This is the Web site of Ernesto Nava, son of Pancho Villa.
The purpose of this site is to serve as a community resource for Mexican Americans, and other Hispanics in the U.S. It also serves as an information resource about the life and legacy of Francisco "Pancho" Villa...........Thank you Samuel Rodriguez of Radio Bilingue for your show on Radio Bilingue today 6-5-13 Villa's birthday and story... http://www.radiobilingue.org/
1900 Gregorio Cortéz, a Tejano, kills a deputy who attempts to arrest him unjustly and flees for his
Ballad of Gregorio Cortez
life. Cortéz is eventually captured, tried by an all Anglo jury and sentenced to prison. He is eventually pardoned in 1913. His exploits are recorded in the border ballad El Corrido de Gregorio Cortéz.
1901 Two activist brothers, Ricardo and Jesús Flores Magón, are arrested and sentenced to a year in Mexico’s infamous Belén prison for publication of Regeneración (Regeneration), a newspaper critical of the regime of Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz.
Ricardo & Enrique Flores Magon
1903 The Platt Amendment to the Cuban Constitution, ending five years of U.S. occupation of Cuba, gives the U.S. the right to interfere in Cuban affairs if it feels U.S. interests are endangered and provides for the establishment of a U.S. naval base at Guantánamo.
1904 Ricardo Flores Magón flees Mexico and resumes publication of the political newspaper Regeneración in San Antonio, Texas. Magón, and his brother Enrique, are affiliated with the Partido Liberál Mexicano an outlawed political party in Mexico seeking to depose Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz. After several assassination attempts on Magón by agents of the Díaz government, Ricardo and Enrique relocate to Los Angeles where they begin to raise an army against the Díaz tyranny. (SEE BIO: Ricardo Flores Magón)
1908 Twenty-one year old Ignacio Lozano arrives in San Antonio with his family fleeing the Mexican Revolution. He begins publication of La Prensa, a Spanish language weekly newspaper. The demand is so great, however, that by 1914 the paper begins daily publication. Later, Lozano will later expand his publishing empire with La Opinion, a Los Angeles Spanish language daily newspaper.
1910 Sara Estela Ramirez, an outspoken poet and social activist, publishes Aurora, one of the first Latina feminist journals in the United States.
Francisco Madero
November 20, 1910 After campaigning against the fourth re-election of Mexican President Porfirio Díaz, Francisco Madero, an outspoken critic of the Díaz dictatorship, is arrested by the Díaz regime but escapes to the United States. Madero declares the results of the Mexican election as fraudulent and calls for a nationwide uprising against the Díaz regime. This marks the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. Within months, Generals Pancho Villa and Pascual Orozco in the north of Mexico and Emiliano Zapata in the Southern state of Morelos take up arms against the dictatorship.
January 29, 1911 An army raised in Los Angeles, California by Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magón, and under the leadership of José María Leyba and Simón Berthold, successfully take the town of Mexicali, across the border of the United States. Within a few days, the federal forces of Porfirio Díaz in the towns of Tijuana and Ensenada also fall to Magon’s army whose flag bears
Magon's Army
the words “Land and Liberty.” Flores Magón declares, “The entire nation is a volcano on the verge of spouting forth the fire that burns in its bowels. Mexicans, arise to the call of war!” In June, 1911 Magón is arrested and convicted of breaking U.S. neutrality laws. He is sent to Leavenworth prison where he will die in 1922. (SEE DOCUMENT: Magón’s Letter to his attorney Harry Weinberger)
1913 Jovita Idár organizes La Cruz Blanca (The White Cross) to provide medical aid for those wounded during the Mexican Revolution.
October, 1914 Mexican troops detain U.S. Marines at the port of Tampico. President Victoriano Huerta, who has had Francisco Madero killed in a coup and now rules Mexico, apologises for the incident, but refuses to fly the American flag and give a 21-gun salute as demanded by the U.S. military. Hearing that a supply ship is en route to Vera Cruz with munitions for Huerta, President Woodrow Wilson orders U.S. naval forces to attack and occupy the town of Veracruz.
Victoriano Huerta
On April 21, the U.S. invades Vera Cruz killing more than 200 Mexican soldiers who die defending their country. In the aftermath of the U.S. occupation, Victoriano Huerta resigns as President of Mexico and flees to Europe. Elsewhere, more fighting between the competing armies of the Mexican Revolution continues.
February 20, 1915 Basilio Ramos, a supporter of Victoriano Huerta, is caught with “El Plan de San Diego,” a blueprint for the take-over of the American Southwest. The plan calls for an uprising of Mexicans and Black citizens, the killing of all Anglos over the age of 16, and the partitioning of the Southwest into separate territories governed by Mexicans and African Americans. In retaliation, the Texas Rangers conduct raids on Mexicans along the border. (SEE DOCUMENTS: The Plan De San Diego)
General Pancho Villa
Ricardo Flores Magon
1918 Following the failure of his army in Baja California, Ricardo Flores Magón is arrested by United States authorities for violating a newly passed Espionage Act. Because of his continued criticism of the Mexican government, he is convicted of interfering with the U.S. war effort and is sentenced to a 21-year prison sentence. On November 21, 1919 Magón is found dead in his cell at the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. Many historians believe he was strangled by a sadistic prison guard known as “John Bull.” (SEE BIO: Ricardo Flores Magón)
1921 El Orden Hijos de América (Order of the Sons of America) a Mexican American civil rights organization created to fight discrimination and advance education, is formed in San Antonio, Texas. Later it will merge with the Knights of America to form the League of United Latin American Citizens