Ringside Seat to a Revolution

David Romo's Ringside Seat to a Revolution is a fascinating glimpse into unknown scenes of the Mexican Revolution of 1911. He takes us into El Paso and Juárez-facing one another across the Rio Grande-in the years just before and just after the exciting events of the revolution itself. It is close up and personal history-through the eyes of an extraordinary cast of characters. It is "people's history" at its best.

Romo submits that his book is about what he calls an offbeat collection of individuals who were in El Paso and Juarez during the Mexican Revolution, "one of the most fascinating periods in the region's history." The author, who was raised in El Paso and Juarez, chronicles the point of view of those people whom official histories have considered peripheral to the main events--military band musicians who played Verdi operas during executions, filmmakers who came to the border to make silent movies, female bullfighters, anarchists, poets, spies with Graflex cameras, pool hustlers reborn as postcard salesmen, illegal Chinese aliens, radical feminists, and smugglers. More than 200 archival black-and-white photographs enhance Romo's lively text. They show spectators watching the Battle of Juarez from trains, women drinking from huge glasses at a Juarez bar, a bull killing a matador, a jazz band at an El Paso cafe, and executions. The book sheds new light on a fascinating era.

A project inspired by the anarchic avant-garde "mappings" of the Situationist International, Ringside Seat to a Revolution is a cultural and historical exploration of two geographical sites: cities on either side of the Rio Grande and either side of the Mexico-U.S. border. The author, David Dorado Romo, tells the story of a region marked by hopes and violence of revolutionary energy, delving deeply into the history of individual players through a wide variety of textual and photographic sources. Beautifully written and illustrated, this alternative history cum urban exploration is a treat for readers interested in border culture and politics as well as local history and folklore.

"In a city whose popular history has been portrayed. . .as one inhabited only by gunfighters and conquistadores, it is a breath of fresh air to read about the profound cultural and social influence of the Mexican Revolution and Mexican-origin people."

"The Boston Tea Party of the Southwest was served up along the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas, and it's sister city Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, during the early years if the last century. A series of events, which began in about 1893, triggered what would become the first modern revolution in Latin America.Drawing on contemporary eye witness accounts and archival records, David Dorado Romo, the son of Mexican immigrants, documents this pivotal period of Mexican-American history with a fresh prospective. He documents in rich detail the political renaissance that changed life along the border forever. The bloody conflict to overthrow the Diaz regime was led by the fronterizos, a hybrid group of people, part Mexican and part American, united and determined to bring about both political and social change.Like a gathering storm, the events of 1893 set the stage for the final conflicts that led to the Mexican Revolution of 1911. The years just before and just after the revolution are the among the most important in the region's history. The revolution and the consequences that followed helped establish the odd, uneasy relationship that exists even now between the two cities.The photographs and walking tour of the Mexican revolution sites in both El Paso and Juarez make this stunning book essential. Romo, who is both an essayist and historian, is to be commended for this excellent work. It is highly recommended."

Books: ¡Viva la Revolucion!Women and journalism played an integral role in fomenting revolution at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to David Dorado Romo's Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juárez 1893-1923. Romo documents Mexican insurgency from the first rebellion launched in El Paso to the assassination of Pancho Villa.The author calls his work micro-history because it dwells not on the powerful figures and milestones perennially taught in history classes but on little known but pivotal events and people. Teresita Urrea, for instance, a striking and renowned 22-year-old Mexican healer, arrived in El Paso in 1896. Trained by a Yacqui curandera, Urrea's fame followed her across the border, and thousands of pilgrims camped outside her new home.Although she insisted on her commitment to peace and healing, Romo suggests that the once pacifist Urrea was radicalized. . .like many of her compatriots. . .by the slaughter of Tomóchic villagers in 1892, at the direction of Mexican president Porfirio Diaz. She became affiliated with Mexican intellectual and journalist Lauro Aguirre, who published several incendiary newspapers in El Paso. (More than 40 Spanish-language newspapers flourished in the city during the book's 30-year timeframe.) Photos and letters signed by Urrea were found on rebels killed in Mexican revolts, or "Teresista" attacks.Romo weaves together biographical, historical, and at-first-glance inconsequential facts, from the comical to the tragic, to convey a heady cultural and political intensity among the Mexican population along the border at the time. . .and shatters stereotypes along the way. The big, soft-cover book also has a jazzy graphic design and brims with compelling photographs.

"The book sheds new light on a fascinating era."