Bad Mexicans

Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands

By: Kelly Lytle Hernández

Narrated by: Joana Garcia

Bad Mexicans tells the dramatic story of the magonistas, the migrant rebels who sparked the 1910 Mexican Revolution from the United States. Led by a brilliant but ill-tempered radical named Ricardo Flores Magon, the magonistas were a motley band of journalists, miners, migrant workers, and more, who organized thousands of Mexican workers—and American dissidents—to their cause. Determined to oust Mexico's dictator, Porfirio Diaz, the rebels had to outrun and outsmart the swarm of US authorities vested in protecting the Diaz regime. The US Departments of War, State, Treasury, and Justice, as well as police, sheriffs, and spies, hunted the magonistas across the country.

But the magonistas persevered. They lived in hiding, wrote in secret code, and launched armed raids into Mexico until they ignited the world's first social revolution of the twentieth century.

Taking listeners to the frontlines of the magonista uprising and the counterinsurgency campaign that failed to stop them, Kelly Lytle Hernández puts the magonista revolt at the heart of US history. Long ignored by textbooks, the magonistas threatened to undo the rise of Anglo-American power, on both sides of the border, and inspired a revolution that gave birth to the Mexican-American population, making the magonistas' story integral to modern American life.

©2022 Kelly Lytle Hernández (P)2022 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

The book was good but the reading is not

But this reading is so choppy and awkward I have to send it back.
The reason is the obvious fact that the performer is unfamiliar with spanish names. She reads Spanish words as though each word is such an accomplishment, it is very distracting from the text of this book.

A compelling story of rebellion

A real life story of rebels against the empire seen many times over in today’s pop culture. These are the lives and tribulations of people that actually went through it. A fundamental tale of the Mexican American experience.

DNF

I had to stop the audio. Pronunciation of names and locations were a sin, really bad. I’ll have to read this book the traditional way which is a route I don’t do often lately. But the content was good.

Brutal Pronounciation

Why oh why destroy this great text with someone who has never uttered the name of a Mexican town or city before? Every time I hear potosi like a do see do, versus Potosí, I cringe.

Unbearable reader/Relevant historic read

Cannot understand choosing a narrator who can't pronounce Spanish at any level. Destroys the book. But a good book overall, historically accurate and relevant today.

The story was OK but the narration was attrocious.

I can not believe they would allow this to be sold. Joana Garcia did not even try to pronounce names and locations well. And reading quotes was horrible. Learn Spanish or at least how to pronounce phonetically the words and names you were reading. I found it offensive that they would allow this to audio to publish. Can't say how horrible it was. Every time she repeated a name or place it was like hearing nails on a chalk board. Never again. Publishers did a disservice to the work of Kelly Lytle Hernandez.

Great book, but why is the narrator so bad?

Great book, story, but why is Dora the explorer narrating? in English or Spanish her enunciation is awful. I can't believe you couldn't find a hispanic narrator that can pronounce correctly both languages. it's just disrespectful that an important mexican-american story is given so little thought on getting an appropriate voice in the audio book.
Even her English sounds artificial. Can't even pronounce crypto correctly, I'm English!
The important work done by Mrs. Hernandez is affected by this poorly chosen narrator.

great historical information despite the narrator.

it would be better read than listening to the audiobook. narrator is excruciatingly bad in her pronunciations which create unnecessary distraction.

Excellent history; horrible narrator

This is an excellent history of pre-revolutionary Mexico, the dictatorship of Profirió Diaz, American Imperialism, and the revolutionary minds that advocated for land and liberty in Mexico.

The author, Kelly Lytle Hernandez has done an excellent job of covering the early revolutionary agitators including the Flores Magon brothers.

She also covered how American corporate interests exploited Mexican workers physically and economically created unrest amongst the Mexican poor. Americans such as Doheny, Huntington, and Rockefeller reaped huge profits while paying workers fifty cents a week for their labor and long hours.

The details she included are important to assist in understanding how American influence helped create the Mexican Revolution.

Unfortunately, the narrator was horrible. She regularly mispronounced the most basic Spanish language names and words. Spanish is a smooth, flowing language. The vowels are always pronounced the same, but are not pronounced as they are in English. Hearing her mispronounce words repeatedly became as grating and annoying as fingernails on a chalkboard. Shame on the producer and director of this production for casting someone who speaks Spanish so poorly. The brave people in this history have a right to be addressed properly and not have their names mispronounced in the telling of their history.

Awesome

The ending was just as fabulous as the beginning, I'm gonna recommend this book to anyone I meet. Thank you for enlightening me. Recommend me more on the same subject.