A new edition of the Mexican American comic “El Peso Hero” brings the story about Mexico that few readers know. The edition, issued in the United States, tells the story of the Torreón massacre in 1911, where Mexican revolutionary forces murdered more than 300 Cantonese Mexicans and Japanese Mexicans.

“There is a long history of Chinese immigration to Mexico”, said the comic book’s creator, artist and educator Héctor Rodríguez, in an interview with NBC News about “El Comandante Chong”.

Still according to Rodriguez, “there is also a history of anti-Chinese movements, including deportations, expulsions and genocide. And this history has been forgotten or purposely put away”.

“Dressed in a modest white shirt and blue jeans, the cross-border hero El Peso Hero is a champion of Latinos and Mexican Americans, particularly immigrants. He takes on drug cartels, human traffickers and corrupt agents on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border”.

“But in the new three-part story arc, ‘El Peso Hero Sicario War’, El Peso Hero takes a back seat to feature Enrique Chong, a Chinese Mexican special forces commander in the northern state of Coahuila, who Rodríguez compares with the master archer Hawkeye from Marvel comics, according to NBC. And Rodríguez says that this issue resonates with the core themes of the cross-border comic.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador apologized in 2021 for the 1911 massacre, and denounced other racial killings from that period, in which Asians were mutilated or hung from telegraph poles.

“A New York Times article about the massacre dated from May 21, 1911, reported the murder of J. W. Lim. The prominent Chinese Mexican banker was dragged around the town square in Torreón ‘at the end of a rope which had been tied around his neck’. The article was largely based on the testimonies of an American locomotive engineer and a conductor who escaped from the three-day attack led by Mexican revolutionaries. And according to these testimonies, the newspaper reported that Lim was “shot and killed” after his body had been ‘badly crushed’”, according to the publication.

“Statements from the railroad men say that 17 Chinese were murdered after firing on revolutionaries who approached their work area. Their statements also said that the Chinese hotel and railroad station were burnt, in addition to other buildings”.

Chinese workers migrated to Mexico in the 1800s. Many helped to build out Mexico’s railroad system. Others established businesses and farms, and Lim founded a bank in Torreón. The Mexican revolutionaries’ victory over Torreón, which is the seat of the state of Coahuila, forced Mexican general and seven-term president Porfirio Díaz to resign and take exile a few days later.

According to the NBC News, “Rodríguez says that El Peso Hero draws from these historic facts, in addition to the experiences of his family living on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. The idea for Chong’s character came from stories that were passed down through his father’s family about Chinese Mexicans getting harassed and killed by revolutionaries”.

The comic book creator is a fifth-grade teacher in McKinney, Texas. He grew up in the Texan border town of Eagle Pass and has family in the Mexican border town of Piedras Negras, which is located in Coahuila.

“Rodríguez remembers growing up with Asian stores and restaurants on both sides of the border. […] These experiences inspired Rodríguez to tell a story about a character that was proud to be Asian Mexican”. 

Rodríguez’s comic book “El Peso Hero” first gained mainstream fame after the superhero delivered a punch, or “trumpazo,” to presidential candidate Donald Trump on a 2015 cover in response to his campaign announcement in which he called Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals.

But the comic book also pays tribute to real-life heroes. In 2020, Rodríguez published a special edition that put the spotlight on nurses and other essential workers in the frontlines against COVID-19.