Overview of The Mexican Soldadera

Who am I?

Too many it seems odd that in the times of the revolution I would go to war because I am a woman. So what I want you to first understand is the circumstances in which many women and myself found ourselves at the time. For the federal army under President Victoriano Huerta, the male soldiers were forced to enlist and go fight. With the men not having a choice many of us were faced with having our husbands and brothers leave us for a long period. Many of us wanted to keep our families together. If I stayed home I would be unprotected in the middle of a tumultuous revolution. Some of the women here say that their husbands forced them to accompany them to battle.

While it is true many of us were forced by our husbands to accompany them many of us came voluntarily. By 1913 President Huerta began drafting women and thus forcing many of us to make contributions to the federal army. Many of us were placed in charge of tasks like working in the state controlled power mills, or serving as chefs to the troops.

Role of the Soldadera

We would transport goods, cook meals, set up camp sites, and carry the equipment for the soldiers. We were said to almost always be spotted carrying cooking utensils, cooking equipment, plants and animals. Many of us soldaderas were also invaluable to preparing and assisting the male soldiers fighting in combat.

Us soldaderas also made other significant contributions to our armies. Following a battle, we would raid the corpses of soldiers in search of valuable loot and other goods. In the combat itself we would accompany the troops and would fig ht side by side with men and we served as nurses. We would aid and bandage the soldiers, and even carry them back to base on oxen.

Finally we were smugglers who would bring ammunition, medicine and other goods to Mexic

o from the United States. We were the best smugglers because American border officers did not suspect us women as having any attachment to the war.

Why don't you hear about us?

Us Soldaderas were many times classified simply as camp followers or prostitutes. Perhaps male chauvinism played a part in denying or minimizing the truth that female Soldaderas often stood shoulder to shoulder with male soldiers and fought to the death. What can I say machismo is a large art of my culture then and even today.

If we live on at all in the culture of present day Mexico it is usually because we have caught the eye of moviemakers, song writers and novelists. This is called a fictionalized " Adelita", a girl with a heart of gold who was the "sweetheart of the troops" that became the heroine of countless corridos. Corridos are songs of romance often accompanied by a guitar. Unfortunately these songs and movies portray a woman who had many romantic relationships and rivalries with other soldaderas but finally ends up redeeming herself as true patriots. It is sad to say that these songs, movies, even ballets, have perpetuated an image of a Mexican womanSoldadera as a sex symbol rather than a true soldier which is what we were.

Now the story is not one sided I know that it is true that the vast majority of the Mexican women who were involved with the military were non-combatants but it is also factual that thousands of us lost our lives while performing their very necessary tasks. Because many of my compañeras did become involved sexually with the soldiers they served it has become too easy to dismiss all of them as simply prostitutes or else simply ignore our existence.

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