El General

PBS Premiere: July 20, 2010Check the broadcast schedule »

Take Action

Record your own family history. Think through how you (or others doing family histories) can come to grips with ancestors whose actions contradicted your (or their) core values. Pay attention to the kinds of documents and information available to you and those that are missing. Think about any contradictions you find, how you choose to depict those contradictions and how you balance the biases you bring to the task with the goal of providing an accurate portrait.

Convene a study group on the history of the Mexican Revolution. What do you learn about the struggles of the revolutionaries? What was the result of their struggle? Did they achieve their goal? Compare the Mexican Revolution to other revolutions around the world. Do they have things in common?

Find ways to support and publicize Mexican civic engagement projects.

Solicit and share oral histories with people who you think have been left out of history. Ask them why they think their past or their view of the past has been ignored or silenced. Ask them how they would like to be remembered. Ask them if they have access to any archives (photographs, documents) of their past.

Visit the POV website and watch the interviews conducted by filmmaker Natalia Almada with leading contemporary historians about Mexico's past and present.