Revista de Estudios Sociales

rev. estud. soc. | eISSN 1900-5180 | ISSN 0123-885X

Immigrant Entrepreneurs, Bread, and Worker Protest in Porfirian Mexico City

No. 29 (2008-04-01)
  • Robert Weis
https://doi.org/10.7440/res29.2008.04

Abstract

This article examines the insertion of Basque immigrants from the Baztan Valley, in the province of Navarre, into the wheat-flour-bread complex of late-nineteenth century Mexico City. Additionally, it describes labor conditions in the bakeries they owned and analyzes the place of workers in the Mexico of Porfirio Díaz. In contrast to the historiographical tendency to present immigrant entrepreneurs, and the Porfirian state, as forces of capitalist modernization, the article shows that, with important exceptions, bakeries remained archaic and precapitalist in order to permit the integration of the constant stream of nephews that linked Mexico City and the Baztán Valley. It also argues that the bakery workers, who suffered terrible conditions in the bakery workshops, pushed for a labor regime more in line with capitalism, which, according to popular notions of liberalism, would acknowledge their basic rights as citizens.

Keywords: Mexico City, Basque immigrants, bakeries, workers’ movement, Porfiriato

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