La Rebelde's Legacy
Leonor Villegas de Magnón acted with volition, intelligence, and foresight. Knowing the importance of the services provided by La Cruz Blanca and the significance of this moment in history, Villegas de Magnón hired Eustacio Montoya as their official photographer. Indeed their exploits and heroics were captured in his photos. Still their role in the Mexican Revolution was hardly recognized or visible.
Leonor Villegas de Magnón also recorded their story in her autobiography La Rebelde, something that she had once told Venustiano Carranza during their first meeting, that she would do. All this in an attempt to commemorate the work of La Cruz Blanca and the heroics of her compatriots, on both sides of the border. She wrote a second version of the autobiography in English, The Rebel.
While The Rebel follows a similar timeline and narrates the same key events as the Spanish version, it is not a direct translation. Villegas de Magnón took into account that she was writing for a different audience, the English-speaking audience of the U.S. According to Clara Lomas, in the Spanish version we see that Villegas de Magnón makes it a point to give many names as they would have been recognizable to the Spanish-speaking audience. In contrast, Lomas says, " detail becomes important in the expanded English version; the 'foreign' reader requires explanatory remarks" (xliii). With these two autobiographies Villegas de Magnón situates herself in the literary world, although her work will not be published until decades after she writes it.
Leonor Villegas de Magnón searched for interested publishers far and wide, in the United States and Mexico. She edited and reworked the text at times but her autobiographies did not find a publisher until the late 20th century at Arte Público Press. The Rebel was finally published in 1994 with an introduction by Clara Lomas. La Rebelde was published in 2004.
The Mexican government awarded Leonor Villegas de Magnon five medals for her work during the revolution. She died in Mexico City on April 17, 1955
Sources:
Villegas de Magnón, Leonor. La Rebelde. Edited by Clara Lomas, Arte Publico Press, 2004.
Leonor Villegas de Magnón Collection at Arte Publico Press.