LACMA

JUNE 1901 Karnes County, Texas Gregorio Cortez kills a white sheriff because of a mis- translation during questioning about a stolen horse. For ten days the expert horseman eludes the largest organized posse of Texas Rangers in history, becomes an instant folk hero to his fellow Tejanos, and inspires a hastily written corrido detailing his exploits. In 1958 Américo Paredes publishes a revisionist history of the Cortez legend, which not only becomes the foundational text for Chicano studies but prompts a death threat from an angry Texas Ranger. In 1982, Edward James Olmos, fresh off the success of Zoot Suit, plays Cortez in a film version of the story. 1924 Tijuana, Mexico One of the most popular Mexican dishes is invented: the Caesar salad. According to the legend, Cesar Cardini, a restaurant owner and chef in Tijuana, prepared it for the first time, with leftover ingredients, for a group of Hollywood stars after a long weekend party. In the late 1990s Caesar salads shared the fate of many Mexicans, when they were made illegal in California due to a law banning the sale of any food containing raw eggs. Presumably there was a black market for the contraband salad and they crossed illegally. The law was relaxed and the salad situation remedied in 1998. MARCH 9, 1916 Columbus, New Mexico "Rain falls upward. Hen bites fox and hare shoots hunter. For the first and only time in history, Mexican soldiers in- vade the United States. With the tattered force remaining, five hundred men out of the many thousands he once had, Pancho Villa crosses the border and, crying Viva Mexico!, showers bullets on the city of Columbus, New Mexico." —Eduardo Galeano, Century of the Wind, 1988 220 JANUARY 5, 1914 El Paso, Texas Two years before his infamous invasion of the United States, Mexican general Pancho Villa signs a contract with the Mutual Film Corporation allowing them to film him in battle—"during daylight if possible"—in exchange for $25,000 in gold. With this contract, Villa becomes the first reality-media star. 1915 New York, New York Mexican dadaist Marius de Zayas opens the Modern Gallery, the first commercial contemporary art gallery in New York. Four years later he founds the De Zayas Gallery, which inspires Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, and Katherine Dreier to form the Société Anonyme, with the aim of collecting international modern art.

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