MEXICO: Josefina's Stove

And now housewives joined the protest over the petroleum famine. Before Mexico took the oil industry away from its foreign owners in 1938, most Mexicans cooked on charcoal braziers. Then, with sudden oil wealth, the Avila Camacho Government ordered landlords to furnish kerosene stoves. A domestic revolution ensued. Last week Josefina Novarra, 23, stood in a Mexico City kerosene queue and spoke her mind. "Look how we have to stand in line to get a little kerosene for our stoves," she grumbled. "And they want certain kinds of cans or they won't sell you any. Damn the whole Pemex...

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