One Hundred years after Mexico’s Independence from Spain, the people was angry because they were being exploited by the government, there were only a few rich men who had control over the entire land and the rest of the population was living in poverty. President Porfirio Diaz refused to give up power and stayed in the presidential chair for 35 years. The revolution started in 1910 and concluded in 1920.
Francisca Zorrosa Diaz was born in Oaxaca in 1911 and moved to Mexico City after the revolution, she is my grandmother and “Las Soldaderas” was inspired by her. However the story is completely fictional and draws inspiration from many stories of the strong women called Soldaderas.
During the Mexican Revolution many women were involved in the action, whether it was through force, or by free will. Fighters such as Petra (Pedro) Herrera, Maria Quinteras de Meras and Angela (Angel) Jimenez were some of the most notable women who fought in the war and were actually part of Pancho Villa’s army. Inspired by both the true stories of these women who fought in the revolution and the story of Pepe’s great-grandmother, we put them together to highlight roles of women in the war. Francisca, the main character, represents not only the women that became soldiers, but also how she was forced into it through the need of protection, which also applied to the women who left with the rest of her male family members to avoid being left behind alone and vulnerable to attacks. With Carmen’s character, we wanted to portray how women also played a part in the war through their medical support. This was especially important for the revolutionaries, because during the war, the Red Cross refused to help the revolutionary soldiers.
There are many stories about the Mexican revolution, the book Los de Abajo (The under Dogs) gives the revolution a less heroic treatment and portrays soldiers raping women and braking into civilian houses. This book was one of the first sources of inspiration, and after some research we found an article that quotes the work of Gabriela Cano called Soldaderas y coronelas this was one of the major sources of inspiration, learning about this brave woman gave the main character more realism and a purpose and also helped us set the environment in which the story takes place.
Creating the dialogue was the most challenging part, we wanted to keep it simple and authentic, we decided to use some Spanish words and phrases that helped us give a foreign feel to the story.
We wanted to be as accurate as possible in regards dates and places. We wanted to use real battles and that’s why we wrote about La toma de Zacatecas, one of the fiercest battles of the revolution, but also one of the most important. According to the chronology published by the Mexican Senate in 2010. After the victory over Zacatecas, Villa went to Mexico City in December of 1914
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