Judas At The Jockey Club Summary

Throughout the Porfirian era Mexico had struggled to develop as a country and move towards any steps of progress up until the year of 1910. In William H. Beezley’s book Judas at the Jockey Club he considers this period on Mexican history to begin around 1876 and he points out many of the social, economic, and political factors that helped shape the foundation for modern Mexico. Beezley also looks at some of the regular aspects of the daily lives of Mexicans. Whether it be the sports and recreations, ceremonies and celebrations, or jobs and work that are part of the Mexicans everyday live, he uses these aspects to illustrate the extent of the two main culture groups of Mexican society. The two main culture groups in Mexico were the Los de Arriba,

Many of these countries faced the same problems in their economic development during the turn of the 19th century. Mexico is seen to being very highly influenced by its neighbors with elites often adopting themes that are successful in other countries. These newly adopted ideas that the elites brought about to the country created a large divide within the social classes due to ignorance in wanting to modernize. The Los de Abajo’s and the Los de Arriba’s, the social classes in Mexico often clashed in what they believed was right for Mexico and found it very hard to come to terms with each other. Judas burning and violence throughout the religious holy week did not aid to bringing these two classes together either. In conclusion we can see that Beezley brings out the fact that Latin American society was not all on board the road to progress, really brining out the image that it was common in Latin America for the imbalance between the upper and lower classes. Much of the elites movements towards progress led them to success while leaving the rest of the lower classes. We see much of these same struggles in plenty of Latin American countries and it all takes the right man