The Ethics of Intervention: US Writers and the Mexican Revolution

• Published in: Journal of American studies 2016-08, Vol.50 (3), p.613-638
• Main Author: O'NEILL, KIMBERLY
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: American literature; Ethics; International relations; Journalists; Latin American history; Latin language; Mexico; Porter, Katherine Anne (1890-1980); Revolution; Revolutions; Rhetoric; United States
• ISSN: 0021-8758; 1469-5154
• DOI: 10.1017/S0021875815002650

During the Mexican Revolution (1910–20), stories of dangerous bandits, rebels, dictators, and Indians defined Mexico for US audiences. Most scholars assume that these narratives reinforce the conventional rhetoric of Latin savagery that justifies US imperialism, but this essay reveals an array of writers who told such stories to undermine state power and contest military intervention. Three of the era's best-known leftist journalists, John Kenneth Turner, John Reed, and Katherine Anne Porter, craft a discourse of activism to help the US public imagine themselves as participants in a new hemispheric democracy. These writers posit moral bonds between the US and Mexico that exceed the expansionist interests of politicians and industrialists. Their vision was embodied in the trope of the foreign correspondent, an American who could physically enter Mexican territory, witness the crimes and heroisms of the revolution, and relay the voices of the Mexicans whose lives were at stake in the conflict. Turner, Reed, and Porter hope that journalists can inspire democratic fraternity between the US and Mexican peoples. They also set the terms and conventions utilized by radical humanitarian journalists for decades to come.