Francisca Zorrosa Diaz was born in Oaxaca in 1911 and moved
to Mexico City after the revolution. She is Pepe’s grandmother and “Las
Soldaderas” was inspired by her. However the story is completely fictional and
draws inspiration from many stories of the strong women called Soldaderas.
During the Mexican Revolution many women were involved in
the action, whether it was through force, or by free will. Fighters such as
Petra (Pedro) Herrera, Maria Quinteras de Meras and Angela (Angel) Jimenez were
some of the most notable women who fought in the war and were actually part of
Pancho Villa’s army. Inspired by both the true stories of these women who
fought in the revolution and the story of Pepe’s great-grandmother, we put them
together to highlight roles of women in the war. Francisca, the main character,
represents not only the women that became soldiers, but also how she was forced
into it through the need of protection, which also applied to the women who
left with the rest of her male family members to avoid being left behind alone
and vulnerable to attacks. With Carmen’s character, we wanted to portray how
women also played a part in the war through their medical support. This was
especially important for the revolutionaries, because during the war, the Red
Cross refused to help the revolutionary soldiers.
There are many stories about the Mexican revolution, the
book Los de Abajo (The under Dogs) gives the revolution a less heroic treatment
and portrays soldiers raping women and braking into civilian houses. This book
was one of the first sources of inspiration, and after some research we found
an article that quotes the work of Gabriela Cano called Soldaderas y coronelas
this was one of the major sources of inspiration, learning about this brave
woman gave the main character more realism and a purpose and also helped us set
the environment in which the story takes place.
Creating the dialogue was the most challenging part, we
wanted to keep it simple and authentic. We decided to use some Spanish words
and phrases that helped us give a foreign feel to the story. We wanted to be as
accurate as possible in regards dates and places. We wanted to use real battles
and that’s why we wrote about La toma de Zacatecas, one of the fiercest battles
of the revolution, but also one of the most important. According to the
chronology published by the Mexican Senate in 2010. After the victory over
Zacatecas, Villa went to Mexico City in December of 1914.
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