53 and 67–8.

67  Quoted in Robert M. Buffington, Criminal and Citizen in Modern Mexico (Lincoln, 2000), pp. 146–7.

68  Discussed in Tenorio-Trillo, Mexico at the World's Fairs, p. 89.

69  Lomnitz, Claudio, Deep Mexico, Silent Mexico: An Anthropology of Nationalism (Minneapolis, 2001), p. 51Google Scholar.

70  See, for example, attempts to invoke French models in float designs for the Desfile Histórico, and French-style clothing and cosmetics advertised in Mexico City dailies. Commenting on elite tastes during the Porfiriato, Octavio Paz observed: ‘We were reduced to a unilateral imitation of France, which had always ignored us’: The Labyrinth of Solitude, trans. Lysander Kemp et al. (New York, 1985), p. 134.

71  New York Times, 16 Sept. 1910. For a list of foreign newspapers with correspondents in Mexico City for the Centenario see El Diario, 16 Sept. 1910. The vast majority of reporters represented US publications, although The Toronto Globe and The Times of London also sent journalists. All of these newspapers printed articles on the Centenario.

72  García (ed.), Crónica Oficial, pp. 142–50; Starr, Mexico and the United States, pp. 65–6.

73  El Tiempo, 17 Sept. 1910; Starr, Mexico and the United States, p. 61.

74  Federico Gamboa, Mi Diario. Mucho de mi vida y algo de los otros, 2 vols. (Mexico, 1938), vol. II, pp. 189–91.

75  Starr, Mexico and the United States, pp. 50–1.

76  Creelman, James, ‘President Díaz, Hero of the Americas’, reprinted in Joseph, Gilbert M. and Henderson, Timothy J. (eds.), The Mexico Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Durham, 2002), p. 290Google Scholar.

77  Garcia (ed.), Crónica Oficial, pp. 225–35. The cost of constructing the normal school, not including the land, totaled 1,190,977 pesos: ibid., pp. 199–200.

78  Tenorio-Trillo, ‘Mexico City in 1910’, p. 100.

79  Garcia (ed.), Crónica Oficial, pp. 200–05; El Imparcial, 23 Sept. 1910. Universities sending prominent scholar-administrators included Paris, Berlin, Geneva, Oviedo, Columbia, Pennsylvania, Berkeley, Stanford, Chicago and Texas. The Aztec sacrificial stone is currently displayed in the Museo Nacional de Antropología. The exhibit includes a statement explaining how for decades archaeologists wrongly mis-labelled the stone as the Aztec calendar, but discovered its true identity after deciphering more Nahuatl script and symbols.

80  Rebecca Earle argues that independence era leaders in Spanish America initially sought symbolic association between newly independent nations and pre-Columbian empires, such as the Incas and the Aztecs, to illustrate the breaking away from the Spanish empire. However, Creole elites soon disassociated themselves and their countries from Indians in national symbols such as coins, statues and place names: see ‘Sobre Heroes y Tumbas: National Symbols in Nineteenth-Century Spanish America’, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 85, no. 3 (2005), pp. 375–417. Also see Earle, Rebecca, ‘Creole Patriotism and the Myth of the ‘Loyal Indian’, Past and Present, no. 172 (2001), pp. 125–46Google Scholar; and Brading, D. A., The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots and the Liberal State, 1492–1867 (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 603–74Google Scholar.

81  Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd ed. (New York, 1991), pp. 180–2.

82  Tenorio-Trillo, ‘Mexico City in 1910’, pp. 100–1.

83  Vaughan, The State, Education, and Social Class, pp. 39–40; Piccato, A City of Suspects, p. 22. Speakers of indigenous languages, of course, presented special problems for the purposes of secular education. The 1910 census listed one-third of Mexicans as Indians, but by using social and somatic definitions a larger percentage of the population could be classified as indigenous. For the difficulty of defining Indians amidst shifting political and ideological influences, see Alan Knight, ‘Racism, Revolution, and Indigenismo’, pp. 71–4.

84  Weber, Eugen, Peasants into Frenchmen. The Modernization of Rural France, 1870–1914 (Stanford, 1976)Google Scholar.

85  García (ed.), Crónica Oficial, pp. 109–20.

86  Starr, Mexico and the United States, p. 39; García (ed.), Crónica Oficial, p. 182.

87  Starr, Mexico and the United States, p. 42; García (ed.), Crónica Oficial, pp. 186–7; El Tiempo, 6 Sept. 1910.

88  Tenorio-Trillo, ‘Mexico City in 1910’, p. 95; Barbara A. Tenenbaum, ‘Streetwise History’, p. 147.

89  Tenorio-Trillo, ‘Mexico City in 1910’, p. 95.

90  Other examples of failed historical associations elsewhere can be noted. For example, Mussolini's ornate reconstruction of Augustus' imperial bath in Rome included many symbolic linkages of fascism with imperial Rome, but the Piazzale Augusto Imperatore lacked charm and clarity and blurred the historical association: see Kostok, Spiro, ‘The Emperor and the Duce: The Planning of Piazzale Augusto Imperatore in Rome,’ in Millon, Henry A. and Nachlin, Linda (eds.), Art and Architecture in the Service of Politics (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), pp. 270–325Google Scholar.

91  Mexican Herald, 25 Sept. 1910.

92  García (ed.), Crónica Oficial, p. 174; Tenorio-Trillo, ‘Mexico City in 1910’, p. 97.

93  The unveiling of the Juárez Monument during the Centenario upset devout Catholics in Guadalajara, who protested to a local newspaper that La Reforma was ‘anti-religious’: see El Tiempo, 24 Sept. 1910.

94  Memoria de los trabajos, pp. 63–99.

95  Kansas City Journal, 19 Sept. 1910.

96  Starr, Mexico and the United States, p. 54.

97  Lane Wilson, Henry, Diplomatic Episodes in Mexico, Belgium and Chile (New York, 1925), p. 189Google Scholar.

98  Ibid., p. 190.

99  Knight, The Mexican Revolution, vol. I, pp. 485–90.

100  Despite new restrictions on foreign investment, some major US firms proved tenacious in protecting their interests. Moreover, new economic opportunities emerged in the 1920s, and by 1926 foreign investment exceeded pre-revolutionary levels: Roger D. Hansen, The Politics of Mexican Development (Baltimore, 1971), pp. 17 and 30.

101  See Knight, ‘Racism, Revolution, and Indigenismo’, for more discussion on this topic.

102  Ibid.

103  See Womack, John Jr. (ed.), Rebellion in Chiapas: An Historical Reader (New York, 1998)Google Scholar.