México Beyond 1968: Revolutionaries, Radicals, and Repression During the Global Sixties and Subversive Seventies

Description

México Beyond 1968 examines the revolutionary organizing and state repression that characterized Mexico during the 1960s and 1970s. The massacre of students in Mexico City in October 1968 is often considered the defining moment of this period. The authors in this volume challenge the centrality of that moment by looking at the broader story of struggle and repression across Mexico during this time. México Beyond 1968 complicates traditional narratives of youth radicalism and places urban and rural rebellions within the political context of the nation’s Dirty Wars during this period. The book illustrates how expressions of resistance developed from the ground up in different regions of Mexico, including Chihuahua, Guerrero, Jalisco, Mexico City, Puebla, and Nuevo León. Movements in these regions took on a variety of forms, including militant strikes, land invasions, cross-country marches, independent forums, popular organizing, and urban and rural guerrilla uprisings. México Beyond 1968 brings together leading scholars of Mexican studies today. They share their original research from Mexican archives partially opened after 2000 and now closed again to scholars, and they offer analysis of this rich primary source material, including interviews, political manifestos, newspapers, and human rights reports. By centering on movements throughout Mexico, México Beyond 1968 underscores the deep-rooted histories of inequality and the frustrations with a regime that monopolized power for decades. It challenges the conception of the Mexican state as “exceptional” and underscores and refocuses the centrality of the 1968 student movement. It brings to light the documents and voices of those who fought repression with revolution and asks us to rethink Mexico’s place in tumultuous times. Contributors: Alexander Aviña Adela Cedillo A. S. Dillingham Luis Herrán Avila Fernando Herrera CalderónGladys I. McCormick Enrique C. Ochoa Verónica Oikión Solano Tanalís Padilla Wil G. Pansters Jaime M. Pensado Gema Santamaría Michael Soldatenko Carla Irina Villanueva Eric Zolov Cover Title Page Contents Preface: Mexico Today / Jaime M. Pensado and Enrique C. Ochoa Acknowledgments Introduction: México Beyond 1968: Revolutionaries, Radicals, and Repression / Jaime M. Pensado and Enrique C. Ochoa PART I. INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS 1. Integrating Mexico into the Global Sixties / Eric Zolov 2. Zones and Languages of State-Making: From Pax Priísta to Dirty War / Wil G. Pansters PART II. REVOLUTIONARY ORGANIZING AND STATE RESPONSE 3. “Latent Sites of Agitation”: Normalistas Rurales and Chihuahua’s Agrarian Struggle in the 1960s / Tanalís Padilla 4. “For the Liberation of Exploited Youth”: Campesino-Students, the FECSM, and Mexican Student Politics in the 1960s / Carla Irina Villanueva 5. The 23rd of September Communist League’s Foco Experiment in the Sierra Baja Tarahumara (1973–1975) / Adela Cedillo 6. Mexico’s Turn Toward the Third World: Rural Development Under President Luis Echeverría / A. S. Dillingham 7. A War Against Poor People: Dirty Wars and Drug Wars in 1970s Mexico / Alexander Aviña PART III. YOUTH RADICALISMS AND STATE VIOLENCE 8. Working-ClassHeroes: Barrio Consciousness, Student Power, and the Mexican Dirty War / Fernando Herrera Calderón 9. The Various Lives of Mexican Maoism: Política Popular, a Mexican Social Maoist Praxis / Michael Soldatenko 10. The Other “New Man”: Conservative Nationalism and Right-Wing Youth in 1970s Monterrey / Luis Herrán Avila 11. “The Darkest and Most Shameful Page in the University’s History”: Mobs, Riots, and Student Violence in 1960s–1970s Puebla / Gema Santamaría 12. Student Organizing in Post-1968 Mexico City: The Coordinating Commission of the Committees of Struggle and State Violence / Verónica Oikión Solano 13. Torture and the Making of a Subversive During Mexico’s Dirty War / Gladys I. McCormick Final Remarks: Toward a Provincialization of 1968 / Jaime M. Pensado and Enrique C. Ochoa Chronology of Selected Events: Revolutionaries, Radicals, and Repression (c. 1946–c.1980) List of Abbreviations Contributors Index