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Student Politics, National Politics: Mexico’s National Student Union, 1926–1943
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
In 1926 students enrolled in Mexico City’s exclusive Catholic preparatory schools faced a crisis that threatened to ruin their academic careers. They were in a serious quandary because officials at the government-supported National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) were placing what were viewed as unfair obstacles to their plans of matriculating into the university, thereby threatening the aspirations that these students and their parents had for their futures. Their predicament was directly related to the deteriorating political climate that would soon produce the religious civil war known as the Cristero Rebellion of 1926-1929. These students were being victimized by pro-government UNAM officials because of their Catholic Church affiliation; this at a time that the Church was locked in a bitter struggle with President Plutarco Elías Calles (1924-1928). The heart of the conflict was Calles’s steadfast determination to enforce the anticlerical provisions contained in the Constitution of 1917. This landmark document encapsulated many of the central demands of the men and women who, like President Calles, had fought in the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920). Calles was a dedicated anticlerical who believed that the nation’s social, political, economic, and educational development required a dramatic reduction in the Roman Catholic Church’s influence within Mexican society.
By mid 1926 these affected students had organized themselves into a citywide student group, the Union of Private School Students, with the goal of defending themselves from what they perceived to be the arbitrary, ideologically driven actions of university officials. However, the evolution of this nascent student organization changed dramatically when its activities drew the attention and interest of the country’s most important Catholic official, the Archbishop of Mexico José Mora y del Río.
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References
1 Mexico’s strongman Porfirio Díaz revived the National University of Mexico in the early twentieth century as a secular, state-operated institution.
2 Quirk, Robert E., The Mexican Revolution and the Catholic Church, 1910-1929 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973), p. 100 Google Scholar. From their exile in the United States the Mexican episcopal hierarchy had wasted no time in denouncing Mexico’s new constitution. They issued a manifesto decrying the Constitution of 1917 as another of the “systematic abuses carried out by the revolutionaries against the Catholic Religion, its churches, its ministers, and its educational and charitable institutions. . .” ( Facius, Antonio Rius, La Juventud Católica y la Revolución Mejicana 1910-1925 [Mexico City: Editorial Jus, 1963], p. 104)Google Scholar.
3 Calles, utilizing the powers granted to the state by Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution, also carried out an extensive land reform program that doubled the amount of acreage granted to peasants by his predecessor Álvaro Obregón. Calles’s presidency is also noteworthy for favoring the rise to prominence of the CROM, a pro-government labor confederation.
4 Dulles, John W.F., Yesterday in Mexico: A Chronicle of the Revolution, 1919-1936 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1961), p. 301 Google Scholar; Quirk, , The Mexican Revolution and the Catholic Church, p. 151 Google Scholar.
5 Quirk, The Mexican Revolution and the Catholic Church, p. 153.
6 Ibid., p. 155.
7 The League included the Union of Catholic Ladies, the National Parents’ Association, the National Confederation of Catholic Workers, the Knights of Columbus, and the Mexican Catholic Youth Association.
8 Val, Luis Rivero del, Entre las Patas de los Caballos (Mexico City: Editorial Jus, 1953), p. 25 Google Scholar.
9 Untitled document, n.d., Pascual Díaz Archive, Section: Acción Católica Mexicana, File: 197, Box: 3, Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado Primado de México.
10 Espinosa, David, “Restoring Christian Social Order: The Mexican Catholic Youth Association (1913-1932)” The Americas 59:4 (April 2003), p. 454 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 Martin, Benjamin F., Count Albert de Mun: Paladin of the Third Republic (University of North Carolina Press, 1978), p. 63 Google Scholar.
12 Andrés Barquín, y Ruiz, , Bernardo Bergöend S.J. (Mexico City: Editorial Jus, 1968), p. 215 Google Scholar; Espinosa, , “Restoring Christian Social Order,” pp. 453–454 Google Scholar. Bergöend asserted that the “ACJM does not have as its ultimate goal the formation of young men dedicated solely to their studies, to inaction, once they are educated. If that was the ACJM’s ultimate goal then I, its creator and its ecclesiastical assistant, would truthfully declare that it would have no reason to exist.”
13 Untitled document, n.d., Pascual Díaz Archive, Section: Acción Católica Mexicana, File: 197, Box: 3, Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado Primado de México.
14 Ibid.
15 Vega, Luis Calderón, Cuba 88: Memorias de la UNEC (Mexico City: n.p., 1959), p. 12 Google Scholar. These included the positions of president, a vice-president (one of two) and two secretaries.
16 The figure of Father Pro, S.J., represents an additional link between the ACJM’s Daniel O’Connell chapter and the new Catholic Student Confederation, as his brother Humberto Pro was also a Daniel O’Connell group member.
17 Estatutos de la Confederación Nacional de Estudiantes Católicos de México, 1928, File 360 Box 46, Miguel Palomar y Vizcarra Collection, Archivo Histórico de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
18 The Cristero Rebellion broke out in 1926 shortly after the Mexican bishops declared a strike to protest the government’s religious policies. Catholic peasant guerrilla groups began to emerge in historically Catholic regions in central and western Mexico, motivated by both religious and economic considerations. The National League for the Defense of Religious Liberties, which on July 25, 1926 had initiated a nation-wide economic boycott as a means of pressuring Calles’s government, moved in the Fall of 1926 towards a policy of embracing the Cristero’s armed struggle. The League’s dramatic decision was taken only after consulting the Mexican bishops, who agreed not to block the Liga’s entry into Cristero Rebellion (Programa de Boycott, 7 July 1926, Pascual Díaz Archive, File 192 Box 5, Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado de México; Untitled document, 13 May 1929, Miguel Palomar y Vizcarra Collection, Section: Organizaciones Católicas, Series: L.N.D.L.R., File 348 Box 47, Archivo Histórico de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México).
19 Luis Rivero del Val detailed his adventures as a Cristero guerrilla in his autobiography Entre las Patas de los Caballos (1953).
20 Luna, Juan Hernández, “Un diálogo con el restaurador en Mascarrones de la filosofia perrenes” in Homenaje a Oswaldo Robles en su 25 Aniversario en Docencia (Mexico City: Editorial Jus, 1963), p. 100 Google Scholar.
21 Miguel Agustin Pro’s brother Humberto Pro was also shot. The Pro brothers were dragged into the case because an automobile formerly owned by Miguel Agustín Pro was used in the assault. The late Pope John Paul II canonized Miguel Agustin Pro, S.J., as a saint and martyr of the Roman Catholic Church. Humberto Pro was yet another member of the ACJM’s Daniel O’Connell local. A member of the Daniel O’Connell group eventually murdered Obregón the following year. Obregón’s assassin, José de León Toral, had been Humberto Pro’s best friend. Obregón was Mexico’s president-elect at the time of his assassination.
22 These points of conflict included the registering of priests and government restrictions on Catholic elementary-level education.
23 “Letter from Daniel Tello to Miguel Palomar y Vizcarra” 27 June 1929, Section: Organizaciones Católicas, Series: L.N.D.L.R., Box 51 File 378, Archivo Histórico de la Universidad Nacional Autónomo de México. League members had become increasingly alarmed over the negotiations that Díaz and Ruiz y Flores were carrying out and frustrated by their lack of input in the process. Lay Catholic militants and their allies in the Church hierarchy feared that Díaz and Ruiz y Flores were going to reach an agreement based solely on “promises of men without honor” (“Letter from Miguel Palomar y Vizcarra to Archbishop González Valencia of Durango” 1 September 1928, Section: Organizaciones Católicas, Series: L.N.D.L.R., Box 50 File 369, Archivo Histórico de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México).
24 Poggi, Gianfranco, Catholic Action in Italy: The Sociology of a Sponsored Organization (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1967), p. 12 Google Scholar.
25 Díaz’s reforms to the A.C.J.M. stripped from it its fundamental task of creating Catholic social and political activists. In addition, the A.C.J.M.’s top leadership would no longer be elected by its members but appointed by Archbishop Díaz as head of Mexican Catholic Action. Although Archbishop Díaz’s reforms faced fierce resistance from the A.C.J.M.’s national leadership and much of its rank and file, the cleric managed to impose his will on the organization. As a consequence, many of the A.C.J.M.’s hard-line members deserted the association and created a short-lived rival organization, Nationalist Youth, which was ultimately doomed due to its lack of official recognition. Bergöend remained the A.C.J.M.’s spiritual director despite of his strenuous opposition to Díaz’s reforms, which he directly made known to the archbishop (“Letter from Bernardo Bergöend, S.J., to Archbishop Pascual Diaz,” 7 October 1930, Pascual Díaz Archive, Section: Acción Católica Mexicana, File 197 Box: 3, Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado Primado de México). Bergöend maintained secret ties to Nationalist Youth and hoped that it would carry on his goal of creating Catholic political activists (Barquín y Ruiz, Bernardo Bergöend, S.J., pp. 214-216).
26 “Circular sent by the ACM to Junta Diocesenas discussing the C.N.E.C.M.,” ACM, 1064 C.N.E.C. 1930-44. UIA.
27 ACM, File 1064, Section: C.N.E.C.M. 1930-44.
28 Pascual Díaz Archive, Section: C.N.E.C. (1929), File: 192 Box: 5, Archivo Histórico Primado de México.
29 “Circular sent by the ACM to Junta Diocesenas discussing the C.N.E.C.M.,” ACM, 1064 C.N.E.C. 1930-44, UIA. However, it is unclear whether any funds were obtained from this source.
30 Ortíz, Manuel Ulloa, Don Ramón Martínez Silva: Semblanzas de un Maestro (Mexico City: Editorial Jus, 1974), p. 8 Google Scholar.
31 “Informe del Sr. Bustos al Comité Directivo de la Liga,” 12 August 1927, Miguel Palomar y Vizcarra Collection, Section: L.N.D.L.R., Series: Organizaciones Católicas, File: 356 Box: 48, Archivo Histórico de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; “Memorandum from Miguel Palomar y Vizcarra to Luis Bustos,” 8 October 1927, Section: L.N.D.L.R. Series: Organizaciones Católicas, File: 356 Box: 48, Archivo Histórico de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
32 Calderón Vega, Cuba 88, p. 21.
33 Archbishop Díaz no doubt viewed the Catholic Student Union as a potential counterweight to Bergöend’s troublesome A.C.J.M. The Catholic Student Union’s focus on issues surrounding higher education dovetailed with the Church’s overall concern with matters relating with education and its continued apprehension of the government’s educational policies. Indeed, in the 1930s education became a major source of conflict in the relationship between Mexico’s revolutionary leaders and the Roman Catholic Church.
34 Fernando Beluánde Terry, a future president of Peru, was one of the delegates at this congress.
35 “Convocatoría y Conclusiones de la Convención Iberoamericana de Estudiantes Católicos, 12 al 22 de diciembre 1931,” in Calderón Vega, Cuba 88, Appendix 2, p. 26.
36 Ibid., p. 31.
37 Calderón Vega, Cuba 88, Appendix 2, p. 19.
38 Ibid., p. 42.
39 Ibid.
40 Vaughan, Mary Kay, Cultural Politics in Revolution: Teachers, Peasants, and Schools in Mexico, 1930-1940 (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1997), pp. 31–32 Google Scholar.
41 Pública, Secretaría de Educación, Algunos Datos y Opiniones sobre la Educación Sexual en México (Mexico City: Talleres Gráficos de la Nación, 1933), pp. 5–6 Google Scholar; Morales, Ernesto Meneses et al., Tendencias Educativas Oficiales en México: 1911-1934 (Mexico City: Centro de Estudios Educativos, 1986), p. 630 Google Scholar. The Mexican Eugenics Society proposal was inspired in a resolution in favor in sex education in public schools that had been passed in 1930 by the Sixth Pan-American Congress of the Child held in Lima, Peru (Vaughn, p. 33).
42 Pública, Secretaría de Educación, Algunos Datos y Opiniones sobre la Educación Sexual en México (Mexico City: Talleres Gráficos de la Nación, 1933), p. 34 Google Scholar.
43 La Palabra (Mexico City), 5 June 1933. These efforts included the holding of an informal plebiscite in Mexico City that asked parents the following question: “Do you accept that your children, and especially your daughters, are taught SEXUAL SECRETS (sic) at school?”
44 Vaughn, Cultural Politics in Revolution, p. 34.
45 Ibid., p. 5.
46 Archbishop Leopoldo Ruiz y Flores, “Instrucción a los Católicos Mexicanos”, 20 December 1934, Miguel Palomar y Vizcarra Collection, File: 342 Box: 43, Archivo Histórico de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
47 Cardinal Pacelli, “Instrucciones Sobre la Conducta Que el Episcopado y los Fieles les han de Observar acerca de la Enseñanza Socialista Impuesta por el Gobierno Mexicano,” 20 December 1936, Miguel Palomar y Vizcarra Collection, File: 342 Box: 43, Archivo Histórico de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. This included the establishment of clandestine Catholic schools and the reclassifying of Catholic secondary schools as “commercial academies” free of government regulations. The latter often enjoyed the support of Mexico’s conservative business community, and efforts to close them down provoked conflict between this element of the Mexican Right and the government. This situation is illustrated by the example of the Commercial Academy of Morelia, a school founded in 1936 and supported financially by Morelia’s chapter of the National Chamber of Commerce and Industry. President Lázaro Cárdenas’s decision to close this school led to a flood of telegrams to the president’s office from angry regional chapters of the National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (“Memorandum Relativo a la Clausura de la Academia de Enseñanza Mercantil de la Cámara Nacional de Comercio e Industria de Morelia, Michoacán, que presenta a la Considerción y Resolución del Señor Presidente de la República. La Confederación de Camaras Nacionales de Comercio e Industria y la Cámara Citada”, 26 January 1938, File: XIII/162.1(723.4)/-1 Box: 259, Departamento Jurídico y Revalidación de Estudios Collection, Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de la Educación Pública).
48 Vaughn, Cultural Politics in Revolution, p. 35.
49 Raby, David, “Los Maestros Rurales y los Conflictos Sociales en México (1931-1940),” Historia Mexicana 18:2 (Oct.-Dec. 1968)Google Scholar.
50 Vaughn, Cultural Politics in Revolution, p. 13.
51 Ibid., p. 35.
52 Mabry, Donald J., The Mexican University and the State (College Station, Texas: Texas A & M University Press, 1982), pp. 109–110 Google Scholar.
53 Bremauntz, Alberto, La Educación Socialista en México (Mexico City: Imprenta Rivadeneyra, 1943), pp. 165–166 Google Scholar.
54 Ibid., p. 411.
55 Toledano, Vicente Lombardo, Obra Educativa Vol.II (Mexico City: Instituto Politécnico Nacional, 1987), p. 387 Google Scholar.
56 Lombardo Toledano engaged in celebrated debate with a former mentor, philosopher and UNAM faculty member Antonio Caso on the merits of the curriculum reform program and the issue of academic freedom.
57 Mabry, The Mexican University and the State, p. 119.
58 Fellow UNEC members Daniel Kuri Breña and Manuel Pacheco Moreno succeeded Chávez Camacho as presidents of the National Student Confederation.
59 “Memorandum que presenta la Unión Nacional de Estudiantes Católicos de México a la consideración del Venerable Episcopado,” Archivo del Arzobispo Luis Ma. Martínez, File: 83 Section: Gobierno Civil, Memorandums Letra “M” Year: 1945, Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado Primado de México. It is impossible to corroborate these estimates that, on the face of it, appear to be significantly exaggerated.
60 The UNEC, as part of its crusade against its ideological adversaries, also supported anti-socialist curriculum reform efforts at the University of Guadalajara. In October 1934 a strike broke out at that institution led by secular and Catholic conservative faculty and students against a socialist curriculum reform effort endorsed by the school’s rector and the state government. This time, however, the opponents of socialist education were unsuccessful. To break the strike the government sent in the federal army to seize the university’s buildings and then closed the institution for an indefinite amount of time ( Romero, Laura Patricia, “Los estudiantes entre el socialismo y el neoconservadurismo” in Jalisco desde la Revolución: Movimientos Sociales, 1929-1940, edited by Romero, Laura Patricia [Guadalajara:Universidad de Guadalajara, 1988], p. 287)Google Scholar.
61 The case of the elite Mexico City Jesuit preparatory school Instituto Patria serves to illustrate this point. The Jesuits selected a Catholic layman, Francisco Pérez Salazar, to present the school’s application for incorporation into the UNAM. The school’s name was changed to Bachilleratos and no mention was made of its previous incarnation as a Jesuit school, although it is hard to believe that university officials would not be aware of this fact, as the Instituto Patria was the most prestigious Catholic preparatory school in country and was located in Mexico City. However, both sides kept up with the charade and the Bachilleratos was granted incorporation in August 1934 (“Letter from Francisco Pérez Salazar to Rector Manuel Gómez Morin (UNAM),” 13 April 1934, Binder: 270, Dirección General de Incorporación y de Revalidación Collection, Archivo Histórico de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; “Letter from the Oficial Mayor of the UNAM Antonio Armendáriz to Director Francisco Pérez Salazar of Bachilleratos:’ 15 August 1934, Document: 150.4167.150/202.2/ Binder: 270 Dirección General de Incorporación y de Revalidación Collection, Archivo Histórico de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
62 José Luis Curiel, interview by author, Mexico City 27 October 1993.
63 Its associate status meant that it had no voting rights within Catholic Action. More importantly, it meant that its future existence was always going to be uncertain.
64 Bustos, Luis G., “Fundamentalidad de la Union Nacional de Estudiantes Católicos,” December 1935 Google Scholar, 10.65 UNEC 1935-1936, Unidad de Acervos Histéricos de la Universidad Iberoamericana.
65 Ibid.
66 “Letter from Archbishop Leopoldo Ruiz y Flores to Archbishop Pascual Díaz, 22 July 1935, 10.65 UNEC 1935-36, Unidad de Acervos Históricos de la Universidad Iberoamericana.
67 “Letter from the Vicario General of the Archdiocese of Guadalajara to Luis G. Bustos, President of Acción Católica Mexicana” 21 December 1935, 10.65 UNEC 1935-36, Unidad de Acervos Históricos de la Universidad Iberoamericana.
68 “Comunicación oficial que en su caracter de Director Pontíficio de la Acción Católica Mexicana, dirige el Exco. Sr. Arzobispo de México a la Junta Central y démas organos dirigentes de la ACM,” N.D. 10.65 UNEC 1935-36, Unidad de Acervos Históricos de la Universidad Iberoamericana.
69 “Letter from the Archbishop of Monterrey to Luis G. Bustos,” 26 December 1935, 10.65 UNEC 1935-36, Unidad de Acervos Históricos de la Universidad Iberoamericana.
70 “Comunicación oficial que en su caracter de Director Pontíficio de la Acción Católica Mexicana, dirige el Exco. Sr. Arzobispo de México a la Junta Central y démas órganos dirigentes de la Acción Católica Mexicana.” N.D. 10.65 UNEC 1935-36, Unidad de Acervos Históricos de la Universidad Iberoamericana.
71 “Memorandum que presenta la Union Nacional de Estudiantes Católicos de México a la Consideración del Venerable Episcopado,” Archivo de Luis Ma. Martínez, Year: 1945 File: 83 Section: Gobierno Civil, Memorandums Letra “M, “ Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado Primado de México.
72 Mabry, The Mexican University and the State, p. 158. Jesús Guísa y Acevedo, a Catholic activist and philosophy professor, was also removed from the UNAM because of his political activism.
73 Rueda, Julio Jiménez, Historia Jurídica de la Universidad de México (Mexico City: Imprenta Universita, 1955), p. 225 Google Scholar.
74 Mabry, The Mexican University and the State, p. 169.
75 Mexican Catholics were grateful to Cárdenas who in 1936, for his own political reasons, had expelled Calles from Mexico.
76 However, the UNEC did not retreat from the world of student politics during Castiello’s tenure as its ecclesiastical representative. In an undated memorandum to Archbishop Luis Martínez Jamie Castiello, S.J., proudly reported that the UNEC’s candidate to the Mexico City based FEU’s Governing Board, José Campillo, had defeated a pro-government candidate by a 550 vote margin (Jaime Castiello, “Informes” Archivo de Luis Ma. Martínez, Year: 1938 (?) File: 82 Section: Diplomaticos, dictamenes, iniciatives y ministros. Letra D, Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado Primado de México).
77 Campiello, José, “Presencia de Jaime Castiello: Semblanza,” Corporación 66 (January-February 1963), p. 4 Google Scholar.
78 For decades its detractors have associated the UAG with extreme right-wing elements in Mexico’s second largest city.
79 Calderón Vega, Cuba 88, p. 144. Cuesta Gallardo’s activities were detailed in a report written in 1940 to Archbishop Martínez by the UNEC’s president, Jesús Hernández Díaz.
80 “Memorandum presentado al Exmo. y Rvmo. Sr. Dr. D.N. Luis María Martínez, Dignísimo Arzobispo de México por el Asistente General de la Union Nacional de Estudiantes Católicos sobre el gravisimo problema que se plantea entre los universitarios católicos,” Archivo de Luis Ma. Martínez, Year: 1945 File: 83 Section: Gobierno Civil, Memorandums Letra “M,” Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado Primado de México.
81 “Memorandum que presenta la Union Nacional de Estudiantes Católicos de México a la Consideración del Venerable Episcopado,” Archivo de Luis Ma. Martínez, Year: 1945 File: 83 Section: Gobierno Civil, Memorandums Letra “M, “ Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado Primado de México.
82 Calderon Vega, Cuba 88, pp. 171-173.
83 “Memorandum que presenta la Union Nacional de Estudiantes Católicos de México a la Consideración del Venerable Episcopado,” Archivo de Luis Ma. Martínez, Year: 1945 File: 83 Section: Gobierno Civil, Memorandums Letra “M, “ Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado Primado de México.
84 At this time the school’s faculty and students elected the rectors of the National University.
85 Universidad Iberoamericana, “Entrevista al Dr. Rodolfo Brito Foucher” (19 December 1967) in Historia de la UIA 1943-1956 (unpublished manuscript, 1968), p. 22.
86 The alma mater of political figures like Mexico’s current president, Vicente Fox, the Iberoamerican University (Ibero) today recruits its students to its modern campus in the exclusive Santa Fé district of Mexico from elite families who can afford to pay its high tuition rates. The institution also receives the generous patronage from Mexico’s business community.
87 Ledesma, José de Jesús, Trayectoria Histórico-Ideolâgica de la Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico City: UIA, 1985), pp. 213–219 Google Scholar.
88 Nacional, Partido Acción, Así Nacio el Pan (Mexico City: Comisión Editorial, 1990), p. 23 Google Scholar; Mabry, Mexico’s Acción Nacional, p. 34.
89 La Nacion, 17 October 1954. Carlos Séptien García was killed in an airplane accident while on a journalistic assignment.