ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how tenant protest in Veracruz came, because of political opportunity. Although housing conditions were equally bad in most cities, alliances and divisions that emerged after the revolution between national, regional, and local elites set the stage for tenant protest. During the course of the protest, however, the structure of political opportunity changed in Veracruz, in part because property owners opposed to the tenant protest asserted themselves. On December 25, 1916, residents in the port officially founded a tenant union to organize for lower rents and improved housing conditions and to lobby the state government for housing reform legislation. Renters in Veracruz distinguished themselves as the only grassroots protest to help bring about the passage of significant state housing reform in Mexico during the 1920s. Explaining the fact that the Veracruz state government sponsored legislative action meant to realize urban housing reform must necessarily focus on the relationship between Tejeda and tenant organizing.
