Porofino Diaz

Porfirio Diaz "began as an activist against reaction and privilege and ended as a longtime dictator and staunch defender of the very forces he had once opposed," (Tuck). Indeed, Porfirio's life is characterized by a series of ironies. Porfirio was a Mestizo. His mother was a Native woman and his father was a working class Criollo (Mexican-born Spaniard). Some sources trace the Diaz family on both sides to Mestizo, "descended from both Mixtec Indians and Spaniards," (Mabry). In any case, Porfirio Diaz's father Jose de la Cruz Diaz died when Porfirio was three years old. Porfirio was one of eight children. Although Porfirio was "born into extreme poverty and never even reached complete literacy," and although the "early years of his life were filled with economic hardship and tragedy, the man would become one of the enemies of Mexico's poor (Minster n.d.; "Porfirio Diaz - from Military Hero...
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