Violent class struggles and ethnic conflict mark much of the history of Latin America, continuing in some regions even today. Perhaps the worst and most prolonged of these conflicts was the guerra de las castas or "Caste War", an Indian rebellion that tore apart the Yucatan Peninsula for much of the...

Violent class struggles and ethnic conflict mark much of the history of Latin America, continuing in some regions even today. Perhaps the worst and most prolonged of these conflicts was the guerra de las castas or "Caste War", an Indian rebellion that tore apart the Yucatan Peninsula for much of the nineteenth century (1847-1903). The struggle was not only ethnic, pitting indigenous peoples against a Hispanic or Hispanicized ruling class, but also economic, involving attacks by rural campesinos on plantation owners, merchants, overseers, and townspeople. The rebels met with sporadic and limited success but still managed at times to remove whole portions of the Yucatan Peninsula from state control.

Conflicts between native Maya peoples and European-derived governments have punctuated Mexican history from the Conquest in the sixteenth century to the current Zapatista uprising in Chiapas. In this deeply researched study, Terry Rugeley delves into the 1800-1847 origins of the Caste War, the...

Conflicts between native Maya peoples and European-derived governments have punctuated Mexican history from the Conquest in the sixteenth century to the current Zapatista uprising in Chiapas. In this deeply researched study, Terry Rugeley delves into the 1800-1847 origins of the Caste War, the largest and most successful of these peasant rebellions. Rugeley refutes earlier studies that seek to explain the Caste War in terms of a single issue. Instead, he explores the interactions of several major social forces, including the church, the hacienda, and peasant villagers. He uncovers a complex web of issues that led to the outbreak of war, including the loss of communal lands, substandard living conditions, the counterpoise of Catholicism versus traditional Maya beliefs, and an increasingly heavy tax burden. Drawn from a wealth of primary documents, this book represents the first real attempt to reconstruct the history of the pre-Caste War period. In addition to its obvious importance for Mexican history, it will be illuminating background reading for everyone seeking to understand the ongoing conflict in Chiapas.

Emma Perez discusses the historical methodology that has created Chicano history. Then -- borrowing from theorists and philosophers of history such as Michel Foucault, Juan Gomez-Quinones, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Hayden White as well as from cultural feminist critics Gloria...

Emma Perez discusses the historical methodology that has created Chicano history. Then -- borrowing from theorists and philosophers of history such as Michel Foucault, Juan Gomez-Quinones, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Hayden White as well as from cultural feminist critics Gloria Anzaldua, Teresa de Lauretis, Antonia Castaneda, Deena Gonzalez, and Chela Sandoval -- the author argues that the Chicano historical narrative has often omitted gender. She poses a theory which rejects the colonizer's methodological assumptions and examines new tools for uncovering the hidden voices of Chicanas who have been relegated to silence. Within that silence, she uncovers what she describes as "third space feminism."

The text moves from geographic spaces in the Yucatan to California and Texas around the time of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Perez examines Yucatan's socialist revolution, the international revolutionary movement El Partido Liberal Mexicano, and the Club Femenino Chapultepec. In these case studies "new voices" come into existence to shape knowledge about Chicanas.

The last chapter critiques the tale of La Malinche, the translator and alleged lover of Cortes; a recent film, Silent Tongue, the story of an Indian woman; Delgadeio, the object of desire in a popular corrido; and Selena, the slain Tex-Mex popular singer who practiced her own cultural feminism in sexualized performances.