Savage Yanquis and Enraged Mexicans: Extralegal Justice and Its Representations in Mexico and the US

On May 14th of 1930, in the southeast city of Puebla, in Mexico, Maximino Cerezo assaulted thirteen-year-old girl Luisa Aguilar. Brought to the scene by the girl's screams, a group of neighbors gathered around the man and attempted to "take justice into their own hands." This and other instances of collective violence reported at the time in Puebla resemble the case of girl Olga Camacho and the attempt to lynch Juan Castillo Morales, alias “Juan Soldado,” a Mexican soldier accused of having brutally murdered and raped “la niña Olga” in the border town of Tijuana, in 1938. After Castillo had already been taken under military custody, a group of townspeople demanded justice when they attacked the fort in order to seize and lynch the alleged criminal. While the fort was indeed set on fire, Castillo was “saved” by the military. He was later executed in public following a military trial.

Under the title “In this place, we do not lynch,” an op-ed published by Puebla’s local press strongly condemned the attempted lynching of Castillo Morales. In particular the article attributed the “cannibal” incident to the proximity of “Tijuanenses” to the United States. Reflecting on the centrality of U.S. lynching in public representations of this practice, the op-ed continued with explaining that people who attempted to lynch the soldier were emulating the form of punishment used in “Yanquilandia against blacks who rape girls, setting fire on them, and diabolically dancing around their smoking humanity.”

 The aim of this paper is two-fold. First, locating the place that representations of U.S. lynching had in Mexico’s public understanding of extralegal justice during the 1930s decade. Second, linking the experiences and power dynamics of mob violence in U.S. and Mexico, thus contributing to de-parochialize the history of extralegal justice on both sides of the border.