It's past time to take down Tucson's Pancho Villa statue

[Ptah]

It's past time to take down Tucson's Pancho Villa statue

By Tom Danehy

To the best of my knowledge, despite the fact that there are millions of Americans with Italian heritage (myself included), there aren't any statues of Benito Mussolini anywhere in the United States. Likewise, there aren't statues of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto or Herman Goehring or Osama Bin Laden, even though there are millions of Americans who can trace their roots to Japan or Germany or the Middle East. The reason that we're never going to have statues of these people in the United States is that each of these people directed operations that killed Americans.

Why, then, is there a statue of Pancho Villa smack dab at the entrance to Downtown Tucson...Arizona...USA? Why does this vile swine, who deserves only a gravesite to be pissed upon, instead get a statue? He doesn't deserve one in his own country, let alone in ours. He killed dozens of Americans, calmly and coldly, on more than one occasion. And yet, there it stands, after all these years.

If you asked 100 Tucsonans who (and what) Pancho Villa was, those who would claim that he was somehow a "revolutionary" are prone to defining things so broadly that they probably believe that a phallic symbol is anything that's longer than it is wide.

<snip>

And then there's his killing of Americans. After suffering that ass-whuppin' at Agua Prieta, Villa's men attacked a train near Santa Isabel, Chihuahua. They slaughtered 17 Americans, including 15 who worked for the American Smelting and Refining Company. (Villa admitted to having ordered the attack.) In 1916, Villa attacked the town of Columbus, New Mexico. Eighteen Americans died in the raid, which was carried out for no reason other than the fact that Villa was a pissy little bitch.

https://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/danehy/Content?oid=28168863

[donkeypoofed]

1. Why was a statue put up of him at all ? Who was happy?

[Ptah]

3. Pancho Villa Statue

Pancho Villa Statue

A statue of Pancho Villa is located in Viente de Agosto Park. The park is between West Broadway and West Congress Street, and west of Church Avenue. Erected in June 1981, the statue was made by Julian Martinez and foundryman Javier Portilla. It was given as a gift to Arizona from Agrupacion Nacional Periodista, a Mexican press organization, and the Mexican government. Bryon Ivancovich, descendant of an old Tucson family, filed an unsuccessful suit against the city regarding this statue.

https://www.library.pima.gov/content/pancho-villa-statue/

[ProudMNDemocrat]

2. My Grandpa saw Pancho Villa when he was 6 years old...

Spent several nights in his village in the state of Zachatecas in 1912.

To Mexicans, Pancho Villa was their George Washington.

[demosincebirth]

7. He would have been president if he hadn't been assassinated

[marble falls]

4. Leave it stand until every Confederate statue and "monument" is taken down and put into ...

some obscure out of the way statue museum. And then I'd vote to let it stand.

In almost every single violent interaction between the US and Mexicans, the Mexicans got the worst of it.

There can be all sorts of arguments to be made over who and what Poncho Villa was. But the statue is a piece of art in a lot of ways. Its would even be better if the pedestal was removed and the statue mounted on a lawn.

There's a lot of life and movement in that piece.

Mussolini, bin Laden, Yamamoto, Goering? Really???????

[TreasonousBastard]

5. WTF is there a statue of a Mexican revolutionary on American soil?

[Ptah]

6. A gift from Mexico.

https://www.library.pima.gov/content/pancho-villa-statue/

[2naSalit]

8. I guess perspective and

selective acknowledgement of the history of others is everything.

[BusyBeingBest]

9. I imagine people in Arizona just like the Old West vibe that comes from

that history, they are big into promoting stuff like Tombstone etc. That and many Arizonans come from elsewhere and probably have only heard the name (at most) and chalk it up to Wild West legend. There's a Pancho Villa state park in New Mexico, too. For me, the old border skirmishes and the Mexican American War are just interesting long-ago history, and not something I would get upset over, but yeah, I can see how it's a little traitorous in the light the author describes it.

[brush]

10. US Gen. Pershing invaded northern Mexico in 1916 in an attempt...

Last edited Thu Jul 9, 2020, 12:37 PM - Edit history (1)

to capture Villa. He failed and returned to this side of the border so it's sort of a wash between what Villa did on this side of the border and what Pershing did down there.

And btw, Villa was a very capable general who effectively used railroads for troop movements in leading his northern Mexican army. He worked in concert along with Madero, Orozco, Zapata and others to successfully overthrow dictator Diaz in the Mexican civil war.