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The Mexican

Not who you're looking for? Others named The Mexican: 2001 film by Gore Verbinski · 1955 film by Vladimir Kaplunovskiy · 1984 single by John Benitez · film directed by Carl Heinz Wolff

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Overview

"The Mexican" is a 1911 short story by American author Jack London. Background Written during the Mexican Revolution, while London was in El Paso, Texas, "The Mexican" was first published in the Saturday Evening Post. In 1913, it was republished by Grosset & Dunlap in the collection of short stories The Night Born. The protagonist is based on the real-life "Joe Rivers," the pseudonym of a Mexican revolutionary whose boxing winnings supported the Junta Revolucionaria Mexicana, a group of revolutionaries-in-exile. Joe Rivers eventually retired from boxing and became an ice delivery person in El Paso. Plot summary The story centers around Juan Fernandez, the son of a Mexican printer who had published articles favorable to striking workers in the hydraulic-power plants of Río Blanco, Veracruz. The workers were locked out, and federal troops were sent to kill them. Juan escaped the massacre by climbing over the bodies of the deceased, including those of his mother and father. He makes his way to El Paso, Texas, where he comes into contact with the Junta Revolucionaria Mexicana. Adopting the new name of Felipe Rivera, he volunteers to serve the cause at the office of the Junta, whose personnel suspect his motives and put him to work doing menial labor. Soon, however, he is dispatched to Baja California to reestablish connections between Los Angeles revolutionaries and the peninsula. Exceeding his orders, he assassinates a federal general and returns to El Paso. Rivera surprises his colleagues by occasionally disappearing for days or weeks at a time, then returning with much-needed funds and displaying fresh injuries apparently caused by fighting. Unknown to them, he has begun working on the local boxing circuit, first as a sparring partner for experienced fighters and later moving up to compete in a few bouts of his own. As the Junta scrambles to finance the revolution, Rivera overhears his superiors discussing a shipment of guns needed by the front-line fighters. He suddenly tells them to order the guns and promises to get the $5,000 needed to pay for them within three weeks.

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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Not who you're looking for? Others named The Mexican: 2001 film by Gore Verbinski · 1955 film by Vladimir Kaplunovskiy · 1984 single by John Benitez · film directed by Carl Heinz Wolff

Overview

"The Mexican" is a 1911 short story by American author Jack London. Background Written during the Mexican Revolution, while London was in El Paso, Texas, "The Mexican" was first published in the Saturday Evening Post. In 1913, it was republished by Grosset & Dunlap in the collection of short stories The Night Born. The protagonist is based on the real-life "Joe Rivers," the pseudonym of a Mexican revolutionary whose boxing winnings supported the Junta Revolucionaria Mexicana, a group of revolutionaries-in-exile. Joe Rivers eventually retired from boxing and became an ice delivery person in El Paso. Plot summary The story centers around Juan Fernandez, the son of a Mexican printer who had published articles favorable to striking workers in the hydraulic-power plants of Río Blanco, Veracruz. The workers were locked out, and federal troops were sent to kill them. Juan escaped the massacre by climbing over the bodies of the deceased, including those of his mother and father. He makes his way to El Paso, Texas, where he comes into contact with the Junta Revolucionaria Mexicana. Adopting the new name of Felipe Rivera, he volunteers to serve the cause at the office of the Junta, whose personnel suspect his motives and put him to work doing menial labor. Soon, however, he is dispatched to Baja California to reestablish connections between Los Angeles revolutionaries and the peninsula. Exceeding his orders, he assassinates a federal general and returns to El Paso. Rivera surprises his colleagues by occasionally disappearing for days or weeks at a time, then returning with much-needed funds and displaying fresh injuries apparently caused by fighting. Unknown to them, he has begun working on the local boxing circuit, first as a sparring partner for experienced fighters and later moving up to compete in a few bouts of his own. As the Junta scrambles to finance the revolution, Rivera overhears his superiors discussing a shipment of guns needed by the front-line fighters. He suddenly tells them to order the guns and promises to get the $5,000 needed to pay for them within three weeks.

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).