The Beautiful Imagination of Yolanda Vargas Dulché

Her mind was a fantasy factory.  No one person contributed more to art and popular culture in Mexico, and lifted tens of millions of people out of illiteracy as a result. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Welcome to Mexico Unexplained, where we will explore the magic,
the mysteries, and the miracles of Mexico. This series presents
information based partly on theory and conjecture. The podcaster's purpose
is to suggest some possible explanation, but not necessarily the
only ones to the subjects we will examine. Here is
your host, Robert Titto.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Welcome and we being beneath us to episode number one
hundred and sixty nine of Mexico Unexplained, where we examine
the magic, the mysteries and the miracles of Mexico. I'm
your host, Robert Biddo. From the larger cities to the
small rural areas, most everyone in the country of Mexico
today is glued to their electronic devices, much like in

(01:19):
other places on Earth. On public transport and bus stops
and subway stations throughout the country, people are wired into
their smartphones, tablets, and MP three players. These devices help
pass the time and occupy the mind, and serve to
ease the long wait of often unreliable transportation across long

(01:41):
and short distances. In a time before the pervasiveness of electronics,
Mexicans diverted themselves with estorietas, novelas or romanticos, the terms
used to describe cheap but artfully illustrated pulp comic books.
While waiting for the many buses to take her across

(02:02):
the wide expanse of Mexico City. For one peso, a
maid or factory worker could be transported back in time
to her romance in colonial New Spain, or experience the
trials and tribulations of an innocent Japanese girl, or laugh
at the humorous antics of a mischievous Afro Mexican boy.

(02:22):
The little comic books were once everywhere, and at the
height of their popularity, the Mexican presses cranked out hundreds
of millions of these delightful pieces of popular culture every year.
Those who remember the days of pulp graphic novels might
not know of the most influential person behind this amazing phenomenon.

(02:44):
Her mind was a fantasy factory, and she built a
massive business empire founded on the sparkle of her own imagination.
Her name was Yolanda Bargos Dulce. Yolanda Bargos Dulce was
born on July eighteenth, nineteen twenty six, in the Guerrero
neighborhood of Mexico City, to poor working class parents Armando

(03:07):
Bargos de la Masa and Josefina Dulce Yolanda had one sibling,
a sister named Elba. The family's unstable economic situation caused
Orlanda to move around a lot, and she changed schools repeatedly.
Her frequent moves, including a brief stint in the United States,
exposed Bargos to various elements of Mexican society and would

(03:31):
later serve her well in the creation of her fictional characters.
In her teen years, her first exposure to the world
of the arts was at radio station ekes A dobleu Aeme,
singing along with her sister Elba in a duet called
Rubia Imorena. Their act teamed up with Mexican songwriter Augustine Lara,

(03:54):
and the sisters performed in major venues throughout Mexico and
in two places abroad, Los Angeles, California, and Havana, Cuba.
In her sixteenth year, Bargas began selling her writing, first
to the Mexican newspaper El Universal. From there, she wrote
full time for the publication Esto, where she started to

(04:16):
become interested in the comics genre. In nineteen forty three,
at the age of seventeen, she created the character Memin Penguin,
arguably the most popular comic book character of all time
in Mexico. The adventures of this mischievous Afro Mexican boy
appeared in the magazine Peppine, but Memin was so popular

(04:38):
that by nineteen forty seven he had his own line
of pulp comics on every news stand in Mexico. Bargos
had unparalleled success before the age of twenty, already the
main writer in the most important magazines in Mexico, Peppine
and Chamaco. These magazines of the Garcia Valseca chain were

(05:00):
daily periodic publications that not only appeared seven days a week,
but they even had two Sunday editions each. While writing
for these magazines in the nineteen forties, Yolanda Bardas Ducce
also wrote for dramatic radio serials. In nineteen forty four,
she composed her first complete radio drama, called Cellos or

(05:23):
Jealousy in English. While doing her radio work, Bargos also
caught the eye of the Mexican film industry. In nineteen
forty six, at the age of twenty noted Mexican actor
and director Roberto Martinez Solares contacted Bargas to write the
screenplay of the movie Cinco Rostros re mucher or in English,

(05:45):
Five Faces of a Woman. Later that year, she would
be asked to write the screenplay of the movie Sorina
Back in the world of print. By nineteen forty seven,
Bargas had two of the most popular serial comics in Mexico,
Cumbres de Ensugenos or dream Summits in English and ladroon Suela,

(06:06):
which loosely translates to the Pilferer. The Mexican public was
enraptured with Vargas's work to such a degree that she
eventually decided to break away from her employer and founded
her own publishing company in nineteen fifty five, called Editorial Argumentos,
partnering with her husband Guillermo de la Para. Throughout the

(06:29):
nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, Edeitorial Argumentos produced dozens of
titles with hundreds of characters that seemed to spring effortlessly
from the brilliant mind of Yolanda Vargastrulce. The most popular
title at Editorial Argumentos without a doubt, was Memin Penguin.

(06:51):
The comic about the sly Little Black Boy was not
without its share of controversy, however, at one point it
was even boycotted by by the Catholic Church. In one
issue of the comic, a friend of Memin told him
that he wasn't going to go to heaven because there
were never any depictions of black angels and religious art.

(07:11):
Memin responded by saying that if this were the case,
then he would cause whatever amount of trouble he wanted
while he was alive, and didn't even have to bother
with going to church because he was going to go
to hell anyway. Priests and other religious authorities throughout Mexico
were outraged, called for the boycott, and sales of the

(07:31):
Memin comics plummeted. Bargas tried rescuing her brand by creating
one comic in which Memin returns to church and, together
with his friend and a helpful priest, they paint an
angel black in one of the church's religious paintings. At
the end of this installment, Memin vowed to continue his
religious instruction and promised he would behave properly from now on.

(07:56):
Bargas's plan worked. The Catholic Church in Mexico lifting did
its official boycott of the Mimean comic, and sales came
back stronger than before. Baragas's comics were recognizable throughout Mexico
and were seen everywhere. By the mid nineteen sixties, editorial
Argumentos was selling over one milligan comic books per week.

(08:18):
At this time. To give an American number for comparison,
the iconic US comic Superman was selling only one milligan
copies per month, with four times the reader base. In
the nineteen sixties, everyone across Mexico knew the titles and
waited for the latest installments of their favorite comics to

(08:39):
hit the newsstands. During this time, the most popular comic
book series was Lagrimas Risas Iamore Tears, Laughter and Love,
which contained several different stories with characters people followed eagerly
every week. Despite the massive growth of her company, Bargas

(08:59):
was very hands on and still wrote the storylines to
the multiple titles she created. Her work thoroughly energized her
and because of her massive output, Yolanda Bargastulce eventually became
the third most widely read author in the Spanish language.
In the world behind the Asturian romance novelist Corrin Tellado

(09:21):
and the Great Servantes himself. In Mexico, she was number one.
Her fame, and more specifically, the medium in which she worked,
generated harsh debate. Mexican intellectuals scorned the pulp comics and
cheap graphic novels and claimed that the genre was a
detriment to society. There was one major result of this

(09:44):
comic book phenomenon that these critics were missing. Because of
the intense national interest in these fascinating stories, accompanied by
excellent artwork, illiterate people across Mexico felt like they were
missing out on something. Those Mexicans who were unable to
read started to become interested in learning how to read.

(10:06):
These pulp comics accomplished something that the Mexican Ministry of
Education was unable to do. They helped to lift tens
of millions of Mexicans out of illiteracy. In an interview
later in life, Yolanda Bargos Dulce would state, quote, my
critics say they love the people, but they do nothing

(10:27):
for them, not even entertain them. I started writing comics
because I wanted to reach the masses by speaking to
them in their own language and by dramatizing their own
feelings in my stories. I got it because I looked
for diversion, and I managed, even for a few moments,
to get them out of their great worries, their sorrows,

(10:48):
the sadness of their daily lives end quote. Bargas and
her husband started to kick things up a notch in
the late nineteen sixties. Editorial Argumentos became Grupo Editorio vid
and branched out into television soap operas known in Mexico
as telenovelas, and also into film. The plan was to

(11:10):
take the comics to the small screen and the silver screen,
as she did in the nineteen forties. Bargas had her
hand in writing the screenplays and television scripts and oversaw
key elements of the production processes. The titles of the
telenovelas in films, which aired all the way through the
nineteen nineties, are familiar to Mexicans to this day. In Cruzigada, Alondra,

(11:37):
el Pecalo de O, yuki A, la mourde Marie Savel, Gabrieli,
Gabriela and Rubi, among others. Yolando Bargas's Pride and Joy
was a film called Yessenia, about a young girl from
an aristocratic family who was raised by a tribe of Gypsies. Yessenia,

(11:58):
started as a pulp comic, was made into a telenovela
in nineteen seventy and then into a movie. In June
of nineteen seventy nine, the film was one of three
to be featured during Mexican Cinema Week in China, sponsored
by the Chinese Ministry of Culture as part of a
Chinese Mexican cultural exchange. Yasenia was so popular that audiences

(12:22):
lined up for hours to see it, as it was
only showing for a limited time during the Mexican Cinema Week.
The Chinese government eventually worked out a deal with Bargas
to buy the rights to the film. In nineteen seventy nine,
Yessenia was the most popular foreign film in the entire
People's Republic. While working on the more cinematic aspects of

(12:46):
the company, Grupo Editorial Bid expanded its printed products into
foreign markets, notably the Philippines, Spain, and the United States.
At their peak of comic book production in the nineteen seventies,
Yolanda and Guillermo's company was selling over eight hundred million
copies per year in various parts of the world. The

(13:11):
entrepreneurial snowball grew, and it was not before long that
Bargos decided to expand her horizons once again. In the
early nineteen eighties, Bargos and her husband acquired a hotel
chain based in Estapa Ziwateanejo called Hoteles Cristal. Thinking creatively,
Vargas assessed the status of this chain and decided to

(13:35):
make some changes and expand She opted to build their
first new hotel in the fledgling development called Cancun on
the Caribbean shores of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Bargas and her
husband would also buy land there and in the adjacent
communities of Playa del Carmen and Kosumel, believing that one

(13:57):
day the area would grow and attract tourists. In the meantime,
their hotel chain spread throughout Mexico, offering four star accommodations
in places as diverse as Siutartuarres at Acapulco. With expert
builders and contractors at the ready, Yolando Vargas Dulce and
her husband, Guillermo decided to build a huge hacienda as

(14:21):
a personal retreat. By nineteen eighty five, the couple finished
work on La Hacienda Morterro outside the town of Sucel
in the Mexican state of Durango. As with every enterprise
under her control, Vargas turned the retreat into a money
making venture. The hacienda produces to this day thousands of

(14:42):
pounds of pecans from groves of trees across many acres.
The raw nuts and finished products are exported all over
the world. Some of the proceeds of this little side
venture have gone to funding schools, hospitals, and housing throughout
the poorer part arts of the state of Durango. Incredibly,

(15:03):
during the time of the most phenomenal growth of their
various businesses, Yolanda and Guillermo were also raising five children.
Their five children all became successful adults, and some of
their children, Bargasa's grandchildren have also gone on to live
fruitful lives. A notable granddaughter, for example, Alondre de la Parra,

(15:27):
is an accomplished musician and composer. She currently serves as
the musical director of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. The first
ever female principal conductor of an Australian Symphony Orchestra. In
addition to her many accomplishments in the worlds of the
arts and business, Yolanda Bargastulce also managed to create an

(15:48):
incredible home life and family. Sadly, many people in the
United States, especially Mexican Americans, have never heard of Yolando Bargastulce.
At the time of her death in nineteen ninety nine,
Baragos was one of the wealthiest Mexican women who ever lived.
She influenced the popular culture of Mexico to a degree

(16:09):
that has no equal among men or women. Her incredible
mind enriched the lives of millions of people, and in
the end, she left Mexico a more magical place. Thank
you once again for listening to another episode of Mexico Unexplained.
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(16:31):
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We appreciate your kind attention. Once again, until next time,

(16:52):
Thank you, egracias.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
Thank you, but listening to another episode of Mexico Unexplained
with host Robert k. For show summary, relevant links, and commentary,
Please check out our website at mexicoanexplained dot com, Like
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Addie arsand haste la vista.