Monday, November 09, 2015

Raymond Caballero on Mexican Revolutionary General Pascual Orozco and Far West Texas

My latest Marfa Mondays podcast, #20, "Raymond Caballero on Mexican Revolutionary General Pascual Orozco and Far West Texas" is now live and with show notes: 

>> Listen in anytime on podomatic or on iTunes here<<


Raymond Caballero is the author of Lynching Pascual Orozco: Mexican Revolutionary Hero and Paradox, the first major biography in over 40 years of one of the most important figures of the Mexican Revolution. Caballero is also the ex-mayor of El Paso, Texas and, in his words "a recovering lawyer"-- a background that no doubt helped him unravel the conspiracy he found revealed in the one hundred year-old records of the Culberson County Courthouse, apparently intended to cover up what really happened to Pascual Orozco and his men in the High Lonesome Mountains south of Van Horn in 1915. Caballero's Lynching Pascual Orozco is an important contribution to the history of not only the Mexican Revolution, but of the state of Chihuahua and of Far West Texas. 

Quote from the interview:

"There were a lot of Mexicans very upset over the killing of Pascual Orozco... it was a huge controversy... In El Paso, in San Antonio, in Mexico City even President Carranza was asking for explanations... they wanted an investigation. So what happened was, 'whoa! We didn't kill some ordinary horse thief, we killed General Pascual Orozco, the biggest military hero of the early part of the Revolution! And what happens if the Mexicans in El Paso are able to pressure officials and they start a grand jury investigation there?' As a result of the concern that they had, the sheriff of Culberson County did something very unusual..."  

-- Raymond Caballero


Listen to the Corrido del General Pascual Orozco sung by Los Tremendos Gavilanes on YouTube:



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