When Juana Belén Gutiérrez de Mendoza signed her newspaper articles “sedición y rebeldía” (sedition and rebellion), she was making a calculated political statement. As a journalist, anarchist organizer, and eventual Zapatista colonel, Gutiérrez de Mendoza (1875-1942) occupied a unique position in the Mexican Revolution—one that reveals both the possibilities for radical dissent in the Porfiriato and the ultimate constraints that even revolutionary movements placed on transformative social change. Her career raises important questions about the relationship between intellectual radicalism and armed struggle, the role of the press in revolutionary movements, and the extent to which the revolution actually delivered on…

Read more >