Judas at the Jockey Club

A detailed Summary of Judas at the Jockey Club

William H. Beezley's Judas at the Jockey Club provides the reader with an accurate in-depth view of a struggling and developing Mexico throughout the Porfirian era up to the year 1910. Beezley considers this period in Mexican history to begin around 1876 and states that the social, political and economic factors are considered as an argument that this period can be seen as the foundation for modern Mexico. The author also examines the ordinary aspects of the every day lives of Mexicans. From sports to recreation, from work to jobs, and from ceremonies to celebrations in order to illustrate the extent to which the two main culture groups of Mexican society, los de arriba (the elite) and los de abajo (the underclass) live their very separate lives.

Beezley's research was extremely extensive, but organized to perfection. He used an impressive amount of different newspapers, magazines, and books to successfully cover the cultural separations and highly defined differences of the two social divisions in the developing nation of Mexico around the turn of the 20th century. The author uses over one hundred different sources to inform the reader that there is much more to Mexican life than seen by the naked eye. However, Beezley could h

In Beezley's second section of Judas at the Jockey Club, he gives a decent portrayal of the lives of the lower class in Mexico. He provides information in great detail to the failures of the Indians and the poor, reasons for economic struggle, and the ignorance of not excepting the technologies of the western world. He criticizes Indians in Mexico for being culturally "backwards". He remarks that rocks and stones are accounted for "all the poor peoples tools"(68). Beezley then criticizes the poor people of Mexico in their clothing, housing, agriculture/irrigation, and also their machinery. What Beezley fails to elaborate, is that the Indians and the poor do not want this change. As a student in Latin American study, I have learned that, yes indeed, there is a problem with defined cultural separation in many countries including Mexico, but the poor people of these countries assume that they need not to change. Beezley fails to further study the reasoning in the poor peoples decision to stay in the past and not to reform to the rest of the world. An explanation of this would have improved his essay in great detail. He blames the poor for being drunkards and "unfavorable to entrepreneurs"(83). With his lack of concentration in the views of the Mexican Indian, I find his statements throughout the second section to be very disheartening and difficult to prove.

With Beezley's failure to display both sides of the spectrum in the second section, his collaboration of ideas and contrasts between the two groups come together in the third section to paint an accurate picture between the culture separation during the Holy Week with the Judas celebratio

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Approximate Word count = 1114
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History