Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands

by Kelly Lytle Hernández

Emil Kosterlitzky was born in Russia, where he joined the navy, but he deserted his post in Venezuela and made his way to Mexico where he altered “Emil” to “Emilio” and enlisted in the army. Soon, his name was synonymous with the Díaz regime. As the historian Samuel Truett explains, “No Mexican evoked the police power of the state more famously than Lieutenant Colonel Kosterlitzky.”21 Stationed in northern Mexico, Kosterlitzky first came to Díaz’s attention tracking down Apache fighters. By 1890, he was commanding the rurales stationed in Sonora, where it was his job to make the region safe for investors. Mostly, he tracked down horse thieves and rebel Yaqui, often reporting that the regime’s antagonists had been simply “disposed of.” Mexicans dubbed him “the mailed fist of Porfirio Díaz.”