Almost everyone in the world knows that Fidel Castro – assisted by his brother Raúl and Argentine doctor Ernesto “Che” Guevara – led the movement that overthrew the Fulgencio Batista regime in Cuba in 1959 What many people don’t know is that the Cuban Revolution was hatched in Mexico and inspired by the Mexican Revolution trying to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista Castro led a group of 150 revolutionaries in an attack on the Moncada military barracks in Santiago de Cuba The assault was defeated and Castro was sentenced to 15 years in prison he and his brother Raúl along with a large number of other Cuban revolutionaries were released from prison in 1955 as part of a general amnesty for political prisoners Raúl and the other exiles fled to Mexico and Fidel followed shortly afterward flying into Mérida on July 7th and making his way to Mexico City He met up with Raúl at the apartment of Cuban exile María Antonia Gonzaléz in the Tabacalera neighborhood where he met Che Guevara for the first time The apartment became the command post and one of a network of clandestine houses in Mexico City that became safe locations for the revolutionaries the safe houses began training exiles for the return to Cuba Castro imposed strict and rigorous regulations for the soldiers The revolutionaries practiced their rowing at the lake in Chapultepec Park received physical and self-defense training from Mexican professional wrestler Arsacio Vanegas and held target practice at the Los Gamitos range in the borough of Alvaro Obregón Guevara headed up a guerilla camp at the Santa Rosa ranch close to the small town of Santa Catarina Ayotzingo in the state of México Raúl was responsible for rounding up the Cuban exiles who had fled to Mexico For assistance in acquiring weapons and transportation to Cuba Fidel relied on Mexican gunsmith and weapons smuggler Antonio del Conde Pontones The  Cuban exiles – known as the July 26 Movement or M-26-7 –  had left Cuba without anything Castro and his troops lived on beans and rice and Castro developed a bold plan to obtain funding In “Guerrillero del tiempo,” a memoir that brings together hours of interviews between the revolutionary and the Cuban journalist Katiuska Blanco Fidel recounted a trip to the US-Mexico border at McAllen where he swam across the Rio Grande and illegally entered the United States to meet with the disgraced former Cuban President Carlos Prío Socarros who had been exiled after being deposed by Batista’s 1952 coup – Castro and Prio had a common enemy in Batista Castro recounts in his memoir – “Guerrillero del Tiempo” written by biographer Katiuska Blanco based on hours of interviews – that he was “humiliated” to ask Prio for money that he knew had been stolen from the Cuban Treasury but took the cash anyway Aware of the Castro brothers’ plan to overthrow Batista had been monitoring the movements and actions of the July 26 Movement A report authored by DFS Captain Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios and kept hidden for decades in the confidential files of the Ministry of the Interior Barrios was a feared agent of the DFS and for years was responsible for the persecution of peasant student and guerilla movements of the last century former President Lázaro Cárdenas intervened to have them released A Constitutionalist general in the Mexican Revolution Cárdenas had been a very popular left-leaning reformer in office and continued to support Castro after the victory of the Cuban Revolution Castro and Barrios formed a relationship based on friendship and mutual respect Castro told biographer Blanco that he considered Barrios a “friend” and a “gentleman and honorable man.”  they had acquired the necessary weapons and Antonio del Conde had found them a ride: a small second-hand yacht named the “Granma,”  moored in Tuxpan They planned on meeting with the remainder of the insurgents at the Mi Ranchito hotel in Xicotepec de Juárez in the state of Puebla to finalize their last-minute preparations Castro went to meet with his friend Barrios one last time where he outlined their plans Barrios admitted that he knew all the details of their plans and intentionally delayed an investigation to give them time to embark for Cuba the 82 insurgents arrived in Tuxpan and squeezed themselves onto the Granma a boat that would normally accommodate 10 to 12 people and left on their treacherous trip to Cuba they shipwrecked on the southern coast and were spotted and ambushed by Cuban authorities Guevara and a few of their men – with only seven guns between them – fled to the Sierra Maestra mountains The members of the July 26 Movement spent the next two years recruiting and training more insurgents and fighting Batista’s military Batista fled Cuba for the Dominican Republic and Fidel’s 9,000-strong guerilla army marched into Havana in triumph Castro became Prime Minister of Cuba and remained in power for 49 years Castro admitted that Cuba’s revolution probably would not have been possible without the Mexican Revolution that preceded it 50 years earlier It provided the blueprint for the Cuban Revolution “Mexico was a country that had carried out a great revolution in the second decade of the 20th century a revolution that had a lot of prestige and left behind a lot of progressive thinking and a stable government,” he recalls in “Guerrillero del tiempo.” Reminders of Castro’s 18-month exile in Mexico are still visible today in Mexico City The building at 49 José de Emporan where María Antonia González had an apartment is marked with a plaque commemorating the location where Castro and Guevara first met which claims to have been the site of meetings between the Cuban revolutionaries Fernando Barrios went on to become the director of the DFS from 1964 to 1970 during the height of state terror in Mexico which committed a litany of human rights violations and suffered from pervasive corruption The building that served as the DFS headquarters is now the Sitio de Memoria Circular de Morelia in Roma Norte It stands as witness to the human rights violations that occurred during the 1960s and ‘70s and is dedicated to preventing those practices in the future Sheryl Losser is a former public relations executive, researcher, writer, and editor. She has been writing professionally for 35 years.  She moved to Mazatlán in 2021 and works part-time doing freelance research and writing. She can be reached at [email protected] ADVERTISE WITH MND COMMUNITY GUIDELINES Subscription FAQ's Privacy Policy Mexico News Daily - Property of Tavana LLC LAist is part of Southern California Public Radio ABOUT THE FILM “América Tropical: The Martyr Mural of Siqueiros” – Premieres Wed. Mexican social realist painter David Alfaro Siqueiros created Olvera Street’s popular “América Tropical” introducing an innovative and unprecedented technique to muralism that required revolutionary techniques and materials “America Tropical” is considered the most studied white-washed mural in the United States The mural and Siqueiros inspired many contemporary muralists working today profiled in the film including 3B Collective Erin Yoshi and Fabian Debora (Homeboy Art Academy) The film also features commentary from Rubén Ortiz-Torres ARTBOUND is supported in part by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture and Creative Recovery LA ABOUT REBECCA ZAMORARebecca Zamora (she/her) was born and raised in Los Angeles and has held positions at several arts and philanthropic organizations who graduated with a Master’s Degree in Latin American Studies from the University of California and Activism in the Americas (2017) at the Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design as part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA She has worked on and contributed to two additional exhibitions and their catalogues 2008) and Farewell to Surrealism: The Dyn Circle in Mexico (Getty Research Institute she has published “Preserving a Legacy: Shifra Goldman and David Alfaro Siqueiros’s América Tropical,” Getty Research Journal no 6 (2014) and “Siqueiros and Los Angeles: A Legacy Interrupted” in Redes Intelectuales: Arte y Política en América Latina (Bogotá: Uniandes ABOUT OSCAR MAGALLANESOscar Magallanes holds an MFA from the University of California and a BA from the University of California Los Angeles-based artist Magallanes specializes in painting drawing inspiration from his Mexican-American upbringing in East Los Angeles he was expelled from high school but was accepted into the Ryman Arts program at the Otis College campus which encouraged him to become a professional artist His work often touches down at the intersections of cultural iconography Magallanes' art has been featured in museums across the United States and Mexico including the North Carolina Museum of Art the National Museum of Mexican American Art in Chicago His work is part of the permanent collections of institutions like the Museum of Latin American Art and La Salle University: Art Museum and is working on a significant work for the Century City Metro Station slated to open in 2025 They have created works for institutions such as Museo Infantil Oaxaca the University of California Los Angeles and San Diego and California State University Stanislaus the collective is engaged in public art installations including a project in collaboration with the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs They have collaborated with artist like LaPistola and Sonia Romero and have done installations for LAXART and Barbara Kruger Magallanes served as an Associate Instructor in the Environmental Studies Program at the University of California He has been actively involved in arts education organizations including Ryman Arts and Self Help Graphics and Art a Getty initiative for the Pacific Standard Time series ABOUT JOSÉ FIGUEROA AND DIGNICRAFTWe are a hybrid of a film production company art collective and distributor of cultural goods the process of artisanal creation and the potential offered by collaboration to achieve the common good documentary films and indigenous communities and has been broadcast in Mexico and the United States on KCET-Link Canal 52 MX of MVS and Univision San Diego And it has been exhibited in film festivals galleries and universities throughout Europe We have received awards and recognitions for our documentaries such as the Los Angeles Area Emmy in the arts category; 1st place for documentary feature film at the 63rd SoCal Journalism Awards and the 61st SoCal Journalism Awards awarded by the prestigious Los Angeles Press Club; 2nd place for Best Short Documentary 10th National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards; Grand Prix - Ateliers d’Art de France at the 8th International Film Festival on Clay and Glass International Indigenous Film and Video Festival Mexico; and the Material Culture and Archeology Film Prize from the 13th RAI International Festival of Ethnographic Film Our artistic practice consists of fostering encounters that normally do not occur between people from different backgrounds We do this by producing documentaries; distributing cultural goods such as movies and handicrafts with a great history behind them; teaching collaborative workshops as part of a contemporary art project; or doing cultural exchange activities in Basalto our artistic space located in Santa Catarina Ayotzingo The results of these encounters enrich the quality of human relationships between the participants and their respective communities Dignicraft was born from the evolution of collective work started by Paola Rodríguez under the name Bulbo y Galatea audio/visual ABOUT ARTBOUNDARTBOUND is the award-winning series that captures the spirit of the arts and culture community in Southern California and beyond The Original series explores and illuminates the cultural issues of our times providing critical in-depth analysis of how arts and culture affect society ARTBOUND recognizes the need for access to the arts arts education and connecting local artists with audiences and in fact acts as Southern California’s largest stage Utilizing public media as a space to find quality arts and culture programming ARTBOUND reveals cultural touchstones that have shaped the fabric of the region’s communities and a nation whose story is indelibly linked to the arts