Orozco in New York

Between December 1927 and February 1929, Orozco wrote me from New York the thirty-six letters that are the core of this study. They reached me either in Mexico City or, between January and June, 1928 in Chichen Itza, Yucatan, where I was draftsman to an archeological expedition. Most of the letters are concerned with a bleak interim in Orozco's life, after he had left home, and before the first stirrings of the international fame that was the lot of his later years.Orozco left a country in turmoil. President Calles had just brought to a harsh climax his persecution of the Church, November 23, 1927, with the shooting of the Jesuit, Father Pro. That October, a General Gomez had engineered one more military revolution. Peasants roamed in armed bands, part underground heros, part bandits. In March, 1928, my mother wrote, from Cuernavaca: