R
eidezel Mendoza is a graduate in history who, after years of gray mediocrity, found his market niche in the relaunch of the most bitter black anti-village legend, positioning himself as a reference for an illiterate right and the PAN of Chihuahua. Part of their marketing consists of the recurring disqualification and often slander against Friedrich Katz, Paco Taibo, Jesús Vargas Valdés and myself. Also, his appearance in programs with characters like Francisco Martín Moreno.
His recent slander against Jesús Vargas, who refuted them with documented elegance, convinces me to start exhibiting it. Before going to the main thing, I will start with his method and his “ethics”. In what I believe is his first book, The rebel riders (2009), presents two or three of the many groups that took up arms in Chihuahua in 1910, whose origins I reviewed in my doctoral thesis, The Northern Division (2006). Mendoza enters the subject on page 19 with the chapter titled “The grievances of the people.” Its initial text is almost identical to what I wrote in my book, in the chapter “The people and their grievances”, but at least it quotes me; He doesn’t put quotes in it or say that the wording is almost the same, but let’s get over it: he quotes me. However, a few paragraphs later he forgets that elementary rule. Writes:
“For decades, the residents of Sateví have been fighting for more than a thousand hectares of the Tres Hermanos hacienda owned by the Zuloaga family, and finally in 1890 they lost the lawsuit (citation at the bottom of the page: AHSRA, 23/12731 and 25/13731, file 2). On March 11, 1908, 300 neighbors made an appeal to the governor demanding the dismissal of the municipal chief (here the document sent by the neighbors is cited, and the footnote quote ‘Letters from the residents of Sateví published in The MailFebruary 18, March 11, March 17 and April 8, 1908…’) the ranchers’ complaints continued throughout 1908 in vain, until in 1909 they stopped sending memorials to the State Government and letters to the newspapers; In 1910, the majority of men in the municipality of Sateví of the age to take up arms rebelled en masse (quotation below: The Mail…August 13, October 24 and November 4, 1908).”
No, he doesn’t quote me here. Let’s now look at my text, on pages 44-46 of my book:
“The neighbors had been disputing for decades more than a thousand hectares of the Tres Hermanos hacienda and in 1890 the hacienda won the lawsuit (footnote: ‘for Satevó, AHSRA, 23/12731 and 25/13731, file 2’)… although the most articulate protest originated in Satevá, where on March 11, 1908, 300 neighbors raised an objection to the governor asking for the dismissal of the municipal head (here, quotes from the document)… The complaints from the residents of Satevó continued throughout 1908, in vain. In 1909 they stopped sending letters to the state authorities and letters to the newspapers and in 1910 they rebelled en masse (footnote: “See the letters from the residents of Satevá in The MailFebruary 18, March 11, March 17 and April 8, 1908. Pay attention to the list of grievances contained in the letter of March 17.
You decide, reader, dear reader, if that is plagiarism or not. In that book and the next ( The San Andrés Fusiliers2011), there are 10, 15, 20 similar examples. That is Reidezel’s method: he paraphrases so that the plagiarized text is not identical and makes it difficult to accuse him of plagiarism, but he blatantly steals sources that he did not consult. For example: AHSRA is the way I cited the AGA (General Agrarian Archive) files. Nobody else cites them like that, but I explained it in my book. Coincidentally, in his list of archives, Mendoza does not cite the AGA, nor any AHSRA (Historical Archive of the Secretariat of Agrarian Reform), but he reproduces exactly my citations and my way of citing. The same with the anti-Porfirista newspaper that I cite as The Mail after explaining why I quote it like that: no one else does. Curious, again.
Furthermore, it is confused and transcribed poorly: for example, the reference to August 13, 1908 is from Official Newspaper of Chihuahuanot of The Mailand does not refer to Sateví, but to San Lorenzo and its conflicts with the arrogant British landowner William Benton. And so 10, 15, 20, 30 times in his two books, with my texts and those of authors such as Jesús Vargas, Santiago Portilla, Rubén Osorio and others. He also inaugurates a nice custom in these books: if someone’s grandson told him, and what the grandson told suits his prejudices, he integrates it without the slightest revision or confrontation.
This, let’s call it Reidezel’s “method”, reaches unsuspected heights in the book with which he began to exploit his market niche (the irrational hatred of Pancho Villa) and his deep disloyalty and ingratitude towards Jesús Vargas, supposedly based on a master’s thesis that we have not been able to find at the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez. We will continue to report, because the case of his “mastery” is very significant.
