SANTA ANA : Exhibit Depicts Women in Revolution

Clutching a rifle in one hand and with a pistol strapped to her waist, a Latina stares into space, frozen in time, with a look of grim determination.

Captured on film circa 1910, she wears a black dress ill-suited to combat but is ready to fight as a soldier in the Mexican Revolution.

Her black-and-white image is one of 52 photographs in a historical exhibit that opened Thursday at the Main Library.

Sponsored by the Mexican government, the photo display highlights the role of women in the revolution, said librarian Ninfa Duran.

After the men went to fight, women “were forced to step out of their traditional roles to defend the cause and their lives as well. They were really indispensable. They fought side by side with the men,” Duran said.

The exhibit, “Women Rise Up in Arms--Daily Life During the Revolution,” depicts women from a wide range of society in roles as factory workers, journalists and soldiers.

Text, in both English and Spanish, describes how women performed a variety of jobs, including cooking, caring for the injured and for children, “as well as risky, less feminine tasks: exchanging and smuggling information, arms, food and supplies.”

“This is an acknowledgment of their role that was never acknowledged before in history and by society in general,” Duran said.

One photograph shows a soldier and a woman seated on the ground and gazing into each other’s eyes, apparently in the middle of a dusty, crowded army camp.

Several of the enlarged images on display show women and girls brandishing firearms and wearing belts of ammunition around their shoulders.

Others depict middle-class women seated in rows of desks at a school, and impoverished women and girls carrying baskets of clothing.

Ironically, the exhibit’s opening coincides with an Indian rebellion over living conditions in the southern state of Chiapas.

Duran said that although there are similarities between the two events, they are vastly different in scope.

Both were rooted in anger over social inequities between the rich and poor, but the revolution involved the entire country for years, while the six-day revolt by guerrillas remains confined to a portion of Chiapas.

The exhibit runs through Jan. 27. The Main Library is at 26 Civic Center Drive.