Benito juarez

Bernardo Ruiz
Professor Moulton
Sociology 2001
September 23, 2008
Book Review
Ivie E, Cadenhead, Benito Juarez (New York, New York: Twayne Publishers, 1973), pp. 199.

Ivie E. Cadenhead, Jr’s. book Benito Juarez is about the life of Benito Juarez who was a President in Mexico during 1858 to 1871. In the beginning of the book, Cadenhead doesn’t immediately begin writing about Juarezbut rather explains to the reader the important events in Mexico that took in place before Juarez was born. Mexico was conquered by Spain. The Spanish called their colony New Spain. In the opening of the book you see that there is much of a 1. Conflict Perspective (Schaefer 16, 563). In Mexico there was conflict because of the government that the Spanish imposed on the Mexicans. There is also a2. Functionalist Perspective (Schaefer 15, 564). The Spanish had a way in which people where set into groups in society because of how society was structured in Mexico. The Spanish had a government in New Spain (Mexico), which could exploit anyone in Mexico since they conquered it and they imposed anything they wanted. Anything the Spanish said was the law. There is also the 3. InteractionistPerspective (Schaefer 18, 565). At this point in time Cadenhead explained, that interaction between the Mexican society as being distorted and disorganized. Which was unfair to the people of Mexico. There was also no social interaction between the Spanish and the Indians since the Spanish had mostly wiped them all out.
New Spain’s Government was a well developed vice-regal system (Cadenhead 13). Thevice-regal system was mostly run by guchupines. They where called guchupines because they where pure blooded Spanish and they where born in Spain. The guchupines where high class, while in the middle class, and lower class were the mestizo. This was a person with Indian and Spanish blood. The mestizo often seen, as outsiders because his/her’s father would not accept him/her and his mother’s peoplewould not accept him/her because he was so different and had Spanish blood, which caused the disorder in the Mexican society. The Indians were either slaves or had died because the Spanish conquered them and had a mass genocide on the natives in Mexico, and because the Spanish introduced new diseases that Indians where not immune too. At this time in Mexico you can see the 1. Racism, 2. RacialGroups, and the 3. Segregation that there was between the guchupines, mestizo, and Indians.
Benito Pablo Juarez was born on March 21, 1806, in San Paulo Guelatao in the state of Oaxaca (Cadenhead 20). This village was barely outside of Ciudad de Oaxaca, which was the Capitol of the state of Oaxaca. His parents died when Juarez was very young. When he was three years old, his grandparents raisedhim, until they died too. His uncle took him after his grandparents died. His uncle raised him well. Juarez loved education and he also wanted to learn the Spanish 4 .Language since he only spoke Zapotec, which was a native language that the Indians in Oaxaca spoke. One day Juarez decided that he didn’t want to live with his uncle because of the poor education in San Paulo Guelatao so he decided togo to Ciudad de Oaxaca. He was really determined to get a better education because he was only twelve years old and he walked forty miles just to get to the capitol. Upon arriving at the capitol he stayed with his sister and he later enrolled in a secondary school, Santa Cruz Seminary.
Benito Juarez’s dream at first was to become a priest, because he didn’t like the option of military which waswhat most young men where doing his age. Juarez changed his opinion about priesthood after a there was a newly elected board of the members at a Civil College Institute of Sciences and Arts, a school independent of the church and designed to provide a broader curriculum than the traditional clerical variety (Cadenhead 22). Upon his acceptance at the Institute he studied law. This institute took...