Leonor Villegas de Magnon

Leonor Villegas de Magnón (June 12, 1876 – April 17, 1955) was a Mexican-American political activist, teacher, and journalist who founded a brigade of the international Mexican American relief service, La Cruz Blanca (the White Cross), during the Mexican Revolution.

As a Mexican Revolution leader, Magnón documented her experiences as well as the contributions of many women and revolutionary leaders in her autobiography, La Rebelde (The Rebel).

Personal life Leonor Villegas de Magnón was born in Nuevo Laredo, a town close to the U.S.-Mexico border. Magnon and her family eventually moved to the United States to escape the fighting in Mexico.

Magnón’s family was fairly wealthy because her father, Joaquin Villegas, was a businessman involved in ranching, mining, and the import-export business. It is her father who gave Magnón the nickname, La Rebelde, at the very beginning of her autobiography. After the death of her mother, Valerianna Rubio, Magnón’s father remarried and Magnón was subsequently sent to various boarding schools in the United States. The couple had three children. Magnón also began to write articles criticizing then Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz in La Crónica, a Spanish-language newspaper founded by the Idar family (of Jovita Idar) that exposed injustices against the community.

Career Because of Magnón's political affiliation her dad's businesses in Mexico began to be shut down, and Magnón fled to Laredo, Texas, while her husband stayed in Mexico. Magnón taught kindergarten in Mexico City and Laredo, Texas. After the Mexican Revolution ended, she founded the first bilingual school for kindergarteners in Laredo. Magnón wrote in these newspapers under her maiden name, Villegas. More than 100 of Constitutionalist soldiers were treated in her home that month. During and after the revolution, Magnón actively documented her activities regarding The White Cross among other things. The most notable example is her book, La Rebelde (The Rebel), but she also saved many photographs and documents from the revolution which was eventually passed down to her granddaughter. The US Hispanic Literary Heritage Project from University of Houston recovered these artifacts in 1994 and 2007. Her book as well as photographs demonstrate that she was in close contact with leaders of the Constitutionalist Army, including Venustiano Carranza himself, further evidencing her significant role as a revolution leader.

La Rebelde (The Rebel) Magnón wrote about her participation in the Mexican Revolution in her autobiography, La Rebelde (The Rebel). This dramatized account of Magnón’s life reveals much about her operation of La Cruz Blanca as well as networks of female spies. Clara Lomas, in her preface to The Rebel, writes about the importance of preserving a novel that self-documents the contributions of women during the Revolution, citing the second version of her autobiography all in English which was also rejected by American publishers. Up until the year of her death, Magnon made 26 attempts to publish her book. It was only in 1994, thirty-nine years after Magnón’s death, that her granddaughter, Leonor Smith, was able to publish her grandmother’s novel through Arte Público Press.

Despite the novel being autobiographical, Magnón writes in third person and refers to herself by the titular epithet, “The Rebel.” Currently, The Rebel contains a preface and introduction by Clara Lomas, nineteen chapters, and five appendices. One of the appendices contains a list of names and brief, detailed descriptions of the historical characters that appear in The Rebel. Magnon begins the novel with her birth and ends with Venustiano Carranza’s death.

Death and legacy Leonor Villegas de Magnón died in Mexico City on April 17, 1955, at the age of 78. In recognition of Magnón's work, a monument was erected in Nuevo Laredo in 2010, ninety years after the end of the Mexican Revolution.