Village Well to Host Hernandez – Bad Mexicans; Race, Empire and Revolution

Kelly Lytle Hernandez, author of Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands, will sit down with LA Times Columnist, Gustavo Arellano at the Village Well on June 24, 2022, at 8 pm to get insight on revolution that gave birth to the Mexican-American population. the creation of her book, and the writing process itself.

Kelly Lytle Hernández holds the Thomas E. Lifka Endowed Chair in History and directs the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA. A 2019 MacArthur “Genius” Grant recipient, she is the author of the award-winning books Migra! and City of Inmates. 

Gustavo Arellano is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, covering Southern California everything and a bunch of the West and beyond. He previously worked at OC Weekly, where he was an investigative reporter for 15 years and editor for six, wrote a column called ¡Ask a Mexican! and is the author of “Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America.” He’s the child of two Mexican immigrants, one of whom came to this country in the trunk of a Chevy.

Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands tells the dramatic story of the magonistas, the migrant rebels who sparked the 1910 Mexican Revolution from the United States. Led by a brilliant but ill-tempered radical named Ricardo Flores Magón, the magonistas were a motley band of journalists, miners, migrant workers, and more, who organized thousands of Mexican workers—and Amercan dissidents—to their cause – ousting Mexico’s dictator, Porfirio Díaz. Taking readers to the frontlines of the magonista uprising and the counterinsurgency campaign that failed to stop them, Kelly Lytle Hernández puts the magonista revolt at the heart of U.S. history. Long ignored by textbooks, the magonistas threatened to undo the rise of Anglo-American power, on both sides of the border, and inspired a revolution that gave birth to the Mexican-American population, making the magonistas’ story integral to modern American life.

This event is free, no registration is required!