De León reviews Balo's War

Balo’s War: A Novel About the Plan of San Diego

by Alfredo E. Cárdenas, (Corpus Christi: MCM Books, 2015)

(This coming Sunday, July 16 at 2 p.m., I will be making a presentation and signing books on my historical novel Balo's War. The event will be at La Brasadas El Encuentro in Rios, located at the old Catholic Church (click the link to get directions on Google Maps. I hope to see many of you there. If you can't make it tell a friend. Unfortunately, I am low on books at the moment but I will have some for sale and autographing. If I run out and you would like an autographed copy I will take orders and ship them to you within two weeks. Otherwise, you can also order the book on Amazon. Thanks for your continued support and I look forward to seeing you there. Please read the excellent review below if you are unfamiliar with the book. You can also read a sample chapter of Balo's War by clicking here.)

Scholars have found the Plan de San Diego (PSD) of great interest and for decades have produced a large body of works on the incident, in doing so expanding on fields such as Tejano history, Borderlands history, or Mexican history.  Most recently, historians Charles H. Harris and Louis R. Sadler published the episode’s most comprehensive scholarly study under the title of The Plan de San Diego: Tejano Rebellion, Mexican Intrigue (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013).  What lacks at this point, however, is a source that fills the needs of the reading public and instructs it on the dimensions of this struggle that burst forth in South Texas in the year 1915.  Alfredo E. Cárdenas’s Balo’s War: A Novel About the Plan of San Diego (Corpus Christi: MCM Books, 2015) addresses that call. 

Cárdenas is unusually qualified to write such a volume and to characterize community life in South Texas.  Born and raised in the region, he heard tales about Mexicano community building there.  As a native Spanish speaker, he aptly dominated the language in its many linguistic variations, including its standard mode, its code-switching form, its vernacular application, and its usage (at least within a masculine sphere) of vulgarities.  From Duval County, Cárdenas knows the area first-hand, as evident in his descriptions of its geography, topography, and ecology, as well as in his command of the region’s place names and town sites.  Informed on matters of long-standing traditions and customs, such as the naming of children, he relies on local practices to identify some of his characters, such as Severa, Cleto, Cuca, Poncho, Remigio, and Rómulo.  Cárdenas’s understanding of the South Texas ambient and his acquaintance with Mexicano cultural ways therein bode well for a well-crafted treatment of community and times in a setting that has been described as a Tejano cultural zone. 

As do the short stories and novels identified with (among others) Rolando Hinojosa-Smith and Américo Paredes, Cárdenas’s tome succeeds in faithfully rendering aspects of Tejano living at the turn of the 20th century—after all, that milieu has shaped him.  He portrays characters as strong and self-assured figures who maintain composure and confidence while wrestling against life’s vicissitudes.  Turning to work experiences, Cárdenas narrates the drudgery that campesinos faced as they toiled clearing South Texas lands while also recounting the precarious trek families undertook to migrate annually, all was as part of the Big Swing.  He alludes to the ranch duties of los Kineños and acknowledges their well-earned reputation as unrivaled lords of the range.  Also, he cannot avoid touching upon the place of Tejanos in early 20th-century Duval County politics under Archie Parr (and his son Choche).  He also reminds readers of the many schemes by which land owners lost to the “gringos” grants of land Mexicanos acquired from the king of Spain and later the government of Mexico.

In writing his opus, Cárdenas read widely into the region's history and amassed proficiency in its settlement and development during the 17th through the early 20th centuries.  He mastered the components of the PSD movement, grasping both its specifics and the historiography that has accrued on it during the course of time.  He apprised himself of the pernicious state of race relations that began in the mid-nineteenth century and the manner in which Anglos enforced Jim Crow traditions, practiced political bossism, and inflicted violence on Tejanos, especially at the hands of los rinches (los diablos Tejanos, as people of Mexico called the Texas Rangers in the nineteenth century). 

In composition, the novel displays a style and mode evocative of literary works published about South Texas by other fiction writers.  The plot revolves around the commitment of Baldomero (Balo) Reyna to achieving an insurgent takeover of South Texas by challenging Anglo dominance there and making the region a sort of Tejano homeland.  But the cast encompasses the Reyna family and a special agent stationed at Fort Sam Houston named Captain Matthew Hoffman (Cárdenas borrows from his immediate family, i.e., his parents and children in giving first names to the main characters: Servando, Aurora, Matthew, Christina, and Monica).  Hoffman is assigned by Washington D.C. to investigate the rebellion, and his mission takes him to San Diego and the Reyna clan residing there in exile from the Mexican Revolution.  Cárdenas uses Hoffman’s inquiry to guide the reader through all the intricacies of the PSD movement, including diplomatic initiatives undertaken in Washington, D.C., and Mexico City.  A blossoming romance between Hoffman and Monica Reyna, the only daughter in the Reyna family, supplements the plot. 

Armed with all the particulars associated with the PSD, Cárdenas capably re-creates the many scenarios (and abides by the chronology) that comprised the uprising.  He integrates into the narrative events well-known to scholars, among them German intrigue on the border, the callousness of the rinches, the tragedy called la matanza, the exodus of Tejanos to Mexico, but also the senseless barbarities inflicted upon Anglos by the sediciosos.  Realistically portrayed are the personalities of luminaries such as U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and revolutionary chief Venustiano Carranza.  The author contrives credible conversations held between these two leaders of state and some of the main characters in the novel.  These imagined (and conceivable) discussions gain plausibility as Cárdenas reconstructs an almost realistic atmosphere for them, describing the physical layout of Washington D.C. (and Wilson’s White House Office) and the Zócalo in the center of Mexico City (and Carranza’s own stately office at the Palacio Nacional) meticulously.  The many features of the writing act to enlighten—in an engaging and entertaining tone—non-academic readers on this celebrated event in Tejano history.  

Several other aspects of the novel commend it.  All will easily follow the charted plot line, although Cárdenas does take his characters in multiple directions as he explores how the complexities of their lives link to the PSD.  In the end, for instance, the rebellious Balo finds true love and, for this and an array of other reasons, forsakes his allegiance to the revolution.  Also, we find different characters in the novel harboring particularly personal (and for some, conflictive) feelings on Balo’s war; Cárdenas, considerately allows equal space to his protagonists and antagonists.  Those taking divergent positions on the PSD include Woodrow Wilson, Venustiano Carranza, poverty-stricken field hands, Tejano landowners, Matthew Hoffman, the Texas Rangers, Mexican-haters, and Balos’ siblings (Manuel and Monica Reyna) who clash with their brother on the merits of the movement.

Not to be overlooked as a salient quality in the novel is the author’s writing prowess.  Cárdenas emerges as a master storyteller gifted with a writer’s touch and a vivid imagination.  The novel should sell well to the public at large.  At the university level, professors might opt for its adoption in lieu of a scholarly text. 

Arnoldo De León

Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus

Angelo State University 

San Angelo, Texas