The Mexico Podcast: History & Present

In this episode we examine the "1994" docu-series on Netflix. Check out https://www.digitalnomad.mx/spanish before January 7, 2020 if you want to join the How to Master Spanish course and get 41 billion bonuses for a price so low that I would get fired if I were working for someone else. After January 7, the price goes up. You can still join the course after January 7, but you won't be able to send me an email saying, "Seriously, Brandon, you're undercharging like crazy. And in fact, the low, low price is making me extremely upset. How dare you."  

Sources and links This disclaimer is unnecessary, but I’m gonna include it anyway: We all know how the internet works. Any of the links included here might disappear from existence at any time. The Wayback Machine is usually pretty good at archiving things, but not always.   -Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan. John L. Stephens. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SRVTN2T/ (I can’t vouch for the quality of this version of Incidents of Travel. I found a physical copy of the first 2 volumes. Since the book is in the public domain, anybody can republish it with zero quality control.)   -Jungle of Stone: The Extraordinary Journey of John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya. William Carlsen. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0105V62Z0/   -History of Belize: From Mayan Settlement To Melting Pot. Kathleen Peddicord.  https://medium.com/liveandinvestoverseas/history-of-belize-from-mayan-settlement-to-melting-pot-58205831902   -Ancient Mayan civilisation 'was WIPED OUT by deforestation.'  https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1005952/Ancient-Mayan-civilisation-deforestation-science-world?fbclid=IwAR0EbLUTGcW7V2euZrqtf98IFUbeIa-iFvIk3Iqiv64NKd2NhsMlNWNfMiM   -What happened to the ancient Mayans?  https://www.history101.com/mayan-mystery/?fbclid=IwAR0yv8v29E_GlvS_LI8S_4mHIvF0CTXBi5l4_5_UJojGUGl13LKQ0IPI5Jk   -There aren’t any good videos about Tonina that I could find. It’s a relatively unknown place. The first two videos below are in Spanish and the second two have no narration.   -Tonina documentary by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb6xzOvDEPo   -This video makes you feel like you’re taking a guided tour of Tonina: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayWEkXoJDiU   -Or if you prefer no talking, check out this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZjzWy-S2Hc   -Drone footage, no narration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxGS_Cxu7RY   -Daguerreotype video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Ambe4FwQk   The Mayan Soul.  https://yucatanliving.com/culture/the-mayan-concept-of-soul?fbclid=IwAR2oUkG2moHkmteDCnY6uMdu3lecbdtYOPdtXOh0qme8wY67Rt2mESeVqbM

Sources and links This disclaimer is unnecessary, but I’m gonna include it anyway: We all know how the internet works. Any of the links included here might disappear from existence at any time. The Wayback Machine is usually pretty good at archiving things, but not always.   -Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan. John L. Stephens. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SRVTN2T/ (I can’t vouch for the quality of this version of Incidents of Travel. I found a physical copy of the first 2 volumes. Since the book is in the public domain, anybody can republish it with zero quality control.)   -Jungle of Stone: The Extraordinary Journey of John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya. William Carlsen. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0105V62Z0/   -History of Belize: From Mayan Settlement To Melting Pot. Kathleen Peddicord.  https://medium.com/liveandinvestoverseas/history-of-belize-from-mayan-settlement-to-melting-pot-58205831902   -Ancient Mayan civilisation 'was WIPED OUT by deforestation.'  https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1005952/Ancient-Mayan-civilisation-deforestation-science-world?fbclid=IwAR0EbLUTGcW7V2euZrqtf98IFUbeIa-iFvIk3Iqiv64NKd2NhsMlNWNfMiM   -What happened to the ancient Mayans?  https://www.history101.com/mayan-mystery/?fbclid=IwAR0yv8v29E_GlvS_LI8S_4mHIvF0CTXBi5l4_5_UJojGUGl13LKQ0IPI5Jk   -There aren’t any good videos about Tonina that I could find. It’s a relatively unknown place. The first two videos below are in Spanish and the second two have no narration.   -Tonina documentary by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb6xzOvDEPo   -This video makes you feel like you’re taking a guided tour of Tonina: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayWEkXoJDiU   -Or if you prefer no talking, check out this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZjzWy-S2Hc   -Drone footage, no narration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxGS_Cxu7RY   -Daguerreotype video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Ambe4FwQk   The Mayan Soul.  https://yucatanliving.com/culture/the-mayan-concept-of-soul?fbclid=IwAR2oUkG2moHkmteDCnY6uMdu3lecbdtYOPdtXOh0qme8wY67Rt2mESeVqbM

Sources and links This disclaimer is unnecessary, but I’m gonna include it anyway: We all know how the internet works. Any of the links included here might disappear from existence at any time. The Wayback Machine is usually pretty good at archiving things, but not always.   -Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan. John L. Stephens. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SRVTN2T/ (I can’t vouch for the quality of this version of Incidents of Travel. I found a physical copy of the first 2 volumes. Since the book is in the public domain, anybody can republish it with zero quality control.)   -Jungle of Stone: The Extraordinary Journey of John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya. William Carlsen. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0105V62Z0/   -History of Belize: From Mayan Settlement To Melting Pot. Kathleen Peddicord.  https://medium.com/liveandinvestoverseas/history-of-belize-from-mayan-settlement-to-melting-pot-58205831902   -Ancient Mayan civilisation 'was WIPED OUT by deforestation.'  https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1005952/Ancient-Mayan-civilisation-deforestation-science-world?fbclid=IwAR0EbLUTGcW7V2euZrqtf98IFUbeIa-iFvIk3Iqiv64NKd2NhsMlNWNfMiM   -What happened to the ancient Mayans?  https://www.history101.com/mayan-mystery/?fbclid=IwAR0yv8v29E_GlvS_LI8S_4mHIvF0CTXBi5l4_5_UJojGUGl13LKQ0IPI5Jk   -There aren’t any good videos about Tonina that I could find. It’s a relatively unknown place. The first two videos below are in Spanish and the second two have no narration.   -Tonina documentary by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb6xzOvDEPo   -This video makes you feel like you’re taking a guided tour of Tonina: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayWEkXoJDiU   -Or if you prefer no talking, check out this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZjzWy-S2Hc   -Drone footage, no narration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxGS_Cxu7RY   -Daguerreotype video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Ambe4FwQk   The Mayan Soul.  https://yucatanliving.com/culture/the-mayan-concept-of-soul?fbclid=IwAR2oUkG2moHkmteDCnY6uMdu3lecbdtYOPdtXOh0qme8wY67Rt2mESeVqbM

Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TN7ZTXR/         Two friends sailed to Central America in 1839 looking for evidence of a lost civilization. Their journey took them through countries torn by civil war and controlled by bandits and rebels. When they weren't being held hostage, contracting malaria, or meeting Presidents and guerrilla leaders, they found themselves among mystifying ancient cities slowly being reclaimed by nature. Elaborately carved stone statues were buried by time, and massive pyramids were covered with incomprehensible hieroglyphics.   These two men were pivotal in the rediscovery of the Mayan civilization. Their books inspired generations of archaeologists to excavate and preserve Mayan sites like Chichen Itza, Palenque, and Tulum. And their illustrations were so accurate that they have been used to help decode the Mayan language even though the original stone hieroglyphics have been effaced and worn away.   Their names are John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood. They have been largely forgotten, but their story and their thrilling adventure is worth remembering.   Sources and links This disclaimer is unnecessary, but I’m gonna include it anyway: We all know how the internet works. Any of the links included here might disappear from existence at any time. The Wayback Machine is usually pretty good at archiving things, but not always.   -Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan. John L. Stephens. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SRVTN2T/ (I can’t vouch for the quality of this version of Incidents of Travel. I found a physical copy of the first 2 volumes. Since the book is in the public domain, anybody can republish it with zero quality control.)   -Jungle of Stone: The Extraordinary Journey of John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya. William Carlsen. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0105V62Z0/   -History of Belize: From Mayan Settlement To Melting Pot. Kathleen Peddicord.  https://medium.com/liveandinvestoverseas/history-of-belize-from-mayan-settlement-to-melting-pot-58205831902   -Ancient Mayan civilisation 'was WIPED OUT by deforestation.'  https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1005952/Ancient-Mayan-civilisation-deforestation-science-world?fbclid=IwAR0EbLUTGcW7V2euZrqtf98IFUbeIa-iFvIk3Iqiv64NKd2NhsMlNWNfMiM   -What happened to the ancient Mayans?  https://www.history101.com/mayan-mystery/?fbclid=IwAR0yv8v29E_GlvS_LI8S_4mHIvF0CTXBi5l4_5_UJojGUGl13LKQ0IPI5Jk   -There aren’t any good videos about Tonina that I could find. It’s a relatively unknown place. The first two videos below are in Spanish and the second two have no narration.   -Tonina documentary by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb6xzOvDEPo   -This video makes you feel like you’re taking a guided tour of Tonina: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayWEkXoJDiU   -Or if you

Wanna learn Spanish? (Or English?) Subscribe to my email list for a free guide that will show you the path. It's here: https://www.digitalnomad.mx/   If you're not interested in that, but you want to support the podcast, the best way is to buy The Fall of Tenochtitlan ebook: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01E03WMQ2   But seriously, you should just join the email list even if you're not interested in learning Spanish. There's a LOT of Mexico-related stuff going down in the email list. Subscribe here: https://www.digitalnomad.mx/   The Malinche article is here: http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/spanish-conquest/dona-marina-part-1 And here: http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/spanish-conquest/dona-marina-part-2  

Read Diane Douglas' article here: https://medium.com/a-remarkable-education/why-the-virgin-of-guadalupe-lives-in-every-heart-in-mexico-442e72aaea88 She wrote a series of great articles on the same website. Check them out if you have time.   Other sources: Mexico: Biography of Power - Enrique Krauze Life and Times of Mexico - Earl Shorris

Read the article here: https://www.thedailybeast.com/chapultepec-the-mexican-castle-that-drove-a-belgian-princess-to-madness-and-an-austrian-archduke-to-the-firing-squad

The article can be found here: https://medium.com/@ibiworld/how-to-pronounce-el-paso-the-fine-art-of-pronouncing-foreign-words-e69bc8592a98   Video mentioned: https://www.facebook.com/perolike/videos/1822194667867916/  

Check out the new Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mexicopodcast   The 1908 article about Porfirio Diaz can be found here: http://www.emersonkent.com/historic_documents/creelman_interview_1908_pdf.htm

Check out the new Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mexicopodcast   The 1908 article about Porfirio Diaz can be found here: http://www.emersonkent.com/historic_documents/creelman_interview_1908_pdf.htm

   The resources for this episode are: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170725-the-confusing-way-mexicans-tell-time   https://www.mexperience.com/pride-and-prejudice-the-naco-versus-the-fresa/   I also quoted from the book "The Life and Times of Mexico" by Earl Shorris, which is very good.

And go check out the article from today's episode: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180527-the-mexican-art-of-double-entendre  

Spain and England colonized the Americas in very different ways. That led to different cultural values, which led to different constitutions. Mexico has had to update and rewrite the Constitution several times since the first one in 1824, because that one was a disaster. So let’s talk about how that constitution came to life.   Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808, and sent the nation into a crisis. In September of that year King Ferdinand was captured, and he abdicated the throne. In response to this, several Spanish administrators declared themselves the new government, basically a government in resistance to the French. They formed a parliament that produced the Cadiz Constitution in 1812, which called for equality under the law, and a more democratic legal system. Now the rulers of Latin America had to decide how to respond to this. They had been loyal to the Spanish Crown, which had put them in the positions they were in. But now Spain was preoccupied with the invasion, and so the Latin American rulers were given a little more space to make their own rules. Independence and The Constitution But Spain wasn’t totally distracted. A wave of independence spread over Latin America. The first movement was in La Paz, Bolivia in 1809. Spain sent troops from Peru to crush that one. The Mexican response to the Spanish crisis was complicated by a movement in 1810 led by a priest called Miguel Hidalgo. Hidalgo and his men sacked the city of Guanajuato and then started killing every white person they could find. The line between class warfare and ethnic cleansing totally disappeared. Mexico’s elite at that time was largely white, and as they watched that little example of popular participation in local politics, they remembered the Cadiz Constitution, which called for even more popular participation. They could never embrace that kind of document. So Mexico’s elite stayed loyal to the Spanish Crown. In 1815 Napoleon’s empire collapsed and King Ferdinand took the throne again. But he now faced mutinies and was forced to recognize the Cadiz Constitution as well as the parliament that had written it. The parliament was now becoming more radical and was calling for the abolition of slavery. The Mexican elites watched this as well. They no longer had an ally in the Spanish Crown, so they decided independence was a better fate than adopting the Cadiz Constitution. Those elites wanted Mexico to become its own independent constitutional monarchy. The man who led their independence movement decided that he should be the emperor. And he wasted no time giving himself dictatorial powers. He didn’t last long, but the cycle of dictatorship, coup, dictatorship, coup haunted Mexico for about a hundred years. During those hundred years Mexico endured the disastrous misrule of Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, the guy who attacked The Alamo and lost the Mexican-American War. The extreme political instability in Mexico during the 1800s was, obviously, disastrous. Mexico lost about half of its territory during this period, including basically all of the American southwest. Since the arrival of the Spanish, the Mexican elite had structured their society entirely around slave labor and monopolies, AKA extractive economic institutions. So after hundreds of years of those extractive policies, by the time the Industrial Revolution rolled around, Mexico was in no place to take advantage of it. In the United States in the early 1900s, people from most walks of life could get a patent to develop products. Once you had a patent, you could get a loan from a bank to start a business. By 1914 there were almost 28,000 banks in the U.S., and the competition was fierce. In Mexico at that same time, there were about 40 banks, and no competition among them, meaning there was no incentive for a bank to provide a better service than the bank down the street. Since there was no competition, t

Intro Before we get into today’s episode, I want to take a second to plug a pretty cool thing I made that can really help out anybody who has learned a little bit of Spanish and wants to go much deeper. It is the Mexican Spanish Master course. It’s 90 minutes of video lessons about Mexican slang, culture, and profanity. You can download the videos, the audio files, as well as the transcripts, and listen to the course in your spare time. This course did not exist when I needed it to exist, but it does exist now, and you don’t have to spend hundreds of hours listening to people say these words but not understanding them, and then slowly putting together a vocab list of new words that your teachers never bothered to tell you about because they were teaching you a generic international Spanish. If this sounds interesting, check out digitalnomad.mx and scroll down right below the email signup form, and you can join The Mexican Spanish Master Course. That’s it. Let’s get into the show. Nogales VS Nogales My research for The Mexican Revolution took me on several detours. One of those detours was the Labyrinth of Solitude. Another detour was Why Nations Fail. If I could go back in time to when I was 18 or 19, when I was deciding to go to college and thinking about majoring in Global Studies, which is the ridiculous Marxist version of Poli Sci and International Relations, I would say tell myself first of all not to major in Global Studies because it would be a colossal waste of time, and I would tell myself, “If you really want to understand global development, college will not explain it to you. You should start with two books. One of those books is Why Nations Fail. The other is Guns, Germs, and Steel.” In college I had to read a ton of irrelevant nonsense: Postmodern imbeciles like Horkheimer and Adorno, Foucault, and a bunch of other people whose appraisal of global development is so flawed that it’s honestly baffling to me that anybody takes them seriously in the 21st century. These two books basically took my Bachelor’s degree, threw it in the garbage, set it on fire, and then spit in my face. They showed me that my degree is EVEN LESS VALUABLE than a Gender Studies degree. I graduated with a piece of paper that’s worth less than Comparative Literature. But Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson, and Jared Diamond have at least helped me stop believing the total nonsense I believed in my 20’s. I can’t turn back the clock, but I can hopefully serve as a warning to anybody who’s thinking about going down the same stupid road I went down. Don’t do it. Just read the two books I mentioned. Why Nations Fail and Guns, Germs, and Steel offer arguments that in some ways compete with each other and in some ways complement each other. Right away in the first chapter of Why Nations Fail, they smacked me so hard that my face still hurts. The simplest way to understand the basic argument of the book is to look at the differences between Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. And then North Korea vs South Korea. The differences between those places are not explained by geography or culture. These are places separated only by a little fence, not by oceans and not by cultures. Just a fence. There are differences in culture, especially between North and South Korea, but they didn’t start that way. And those cultural differences didn’t cause the South Korea to win and North Korea to fail. Acemoglu and Robinson argue that the real determining factors in a country’s prosperity are its economic and political institutions. To put it in as plain language as I can, the countries with good institutions are prosperous while the countries with bad institutions fail. To be clear, Acemoglu and Robinson aren’t calling them “good” and “bad” institutions. I am. The language the authors use is inclusive institutions and extractive institut

This is part 2 in a 2-part series on Labyrinth of Solitude. In this episode I’m going to perform a quick medical diagnosis of one of the best books written about Mexico. And also one of the most self-indulgent and cringeworthy books ever written. First we’re gonna talk about teenagers, then we’re gonna talk about Coca-Cola, and then we’re gonna talk about the major, glaring flaw with this book, because huge parts of Octavio Paz’s masterpiece are completely unreadable, while other parts are completely perfect.  This is not an attempt to summarize the book. If you’ve ever read it, you probably understand how difficult a task that would be. If you haven’t read it, it’s an impossible task. So rather than condensing it, I’ll instead point out some of the parts that were most interesting to me.  The Pachuco and Other Extremes Paz writes that many of the thoughts that inspired him to write Labyrinth of Solitude came to him when he was in the United States. He wanted to understand American culture, but he kept seeing himself reflected in his questions about American customs. He writes about a chicano subculture called Pachucos. They got their style of dress from a character called Tin Tan, played by the actor German Valdes, in the early 1950s. The guy was somewhere between The Fonz from Happy Days, Charlie Chaplin, and Robert De Niro’s take on The Godfather, as opposed to Marlon Brando. Octavio Paz says the Pachuco style came as a response to being Mexican in racist-Post War America. Pachucos were adolescents who didn’t want to go back to being Mexican, but also didn’t want to try to pass as white. And in my own estimation the Pachuco falls into the trap every adolescent falls into: Trying to prove his/her distinctness and individuality by totally conforming to the rigid rules of whatever subculture or counterculture they gravitate towards. Paz writes that the adolescent cannot forge himself, because when a person finally forges themselves, they are no longer an adolescent. According to Paz, the Pachuco is the product of two irreconcilable worlds: Mexico and the United States. In my opinion the adolescent mind is tortured by that supposed dichotomy and therefore lashes out. The adolescent wants to fit in somewhere, because an adolescent is still a child and still wants someone to protect him. By taking on the outward appearance of a particular subculture, the adolescent hopes that subculture will protect him from the hardships of the world. This is possibly why pop stars like Selena as well as academics find themselves struggling incessantly with biculturality. Selena was 23 when she died. That’s only slightly older than a college graduate. And anyone who spends their entire life in a college will probably not mature very much beyond that point. So we find people like Gloria Anzaldua who are much older than people like Selena but who still write about how tortured they are by being between two cultures. The adolescent mind of a pop star in their early 20s and the adolescent mind of a career academic need to go through a long process before forging themselves into adulthood. I’m reading another book about Mexico…which, duh, obviously. But I came across something by another writer that completely validates Octavio Paz’s explanation of mexicanness. It’s about Coca-Cola. Oppenheimer/Coca-Cola If you want to be politically fashionable in Western liberal democracies in 2017, you can never even imply that a gigantic multinational corporation could ever be right about anything in any way. Ever. Well, since I turned 30 I’ve stopped caring about the contemporary political orthodoxy. So screw it. Coca-Cola is right about something. They wanted to boost sales of Diet Coke in Mexico, so they did a study. When a huge corporation has billions of dollars on the line, their studies aren’t arbitrary and they don’t play