Soldaderas: Female Mexican Revolutionary Figures, Larger than Life

According to traditional lore, the archetypal figure “Adelita” of the Mexican revolution of 1910 was either a sweetheart who stood by her man or a powerless, destitute, and desperate camp follower who had to work as a prostitute. Today, however, she is being transformed into a brave, independent heroine. She and other soldaderas who lived and died nearly a century ago have become larger than life in the way they are now being recalled in ballads, dances, movies, and works of art. This multimedia presentation will explore the evolving popular imagination surrounding the women who loved, fed, nursed, smuggled, fought, and even occasionally led in the causes of “land and liberty.” Why is it appealing to remember them as super-human figures of enormous valor rather than the flesh-and-blood wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters they also were? What do the songs and murals left behind tell us about shifting gender ideologies in Mexico and in the United States where, among the Chicana and Chicano population, for instance, the soldaderas’ memory is so cherished?

Presenter Profile: Stephanie Wood, Senior Research Associate, CSWS

Stephanie Wood Stephanie Wood grew up in Northern California, picking apples and blueberries in the summers, rubbing shoulders with Mexican workers and becoming fascinated with their language and cultures. She comes from a family that greatly admired the Mexican heritage of California, built an adobe home, and traveled regularly south of the border. As an undergraduate, she lived in Mexico City, doing archival research for a senior thesis on indigenous communities' struggles to defend their lands. Her doctoral dissertation continued in this vein, requiring another year's research in Mexico. Now the author of three books and dozens of articles on Mexican history, Wood is developing a multimedia project about five female icons, whose lives spanned five centuries and whose stories help us understand Mexican history today. Wood is also co-directing the Virtual Mesoamerican Archive and the Mapas Projects, two Internet-based works aimed at advancing Mesoamerican Studies and research into pictorial manuscripts from colonial Mexican indigenous town histories.