Stand up and Fight : Participatory Indigenismo, Populism, and Mobilization in Mexico, 1970-1984 [1 ed.] 9780816533794, 9780816532506

Citation preview

Stand Up and Fight

maRÍa L. O. mU ÑOZ

sTaND uP aND FigHT Participatory Indigenismo, Populism, and Mobilization in Mexico, 1970–1984

TUCSON

The University of  Arizona Press www.uapress.arizona.edu

© 2016 The Arizona Board of Regents All rights reserved. Published 2016

Printed in the United States of  America

21 20 19 18 17 16  6 5 4 3 2 1 ISBN-13: 978-0-8165-3250-6 (cloth) Cover design by David Drummond

Back cover photograph courtesy of Salomón Nahmad Sittón. Publication of  this book is made possible in part by the proceeds of a permanent endowment created

with the assistance of a Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal agency.

Library of  Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Muñoz, María L. O. (María Leonor Olin)

Title: Stand up and fight : participatory indigenismo, populism, and mobilization in Mexico, 1970–1984 / María L.O. Muñoz.

Description: Tucson : The University of Arizona Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015032995 | ISBN 9780816532506 (cloth : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Indians of  Mexico—Politics and government—20th century. | Mexico—History— 20th century.

Classification: LCC F1219.3.P7 M865 2016 | DDC 972.08/2—dc 3 LC record available at http://lccn .loc.gov/2015032995

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of  Paper).

To all those who need to hear it: Stand Up and Fight! Para todos aquellos que necesiten escucharlo: ¡De Pie y en Lucha! x

Contents

List of  Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi List of  Abbreviations xv Introduction: The Field of Force 1  Entre Pueblo y Gobierno: Luis Echeverría and the Rhetoric of Populism

3 16

2 The Path to Participatory Indigenismo 37 3 Brokering for Inclusion: The Rise of DAAC Indigenous Bilingual Promoters, 1970–1975

59

4 Campesino versus Indígena: Regional Indigenous Congresses and the Struggle for the Countryside

91

5 Negotiating Participatory Indigenismo: The First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples

115

6 In Defense of Our People: The National Council of Indigenous Peoples, 1975–1985

150

viii Contents



Conclusion: Reimagining the Field of Force

184

Notes 195 Bibliography 237 Index 259

Illustrations

Figures 1. Delegates at the 1972 Tarahumara Supreme Council Congress, Guachochi, Chihuahua 73 2. Geographical locations of  the regional indigenous congresses, March–July 1975 100 3. Map of the sites for the proceedings of the First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples, Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, October 7–10, 1975 127 4. Indigenous delegates at the First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples on Janitzio Island, Michoacán 139 5. President Luis Echeverría at the closing ceremonies of the First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples,  Janitzio Island, Michoacán 148 6. Vertical structure of the National Council of  Indigenous Peoples after 1975 157 7. CNPI leaders in a meeting with President Miguel de la Madrid in early 1983 177 8. CNPI leaders with President Miguel de la Madrid in early 1983 178

x illus tr ations

Tables 1. First group of  indigenous bilingual promoters (1970) working within the Department of Agrarian Affairs and Colonization 62 2. Dates and locations of the 1975 regional indigenous congresses 77 3. List of Supreme Council presidents who attended the First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples, Pátzcuaro, Michoacán 122

Acknowledgments

I

completing this manuscript I have incurred a great number of debts. A generous grant from the Human Rights and Human Diversity Graduate Student Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln launched my research as a master’s student in 2003. Then, a 2006–2007 Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship allowed me to conduct the bulk of my research throughout Mexico. In addition, generous support from the Office of the Provost and Department of History at Susquehanna University has made key additional research trips (2010–12) possible. The task of recognizing the people who embraced the possibilities of this project and provided support and encouragement is at times overwhelming. In Mexico City, I must thank Dr. Guillermo Palacios at El Colegio de México, who has been a champion of the project since its early gestation and directed me to important archives. At the Mexican General National Archive (AGN), Roberto Beristáin Rocha was incredibly generous with his time and knowledge of the archival system, as were José Zavala Rangel at the reference desk and Raymundo Álvarez García in Gallery 3. The staff at the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (CDI) was of great help in locating documents, particularly María Margarita Sosa Suárez and Angel Baltazar. I also wish to thank the staff at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS-DF) and Licenciada Ximena González n the process of

xii Acknowledgments

Munizaga, who were incredibly supportive during the time I examined the previously unseen private papers of anthropologist Guillermo Bonfil Batalla. My most warm thoughts are for Carmen Nava y Nava, who shared her endless knowledge with me, never turning me away when I knocked at her door to run ideas past her or ask for assistance. In Morelia and the P’urépecha region in Michoacán, I was greeted by a cadre of generous scholars. Dr. Carlos Paredes at Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo not only enthusiastically supported my work but also connected me to the group of P’urépecha scholars in the region, the group Kw’aniskuyarhani (meaning “enlightened investigator”). My good friend Edgar Kuerepu Alejandre Pérez at the Coordinación Institucional para la Atención de Los Pueblos y Comunidades Indígenas del Estado de Michoacán embraced my project and welcomed me on his birthday with a smile, a family archive, and cake. In Oaxaca, el gran maestro, Dr. Salomón Nahmad Sittón, was most generous in offering his kindness, generosity, knowledge, time, home, and personal archive. Without his support and archive it would not have been possible to write this book. I also wish to thank Dr. Daniela Traffano Alfieri, who was and has always been incredibly supportive and generous with her time; she was one of the first people who made me think about the range of directions I could drive this project and challenged me to do so. While at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln I began this project as a master’s thesis and was influenced by important conversations with members of my cohort: Kurt Kinbacher, Elaine Nelson, and Thomas Smith. I would also like to thank James Alex Garza, James Le Sueur, and John Wunder for their guidance and friendship as well Fridays at Yia Yia’s, advice on how to survive Nebraska winters, and Husker football games. While at the University of Arizona I also accumulated a number of debts. I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by a fantastic core group of friends, colleagues, and mentors. First, a great deal of gratitude is owed to Graduate College Associate Dean María Teresa Velez, who provided both moral and financial support for my research. Ana Alonso, Ryan Kashanipour, Stephen Neufeld, David Ortiz, Thomas Sheridan, and Scott Whiteford read early versions of in­ dividual chapters and provided important feedback and insight. I am especially grateful to Bert Barickman and Kevin Gosner, both of whom continued to discuss the direction of the book and my findings well after graduate school. In particular I would like to thank the “Post-40s Collective”—a group of colleagues who have been a major source of moral and intellectual support for the

Acknowledgments xiii

last eight years; members of this group have not only read versions of the book over the last few years but also challenged me to think broadly about my work. From sharing ideas and intense discussions to exchanging our work, indulging in textile shopping sprees in Oaxaca, conducting book-title brainstorming sessions, enjoying critical soccer playoff madness at El Coloso de Santa Ursula, and commiserating over our trials with the intelligence archives in Gallery 1 and 2 at the Archivo General de la Nación, Alexander Aviña, Gladys McCormick, Tanalís Padilla, Gabriela Soto Laveaga, and Louise Walker, you guys are the best—thank you! The Oaxaca Summer Institute (OSI) has been an important source of inspiration, support, and overall influence in the completion of this project, from the first summer I spent researching and writing about the First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples in 2003 to the writing of the dissertation chapters to the final book as it appears. I have benefited from feedback from keen graduate students in the program as well as colleagues in the field who generously dedicated time during their summers to guide seminars and discuss the work in progress. In particular I would like to thank longtime OSI directors Bill Beezley, Ann Blum, and Bill French for encouragement and for pushing me to think critically. Spirited seminars with OSI Fellows, Allison Huntley, Megan McDonie, David Reid, Aileen Teague, Natasha Varner, and David Wysocki helped further contextualize my own work. A warm and special recognition goes to Bill Beezley, who as my dissertation advisor pressed me to consider the big picture, how my work fit into a particular historical moment, and how it could advance our understandings of post-1940s Latin America. His constant support has always been balanced with challenges. Perhaps an unlikely source at a critical moment in the process of finishing the manuscript came in the form of a very warm visit to the history department at the University of  Toronto during a brutally cold snap. The discussion about ethnic and class-based identities, indigeneities, and the state as fragile were important, as were the overall intellectually stimulating conversations with Kenneth Mills, Melanie Newton, and Kevin Coleman. I would also like to thank the anonymous readers of the manuscript who engaged with my work and whose suggestions were incredibly helpful to me in sharpening my ideas and analysis. Thank you for taking the time to read my work, to engage with it critically, and to offer your generous comments and ideas to improve the overall work. To copyeditor Diana Rico, thank you for helping to clean up the final product.

xiv Acknowledgments

Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends: Michelle Berry, María Elena Cardeña, Albert and Sonia Gúzman, Daniel Loera, Melissa Negrete, Ciriaco and Teresa Pinedo, and Anne Stolcis, who have been my constant cheerleaders. My brothers and sisters Veronica, Sandra, Javier, and Juan Carlos, and my nephew Demián have been incredibly supportive throughout this endeavor. In particular, these last couple of years, Javi compelled me to think about how the field of force shifts over time and place. My greatest debt, however, one that I will never be able to repay, I owe to my parents, Francisco Javier Muñoz and Teodora Muñoz Saldaña—¡mil gracias! Finally, to my most constant source of support and encouragement, who endured the reading of many drafts over the last four years and engaged me in challenging conversations regarding ways to frame my work, I thank Bill French.

Abbreviations

ACG ACRN AMPII ANPIBAC APROFON BANRURAL CAPFCE CCI CENAPI CFE

Asociación Civil de Guerrero (Guerrero Civic Association) Asociación Civil Revolucionario Nacional (National Re­volutionary Civil Association) Asociación Mexicana de Profesionistas Intelectuales e Indígenas (Mexican Association of Indigenous Professionals and Intellectuals) Alianza Nacional de Profesionales Indígenas Bilingües (National Alliance of  Bilingual Indigenous Professionals) Aprovechamientos Forestales de Nayarit (Nayarit Forest Resource Use) Banco Rural (Rural Bank) Comité Administrativo Federal para Construcción de Escuelas (Federal Administrative Committee for the Construction of Schools) Centro Coordinador Indigenista (Indigenist Coordinating Center) Centro Nacional de Pastoral Indigenista (National Indigenist Pastoral Center) Comisión Federal de Electricidad (Federal Electricity Commission)

x vi Abbre viations

CIESAS CNAPACI

CNC CNJI CNJICI CNOP CNPA CNPI COCEI CODREMI CONAFRUT CONAI CONASUPO COPLAMAR CREFAL

Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en An­ tropología Social (Center for Social Anthropology Research and Study) Consejo Nacional de Avenimiento y Planeación Agraria de las Comunidades Indígenas (National Council for Con­ sensus and Agrarian Planning in Indigenous Communities) Confederación Nacional Campesina (National Campe­ sino Confederation) Consejo Nacional de Jovenes Indígenas (National Council of Indigenous Youth) Consejo Nacional de Jóvenes Indígenas y Comunidades Indígenas (National Council of Indigenous Youth and Communities) Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones Populares (Na­tional Confederation of  Popular Organizations) Coordinadora Nacional Plan Ayala (Plan Ayala National Council) Consejo Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas (National Coun­­cil of  Indigenous Peoples) Coalición de Obreros, Campesinos y Estudiantes del Istmo (Coalition of  Workers, Campesinos, and Students of the Isthmus) Comité para la Defensa de los Recursos Naturales, Humanos y Culturales Mixes (Defense Council for Human and Cultural Resources of the Oaxaca Mixe) Comisión Nacional de la Fruta (National Commission for Fruit Cultivation) Confederación Nacional Indígena (National Indigenous Confederation) Compañía Nacional de Subsistencias Populares (National Company for Popular Subsistence) Coordinadora General de Plan Nacional de Zonas De­­ primidas y Grupos Marginados (National Plan for Depressed Zones and Marginalized Groups) Centro Regional de Educación Fundamental para la América Latina (Regional Center for the Fundamental Edu­­cation of Latin America)

Abbre viations x vii

CST CTM DAAC DAI DFS EZLN FIFONAFE FONAFE FONART FRAP III ILV IMSS INAH INI INMECAFE MNI NAFTA OPEC PCNPI

Consejo Supremo Tarahumara (Tarahumara Supreme Council) Confederación de Trabajadores Mexicanos (Confederation of  Mexican Workers) Departamento de Asuntos Agrarios y Colonización (Department of Agrarian Affairs and Colonization) Departamento de Asuntos Indígenas (Department of  Indigenous Affairs) Departamento Federal de Seguridad (Department of Fed­eral Security) Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (Zapatista National Liberation Army) Fideicomiso Fondo Nacional del Fomento Ejidal (National Foundation for Ejido Development) Fondo Nacional de Financiamiento Estatal (National Fund for the Financing of State Companies) Fondo Nacional para el Fomento de las Artesanías (National Fund for the Development of Arts and Crafts) Frente Revolucionaria de Acción Popular (Popular Action Revolutionary Front) Instituto Indigenista Interamericano (Interamerican Indigenist Institute) Instituto Lingüístico de Verano (Summer Language Institute) Instituto Mexicano de Seguro Social (Mexican Social Security Institute) Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (National Institute of Anthropology and History) Instituto Nacional Indigenista (National Indigenist Institute) Instituto Mexicano del Café (Mexican Coffee Institute) Movimiento Nacional Indígena–(National Indigenous Movement) North American Free Trade Agreement (Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte) Organization of  Petroleum Exporting Countries Primer Consejo Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas (First Na­tional Council of  Indigenous Peoples)

x viii Abbre viations

PIDER PNR PRI PRM PRODESCH PROFORMEX PROFORMICH PROFORTARAH SARH SEGOB SEP SIA SRA SURI UCEZ UNAM UNOI

Programa para el Desarrollo Rural (Integrated Rural De­ velopment Project) Partido Nacional Revolucionario (National Revolution­ ary Party) Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Rev­ olutionary Party) Partido de la Revolución Mexicana (Party of the Mex­­ ican Revolution) Programa de Desarrollo Economico y Social de los Al­­ tos de Chiapas (Program for the Economic and Social Development of the Chiapas Highlands) Productos Forestales de México (Mexico Forest Products) Productos Forestales de Michoacán (Michoacán Forest Products) Productos Forestales de la Tarahumara (Tarahumara For­ est Products) Secretaría de Agricultura y Recursos Hidráulicos (Secretariat of Agriculture and Hydraulic Resources) Secretaría de Gobernación (Secretariat of the Interior) Secretaría de Educación Pública (Secretariat of Public Education) Secretaría Indigenista de Acción (Secretariat of Indig­ enist Action) Secretaría de Reforma Agraria (Secretariat of Agrarian Reform) Sociedad Unificadora de la Raza (Peoples’ Unified Society) Unión Campesina Emiliano Zapata (Emiliano Zapata Campesino Union) Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (National Autonomous University of Mexico) Unión Nacional de Organizaciones Indígenas (National Union of  Indigenous Organizations)

Stand Up and Fight

Introduction The Field of  Force

S

Participatory Indigenismo, Populism, and Mobiliza­­ tion in Mexico, 1970–1984 tells the story of indigenous mobilization tak­­ ing place within the entrails of a federal governmental agency.1 In it I ex­­ amine the organization of  the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples of  Mexico and the formation of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples. These took place amid efforts by the Mexican state to curtail a bourgeoning indigenous movement calling for material benefits, infrastructural develop­ ment, and political self-determination; all this within the context of a national political crisis characterized by urban and rural guerrilla activity, the political fallout from the silenced student movement, a still resentful and angry stu­­ dent sector, a business sector upset by the slowdown of economic growth, and peasant demands for land reform that eventually were manifested in land take­­ overs, among other forms of protest. These social and economic challenges were not unique to Mexico, as student movements worldwide and the non­­ aligned movement as well as liberation movements in Africa and Indochina shaped Mexican sensitivities to these issues.2 These realities threatened the legitimacy not only of the official national party, the Institutional Revolution­­ ary Party (PRI)—in power since 1929—but of the very state itself. Indigenous peoples too joined the list of dissatisfied sectors and attempted to redefine their own political and social place within the nation. A federal government initiative intended to preempt the emergence of an independent tand Up and Fight:

4 Introduc tion

indigenous movement by allowing for indigenous participation in the con­­ struction of official indigenismo policies by way of a series of regional indigenous congresses as well as a national one. The First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples, nonetheless, provided indigenous leaders with a venue for making bold demands for economic and social improvements as well as for claiming political self-determination. In addition, through the National Council of Indigenous Peoples, established in 1975, indigenous leaders and communities attempted to redefine their own political and social place within the nation. This book examines the events that led to the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples, the congress itself, and developments after the congress. It shows how indigenous leaders working within the Department of Agrarian Affairs and Colonization (Departamento de Asuntos Agrarios y Colonización, or DAAC) managed to circumvent state attempts to contain indigenous com­­ munities and make bold demands that intended to redefine the ways federal and state governments engaged with pueblos indígenas. The First National Con­­gress of Indigenous Peoples left a significant imprint on the history of twentiethcentury indigenous mobilizations by making public demands for broader par­­ ticipation of indigenous peoples in national, social, and political life and for in­­ creased economic opportunities for their communities. Beyond demonstrating the changes in national indigenismo policy, tracing the history of the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples reveals the emergence of a new generation of indigenous leaders who tried to act on the political possibilities framed through Luis Echeverría Alvarez’s populist project (1970–76), as well as by those of his successor and fellow populist, José López Portillo (1976–82). Their actions can be seen as part of a broader attempt to re­­ vive moribund Revolutionary promises after 1970. The history of this organiza­­ tion runs parallel to PRI restructuring, revealing the fractures in the PRI as an all-powerful entity and confirming the reality of post-1946 Mexico as a web of political and economic co-optation that included multiple forms of intimida­­ tion and violent repression as well as a space in which to organize from within. This portrait challenges long-standing assumptions of PRI political, social, and cultural dominance. After decades of challenges from campesino movements, railroad strikers, doctors’ strikes, right-wing Sinarquistas, and student move­­ ments, among other forms of popular protests, as well as the rise of opposition political parties like the National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional, or PAN), the PRI faced a long period of political, social, and economic crisis it was forced to address when Luis Echeverría assumed the presidential office.3 Even within

The Field of Force  5

the PRI, some of its members realized the need for reform, with Carlos A. Madrazo leading the push for internal change, a movement that died with him in 1969.4 In late 1970, President Echeverría aimed to rebuild the deteriorating image of the PRI by launching a populist political campaign that increased federal spending on mass social programs while also positioning the “new” PRI as a champion of political inclusion with a so-called democratic opening.5 This less than cautious spending strategy was a departure from the more prudent forms of federal spending on social programs that had become the norm after 1946, especially with regard to rural programs. After 1940 federal expen­ ditures on rural social programs were scaled back significantly, at first in part because of the war effort, though the trend continued after 1945.6 The focus on urban development and investment in industrialization and consumer-oriented projects increased exponentially during Miguel Alemán’s term (1946–52), with more than half of the federal budget going to that end. This continued under Adolfo Ruiz Cortines (1952–58), with Adolfo López Mateos (1958–64) slowing it just a little as he advocated a balanced approach to federal spending, attempt­ ing to focus on both rural and urban sectors.7 Still, by the early 1960s less than 8 percent of the annual federal budget was spent on agricultural and irrigation programs in rural areas and less than 2 percent on providing available agricultural credit, leaving the countryside in a moment of economic urgency.8 Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (1964–70) did little to increase federal aid for agricultural development or to promote growth for small landowners, farmers, and ejida­­tarios; nor did he increase social spending in a significant way. For his part, Echeverría attempted to address these concerns once in office by spending on economic and social pro­ grams in rural and urban areas simultaneously. During his administration gov­ ernment spending skyrocketed as public works projects and social welfare pro­ grams in both cities and the countryside were funded, likely beyond the fiscal abilities of the treasury.9 I situate the history of  the 1975 First National Congress of  Indigenous Peo­­ ples within this national context and as part of the mass campesino and indig­ enous mobilizations that erupted nationwide during the late 1970s and 1980s. Limited analysis of the congress often reduces it to a state initiative with min­­ imal meaning and impact. Yet the First National Congress of Indigenous Peo­­ ples served to create interethnic cooperation between indigenous groups who for the first time met one another on a national stage. Indigenous peoples dis­­ covered that, although varying by region, the basic economic and social prob­­ lems individual ethnic groups faced were not entirely different from their own.

6 Introduc tion

This realization helped in the process of creating alliances among ethnic com­­ munities, individual indigenous leaders, and government officials. Attempts to establish a national organization in the form of the National Council of  Indig­ enous Peoples marked the vigorous reemergence of indigenous peoples in na­­ tional politics. Rather than reducing indigenous leaders and communities who took the route of working within the system to the status of passive victims, we need to view them as actors in this process. Indigenous peoples recognized the oppor­ tunities before them as President Echeverría postured to situate himself along­ side former president Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40) as an ally of indigenous peo­ ples. It is important to interpret the organization of the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples and the regional indigenous congresses of 1975 that pre­ ceded it as neither wholly independent nor completely state controlled. Instead, negotiation was constant, and the congresses were shaped and reshaped by the agency of indigenous and campesino local and regional leadership and local, regional, and federal government officials. These groups also proved to be fluid as the goals and motivations of indigenous leaders and government officials changed over time and in response to emerging national, political, and eco­­nomic concerns. In the 1970s, for both indigenous groups and Echeverría’s admin­ istration, the most public arena for such negotiation was the First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples. Yet the process leading to the congress and its aftermath proved to be just as important in the negotiation of increased po­litical presence for influence, social concessions, and economic improvements for indigenous communities.10 This process itself reveals the intersection of what I am referring to as politics and the political. To examine this complex web of politics and the political, I frame my re­­ search within the new political history (NPH) that began to emerge in the early 1980s, primarily in English and United States historiography, as well as in conversation with the work of Vinayak Chaturvedi, a scholar of the history of western rural India. Since its beginnings more than twenty years ago, this sub­­ discipline has turned to interdisciplinary approaches in order to innovate politi­ cal history. Chaturvedi’s work is of particular interest to me because he posits the existence of a “History of Politics After Political History,” arguing that new political historians analyze the daily or personal nature of politics and the po­ litical rather than merely focusing on elite and institutional history.11 Steven Pincus and William Novak also have argued that the future of the NPH is not

The Field of Force  7

merely to focus on institutions and national leaders but to locate and analyze “power and law, state and nation, equality and justice, identity and difference, citizenship and civility.”12 Common to these scholars is an attempt to reconcile the often criticized “traditional” focus of political history on national leaders, elites, and institutions with an interest in representing and analyzing the role of ordinary people or particular social groups in politics and political culture.13 For these authors, all of these terms are alive and contested, in the past as in the present. In this book I write a history of a political process without exclusively employing a top-down or bottom-up approach, but, rather, taking as my focus the point where the two meet, where the negotiation process might take place.14 I try to locate the places where politics (defined as the way individuals are or­­ ganized and influenced and as being concerned with power, law, nation, iden­ tity, and citizenship) intersect with the political (defined as how individuals as well as the state interpret meaning and power, nation, law, identity, and citizen­ ship). In this case both government officials as well as ordinary citizens negoti­ ate and shape power itself, its representations, and its expressions, as well as related concepts like nation, identity, and citizenship.15 In this way my work contributes to a growing historiography that challenges the discourse of the unquestioned power and hegemony of the national ruling party, the PRI, after 1946. It does so by tracing the political history of a group of indigenous leaders and government officials, including the president, who defined politics and the political in their own terms in order to fit their own institutional, organizational, and personal agendas. In addition, my intent is to reframe the ways indigenous organizations and movements are and have been viewed. A traditional historiography frames indigenous movements dur­ ing this time as having two distinct options: the first, that of attempting to remain independent from official agencies to forge alliances with one another as well as with peasants and workers—that is, working directly from below; and the second, that of working within government structures to make limited and government-approved political, social, cultural, and economic gains, viewed as a process of co-optation, thus rendering participants powerless. Rather than finding indigenous movements and their leaders as being either completely in­ dependent, that is, outside the official system, on the one hand, or as controlled by and merely serving government interests, on the other hand, numerous in­­ digenous leaders used their positions within the system to further collective and individual agendas, like bilingual promoters in the Department of Agrarian

8 Introduc tion

Affairs and Colonization. Those leaders were neither wholly independent nor completely co-opted. Instead, they worked within a broad range of experiences that at times required conciliation and at others could push limits. The story of the rise and fall of the National Council of Indigenous Peo­­ ples illustrates the advantages of an approach not bound by a binary of inde­ pendence versus co-optation. It changes how we can view and interpret the ways indigenous movements and organizations emerge and develop from within as well as how the state at various levels could be pressured in post-1940s Mexico.16 While it is difficult to define the state, encompassing, as it does, such things as the presidential office, the PRI structure, the mechanism of policing, and statesponsored violence, I view the state as a complex body that is connected by these tissues of power and operated by agents, willing or unwilling, of this power. The Revolutionary government emerged parallel to the rise of the PRI, and the methods of attempted hegemony were soft (or cultural, via commemorations, festivals, and statues and other art), hard (or violent, carried out by means of police, military, and intelligence apparatus), and everything in between. Because of these factors, dissecting the state in the post-1940s era has proven difficult. Despite work by Roderick Camp, Rob Aitken, Elisa Servín, and other scholars, we still do not know intimate details of how the PRI and the Mexican state collaborated or how the PRI itself truly functioned.17 Nor do we know how the collection, cataloguing, and distribution of intelligence operated, despite im­­ portant research in the Department of Federal Security (Departamento Federal de Seguridad, or DFS) and Secretariat of the Interior’s Social and Political In­­ vestigations (Secretaría de Gobernación Investigaciones Políticas y Sociales, or SEGOB-IPS) archives.18 The role of the military is still in need of deeper anal­ ysis to provide a context for how the military has been deployed as an agent of the Mexican state.19 Still, much recent scholarship has shown that the state, rather than being an immovable, monolithic, and all-powerful entity during the twentieth century, is rather a rickety structure rattled by various demands that people —in the case of this work, indigenous leaders—could capitalize on, for collective or individual gains, even if only in the short term. Certainly, works by Jürgen Buchenau, Adrian Bantjes, Mary Kay Vaughan, Stephen Lewis, and other scholars have demonstrated the fractured nature of the post-Revolutionary state (1920–40).20 The literature on post–World War II Mexico has also grown and become more sophisticated with Tanalís Padilla’s examination of the Jaramillo Movement in Morelos, Louise Walker’s re­ framing of the middle classes, Jaime Pensado’s work on conservative student

The Field of Force  9

organizing in the 1950s and 1960s, Robert Alegre’s book on the railroad strikes of the mid-1950s, and Alexander Aviña’s work on the Partido de los Pobres in Guerrero.21 All these authors reveal the ways everyday citizens defied PRI rule, demonstrating the very real weaknesses in the perceived leviathan. It is these direct challenges to PRI rule that must be considered when evaluating the op­­ portunities and limitations of a participatory indigenismo—the direct partici­ pation of indigenous peoples in official indigenismo—in the process of politi­ cal negotiation in populist Mexico. This book adds a little more mortar and a few more bricks to such intellectual foundations. My work builds on these efforts as well as on those of Alan Knight, Jeffrey Rubin, and William Roseberry, who attempt to decenter the state and ques­ tion its reach.22 Knight’s work on the limitations of Cardenismo in shaping a central state and consolidating power frames the intersection of politics and the po­litical as a long-term process. Roseberry, in particular, in his contribution to the influential volume edited by Gilbert Joseph and Daniel Nugent, Everyday Forms of State Formation, argues that Antonio Gramsci sees subaltern groups neither as passive nor controlled but rather as active in affiliating with preexist­ ing po­litical organizations and forms to pursue their own claims; further, he argues that these organizations and affiliations are thus shaped by the process of dom­ination itself, a process he captures with the phrase “hegemony as struggle.” One question for the present study—concerned with relations between indig­ enous leaders working within the system and mid-level government officials as well as with the National Campesino Confederation, part of the state—then becomes: what are the consequences to indigenous organizations in struggling within these state forms? William Roseberry defines the “field of force” as the fluid and complex rela­ tionship between “the ruling and the subaltern.”23 Focusing on the field of force is important because it helps us understand power as well as the fragility of a particular order of domination and to see “the state” as comprised of multiple levels and incarnations. As Roseberry points out, we examine the field of force thusly in order “to understand struggle,” not necessarily consent.24 The bilingual promoters I trace served as political intermediaries functioning within a fluid and evolving field of force where, at times, they were able to negotiate from positions of strength and, at others, from ones of relative weakness. Fluctua­ tions in political opportunities were tied to ebbs and flows at the local, re­­ gional, national, and transnational levels. In particular, during the twelve years of populism in the late decades of the twentieth century (1970–82), much

10 Introduc tion

opportunity existed for political maneuvering in and out of government circles. I certainly do not claim that the bilingual promoters functioned completely outside of government spheres or as representatives of protocivil society move­­ ments.25 As Carlos Monsiváis argued, the rise of civil society in Mexico occurred in the aftermath of the 1985 earthquake, which not only destroyed countless buildings and led to thousands of deaths but also damaged the image of the government as serviceable.26 The response to the quake shattered the veil of supposed government stability and public order along with the lives of thou­ sands of people directly affected by the tragic consequences of decades of the construction industry’s corruption and lack of governmental oversight.27 Rather than belonging within the literature on civil society movements, these bilingual promoters fit better as part of the new political history, concerned as it is with excavating the places where politics intersects with the political, defined, in this case, as the way they maneuvered within the system. Many of the indigenous leaders who participated as bilingual promoters, indigenous Supreme Council presidents, or captains and union leaders were also linked to organizations and movements beyond the scope of the government’s reach or its structures. Here, however, I examine how these individuals engaged with and in government circles to push forward their personal and group agendas in the field of force where everyday state formation was shaped, contested, and reshaped. One of those spaces where politics and the political intersected was the 1975 First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples. The congress represented a space where indigenous leaders and government officials publicly negotiated in­­ digenous and campesino identities, economic opportunities, citizenship rights, and self-determination. It serves as a point of departure from which to address the broader issues and dynamics that surround the organizational process of the congress as well as the objectives of different interested parties. Although taking place in 1975, the congress was the result of a long-term process of negotiation that began well before then and continued well after it. Included in this book is everything from the negotiating process between indigenous leaders and midlevel and upper-level government officials to the real struggle between indige­ nous leaders and peasant leaders, at the local, state, and national levels, as well as the politics of  “authenticity,” a contestation over who could claim the mantle of indigeneity. All helped to dictate the constellation of everyday state forma­ tion within shifting fields of force. The group of bilingual leaders central to the congress engaged in the field of force with government leaders at different levels and in different ways, with

The Field of Force  1 1

their own histories, their own struggles, and their own ways of doing things. Rather than disagreeing with the government, bilingual promoters and then the leaders of the National Council of  Indigenous Peoples (Consejo Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas, or CNPI) challenged the state to live up to its own rhetoric. They were trying to hold it accountable to its own statements, myths, and Rev­ olutionary promises, demonstrating that populism is not simply a top-down imposition. What the congress reveals is that a mid-level process of refashioning populism and pushing it back at the state was taking place. In the book, that mid­ dle level is represented by these indigenous bilingual promoters and, after 1975, through the mediating role of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples. That the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples was government sponsored is undeniable. On the one hand, the congress was officially touted as the showpiece of Echeverría’s participatory indigenismo. On the other hand, indigenous leaders working within the system acted on the promises of partic­ ipatory indigenismo by making demands that included political autonomy for their communities as well as the official birthing of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples. Still, that reality of government initiative should not lead us to ignore the opportunities it created for indigenous peoples and the ways some leaders used the very language of Echeverría and López Portillo’s popu­ lism to shape the contours of the field of force in which they operated. The decade of the 1970s represented a decisive shift from a seemingly com­ placent indigenous population to a highly politicized social sector. Luis Eche­­ verría’s so-called participatory indigenismo, part of his populist project, opened a space for indigenous peoples to redefine the ways they engaged with govern­ ment, and it led to attempts to reimagine their roles in the social, political, and economic life of the nation. With presidential allies in both Luis Echeverría and José López Portillo, they benefited from mass government public works projects and pushed the boundaries of participatory indigenismo, of populism from the middle, to attempt to undertake wider participation in national polit­ ics. In many ways the 1970–1982 era was a golden period for a generation of indigenous leaders, one in which they might create their own possibilities from within the interstices of government. The DAAC bilingual promoters did just that, but they were also met with the reality that even in its weakened shape, the Mexican state still could dictate terms of negotiation. Moreover, the emergence of indigenous mobilization was not a Mexican reality alone. Events in Mexico were occurring in the midst of rising attention from international bodies, such as the United Nations (UN) and the Organiza­tion

1 2 Introduc tion

of American States (OAS), to the historical plight of indigenous peoples of the Americas. In particular, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues had been conducting investigations into injustices and inequalities that indig­ enous peoples of the Americas and the world faced decades before the events of the quincentennial of contact (1992). Acknowledging the history of this international concern and the world bodies formed to address it is a means of situating the organization of the First National Congress of Indigenous Peo­ ples and of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples in Mexico within a broader transnational trajectory as well as of illustrating their particular place within these movements. In 1971, shortly after Echeverría had taken office and articulated his policy of participatory indigenismo, the United Nations Sub-Commission of the Pre­ vention of  Discrimination and Protection of  Minorities assigned José Martínez Cobo, of Ecuador, to a special commission. He was to compile a detailed report on the social, economic, political, and economic challenges faced by indigenous peoples. The report, released between 1981 and 1984,28 recommended, among other things, a long-term commitment to addressing these challenges from the World Health Organization, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, the International Labor Organization, the United Nations Edu­ cational, Scientific, and Cultural Organizations, and national governments.29 In particular, the study called for the commitment to hosting regional and world conferences on indigenous issues and for the design and funding of ac­ tion programs. Actors from Mexico’s own indigenous and indigenista move­ ments would take part in this global process. By indigenistas, I am referring to intel­lectuals, government officials, indigenous leaders, and other citizens who pro­moted indigenismo. Not all indigenous peoples were indigenistas. In order to examine the First National Congress, its lead-up, and its after­ math, the current volume is organized in the following manner. Chapter 1 dis­ cusses the influence of Luis Echeverría’s populist political style and the growth of a welfare state alongside the democratic and economic opportunities that shaped the field of force in which indigenous leaders worked. Chapter 2 locates participatory indigenismo as part of a long-term process during the twentieth century and shows that its evolution was not only from the top down but also from the bottom up, as intellectuals, government officials, and indigenous peo­­ ples attempted to reshape the discourse of indigenismo. In chapter 3 I exam­ ine the complexities of the roles of indigenous bilingual promoters as political in­termediaries who were attempting to shape national and regional fields of force

The Field of Force  1 3

between government officials and ethnic communities. After 1975 these bilingual promoters became Supreme Council presidents and essentially the leaders of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples. In these new roles they continued to function as go-betweens, still working within the system, just doing so with an understanding that they were part of both the state and the Revolutionary family. Chapter 4 examines the conflicts over rural political identity, one that moved fluidly from campesino to indigenous and indigenous to campesino during the organization process of regional indigenous congresses. Chapter 5 situates the 1975 First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples as the most public performance of participatory indigenismo to date when indigenous lead­­ ers and delegates, federal, state, and local government leaders, the president, and national and international academics and intellectuals negotiated within a national field of force. The individual and collective sessions served as literal and figurative spaces where social, political, and economic concerns were addressed and, at times, negotiated. Chapter 6, the final chapter, traces the aches and pains the National Council of Indigenous Peoples went through in becoming part of the state, including the struggle for recognition, respect, and all-important funding.30 This book aims to offer a nuanced picture of the CNPI, examining how its leaders had to reconcile collective interests with individual ones in order to negotiate the webs of government relationships and those within the indig­ enous communities they represented and within the leadership nucleus itself. The National Council of Indigenous Peoples emerged as a national orga­ nization intent on holding local, regional, and federal government bureaucrats to the promises made at the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples. In the struggle to establish the CNPI as a credible and legitimate organization, leaders were forced to engage in new fields of force at the federal, state, and local levels. Oftentimes the language of indigenous authenticity shaped those fields of force, where campesinos, rural teachers, and government officials as well as indigenous peoples debated over who belonged, who was legitimate, and who could and should represent indigenous peoples. As a result CNPI leaders alienated government allies who may have once been sympathetic to indigenous communities and their struggles. Internal struggles and battles for the reins of the CNPI deepened fractures in the organization, and by 1987 the CNPI was ingested into the Mexican state through its new incarnation, the National Indigenous Confederation.

14 Introduc tion

In compiling research materials I used sources from a number of federal and state government archives, private family and personal archives, and interviews with government officials and indigenistas, including Salomón Nahmad Sittón and Stefano Varese (director of the Indigenous Research Center of the Amer­ icas at the University of California, Davis) and indigenous leaders throughout Mexico. However, in this book I exclude the interviews with indigenous leaders. Some indigenous leaders feared retribution from local government, national government, local families in power, and political and personal rivals, and they asked that I not include them in this work, even after they had read and signed the consent forms I provided. Although the Institutional Review Board for Human Subject Research (IRB) approved the conduct of these interviews, I made a decision to write the book and leave out the interviews with indigenous leaders in Oaxaca, Veracruz, Michoacán, and Mexico City. Given the specificity of the leaders involved in the National Council of Indigenous Peoples, it would be difficult to disguise their identities in this book. Instead, I use the published memoirs of one of the leading Supreme Council presidents, Vicente Paulino López Velasco, and letters, newspapers, and regional indigenous congress doc­ uments in order to address some of the concerns and perspectives of indigenous leaders and communities. The choice to leave out interviews that could poten­ tially cause harm to living people is an ethical one, especially in light of current realities such as the arbitrary violence that has engulfed Mexico and the assault on the protection of sources and academic freedom demonstrated by English government subpoenas of oral histories of former Irish Republican Army mem­­ bers from Boston College’s oral history project.31 The letters, newspapers, and regional indigenous congress documents I use to represent indigenous perspectives in this process come largely from the per­ sonal collections of anthropologists Salomón Nahmad Sittón and Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, both indigenistas who supported participatory indigenismo. In Nahmad Sittón’s basement I found documents and photographs of regional indigenous congresses and the First National Congress of Indigenous Peo­ ples, the final conclusions to regional indigenous congresses, communication be­tween indigenous leaders and government officials, and planning materials for the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples. I also found documents pertaining to the meetings of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples and a number of other crucial sources that gave voice to indigenous peoples and Supreme Council presidents. Nahmad Sittón and Bonfil Batalla’s previously

The Field of Force  1 5

unseen personal papers were archival jewels and provided an additional dimen­ sion to my work. I also find it necessary to address the use of the terms indigenous, indígena, and campesino in the book. As the English-language term peasant does not fully express the cultural and political significance of the Spanish-language term campesino in the context of twentieth-century Mexico, I have chosen to use campesino throughout. That being said, I also recognize that the term campesino itself can be problematic, as it tends to include in its descriptive category small landholders, day laborers, landless workers, seasonal workers, and small ranch­ ers. In using the term campesino I refer to the breadth of landownership or lack thereof of rural peoples in twentieth-century Mexico who would adopt, either permanently or situationally, the political identity of campesino. Simi­ larly, I choose to use the term indigenous and/or indígena rather than Indian. While the term indigenous tends to cast a broad descriptive shadow, I choose to avoid replicating historically offensive terms. I admit that in previous pub­ lications I have used the term Indian, but I have since made a professional de­cision not to continue its use in my work. Finally, all translations are my own unless otherwise noted.

1 Entre Pueblo y Gobierno Luis Echeverría and the Rhetoric of  Populism

T

he funer al of L ázaro Cárdenas in October 1970, just two months before Luis Echeverría Álvarez was sworn into office, presented a sym­­ bolic opportunity to restore legitimacy to the PRI as well as for Eche­ verría to salvage his own legacy. In trying to do just that, President Eche­ verría turned to building a support base that crossed socioeconomic class lines. His administration sought to develop programs that focused on the social incorporation of specific sectors and attempted to create economic opportu­ nities for them. In addition to social programs, political designs included a controlled democratic opening, where the official position was one of free­ dom of expression, but in reality there were limits to public criticism against Echeverría’s government. Whether such an approach was “genuine” or “dem­ agogic” in its populist intent is still a matter of debate, although most scholars view President Echeverría as a politician who, through empty gestures and promises, acted in order to advance his own political agenda and ambitions.1 This chapter examines Luis Echeverría’s social programs and overtures as markers of his populist politics, which largely shaped the field of force not only for indigenous mobilizations but also for workers, campesinos, and stu­ dents. Echeverrismo needs to be placed in historical context, and this requires that we turn our intellectual gaze and analysis away from either applauding Echeverría for his efforts or deriding him for his failures. As we look beyond these analytical binaries and critiques that portray his policies as one-sided or

Entre Pueblo y Gobierno 17

a top-down imposition, perhaps it would be most interesting to examine the point at which top-down and bottom-up processes collide. It is in this middle ground, many times staked out within official agencies, processes, and pro­ grams, where such engagement occurs. Focusing here provides a glimpse of a dynamic process fashioned by a myriad of factors, including official policies, formal and informal politics, state building, and the shaping and reshaping of political identities and citizenship. Through an examination of Echeverria’s populist imaginings we can understand not only how his policies affected social and political mobilizations but also how those very mobilizations and their leaders sculpted the contours of that populism for their own gains, real and imagined, long-term and short-term, personal and collective. In this political give-and-take of populism in Mexico during the 1970s and 1980s, the point of contention, of negotiation, of the middle ground where gov­ ernment officials and indigenous leaders met was what William Roseberry re­fers to as the “field of force” in relation to a hegemonic process. In Everyday Forms of State Formation, Roseberry and the rest of the contributors to the vol­ ume grapple with multiple understandings of the state, the forms it tries to take, and the power it tries to wield and mold; they also examine the ways ordinary people helped form the cultural underpinnings of a Revolutionary state.2 Roseberry in particular argues that power is constantly negotiated in a hegemonic state that is continually in motion, experiencing push and pull fac­ tors, rather than existing as a final product. The literature on post-1940s Mexico suggests as much, and certainly Jan Rus, Romana Falcón, Florencia Mallon and Elsie Rockwell, among other contributors, help to set out the different types of state formation, locally and nationally.3 While the volume focuses on state formation as cultural practice, the intersection of politics and the political can also be analyzed from this position. Roseberry’s view of the field of force, or rather his interpretation of  E. P. Thompson’s term,4 can apply to the ways indig­ enous leaders working within the Mexican state shaped such a field of force. As a whole, the volume shows that hegemonic forms and the state are both fluid and ever developing as these terms, far from being abstract structures, are negotiated by real people.5 Government officials, elites, and popular groups all waltz in a dance hall where they navigate the dance steps, each one struggling to take the lead. The state, its existence, its reach, its power are all subject to negotiation. Political and social groups are participants in influencing this field of force, where both material and ideological battle lines are continually drawn and redrawn, sometimes oppressing, other times empowering. The broader field

18  chap ter 1

of force indigenous Mexicans navigated, with which this chapter is concerned, took place within the contours of a populism that was both top-down and bottom-up; like many before them, they too sought to take the lead in a polit­ ical waltz.

Populism and Populists: Echeverrismo As an analytical concept, populism has often been the object of intellectual scorn because of the inability of those employing it to define it precisely.6 Descriptions and definitions of populism range from equating it with mass mobilizations or types of government programs to associating it with specific kinds of ideological currents and/or with a kind of political style. These broad definitions create difficulties in engaging the multiplicity of ways political lead­ ers shape (and continue to shape) its meaning and the utility and flexibility of its reach, depending on what sectors are the targets of political and social mobi­ lizations. Early interpretations of populism in Latin America are linked to Tor­ cuato Di Tella and Gino Germani, who defined it broadly as the mobilization of popular groups within economically and politically mature nations.7 Di Tella viewed populism as an impromptu political movement fashioned by cross-class support that tended to be momentary and unorganized, oftentimes leaderless. Ernesto Laclau offered a different view of populism, arguing that it served merely as an ideological tool politicians used to manipulate the popular masses. Laclau did not accept economic determinism as the only explanation for the oppression of the lower classes. Instead, he situated populism within a hege­ monic framework where the language of populism became a tool that rein­ forced power relationships between the dominant and the dominated.8 Di Tella’s, Germani’s, and Laclau’s interpretations were themselves formed by the ways they interpreted perhaps the most infamous example of populism in Latin America, that of Juan Perón’s Argentina, which was and continues to be not only contested and fluid but also socially, politically, and culturally polarizing. Populism has historically created deep social and political divisions in twentieth-century Latin America. While, for some sectors, populist programs can function as a leveling tool enabling social and political inclusion, other groups interpret it as dangerous demagoguery serving to create political and social instability rather than order and inclusion. Perón, for example, built his populism largely through the support of urban workers and the urban poor. He

Entre Pueblo y Gobierno 19

anchored his political power on his supporters’ loyalty to him and his govern­ ment, not necessarily to the Argentine state in a broader sense. His type of populism was personalist and authoritarian, even Janus faced, as it was, simul­ taneously, both benevolent and reactionary.9 The negative response to Perón’s populism in 1955 by large landowners, industrialists, some members of the mid­ dle class, and even some sectors of the working class revealed the fragility of populism as a hegemonic tool.10 Other scholars have tried to analyze how members of the social sectors tar­ geted by populist governments and/or politicians have understood, ingested, and repurposed populist promises.11 In Brazil, the reality of national populist politics was not quite as politically and socially divisive as it was in Argentina, but it was still a significant part of twentieth-century politics. On the national level, Getúlio Vargas, during his presidency in the 1950s, was the first to adopt a populist style by pushing for prolabor laws, social security and unemployment benefits, and social welfare programs while attracting support from workers, women, and the urban poor. His populist project ended with his self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1954 but was taken up by Juscelino Kubitschek (1956–61) and then by João Goulart (1961–64), whose troubled presidency ended when the military carried out a coup d’état in 1964.12 Populist politics have also figured in the course of social and political history in Mexico, with the most prominent twentieth-century populist being Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40). President Cárdenas’s populist legacy is not necessarily po­larizing in the ways Perón’s, Vargas’s, or Goulart’s have been in Argentina and Brazil. Still, despite the accepted inclusionary nature of his politics, recent scholars have demonstrated that in the process of constructing a populist (or, as Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas has interpreted it, popular) coalition,13 Cárdenas con­ tributed to strengthening the national party structure that remained in politi­ cal power until 2000.14 Once he left the presidency, the official political party itself became the populist beast, swallowing workers, campesinos, and middleclass professionals, claiming sole legitimacy and ownership of the representative proc­ess, and deploying forms of populist politics and programs when necessary. Other scholars have also taken a look at how political figures within the Revo­ lutionary political family other than Cárdenas have employed populism. Jürgen Buchenau argues that while Cárdenas certainly utilized the official party struc­ ture to mobilize supporters, it was Plutarco Elías Calles (1924–28) who con­ tributed not only to the creation of the official party in 1929 in the form of the National Revolutionary Party (Partido Nacional Revolucionario, or PNR) but,

20  chap ter 1

along with Álvaro Obregón, to its populist inclinations.15 During the armed phase of the Mexican Revolution itself (1910–20) middle-class re­volutionaries such as Francisco Madero, Venustiano Carranza, and Obregón also tapped into a number of social sectors that had become disillusioned by the political and social status quo: the middle class, urban and rural workers, campesinos, and indigenous peoples.16 For Di Tella, the official party in Mexico reflected a populist identity because of the multiclass organization anchored by government co-opted unions such as the Confederation of Mexican Workers (Confederación de Trabajadores Mexicanos, or CTM) and National Campesino Confederation (Confederación Nacional Campesina, or CNC). Attributing populist characteristics to a party structure rather than to an individual meant that a charismatic leader was not essential in maintaining or trying to maintain cross-class support after the end of a presidential term. The power of the presidency, therefore, was not the onus of the individual, populist or not, but was interwoven into the structure of the party over time. With its built-in populist characteristics, ready to be deployed when deemed necessary, the PRI managed to retain political power, or at least the semblance of it, for more than seventy years (1929–2000). Of course, the government faced its share of challenges (the Cristero Rebellion, Jaramillista agrarian struggle, railroad workers’ strike, Sinarquistas, National Action Party, et cetera) regardless of whether or not the president was charismatic or popu­ list. Like Di Tella, Lorenzo Meyer locates Mexican populism in a structure. Yet he goes further—rather than locating the power of that populist psyche in the overall party structure, he locates it within the Office of the Presidency. Meyer explains that the power the office generates, with the PRI operating as an in­ strument to reach a multiclass constituency, serves to shape and dictate con­trol or, at the very least, the illusion of it.17 While these descriptions do much to analyze the uses of populist politics and programs, examining Luis Echeverría as an example of a populist president who grew the welfare state exponentially helps us to contextualize the trans­ formative period of the 1970s and 1980s in Mexican politics. Jorge Basurto was the first scholar to examine Echeverría as a populist, but he did so in a very limited way. It is entirely possible that he was hampered by lack of access to documents, but his best-known essay on this subject, written in 1982, focused more on the populist prototype Cárdenas rather than on Echeverría.18 Both Aníbal Vigueira and Alan Knight have proposed a different way to view and think about populism. Both argue that the very difficulty of agreeing

Entre Pueblo y Gobierno 21

on a single definition of  populism creates the need to focus on its multiple func­ tions, especially in its incarnation as a political style.19 By “political style” they refer not only to the ways populist figures govern and practice politics but also to how behavior and personal traits affect the shaping of policies, programs, and attitudes and how these are presented to target groups. This more fluid approach allows for an exploration of the methods populist leaders employed when they approached such groups, what promises were made, whether they delivered on those promises, and how they projected populism.20 Equally important are the manner in which targeted social sectors received populist policies, programs, and messages and how they strategized to press for the fulfillment of such promises, even, at times, pushing beyond them. Eche­ verría’s presidency can tell us a great deal about the range and reach of  his pop­ ulist rhetoric and programs as well as the means by which social groups mobi­ lized to take advantage of such opportunities and how they might reframe their own vision of populist promises. Such an approach calls for considering how both populists and the targets of populist strategies and tactics engaged with one another, communicated their mutual and /or individual expectations, and held one another accountable when those expectations were not met—that is, how they each operated in the political field of force. By exploring these inter­ actions we move beyond populism as a phenomenon and into a more concrete relationship between populist leaders and their intended support base, one in which both sides attempted to frame, dictate, and exploit.21 The relationship between Luis Echeverría and indigenous leaders working within his govern­ ment provides a means of addressing these questions.

Building Cross-Class Support Examining the economic, social, and political atmosphere during Luis Eche­ verría’s presidency provides a context for the development of social move­ ments in Mexico in the early 1970s as well as an explanation for the “demo­ cratic opening” that he so earnestly promoted as part of his populist approach. The ways Echeverría dealt with both popular and elite sectors offer a glimpse into the thought processes behind his attempts to restore the official ide­ als of the Revolution to the national discourse. Echeverría’s desire to articu­ late a collaborative approach toward the groups that did not benefit from the so-called Mexican Miracle (1950s–82) was part and parcel of the measures his

22  chap ter 1

administration adopted to appease social agitation. Official touting of eco­ nomic growth masked the wealth disparity that resulted from uneven develop­ ment after 1940. The political emergence of a loosely defined middle class was occurring not only in Mexico but also in other parts of Latin America and was, in part, prompted by economic growth. Eventually, financial growth began slow­ing down, but the middle sectors had grown in size and in political influ­ ence, and with it a politicized young middle-class sector demanding social jus­ tice, political equality, and educational opportunities.22 Given these changes and the need to ameliorate grievances, Luis Echeverría may have felt it neces­ sary to create venues by which democratic expression—of a controlled variety, of course—might flourish. As part of this policy to “bring in” the marginalized, Echeverría tried to co-opt students, intellectuals, campesinos, labor leaders, and indigenous peoples. For those who resisted such processes and chose open rebellion, government repression and violence was a common reply.23 Open questioning of the PRI’s ability to respond to demands for democratic openings in ways other than repression became a real concern.24 In the after­ math of the October 2, 1968, Tlatelolco tragedy, Echeverría, as the secretary of the interior, was left to assuage the anger and distrust that emerged within the ranks of a stunned and outraged citizenry. Two years later, in 1970, as the PRI candidate it was Echeverría’s duty to make members of the public move on from the events of that October night, if not to forget, then perhaps to for­give. But many of those directly and indirectly affected were not prepared to move on. Despite Echeverría’s attempts to make the legacy of the Mexican Revolu­ tion relevant to this new generation, many rejected its relevance in a new social, political, and economic reality, one in which the government was losing politi­ cal legitimacy.25 Echeverría was expected to repair the PRI’s image and restore the fragile relationship between state and citizen despite the fact that, for many, he still represented everything that was wrong with the state. Luis Echeverría Álvarez was born in Mexico City on January 17, 1922, into a middle-class family. While a student at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, or UNAM) he obtained a scholarship to the University of  Chile in Santiago, where he studied the social and economic organization of  his host nation. Upon returning to Mexico City, Echeverría married María Esther Zuno Arce, a member of a powerful political family from the state of  Jalisco; he earned a law degree from UNAM in 1945.26 In 1946 Echeverría became General Rodolfo Sánchez Taboada’s per­sonal sec­ retary. General Taboada was the president of the Central Executive Committee

Entre Pueblo y Gobierno 23

of the PRI and a veteran of the 1910 Revolution. He mentored Echeverría on the internal machinations of the political party between 1946 and 1955. Dur­ ing that time Echeverría solidified his position within the PRI as he assisted local and state campaigns for office and eventually coordinated Adolfo López Mateos’s successful presidential bid in 1958.27 One of the lessons that Echeverría learned during his tutorship under Taboada was the need to include Mexico’s youth within the political system in a meaningful way. General Taboada had inculcated in Echeverría the belief that those who fought in the Mexican Revolution had done so to invest in the future, in the nation’s youth. In these ways Taboada helped shape Echeverría’s eventual philosophy regarding the lingering promises of the Mexican Revolu­ tion as well as the need to incorporate and engage young people with the pos­ sibilities of those promises.28 While he has been compared to Lázaro Cárdenas as a populist, his political and ideological education came at the hands of Gen­ eral Taboada and was not directly inspired by Cárdenas. In 1958 Echeverría was appointed subsecretary of the interior and served under Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, who was then secretary of the interior. When Díaz Ordaz was elected president in 1964, Echeverría filled the vacancy he left as the secretary of the interior. According to some critics, in this post Echeverría became the epitome of terror and tyranny, a despicable figure who learned the vice of authoritarianism. For many, he bears the brunt of responsibility for the student massacre of  Tlatelolco and its legacy of official secrecy.29 In spite of this, in 1970 Echeverría’s political career reached its apex with his selection as the PRI’s official presidential candidate. Although Echeverría was assured of a victory simply by being the PRI official candidate, throughout late 1969 and much of 1970 he avidly campaigned across the country, making promises for a better Mexico, trying to generate support by connecting to voters and fostering loyalty in order to gain the public’s trust.30 Upon entering the office of the presidency in December 1970, Luis Eche­ verría Álvarez inherited a nation in the midst of nascent social mobilizations. Yet the Echeverría who emerged from the cocoon of the PRI was one young Mexicans did not immediately recognize. In fact, not even his hard-line pre­ decessor, Díaz Ordaz, recognized the quiet, reserved man who had served under him as secretary of the interior. As Alan Knight explains, the Echeverría whom Mexicans came to know over the course of his six years in the presidential of­ fice preferred to avoid drinking and smoking. He owned a modest home and automobile and did not involve himself in extramarital scandals (at least any

24  chap ter 1

that became public scandals, unlike both his predecessor and his successor). He opted for a casual appearance, adopting the guayabera and light jacket instead of a wool suit when meeting with other heads of state. He had a difficult time delegating tasks to others, as he fancied doing things himself, thus earning a reputation as a workaholic. As a populist politician, Echeverría liked to give countless speeches, but he also took the time to listen to the concerns of citi­ zens. These practices made him seem accessible to citizens, and he worked to create an image or posture for himself as an approachable figure who inspired confianza (trustworthiness).31 Yet the contemporary situations he faced con­ toured the approaches he took in dealing with different social sectors and the ways his government dealt with multiple demands—he could not respond to demands made by guerrillas in the same ways as to those made by the business or labor sectors. He was keenly aware of the limitations of his populist style and which groups he could, in fact, create a personal relationship with, as well as those with which he could not. Surely he was conscious that such populist overtures were indeed short-term, even if he was inclined to hope for results that were longer lasting. In order to demonstrate his willingness to move beyond 1968, Echeverría courted the student sector and opened avenues for dialogue. Students from the 1968 movement who had been arrested were released in April 1971 via a presi­ dential pardon. Of course, students were meant to understand that their release had been granted by a supposedly benevolent president who had returned them to liberty despite their own misbehavior. They were, therefore, expected to pro­ fess their loyalty to him. This amnesty policy was in some ways successful in that many students, upon their release, found their way into multiple levels of a growing bureaucracy.32 Echeverría opted for a number of strategies to entice Mexican youth to engage with politics. By lowering the voting age from twentyone to eighteen, he not only included them politically but also, in theory, en­ hanced his support base. In addition, this action can be viewed as one that re­ flected his belief (inculcated by General Taboada) in the necessity of having young people participate in the political process as the heirs of the Mexican Revolution. Echeverría also catered to youth within the military by promoting junior military officers and forcing senior officers into retirement. This effec­ tively ushered in a new generation of military leadership and also served to curry favor with the armed forces.33 But if Echeverría’s seemingly benevolent overtures were meant to assuage mistrust and resentment, he was not very convincing. Some co-opted students,

Entre Pueblo y Gobierno 25

along with workers, members of the middle sectors, intellectuals, and indige­ nous peoples, did view this as an opportunity to carve out democratic openings by working within the system. Still others showed disregard for his authority altogether, demonstrating quite openly that state legitimacy was seriously com­ promised. Not surprisingly, wooing the student sector, and youth in general, proved to be difficult. In the face of blatant defiance by a variety of social sectors, Echeverría’s retribution could be brutal and relentless, earning him a reputation as a repressive authoritarian, perhaps not all that distant from his 1968 self. For example, a confrontation between police forces and students demonstrating in support of political prisoners in Mexico City on June 10, 1971, resulted in the deaths of at least fifty people.34 For his part, President Echeverría quickly denied knowledge of police actions or responsibility for what came to be known as the Corpus Christi Massacre. The suspicions of students were heightened once again. If there had been doubts (although very few) over Echeverría’s role in the sanctioning of the policing strategies of 1968, with Corpus Christi those doubts were more than erased.35 Further student unrest spilled over into 1972 and 1973 at the National Auton­ omous University of Mexico in Mexico City. Still, Echeverría continued to make an effort to reach out to the student sector. No other public action, ex­ cept for the amnesty process in 1971, was more indicative of that effort than an official visit to the UNAM campus, which he made in March 1975. This visit marked the first time since the Tlatelolco tragedy that Echeverría entered the campus. Student reaction was mixed. A sector of the student population dem­ onstrated in anger and hostility. Days prior to his visit, countless posters, ban­ ners, and signs were plastered all over campus. The messages on those pla­cards made direct references to Tlatelolco and Corpus Christi and called the presi­ dent a reactionary and, more harshly, a murderer: LEA [Luis Echeverría Álvarez], you forget that you murdered students and other people when you were Secretary of the Interior.36

LEA assassin . . . revolutionary students do not make deals with assassins, we the students do not want dialogue, we do not want an opening, we want revolution.37

These students, outraged by the president’s visit, gathered throughout var­ious university buildings to protest Echeverría’s presence at what they consi­dered to be a student sanctuary. Further, the suspicious references to an “opening”

26  chap ter 1

were surely in regard to the so-called democratic opening that Echeverría cham­ pioned. Many of those students felt betrayed by the university administration for agreeing to the presidential visit without consulting the student body. The all-too-recent memories of  Tlatelolco and Corpus Christi still resonated with many students. The negative reaction was such that when the president exited the auditorium at the Faculty of Medicine, a skirmish broke out, and shots were reportedly fired. Echeverría was allegedly struck on the forehead by a rock thrown from a crowd of student protestors.38 Clearly, the quest to win over the student sector was going to be difficult, if not impossible. Nor were such confrontations limited to Mexico City or to university students. In other cit­ ies, high school students protested not only admission policies but also tuition increases, in some cases, and the rising cost of public transportation, in oth­ ers, as many students could not afford the daily round trip fare. In the state of Nuevo León and the cities of  Villahermosa, Tabasco, and Guadalajara,  Jalisco, student unrest resulted in the deaths of some participants.39 While some students accepted co-optation, other, more radical students re­ jected such efforts and either formed or joined urban and rural guerrilla groups. Echeverría attempted to incorporate students into his populist base, but he was less willing to open dialogue with guerrilla clusters. While Echeverría called for the rescue of a dwindling Revolution, guerrillas called for an entirely new revo­ lution, one not tied to the old, outdated, flailing co-opted one.40 In Guerrero, a teacher and activist turned revolutionary, Genaro Vásquez, called for social jus­ tice for lower-class groups, especially campesinos and workers. Vásquez began by organizing campesinos and workers in the Guerrero Civic Association (Aso­ ciación Civil de Guerrero, or ACG). But a violent incident in Chilpancingo, Guerrero, in 1961 changed the methods of resistance. Twenty-eight people were murdered, presumably by federal troops, and Vásquez was accused of having killed a government agent, which heightened government repression in the re­ gion. Vázquez himself was killed in 1972 by military troops.41 Lucio Cabañas, an ACG member and rural schoolteacher, continued the struggle for Guer­ rerrenses against a corrupt and repressive system by undertaking the leader­ ship of the peasant guerilla group, the Brigade of the Poor. The Brigade of the Poor carried out kidnappings, bank assaults, and violent confrontations with military troops, yet never numbered more than fifty mem­bers at any given time. Cabañas was killed two years after Vásquez in an en­counter with the Mexican military.42

Entre Pueblo y Gobierno 27

In general, President Echeverría constructed a public image of seeking to appease not only domestic forces, including what remained of the Mexican Left, but also the nonaligned sector. His support for Palestine and the adamant condemnation of Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Francisco Franco in Spain reveals the Janus-like characteristic of his dealings with multiple social groups.43 For example, during Echeverría’s term in office the Department of Federal Security (Dirección Federal de Seguridad, or DFS) was very active. Created in 1947 and directly under the control of the Office of the Presidency, the DFS became the nation’s premier internal intelligence agency. During Adolfo Ruiz Cortines’s presidency the DFS was moved under the umbrella of the Secre­ tariat of the Interior; there it remained until it was disbanded in 1985 under the weight of public pressure. One of the key individuals within the DFS was Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios, appointed its director in 1964. Gutiérrez Barrios, along with Luis de la Barreda Moreno and Miguel Nazar Haro, became DFS mainstays and close collaborators. Before 1970, in his capacity as subsecre­ tary and then secretary of the interior, Echeverría remained in constant con­ tact with the DFS trio. After 1970 this close contact surely remained, given the hands-on approach that became characteristic of Echeverría’s way of doing things as president. Indicative of this direct relationship was the appointment of Gutiérrez Barrios to subsecretary of the interior and de la Barreda’s pro­ motion to DFS director in 1970.44 In addition, an important component of the national security sector was Special Investigation Unit C-047. Founded in 1965 under the leadership of Nazar Haro, C-047 was the special operations sec­ tor assigned to deal specifically with guerrilla groups. Federal, state, and local authorities cooperated with the DFS by alerting them when “guerrilla propa­ ganda” was found on detainees. Oftentimes C-047 operatives conducted the “interrogations” of those arrested.45 DFS methods for confronting the insur­ gent problem varied, and although torture was not an officially sanctioned form of interrogation, putting “pressure” on detainees was. Another method used by DFS agents was the process of infiltrating alleged insurgent organizations with only a controlled number of government officials knowing the identities of undercover agents.46 In addition to the state of Guerrero, guerrilla activity also took place in urban spaces. The 23 September Communist League operated in largely urban areas, particularly in Guadalajara and Mexico City. The league was organized by UNAM professor Raúl Ramos Zavala and by survivors of the 1965 failed

28  chap ter 1

attack on the Madera military barracks in Chihuahua in protest against pro­ tracted land reform. In addition, a number of smaller urban guerrilla groups eventually forged an alliance with the league, heightening their radical pres­ ence in cities, including the Young Communists, the Professional Student Movements of  Monterrey, the Armed Commandos of Chihuahua, the Vikings of Guadalajara, and the Revolutionary Student Front, also from Guadalajara.47 Initially, disappearances of  Mexican citizens were concentrated in the state of Guerrero, where local leaders like Ruben Jaramillo, Genaro Vázquez, and Lucio Cabañas challenged the image of a leviathan state. These men openly questioned the legitimacy of a contradictory government that posited the leg­ acy and promises of the Mexican Revolution as a binding social contract while simultaneously carrying out state-sponsored violence against dissenting sec­ tors. But by 1973, following the deaths of all three, disappearances became a broader phenomenon throughout the country, no longer confined to Guerrero. These kidnappings were aimed not merely at suspected insurgents or dissent­ ers but also at their families, in order to cast a wide net of terror, intimidation, and persuasion. Marguerite Feitlowitz argues that the psychological impact of disappearances tends to create a culture of fear that immobilizes a select popu­ lation.48 If intimidation tactics did not persuade suspects to abandon their “ques­ tionable” activities, then the individuals in question were abducted.49 Such tactics are not uncommon, especially for that period, where creating a culture of fear involved much more than just targeting one individual. Rather, inti­midating family members and friends communicated, to entire communities, the ability of these agents to reach anything or anyone.50 In addition, by re­ferring to indi­ viduals who were disappeared as “insurgents,” they stripped the identity and humanity of those individuals, rendering them faceless and thus defenseless within a broader public discourse of peace and order. Families en­countered these levels of terror during the search for missing family members. For exam­ ple, when family members approached DFS authorities to learn the where­ abouts of detainees, the DFS was inexplicably unable to locate files, and/or files were altered to clear DFS agents of wrongdoing. Echeverría’s legacy would remain intricately tied to the questionable activities of this agency. It is apparent that, as president, Echeverría inherited a precarious situation (even if it was at least partly of his own making), one that, at times, seemed to engulf the entire country. This rise in social agitation did not emerge from a vacuum. Jeffrey Rubin’s work on the Coalition of Workers, Campesinos, and Students of the Isthmus (Coalición de Obreros, Campesinos y Estudiantes del

Entre Pueblo y Gobierno 29

Istmo, or COCEI), like that of  Tanalís Padilla, Benjamin Smith, Paul Gil­ lingham, Gabriela Soto Laveaga, and Alexander Aviña, demonstrate that the PRI structure was not infallible and that the challenges to the system and the fractures in its ability to control every aspect of its citizenry existed well be­ fore 1968 (and certainly after 1968).51 These challenges were sometimes local and regional and at others, national. Some were momentary, others long-term, many having profound impact while others merely generating small political and social ripples. While Samuel Schmidt argues that the Echeverría years were ones of mass mobilization, which is certainly true, the buildup of such mass mobilization was generated during the decades that preceded it. The social and economic problems of the 1970s were in part a result of the failure of pro­ industrialization, proconsumerism, and rapid urbanization, combined with the shrinking of truly democratic openings and increasingly limited economic op­ portunities for lower-class groups in cities and the countryside. Selective eco­ nomic successes glossed over the failures of policies to benefit campesinos, rural and urban workers, and others from the ranks of the urban and rural poor. During the 1970s workers, students, campesinos, and indigenous commu­ nities continued to pressure for improvements in their quality of life. At times, it seemed as if society as a whole was coming undone, bursting at the seams. With few venues available for expressing grievances, strikes became one of the most effective ways to draw attention to their plight. In response, President Echeverría attempted to appease striking sectors by organizing representative congresses for various segments in an effort to prevent open and public con­ demnation of his government through the use of widespread strikes.52 This strategy had mixed results. Other than students, the two largest sectors that challenged official visions of democracy and Revolutionary ideas were work­ ers and rural campesinos. As a populist president, Echeverría worked to draw support from the labor sector, yet economic miscalculations led to employment fluctuations in 1971 and between 1974 and 1976. In 1973, 1974, and 1976, Eche­ verría took measures to ease the rising cost of  living by increasing workers’ sala­ ries. In addition, the expansion of the National Company for Popular Subsis­ tence  (Compañia Nacional de Subsistencias Populares, or CONASUPO), a series of government-subsidized stores that provided low-cost clothing, food, and medicine for workers, campesinos, and the poor, was meant to alleviate eco­nomic hardships.53 But for many, this was not enough. As part of the official version of controlled democratic openings, Eche­verría’s administration allowed for the legal organization of independent unions and

30  chap ter 1

political groups. However, leaders of the Confederation of  Mexican Workers were upset with this policy because it broke with the long-standing relation­ ship between the union and the federal government that had been in place since the 1930s. In protest the CTM and its associates filed strike petitions in 1973 and 1974. In trying to create a limited democratic opening, whether truly intended as such or not, Echeverría found himself having to deal with labor agitation. President Echeverría chose to ignore the longtime practices that surrounded union-government negotiations. In allowing independent unions to emerge, the president wished to diminish the power of union leaders, par­ ticularly CTM leader Fidel Velázquez Sánchez. It is possible he also hoped to generate support from these small independent unions for his own agenda. For labor unions, like the CTM, that had a lengthy political relationship with the PRI, independent unions threatened to alter the power dynamic, even if they were small and not necessarily a threat. But Velázquez, a member of the established political elite, dominated the labor scene for decades before Echeverría entered office in late 1970 and continued to do so in spite of Eche­ verría’s efforts.54 If President Echeverría wished to create appeal and support for his ad­­ ministration and showcase his populist programs, then he would certainly have to grapple with the issue of land reform. Echeverría himself may have been unwilling to deal directly with the problems surrounding land reform, but campesinos intended to make sure it remained a priority. Issues around land disputes and land reform continued to be thorny. Thirty years passed between the openly populist programs of Cárdenas and Echeverría’s election, and land reform—or, rather, the lack thereof—remained an unresolved issue. While only forty-one cases of land occupations were recorded in official records between 1940 and 1972, during those decades the issue remained a volatile one, as the case of Rubén Jaramillo and the Jaramillista agrarian movement in Morelos demonstrates.55 Yet by the 1970s the crisis could no longer be ignored or con­ tained. Land invasions in many parts of the country escalated between April 1972 and July 1973, with forty-six cases reported during that period. Local and regional officials as well as large landowners called for federal government in­tervention to help protect their lands. Echeverría responded by turning a blind eye to many of the land invasions. This inaction could be interpreted as one of implied consent and support for the practice. By keeping silent and not condemning these land invasions, Eche­­ verría may have avoided the political fallout that would have come by promis­ing

Entre Pueblo y Gobierno 31

land reform and simultaneously opting for state retribution against squatters. Still, he probably did not endear himself to those being subjected to the land invasions. This lack of action on the part of the president resulted in violent confrontations between invading campesinos and gunmen hired by local land­ owners to take back control of land.56 Land invasions were recorded in the states of Guanajuato, Tlaxcala, Tabasco, San Luis Potosí, and Sonora. One of the more notable land invasions took place in Sonora, as it was the site where the family of Álvaro Obregón, the Revolutionary figure and former president (1920–24), still owned a vast section of land. In 1971, 117 families invaded and became squatters on this territory. A few years later, in 1975, the estate of Plu­ tarco Elías Calles in Sinaloa was invaded by a group of campesinos demanding land reform. In both of these cases, Echeverría’s government allowed campesi­ nos to retain the land they had already taken.57 And yet his populist redistribution faced real-life material limitations. By the 1970s the population of the country had grown significantly, and the avail­ ability of arable land had decreased, thus putting into doubt the overall impact and reach of his land reform efforts. Accounts of disputes between campesinos and indígenas, as well as those pitting campesinos and indígenas against local caciques and mestizos, larger corporations, and even government agencies, constantly flooded the pages of newspapers and government records.58 Over­ all, the problems surrounding land reform were not merely about access to or quality of land but also about the need for extended support to work the land and produce from it, which meant credit for seeds, tools, machinery, and trans­ portation and access to water sources. While land reform policies garnered some support for Echeverría from the campesino sector, they were also intended to curtail campesino participation in bourgeoning guerrilla movements in rural areas. Rural unrest reached a break­ ing point by the late 1960s, and although the quality of the land being dis­ tributed was less than adequate, campesinos may have interpreted the efforts of Echeverría’s administration not only as a signal of goodwill but also as an opportunity to pressure for potable water, credit, and other infrastructural needs. This, however, did not mean that all campesinos were satisfied with Eche­ verría’s agrarian reform efforts. In fact, they were disillusioned, because the CNC, the existing institution charged with petitioning the federal government on their behalf, had become corrupt and ineffective. Grassroots mobilizations emerged within communities in order to pressure local and federal authorities in both formal and informal ways. Formal legal recourses were often taken first,

32  chap ter 1

and when those failed, campesinos turned to more informal means, including carrying out land invasions and joining peasant guerrilla groups.59 While Echeverría’s intentions were questionable, the problematic nature of spending led to a number of economic problems. Massive social welfare spend­ ing, heavy taxation of the upper class, fractures in trade relations with the United States, and the loss of confidence in the administration on the part of the busi­ ness class contributed to deepening the fissures in the Mexican economy.60 The devaluation of the Mexican peso for the first time in twenty years damaged internal and external confidence in the economy. In 1976, the amount of capital invested abroad reached $27 billion, with Mexico accumulating a $20 billion external debt. Echeverría’s mass spending caused a massive rift between the government and the private sector, which created a lasting and complex atmo­ sphere of distrust. By 1976 public spending had increased to almost 200 million pesos from a mere 41 million pesos in 1971.61 Among the costly projects Echeverría’s administration touted was the mas­ sive steel mill project in Michoacán, which was also supported by Senator Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, in the Pacific port town of Lázaro Cárdenas. In addi­ tion, Echeverría poured billions of pesos into mass water projects spread across seventeen states. Part of the major dam projects also included potable water and irrigation systems and were begun in 1971 in Michoacán, Nuevo León, San Luis Potosí, Sonora, Tlaxcala, Zacatecas, Veracruz, and the state of Mexico.62 The total cost for these public works alone neared the 3 billion peso mark (ap­ proximately 2.7 billion). The single most expensive of them was the expansion of water systems in Mexico City and the surrounding regions (Bar­rientos Sys­ tem, Ecatepec System, Texcoco Lake Commission), totaling 738 million pesos in materials and labor and supposed to benefit three million resi­dents in the surrounding areas.63 Although potable water systems, irrigation projects, and dams were inau­ gurated throughout 1976 (Echeverría’s last year as president), most of them re­mained unfinished. It is not unlikely that the urgency to inaugurate the proj­ ects without finishing them reflected Echeverría’s need to strengthen his popu­ list credentials by linking public works in general and these projects in par­ ticular to his presidency.64 He left the presidency with a mixed legacy, however. Although the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) totaled $88 million by the end of 1976 (up from $35.5 million in 1970), massive economic spending on social programs created financial challenges. Still, some social sectors made political, social, and even economic gains during his presidency, and others continued to

Entre Pueblo y Gobierno 33

push for more until the economic collapse during the crisis of 1982, evident in the fact that the GDP fell from $250.1 million in 1982 to $148.9 million by 1984.65 Clearly, Echeverrismo had a cost, both in material and economic terms, as well as a social and political impact.66 As is evident, the task of dealing with domestic problems had become in­creasingly difficult for the president, and Echeverría looked to foreign pol­ icy as an avenue through which to draw attention away from internal matters. Echeverría made several attempts to push Mexico toward a more visible leader­ ship role within Latin America. His foreign policy, powered by a nonaligned positioning, prompted him onto the world stage as an active participant in re­ gional international affairs and not merely a secondary actor. As mentioned earlier, Echeverría condemned Augusto Pinochet’s and Francisco Franco’s re­ gimes in Chile and Spain, respectively, and granted political asylum to Chilean, Uruguayan, and Argentine political refugees. Not satisfied with sheltering asylum seekers, Echeverría drove Mexico fur­ ther into the role of so-called Third World leader.67 The Bandung Conference in 1955 had established the foundations for a nonaligned movement, creating the concept of a third option besides the United States of America and the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. The third way expressed in Bandung and consolidated at the 1961 Belgrade Conference positioned decolonized and de­ veloping nations as anti-imperialist and independent from the United States and Soviet Union’s influence in a collective form. It was not until the Cairo gathering in July 1962 that a Mexican delegation attended as a full member of the nonaligned movement. The main topic of discussion in Cairo involved economic development as a way to deal with the unequal socioeconomic gaps present in the internal realities of the member nations. The conference partic­ ipants proposed the expansion of trade among them and promoted coopera­ tion  among the member countries to improve their economic and political standing on a global level.68 At the Conference of Foreign Ministers of the Non-Aligned Countries in Guyana in August 1972, a representative of Mexico attended as an observer. At the fourth meeting of nonaligned nations in Algiers in 1973, a Mexican del­ egate again participated as an observer. Echeverría did his best to capitalize on the presence of Mexican officials at such meetings to extend the leadership position of Mexico within Latin America and in the eyes of other nonaligned nations without necessarily committing publicly to act. To that end Echeverría made a number of goodwill trips, including a month-long trek in late March

34  chap ter 1

and early April 1973 through Canada, Belgium, France, Britain, China, and the Soviet Union to promote national economic and political interests as leader of the nonaligned movement in Latin America.69 His efforts on the international stage were soon rewarded. The United Nations resolution officially named the Letter of the Rights and Duties of the States, but more commonly known as the Echeverría Letter, passed with 120 votes (6 voted against it and 10 ab­ stained). The document stated that governments of nonaligned nations had a right to maintain sovereignty over social, political, cultural, and economic sys­­ tems as well as calling for the defense of human rights and liberties, peaceful coexistence, and equal standing of all nations. This document gave Eche­verría a significant presence not only among other Latin American leaders but within the nonaligned nations as well. For those efforts he was nominated for a No­ bel Peace Prize in 1974.70 In spite of the nomination, Echeverría pushed for further recognition on the international stage, if not for his country, then for himself. With Echeverría reaching the end of  his presidential term in late 1976, he set his sights on the position of secretary general of the United Nations. In Oc­tober 1975 he addressed the United Nations and denounced the unbalanced political nature of that very institution, which earned him the respect of some but also created a sense of disdain for him by others.71 Ultimately he failed to earn enough votes to become UN secretary general but certainly established himself as a visible leader within the region, for better or for worse. Luis Echeverría also made efforts to become a player in global diplomacy by attempting to establish a close relationship with the Palestinian state dur­ ing a time of crisis in the Middle East. During his first visit with Yasser Ara­ fat, leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Echeverría declared that Mexico would take an anti-Israeli position as part of its foreign policy. But the allegedly nonaligned move had an economically devastating impact. The Jewish community in the United States launched a tourism boycott against Mexico in 1973, which resulted in a 7 percent decline in tourism revenue by 1974. The situation was serious enough that former president Miguel Alemán advised Echeverría to soften his pro-Palestinian position, but the latter refused. Still, Echeverría offered a conciliatory gesture when Secretary of Foreign Relations Emilio Óscar Rabasa traveled to Israel to try to mend the diplomatic rift. The diplomatic mission only occurred in 1975, after the tourism boycott had cost the country 50 million pesos, but it did not necessarily resolve the delicate sit­ uation.72 In 1976 United States tourist revenues in Mexico continued to drop, since Echeverría remained adamant in critiquing the Israeli position in the

Entre Pueblo y Gobierno 35

Middle East as well as resolute in his efforts to link Mexico to the nonaligned movement. These efforts resulted in U.S. public and government uncertainty over the Mexican position and thus established an aura of suspicion and dis­ trust between the two countries.73 It would appear that Echeverría succeeded in his purpose to align Mexico as a leader in that regard, but in the process he hurt the important economic sector that the tourism market had become. This of course can be interpreted in a couple of ways. On the one hand, these gestures to the Left were in part motivated by the fallout following the Tlatelolco incident, which led to his trying to reach out to a sector that included young people. On the other hand, given the regional realities in Latin America, where after 1964 countries such as Brazil, Argentina, and Chile were led by military dictatorships and there were reports of state-sponsored torture and disappearances, Eche­ verria likely wished to distance Mexico from a similar fate, clearly establish­ ing that Mexico was not Argentina nor Brazil nor Chile. Since these countries were embroiled in accusations of human rights abuses, it should not be sur­ prising that Mexico would emerge as a diplomatic leader within the region and Echeverría would be willing to cash in on that political opportunity to lead beyond a national perimeter. Ironically, active state spy networks, forced disap­ pearances, torture, and military repression were the reality in some parts of Mexico, showing that perhaps, in this regard, Mexico was more like its south­ ern neighbors than its leaders might like to admit.

Conclusion The political and material gains and possibilities presented by Echeverría were not enough to position him as a beloved president and certainly not as one to be included in the same category as the popular populist president Lázaro Cárdenas. For many of the years following the turn of the twenty-first cen­ tury, Echeverría faced charges for the Tlatelolco and Corpus Christi massacres in 1968 and 1971, respectively. The Mexican Supreme Court eventually cleared Echeverría of any culpability, thanks to a statute of limitations, among other things.74 The populist style and program employed by Luis Echeverría makes for a complicated narrative that must be analyzed beyond the terms of the binary employed by those trying to determine whether his motives were genuine or false. In contrast, perhaps one of the most important questions to ask is how

36  chap ter 1

his social programs, anchored in a populist political language, affected the lives of ordinary Mexicans. And, beyond that, how did specific groups push the lim­ its of Echeverria’s populism? Perhaps the most important aspect of his presi­ dency has to do with the various ways different social sectors reacted and acted in the face of political and social openings and the tactics each employed to push forward individual and group agendas—that is, how they navigated the field of force that Echeverría helped redefine with his populism. In the case of indigenous communities throughout Mexico, many indigenous leaders under­ stood the populist contract well and touted the openings brought about by Echeverría’s administration. Some chose to work outside the government net­ work, while others took advantage of such political and social openings to work within the system to effect changes in policies. Some of those efforts resulted in real material improvements as well as in opportunities for political representa­ tion within traditional government structures. It is clear that Echeverría’s popu­ list projects did little to endear him to the victims and families of those affected by state-sponsored violence. His presidency and the policies enacted during his term reveal a complex picture of a Mexico at a crossroads, a people pulled in different directions by opportunity and tragedy. It is in this context that the emergence of participatory indigenismo must be situated.

2 The Path to Participatory Indigenismo

O

n November 7, 1976 , approximately fifteen Supreme Council pres­ idents from the Mazahua, Lacandon, Mixe, Tarahumara, Tzotzil, Totonac, Trique, Huichol, Mayo, and Otomí ethnic groups attended a ceremony at Los Pinos, where they expressed gratitude to President Luis Echeverría for his role as an ally of indigenous communities during his ad­­ ministration.1 Later that year, in December, during the ceremonial transfer of power from Echeverría to newly elected José López Portillo (1976–82), a pa­­ rade of trucks from Michoacán and the state of Mexico gathered in front of the Secretariat of Agrarian Reform headquarters in Mexico City. Again, the message, written on signs and embroidered on cloth decorating the trucks, was one of thanks to Echeverría for his efforts on behalf of indigenous Mex­ icans during his administration.2 More than an expression of gratitude toward Echeverría, it appears that the gathering was also meant to send a message to incoming President López Portillo: indigenous peoples had mobilized as a politicized social sector and were not going away.3 This story about indige­ nous mobilization in 1970s Mexico is as much about Luis Echeverría’s pop­ ulist politics and the programs he commissioned as it is about a group of indigenous leaders and communities that tried to take advantage of such political overtures. However, the path to participatory indigenismo was a longtraveled one.

38  chap ter 2

Revolutionary Indigenismo (1910–1940) The roots of contemporary indigenismo emerged during the regime of  Porfirio Díaz (1876–1911).4 The reality of racial amalgamation, mestizaje, continued to preoccupy intellectuals and government officials into the late nineteenth cen­ tury. Many intellectuals and policy makers argued for the inevitability of racial hybridity and were convinced that the product to emerge from that biologi­ cal blending would eventually come to comprise the majority of the popula­ tion. People with positivist ideals preached social evolution, and some Porfirian in­tellectuals believed in the redemptive qualities of indigenous peoples. But that redemption would come only when they were incorporated into the Porfirian regime as modern members of society: educated Spanish speakers, dressed in so-called Western attire, divested of what was believed to be negative and back­ ward customs and ideas. Followers of Auguste Comte’s positivism philosophy believed that educa­ tion was the best medium through which indigenous peoples could be trans­ formed into their ideal of a Porfirian citizen. For example, in a letter to Mariano Riva Palacio, governor of the state of Mexico, Gabino Barreda (founder of the positivist national preparatory school) pushed for a homogenous public edu­ cation void of racial distinctions, with the aim of creating a single national identity through education. Justo Sierra, a prolific man of letters and secre­ tary of education (1905–11), argued that the inferiority of a people was not bio­ logical in nature but rather a direct product of an inferior education, a social consequence rather than an inherent biological trait. As such, the uplifting of indigenous people was indeed possible. These two intellectuals and other posi­ tivists believed that education was the key to such a transformative process.5 These social and academic liberal interpretations of indigenismo between 1857 and 1911 informed post-Revolutionary discussions and policies about the meth­ ods of incorporating indigenous peoples into society and the formation of a Re­volutionary citizenry through the creation of a mestizo identity.6 In particu­ lar Andrés Molina Enríquez’s Los Grandes Problemas Nacionales (1909) heavily critiqued the political polarization in the country as well as the inattention of the Porfirian government to land reform and social integration of indigenous peoples.7 After 1910 competing visions over nation building and the eventual role of indigenous peoples in that nation were the norm. Following the armed phase of the Mexican Revolution (1910–20) government officials set out to link

The Path to Participatory Indigenismo 39

the masses to the spirit of Revolutionary goals. The post-Revolutionary leg­ acy they and others drew on hailed Mexico as a mestizo nation, the product of European and indigenous miscegenation, both culturally and biologically. After 1920 indigenous peoples were categorized via a class-based identity as campesinos, although this was an uneven and incomplete process and practice.8 For government officials and intellectuals who worked to build a mestizo identity, it was necessary to carry out a state-sponsored transformation from an indigenous identity (racially, culturally, and politically) to the new Revolu­ tionary identity. But indigenous and mestizo identities proved fluid, and this reality posed a significant challenge to the construction of a desired Revolu­ tionary mestizo identity. Adding to the problem, official proponents of indi­ genismo (intellectuals and government officials often referred to as “indigenis­ tas”) were often at odds as to how to carry out this process. Moreover, although the policy of indigenismo was aimed at indigenous peoples, rarely were indig­ enous peoples able to participate directly in the crafting of official government po­licies. Indigenistas charted different methods for that inclusion. From public intellectuals to government officials, literary figures, and academics, indigenis­ tas imagined different indigenismos.9 From 1910 to 1940 ideological battles over the content and contours of in­ digenismo took place as attempts to forge a Revolutionary nation and citizenry raged. For example, in Forjando Patria (1916), Manuel Gamio, Mexico’s most celebrated anthropologist, argued for the inclusion of indigenous commu­nities within the Revolutionary family. In order to accomplish this, Gamio called for the qualitative biological, chronological, and geographical study of indigenous communities.10 The idea was that only by learning about indigenous communi­ ties could government officials understand their cultural, social, and political organization, all the better to mold indigenous peoples into modern citizens. Gamio argued this could be accomplished by respecting select aspects of in­ digenous practices while eliminating what might be interpreted as “negative” characteristics or features of their culture.11 Indigenismo emerged as significant government policy in the aftermath of the destruction of the Porfirian regime and the era of Revolutionary social reconstruction (1920–40). José Vasconcelos, the secretary of public education from 1920 to 1924, became a leading advocate for establishing and promot­ ing a national identity based on the myth of mestizaje. In La Raza Cósmica (1925), Vasconcelos argued that anchoring national identity upon the concept of a “pure” race (European or indígena) was not possible. This mestizo nation

40  chap ter 2

was not just an imagined one in terms of biological miscegenation but was also envisioned as the product of cultural hybridity. As Néstor García Canclini argues in Hybrid Cultures, when one force of change meets another, it generates new forms of power, identity, structures, and practices; mestizaje as an ideal and process was supposed to craft a new identity, a new set of national practices.12 In this case, indigenismo sought to take the collision of binaries—traditional and modern, urban and rural, European and indígena—and fuse them into a mestizo identity that ideally might result in plurality but in practice served to deny that plurality. Perhaps two of the early ways to trace indigenista ideologies turned policies are to look at the government focus on education and land reform.13 Education campaigns during the 1920s and 1930s were part of the nation-building proj­ ect undertaken by the fathers of the Revolution. In particular, educator Moisés Sáenz Garza, as subsecretary and secretary of public education (1925–28), was committed to the power of education; he helped develop secondary and rural education and took an interest in education as part of indigenista policy.14 Rural teachers became missionaries preaching the gospel of progress throughout rural communities. Part of the education programs geared toward indigenous peoples came in the form of the Casa del Estudiante Indígena, founded in Mexico City in 1926. The Casa del Estudiante Indígena served a dual purpose, both as a house of learning and as a training ground for indigenous Mexicans to be transformed into rural teachers and leaders of their generation. But more importantly, they served as national emissaries within their own communities and as cultural brokers, not only between their communities and the Mexican state but also as mediators of mestizaje. This role became an important com­ ponent in the nascent Revolutionary regime’s mestizaje mission. At the Casa del Estudiante indigenous male students received instruction in modern dress, acceptable social practices, and the Spanish language. They were to impart to their communities all that they learned so as to impel the Revolutionary change its progenitors dreamed of. In some ways the Casa del Estudiante Indígena served as a controlled environment for this educational experiment.15 But the reach of the Casa del Estudiante Indígena had its limits. From 1926 to 1933, although 838 persons participated in the program, some 30 percent either dropped out, ran away, were expelled, or failed to complete their course work. Some, however, stayed, finished their education, and became leaders in their own communities. For example, Ignacio León Ruiz, a Casa del Estudiante Indígena graduate, returned to the Sierra Tarahumara in Chihuahua to become

The Path to Participatory Indigenismo 41

the first president of the Tarahumara Supreme Council in 1939. Although the Casa del Estudiante Indígena was not completely successful in its objective to forge so-called modern mestizo citizens, it did serve as a model for other assim­ ilationist projects, including the internados indígenas of the Cárdenas years.16 Another of the early efforts by government officials to harness the con­ tested meanings and methods of indigenismo came during the 1930s. When Lázaro Cárdenas assumed the presidency in 1934, the social programs he ini­ tiated were intended to forge “Mexicans” out of campesinos, workers, and, most importantly, indígenas, continuing the mission of crafting ideal modern citizens. Officials at the Secretariat of Public Education (Secretaría de Edu­ cación Pública, or SEP) revised the political (although perhaps not the public) definition of indigenous peoples by downplaying race and emphasizing culture and class. By employing a cultural definition of  indigenous communities (based on language, religion, dress, education), government officials utilized images of indigenous Mexicans as political tools to access the cultural capital inherent in an exalted indigenous past. Most significantly, they could avoid possible agitation and the divisiveness that ensued when inequalities were thought to be based on race rather than class. A way to do this was to classify rural indigenous Mexicans in class-based terms, as political campesinos.17 Héctor Díaz-Polanco also argues that official indigenismo carried with it a capitalist focus, since it was more about economic assimilation (into the labor force) than social and political incorpora­ tion, and that it “postulate[d] the integration of the native ‘with his milieu and cultural baggage.’  ”18 Therefore the attempt to redefine ethnicity or at least mute it as a political tool was carried out in favor of a class identity meant to incorporate indigenous peoples as part of a homogenous national population. After 1934 the primacy of education as the tool by which to sculpt the mod­ ern mestizo citizen was replaced, or at least matched, by a commitment to land distribution. After this date, a focus on material conditions shaped the con­ versation about the dire economic and social conditions of indigenous groups. In addition, Cardenista officials undertook vigorous efforts to organize eth­ nic communities, recognizing that the problems indigenous peoples faced, al­ though not entirely unique to them, placed them at a political, social, and eco­ nomic disadvantage. While Cárdenas was often hailed by the affectionate term “Tata Lázaro” because of the efforts he made on behalf of indigenous com­ munities, his administration nonetheless impelled the gradual transfor­mation of indigenous identity into a Mexican one.19 The Cárdenas adminis­tration of­ ficially and broadly defined indigenous peoples as those who resided in regions

42  chap ter 2

that did not feel the direct impact of the Revolution and moderni­zation—and thus as targets for transformation.20 The creation of the Depart­ment of  Indig­ enous Affairs (Departamento de Asuntos Indígenas, or DAI) in 1936 repre­ sented the first attempt at the institutionalization of indigenismo as part of the Revolutionary government’s effort to push forward a project of integration. The following year, the Secretariat of Public Education also created a subdivi­ sion to focus on indigenous education. These efforts were intended to enable indigenous peoples to appeal directly for assistance as indígenas and not simply as campesinos.21 As a result of these initiatives, a number of  indigenous congresses took place in the 1930s and 1940s. In the central and southwest regions, governmentsponsored regional indigenous congresses were convened. Among other mea­ sures, organizational mechanisms were established to pressure national, regional, and local government officials for increased resources for their communities. Regional congresses with significant participation took place in Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo (720 in attendance), Tamazunchale, San Luis Potosí (800), Las Casas, Chiapas (900), and Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca (600).22 These indigenous regional con­ gresses of the 1930s were meant to foster a positive relationship between the federal government and indigenous peoples.23 The meetings pitted federal of­fi cials against local and regional indigenous and nonindigenous bosses, young against elder indigenous leaders. Despite these conflicts, the participants man­ aged to make demands for the construction of roads, schools, potable water systems, and telephone and telegraph connections and for protection from abusive government officials and the local strongmen known as “caciques.”24 In spite of a high degree of suspicion and distrust, some indigenous groups rec­ ognized the regional congresses as opportunities to publicly denounce less than desirable living conditions.25 Yet it is still unclear in some cases what long-term impact, if any, these congresses had, although the regional congresses in­­tended, among other things, to create a permanent relationship between indi­genous groups and the national government through the Supreme Councils.26 Perhaps the crowning indigenista moment for President Cárdenas came in 1940. With U.S. collaboration and cofunding, the Interamerican Indigenist Congress was held, and the Interamerican Indigenist Institute (Instituto Indi­ genista Interamericano, or III) was also established. Organized largely by Moisés Sáenz, from April 14 to 24 more than 200 delegates—mostly nonindigenous intellectuals and government officials—from nineteen coun­tries of the Ameri­ cas gathered in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán. This congress marks an attempt to draw

The Path to Participatory Indigenismo 43

up an official Pan-American strategy for the inclusion of  indigenous peoples, a strategy anchored in the worth of indigenous culture and identity as well as in the defense of indigenous rights by indigenistas from across the Americas. It is important to point out that these efforts were largely top-down, with few to no indigenous peoples present from visiting delegations. For Cárdenas’s admin­ istration, however, it was a diplomatic victory abroad and at home. Abroad, the congress served as a manifestation of international integrationist politics, with representatives from the United States, Guatemala, Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru, among others, in attendance.27 At home, President Cárdenas became the defender of indigenous peoples and did much to create possibilities for indig­ enous peoples to claim a place in the Revolutionary family. Yet that role was going to be clearly defined as a submissive one, given the paternalistic posture taken by Cárdenas when, at the congress, he reemphasized the mission of the integration of indigenous peoples as Mexicans, not indí­genas.28 Hence, the projected end game was one of integration, of cultural, political, social, and national homogenization, not necessarily of support for pluralism. This longterm indigenismo project became institutionalized, first via the DAI and then through the National Indigenist Institute (Instituto Nacional Indigenista, or INI), created in 1948.29

Institutionalized Indigenismo (1940–1970) Over time the DAI proved to be ineffective in its mission and method to inte­ grate indigenous peoples. In its Memoria del Departamento de Asuntos In­dígenas en el periodo 1945–1946 y síntesis de su labor en el sexenio 1940–1946, the DAI justified its existence by claiming that twenty centers for economic and tech­ nological training had been established in the states of Chiapas, Chi­huahua, Colima, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Mexico, Michoacán, Oaxaca, Puebla, Querétaro, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosí, Sonora, Tabasco, Tlaxcala, Vera­cruz, and Yucatán, with more than 11,000 people benefiting over its ten years of exis­ tence.30 The Secretariat of Public Education also collaborated with the DAI in setting up education programs in indigenous communities. After 1940, both the SEP, under the leadership of Octavio Véjar Vazquez, and the DAI, under Isidro Candía, focused on setting up vocational trade schools in indig­ enous communities. More than offering economic solutions, trade schools were supposed to help create the national homogenous culture comprised of

4 4  chap ter 2

productive modern citizens that was actually being promoted under the guise of mestizaje.31 One of the many problems that plagued the DAI was its attachment to the Office of the Presidency, from which it directly received its funding. This means of financing had worked well under sympathetic presidents, such as Cárde­ nas, but by 1946 criticisms over its effectiveness had made it susceptible to political pressures. President Miguel Alemán (1946–52) eventually reduced its funding and finally shut it down at the behest of social scientists, anthropolo­ gists, archaeologists, and linguists who had lost confidence in the ability of the de­partment to carry out its mandate. Alemán cited evidence that the DAI had proved to be inefficient and had helped to make indigenous peoples the objects of state charity rather than productive members of the nation; he announced he intended to place DAI responsibilities in the hands of other agencies.32 Despite problems with the DAI, many indigenistas, including renowned an­ thropologist Alfonso Caso, continued to believe that three million indigenous peoples, living in poverty and politically marginalized, merited the existence of a state institution designed to address those issues.33 Continued pressure on President Alemán led to the creation of the National Indigenist Institute in late 1948; it became officially operational the following year.34 One of the key strategies to ensure the survival of the INI was to remove it from the threat of administrative caprice. While the DAI had been directly tied to the president and subject to individual whims, not least in terms of the allocation of funds, the law that created the INI provided a budget independent from the Office of the Presidency. The INI’s funding came from the Secretariat of Finance as well as private donations. While all government agencies were believed to share the responsibility for the integration of indigenous peoples, economic development and social programs would be channeled through the INI. Its board of direc­ tors acted as a consulting organism, but with little direct influence over the administration of the institution. The board was comprised of representatives from other federal offices and the premier educational institutions, including the National Institute of Anthropology and History (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, or INAH), the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and the National Polytechnic Institute, among others.35 The INI’s specific function was to focus on issues directly affecting indigenous commu­ nities, particularly those that prevented such communities from becoming fully integrated into national society. The INI would serve not only as a center for

The Path to Participatory Indigenismo 45

material assistance, political advice, and social formation but also as an investi­ gative institution through its applied anthropology sector.36 INI’s initial budget estimates were at 500,000 pesos during its first year in 1949, but its actual operations budget doubled after that. Annual budgets increased to 6 million pesos in 1955, 13.8 million in 1960, and 24.3 million by 1964. Much of the funding was used for one project, directed by Dr. Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán—the establishment of  Indigenist Coordinating Centers (Cen­ tros Coordinadores Indígenistas, or CCI).37 The first coordinating center was launched in Las Casas, Chiapas, in 1951.38 Seven CCIs were created during the 1950s and five more during the 1960s. These institutions were to become the regional arms of the INI and serve as liaisons and vehicles to penetrate what Aguirre Beltrán deemed “regions of refuge.”39 According to INI docu­ ments, by 1970 eleven CCIs reached and served 300,000 indigenous peoples.40 This was a modest beginning, however, considering what followed. During the six years of Luis Echeverría’s presidency, the number of CCIs increased by almost 500 percent, and the number of indigenous people they served grew exponentially. His administration created fifty-eight coordinating centers that were supposed to reach almost 2.5 million indigenous peoples by 1976, demon­ strating a significant investment in programs geared for indigenous peoples. In many ways, the expansion of the CCIs reflected the keeping of a promise to indigenous communities to provide federal support that resulted in real mate­ rial gains. It most certainly was a part of Echeverría’s populist program in that the establishment of the new centers represented an attempt to gar­ner support from indigenous groups.41 Of course, the numbers and their inter­pretations are found in official INI records that were most surely intended to demonstrate both reach and success in order to continue to gain funding and provide hard evidence for its continued existence. The numbers themselves are daunting, and while the services provided by the CCIs were intended to reach a signifi­ cant number of indigenous peoples, it does not mean they did or that indig­ enous communities regarded them as useful or even could access them, as there were distance and transportation limitations.42 Stephen Lewis argues that by the early 1960s the CCI pilot project in Las Casas was well in decline because of lack of local government support and underfunding, among other issues.43 Thus, in spite of the expansion efforts of this program, it was already a flawed one when other CCIs were implemented during Echeverría’s presidency, a fact that allows for a questioning of its reach and effectiveness.

46  chap ter 2

In addition to the CCI project in rural areas, resurgence in mass migra­ tion of indigenous peoples from rural to urban spaces in the 1960s led to the rise of public interest in indígenas and indigenismo policies. Mazahua peoples from the state of Mexico, Nahua from Tlaxcala and Puebla, and Otomí from Hidalgo and Querétaro who flocked to Mexico City interrupted the urbanized cityscape painted by the brush of the Mexican Miracle, especially in the down­ town and upper- and middle-class neighborhoods where many sought work. In contrast to many of the indigenous peoples who had migrated to Mexico City during the 1930s and 1940s, those who adopted so-called Western dress, who may have modestly climbed the social ladder, and who were either bilingual or spoke only Spanish, this new wave of indigenous migrants were illiterate, lacked formal education, and spoke little Spanish. The migrants of the 1930s and 1940s had successfully “transformed” into mestizos, even if privately they still retained cultural traditions and language many indigenistas might attri­ bute to indigenous ethnic groups.44 Yet this perception changed with the influx of new migrants. For example, the many indigenous migrants who arrived to Mexico City in the 1960s shocked upper- and middle-class residents. They stood out with their style of dress and their braided hair; many of these new arrivals, specifically women, walked the streets selling fruit, seeds, and gum, making them highly visible and difficult to ignore. These women, known as “las Marías,” sold their wares in middle- and upper-class neighborhoods without male companions. But indigenous women were not alone in the city. Most of them had husbands, often called “Joseses,” who worked in factories and on construction projects, yet were much less visible. The men wore work clothing, so they did not stand out the way las Marías did.45 The presence of such women on Mexico City streets renewed interest in and compassion for the plight of indigenous peoples and led to public questions as to the reasons for those migration patterns. In some ways the mass migration demonstrated the economic and social failure of mes­ tizaje in spectacular fashion. The case of las Marías demonstrates that indig­ enous peoples were not conforming to the national transformation project and that vocational trade programs had limitations in terms of social and economic opportunity and mobility for some indigenous peoples. Perhaps men who had been trained in a vocation could obtain a factory job, but if their wives were out on the street trying to supplement their husband’s earnings, then the vocational training may not have been enough to enable their families to survive.46

The Path to Participatory Indigenismo 47

Federal government officials were forced to reexamine indigenismo policies and update them to fit the social and economic realities that indigenous peo­ ples faced, both in rural and in urban spaces. By 1970, federal training programs adopted during the Manuel Ávila Camacho (1940–46) and Alemán years were outdated and had failed to address the combination of a growing population and the declining availability of land and access to water in the countryside, as well as the lack of adequate housing and overall public services (sewer, elec­ tricity, potable water) in urban areas.47 Despite limited government funding, indigenous groups did not shy away from putting pressure on government offi­ cials and thus questioning the effectiveness of official indigenista policies. Early mobilizations that took place during the years of these presidents shaped the contours of what would come to constitute Echeverría’s participatory indigen­ ismo. Luis Echeverría sought to construct a populist platform by promoting public spending to reign in ongoing social mobilization that directly disrupted and challenged a perceived government monopoly on social order and politi­ cal power.48 Echeverría’s renewed populist policies, particularly his so-called democratic opening, created a range of possibilities and opportunities for vary­ ing social groups that attempted to redefine the field of force. His adoption of participatory indigenismo stemmed from a number of factors, not least of which was the pressure generated by indigenous peoples themselves. In this way indigenous peoples did not merely respond to government programs and policies but acted to guide and shape such policies. Although not always suc­ cessful, they certainly were willing to find ways to advance collective and indi­ vidual agendas within a field of force shaped by a populist project.

Participatory Indigenismo The indigenous movements of the early 1970s faced government opposition but also reintroduced longstanding debates among indigenous professionals, local indigenous leaders, and government officials over definitions of indígena iden­ tity and citizenship. Through the course of the twentieth century, gov­ernment officials had crafted a cultural identity that portrayed indígenas in their dual role as “authentic” and “resilient,” on the one hand, and “naïve” and “inferior,” on the other hand—a paternalistic perspective. Echeverría, as part of his popu­ list project, claimed to want to do more to incorporate the nation’s indigenous

48  chap ter 2

population. This does not mean that his administration or other state officials would do much to move away from the discourse of “noble” versus “uncivi­ lized.” For example, in 1973, Chiapas governor Manuel Velasco Suárez gave an interview to Miguel Canton Zetina of the Mexico City paper La Prensa, claiming indigenous peoples were being “saved” from “hopeless misery and anguishing illiteracy.”49 After 1968 anthropologists too played important roles in shaping the contours of participatory indigenismo. Along with Guillermo Bonfil Batalla and Salomón Nahmad Sittón, Arturo Warman Gryj, Pablo Gon­ zález Casanova, María Margarita Nolasco Armas, Mercedes Olivera Busta­ mante, and sociologist Rodolfo Stavenhagen formed the core of young intel­ lectuals who called for indigenous participation in the national political, social, and economic decision-making process. Two of those anthropologists, Bonfil Batalla and Nahmad Sittón, were key supporters of the DAAC bilingual pro­ moters and the regional and national indigenous congresses.50 When we consider the political realities President Echeverría faced early in his presidency, we would not find it surprising that he may have felt compelled to do something, not simply from his own position as a populist leader but also in response to pressures from below. The pressures he faced from intellectu­ als and indigenous communities and the populist promises he made to that sector meant Echeverría would need to act quickly to generate results rather than mere pledges. The 1970 census reported that, from a total population of 48.2 million, more than 3.5 million Mexicans identified as indigenous peoples, ap­proximately 7.4 percent of the population.51 If Echeverría truly wished to move beyond a demonstration of goodwill, it was important for him to take into account the population he claimed to support. After he was sworn into office in early December 1970, President Eche­ verría’s administration immediately approved funding for and launched a mas­ sive development project in the central northwest region of the country known as the Huicot. INI director Dr. Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán was appointed presi­ dent of the Plan Huicot Board of Advisors. President Echeverría also named Aguirre Beltrán director of the indigenous education division in the SEP in August 1971. Because of Aguirre Beltrán’s added responsibilities at the SEP, the position of director of operations was created at the INI and anthropologist Salomón Nahmad Sittón appointed as its first incumbent.52 Nahmad Sittón was charged with overseeing the daily operations at the INI along with the continued expansion of the CCIs. The expansion of the CCI program through­ out Echeverría’s presidential term increased the number of services provided to

The Path to Participatory Indigenismo 49

indigenous communities as well as the number of personnel.53 Financial and personnel support for the CCI projects were provided not only by the INI but also by a host of federal entities, including the National Campesino Confed­ eration, the Secretariat of Public Education, and the Department of Hydrau­ lics and Electrification. Perhaps the closest collaboration came with the Secre­ tariat of Public Education, which provided teachers for the program. By 1976, teachers and bilingual agents employed by the SEP and working in the CCIs numbered 14,030. Some of the bilingual and cultural promoters working in the CCIs were indigenous native speakers functioning as intermediaries who were supposed to communicate the INI’s mission of integration to the residents of the communities in which they worked.54 Echeverría’s indigenismo policies focused on the economic development of indigenous regions that government officials and indigenistas deemed had been neglected since 1940. With indigenous peoples forming the bulk of a pri­ mary economic base engaged in the production of maize, beans, rice, sugarcane, coffee, and fruit, it was necessary to reinvest in the agricultural sector. Accord­ ing to the president’s administration, agricultural production was important for improving the lives of indigenous peoples and also to benefit the nation as a whole, as the country needed to produce foodstuffs for internal consump­ tion and decrease imports of staple foods.55 Part of this support for agricul­ tural production was a legal services program. Through its legal division, the INI assisted indigenous communities in intracommunal border disputes and in land disputes with mestizo cattle ranchers and farmers. These services were particularly important for communities whose lands had been encroached upon through the construction of dams by federal, regional, and local governments. Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, indigenous communities turned to the INI as an ally when attempting to obtain land titles, either in private or in communal holdings.56 Of the estimated 13 million hectares Echeverría’s admin­ istration is estimated to have distributed during his six-year term, almost half went to indigenous communities.57 It is no surprise that disputes over land would become a source of contention between indigenous and nonindigenous campesinos after 1970 and particularly during the 1980s, as natural and material resources shrunk.58 Health service programs were also part of INI endeavors in conjunction with the Mexican Social Security Institute (Instituto Mexicano de Seguro Social, or IMSS), the national public health and social security dependency. The training of 88 doctors, 382 medical assistants, and 5 sanitation officials to

50  chap ter 2

serve in more than fifty clinics was highlighted in INI reports for the 1970–76 period. The report also stated that funding for medical equipment in the clinics reached more than 8 million pesos.59 One of the major medical projects in the early 1970s was the establishment of a fifteen- to twenty-bed hospital in every CCI, with indigenous peoples serving as hospital personnel, with the exception of external medical specialists.60 In 1974 the INI launched a program that was to train one hundred indigenous women as medical assistants.61 Overall, the medical services in the clinics and hospitals consisted mostly of general check­ ups, lab testing, minor surgery, and vaccination campaigns. The issue of education efforts in indigenous communities continued to be a conflictive one during much of the twentieth century. INI officials were well aware of the negative views indigenous peoples held of nonindigenous peoples serving as teachers, views going back to the 1920s and 1930s. Solutions included efforts to prepare and educate indigenous youth for careers in teaching. By the 1960s and 1970s this strategy had generated results, as mestizo teachers were being replaced by indigenous ones. For example, in 1970, SEP personnel work­ ing in indigenous communities numbered almost 3,500, and by 1977 the num­ ber had increased to just over 14,000, with 8,000 serving as cultural promoters and 6,000 bilingual teachers. The teachers’ salaries totaling about 500 million pesos over the course of the sexenio were paid through the SEP, not the INI. Other efforts included a flexible class schedule designed so that more students could attend classes. Weekly boarding schools were established to serve chil­ dren whose communities were too far from schools for them to commute on a daily basis. Per INI and SEP stipulations, the homes of eligible indigenous children had to be more than ten kilometers from the school and less than fifteen kilometers, so they could go home during weekends and holidays. This education campaign absorbed a great deal of funding because the majority of the boarded children were on scholarships. In 1971 only five boarding schools were in operation, with 250 students on scholarship, but by 1976 there were 591 boarding schools, with 30,500 students on scholarship, all at an annual cost of just over 42.5 million pesos.62 INI educational efforts also targeted adults with the development of education programs focusing on navigating the legal sys­ tem in relation to land restitution and confirmation of ejidos and communal lands.63 In these ways Echeverría’s government was attempting to generate a de­ gree of goodwill and shape the field of force. By pointing to the number of in­frastructural projects and increasing the number of indigenous teachers, medi­

The Path to Participatory Indigenismo 51

cal technicians, and doctors as well as overall services in the field of education, they could claim to be active and concerned leaders. It would be completely fair to question some of the numbers provided in INI reports, on the basis of its need to demonstrate its function and success for continued and increased funding. Nahmad Sittón himself was critical of the INI’s reach. In an interview with Raymundo Riva Palacio for El Heraldo de México in 1973, Nahmad Sittón stated that “in spite of the Institute counting on an annual budget of almost 400 million pesos, the majority of indigenous peoples do not have access to the necessary technology for their development”; and, to make matters worse, INI technicians struggled to adapt to living in rural areas, as many of them were urban residents.64 Indigenous peoples themselves also criticized and distrusted local CCI directors and staff. For example, residents of Santiago Jamiltepec, Oaxaca, accused local INI workers of  blackmail, of demanding that indigenous peoples sign over land deeds in exchange for services, of allowing illegal log­ ging in local forests, and of buying artesanias for below-market prices; they were also accused of overworking bilingual teachers while underpaying them (700 pesos a month).65 In addition to funding for education and health programs, infrastructural projects in areas with an indigenous population majority were carried out in col­ laboration with civil engineers, the National Company for Popular Subsis­tence (Compañía Nacional de Subsistencias Populares, or CONASUPO), and the Federal Administrative Committee for the Construction of Schools (Comité Administrativo Federal Para Construcción de Escuelas, or CAPFCE). Roads, electrification projects, and schools were built in these designated areas. Road construction projects were particularly expensive and expansive, and while they were intended to benefit indigenous communities, such projects were national in nature. For example, between 1971 to 1976, the amount of paved roads and highways laid in areas surrounding indigenous communities rose from 80 kilo­ meters to 578 kilometers.66 The number of kilometers of paved roads surged after 1973, the year that the INI was allowed to petition for funding from the Integrated Rural Development Project (Programa para el Desarrollo Rural, or PIDER), which, by 1976, had allotted 76.4 million pesos for these infrastructure projects.67 These efforts went a long way to meet the needs of indigenous peoples and increase mobility of goods and people, but agrarian concerns continued to de­ mand attention. In response, the majority of the INI’s budget was channeled into agrarian programs for soil conservation, pest control, machinery, improv­ing

52  chap ter 2

seed quality, and reforestation as well as investments in the commercial rais­ ing of cattle, pigs, chickens, and fish to boost self-sustainability. Thirty-seven agronomists, sixty-eight veterinarians, and fifty-two tractor drivers and cowboys assisted in the upkeep of forty-seven nurseries, orchards, and stables. In 1976 alone, 243 tractors were distributed across thirty-three indigenous re­gions. The majority of the funding for these programs came from PIDER.68 In addition, BANRURAL (Banco Rural, or Rural Bank) provided credit to indigenous en­ trepreneurs to invest in midsized (fifty to one hundred head) cattle-, pig-, and sheep-raising ventures. Credit availability was again backed by PIDER, clearly making the development project a key feature of Echeverría’s populism for in­ digenous and nonindigenous rural communities alike.69 A series of specific re­ gional economic development projects was also launched during Echeverria’s presidency under PIDER. For example, Plan Huicot, Plan Tarasco (not to be confused with the 1939–40 language program in Michoacán),70 Plan Seri, and Plan del Valle del Mezquital were such infrastructural projects. These programs poured even more money into regions densely populated by indigenous peoples. Between 1971 and 1973, 96.5 million pesos were invested in such regions.71 Plan Huicot, channeled through local CCIs, affected indi­genous communities in the states of Jalisco, Nayarit, Zacatecas, and Durango. By 1974, the federal govern­ ment was investing more than 15 million pesos in the region annually.72 Much of that funding came in the form of credit pro­vided to Cora, Huichol, and Tepe­ huan peoples for the development of cattle ranching. In 1974 alone residents of the region had received more than 3 mil­lion pesos in the form of credit.73 Plan Huicot also funded a significant electrification campaign that began in Nayarit and Du­rango and by 1974 was also being channeled into  Jalisco.74 As part of  Plan Huicot’s development project, the federal government funded CONASUPO stores, mediated land disputes, and set up public works programs, potable water projects, and a landing strip in the region. In addition, Plan Huicot also funded twenty-four health clinics in indigenous communities, but some lacked ad­ equately trained personnel. Beyond local agricultural products, along with the National Commission for Fruit Cultivation (Comisión Nacional de la Fruta, or CONAFRUT), PIDER funding went to the purchase of fruit trees that were sent to Durango in order to provide additional food sources and jobs ( pickers, packers, drivers, et cetera).75 In times of  unforeseen crisis, as in 1973, communities received support in the form of  credit in order to save maize and bean crops.76 When finished in 1976, the massive public works projects such as dams, roads

The Path to Participatory Indigenismo 53

and highways already being built in 1973 were estimated to have cost more than 200 million pesos.77 In 1972 the federal government launched the second regional development project, Plan Tarasco. Phase one of the project focused on building a potable water pipeline of about 37 kilometers to service approximately 25,000 people across ten communities in the Meseta Tarasca in Michoacán. The second phase, which began in 1973 at an estimated cost of 25 million pesos, was to extend water access to additional communities. Furthermore, eight roads (36.7 kilometers) connecting Tarascan communities affected 35,000 people, at a total expense of 552,500 pesos when completed. Electrification projects in nine lakeside com­ munities and three islands in Lake Pátzcuaro were also carried out during the first phase, with another fourteen communities targeted for late 1973. The cost was estimated at 3.2 million pesos, and 9,500 people benefited. The building of schoolhouses and regional health clinics, as well as reforestation projects, were also part of the first phase of investment.78 Other regional development proj­ ects followed Plan Huicot and Plan Tarasco. The Plan del Valle del Mesquital, based in Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo, was also launched in 1972. A total of 33.5 million pesos were invested in mass water projects, while 1.6 million pesos were allot­ ted to land-related issues.79 The Plan Tarahumara, also launched in late 1972, focused on the construction of schools and roads, and it awarded logging rights in the Sierra Tarahumara to the Tarahumara Supreme Council.80 Plan Seri went into effect in 1973 in part to develop the coastal Sonora region. Because most Seri relied on fishing for their economic survival, some of the funding went to purchasing motors and boats for the development of the region. In addition, the plan called for a refrigerated warehouse and a pro­ cessing plant to be built in Punta Chueca; also planned was a road to connect the warehouse to Bahía Kino for the transportation of products. In addition, the funds provided for a refrigerated truck to transport an expected three tons of fish to commercial centers. In 1973, when the program began, initial annual investments were at 2.4 million pesos; in 1975, they had risen to 3.1 million; and by 1976, the projected budget stood at 8 million, with an additional 6 mil­ lion pesos set aside for building a road from Las Víboras to Desemboque.81 According to the Dirección de Acuicultura (Department of Aquaculture), after the launch of the fishing cooperative in February 1975, in the first four months co-op members caught a total of 25,914 kilograms of seafood with an estimated market value of 160,946.50 pesos, clearing a profit of 58,052.25 pesos

5 4  chap ter 2

after overhead costs.82 In mid-1976 the processing plant in Puenta Chueca was completed, and a refrigerated truck and pickup truck were signed over to the cooperative.83 These projects were meant to develop infrastructure in specific regions with a high population density of indigenous peoples. But nonindigenous residents were also affected by the construction of dams, roads, potable water projects, and other investments, not only through access to the infrastructure itself but also through the jobs these projects provided for local workers in plumbing, electricity, carpentry, and other types of skilled and unskilled labor. In this way the development projects had an impact on local indigenous and nonindig­ enous communities alike. Thus, Echeverría’s populist efforts extended beyond indi­genous communities, with millions of pesos invested in these regions. This does not mean that the projects were always completed; in fact, as mentioned earlier, many projects remained unfinished. In addition, the extensive nature of these projects, in terms of the sheer size of territories they meant to cover and the number of  high-level and midlevel government officials, engineers, regional and local officials, and laborers involved (indigenous and nonindigenous), made coordinating projects and staying under estimated budgets difficult, if not im­ possible. In a report from the Office of Complaints within the Secretariat of the Presidency, Fernando Córdoba Lobo stated to the head of the Office of the President, Hugo Cervantes del Río: The Coordinating Center for the Development of the Huicot Region does not have the data to evaluate the investments in the Huicot region because we do not

have the specific amount used to date for each of the participating dependen­

cies . . . the lack of coordination between the majority of the dependencies that are part of Plan Huicot is notorious since I have not been able to hold meetings

nor gather information that allows all sectors to work together . . . for example

the agrarian delegation does not know about the programs and projects that the Secretariat of Agriculture and Cattle or those of the Secretariat of Hydraulic Resources are carrying out and vice versa.84

Clearly the expansion of programs and services the INI provided through PIDER was expensive. While the Secretariat of Hacienda and Public Credit authorized the annual budget for the INI’s projects, indigenous communities could also independently petition for additional funds directly from the Office of the Presidency, CONASUPO, the Mexican Coffee Institute (Instituto Mex­

The Path to Participatory Indigenismo 55

icano del Café, or INMECAFE), and the National Fund for the Dev­elopment of Arts and Crafts (Fondo Nacional Para el Fomento de Las Ar­tesanías, or FONART). Overall, during Echeverría’s six years in office, the funding for medical, infrastructural, and education programs geared for dev­elopment of indigenous communities directly via the INI and indirectly via other agencies reached almost 1.5 billion pesos, with 683 million pesos coming from the Secre­ tariat of Hacienda and Public Credit and 621.6 million from external agencies, including much of the funding for public works. Yet, with that much money and that many people involved in these projects, it would not be unreason­ able to assume that not all of the funding reached its intended programs or agencies without being untouched or without private pockets being filled along the way. The nature of these development projects—dramatically large, simul­ taneous, expansive, and lacking a true centrally coordinating structure—al­ lowed opportunities for graft at various levels of government (federal, state, and local). In addition, lack of coordination caused confusion not only among participating agencies but also, oftentimes, among indigenous communities and their leaders, who demanded information on development projects and their impact or who claimed they had yet to see any progress on programs or funding. It is also true that for some indigenous peoples the development projects, especially the construction of dams, were not always beneficial. In some cases entire communities were forced from their homes, as they resided in regions where a dam was to be built or in its eventual path. Such is the case of the Mal­ paso hydroelectric dam in Chiapas, which cut off parts of the Grijalva River, displaced thousands of indigenous and nonindigenous residents, and flooded out others.85 The costs of these projects were real, both in monetary and in hu­ man terms, so while Echeverría chose to highlight them as a populist accom­ plishment, ones that could bring nothing but economic improvements to the lives of residents, indigenous and nonindigenous alike, those who were nega­ tively affected by them might not share his view. Rather than as the goodwilled and generous president, they might see him in a different and negative light. The reality of  populist programs is not merely based on whether or not govern­ ment officials or political leaders are genuinely trying to help social sectors, but also on how one group’s or sector’s lived experience is shaped by projects and programs deemed to be for the greater good. It is very clear that some indigenous communities benefited from some of these programs, at times in the short term and at others in the long term. It is also clear that many were

56  chap ter 2

harmed rather than helped. Surely Echeverría’s political interests and those of his administration chose to frame the projects as unquestionable successes. We need to examine the story of Luis Echeverría and his presidency crit­ ically, moving beyond accepting the government’s own rhetoric about its accomplishments and its framing of its programs in terms of their supposed “genuineness” (a concept difficult to prove or disprove in any event). As well, we need to look at who benefited from the president’s populist design, not only in his own administration or in the overall government structure or among popular groups, but also at a mid-level. It is important to consider how different sectors made use of official rhetoric and populist language to advance their own collective and personal interests and, in the case of bilingual promoters within the DAAC—a small but influential group—how such opportunities shaped their own understandings and reimaginings of populism and in turn how that might have fashioned the way they approached, engaged, maneuvered, and tried to redefine a field of force formed by populist discourse and Revolution­ ary language.

Conclusion The trajectory of indigenismo during the twentieth century and its intersec­ tion with Echeverría’s populism reveals that indigenous peoples were in no way passive recipients of populist programs and rhetoric. Ethnic commu­ nities adjusted and adapted to the opportunities available to them and also worked to create their own possibilities. It is important to avoid the trap of a binary framing in which populists can be either “genuine” or demagogic. Such an approach, while provocative, seems to have stalled the direction of debate over populism and populists. Instead, it is possible to view populism as a re­lationship, produced by both a political leader and social groups. Such an approach necessitates teasing out the ways federal, regional, and local offi­ cials and a variety of social groups engaged with one another, where they met, agreed, disagreed, and reinvented the terms of their ongoing relationship. It is valuable to take into account the variety of ways different groups understood policies, programs, and opportunities and then acted on them. Whatever the view of Echeverría’s actions—whether they are seen as genuine or manipula­ tive—his policies, including mass expenditures and a revised role for indigenous

The Path to Participatory Indigenismo 57

participation, made a lasting impression and marked real changes in the lives of ordinary people, although certainly not always in positive ways. Because Echeverría emphasized the alleviation of the political, social, and economic marginalization of indigenous groups as a primary issue for fed­ eral agencies to address, indigenous leaders and communities—many already en­gaged in political and social mobilization processes—forged strategies to take advantage of that political reality. Others mistrusted the motives behind those opportunities and were skeptical of government-supported programs and organizations for a number of reasons, including negative past experiences. Indeed, indígenas were not the only ones to attempt to benefit from Eche­ verría’s populist projects. Nonindígenas, some of whom identified as campe­ sinos, were at odds with the emergence of a strong indigenous political identity. Some of those nonindígenas who lived in regions under massive development, including Valle del Mezquital, the Huicot, Meseta Tarasca, and the Tarahu­ mara, also benefited from potable water projects, dams, roads, irrigation proj­ ects, building of bridges, and CONASUPO stores. But they too were subject to the same potential negative impacts that indigenous peoples living in those regions faced. During the 1970s and early 1980s, however, the benefits of adopting a po­ litical indigenous identity for nonindígenas may have outweighed the negative impacts. This reality created a complex matrix in terms of identity politics. For some, the selective adopting of political indigenous and nonindigenous iden­ tities was related to the potential material and political advantages involved. Yet this fluidity in political identities did not mean that the relationship be­ tween indigenous and campesino groups was harmonious. Conflicts within and between local campesino and indigenous leaders and organizations, as well as government officials within the CNC and the bilingual promoters within DAAC, were widespread. Nonindígenas who identified politically as campe­ sinos, did, in fact, protest publicly about the government focus on indigenous populations. The social programs and the politics of inclusion of the Cárdenas years cre­ ated long-term expectations in regards to material benefits and social gains for members of the indigenous population. But those benefits were short-term, as social and political marginalization combined with economic hardships con­ tinued to plague indigenous peoples after 1940. By 1970, it became clear to Luis Echeverría and his government that they would have to rethink out­dated official

58  chap ter 2

policies to fit changing realities. Indigenous leaders, groups, and communities opted for differing strategies in their struggles to push for material and political gains, shaping the contours of the field of force as they engaged in it. The breadth of strategies they used reflects the tensions inherent in the negotiation process of indigenous inclusion and exclusion in the social and political landscape, while defining their role as actors in an official participatory indigenismo. The impact of Echeverría’s presidency lies, not in the man himself but rather in the people, the members of those social sectors that shaped and reshaped how those policies were crafted, reworked, and applied. The indig­ enous men and women who demonstrated that November 7, 1976, with the impending transfer of presidential power were doing so in order to continue to sculpt the discourse of populism, Revolutionary promises, and the field of force. They understood the possibilities inherent in such a government opening and were more than willing to try to shape what it might look like for indigenous communities in material, social, and political terms. Along with government officials and political figures who tried to push agendas, those in various social sectors also negotiated for personal gain, for collective advantage, and to imple­ ment their own ideas of what they felt was needed or required; indigenous leaders within government agencies were hardly exceptional in doing so.

3 Brokering for Inclusion The Rise of  DAAC Indigenous Bilingual Promoters, 1970–1975

T

of Indigenous Peoples is linked to the emergence of a group of indigenous bilingual promoters within the Department of Agrarian Affairs and Colonization.1 As cultural brokers acting on the possibilities of participatory indigenismo, they opted for strategies that included working within the system to become part of it or, at the least, to interrupt it. Their efforts demonstrate the difficulties faced by indigenous leaders and their communities as well as the layers of interests and motivations inherent in their decision-making.2 The history of the organization reveals the complexities of dealing with numerous government agencies, the formation of alliances and rivalries with other indigenous organizations and within the CNPI, and the regional dominance of the south­ ern and central Supreme Council presidents over northern-, eastern-, and western-based ethnic groups. It also shows the difficulties of trying to forge a unified front in the face of social, political, and economic opportunities and challenges, all of which created a layered field of force where alliances constantly shifted and every move was scrutinized from within the CNPI and without. Members of the CNPI struggled with the political stigma that stemmed from their ties to official agencies and often missed opportunities to forge alliances with one another as well as with campesinos and workers. Many times, they were forced to make difficult decisions when engaging with government officials and indigenous brethren. he history of the National Council

60  chap ter 3

The few studies of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples that exist tend to focus on the years after 1975, ignoring an early formative period preceding that date. These studies also stress the role of the federal government as primary and dominant, while overlooking the contributions of bilingual promoters as leaders in the birthing process of the national organization.3 While I am under no illusions that the majority of the bilingual promoters were selfless and altruistic, neither were these leaders mere pawns of the government. Rather, the bilingual promoters operated in a space where they negotiated national and local ethnic community concerns and their own personal interests (material, social, and political) as well as probed the reaches of their power within federal and local government circles. It is in the context of this field of force that the history of the organization needs to be considered. When President Luis Echeverría announced plans for a National Indigenous Congress in 1971, the bilingual promoters were already employed to serve as political mediators between the Department of Agrarian Affairs and Colonization and their communities. During the early 1970s these DAAC indigenous bilingual promoters worked to galvanize support for a national indigenous congress and for the formation of a national indigenous organization. Echeverría’s acceptance of organizing a national indigenous congress as part of his populist project represented an opportunity for indigenous peoples—these leaders in particular—to shape that populism and to actively engage in shaping participatory indigenismo. In taking a role within the DAAC as political and social mediators, indigenous leaders accepted the possibility of shaping the field of force before them, to negotiate the process of state formation within the context of rural political identities, and to attempt to swing the pendulum of power to their advantage. The bilingual promoters attempted to challenge the state’s effort to dictate the terms of populism by reimagining it as a tool for empowerment and in this way negotiate political identity and social capital. After a political tug-of-war with less than sympathetic National Campesino Confederation representatives, the bilingual promoters managed to rescue the regional indigenous congresses from the forgotten pile of government projects in late 1974 and pressured for the continued planning of the national congress in Pátzcuaro. Additionally, they took a principal role in shaping the document that officially created the National Council of Indigenous Peoples in 1975, The Act of the Reunion Celebrated by All Presidents of the National Supreme Council of Indigenous Peoples.

Brokering for Inclusion  61

Bilingual promoters within the Department of Agrarian Affairs and Colonization acted in the spirit of the participatory indigenismo Echeverría’s ad­ministration touted. Vicente Paulino López Velasco (Chinantec—Oaxaca), Feliciano Chávez Vidales (Tarasco—Michoacán), Cirilo de la Cruz (Huichol— Jalisco), Hilario de la Cruz (Huichol—Jalisco), Samuel Díaz Holguín (Tarahumara—Chihuahua), and José Pepe Chan Bor (Lacandon—Chiapas) were among the early DAAC bilingual promoters. Within the DAAC each held the title of “bilingual promoter” in order to distinguish themselves as individuals and as a group from other DAAC employees.4 They differed from most DAAC promoters because they were fluently bilingual. Depending on the ethnic group and region they hailed from, these leaders not only spoke indigenous languages but were also familiar with community customs, allowing for a direct and— government officials hoped—advantageous relationship with indigenous communities with whom the bilingual promoters worked and whom they often represented. The bilingual agents carried out a broad recruitment process in numerous indigenous communities, trying to curry favor with many residents. In the 1970s and 1980s government officials used cultural brokers to create relationships with indigenous communities and to advocate for the legitimacy of official programs, but wages for this type of work were often rather low. Since much of the DAAC bilingual promoters’ work required residency in Mexico City and thus travel, it was a financially untenable situation for people with familial obligations and/or limited funds. Therefore, only the most committed of these leaders (or perhaps those who had the most to gain and/or who had the deeper personal pockets) remained within the DAAC.5 In 1970 the bilingual promoters were trained to conduct basic research to create statistical reports for officials in government agencies. After training, they were sent back to their own communities to gather data as part of the strategy to detect the agrarian problems that plagued indigenous communities.6 They were also trained to process communal land transfers. The training prepared them to function as liaisons between federal government officials and indigenous communities, and it also allowed them to carve out a privileged position for themselves within their communities, a position that they could translate into political capital. This role of intermediary, however, was not always accepted as legitimate in the communities from which they hailed. Nevertheless, bilingual promoters enjoyed a favorable arrangement as government officials within the DAAC came to view them as the de facto representatives

62  chap ter 3

The first group of  indigenous bilingual promoters (1970) working within the Department of Agrarian Affairs and Colonization (DAAC) during the early part of  Luis Echeverría’s presidency

Table 1. 

Bili n g ual Pro moter

Ethn i c G roup/State

José Pepe Chan Bor

Lacandon /Chiapas

Feliciano Chávez Vidales

Tarasco /Michoacán

Ernesto Cota Ozuna

Huichol /Jalisco

Samuel Díaz Holguín

Tarahumara /Chihuahua

Santiago Gutiérrez Toribio

Mixe /Oaxaca

Martín Pedro de Haro

Huichol /Jalisco

Francisco Hernández Morales

Mixtec /Oaxaca

Vicente Paulino López Velasco

Chinantec /Oaxaca

Ignacio Martínez Bautista Aarón Martínez C. Mario Rodríguez Cruz

Mazatec /Oaxaca Chinantec /Oaxaca Mixe /Oaxaca

Mauro Rosas Cupa

Tarasco /Michoacán

Juventino Sánchez

Mixe /Oaxaca

Marcos Sandoval (son)

Trique /Oaxaca

Lucio Santillán

Tepehuan /home state unknown

Hugo Vargas S.

Zapotec /Oaxaca

source Vicente Paulino López Velasco, Y surgió la unión . . . Génesis y desarrollo del Consejo Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas (Mexico City: Centro de Estudios Históricos del Agrarismo en México, Editorial Hersa, 1989), 15.

of their communities, regardless of whether they truly were or not. That is not to say that government officials were naïve or that they did not know that perhaps the bilingual promoters were not accepted as authorized representatives by their communities; nevertheless, it was often in the administrators’ interest to regard them as such. By enlisting indigenous peoples as bilingual promoters, federal officials established contacts in particular communities whom they

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could employ and deploy in a number of ways. The process was reciprocal in that bilingual promoters could also use their contacts in government offices for personal, communal, and political gain, shifting the balance of power, even if momentarily, within a given field of force.

Cultural Brokers The role of cultural and political brokers as mediators between governments and indigenous communities is a long-standing one. In particular, indigenous cultural brokers have a history of working within the system or systems at the juncture of rulers and community, both in pre-Columbian and post-Columbian eras. Rolena Adorno, Alida Metcalf, Matthew Restall, and Yanna Yannakakis have all written about the complex personal and political relationships of indigenous peoples who functioned as cultural brokers in colonial Peru, Brazil, and Mexico. Their work elucidates the long-standing and complex negotiations involved when cultural brokers straddled the fine lines between royal, local, and personal interests.7 The delicate balance between personal gain and community and state interests was reflected in the range of experience of individual figures from Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala (Peru) to Antonio Gaspar Chi (Yucatán, Mexico) and in negotiations over time in places like the Villa Alta of Oaxaca, Mexico, that Yannakakis discusses. The role of cultural brokers—whether they be individuals of high, middle, or low social standing; local governors; mestizos, indígenas, or campesinos; teachers or merchants; or men of the robe—makes for a myriad of experiences across time and place. As bilingual go-betweens and indigenous intermediaries, bilingual promoters served government purposes, but they also staked personal and professional advancement on their roles as community liaisons.8 Inherent in such an arrangement was the potential for personal and political gain but also the danger of retribution from one or all sides. In the case of the DAAC bilingual promoters, centuries later, their experience was shaped by the dominant but contested rhetoric of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The ideological aims of the Mexican Revolution were anchored in the Constitution of 1917 and acted upon sporadically during the rebuilding process (1920–34). Rhetoric of the Revolution as the equalizing force of the twentieth century in terms of land, labor, education, and citizenship promised change and social and political empowerment for the disenfranchised sectors

6 4  chap ter 3

of the population. The power of such rhetoric was anchored in cultural hegemony, defined as the power involved in the creation and acceptance of prevailing social norms.9 Part of this state-building project included a socialist education under the Secretariat of  Public Education after 1933. In this context federal government teachers became the ground troops responsible for the transformation of residents into Revolutionary citizens.10 Indigenous peoples too found ways to carve spaces for themselves within this Revolutionary project, often in the context of contested political identities. From 1917 to 1934 indigenous peoples participated in government programs through campesino organizations, especially through agrarian leagues and then the National Campesino Confederation.11 Indigenous campesinos within the CNC adopted a class-based identity in official circles, but that did not mean that all indigenous peoples identified as campesinos. Yet, because the CNC provided opportunities to make demands for land reform and additional material resources, a campesino identity certainly made for an attractive political affiliation, which created situational identity formation. Cultural and political broker roles continued in the form of indigenous students educated and trained in government programs. This is the case of a generation of indigenous youth during the 1920s, some of whom attended the Casa del Estudiante Indigena.12 Toward the end of Cárdenas’s presidency (1934–40), the official government position shifted to industrial development as the administration scaled back on the redistributive Revolutionary project. Indigenous groups, however, did not fully accept this shift, and they explored alternatives. After the 1940s, some bilingual students and teachers who had graduated from the Casa del Estudiante Indígena in the 1920s emerged as local leaders and continued to function as bilingual promoters, some tied to government agencies, others not. Federal officials before 1934 often insisted on forging Revolutionary citizens through education and did not necessarily view land tenure as a significant factor in improving the lived experience of indigenous populations they were trying to transform, in spite of the Revolutionary promises in favor of agrarian reform. Therefore, a campesino identity became important in shaping a political identity that allowed indigenous peoples, among others, to make demands for access to land. Alexander Dawson’s study of early Revolutionary indigenismos, indigenistas, and indigenous intermediaries shows that indigenistas defined the citizenship of indigenous peoples as a collective one, making demands as part of indígena and/or campesino organizations, rather than calling for individual rights, suffrage, and due process.13 The primary emphasis on education as the

Brokering for Inclusion  65

means to engage rural indigenous peoples with the Revolutionary state shifted once Cárdenas became president. He understood the role of land distribution as significant in the effort to reach indigenous communities and integrate them into the Revolutionary family through the National Campesino Confederation after 1938, the official birth date of the CNC. But the relationship with the CNC was not always a harmonious one. Over the next several decades the National Campesino Confederation refused to acknowledge the argument of some of its indigenous members that they needed to have their own organization, independent of the CNC. In 1942, in an effort to continue to house indigenous peoples and their interests within the campesino structure, the CNC created a Secretariat of Indigenist Action (Secretaría Indigenista de Acción, or SIA), which was supposed to cater to its indigenous members and their needs. This was done to appease and maintain indigenous peoples within the campesino organization and to nurture a political monopoly over a campesino rural identity.14 Still, this did not mean that indigenous communities in rural and urban areas accepted these gestures and stopped organizing. During the 1930s and 1940s, organizations such as the National Council of  Indigenous Youth (Consejo Nacional de Jóvenes Indígenas, or CNJI) and the National Council of Indigenous Youth and Indigenous Communities (Consejo Nacional de Jóvenes Indígenas y Comunidades Indígenas, or CNJICI), both under the auspices of the DAI, emerged. Although neither organization succeeded in representing a large constituency among indigenous communities, their formation reflected continued efforts for the national organization of ethnic groups. The Secretariat of Public Education also created a Department of Indigenous Affairs within its umbrella, which focused primarily on language programs.15 Both the CNJI and CNJICI disappeared when President Miguel Alemán (1946–52) dismantled the DAI in 1946. From their ashes emerged the National Union of Indigenous Organizations (Unión Nacional de Organizaciones Indígenas, or UNOI) and its affiliate, the National Confederation of Popular Organizations (Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones Populares, or CNOP), which focused on the urban poor and included indigenous peoples in that category; the CNOP would continue to exist well into the 1970s.16 Still, the focus of the two groups tended to be largely on material demands, including land reform and wage increases. In 1948 the Mexican Association of Indigenous Professionals and Intellectuals (Asociación Mexicana de Profesionistas Intelectuales e Indígenas, or

66  chap ter 3

AMPII) was founded by a group of indigenous professionals. By 1968, members of the organization, the majority of them rural teachers who functioned as cultural brokers themselves, began to demand that indigenous professionals, not government officials, craft official indigenous policy. Many of these professionals were graduates from the Casa del Estudiante Indígena and adherents to the 1940 Cárdenas declaration of intent to “Mexicanize” the indígena.17 Indigenous professionals, rural teachers, and bilingual promoters all remained relevant for much of the twentieth century for their ability to straddle the fence between total independence and government incorporation without committing completely to one single approach or method. A long line of unsuccessful attempts at erecting a national indigenous organization set the stage for the difficult work of building support for a national indigenous organization in 1970. The aforementioned organizations and their members reflect the complex history of indigenous movements and politicization occurring within government circles before 1970, with various levels of short-term success. By the 1970s a new generation of indigenous intellectuals, leaders, and government officials had emerged, and they too sought to define and redefine the relationship between government agencies and rural communities on local and national levels. The DAAC bilingual promoters fit within this moment. Some of them were handpicked by DAAC engineers operating in indigenous communities, while others found their way into the DAAC once they were aware of the employment opportunity. One such bilingual promoter, Vicente Paulino López Velasco, explained that he and his colleagues viewed the organization of regional congresses and the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples (Primer Congreso Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas, or PCNPI) as significant: “As bilingual promoters we would have a direct role in our communities and we were to be the tip of the spear.”18 Perhaps that tip of the spear can be imagined as the tool by which these bilingual promoters could shape, in their favor, the new field of force that participatory indigenismo created. Still, the path to organizing from within for DAAC bilingual promoters was a challenging one. One of the major difficulties came from the very organization tasked with carrying out the indigenous congresses, the National Campesino Confederation. For example, in 1973, the National Indigenous Move­ment (Movimiento Nacional Indígena, or MNI) was established within the auspices of the CNC. The MNI was funded with CNC monies and was intended as a means to organize indigenous peoples within the official party structure. MNI leaders, mostly indigenous teachers from Guerrero, attempted

Brokering for Inclusion  67

to reinforce direct links between rural indigenous Mexicans and the PRI ruling party via the CNC. The first president of the MNI and a founding member, José Ojeda Jiménez, one of the indigenous teachers from Guerrero, argued that indigenous peoples should organize within the CNC because of their alleged class origins as campesinos. He and other leaders believed the problems facing indigenous peoples resulted from the lack of access to both educational and political opportunities and not just from the need for land reform. For them, the best way to secure improvements in all three areas came through political participation in the PRI via the CNC.19 In a 2013 interview Ojeda Jiménez reiterated the intended goal of the MNI to address the challenges indigenous peoples faced and to improve the living conditions of that vulnerable population.20 Clearly, this group too helped define the field of force. The emergence of this organization probably was less than coincidental, since 1973 proved to be a critical year in the organization of the regional indigenous congresses. CNC Secretary General Alfredo Bonfil was killed on January 28, 1973, in a plane crash, and the new CNC leader, Celestino Salcedo Monteón, was not as sympathetic as Bonfil to the plans for the congresses. Later that year the MNI emerged under the umbrella of CNC and tried to position indigenous demands within the official party platform, posing a challenge to the goals of the DAAC bilingual promoters and doing so from within the entrails of the corporate state. As a governmental strategy, the emergence of the MNI reflected the CNC’s desire to contain rural indigenous organization within the campesino political mold. Not all CNC officials and campesino members agreed as to the usefulness of organizing indigenous congresses, and these opposition sectors engaged in activities, both open and covert, to sabotage them. Time and time again, CNC national leadership and local campesino leagues tried to derail indigenous organization being carried out under a noncampesino banner (see chapter 4). In many ways the MNI was an additional attempt to undermine the re­ gional indigenous congresses and, perhaps more importantly, the creation of an indigenous organization separate from the CNC, especially after the death of a sympathetic Alfredo Bonfil. The MNI leaders too had something at stake. These indigenous teachers had a vested interest in the success of the MNI, not only for their own material gain but also for their political goals. It is entirely possible that, like the DAAC bilingual promoters, MNI leaders were using the CNC to further their own agendas. The complex landscape of indigenous politics in the 1970s also helped give shape to the emerging field of force formed through the actions and interactions

68  chap ter 3

of  local, state, and national individuals, representatives, and organizations. Further complicating this field of force was the ability of  DAAC bilingual brokers to curry favor with President Echeverría. For example, in January 1972, President Echeverría visited DAAC headquarters, at which time the indigenous leaders petitioned for an increase in the number of  bilingual promoter positions. These men claimed that more promoters were necessary in order to adequately represent the national indigenous population within the government agency. As a way to gauge the success of the bilingual promoters, Echeverría answered by questioning the leaders about the indigenous community responses to their efforts. Of course, leaders reported positive responses from indigenous peoples, claiming that “our indigenous brethren are more confident in dealing with us [indígenas] to denounce the humiliations they are subjected to by [economic] middlemen, caciques, and many other arbitrary treatments that some government agencies carry out against them.”21 It is certainly possible that indigenous peoples would rather deal with leaders from their own communities than with government agents. But this does not mean that at local levels rivalries and discontent were absent. The leaders’ reply also appears to have been strategic, meant to cast their roles as bilingual promoters in a significant light, as indispensable to the performance of participatory indigenismo in the populist project Echeverría envisioned. This positioned them as important liaisons capable of exchanging both political and monetary support from government agencies for their own version of political influence and funding for local projects.

From the Exception to the Norm: The Tarahumara Supreme Council The first major foray of the bilingual promoters into the politics constituting the field of force was the difficult task of  building a base of support for the still ethereal national indigenous entity. In 1972 DAAC bilingual brokers attended the Tarahumara regional congress organized by the Tarahumara Supreme Council (Consejo Supremo Tarahumara, or CST), where they spoke to attendees following the concluding declarations. At this congress, López Velasco and others first publicly presented their idea of a national indigenous organization. It was fitting that they sought out the strongest indigenous organization as the place to make their announcement and begin courting support for their idea.22

Brokering for Inclusion  69

The CST served as an important model for Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, his brother, Alfredo Bonfil, and Salomón Nahmad Sittón, the intellectual engineers of the regional congresses of the 1970s. All three indigenistas based their hopes for the success of the regional congresses and their transformative potential on the Tarahumara example.23 Although the Tarahumara regional congress of the Cárdenas period was held in 1939, the organization of the Sierra Tarahumara should not be understood as solely a product of this process. The idea for Tarahumara organization stemmed from the traditional governing hierarchy, headed by siriame (governors positioned as respected social and political leaders). A second governor, captains,  fiscales, mayors, and a final tier made up of soldiers followed them. This system was to serve as the model for the CST hierarchy. In the 1930s the Tarahumara, as one official ethnic group, were split into lowland and mountain communities and were located in tough geographical terrain that made complete control of the region by one siriame impossible, political divisions notwithstanding. Still, after 1930, several Tarahumara governors made attempts to extend their authority past the boundaries of their communities to control larger areas. Three of the more powerful siriame—José Járis Rosalío (in control of the Norogachi region), José Aguirre (the Guachochi region), and Esteban Cruz (the Cabórachi and Tecorichi regions)—joined with an emerging group of young Tarahumara leaders to organize throughout the sierra. By 1935 most Tarahumara graduates from the Casa del Estudiante Indígena, now rural teachers, returned home. Along with the siriame, they engaged in the organization of one governing body for the Tarahumara villages and rancherias of the sierra. These young Tarahumara, led by Ignacio León Ruíz, Patricio Járis Rosalío (son of José Járis Rosalío), and Santiago Recalachi García— all Casa del Estudiante Indígena graduates—emerged as leaders of the new organizational movement along with elders José Járis Rosalío, Aguirre, and Cruz.24 In this regard it appears that Tarahumara leaders were ahead of government efforts to organize indigenous communities, even before the DAI was created in early 1936.25 By early 1938 León Ruíz and the elder Járis Rosalío were heading the Tarahumara Regional Congress Organizing Committee, and in 1939 the first Tarahumara regional congress was held in Guachochi.26 Each rancheria or Tarahumara community was instructed to send six delegates, one of whom had to be a woman. Originally named the Permanent Commission of the First Congress of the Tarahumara People, what eventually came to be

70  chap ter 3

known as the Tarahumara Supreme Council was established in the midst of ongoing conflict pitting  Tarahumara communities against local mestizo ranchers and farmers.27 Key to the CST’s success was its ability to blend leadership styles and traditions. The young Tarahumara leader Ignacio León Ruíz was elected its first president. But he shared leadership responsibilities with the three elder Tarahumara governors ( Járis Rosalío, Aguirre, and Cruz), who served as advisers. This arrangement combined traditional forms of rule with the new Supreme Council structure. Perhaps more importantly, such an arrangement bridged leadership generations, bringing together the older governors with the emerging younger, formally educated group. In some ways this political marriage attempted to reconcile the post-Revolutionary changes and lessen the impact of government policies meant to reorganize power in rural areas.28 That the Tarahumara patriarch José Járis Rosalío sent his own son to the Casa del Estudiante Indígena reveals that he recognized both change and opportunity.29 Choosing to adopt a new form of leadership structure, the Tarahumara did so on their own terms. For the elders it was an astute move to retain influence and power in the face of change driven by the younger group. For the younger generation access to the Supreme Council structure became an opportunity to tap into local power and also to represent the future of the Tarahumara in legitimate ways, internally and externally. It is also likely that the siriame recognized the potential for redefining their relationship with the government through this young group of educated leaders. As products of government education, León Ruíz, Recalachi García, and the younger Jarís Rosalío served as cultural brokers able to bridge the gap between government and community, mestizo and indígena, young and old. Of the twelve members of the Tarahumara communities who attended the Casa del Estudiante Indígena and returned to the sierra after 1931, these three became influential members of the CST.30 León Ruíz served his community by working constantly to secure government funds for education and health projects as well as access to farmland and heavily forested areas in the Tarahumara. He also became an advocate for the protection of all Tarahumara against mestizo encroachment of lands, demanding justice for the victims of violence. He worked tirelessly to build schools and became one of the founding directors of the internados (residential schools) in Tónachi (1933) and in Norogachi (presently Siquirichi, 1935). But beyond his commitment to the Tarahumara locally, he understood that to truly effect change he would need to move into local and

Brokering for Inclusion  71

regional political posts. His political career beyond the Tarahumara community included a short stint as municipal president of Batopilas (1940–42) and as a congressional deputy in the state of Chihuahua (1953–56).31 León Ruíz’s leadership was critical in setting up the Consejo Supremo Tarahumara as one of the most important vehicles with which to pressure the federal government for material and legal support; through his efforts, it became a tool that sculpted the field of force within which the CST and the government negotiated. León Ruíz served as president of the CST until his death in 1957. León Ruíz left a legacy of achievements through his leadership of the Tarahumara Supreme Council. The most important aspect of the CST leadership structure was its shared leadership enterprise; leadership did not rest on one individual. The ability to plug in young and older generations within the leadership of the CST resulted in a measure of continuity in terms of the life and stability of the organization. Although most indigenous Supreme Councils created during the 1930s indigenous congresses faltered, proved ineffective, and eventually disappeared after 1940, the CST remained a central leadership organization in many of the Tarahumara communities. Following the 1939 Tarahumara Congress, the CST continued to organize regional indigenous congresses, holding them in 1941, 1947, 1950, 1957, 1959, 1972, and 1977. These typically lasted between three and four days, with sessions held from sunrise to sunset.32 Although the strength and efficiency of the CST varied from leader to leader and was shaped by economic and political shifts, its ability to withstand such transitions, or at least mediate them, demonstrates the value of the organization as well as its potential to serve as a model for other indigenous communities should they choose to adopt a Supreme Council structure. Cárdenas’s vision of indigenous communities organizing themselves effectively was realized in the Tarahumara case. However, the credit for this should not be attributed primarily to “Tata Lázaro,” as organization of the CST came from within the sierra. Tarahumara siriame and young leaders came together in the mid1930s in anticipation of the federal government’s actions beginning in 1936. In organizing themselves, the CST was able to shape the field of force in relation to new ways of engagement between participating Tarahumara communities and federal and state governments. In that way, at that time, power was mediated through a field of force where the CST functioned as a vehicle to continue to negotiate with the state in the present and likely into the future. Through the CST the Tarahumara made headway in regards to land tenancy, access to seeds for planting, securing more teachers, building more schools, the construction

72  chap ter 3

and improvement of roads, the establishment of telephone lines and health centers, access to medications, and improvements to the internados, among other material gains. In addition, it served as a unified front against mestizo farmers and ranchers encroaching on Tarahumara farmlands and forest areas.33 The CST survived well into the 1950s, when the presence of the federal government in the form of the National Indigenist Institute’s regional coordinating center emerged as a support structure. The Indigenist Coordinating Center (CCI) was established in August 1952 in response to the demands stemming from the fourth Tarahumara Congress (1950) for improved federal support.34 But the CCI served only eight of the existing nineteen municipalities in the sierra. Of the 29,668 indigenous peoples the CCI was supposed to provide support for, half were bilingual and the rest monolingual non–Spanish speakers.35 CCI workers themselves were largely monolingual Spanish speakers and thus were limited in their ability to truly function as a support system. Although the INI tried to extend its reach into the sierra, its ability to do so was restricted in part due to these language limitations. An additional negative result was that the presence of the INI in the sierra began to eat away at the sphere of influence of the siriame and the CST; CCI officials and rural teachers too at­ tempted to establish their authority in the region, not only as representatives of the federal government but also for their own individual interests. To complicate matters further, after León Ruíz’s death, Recalachi García momentarily took the reigns of the CST and directed the organization toward an affiliation with the local agrarian league with ties to the CNC.36 In 1959 Eleuterio Rodríguez Calleja became president of the Tarahumara Supreme Council; while the CST officially retained its autonomy during the 1960s, it slowly pushed out the base of elder Tarahumara governors and reorganized its structure and leadership with younger members.37 Throughout the 1960s the Tarahumara Supreme Council became closely linked to the local CCI, and mestizo and indigenous rural teachers began to seek leadership positions within it. Nevertheless, in 1972, when the seventh Tarahumara Congress was held, popular participation in the congresses remained significant. On January 27 of that year more than 12,000 Tarahumara, Pima, and Tepehuan gathered in Guachochi. One hundred ten indigenous governors were among the thousands of participants. For this meeting President Echeverría sent Augusto Gómez Villanueva to represent the federal branch. Alfredo Bonfil of the CNC and Dr. Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán of the INI were also present, along with several representatives of the Secretariat of Public Education. By this time the old

Brokering for Inclusion  73

Figure 1. 

Delegates at the 1972 Tarahumara Supreme Council Congress, Guachochi, Chihuahua. (Source: Archivo Salomón Nahmad Sittón.)

Tarahumara guard had slowly stepped back from visible leadership positions within the CST and allowed an emerging group of new leaders to take responsibility for continuing its legacy. By then, Rodríguez Calleja had passed on the presidency to Samuel Díaz Holguín, a DAAC bilingual promoter.38 Yet Rodríguez Calleja, Patricio Járis Rosalío, and another Tarahumara elder, Francisco Bastilles Jiménez, remained involved with the CST, serving as advisors to Díaz Holguín and his cabinet, thus continuing the leadership model that had been in place since the mid 1930s.39 For the Tarahumara, as for most indigenous and rural communities in the early 1970s, primary concerns included the continued expansion of illegal logging and the presence of squatters on Tarahumara lands. The external exploitation of forest areas and extraction of material wealth in the form of illegal logging was intensive and occurring so rapidly that it resulted in noticeable environmental damage as well as the loss of profits for Tarahumara commu­ nities.40 Nor was the 1972 gathering without opposition, much of it from local mestizo ranchers, large landowners, and loggers and including Oscar Flores Sánchez, governor of Chihuahua. Local anthropologists and teachers also

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opposed the Tarahumara regional congress, citing government manipulation in an attempt to discredit its legitimacy.41 In spite of almost forty years of existence, the Tarahumara Supreme Council continued to face opposition—or perhaps its existence in the face of this type of antagonism demonstrated the value and strength of the organization as it operated within a tense field of force at a local and regional level. The intensity of protest against such gatherings was at times expressed in violence against the Tarahumara communities. For example, following the end of the 1972 congress, two Tarahumara governors and six others were assassinated as they made their way back home. Internado classrooms in Guachochi were also burned down.42 These acts of violence reveal the threat that other local actors, and not just those deemed to be campesinos, felt from indigenous organization. Through the CST the Tarahumara had developed a direct relationship with federal agencies, and at times via this relationship they could and would bypass local and regional government officials, which could not help but produce professional and personal resentments. The level of participation within the CST in no way implied complete harmony, as personal and political disagreements were certainly present; in public, however, indigenous peoples of the sierra presented a unified front, absolutely necessary in that region.43 Soon after the culmination of the regional Tarahumara congress, members of the CST were summoned to a meeting with President Echeverría in Mexico City. The CST leadership along with remaining Tarahumara governors traveled to the Federal District. From that meeting the federally funded development program Plan Tarahumara was born.44 For the remainder of 1972 and into 1973, Plan Tarahumara focused on the construction of fifty new schools, the founding of a residential school in Turuachi, and the planting of walnut, apple, and peach trees for local consumption and trade. Additionally, CONASUPO, the federally subsidized food program,45 granted credit in the amount of 340,000 pesos for the operation of nine stores in the Sierra Tarahumara.46 The agricultural company Sierra Tarahumara Forest Products was also placed in the hands of   Tarahumara leadership.47 Once again, through the CST, the Tarahumara managed to gain access to federal funds and to push their collective agendas forward in the form of material and political gains. President Echeverría used that 1972 congress as an opportunity to build on the project of participatory indigenismo. The CST too recognized the opportunities presented to them in this renewed era of government engagement with indigenous populations, one of which was the renegotiation of the Mexican

Brokering for Inclusion  75

state’s Revolutionary promises to its indigenous population. But the CST was a different organization in the 1970s than it had been in the late 1930s. It had weathered a number of social and political changes, including six PRI presidents; attempts by local INI employees to interrupt and redirect CST leadership, goals, and funding toward programs government representatives considered imperative; and mestizo- and rancher-generated violence and land encroachment. These experiences contoured the ways Tarahumara leaders understood their relationship with their less than sympathetic neighbors, state officials, and federal agents during much of the twentieth century. The resiliency of the Tarahumara Supreme Council—and the ability of its generations of leaders to keep it alive and its influence relevant while not giving in wholly to federal government pressures and programs—resulted in a battle-tested organization. In the 1970s, the Tarahumara Supreme Council stood as one of the strongest indigenous structures in terms of its longevity, legitimacy, and efficiency in protecting its interests.48 It was also at the 1972 Tarahumara Congress that the DAAC bilingual promoters pitched the idea of a national indigenous organization for the first time to indigenous brethren. Led by López Velasco, the group proposed creating the potential organization to use as a unified front not only to make demands but also to protect against judicial injustices and mestizo abuses, such as physical intimidation, displacement from lands, and illegal cattle grazing on communal lands. López Velasco later recounted the collision of emotions as he presented the project: At that moment we let out all those emotions of solidarity, realizing that we must

take consciousness of the fact that we must organize properly in order to counteract the problems that every single indígena in the country faces, so that together

we can form a trench from where we can attack, repelling the aggression of our exploiters, with the same systems that mestizos use against indígenas.49

What is clear in this call for solidarity is the desire, and perhaps the need, to work within the system, to use the legal and political structures already in place to the indígenas’ advantage. The comment demonstrates that these bilingual promoters were keen to seize the opportunities that emerged under Echeverría’s populism and would exploit them accordingly. Thus, fittingly in the Sierra Tarahumara, they sowed the seeds for the birth of what would become the CNPI and set out the path for how they were going to bring it about.

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Their work became more complicated after 1972. As a group the bilingual promoters maneuvered between official government tasks through their role in the regional and national congresses while also carrying out their own collective agenda organizing a national indigenous organization. In order to address the added responsibilities and work of the group, they recruited additional bilingual promoters. The second batch of bilingual promoters was integrated into the DAAC in March 1973 and included Galdino Perfecto Carmona from Guerrero, a future coordinator of the CNPI. Soon a flood of indigenous leaders began seeking positions within the DAAC, with many turned away. While the reasons for rejecting applicants are unclear, it is possible that personal and political rivalries and competing visions for methods of building an elusive national organization may have played a role. In addition, limited funds also restricted the number of promoters who could be added. What is clear is that existing bilingual promoters had established enough influence within the DAAC to make decisions about bringing in new indigenous leaders. By the end of 1973, leaders of other indigenous organizations who were acting outside of federal government circles began to integrate themselves within the DAAC as bilingual promoters as well; this surely raised the level of the bilingual promoters’ legitimacy within external indigenous organizational circles. By late September 1974, the DAAC had a staff of thirty-six bilingual promoters, many of whom remained with the organization until its decline in the mid-1980s. As the number of bilingual promoters grew, it became increasingly clear to its leaders that they needed to establish their own leadership structure within the DAAC. That September the National Council for Consensus and Agrarian Planning in Indigenous Communities (Consejo Nacional de Avenimiento y Planeación Agraria de las Comunidades Indígenas, or CNAPACI) was created, with indigenous representatives of at least thirty ethnic groups forming its core. The group elected Vicente Paulino López Velasco its president and Martín Pedro de Haro as secretary. Additional elected officers were Samuel Díaz Holguín (secretary of agrarian action), J. Ascención Ignacio (secretary of social action), Benigno Machuca Trinidad (planning secretary), and Galdino Perfecto Carmona (treasurer).50 The purpose of this organization within the DAAC was to galvanize indigenous communities to support the idea of a national indigenous organization. It was at this moment that the principal bilingual promoters spelled out their primary purpose: to exercise their participation in the negotiation of indigenismo. As bilingual promoters they would act as agents of the state and travel as part of the official government entourage, all the while

Brokering for Inclusion  7 7

carrying out their own agenda. While they had the support of Salomón Nahmad Sittón and José Pacheco Loya, DAAC director of communal property, also part of the official entourage, not all government officials were trusted, especially those from the CNC. Because of this, bilingual promoters had to be careful in how they carried out their project. In addition, as members of the new CNAPACI, indigenous leaders petitioned the CNC to take a leadership role in convoking regional indigenous congresses. Naturally, the CNC turned them down, but in the process CNAPACI members were granted a level of participation in the regional meetings as quasi-organizers and speakers.51 This role proved to be critical, as these bilingual promoters formed the nucleus of indigenous leaders who envisioned the CNAPACI as a long-term organization that directly challenged the power of the National Campesino Confederation.

Table 2. 

Dates and locations of the 1975 regional indigenous congresses

Date

Indig e no u s

Region/Location

G ro u p

March 7

Cucapah

La Enramada, Mexicali,

March 8

Kiliwa

La Parra, Ensenada, Baja California

March 9

Cochimi

Paraje la Huerta, Ensenada,

Papago

Caborca, Sonora

March 11

Seri

Punta Chueca, Sonora

March 13

Mayo

Navojoa, Sonora

March 14

Mayo

Los Mochis, Sinaloa

March 22

Otomí

Cadereyta de Montes, Querétaro

April 1

Tzotzil

San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas

April 3

Tzeltal

Ocosingo, Chiapas

April 4

Lacandon

Lacanjá-Chansallac

March 11 (morning) (afternoon)

Baja California

Baja California

(Selva Lacandona), Chiapas continued

Table 2. 

Date

(continued )

Indig e no u s

Region/Location

G ro u p

April 5

Chol

Salto de Agua, Chiapas

April 6

Zoque

Copainalá, Chiapas

April 7

Mam

Motozintla, Chiapas

April 10

Chontal

Nacajuca, Tabasco

April 12

Maya (Camino Real)

Hopelchén, Campeche

April 13

Maya (Yucatán)

Mérida, Yucatán

April 14

Maya (Quintana Roo)

Carrillo Puerto, Quintana Roo

April 19

Mixtec (Puebla)

San Pedro Atzumba,

May 1

Mixtec (Oaxaca)

Santo Domingo Yanhuitlán, Oaxaca

May 2

Mixtec (Oaxaca)

Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca

May 3

Trique

San Andrés Chicahuaxtla,

May 4

Tacuate

Santa María Zacatepec, Oaxaca

May 12

Mixe

Ayutla, Oaxaca

May 15

Zapotec

Juchitán, Oaxaca

May 16 (morning)

Zoque

San Miguel Chimalapa, Oaxaca

May 16 (afternoon)

Chontal

San Pedro Huamelula, Oaxaca

May 17

Huave

San Francisco del Mar, Oaxaca

June 1

Yaqui

Vícam, Sonora

June 2

Pima

Maycova, Sonora

June 3

Pueblos Varogíos

Arechuyvo, Chihuahua

June 5

Tarahumara

Guachochi, Chihuahua

June 6

Tepehuan

Baborigame, Chihuahua

June 7

Cora

Tepic, Nayarit

June 8

Huichol

San Sebastían

Tehuacan, Puebla

Putla, Oaxaca

Teponahuaxtlán, Jalisco

78

Table 2. 

Date

(continued )

Indig e no u s

Region/Location

G ro u p

June 25

Chichimec

San Luis de la Paz, Guanajuato

June 26

Pame

Cárdenas, San Luis Potosí

June 27

Huastec

Ciudad Santos, San Luis Potosí

June 28

Nahuatl

Tamazunchale, San Luis Potosí

June 29

Nahuatl

Huejutla, Hidalgo

June 30

Huastec

Tantoyuca, Veracruz

July 1

Nahuatl

Chicontepec, Veracruz

July 2

Totonac

Papantla, Veracruz

July 10

Nahuatl

Zacapoaxtla, Puebla

July 11

Popoluca

Tepexí de Rodríguez, Puebla

July 13

Tepehua

Tlachichilco, Veracruz

July 15

Nahuatl

Zongolica, Veracruz

July 16

Mazateca

Temazcal, Oaxaca

July 17

Nahuatl-Popoluca

Acayucan, Veracruz

July 19

Nahuatl

Santa Ana Chiautempan, Tlaxcala

July 20 (morning)

Nahuatl

Parres, Tlalpan, Distrito Federal

July 20 (afternoon)

Nahuatl

Tepoztlán, Morelos

July 21

Nahuatl

Chilapa de Álvarez, Guerrero

July 22

Mixtec

Tlapa de Comonfort, Guerrero

July 23 (morning)

Tlapanec

Tlapa de Comonfort, Guerrero

July 23 (afternoon)

Amusgo

Ometepec, Guerrero

July 29

Mazahua

San Felipe del Progreso,

Tarasco

Uruapan, Michoacán

unknown

Estado de México

source Vicente Paulino López Velasco, Y surgió la unión . . . Génesis y desarrollo del Consejo Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas (Mexico City: Centro de Estudios Históricos del Agrarismo en México, Editorial Hersa, 1989).

79

80  chap ter 3

1975 Regional Indigenous Congresses While the 1930s saw less than twenty regional indigenous congresses held in four years, the organizational pace of those held during the 1970s was much more rushed. When originally proposed in 1971, the planning of these congresses was thoughtful and strategic, but circumstances conspired to upset such foresight. More than fifty regional indigenous congresses were held within a five-month period between March and  July 1975. Partly the rushed nature of  the regional congresses was due to the stop-and-start nature of the organizational process and partly to interagency squabbles that endangered the very survival of the congresses. In 1970 anthropologists Guillermo Bonfil Batalla and Salomón Nah­mad Sittón, along with the National Campesino Confederation’s Secretary General Alfredo Bonfil, Bonfil Batalla’s half brother, tinkered with renewing the regional indigenous congresses for a new generation and a new era of mobi­ lization strategies. The idea for doing so was drafted on a paper napkin in a café in Mexico City when the three met to discuss the declining living conditions, social marginalization, and political isolation of indigenous Mexicans.52 Toward the end of 1971 the group had grown to include anthropologists María Margarita Nolasco Armas and Mercedes Olivera Bustamante. They began to meet periodically to gather statistical data, exchange ideas over what they deemed to be the most pressing matters facing indigenous communities, decide which ethnic groups should be their main focus, and determine how they might succeed in including as many groups as possible. Bonfil Batalla, Bonfil, and Nahmad Sittón soon pitched the idea of regional and national indigenous congresses to both President Echeverría and Dr. Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán.53 But the death of Alfredo Bonfil in early 1973 threatened the CNC’s commitment to carrying out the indigenous regional congresses. However, in late 1974 the newly organized bilingual promoters tried to rescue the regional congresses. The CNAPACI members, led by López Velasco, and now working under the banner of the Secretariat of Agrarian Reform (as the DAAC had been renamed by early 1975), took advantage of attending the regional indigenous congresses to promote their idea of establishing a national organization. At several regional congresses throughout 1975, López Velasco, Perfecto Carmona, and Díaz Holguín tried to foster support for the national organization; in the process, they became its leading figures.

Brokering for Inclusion  81

The proposal for a national indigenous organization received mixed reactions. Of course, local political and social conditions in each region had much to do with the varied reception. For example, on April 7, 1975, the official entourage traveled to Motozintla, Chiapas, for the Mam regional congress, supported by Dr. Manuel Velasco Suárez, governor of the state of Chiapas. Speaking to those gathered at the congress, López Velasco explained not only the purposes behind the congresses but also that the bilingual promoters were participating in the process of organizing a national indigenous congress.54 While he pointed to the willingness of the current administration to support indigenous participation in government projects and to fund infrastructural development, he insisted that indigenous peoples needed an organization that would survive presidential cycles. Although the community did not reject the notion outright, they also did not directly commit to supporting the efforts of the bilingual promoters. In other regions, the idea of a national congress, a Supreme Council structure, and a potential national indigenous organization was suspect but had promise. CNAPACI bilingual promoters experienced frustrations when things did not go as they had hoped, and at times they failed to understand the local political and social context. The mixed results in the Yucatán Peninsula reflect such an experience. For the first of the Yucatec Maya regional congresses, which took place in Hopelchén, Campeche, on April 12, 1975, the INI and agrarian league representatives had taken the lead in organizing it. Here López Velasco and his colleagues again pitched the national indigenous organization. The idea created a good deal of curiosity along with measured suspicion. In his memoir, López Velasco wrote that many Maya who attended the congress seemed to care little about establishing a Supreme Council. The bilingual promoters explained to the Maya that the Supreme Council structures, above all, would be tasked to remind the federal government of its obligation to the national indigenous population and hold government officials accountable for decades of failed promises. As a result of the meeting, Felipe Ku Pech was elected the president and Felipe Cortés the alternate of the Maya de Camino Real Supreme Council.55 In the document that the Maya de Camino Real Supreme Council presented at the national congress later that year, their first demand was for the Supreme Councils to be integrated into a national structure and for “campesino indígenas” to be included in the decision-making process.56 Encouraged by the results in Hopelchén, the group traveled to Mérida the following day (April 13) for the Yucatán Maya regional congress. Here the Maya,

82  chap ter 3

taking to heart what was constantly being encouraged by congress organizers, took charge of their own congress and held all proceedings in the Yucatec Maya language. Unlike in Holpechén, in Mérida bilingual promoters made little headway. The official entourage received a hostile reception, and the bilingual promoters failed to establish a Supreme Council. Because the proceedings were held in Yucatec Maya, bilingual promoters did not understand what was happening, and they were pushed out from the proceedings. López Velasco considered the congress a failure because there had been little to no opportunity to promote the national organization and because the Supreme Council structure was unequivocally rejected by the Mérida Maya.57 From Mérida the bilingual promoters carried on to Carrillo Puerto (formerly Chan Santa Cruz), in Quintana Roo, for the third of the Maya regional congresses, scheduled for April 14, 1975. Maya attendees to the congress, as López Velasco recalled, ostracized the official government entourage and initially denied Perfecto Carmona and López Velasco the opportunity to speak. As had happened in Mérida, the congress proceedings were carried out completely in Yucatec Maya. This time López Velasco approached a Maya general and his captains and explained the intent to organize a national indigenous or­ ganization. The principal elder turned to the master of ceremonies and asked for the microphone, which he passed on to López Velasco. With Sebastián Uc Yam, a federal deputy and ally, translating his words, López Velasco insisted on the need for a national unified indigenous position through the collaboration of all ethnic groups. But it appears that support for a national indigenous organization was tepid at best. López Velasco and Perfecto Carmona returned to Mexico City discouraged and upset by what had happened in Mérida and Carrillo Puerto.58 Following the conclusion of the congresses in southern Mexico that May, the bilingual promoters returned to Mexico City to regroup and prepare for yet another round of gatherings, which would turn out to be not resounding successes but rather careful articulations of possibility. After a brief respite, the government entourage traveled by motorcade from Mexico City to Vícam, Sonora, on June 1. José Ignacio Martínez Tadeo, also a bilingual promoter, received them in Vícam and reported that Yaqui governors remained unconvinced about accepting a Supreme Council representative structure. The proceedings took place in Yaqui, so translators were provided for SRA official Pacheco Loya, INI Director of Operations Nahmad Sittón, and López Velasco. During the proceedings López Velasco spoke enthusiastically of the regional

Brokering for Inclusion  83

congresses and the still-elusive First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples. He also pitched the idea of a national indigenous organization that would provide a permanent and effective way to represent indigenous positions and views to the government. Yaqui representatives agreed to elect a leader to represent them at the congress, to consider the validity of a national organization, and to recognize President Echeverría as an ally. López Velasco and the rest of the official entourage saw this as a successful outing, clearly much more productive than the one in the Yucatán.59 Still, while Yaqui leaders agreed to participate in the national congress, they were less than convinced that a national organization was possible. For other communities, suspicion of government officials was not the main reason for caution when it came to considering the formation of a national organization. When the official entourage traveled to Arechuyvo, Chihuahua, to attend the Varogíos regional congress on June 2, they were met with different fears. At the congress more than seventy delegates made demands for the building of roads and a dam, access to medical services, and improvements to local schools. They denounced the bad treatment they received from local mestizo landowners and ranchers and claimed that nonindígenas hired them at low pay, insulted them, and threatened to kill anyone who spoke up against these practices. Many were forced into wage labor because ranchers allowed their cattle to roam and graze on their lands and trample their crops. They also denounced gunslingers who claimed to be police officers, accusing them of intimidation and abuse. Because of the gunmen many Varogíos were reluctant to serve as president of the Supreme Council; doing so might result in their deaths. For the same reasons, few showed interest in publicly supporting a national indigenous organization. After their fears were assuaged and they received a bit of coaxing, members of the community elected Julio Artalejo Corpu as their Supreme Council president.60 The local realities and dangers associated with organizing were not unique to this region in Chihuahua. Competition for limited resources between indígenas and mestizos, people without land (including campesinos and day laborers) and those with land (primarily large landowners and small ranchers), had led to increased clashes and acts of violence during the 1960s and 1970s.61 It is because of this reality that López Velasco and other bilingual promoters pushed for a national organization. They argued that not only would such an organization serve as a watchdog to pressure government agencies but also it could collectively protect indigenous communities from violence and defend their property and rights.

84  chap ter 3

But these threats were not the only obstacles before the bilingual promoters. Resistance to a national organization also emerged in the form of accusations that bilingual promoters were simply manipulating the process for personal gain. For example, during the regional congress that took place July 1 in Chicontepec, Veracruz, Nahua residents listened as the director of the local secondary school, a non-Nahua, denounced the regional congress as an instrument of government manipulation. López Velasco took great exception to such an accusation and defended the indigenous character of the regional congresses. He also defended the presence of the bilingual promoters, who had traveled a long way to obtain support for a national indigenous organization. The municipal president quickly interceded and argued that the teacher had no right to interfere in an indigenous congress. Once the heated matter was resolved, those in attendance voted in favor of a Supreme Council, with Carlos Lorenzo Cruz as president, and expressed general support for a national organization.62 Totonacs too exhibited a great deal of skepticism and suspicion in regards to the intentions of the official entourage. From Chicontepec the troupe traveled to Papantla for the Totonac regional congress, held July 2. Not only were many Totonacs uneasy about serving as Supreme Council president, because the duties seemed largely undefined, they were also suspicious of the official group’s intentions. As the leader of the bilingual promoters, López Velasco again took it upon himself to explain that the duties of the Supreme Council president were to represent Totonac interests at the national indigenous congress and eventually within a national indigenous organization. But his words were not persuasive. The group had little interest in being involved with either a local or a national organization. Still, local INI and CNC officials consulted with one another, and they decided to appoint Juan Simbrón Méndez, López Velasco’s choice, as president of the Totonac Supreme Council.63 Simbrón Méndez later attended the national congress in his capacity as Supreme Council president and made a point to denounce the local director of Proquivimex, the governmentcontrolled pharmaceutical industry, in Papantla, Mario Vianey Malpica Bernabé, for extortion and misuse of funds.64 Proquivimex was founded in early 1975 and by the end of the year had already upset the social and political balance in the areas where it operated, as Gabriela Soto Laveaga has noted in her work.65 The last of the regional indigenous congresses took place on July 29, 1975, and marked the transition to fully preparing for the national congress that had been announced by President Echeverría in late 1971.

Brokering for Inclusion  85

“We Speak for Ourselves”: The National Congress of Indigenous Peoples By the time of the opening ceremonies of the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, the bilingual promoters had been present at each of the regional indigenous congresses held throughout the country. It is reasonable to surmise that the idea of a national indigenous organization was certainly on the minds of many indigenous delegates present at the national congress, since a great deal of work had already been carried out by López Velasco, Perfecto Carmona, and Díaz Holguín in order to create support for it. Efforts to draft a document officially forming a national indigenous organization began the first night of the congress.66 When elected and appointed Supreme Council presidents assembled on the night of October 7, López Velasco stood by the door to filter out journalists, government officials, and others whom indigenous leaders deemed not entitled to enter the meeting hall. The special night session was designed to establish the official framework for a national indigenous organization, and the leaders wished to protect the work of the previous three years. After opening pleasantries, the difficult task of debate and discussion to reach consensus about the structure of the organization began—what it might look like, whether it would be vertical or horizontal, what agency might host it, and under whose leadership it would operate. Disagreements emerged over which government agency should be the one designated to house and assist the new organization. Elder indigenous leaders Carlos López Ávila (Nahua— Distrito Federal) and Trinidad Ayala (Popoluca—Puebla) argued that since the CNC had supported the initial efforts of indigenous mobilization, the new national organization should remain under the CNC umbrella.67 Other leaders were not so sure. The CNAPACI members, whose battles with CNC officials shaped their field of force, argued that a national organization of indigenous peoples should not be too closely associated with any government entity, especially the CNC. Others viewed the CNC, SRA, and INI as overly bureaucratic and ineffective in responding to the critical issues of  land, credit, education, and infrastructural needs of indigenous communities. They reasoned that the national organization should remain outside the influence of these government entities in order to be able to pressure them for assistance.68 How to incorporate

86  chap ter 3

this new organization within a government structure while retaining its independent action remained an issue of disagreement the delegates struggled over. The Supreme Council presidents finally agreed (some grudgingly) to remain under the SRA umbrella for the time being. Yet this did not settle the matter completely, as the debate over alignment with the SRA, INI, or CNC continued well after the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples concluded. Heated negotiations and discussions also revolved around struggles between, on the one hand, the CNAPACI bilingual promoters and, on the other, the rural bilingual teachers, other indigenous professionals, and agrarian leaders who now wanted to be involved in the process of building the new organization. Many of these other interested parties now demanded input into the crafting of the proposed indigenous organization, a process from which they had been absent until that point.69 Of course this meant a collision of interests and agendas. The CNAPACI bilingual promoters had pushed the idea of the national organization across the country nonstop for six months and had fought to keep the regional congresses alive when CNC officials attempted to cancel them; they refused to hand over the reins of a project on which they had worked so hard. For their part, rural teachers and other indigenous leaders had come to distrust the close relationship the bilingual promoters enjoyed with other federal officials. This is not surprising, given that rural teachers’ influence in rural communities, especially those officially recognized or self-identifying as indigenous, would be undermined by the growing influence of the CNAPACI bilingual promoters and possibly even the Supreme Council within the local field of force. Whether the disagreements were tied to budget implications in relation to agency affiliations or other struggles, the division between these two groups would continue over the course of the next few evenings, months, and even years, certainly well into the 1980s, as chapter 6 will show. Throughout the night of October 7 and into the early hours of October 8, indigenous leaders and rural teachers struggled for control of the session and ultimately control over the future of the organization itself. The discussions were led by Samuel Díaz Holguín, Pablo Quintana Mauro, Jehová Sarmiento Castillo, Alfonso Juárez Lara, Antonio Pérez Hernández, and Felipe Rodríguez de la Cruz.70 CNAPACI members, Supreme Council presidents, and official indigenous delegates were allotted voting rights during this session. In what appears to be a goodwill gesture, additional voting rights were granted to rural teachers and indigenous professionals. In spite of that gesture, resistance to the national organization and its leadership was clear as some teachers tried

Brokering for Inclusion  87

to direct discussions away from the organizational process, continually launching accusations against the bilingual promoters. They charged the bilingual promoters with colluding with the federal government to manipulate indigenous communities. CNAPACI leaders vehemently rejected the charge and fought to keep the focus of the meeting on the creation of the organization. Eventually, delegates agreed to name the new organization the National Council of Indigenous Peoples and to have it serve as the umbrella for the newly erected Supreme Councils. Despite these small victories, the bilingual promoters refused to sign the first draft of the constitutional document because they believed that the rural teachers had hijacked the meeting—and, as such, the future of the national organization—by inserting unfavorable language.71 After some haggling, a second draft was presented to the assembly and read four times, until all were satisfied with the wording.72 The next day the document was presented to the indigenous delegates. The language was clear in its intent: After considering the significance that the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples has in relation to the interests of indigenous communities and the

need for Supreme Councils to participate in the event to guarantee its success, it

was considered advisable to act on the initiative to establish the National Council of Indigenous Peoples.73

The document clearly states that while the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples was indeed being accepted as part of Echeverría’s populist program and participatory indigenismo, indigenous leaders were willing to push beyond the expectations of government officials. The CNAPACI bilingual promoters, and now additional indigenous leaders, negotiated the boundaries of their roles as intermediaries between government officials and their communities, in effect reshaping multiple levels—local, regional, and federal—of the field of force. They had to proceed with caution in this regard. One of the ways they did so was, again, by turning to the language of Revolutionary promises to legitimize the words they were using as well as justify their actions: The internal government of this organization, National Council [of Indigenous

Peoples] or permanent committee of the Supreme Councils—the act presented here provides life to a new organism that has as its fundamental aims

to grow and sustain the objectives of the Mexican Revolution that will allow

88  chap ter 3

for self-determination of our communities and end the systems that continue to socially marginalize us.74

By highlighting the promises of the Mexican Revolution, indigenous leaders simply rebranded that rhetoric to validate their own demands and the birth of this new organization. Eighty indigenous leaders signed the document, most of them newly elected and/or appointed presidents of Supreme Councils. For his part, CNC Secretary General Celestino Salcedo Monteón too realized that he must tread carefully. No matter what he thought of the threat the new indigenous organization represented, he could not publicly and openly reject their fait accompli, especially with Echeverría present. During the closing ceremonies of the national congress on October 10, Salcedo Monteón showed support for the indigenous leaders: Mr. President, indigenous communities, via their SUPREME COUNCILS, have asked us to tell you that four million people claim their authentic representation in the Local and Federal legislative branches. . . . WE, the NATIONAL

CAMPESINO CONFEDERATION, are in agreement with the Supreme

Councils. Mr. President, our faith is in the Republic’s institutions that you have

been able to reinvigorate; we reaffirm and we believe that the Revolutionary task should continue.75

Salcedo Monteón understood well that at that precise moment the bilingual promoters had succeeded, and he too hailed both Echeverría and the promises of the Mexican Revolution. While the CNPI might challenge the power of the CNC, Salcedo Monteón grasped the tensions within the field of force. The CNPI was now a reality, at least on paper; by no means, however, was it guaranteed that the organization would survive in the long term, and, as such, there was no need to publicly denounce a process the president supported during much of his administration. On the morning of October 9, Samuel Díaz Holguín, Tarahumara Supreme Council president, explained the proceedings of the previous night to an Excelsior reporter and stated that with the founding of the new organization indigenous peoples could now speak for themselves, in their own words, with a passion and conviction that no government official could ever express. He also praised Lázaro Cárdenas and Luis Echeverría in the same breath as the only

Brokering for Inclusion  89

presidents who had shown more than a symbolic concern for indigenous communities. He proclaimed that Luis Echeverría’s support had made it possible for their voices to now be heard.76 While Díaz Holguín was jubilant about the triumph of the CNAPACI bilingual promoters, he took the opportunity not only to publicly promote the emergence of the organization but to show, in citing President Echeverría’s favorable role in the process of participatory indigenismo (real or imagined), the political savvy that had served the bilingual promoters well since 1971. The success of DAAC bilingual promoters in birthing the National Council of Indigenous Peoples marked the end of the first phase of the process of establishing a national indigenous organization. Yet, even after four long years of struggle with government officials, particularly the CNC, and many attempts to convince indigenous peoples across the country to support a national indigenous organization, the group still faced the most difficult part ahead.77

Conclusion The varied responses to the idea of a national organization in different indigenous communities reflected local politics and previous failed government attempts at incorporation and /or co-optation. Many indigenous groups could not imagine a national organization that they controlled, one that would effectively present their views to government officials. They remained highly suspicious of both the regional and national congresses and the proposed national organization because of decades of disappointment that had resulted in frayed relationships with governmental agencies. While DAAC bilingual promoters succeeded in garnering support for the possibility of a national organization in some regions, they failed miserably in others, especially in the Yucatán. Nevertheless, by partaking in the regional congresses, CNAPACI representatives, especially López Velasco, took the opportunity to promote the national congress as a legitimate event; perhaps more important to the group was the garnering of indigenous and governmental support for the possibility of forming a national organization. These efforts were largely funded through SRA, INI, and CNC coffers, as prescribed by President Echeverría. The bilingual promoters navigated the waters of suspicion and discontent from indigenous and nonindigenous peoples, bilingual promoters and nonbilingual promoters,

90  chap ter 3

government officials, those working within the system, and those claiming to operate outside of it. The road to the elusive national indigenous organization, to Pátzcuaro, had indeed been a treacherous one. Soon after the closing ceremonies of the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples, Vicente Paulino López Velasco called the leaders of the new National Council of Indigenous Peoples to Mexico City to evaluate the success of the PCNPI and begin erecting the structures of the new organization. Supreme Council presidents also attended a series of  workshops to prepare them for the responsibilities and challenges that lay ahead as they took on the task of growing an effective organization of the kind that many of them wanted the CNPI to be. Among a number of other issues, topics of discussion included agrarian conflicts in Quintana Roo; the formation of forest companies, such as in the case of the Tarahumara; the National Foundation for Ejido Development (Fideicomiso Fondo Nacional del Fomento Ejidal, or FIFONAFE) in Durango and Michoacán; and cacique encroachment and abuses in indigenous communities. The workshops were meant to create awareness among the Supreme Council presidents and new members of the CNPI as to the situations facing indigenous communities nationwide.78 The enormity of the task at hand and of trying to define their roles dawned on a number of leaders. Many CNPI members realized they needed these types of workshops, training, and information if the CNPI was going to function as a truly national watchdog organization on behalf of indigenous communities. In response to the workshops, participants developed action plans for the most pressing issues—so began the work of the CNPI. President Echeverría’s call to organize the regional indigenous congresses drew on the example of the indigenous congresses organized during the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas. Three decades later, the regional congresses of the 1970s represented an opportunity to denounce the material, social, and political challenges that indigenous communities faced while negotiating their place within the nation. Political rural identity became a lightning rod during the indigenous regional congresses. That is, both campesinos and indigenous peoples struggled to use ethnicity and class as ways to frame and legitimize their demands; although the reality was that these identities were not mutually exclusive, in the eyes of government officials they were. Thus, the regional congresses of the 1970s proved to be contested ground for the right to petition the federal government as indígenas, campesinos, Mexicans, or all of the above.

4 Campesino versus Indígena Regional Indigenous Congresses and the Struggle for the Countryside

I

n the early morning of November 12, 1980, campesinos (or people identifying themselves to the state as campesinos) squatted illegally on 1,100 hectares of land belonging to Yaqui ethnic peoples about six kilometers from the town of Cócorit, Sonora. This illegal occupation upset indigenous community members. But instead of resorting to a violent settling of scores (ajuste de cuentas), Yaqui governor Celestino Hernández Pérez and 200 Yaqui met with state government officials, Secretariat of Agrarian Reform representative Wilfrido Villegas Arredondo, and campesino leaders represented by Crisoforo Soto Pérez.1 As might be imagined, the collective reaction by the Yaqui to the land invasion was one of discontent. Yet Yaqui leaders were willing to come to an agreement with the squatting campesinos. Hernández Pérez consented to accommodate 30 of the 180 invading campesinos, as the Yaqui considered these individuals to be “authentic” indigenous peoples. Hernández Pérez asked that campesino leaders evacuate the lands by the morning of November 14. In exchange, the 30 so-called authentic indígenas would be allotted land from the 1,100 hectares illegally taken by the campesinos. However, the remaining invaders (deemed campesinos), the Yaqui leader argued, lacked a legitimate reason for squatting on land that belonged to the Yaqui.2 On a broader level, the land conflict between Sonoran campesinos and Yaqui peoples shows that rural Mexico was not, ideologically or politically, populated

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solely by campesinos. The realities of rural politics had changed over the course of forty years. Now indígenas, defined in ethnic and not simply class-based terms, garnered a greater hold over ownership of  Mexico’s rural identity. In ad­ dition, it is clear that, although campesinos invaded Yaqui land, Yaqui leaders commanded a great deal of influence, as government officials responded quickly to the demands made by the Yaqui to resolve the matter. That is, indigenous peoples were agents capable of compelling a negotiation process in which they dictated the terms of that negotiation, even if not always successfully. Finally, the language, although subtle, regarding identity and debates over its “authenticity” reveals a complicated discourse where indigenous political identity continued to be accepted, rejected, adopted, and adapted as it was deemed necessary for a number of people, including both indigenous community members and those peoples within the campesino category, who also had a lot at stake. By the 1970s the political use of indigenous, rather than campesino, identity had a great deal of legitimacy and utility when people were making claims for land and other rights, although the political uses varied from region to region. The shift from campesino to indigenous identity can be traced to the emergence of indigenous organizations and mobilizations during the late 1960s and early 1970s. In particular, a process occurring within the auspices of the federal and some state governments reflected the increasing tensions between indigenous and campesino organizations, each claiming “authentic” identities when making political and material demands. In this chapter I trace the shift in the elaboration and redefinition of political rural and national identities during the 1970s through the multiple ways indigenous regional congresses in 1975 were received by federal and local government officials, leaders and members of agrarian leagues, DAAC bilingual promoters, and other indigenous leaders pushing for the recognition and protection of indigenous rights. While regional indigenous congresses were supposed to serve merely as preparation for the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples, they foreshadowed the rise of indigenous political mobilization in the face of government interests, campesino resentment, and confrontations with campesinos and helped give shape to constructions and deconstructions of indígena authenticity. Beyond the national political and social implications of a series of indigenous congresses, this process revealed the conflicts and contradictions that emerged when an ethnic identity challenged the monopoly of a class-based one in rural Mexico. Nor was this process confined to Mexico. In her work, Jan Hoffman French examines the ways northeastern Brazilians of mixed heritage

C ampesino versus Indígena 93

used the language of indigeneity as a tool to make demands for land and political autonomy from the Brazilian government during the 1970s.3 The claims by Xocó peoples pertaining to indigenous identity shaped a type of political subjectivity during which time, for a number of reasons, it became a powerful weapon in the struggles over material and political benefits. A similar process occurred during the regional indigenous congresses of the 1970s in Mexico. Whereas, at official levels, rural identities were constructed and understood primarily as campesino, at these congresses rural identities were simultaneously and/or tactically campesino, indigenous, and Mexican, depending on context, the needs of indigenous peoples, and the reactions of campesinos. President Echeverría welcomed the opportunity to “gather with direct and authentic representatives of every indigenous group and community in our country,” and he claimed, during the meeting at the INI in September 1971, to welcome the prospect of hearing, “from their own [indigenous peoples’] lips, the various problems that they face and with altruistic intentions from me and my collaborators, it would be a singular advantage to directly hear from them in order to get a broader panorama of their problems and improve our action plans.”4 This populist rhetoric shaped the field of force in which participatory indigenismo was performed. While those who defined themselves as indígenas found it useful, for those who did not—mainly those identifying as campesinos—participatory indigenismo threatened material and political resources.

The Politics of Rural Identities In the 1970s and early 1980s indigenous peoples tried to capitalize on the political favor the populist presidents Echeverría and López Portillo seemed to show by challenging the power of a campesino political identity. During the regional indigenous congresses in 1975, the DAAC bilingual promoters gathered support for a national indigenous organization. The possible emergence of a national indigenous organization and the fluidity of these two dominant rural identities led to debates, challenges, and confrontations between bilingual promoters who identified as indigenous and campesino. These battles reveal the complicated ways people deployed campesino and indígena identities to compete for funds and for social and political capital within the context of participatory indigenismo. An officially sanctioned national indigenous organization threatened to replace local campesino leagues as the legitimate representatives

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of  rural indigenous peoples. In these complex ways the history of  the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples had major implications in the constructions of  campesino and indigenous rural identities in 1970s and 1980s Mexico.5 The advantages of adopting campesino political identities became evident in the early part of the twentieth century when campesinos were recognized politically and incorporated into the official party apparatus, then the Party of the Mexican Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Mexicana, or PRM), through the National Campesino Confederation.6 On August 28, 1938, more than three million campesinos, delegates, state governors, and members of the Federal Chamber of Deputies attended the inauguration of the CNC, the major goal of which was to establish rural representation in the PRM.7 This new structure formally married not only campesinos, en carne y hueso, to the federal government but also incorporated the figure of the campesino within Revolutionary iconography. In this regard campesinos enjoyed a privileged position within the self-proclaimed Revolutionary regime. Over time, an incomplete fusion of indigenous and campesino political identities occurred, as some indigenous peoples did not always identify as campesinos and some campesinos did not always identify as indigenous. Still, a class-based identity came to overtake an ethnic-based identity in politics and political rhetoric. Therefore, it is not surprising to imagine that, from 1940 to 1970, indigenous identities were muted within the discourse of the modern nation, with communities and individuals having either chosen to be or forcibly been incorporated into a campesino political identity. Thus, campesinos emerged to hold a privileged political position within the official party.8 Over time, however, this changed. Armando Bartra has argued that, by the 1980s, the campesino as a rural identity was disappearing. For Bartra, this was a shame, as he viewed campesinos to be the backbone of rural production and bemoaned the shift from a public and academic focus on campesinos to indígenas. It appears that campesinos were losing their distinctive political role as one of the iconographic pillars of the Mexican Revolution, with indigenous peoples challenging them for the political monopoly over ru­ ral identities. Yet Gabriela Soto Laveaga argues that campesinos continued to hold a valued place in rural Mexico, particularly in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the tuber barbasco enjoyed a coveted position in southern Mexico as it was harvested for its chemical properties and used for the production of contraceptives.9 In addition, the ability of campesinos to produce agriculturally and feed the nation had come into question by the early 1970s. Their prescribed role as producers, characterized by their lack of access to credit and government

C ampesino versus Indígena 95

support in order to compete with large agro-industrial producers, was often critiqued.10 Indigenous leaders recognized this as an opportunity to regain their political footing within government circles; they pushed for recognition and asserted the value of an ethnic political identity over a class-based one. Such political identities had long coexisted in a tension-laden and contested space, but by the early 1970s the political winds had shifted, and a critical transition took place whereby a campesino political identity was openly challenged by the political rise of indígena identities in rural Mexico.11 Dr. Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán publicly announced the organization of the regional indigenous congresses and the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples at the INI meeting in 1971.12 But the planning process proceeded slowly. The unexpected death in January 1973 of Alfredo Bonfil, who had been moving along the organizational planning under the auspices of the CNC, proved to be disastrous for the future of the regional congresses.13 Bonfil’s avid support for the regional congresses might seem strange at first glance, since he represented campesino interests. However, the close relationship of the Bonfil brothers led them both to view the CNC, not as threatened by such a development, but as an established institution with regional and local branches (agrarian leagues) that could, in fact, facilitate the organizational process of the indigenous congresses. But according to Salomón Nahmad Sittón, not all CNC officials were open to the regional congresses, and neither were campesino leagues, many of which had leaders and members who were acutely aware of what was at stake politically and economically.14 With Alfredo Bonfil’s death in 1973, the idea of the regional congresses was abandoned. Celestino Salcedo Monteón, the new CNC secretary general, deemed the indigenous congresses unnecessary; as far as he was concerned, the Secretariat of Indigenist Action within the CNC already catered to its indigenous members. It is important to consider the political implications for the CNC if the organization supported the congresses. Doing so would almost certainly undermine its own monopoly over political representation in the countryside and, in the process, its ability to act as a broker between communities and government officials—the emerging favor that indigenous communities curried with the president and other government officials was not lost on CNC officials. They feared that local campesinos would be competing with indigenous peoples for limited material and monetary resources. This threat of diminishing funds and the loss of political influence was real. Although the CNC formed part of the official party, there were no guarantees for keeping it afloat once

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it no longer served a practical, economic, and political purpose. And with the emerging political influence of  indigenous peoples, its position within the party was made vulnerable. As a result, CNC leaders managed to stall the regional congresses for almost two years. DAAC bilingual promoters fought back as they made every effort to rescue the regional congresses in late 1974. However, that the indigenous congresses were rescued did not mean that the continual struggles with CNC officials were things of the past. Vicente Paulino López Velasco and Samuel Díaz Holguín led the group of  more than thirty indigenous bilingual promoters in 1974.15 While they were well aware that they served as official cultural and political intermediaries and translators, they also viewed their position as one of advantage, giving them the opportunity to guide official agendas and curry some favor for themselves and maybe even their communities while also collecting a salary. But it was clear to them that it would not be an easy path: “We were advised that the task would be difficult as we would have to be prophets in our own land.” 16 These two groups, CNC midlevel officials and the DAAC indigenous bilingual promoters, faced off throughout the course of the regional indigenous congresses as they battled over the right to define popular rural identities either as campesino or indigenous and, through them, to gain access to government political favor and funding. Following the 1972 Tarahumara congress and the death of Alfredo Bonfil, the insistence on holding the regional indigenous congresses came from the bilingual promoters. By the end of 1973 additional bilingual promoters had been integrated into the project. This wave of recruits included leaders of autonomous indigenous groups who had initially been suspicious of the early organization efforts. Benigno Machuca Trinidad, leader of the Organization of Chontal Peoples, and Saúl Valencia, the leader of the Revolutionary Vanguard of Mixteco Peoples, as well as Macedonio Aldaz from the Union of Coffee Growers of Mixe Peoples and the leader of the Huave, Malaquías Enriquéz, all joined the DAAC as indigenous bilingual promoters.17 Incidentally, all four of the named organizations were located in the southern state of Oaxaca. And while the suspicions held by some of these leaders may not have disappeared altogether, their roles as bilingual promoters not only provided them with some income but also allowed them access to the political process and created a formidable core of indigenous leaders within a federal agency.18 In addition, this new group lent some credibility to what DAAC bilingual promoters were trying to do among other indigenous organizations, that is, to create alliances and

C ampesino versus Indígena 97

collaboration. With the participation of originally independent indigenous organization leaders in the DAAC project, communities initially suspicious of the congresses may have been persuaded, in a measured way, to be more open to the possibility of a national indigenous organization. In addition to integrating leaders of independent organizations, the DAAC bilingual promoters continued to tap into their connection with the president. For example, when the regional and national indigenous congresses were in danger of  being forgotten, they approached Echeverría. In 1974, President Eche­ verría was attending a meeting of the National Fund for the Financing of State Companies (Fondo Nacional de Financiamiento Estatal, or FONAFE) in Mexico City when López Velasco managed to break through the presiden­ tial and security entourage to address him directly. As was by now a well-known characteristic of his populist political style, Echeverría stopped for a moment and allowed López Velasco and José Pacheco Loya, DAAC director of communal property, to address him, giving them his full attention. López Velasco reiterated the importance of federal support for the National Indigenous Congress and reminded Echeverría that it was already late in his sexenio and that the regional congresses needed to be held soon in order for the elusive national indigenous congress to take place.19 Echeverría turned to the DAAC director, Augusto Gómez Villanueva, and ordered him to increase the project’s budget as well as the number of indigenous bilingual promoters to carry out the congresses. Although I suspect that both Gómez Villanueva and Pacheco Loya may have arranged it, this impromptu meeting between López Velasco, DAAC officials, and the president seems innocent enough. However, it reflected the layers of conflict involved not only in the planning of the regional congresses but also during the actual congresses themselves. It served to create a field of force where indigenous, campesino, and midlevel government officials all struggled for control of the congresses and over rural political identity.20 Even when DAAC bilingual promoters tried to wrestle away organization of the regional indigenous congresses from the CNC in late 1974, Echeverría delegated the organization of the regional congresses to the CNC. On the one hand, it could simply have been because that task was initially given to the CNC in 1971 under the guidance of a sympathetic Alfredo Bonfil, and the president may have assumed in 1974 that the CNC was still the institution to see the project through. On the other hand, it is also quite possible that Echeverría keenly understood the struggles between campesino and indigenous sectors and viewed this as an

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opportunity to pit them against each other in a political tug-of-war while he attended to other matters. The responsibility for carrying out the organization of the regional indigenous congresses under the CNC was delegated to Amelia Holguín de Butrón of the Secretariat of Indigenist Action. She was given the responsibility of presiding over the process of creating indigenous Supreme Councils during the regional congresses and also was the CNC liaison for the DAAC bilingual promoters.21 But neither the CNC secretary general, Salcedo Monteón, nor Holguín de Butrón displayed enthusiasm or a particular interest in making sure the regional indigenous congresses were carried out after 1973. Here President Eche­ verría revealed that he did not truly understand what was happening in rural Mexico—or that perhaps he understood all too well. He placed the lifeline of the indigenous regional congresses in the hands of the very midlevel bureaucrats whose interests would be best served if the congresses did not take place. This reality also reveals the view from federal officials that the CNC remained the only official pipeline between the countryside and the national government. In spite of the progress made by indigenous leaders in terms of gaining favor within government circles, in late 1974, campesino organizations and political identities still held an upper hand. Problems between Holguín de Butrón and the bilingual promoters surfaced almost immediately in 1974. The two had a great deal of trouble interacting and communicating with each other, since their organizational interests were incompatible. In the face of this hostile working environment and in order to publicly present an autonomous image and forge a stronger alliance, the bilingual promoters formed the National Council for Consensus and Agrarian Planning in Indigenous Communities (CNAPACI). With CNC affiliation they would be able to petition the president from a position of political legitimacy and have access to the local and regional agrarian leagues. In addition, in spite of challenges, the CNC remained the official representative of rural Mexico in the eyes of federal government officials. The bilingual promoters moved quickly to better situate themselves and create legitimacy for their involvement in the congresses. In September 1974, the now thirty-six bilingual promoters drafted a letter to Celestino Salcedo Monteón, CNC secretary general, claiming they had a right to take a leading role in organizing the regional congresses. Holguín Butrón and Salcedo Monteón denied the petition outright. While the motivations for this denial are unknown, it is possible that both the CNC secretary general and the SIA director saw

C ampesino versus Indígena 99

it as a power play meant to influence the regional indigenous congresses and in turn challenge the monopoly of campesino political authority in the countryside. After several meetings with Salcedo Monteón and with the conditions of participation set, the bilingual promoters were finally granted access to the regional congresses in January 1975, albeit still in a secondary role.22

The Regional Indigenous Congresses While indigenous organization was far from a new phenomenon in the 1970s, the reality that the CNC had lost some public and official favor created an opportunity for indigenous organizations and communities to challenge the cor­ porate organization and in this context renegotiate their political place in a fluid field of force. For the DAAC bilingual promoters, this reality validated the need to create an independent indigenous organization separate from the CNC, since, according to them, the CNC was not protecting the interests of its indigenous members. Tensions between indigenous peoples participating in the regional congresses and CNC and campesino representatives, apparent even before the launch of the first regional congresses, only deepened as the bilingual promoters continued their work across the country. This struggle allowed for bilingual promoters to argue for new ways to make demands among indigenous communities. Once the role of the DAAC bilingual promoters was settled, the push to carry the regional congresses forward took place at a frantic pace. The central organizing institutions (the CNC, SRA, and INI) had to rely on local and regional campesino and agrarian organizations and goodwill to carry out the massive project. The rush to carry out the regional congresses resulted in confrontations between local and national officials, as local organizers were given a great deal of power in whether and how the preparations were carried out. In some places directors of the Indigenist Coordinating Centers (CCIs) took the lead in organizing local communities, while in others leaders of local agrarian leagues or CNC or SRA officials were charged with that responsibility. As a result, a number of problems emerged. The convocations for the regional congresses were sent out in late February 1975. The inaugural Cucapah Regional Congress was held on March 7, 1975, in La Enramada in the municipality of Mexicali, Baja California. The congressional tour continued on to Santa Catarina in Ensenada the following day.

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Figure 2. 

Geographical locations of the regional indigenous congresses, March–July 1975.

After the first batch of regional congresses—which appear to have been well attended, given the small population of ethnic communities in the region—the common concerns that emerged were ethnic extinction, destruction of crops, and the trespassing of outsiders on indigenous ejidal lands. Migration to the United States meant that for the Kiliwa of La Parra and Paipai of Santa Catarina only thirty families remained in their communities. In La Huerta, still within the Ensenada municipality, Cochimi general Bernardo Aldama Ma­ chado denounced the destruction of ejido crops by the cattle grazing practices of neighboring mestizo ranchers.23 Cucapah, Kiliwa, and Paipai delegates blamed local agrarian officials, whose lack of familiarity with land reform laws led to layering new ejidos meant for nonindigenous families with existing ones, most of them belonging to indigenous communities. They also accused the CNC of neglect, since the campesino confederation had little knowledge of the needs of indigenous communities and at times deliberately intervened against their interests. These concerns, particularly the indigenous versus nonindigenous conflicts surrounding access to and control of land, presaged the obstacles that DAAC bilingual promoters would face when attempting to carry

C ampesino versus Indígena 101

forward the regional congresses and also create support for a national indigenous congress. Conflicts relating to land access were not new during the 1970s. The populist effort by President Echeverría with regard to land redistribution clearly had its own problems. The dual distribution of the land in the form of ejidos for both indigenous and nonindigenous created direct competition for land, natural resources, and the credit that was increasingly unavailable to small-scale farmers and ejidatarios, indígena and nonindígena alike.24 Conflicts over land were shaped by class- and ethnic-based identities during much of the twentieth century. Campesino as well as indigenous communities shaped their political identities in part on the basis of the realities and promises of land redistribution. The Baja California ethnic groups were among the many communities affected by land conflicts. During their regional congresses these communities made demands for agricultural credit, technical training, schooling, health centers and clinics, roads, and improved communication tools.25 As such not only did these conflicts take place within a field of force shaped by popular pressure for land reform and the actions of state officials in response, but they also helped determine the very contours of the field through a contestation over the terms through which such demands were being made and heard. Campesinos too tried to shape a shifting field of force to their favor, unwilling to give up decades of official political favor in a matter of years. This reality was reflected not only in Baja California but in other regional indigenous congresses as well. For example, the second of two Mayo Regional Congresses was held on March 14, 1975, in Los Mochis, Sinaloa (serving the communities of  El Fuerte and Choix). The Secretariat of Agrarian Reform sent personnel to spread the word and coordinate the indigenous congress in this region, but they discovered that an existing organization, the Defense of the Rights of the Sinaloa Mayo, had already mobilized local campesinos under the leadership of Marcelino Valenzuela Buitimea, a man of political and economic influence in the region. Although it was billed as an indigenous congress, a number of mestizo campesinos attended the event as well. Mestizo ejidatarios insisted that, because of the CNC’s existence, an indigenous congress and proposed Supreme Council were not necessary. They argued that indigenous peoples were already represented in local agrarian leagues and through the Secretariat of Indigenist Action within the CNC. Along with the bilingual promoters, local indigenous peoples claimed that local agrarian leagues did not adequately understand the unique situations indigenous communities faced.

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However, members of the Defense of the Rights of the Sinaloa Mayo soundly objected to such assertions and refused to budge from their position. This organization emerged as a formidable obstacle in creating a Mayo Supreme Council in the region.26 A similar situation arose in Querétaro about a week after the gathering in Los Mochis. At the Otomí congress, held in Cadereyta de Montes on March 22, the local Communal Agrarian League and SRA representatives carried out much of the organizing. Here, significant disagreements over the creation of a Supreme Council emerged as well. According to López Velasco, congress organizers within the agrarian league were wary of a separate indigenous organization and argued that if any organization was to arise from the gathering it should be called the Regional Campesino Committee, de-emphasizing an indigenous identity. Although INI, SRA, BANRURAL, and CNC representatives were in attendance, the CNC representatives did nothing to counter this line of argument, and a Supreme Council was not created.27 The debates at these two congresses reveal the heated nature of the cam­ pesino/indigenous identity conflict; the confused reactions López Velasco writes about suggest that the bilingual promoters may have miscalculated potential support for the indigenous regional congresses in these regions. Despite the hopes for solidarity that indigenous bilingual promoters intended to foment, they continually faced situations seemingly beyond their control, and they often failed to understand the regional and local political and historical nuances. In addition, bilingual promoters were also faced with Amelia Holguín’s attempts to undermine their efforts. For example, in Hopelchén, Campeche, INI and agrarian league representatives took the lead in organizing the indigenous congress held on April 12, 1975. State Governor Rafael Rodríguez Barrera and other regional government officials were present for the proceedings. Shortly after the arrival of the official entourage, local agrarian league representatives informed them that they had received orders from Holguín to prevent the regional congress from taking place.28 According to López Velasco, he and his colleagues took it upon themselves to explain the significance of organizing on a local and national level in order to remind the federal government of its obligation to the indigenous sector of society, and Felipe Ku Pech was elected the president of the Maya del Camino Real Supreme Council.29 Of course his description could be self-serving, and we can question whether the Campeche Maya saw this process and the Supreme Council as legitimate or even useful to

C ampesino versus Indígena 103

them. It is clear that there were serious doubts about both the process taking place and the credibility of government officials traveling around the country overseeing the regional indigenous congresses, including the role of bilingual promoters themselves. Perhaps Holguín’s alleged phone call caused enough doubt over the intentions of the DAAC bilingual promoters for local delegates to question the utility of a national indigenous congress. On April 13 the group traveled on to Mérida. Although the Yucatán Maya congress was held, a hostile attitude toward the official troupe was unmistakable. It is unclear what exactly happened in Mérida and what went wrong for the official entourage. Without further documentation, we do not know if Holguín made one of her phone calls to sabotage the organization of the congresses, but her attempts to undermine the organization of other congresses imply that it is entirely possible. The most probable explanation lay in the mistrust Maya peoples had of federal government officials and outsiders in general. That mistrust also probably fueled their skepticism over the usefulness of a Supreme Council or what could be gained from attending a national indigenous congress and belonging to a national indigenous organization that on the surface appeared to be led by government officials. From national congress documents we know that neither the Campeche nor the Yucatán Maya attended the national event in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán; in his memoirs López Velasco wrote that this was a deflating defeat for the bilingual promoters.30 The other way to conceive of this outcome is that Maya peoples of this region rejected the role of a Supreme Council to protect the social and political systems they had in place. It would also be fair to surmise that the Maya leaders were trying to shape their own field of force in local and regional terms, one that joining the bilingual promoter efforts at that time might undermine. However, the Mérida Maya were represented in the CNPI after 1975 by Carlos Guzmán Dorantes as leader of the Maya Communities. In the 1980s a Maya Supreme Council became a reality by state decree, with thirteen delegates named to the council to serve three-year terms. Thus, the Maya Supreme Council in the state of  Yucatán is viewed as a tool of the state, not a legitimate indigenous-led organization.31 The bilingual promoters, however disappointed at their failure in Mérida, continued their prescribed route to Quintana Roo. They went on to Carrillo Puerto, where Federal Deputy Sebastián Uc Yam welcomed the group. Uc Yam played a key role in the organization process of the regional indigenous con­gress, as did local INI officials and agrarian league members. Bilingual promoters

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were barred from sitting with the government officials on the theater stage. In his memoirs López Velasco argues that both he and Galdino Perfecto Carmona were intentionally marginalized and were not allowed to participate in the congress proceedings. Once again, the entire proceedings were carried out in the Yucatec Maya language. López Velasco approached the principal elder, who handed him the microphone.32 While López Velasco spoke, the main elder stood by his side so that audience members would not interrupt. With Uc Yam translating, the bilingual promoter insisted on the importance of creating a unified position through the collaboration of all indigenous groups. At the end of the event Uc Yam was appointed president of the Supreme Council. As people were streaming out, López Velasco was informed by the local agrarian league representative that they had received a phone call from Amelia Holguín warning them of the bilingual promoters and their intentions.33 This in part explains the icy reception the bilingual promoters received. Still, it is doubtful that the Maya general and his captains seriously entertained the idea of establishing a Supreme Council structure, because it was externally proposed and government backed, potentially threatening the already established form of government in the region and weakening their own power and influence as leaders. Upon their return to Mexico City from this latest round of regional congresses, the bilingual promoters checked in with the Secretariat of Agrarian Reform and informed officials of their progress. They gathered with other bilingual promoters Marcos Sandoval, Francisco Hernández Morales, Pedro de Haro Sánchez, Espiridión López Ontiveros, and Samuel Díaz Holguín, who at this point was also working with the CNC. The experience in the Yucatán made bilingual promoters revisit strategies for approaching indigenous communities and fostering adequate lines of communication, as they believed that their inability to properly communicate with leaders in the Yucatán congresses created uncertainty and suspicion over their role. López Velasco expressed their frustrations: “From [the Maya] we learned a great deal in regards to our [political] formation . . . the lessons we learned were different from any information workshop in how to carry out the regional congresses.” 34 The situations in Mérida and Quintana Roo revealed the distrust and suspicion over federal government institutions, officials, and programs held by many Maya leaders and peoples. It exposed the challenges that bilingual promoters did not expect but certainly faced. One lesson, possibly the most important one, was that they simply did not understand the local fields of force in play during these

C a mpesino versus Indígena 105

processes. For many communities there was much at stake if they supported a national indigenous organization, and the possible gains did not always outweigh the potential losses. The second lesson was perhaps directly tied to the campesino versus indígena conflict, wherein local agrarian organizations and CNC representatives worked to undermine the efforts of the official government entourage and the bilingual promoters. In some places the divide between campesino and indigenous identities was displayed in more direct ways. One example played out during the Mixe regional congress held May 12 in Ayutla, Oaxaca. Mixe hostility toward bilingual promoters was already apparent when the congress began at 10 a.m. Disagreements between local CNC representatives and local indigenous leaders escalated into physical altercations, with the bilingual promoters caught in between. The main source of discord involved a feud between the Mixe and the CNC’s Amelia Holguín. The Mixe held the local CNC chapter responsible for their deplorable living conditions and charged that CNC representatives were present at the regional congress only to secure votes in upcoming elections, yet did not always fulfill their obligations as their representatives. The CNC representatives resented the accusations and denied any self-serving intentions. López Velasco used the conflict to his advantage by telling the attendees that the existence of a national indigenous organization would make the CNC representatives expendable in their communities, that they would be represented by an organization that cared about their concerns. It appears that the Mixe were open to the possibility, and after order was restored, Santiago Gutiérrez Toribio was elected president of their Supreme Council.35 The dispute in Ayutla revealed the conflicts that existed between some indigenous peoples and CNC representatives. Mixe leaders had reason to be concerned over the involvement of the CNC. Previous experiences between Mixe peoples and federal officials from a number of agencies had largely been negative, and resentment and suspicion had grown over CNC motivations and government intentions behind the regional indigenous congresses. Because bilingual promoters were attached to the official government delegation, it was difficult for them to convince Mixe leaders that they were not representing CNC interests and that a national indigenous organization was realistic. But López Velasco and his colleagues had a great deal to lose if they failed to persuade the Mixe of the legitimacy of the congresses, especially after the setbacks in the Yucatán a month earlier. Their ability to do that was in part tied to being able to point to the ethnic groups that were on board with the proposition,

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even if the groups were somewhat measured in their support. It certainly did not hurt the cause of the bilingual promoters that one of the local leaders, Gutiérrez Toribio, was also one of  the original DAAC bilingual promoters who did his best to open the dialogue and encourage support for the proposition of a national indigenous organization. Still, when the Mixe presented their declarations in Pátzcuaro that October, the delegation represented themselves as campesinos Mixe, marrying both ethnic and class-based identities: Comrades, We, the Mixe campesinos have committed ourselves to fight for our demands, and in making them public we hope that you discuss them and that it leads to the emergence of a democratic organization that accelerates the revolu-

tionary and agrarian promises that can lead to the transformation of the Mexican campesino.36

What is intriguing about this case is that it demonstrates that bilingual promoters as cultural brokers were constantly reshaping the political usefulness of campesino and indígena identities, as were other indigenous peoples. In fusing both ethnic and class-based rural identities, the Mixe were covering their bases, especially as they continually tapped into the language of Revolutionary promises and into the democratic process that Echeverría’s populist program argued was already a reality. In what was probably the most extreme and violent example of the cam­ pesino/indigenous divide, the Mazahua regional congress turned out to be rather complicated even to put on, let alone to result in the establishment of a Supreme Council. When official congress organizers arrived in San Felipe del Progreso in the state of  Mexico on July 26, Mexico State Deputy Javier Barrios González, who also happened to be the secretary general of the state’s Communal Agrarian League, informed them that he had canceled the congress. He argued that the CNC’s National Executive Committee had never agreed to the regional indigenous congresses and that he was authorized to deny CNC support for the congresses in general and to suspend the Mazahua congress in particular.37 He threatened López Velasco with police action to break up the congress should it be convened.38 Disheartened, bilingual promoters returned to Mexico City to file a report with the SRA as well as to regroup. On July 29 the group returned to San Felipe del Progreso, determined to hold the Mazahua regional congress in spite of the earlier threats. Eighty-seven ejidal commissioners and Mazahua

C ampesino versus Indígena 107

representatives heeded the call for the regional congress. But, true to Barrios González’s word, police officers and goons physically broke up the gathering. Julio Garduño and Tomás Esquivel, also members of the local agrarian league, led the violent interruption. López Velasco tried to establish calm, but the confrontation turned into a shoving match, and the group was forced to leave. The bilingual promoters excused themselves with the Mazahua leaders, expressing their sorrow before leaving. Interestingly enough, two months later it was Tomás Esquivel who attended the national congress in Pátzcuaro, claiming to be the Mazahua Supreme Council president. While the politics of ethnic identity continued to be contested by a number of groups, these circumstances provided opportunities for indigenous leaders and some government officials, but for local power brokers like Garduño and Esquivel it also, not unusually, created spaces to make gains.39 These confrontations reveal a great deal about the conflicts that by the 1970s had emerged between indigenous and campesino identities in rural Mexico. The fusion of identities in the countryside had served government officials well since the 1940s, but thirty years later the situation was becoming untenable. Campesino organizations were not willing to give up the political capital amassed during the previous four decades, and indigenous organizations saw an opportunity to cash in politically, socially, and economically by reclaiming and emphasizing their ethnic identity, which was challenged several times during the course of the regional congresses.

CNC versus Indigenous Bilingual Promoters The conflicts between campesinos and indigenous peoples did not only play out during the indigenous congresses. Tensions also emerged within the ranks of government agencies. The bilingual promoters, led by López Velasco and Samuel Díaz Holguín (Tarahumara), faced off against CNC Secretary General Celestino Salcedo Monteón and SIA Secretary Amelia Holguín. From the beginning of the congress organization process, these two camps were in constant discord, as discussed in chapter 3. Both Salcedo Monteón and Holguín viewed the bilingual promoters with a suspicious eye, especially since they had tried to take the lead in organizing the congresses in early 1975. For example, halfway through the regional congresses the confrontation between these two leadership groups came to a head in the Mixtec region of

108  chap ter 4

Oaxaca, with the congresses in serious danger of being called off. Because the Mixtec are a significantly large ethnic group divided by state boundaries between Puebla and Oaxaca, three separate congresses were held to ensure their proper representation. First, the official government entourage traveled to San Pedro Atzumba, located in the municipality of Tehuacán in Puebla, for the first Mixtec congress, held on April 19, 1975. There, Faustino Carrillo Pacheco was elected president of the Puebla Mixtec Supreme Council. Former DAAC bilingual promoter Efraín Orea Aguilar argued that the CNC was overstepping its bounds with the Mixtec. The mere involvement of the CNC in the indigenous congress process, he argued, meant that indigenous peoples were still being classified as campesino; from his point of view, the CNC was taking advantage of the regional indigenous congressional process to make demands pertinent to campesino interests while ignoring the needs of indigenous communities.40 Both indigenous leaders and proponents of campesino leagues recognized the emerging struggle between the two rural identities and also understood what was at stake for each political group. Surely many indigenous peoples were suspicious of this unprecedented outreach, but they also saw the possibilities for indigenous organization and mobilization on a local, regional, and now national level. Another consideration is the fact that Orea Aguilar, a former bilingual promoter, could have been planted by the current bilingual promoters in order to raise the issue of an indigenous organization from within the Mixtec community. In this instance, Amelia Holguín may not have been the only one guilty of tampering with the indigenous regional congresses. The second Mixtec regional congress was held in Santo Domingo Yanhuitlán, Oaxaca, on May 1. A member of the Oaxaca Mixtec and an engineer working for the SRA, Francisco Hernández Morales served as the region’s congress organizer. Samuel Díaz Holguín and SRA official José Pacheco Loya presided over the congress, while López Velasco took the opportunity to explain the intention behind establishing a Supreme Council structure and a national indigenous organization. When Hernández Morales was elected the Supreme Council president, the congress came to a close with favorable results in the eyes of the bilingual promoters. About 1,500 people from 223 communities attended the first two Mixtec congresses.41 However, the third Mixtec congress would be the most challenging for the bilingual promoters. A day after the second Mixtec regional congress, the group made its way to the mountain town of Tlaxiaco for the third Mixtec congress, held in Oaxaca on May 2. This congress was intended for the indigenous residents in the regions surrounding Hua-

C a mpesino versus Indígena 109

juapan de León and Coixtlahuaca. López Velasco and Díaz Holguín greeted indigenous participants as they arrived. According to López Velasco, former Oaxaca State Deputy Evaristo Cruz Mendoza was campaigning to become the president of the Mixtec Supreme Council but received little support from indigenous participants. Cruz Mendoza interrupted the congress proceedings, stating that the gathering was completely unnecessary and Mixtecs did not need the federal government to meddle in the affairs of their communities. He informed the bilingual promoters that he had received direct orders from Amelia Holguín to prevent the Mixtec congress from taking place.42 According to López Velasco, he was ignored and written off as a bitter individual by community members, and Hernández Morales was elected to represent the Mixtec from this region. But Evaristo Cruz Mendoza’s quick dismissal as a serious threat would prove costly for the bilingual promoters.43 When the bilingual promoters returned to Mexico City after May 5, 1975, to evaluate their progress, they were met with accusations of manipulation and tampering. The struggle with the CNC and Amelia Holguín had reached new heights. Because of these charges Holguín suspended the remaining congresses scheduled for the month of May. Similar charges were made against José Pacheco Loya and Salomón Nahmad Sittón, both allies of the bilingual promoters. Pacheco Loya and Nahmad Sittón were accused of appointing individuals with close links to them to the congressional delegations, thus controlling the outcome of the Supreme Council president elections. Apparently, prior to the return of the bilingual promoters to Mexico City, Evaristo Cruz Mendoza, the Mixe from Oaxaca, had met with Salcedo Monteón and SRA secretary Gómez Villanueva. Outraged by the allegations and alarmed by the possibility of the regional congresses being tainted and, more importantly, canceled, the bilingual promoters requested an audience with Gómez Villanueva. They wanted the opportunity to explain that the congresses were organized according to what had been agreed upon by the CNC, SRA, and INI and that in no way were they interfering in the process or manipulating members of ethnic groups. The SRA secretary advised the bilingual promoters to speak to Salcedo Monteón, given the serious nature of the denunciations and their potential to derail the congresses.44 Desperate to save the remaining indigenous congresses, bilingual promoters Marcos Sandoval, Francisco Hernández Morales, Samuel Díaz Holguín, and López Velasco traveled to Salcedo Monteón’s home in Mexico City. The bilingual promoters argued that the regional and national congresses were too

1 10  chap ter 4

important to cancel. Salcedo Monteón explained that, precisely because he understood the historical and political significance of the congresses, he would not put up with any manipulation and personal gain resulting from the bilingual promoters’ involvement in the congresses. In addition, he did not want nonindigenous individuals intervening in the organization of the congresses. According to López Velasco, he responded to Salcedo Monteón that the latter could conduct any investigation he chose and he would find those involved in the CNAPACI were indeed “authentic” indígenas: Sir,  you can investigate whether we are indigenous or not, those of us here are and we have respected our indigenous brethren. I want to tell you, as the President

of the CNAPACI, I represent the majority of the ethnic groups because along

with my colleagues, we were elected by indigenous representatives throughout the country. We want to respectfully inform you that we do not wish for any nonindigenous person or misinformation to intervene in our work.45

The bilingual promoters stated that, while they understood and respected that the SIA sector of the CNC was in charge, they too had a right, as elected indigenous representatives, to have their voices heard. They argued that they were more trusted by indigenous peoples than Amelia Holguín or most CNC officials. Salcedo Monteón relented and asked them to guard against nonindigenous meddlers but also to respect the work that the Secretariat of Indigenous Action was doing. He then asked them to meet with SIA Director Holguín to sort through the misunderstandings.46 After the impromptu meeting with Salcedo Monteón, the bilingual promoters scheduled a meeting with Amelia Holguín and in the meantime continued with the regional congresses already scheduled in western Mexico. The bilingual promoters returned to Mexico City on June 9 for a scheduled June 10 meeting with Holguín, but they were informed she was not in Mexico City. When López Velasco was finally able to make contact with Holguín, according to him, she informed him that she had canceled the remaining scheduled indigenous congresses until her political campaign for federal deputy in the state of  Hidalgo ended, and only then would she resume her task with the CNC.47 Since President Echeverría and CNC Secretary General Salcedo Monteón were both out of the country at the time, the bilingual promoters turned to Gómez Villanueva yet again. They wrote a collective letter to the SRA director on June 12, alleging that because of the inability and unwillingness of Amelia

C ampesino versus Indígena  1 1 1

Holguín to carry out the duties charged to her by Salcedo Monteón and surely the president himself, they would continue with the regional indigenous congresses of their own accord:48 Under no circumstances will we accept that the congresses be suspended since these represent an opportunity, provided by the President, to indigenous

peoples of Mexico so that we can participate in the development of indigenous communities.

Just cause does not exist to suspend the congresses and the ones already held

have been satisfactory for the indigenous peoples who took part in them as they reflect a sense of unity.

In each of the congresses, indigenous peoples have taken advantage of this

opportunity to organize and in most of them they have named their council and representative organ.

With this in mind and considering your high sense of responsibility and hu-

manist commitment on behalf of indigenous peoples, we ask for the following: being that it has been extremely difficult to contact Mrs. Holguín, possibly due to her commitments and other duties as Deputy of the State of Hidalgo, and so that the fulfillment of the congresses is not derailed, Deputy Samuel Diaz Olguín

[sic] should be placed in charge of organization of the congresses as he has been doing for the last sixteen congresses without problems.49

They argued that the indigenous congresses were having the intended consequence of organizing indigenous communities and defended the right to host the remaining scheduled congresses.50 The letter revealed the extent of the political rift between the bilingual promoters and Amelia Holguín, with both groups clearly locked in a struggle over the congresses. The phrasing made it clear that they were armed with the validity and legitimacy that Echeverría’s populism, via participatory indigenismo, provided them in order to take over the congresses. They used that rhetoric of rights and responsibilities to shape a field of force in which they reframed Holguín’s actions as selfish and irresponsible and claimed that they were enacting the participatory nature of indigenismo. In addition, the letter reads like a manifesto that proclaims indigeneity as a legitimate identity by which they could make political claims. Their “authentic” indígena identity gave them the authority not only to defend the regional indigenous congresses but also to take over their organization when a nonindígena was unwilling to follow through with his or her official obligations.

1 1 2  chap ter 4

The bilingual promoters were successful in their bid to take a leadership role in the organization process of the remaining congresses. While this turn of events did not make Amelia Holguín particularly happy, without Salcedo Monteón’s backing, and given the fact that Gómez Villanueva supported the bilingual promoters (they were, after all, employed through his agency), there was not much she could do. In addition, by putting her political career interests as a primary reason for canceling the regional congresses, her credibility was tainted, and she may have lost any influence she had in the eyes of her superiors. Thus, this event proved to be a significant victory for the bilingual promoters, who carried on with their work.51 But their rift with CNC officials only deepened. After four years of struggle and confrontation, the bilingual promoters were finally enjoying a direct role in guiding the regional indigenous congresses. From that moment, the bilingual promoters had undisputed control of the congresses and finished the remaining twenty-two congresses as its leaders. López Velasco, with support from Gómez Villanueva, Pacheco Loya, and Nahmad Sittón, led the bilingual promoters, and Samuel Díaz Holguín served as both a bilingual promoter and the CNC representative accompanying the official entourage, effectively pushing out the CNC for the time being. Upon Salcedo Monteón’s return to the country, he had no choice but to grudgingly accept the changes and publicly lend his support to the bilingual promoters. The continuous disputes between the indigenous bilingual promoters and CNC midlevel officials were not necessarily about manipulation of indigenous communities by the bilingual promoters. Rather, they revolved around the volatile relationship between campesino and indigenous identities and the politics and political capital at stake for both the CNC and the potential indigenous organization the bilingual promoters wanted to establish. These entities were engaged in a high-stakes struggle taking place in a literal and figurative field of force, fighting for their very political capital within the rickety state. In fact, the contentious relationship between these two parties and competing rural political actors only intensified at the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples. Furthermore, these tensions flared up well after 1975 as rural peoples struggled to come to terms with the complex political and cultural meanings and fusions of campesino and indigenous identities. Bilingual promoters seized the opportunity to take control of the regional congresses and spread the word of a national indigenous organization to foster excitement and garner support for it. If such an organization were to be created, it would directly challenge CNC supremacy for both the construction and representation of a popular ru-

C ampesino versus Indígena  1 1 3

ral identity, that is, for the very political soul of the countryside. With the organization of regional indigenous congresses the struggle became very real.

Conclusion The regional indigenous congresses provided opportunities and possibilities for indigenous empowerment that emerged with indigenous mobilization on local and regional levels during the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the midst of serious struggles between midlevel actors, at least sixty-five regional congresses took place in 1975, and most elected Supreme Council presidents. In many ways the organizational process of the regional indigenous congresses was successful, and although suspicions toward government officials and their intentions did not fade, these congresses were precursors, on a local and regional scale, to the layers of struggle that would take place and demands that would be made at the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples a few months later. In spite of suspicion and distrust, some indigenous peoples recognized the regional congresses as opportunities to denounce their pitiful living conditions as well as to make political and cultural demands. This chapter offers a glimpse into the slow but significant political transformation of rural identities and the struggles that were part of this process. One of the most debated issues during the six months in which the indigenous regional congresses took place was that of rural identity. That is, both campesinos and indigenous peoples struggled to use ethnicity and class as ways to not only frame their demands but also justify them. Thus, the delegates at the regional congresses had to decide to petition the federal government as either indigenous or campesino Mexicans, which made for a contentious and volatile countryside. The serious nature of this identity struggle revealed the need for the CNC to define a rural identity in terms of class—as campesino—in the face of a bourgeoning indigenous mobilization intent on capitalizing on ethnic identity to justify demands. The regional congresses served as battlegrounds where rural identities were negotiated on the basis of local necessities. Both campesinos and indigenous peoples risked a great deal in the process. These battles spilled into the hallways of government buildings as the ongoing struggles and disagreements between Amelia Holguín and the indigenous bilingual promoters grew. It is clear that Holguín’s actions were less than beneficial to the organizational process of the regional indigenous congresses, and

1 14  chap ter 4

she relied on deceitful ways to discredit both the congresses and indigenous leaders working as bilingual promoters in the eyes of local indigenous peoples and her superiors. Because the orders to carry out the indigenous congresses had come directly from President Luis Echeverría, Holguín had to be careful in how she attempted to sabotage them. Although in 1971 Alfredo Bonfil had been supportive in guiding the organizational process of the indigenous congresses through the CNC, his successor, Celestino Salcedo Monteón, was not, at least not voluntarily. In some ways this conflict reveals the willingness of  President Echeverría to find alternative ways to deal with demands for land that he must have realized he could not realistically fulfill. Echeverría’s strategic reluctance to recognize the seriousness of the situation helped to create the direct confrontations between campesinos and indigenous peoples, ones that reemerged at the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples. But that may be letting him off the hook entirely. The other possible scenario is that the president may have understood all too well the political fire and brimstone roiling in the countryside by 1970. He may have deliberately pitted the two largest social sectors in rural areas against each other not only to keep them preoccupied but to also present himself as the benefactor when he was forced to step in and resolve the conflicts—a populist president indeed. The continual confrontations between campesinos and indigenous peoples reveals the gravity of the struggle for a political rural identity and the number of ways that these played out. Although indigenous Mexicans composed 10 percent of the national population and had never disappeared from the rural landscape, in the eyes of national society many had simply “become” campe­ sinos. But while this marriage of ethnic and class identities appeared unremarkable or even natural to government officials in Mexico City, after 1940 the realities on the ground, where political subjectivities were shaping the lived experience, were different. At the First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples, the field of force would shift as the national congress created a public and national platform where an array of demands could be presented, including that of indigenous self-determination.

5 Negotiating Participatory Indigenismo The First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples

O

October 10, 1975, President Luis Echeverría Álvarez, along with his security unit and political entourage, boarded a ferry at the shore of Lake Pátzcuaro to make his way to the Isla de Janitzio. As they traversed the lake, a detail of P’urépecha (Ta­ rasco) fishermen flanked both sides of the ferry, blanketing the waters with their emblematic butterfly fishing nets, creating an aquatic carpet upon which to escort the president to his destination.1 Once on Janitzio, Echeverría stood under the large statue of independence hero José María Morelos. “Be the forgers of  your own destiny,”2 Echeverría proclaimed to a crowd of more than 2,500 indigenous leaders and delegates, rural teachers, international and na­ tional academics, and federal, state, and local government officials, all packed tightly under the shadow of the 130-foot statue. By the time the First Na­ tional Congress of Indigenous Peoples concluded on October 10, indigenous leaders had produced a trio of documents that reflected a complex process of negotiation. In this the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples represented, rather than a break from past precedent, more of the same. As in previous de­ cades, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, federal government officials and indig­ enous organizations wove a web of give and take, consent and coercion to constitute a field of force they mutually brought into being. The goals of in­ digenous  groups and, likewise, of government officials changed and evolved n the morning of

1 16  chap ter 5

in response to the fluidity of circumstances and realities. In the 1970s, for both indigenous groups and President Echeverría’s administration, the most public and significant arena for negotiation occurred within the context of the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples.3 And here, power was situational. Any particular indigenous leader’s understanding of and experience with he­ gemonic exchange had much to do, for example, with his or her gender, ethnic identity, political affiliation, official alliances, and /or local and federal support. Where the indigenous leader might reaffirm hegemony in one instance or ex­ change, he or she might reject such subjugation in another. This range of expe­ rience shaped interactions between government officials locally and nationally, between indigenous leaders themselves and the people they claimed to repre­ sent, and between indigenous leaders and a range of government officials.4 When Echeverría and the INI board met in late 1971, the recently elected president used the occasion to set the agenda for indigenous policy for the six years of his administration.5 Echeverría and his administration made a com­ mitment to improve the social and economic condition of indigenous peoples by providing them with opportunities to make decisions about programs. For the first time in thirty years, the national government did more than funnel a few pesos toward basic technical school programs in indigenous areas. Federal government officials claimed to pay attention to the larger issues of limited ac­ cess to land and water and of infrastructural development (such as roads, elec­ trification, health clinics, et cetera) as well as to redefining the political and so­ cial role  of  indigenous peoples in ways other than in cultural terms.6 For their part, indigenous leaders viewed the revamping of indigenismo policies as an op­ portunity for material improvements and as a way to continue to stir politi­ cal consciousness toward their plight. They did so by openly raising questions about their social and political marginalization and making demands that could not easily be ignored, given that the federal government had publicly commit­ ted itself to a participatory indigenismo.7 In particular the bilingual promoters within the DAAC made sure to hold Echeverría’s administration accountable by continually referring to participatory indigenismo and Revolutionary prom­ ises as justifications for their demands. For the duration of Echeverría’s presi­ dency and that of his successor, José López Portillo (1976–82), participatory indigenismo remained part of official government discourse and policy. As has been established, the organization of a national indigenous con­ gress proceeded slowly into 1972, with the planned date for holding the na­ tional event sometime in 1973 at the National Auditorium in Mexico City.8

Negotiating Participatory Indigenismo 1 17

When Alfredo Bonfil was killed in a plane crash in January 1973, for more than a year the idea of a national indigenous congress was abandoned. But in late 1974 President Echeverría was reminded by DAAC bilingual promoters of his promise to hold the congress.9 By then Echeverría faced the end of his presi­ dency, and the national indigenous congress that had been touted at the begin­ ning of  his term still had not taken place. Perhaps understanding that his legacy could very well be forever linked to the tragedy of  Tlatelolco in 1968, he may have seen the indigenous congress as an opportunity to create some balance in how he might be remembered. Echeverría wished to construct a legacy around the inclusion of popular groups, particularly indigenous peoples, in national political life. His desire to cement a positive legacy contributed to the success of DAAC bilingual promoters in persuading him to keep the promises he had made in 1971. This reality resulted in the rushed planning of the regional indig­ enous congresses and the national congress to salvage what could be salvaged in preparing for the long-promised congresses. A national indigenous congress captured the imagination not only of in­ digenous leaders but also of those indigenistas, intellectuals, and government officials who felt a great sense of commitment to changing the fortunes of indigenous peoples. Invitations were sent to official indigenous delegations as well as to intellectuals; federal and state officials; Interamerican Indigenist Institute Director Gonzalo Rubio Orbe and former director Dr. Alejandro Dagoberto Marroquín; UNAM administrators and faculty, like Juan Comas, Fernando Benítez, Ricardo Pozas, Andrés Medina, Pablo González Casanova, Jaime Litvak, Mercedes Olivera, and Juan José Rendón; INAH officials Guill­ ermo Bonfil Batalla, Margarita Nolasco, Stefano Varese, Enrique Valencia, Leonel Durán, and Antonio García de León; CIESAS members Ángel Palerm, Arturo Warman Gryj, María Eugenia V. de Stavenhagen, Virginia Molina, and Andrés Fábregas; and Colegio de México faculty members Rodolfo Staven­ hagen and Lourdes Arizpe.10 Of the key intellectuals who supported the na­ tional congress from its origins in 1971, Bonfil Batalla and María Margarita Nolasco Armas attended the congress as guests, while Nahmad Sittón was in the thick of things as director of operations for the National Indigenist In­ stitute. This wide participation by so many prominent members of the social sciences demonstrated the multilayered role of intellectuals and academics in the construction and reconstruction of indigenismo. It also shows the level in which national intellectuals continued to have influence on the ways indigen­ ismo was imagined and at times applied. Yet it would be indigenous peoples

1 18  chap ter 5

on the ground who reshaped and reimagined their own versions of partici­ patory indigenismo, further complicating an already contested field of force where inclusion of indigenous peoples was being negotiated. Although the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples was an event sponsored and funded by a number of federal government entities, it would be a mistake to dismiss the role of indigenous leaders in this process. It would also be a mistake to assume that, precisely because it was state sponsored, the congress had abso­ lutely no impact or influence on the political and social processes of the country after 1975.

The Indigenous Congress of Chiapas (1974) The regional indigenous congresses of 1975 were supposed to select delegates for the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples and reestablish the Su­ preme Council structure or, in the case of most communities, set up an en­ tirely new form of political organization. The exception was the Tarahumara Supreme Council, which continued to hold its indigenous congresses into the 1970s.11 However, the Tarahumara regional congress in 1972 was not the only model of organization upon which government leaders and the indigenous bi­ lingual promoters could draw. After the 1972 Tarahumara Congress and before the national indigenous congress in 1975, the Indigenous Congress in Chiapas in 1974 also contoured the field  of  force within which bilingual promoters were working.12 The congress in Chiapas was one of many gatherings indigenous groups participated in during the 1970s. It was initially conceived in 1973 by the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Committee to commemorate the five hundredth an­ niversary of the birth of Bartolomé de las Casas, the sixteenth-century human­ ist friar who petitioned the Spanish Crown for the protection of indigenous communities, which fell on the following year. Heading the committee as its president was photographer and philanthropist Gertrudis Duby, along with the governor of  Chiapas, Dr. Manuel Velasco Suárez, and the director of  indig­ enous affairs of  the state of  Chiapas, Ángel Robles.13 Understanding the limita­ tions of  the reach of  the  federal and state governments in a region where official government agents were viewed in a negative light, Robles approached Catho­ lic Bishop Samuel Ruiz for help in encouraging and organizing Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Chol, and Tojolabal indigenous groups to participate in the congress. It was

Negotiating Participatory Indigenismo 1 19

natural that Robles would tap into the networks already in place to stimulate indigenous acceptance of the congress. But Ruiz did not agree immediately to the proposition; he remained suspicious of the reasons for a government offi­ cial seeking his assistance. Bishop Ruiz eventually accepted the task, but only after negotiating with government officials for the inclusion of indigenous or­ ganization and participation in the proposed congress.14 Robles and Bishop Ruiz put together a team led by two unidentified young university faculty members and Antonio García de León from sociology, educa­ tion, and philosophy, along with three parish priests and a linguist who trained indigenous translators.15 These workers traveled to indigenous communities to promote the congress as an event for Chiapanecan indígenas led by indigenous representatives. They focused on organizing the four ethnic groups in Bishop Ruiz’s diocese: Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Tojolabal, and Chol communities. A series of subcongresses was carried out locally in late 1973 and early 1974 in preparation for the main event. The largest took place in Ocosingo, with 500 Tzeltal at­ tending.16 These subcongresses generated discussions about the economic and social conditions of individual communities. Eventually four themes emerged from the subcongresses: land, education, commerce, and health. These four ma­ jor concerns were written into the official convocation for the regional congress issued by Robles in early 1974.17 In political and social terms, the congress held in 1974 was meaningful. More than 1,000 indigenous participants attended, although the exact number is de­ bated. A National Indigenist Pastoral Center (Centro Nacional de Pastoral Indígenista, or CENAPI) report placed the number at 1,500 participants, while Agustín Romano Delgado, director of the Tzeltal-Tzotzil Indigenist Coordi­ nating Center, reported 1,030 registered delegates.18 While the congress was regional in scope, the national government was certainly aware of it and ex­ pressed public support for it. President Echeverría did not attend but sent a telegram dated October 14, 1974, conveying his backing for the event.19 Gov­ ernor Velasco Suárez inaugurated the congress and attended its proceedings, demonstrating that state officials as well were willing to show populist streaks while remaining vigilant of indigenous organization. Romano Delgado and Bishop Ruiz were also in attendance, as were representatives of the Program for the Economic and Social Development of the Chiapas Highlands (Programa de Desarrollo Economico y Social de los Altos de Chiapas, or PRODESCH) and the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Committee members. Although most municipal presidents were invited, few attended, revealing either the level of

1 20  chap ter 5

division and tension between indigenous communities and local government officials or disinterest from that sector of the population or even both. In his report to INI Director Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán, Romano Del­ gado expressed his doubts about the representative nature of the congress. He charged that congress organizers tightly controlled who participated and that this confirmed the close relationship between the clergy and the state govern­ ment and its development program, PRODESCH. Moreover, Romano Del­ gado argued that the congress revealed the depth of penetration of religious or­ ganizations into indigenous communities in Chiapas, specifically within Chol, Tojolabal, Tzeltal, and Tzotzil communities.20 He pointed out that many of the delegates were young and most were members of religious organizations, ex­ erting significant influence in the proceedings, while traditional community elders were not included as participants in the delegations; neither were ejidal leaders or community representatives. He also criticized bilingual teachers and education committees, stating that they were not representing the interests of indigenous communities but, rather, were more interested in personal gain. The criticisms by Romano Delgado reveal two things. The first is that intergenera­ tional squabbles helped shape the field of force during this congress. And, sec­ ond, they showed the distrust and skepticism that local INI officials had for religious organizations involved in indigenous communities.21 In the Catholic Church, government officials recognized a dangerous opponent, a segment that appeared to have influence over decision-making in indigenous communities. These tensions made it difficult for collaboration among INI and church of­ ficials within Bishop Ruiz’s diocese in Chiapas and during these proceedings.22 Representatives of the four ethnic groups at the congress presented collec­ tive conclusions on the issues discussed at the regional congress. Critics have charged that those conclusions were limited and lacking in political depth. While that is debatable, the challenges Chiapanecan ethnic communities faced are not. For example, increased medical attention and access to medications were at the top of the list of demands pertaining to needed health improve­ ments in these communities. Concerns over commerce included the lack of jobs and the role of abusive middlemen in stunting local economies. The is­ sue of education was raised, meaning that Chiapanecan indígenas were all too aware of its importance for the potential improvement of their lives in eco­ nomic, social, and political terms. Finally, land continued to be the most im­ portant issue, as sustenance was tied to it. These demands—even if not framed

Negotiating Participatory Indigenismo 1 21

in such terms—were political in that they touched on needed land reform poli­ cies, funding for health clinics, and education programs, among other things. The congress is significant in the history of indigenous organization, most certainly within Chiapas. However, it is also important to point out that it was not an independently organized congress but, in fact, government funded. Like the First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples in 1975, state monies funded the 1974 Chiapas congress; this fact should not detract from the significance of either. The 1975 First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples was not orga­ nized as a direct government response to the independent congress in Chiapas in 1974—plans for the national congress had begun in late 1971 and were in the late stages in early 1973, before Alfredo Bonfil’s untimely death.23 What is in fact likely is that the Chiapas indigenous congress set an example of a government-sponsored event that was in some ways hijacked by local com­ munity, church, and education leaders. Federal and state government officials surely were aware that this could happen at the First National Congress of Indigenous peoples as well, especially given that the two congresses were held only a year apart. If anything, the congress in Chiapas shaped attempts by gov­ ernment officials to contain or retain control of the agenda set in Pátzcuaro, which proved to be rather difficult.

The First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples The First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples of Mexico took place from October 7 to 10, 1975, on Janitzio Island in Lake Pátzcuaro, Michoacán. Al­ though President Echeverría did not arrive until the last day of the congress, Dr. Aguirre Beltrán did his part to remind those in attendance of the presi­ dent’s commitment to the indigenous cause.24 Newspaper articles reported that at least 2,500 indigenous representatives attended the event. Stefano Varese, an invited anthropologist, estimated that at least 5,000 indigenous representatives, government officials, members of the media, international observers, and aca­ demics were present at the congress proceedings over the course of four days.25 Congress documents list 1,794 delegates who were transported from their com­ munities to Pátzcuaro.26 Additional delegations and individual indigenous peo­ ples who had not been officially invited, may have come too, raising the number

1 22  chap ter 5

of indigenous participants to a potential high of 2,000. If viewed in a critical way, 2,000 attendees out of approximately three million indigenous peoples, or less than 1 percent, were not necessarily representative of an entire sector. But the numbers were still noteworthy, especially if one considers that prior to this event, representatives of many indigenous communities had never gathered in a single space on a national platform during the twentieth century. The pres­ ence of the delegates of at least sixty ethnic groups was sufficiently significant to transmit a message of unity and of the active participation of indigenous peoples to a national public. This went a long way toward showing government officials and the national community that they were indeed a rising political force.

List of  Supreme Council presidents who attended the First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples, Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, October 7–10, 1975

Table 3. 

E thnic G r ou p /State

Su p rem e Co unci l Presi dent

Cucapah /Baja California and Sonora

Onésimo González Saiz

Kiliwa and Paipai /Baja California

Cruz Uchurte Espinoza

Chol /Chiapas Lacandon /Chiapas

Pedro Díaz Solis José Pepe Chan Bor

Mam /Chiapas

Constantino Morales Morales

Tzeltal /Chiapas

Pedro Cruz Guzmán

Tzotzil /Chiapas

Antonio Pérez Hernández

Zoque /Chiapas

Jeremias Sánchez González

Pima /Chihuahua

Luz Coronado Álvarez

Pueblos Varogíos /Chihuahua

Julio Artalejo Corpu

Tarahumara /Chihuahua

Samuel Díaz Holguín

Tepehuan /Chihuahua Unión Empresas Forestales Tarahumara /Chihuahua Kickapoo /Coahuila

Manuel Bustamante Martínez Silverio García Bustillos Adolfo Anico

Table 3. 

E thnic G r ou p /State

(continued ) Su p rem e Co unci l Presi dent

Nahuatl /Tlalpan, Distrito Federal

Carlos López Ávila

Matlatzinca /Estado de México

Salvador Hernández García

Tlahuica /Estado de México

J. Trinidad Tiburcio Santos

Amusgo /Guerrero

Galdino Perfecto Carmona

Mixtec /Guerrero

Trifonio Lucas Arias

Nahuatl /Guerrero

Juan Francisco Rebaja Márquez

Tlapanec /Guerrero

Margarito Moso Vázquez

Nahuatl /Hidalgo

Pedro Hernández Amador

Unión Ganadera Huichol / Jalisco

Pedro de Haro Sánchez

Otomí and Mazahua /Michoacán

Francisco Pérez Pino

Tarasco /Michoacán

Natalio Flores Lázaro

Nahuatl /Morelos

Daniel Patiño Córdoba

Chinantec /Oaxaca

Vicente Paulino López Velasco

Chontal /Oaxaca Huave /Oaxaca Mazatec /Oaxaca Mixe /Oaxaca

Benigno Machuca Trinidad Herculano Roldán Pablo Quintana Mauro Santiago Gutiérrez Toribio

Mixtec /Oaxaca

Francisco Hernández Morales

Tacuate /Oaxaca

Mateo Martínez Santiago

Trique /Oaxaca

Marcos E. Sandoval Santiago

Zoque /Oaxaca

Jesús López Domínguez

Mixtec /Puebla

Faustino Carrillo Pacheco

Nahuatl /Puebla

Justiniano Aquino H.

Popoluca /Puebla

J. Trinidad Ayala Rojas

Maya /Quintana Roo

Sebastián Uc Yam continued

1 24  chap ter 5

Table 3. 

(continued )

E thnic G r ou p /State

Su p rem e Co unci l Presi dent

Huastec /San Luis Potosí

Feliciano Hernández Martínez

Nahuatl /San Luis Potosí

Arcadio Bautista Catarino

Pame /San Luis Potosí Opata Bocoachi /Sonora

Bernardino Apolinar Montero Camilo Martínez Frasquillo Sijuri

Papago /Sonora

Francisco Daniel Valenzuela

Seri /Sonora

Roberto T hompson Herrera

Yaqui /Sonora

Ignació Martínez Tadeo

Unión de los Pueblos Mayos /Sonora

Espiridión López Ontiveros

Chontal / Tabasco

Felipe Rodríguez de la Cruz

Nahuatl / Tlaxcala

Gregorio Xochitiotzi Reyes

Huastec /Veracruz

Apolinar del Ángel Dolores

Nahuatl /Chicontepec, Veracruz

Carlos Lorenzo Cruz

Nahuat l /Zongolica, Veracruz

José Evencio González

Nahuatl and Popoluca / Veracruz

Máximo Bautista Hernández

Tepehua / Veracruz

Francisco Dimas Chagoya

Totonac / Veracruz

Juan Simbrón Méndez

source “Letter from Indigenous Communities,” Archivo III.

Sixty-eight delegations from all over the country traveled in buses provided by government agencies to reach the site of the gathering in Pátzcuaro. The number of delegates per delegation in attendance varied. For example, the larg­ est delegations were the Nahuatl Supreme Council from Mexico City, with 125 representatives; the Mixe and Zapotec from Oaxaca, with 73 and 66, respec­ tively; and the P’urépecha (Tarasco) from Michoacán, with 60. The smallest delegations were from Chiapas: the Cakchiquel, with 8; the Mochós, with 7; and the Chol, with 5. Most delegations had between 15 and 40 representatives.27 The uneven representation may have made it difficult for some of the smallest

Negotiating Participatory Indigenismo 1 25

delegations to be heard and to exert influence in discussion sessions, which cer­ tainly places the representative nature of the event in question. While the invitation outlined an agenda devised by congress organizers, it should be noted that the agenda was pieced together on the basis of the is­ sues of importance discussed during the regional congresses held in early 1975. Themes to be discussed at the congress included indigenous political involve­ ment; land tenancy; education; infrastructural improvement; economic devel­ opment; environmental concerns; preservation of indigenous languages, his­ tory, and traditions; the status of indigenous women; and expansion of youth organizations.28 In addition, the regional and national congresses provided in­ digenous leaders with opportunities to challenge the power of the Mexican state by making demands for political self-determination. The invitation to the congress that was sent to indigenous communities in September 1975 contained references to the promises of the Mexican Revolution for land reform and the integration of marginalized ethnic groups. It portrayed the impending national congress as the continuation of the Revolutionary process to attain economic, social, and political liberties for the indigenous sectors of society: With President Echeverría the Mexican Revolution is renewed, taking into con­ sideration that its mission is to stimulate and carry out changes to the infra­

structure that prevents development. . . . The politics of the Mexican Revolution in relation to [indigenous] communities consequently should be reoriented to consider the sharp economic and social problems that they [indigenous peoples] have suffered for quite some time now.29

The national indigenous congress, federal officials argued, represented a be­ ginning, one that provided a voice for indigenous communities as well as the opportunity for them to forge their vision for progress and development. But clearly, indigenous peoples were unwilling to let the past remain in the past and brought into contemporary focus the language of Revolutionary change as a long-term state project that remained largely unfulfilled. The language in the invitation presaged the negotiation over the role of participatory indigenismo, what that meant, and where the limits of the field of force might be forged, both by indigenous leaders and by government officials. The first day of the national congress consisted of one reception after an­ other, where delegates, intellectuals, and government officials mingled and government officials made speech after speech. The day began with a special

1 26  chap ter 5

breakfast for indigenous delegations in the town of  Pátzcuaro, while at the Mo­ relia airport Michoacán Governor Carlos Torre Manzo met the official entou­ rage from Mexico City led by Secretary of  Agrarian Reform Félix Barra García. After breakfast the indigenous delegates were gathered at the dock to board the ferries that would transport them to Janitzio Island. Flag honors were per­ formed and the national anthem sung by the Morelia choir at the foot of the Morelos statue. Governor  Torre Manzo and CNC Secretary General Celestino Salcedo Monteón welcomed the delegates and guests. After a performance by a Mixe band from Oaxaca, Dr. Aguirre Beltrán spoke, and finally Barra García officially inaugurated the event in the name of  President Echeverría. The open­ ing ceremonies, which lasted five hours, culminated with a luncheon in the afternoon. Following lunch the delegations were transported back to Pátzcuaro and publicly introduced at Plaza Vasco de Quiroga. The evening ended with the screening of films in the camp area along the shores of  Lake Pátzcuaro.30 On October 8 and 9, sixteen individually themed sessions were held at the Regional Center for the Fundamental Education of Latin America (Centro Regional de Educación Fundamental para la América Latina, or CREFAL) as well as at the local technical school and boarding school, all in the town of Pátzcuaro.31 During these sessions, indigenous leaders, delegates, and gov­ ernment officials gave shape to the field of force. The discussions were framed largely by Supreme Council presidents, tasked with chairing the sessions, thus leaving in question the extent to which rank-and-file delegates might shape the conversations. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the congress was that there were discrepancies not only between officially sanctioned and un­ sanctioned demands by indigenous delegates but also between demands made at the regional indigenous congresses and those raised at the national congress. Not surprisingly, many of the sessions focused on the material needs of in­ digenous peoples. One of the important discussions among the delegates was that of land tenancy, about which Carlos Lorenzo Cruz (Nahua—Veracruz) led a two-day session. While the central worry for the majority of indigenous communities was lack of access to land, the poor quality of that land was also of concern. Yet land, indigenous delegates claimed, was not enough. Land needed to be arable and productive, capable of sustaining small-scale commercial pro­ duction, so that families and communities might become self-reliant. Although they recognized that the matter of land tenancy was of concern not only to indigenous peoples but also to self-identifying campesinos, they argued that as indigenous peoples they had particular needs and dealt with unique situations

Negotiating Participatory Indigenismo 1 27

Map of  the proceedings sites at the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples, Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, October 7 – 10, 1975.

Figure 3. 

and experiences: “The nation’s indigenous community, without negating its campesino disposition, has its own characteristics that require a specific treat­ ment to tend to their problems.”32 Being indígenas, they claimed, directly and negatively influenced their treatment at the hands of government officials, es­ pecially when it came to resolving land disputes involving large landowners and ranchers who were mestizo.33 On average, some delegates argued, indígena disputes with large landowners and ranchers were not settled in their favor. Without directly making the accusation of racism, they implied injustice based on ethnicity and race.34 I suspect that in addition to this type of discrimination, the ability of large landowners and ranchers to pay processing and legal fees— not to mention paying off government officials—contributed to the problem. Not only was this an issue where social inequalities based on race and ethnicity persisted, but also a lack of economic resources made it difficult for indige­ nous peo­ples to address such perceived injustices within the legal arena. While these were the declarations in the official conclusions at the national congress, the list of demands and concerns submitted by regional indigenous

1 28  chap ter 5

delegations focused on land rights and on conflicts over land borders between indigenous communities.35 For example, the petitions drawn up at the Na­ hua and Tepehuan regional congress demanded that CNC Secretary General Salcedo Monteón intervene and settle conflicts between the communities of Tierra Colorada and Amajac ejido as well as between Tecomajapa and the com­ munities in the municipality of Xilotla.36 Mazatec delegates from Oaxaca also presented a document that blamed their inability to properly use communal land on the delayed action of  federal agencies in issuing land titles; they could do little with the land, they argued, until it was legally theirs.37 While local concerns were represented in the individual regional congress petitions, these were streamlined into broader demands in the final conclusions; as the local got lost in the national, the conclusions did not necessarily reflect the particular concerns of each community. The political, economic, and social relationship to land was discussed dur­ ing the agriculture session, presided over by Seri Supreme Council President Roberto Thompson Herrera. Delegates emphasized the past and contempo­ rary importance of agriculture in the national economy. They chastised the fed­ eral government for its apparent economic abandonment of agriculture over the last decade and reaffirmed that “agriculture is one of the most important foundations upon which our economy rests.”38 They proposed that government agencies provide support for the creation of small industries and businesses in the form of cooperatives or other collective business venture forms by extend­ ing credit to help get them off the ground. Delegates argued that these entre­ preneurial strategies would inherently benefit all Mexicans, not only by creat­ ing jobs, but through the generation of local and regional economic growth. To support this broad proposal it would be necessary to nationalize the fertilizer and insecticide industries, measures, they believed, that if taken would provide rural producers with access to those products at affordable prices, thus enabling them to protect their harvests, improve their yields, and generate a higher rate of sales and profits than they now were.39 These requests, broad in scope, called for structural reforms that would change availability and access to modes of pro­ duction and of distribution. Tied to the issue of land development and agricultural production were credit and access to it. This was a critical problem for indigenous peoples whose livelihood was linked to agriculture in rural areas, as well as for those who were looking to launch small businesses in rural and urban regions. Concerns were significant enough that they required an entirely separate session. The delegates

Negotiating Participatory Indigenismo 1 29

present at this session demanded that credit be made available to indigenous peoples, campesinos, and other popular groups and organizations. Access to credit was necessary to complement land tenancy by making it possible to gain access to machinery and technology for rural production, tourist attrac­ tions, and fishing industries.40 Without proper access to tools, fertilizers, seeds, and transportation, land distribution alone would not be enough to effect real change for those in many indigenous communities who relied on agricultural production as a way of making a living or merely surviving. During the session on infrastructural development, indigenous delegates demanded construction of roads to and from indigenous communities as well as the proper maintenance of those already in existence. In this particular case the regional congress petitions were included in the national congress discus­ sions. For example, the Regional Campesino Alliance, representing a number of  communities in the municipality of Zongolica, Veracruz, called for construc­ tion of roads to connect multiple towns.41 In addition, they deemed the build­ ing of bridges necessary to deal with annual overflowing of riverbanks, which diminished mobility in some communities. Of course, the proper maintenance and expansion of roadways was critical for a number of reasons. The movement of products from one region to another would conceivably facilitate commer­ cial exchange. In practical terms, the ability to travel to health clinics, schools, and mercados meant fewer interruptions to satisfying daily needs and practices and increased ability to take care of emergencies. Delegates also demanded re­ serve water wells, additional health clinics, electrification projects, and mail and telegraph services.42 The petition from Yaqui communities from Sonora read, “Mr. President, we urgently need potable water, electricity, and roads that will allow us access to the highway when our family falls ill, or to move what we fish, or to leave town to find work.”43 They hoped their voices would be heard and their efforts and demands taken seriously.44 Many of the discussions at the individual sessions reinforced the gravity of some of the challenges various indigenous communities faced. For example, the session on commerce emphasized the necessity of searching for and estab­ lishing markets for goods produced by indigenous peoples and the desire and demand to reduce the role of economic middlemen. Session leaders claimed that middlemen purchased products at a low price and then sold them in the open market for a much higher price. This process was detrimental to setting up fair trade practices and reasonable pricing so that indigenous peoples’ profits would be commensurate with their material and production costs. The presence

1 30  chap ter 5

and practices of middlemen prevented indigenous communities from creat­ ing small local businesses. Delegates demanded fair prices for a range of prod­ ucts that indigenous peoples produced in large quantities: palm hats, ceramics, rugs, and other craft goods that sold well outside the communities where they were produced. Fair price adjustments were also called for in the case of coffee, barbasco, honey, timber, fruits, vegetables, and other products sold in national markets.45 Addressing these issues, indigenous delegates claimed, would help significantly reduce the need for indigenous peoples to leave their communities in search of jobs. This was an especially serious problem for the ethnic groups in the northern part of the country, namely among the Kiliwa and Cucapah, whose communities were being decimated by regional migration and emigra­ tion to the United States.46 The availability—or lack thereof—of jobs and labor was also a concern for indigenous delegates, as it surely was among many other social sectors, includ­ ing students, workers, and campesinos. The session on collective labor called for the proper organization of communities to create jobs. Delegates went further by calling for workshops for indigenous peoples from different ethnic groups so that they could be educated about the bureaucratic processes that regulated land, labor, and forestry matters; doing so, they argued, would give them the tools to navigate legal waters.47 This was a critical request, as it involved creat­ ing an informed indigenous citizenry that could learn to steer through the legal and bureaucratic systems more formally. Understanding the way land titling and rights to forest areas were awarded, as well as ways labor rights could be in­ terpreted and applied, were deemed vital skills. According to these delegates, if indigenous peoples improved their understanding of the process, they would be less likely to be led astray or take advice to act against their own interests. In this way they would be armed with the tools to protect their lands, their forests, their labor, and their families and communities from abusive buyers or sellers. Through the deployment of these forms of knowledge, local com­ munities might be able to shape and reshape multiple fields of force. The uses of raw natural resources were as much a worry as land and labor. Indigenous peoples living near densely wooded regions—such as the Sierra Tarahumara in Chihuahua; Michoacán; the Lacandon jungle cutting across Chiapas; Ta­ basco; and the Mixtec region in Oaxaca—were extremely concerned over forest conservation and protection. The Lacandon Supreme Council president, José Pepe Chan Bor, accused the National Financing Firm (Financiera Nacional) of illegally logging timber from that area.48 Illegal logging in these regions led

Negotiating Participatory Indigenismo 1 31

indigenous delegates to demand government protection of forests. They also called for the government to invest in the creation of community cooperatives to exploit wooded areas for the benefit of the communities instead of giving preference to private firms. Constant logging was decimating some areas, and reforestation programs were needed to curtail the long-term negative effects. Delegates argued that the federal government should support the emerging lo­ cal and regional organizations focused on conservation efforts, especially those clamoring for the protection of the forest regions. Yet delegates were also ad­ amant that their roles as citizens and caretakers of the wooded regions gave them the right to economically exploit the forests. To make their point, they connected their demands and struggles to lessons learned from Echeverría: “Mr. President, you have shown us how to be fighters and you have taught us to work . . . today we want your support and your help to be actors in our own organization [of cooperatives] and development.”49 Several government subsidized and indigenous-run conservation cooperatives already existed at the time of the congress, such as Nayarit Forest Resource Use (Aprovechamien­ tos Forestales de Nayarit, or APROFON), Mexico Forest Products (Productos Forestales Mexicanos, or PROFORMEX) in Durango, Nayarit, and Guer­ rero, Tarahumara Forest Products (Productos Forestales de la Tarahumara, or PROFORTARAH) in Chihuahua, Michoacán Forest Products (Productos Forestales de Michoacán, or PROFORMICH), and Forestal Vicente Guer­ rero in the state of Guerrero. The delegates asked that these organizations take charge of forests for conservation and profit.50 It is doubtful that the lessons indigenous delegates claimed to have taken from Echeverría were learned from him. Nor is it likely that they were taught to work and struggle by the president either. Rather, their use of this language reflected their attempt to shape the field of force in advantageous ways. Doing so enabled indigenous leaders to turn official rhetoric back on government officials in order to further their own interests. It also allowed them to give form to this rhetoric as they deployed it, revealing them as agents not only in these negotiations but also in helping to create the broader framework through which such negotiations took place. During the sessions on health and work, demands were made for the ex­ pansion of government clinics in or near indigenous communities and for the extension of health benefits to indigenous peoples. Delegates wanted the avail­ ability of medication and doctors and workshops to educate their communi­ ties on hygiene, nutrition and diet, and preventive health care. They also advised government officials to use labor from local indigenous communities to build

1 32  chap ter 5

the clinics, so as to also provide jobs for local workers and stimulate the lo­ cal economy.51 The argument could certainly be made that the massive gov­ ernment investment under President José López Portillo in January 1977, the National Plan for Depressed Zones and Marginalized Groups (Coordinación General del Plan Nacional de Zonas Deprimidas y Grupos Marginados, or COPLAMAR), was established in response to the demands made at the na­ tional indigenous congress and the pressure to maintain the promises of par­ ticipatory indigenismo after Echeverría’s administration ended. Perhaps one of the more interesting demands made by delegates was for the development of a national pharmaceutical industry to make medications affordable for indigenous communities, campesinos, and other exploited work­ ers.52 While this may not appear to be reasonable or even realistic, Gabriela Soto Laveaga demonstrates that the attempt to create a national pharmaceuti­ cal industry had already begun early during Echeverría’s presidency. Indigenous campesinos from Oaxaca, Puebla, and Veracruz played a significant role in the harvesting of barbasco, an essential ingredient in the development of contra­ ceptive drugs.53 While it is not clear which delegates proposed such a stipula­ tion, it would not be too much of a stretch to deduce that Oaxacan, Veracruzan, and Puebla indigenous representatives would certainly have advocated for that petition to be included in the congress conclusions. In this case, their demands were probably more a reflection of a process already underway as Echeverría’s administration made a valiant but failing attempt to set up a national pharma­ ceutical industry.54 While access to land and credit, improved infrastructure, job creation, labor protection, and profiting from forestry took center stage at the congress pro­ ceedings, other social and cultural issues were also given space for discussion within the sessions. In many ways, the field of force enacted by indigenous par­ ticipants, governmental officials, and others took form through attempts to deal with issues such as self-determination, national patrimony, and cultural con­ servation. For example, in the session discussing language and archaeological structures as national patrimony, demands for the recognition of  indigenous lan­ guages as languages and not as what the delegates considered to be a deroga­ tory term, dialects, were made. Delegates also insisted on respect for the tradi­ tions of indigenous social organization and on conservation of their culture for their own profit. This is particularly interesting because indigenous peoples were asking for cultural autonomy, arguing that the state had long profited

Negotiating Participatory Indigenismo 1 33

economically, socially, politically, and culturally from crafting pre-Columbian iconography via museums and archaeological sites while they had received noth­ ing. As for the profitable and commercial nature of archaeological sites, del­egates called for benefits to extend to those in indigenous communities; they asked for a share of the entrance fees and gift shop sales. Delegates also proposed that indigenous peoples be trained to run and administer archaeological sites, which meant they would have active roles in the shaping and preservation of national patrimony and jobs would be created for indigenous Mexicans.55 Contemporary indigenous peoples wanted to profit from a past that official Mexico hailed as part of national patrimony, anchored in the profile of preColumbian societies, while it simultaneously maintained the social, political, and economic marginalization of the majority of indigenous peoples. This was a partic­ularly contentious issue, as indigenous peoples fused the past, present, and future of how they were represented, shaping a field of force where they could raise larger historical questions about identity, ethnicity, nationalism, and citizenship. The future that indigenous delegates envisioned was one that their children would inhabit. The session that focused on indigenous youth and their needs centered on concerns over the lack of employment and education opportuni­ ties. Delegates called for supporting and nurturing a continued consciousness to address the limited political, social, cultural, and economic positions of in­ digenous peoples within national society, especially as expressed in the under­ representation of their children in basic and higher education. Given the vary­ ing challenges of living in the countryside and cities, access to education was absolutely essential for future generations. Delegates also called out the need to create workshops to establish small industries and provide young people with technical training and jobs while also setting up seamstress workshops for girls. Indigenous peoples, recognizing the significance of the political opening oc­ curring at that precise moment, were thinking of the present as they looked toward the future.56 Likewise, their concerns for archaeological sites also shows they were reclaiming the past as part of a process of imagining a better future. Female delegates gathered to discuss the realities of indigenous women’s lives. The session was presided over by Cirila Sánchez Mendoza,57 a Chatina in­ digenous woman and local bilingual promoter from the state of Oaxaca; fifty-six female delegates representing thirty-four ethnic groups attended. Each delegate was given an opportunity to voice the concerns of  women in their communities.

1 34  chap ter 5

An overwhelming majority of the women called for the establishment of seam­ stress workshops and donations of sewing machines by federal agencies to cre­ ate opportunities “so that women could more actively participate in the creation of products for local and commercial use.”58 Working from home, they claimed, would allow them to take care of their children while also supplementing their household income. In addition, they asked for government investment in nix­ tamal mills for the grinding of treated maize into masa (wet cornmeal dough) in order to free up more time for women to do their daily chores. Female delegates premised their demands on their gendered status as moth­ ers and wives; such measures, they argued, would better enable them to ful­ fill their duties to their children and husbands. They shaped the field of force in gender and ethnic terms, citing their struggles as twofold, as those of both women and indigenous peoples. Price controls, electrification projects, and ac­ cess to potable water were factors that women identified as imperative in order to carry out their obligations. Female delegates argued that as wives and moth­ ers, they needed to be able to feed their families nutritious meals, which they could not provide if the price of staple foods was exorbitantly high. As poten­ tial wage earners, women asked for continued government efforts to bring elec­ tricity to indigenous communities; improved lighting would enable them to work longer hours and more effectively. They would also be better able to pro­ vide for their families, especially their children, if they could work later into the night. Potable water would not only provide drinking water for their families but also irrigation for gardens and huertos that would feed families on a smaller scale. Beyond the basic demands like water, electricity, and food availability, as mothers they were also concerned with the lack of health clinics and schools (kindergarten, elementary, and technical) in indigenous communities. Schools were essential in order for these women to give their children the tools to suc­ ceed in a society with so many odds stacked against them. That women used the language of motherhood and their obligations as wives was certainly not new during the 1970s or in Mexico. As Ann Blum’s and Elena Jackson Albarran’s work indicates, intersections of motherhood, ethnic­ ity, and class shaped early twentieth-century debates surrounding family and parenthood, setting the stage for government concern over the ways its citizens were being raised, a preoccupation that continued well into the latter half of the century.59 In Argentina, the case of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo also conjures up the usefulness of the discourse of motherhood. In Buenos Aires a

Negotiating Participatory Indigenismo 1 35

group of mothers defied a brutal military dictatorship (1976–83) by demand­ ing to know where their disappeared children were. They created a framework that transcended politics as conventionally understood by arguing that their status as mothers would be in jeopardy if they did not look for and demand to know the whereabouts of their children.60 In 1975 indigenous female delegates in Mexico were also making demands in the name of motherhood. As moth­ ers they were responsible for caring for their children, which included feeding them, clothing them, preparing them for the rest of their lives, and providing the best opportunities that their social, political, and economic realities allowed. Yet the most common issue voiced in the final reports submitted by many of the ethnic delegations was framed in the context of a local field of  force: alco­ holism. Afflicting husbands, fathers, and other family members, alcoholism had become of overwhelming concern for female delegates: “One of the problems that most affects indigenous women is alcoholism since they not only suffer humiliations at the hands of their inebriated fathers, husbands, and brothers, but also because they fail in their responsibilities to their families.”61 The female delegates argued that alcohol consumption created problems at home in the form of physical and verbal abuse and, to make matters worse, that men spent their meager earnings on alcohol rather than in support of their families. As a result, female delegates called for an anti-alcohol campaign. Again, they used their duties as mothers to defend their families. As wives, how could they pos­ sibly maintain a home if they had no resources? Using this language served as a way to avoid direct confrontations and to avoid belittling the characters of their husbands—that is, as a way to soften the tension within this most in­ timate field of force, that of the home. By placing the blame on individuals such as middlemen, distributors, and storekeepers, those who provided aguar­ diente, and claiming as women that they only wanted to be better wives and mothers, these delegates managed to articulate a strong political participation with minimal potential for angering and disparaging male indigenous dele­ gates.62 This was essential given the fact that the majority of the delegates at the national congress were male and that the voices of indigenous women in most sessions, with the exception of the session specifically on indigenous women, were muted. In conceptualization as in practice, the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples was gendered male. Yet indigenous women also used the opportunity presented by the congress to represent women’s interests beyond the home. Female delegates treated their

1 36  chap ter 5

session as a platform to demand that their constitutional right to vote in local, state, and federal elections be respected by their husbands and by male govern­ ment officials: It is reason for deep concern that inequalities exist in the exercise of rights be­

tween men and women, particularly in the case of some indigenous communities, in which women are not allowed to vote and attend assemblies where the prob­ lems that affect all residents are discussed.63

They were not ready to limit their demands to economic and cultural mat­ ters alone, but rather they recognized the chance to make it clear, not only to government officials but also to male members of their own communities, that they were not second- or third-class citizens. For example, the Tojolabal and Tzotzil delegations from Chiapas expressed a desire that indigenous women be respected and local males be educated on the value of women. Delegates also advocated that mestizos recognize and value la mujer indígena, stressing that women had the same rights and obligations as other Mexicans. Likewise, the Chontal and Trique delegations from Oaxaca demanded that female suffrage be respected and that women be considered part of the community and, more broadly, valued members of the nation.64 The female delegates displayed their capacity for discussing problems and framing solutions as concerned citizens of their homes, their communities, and the country that demanded they raise not only children but Revolutionary citizens. The tensions caused by emphasizing race and ethnicity over gender concerns also shaped the session on indigenous women’s issues at the national congress. Some official delegations recognized the need to raise consciousness about the social and political marginalization of women, as in the Mazatec region­al docu­ ments stating that “as in broader national society, women have been stimulated to take active participation in our Mexico.”65 But while there was a superficial acknowledgment of encouraging women’s consciousness on the issues consid­ ered particular to them, the male-dominated delegations reiterated: “like in­ digenous women, indigenous men also face challenges and both must struggle for progress and development of their communities.”66 Even though women’s issues were deliberated, male delegates often shifted the terms of the discus­ sion back to ethnicity, a factor they regarded as more pertinent than gender in determining daily and long-term struggle. The articulation of indigenous women’s rights and the trials they faced was tamed by the assertion that men

Negotiating Participatory Indigenismo 1 37

also dealt with similar challenges or by chalking up such inequalities to some­ thing that happened in domestic partnerships and not regarding them as part of a national problem that needed to be discussed independently of indigenous men’s struggles. For example, the statement regarding indigenous women from the Zapotec Delegation from Sierra Juárez reads, “La mujer indígena .  .  . is partner to her husband, has the instinct to carry out her chores in the home, [and] takes care of her children.”67 While women were willing to push the ac­ cepted boundaries of presenting grievances, some also reinforced traditional interpretations of gender roles. The contradictory ways of framing the gender discussion raises questions over how much female delegates were able to con­ struct their own demands without male influence but also about the breadth of interests and strategies that women used to make appeals for material, social, and political rights and benefits. Overall, these female delegates insisted that the integration of women into national society be on their own terms.68 They took control of a space, of the field of force, within the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples to ex­ press their concerns, assert their rights, and demand change and respect using the language of obligation. In utilizing a language of obligation based on their roles as mothers and wives, they managed to question national social views of indigenous women, as well as their treatment within their communities and homes. The differences between goals, perspectives, and visions of what women’s roles were and what they could be varied widely according to social class, eth­ nic, and racial experiences as well as urban and rural realities. In many ways the everyday experiences faced by indigenous women, including the daily forms of physical, verbal, economic, political, social, psychological, and /or emotional violence, weighed heavily on them. In shaping their struggle as mothers and wives, in placing blame on alcoholism rather than on their husbands or fathers, women were able to express their frustrations, anger, and fears and to make demands within that protective cloak, shaping a field of force that was simulta­ neously familial, local, and national. That in no way frames indigenous female delegates as weak or as victims, but rather demonstrates the complicated fabric of community social relationships and of families. The themes of violence against indígenas—especially violence carried out by mestizos—and unequal treatment in judicial processes were also touched upon in the session on justice. Delegates cited a long list of abuses, including legal entrapment, privation of liberties, and arbitrary arrests, and demanded safety and security for their families, homes, and property. Led by Pedro

1 38  chap ter 5

Hernández Amador, Nahuatl Supreme Council president from the state of Hidalgo, the delegates demanded justice for the assassinations of indigenous leaders in Michoacán, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guerrero, and Hidalgo. According to the indigenous delegations, local police forces, caciques, large landowners, ranchers, judges, and public officials all colluded in the mistreatment of in­ digenous groups, oftentimes causing mistrust among the numerous parties. The delegates claimed that it was no longer acceptable for indigenous peoples to be treated as second-class citizens. They demanded that the federal govern­ ment take an active and collaborative role in the battle against the racism and discrimination that many indígenas experienced all too frequently in their daily lives.69 In addition, the tensions between indigenous communities and political and economic intermediaries frequently resulted in violence. Assassination of indigenous and campesino leaders, the rape of indigenous women, prohibition of  workers’ organizations, and various levels of intimidation created a culture of fear, resulting in the deprivation of civil and personal liberties. The delegates claimed that it was not enough to speak the language of equality under the law; it must also be enforced. Indigenous Mexicans were full citizens and as such should have the ability and rights to make decisions about their own lives and families while also participating in the political, social, cultural, and economic life of the nation.70 In this way, justice for indigenous peoples was framed not only in a legal and judicial context but also within the context of everyday life. The breadth of demands was gathered by the Supreme Council presidents and woven into final conclusions in a document entitled “Letter from Indig­ enous Communities.” The letter was presented to President Echeverría by Tzotzil Supreme Council President Antonio Pérez Hernández on October 10. It adhered to the thematic agenda set by congress organizers, covering such is­ sues as infrastructural development, bilingual and bicultural education, techni­ cal training, access to medical care and medications, creation of jobs, revision of land reform laws to facilitate access to land, and availability of credit. While this document addressed some social and political matters, it focused mostly on material concerns and demands.71 From the congress also emerged the “Letter from Pátzcuaro,” as well as the document officially founding the National Council of Indigenous Peoples. The “Letter from Pátzcuaro” was read to President Echeverría and the audience by Chinateco Supreme Council President Vicente Paulino López Velasco. The document directly cited the participation of indigenous peoples in the Mexican

Negotiating Participatory Indigenismo 1 39

Figure 4.  Indigenous delegates at the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples on  Janitzio Island, Michoacán, October 10, 1975. (Source: Archivo Salomón Nahmad Sittón.)

Revolution as the legitimizing source for their petitions; on this basis, the Mex­ ican government had an outstanding debt to this social sector: [Given] our historic process and that of the Mexican Revolution in particular, we

are led to consider that the incessant struggles of the Mexican people for their

liberation have not been fulfilled with complete satisfaction, as has been precisely the case of indigenous communities that still find themselves marginalized from social democratic processes and economic development.72

Their marginalization, the document argued, was one all social sectors were responsible for, and as such Mexican society as a whole had the obligation to collaborate in finding a solution. In the document, indigenous peoples empha­ sized that, although legally there was little discrimination, the everyday practice

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of  bias was quite common and was reflected in the selective application of the law. These circumstances contributed to their social and political marginaliza­ tion. The document proceeded to claim rights over land, water, and oil deposits within indigenous territories, again citing the language of the Mexican Revo­ lution to legitimate their demands.73 In addition, the “Letter from Pátzcuaro” stipulated the right of indigenous communities to political self-determination: Indigenous communities declare, that in order to overcome the marginalization

that occurs, the path to follow would be to incorporate ourselves into the strug­

gles of workers, campesinos and all of  Mexico. . . . To facilitate the incorporation of indigenous peoples to the objectives of the Mexican Revolution, we demand of all society, respect for the self-determination of indigenous peoples.74

The document called for the guarantee of political rights of indigenous Mexi­ cans provided under the Constitution of 1917, again harkening to the Revo­ lution’s Magna Carta and the promises for change and equality in exchange for Revolutionary sacrifice. That guarantee extended to the protection of all its citizens, a protection rarely provided to the majority of the indigenous popu­ lation. The document stated that indigenous peoples did not oppose incorpo­ ration into the nation per se, but they would oppose an incorporation based on the exploitation of rural and urban labor, political exclusion, and social mar­ ginalization.75 They claimed they were receptive to the positive aspects of na­ tional society while pointing out that self-determination meant incorporation as Mexican citizens, with the rights, privileges, and obligations inherent in such citizenship.76 The “Letter from Pátzcuaro” was signed by fifty-four Supreme Council presidents.77 In this document indigenous peoples publicly refused to continue to be poster children for a nationalist project that borrowed their past and touted their culture but ushered them aside as citizens. The declaration for autonomy stated that it was no longer enough for the nation “to honor the dead Indian [as culture] . . . but [cast aside] the actual Indian as a member of the national community.”78 However, indigenous leaders were careful not to present themselves as a separatist movement, since they were well aware of—and, I suspect, wished to avoid—the type of government-sponsored violence being carried out in Guerrero. According to the indigenous delegates, they merely restated their

Negotiating Participatory Indigenismo 141

right to self-determination and to shape their incorporation into the polity and society in Mexico. Beyond that, they only vaguely defined self-determination. They may have done this purposefully, to allow for it to be interpreted and reinterpreted on the basis of changing situations and to allow for it to be used in different ways by different communities. In addition, it would make sense for future generations of indigenous leaders to be free to interpret the meaning of self-determination as it might fit their concerns, goals, and interests. Their interpretation of participatory indigenismo could be encapsulated as incorpo­ ration on their own terms.79 Echeverría’s participatory indigenismo appeared to be producing results, although perhaps not those he intended.

Limitations of the Congress As members of ethnic communities demanded to be treated as equal citizens, with the rights and privileges that entailed, newspaper headlines in Mexico City announced the success of the national event. The newspaper articles high­ lighted the opportunities that President Echeverría so generously provided in­ digenous peoples.80 Provincial papers, however, did not view the First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples in the same way. The daily in Morelia, Micho­ acán, La Voz de Michoacán, printed scathing editorials criticizing the organiza­ tion of the event and the poor availability of facilities for indigenous partici­ pants. The paper maintained that the camp conditions along the shores of  Lake Pátzcuaro were bad, with trash scattered everywhere, potable water lacking, little food, and no septic facilities. The editorial expressed outrage at the fact that indigenous delegates were spending more money to attend the national congress than they probably had available.81 Dr. Gonzalo Rubio Orbe, director of the Interamerican Indigenist Institute, also pointed out the problems with transportation and housing accommodation for indigenous participants.82 Not only were members of the Supreme Councils provided with poor facili­ ties and subjected to the exoticizing gaze of tourists, La Voz de Michoacán ar­ gued, but communication was problematic. Because of  language barriers, it was difficult to follow and understand debates and discussions in the multiple con­ gress sessions. With the exception of Supreme Council presidents and some representatives, few indigenous delegates spoke Spanish. The daily claimed that most delegates could not effectively communicate with one another, making it hard to ascertain just how much of a contribution delegates really made to the

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writing of the final conclusions. This punctured a serious hole in Barra García’s declaration that indigenous peoples would be given a voice in deciding their futures.83 The language impediments produced crucial gaps in the government’s proclamation that all indigenous peoples, through the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples, could craft resolutions of their own. In spite of that fact, CNC Secretary General Celestino Salcedo Monteón upheld the discussion as free and genuine, one that allowed indigenous peoples throughout the country the opportunity to speak.84 Language barriers aside, the congress did allow in­ digenous voices to surface and be recorded via two of the three documents the congress produced. The Diario de Michoacán also critiqued the legitimacy of the PCNPI and the role the government played in it. Its editorials and articles expressed contempt for the event and for continued government paternalism. One article stated that after the congress ended indigenous delegates might obtain meetings with federal or state officials, only to be used as the source of photo opportunities for the government officials. These photos were then plastered on the front pages of newspapers in order to soothe the social and political conscience of  both the officials and the public, but thousands of indígenas would wake up the next morning still living in shacks with dirt floors, waiting for government help that would never arrive.85 Of course, some of the criticism was legitimate, particu­ larly given the history of  government failures to address social inequalities since 1920. Yet the characterization of the PCNPI as a farce robs indigenous peoples of any agency; rather than addressing the complexities of the event, it strips power and presence from indigenous populations by framing them as victims. Deplorable conditions and language barriers were not the only things the Michoacán daily condemned. The paper also reported multiple instances of in­ digenous underrepresentation and misrepresentation. For example, a group of indígenas from the coast of Michoacán and near the state of Colima was not invited to the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples. In a letter ad­ dressed to the INI’s Salomón Nahmad Sittón in early September 1975, the group said that they were well aware of plans to host the congress but were concerned because they had yet to receive an official invitation to the event.86 When the group arrived in Pátzcuaro, government representatives turned them away, as they did not possess the approved paperwork needed to represent their communities at the proceedings.87 The Regional Campesino Committee of  Uruapan, composed of  P’urépecha (Tarasco) indigenous peoples and led by Guadalupe Rangel Aguilar, also attended the national congress, claiming to be

Negotiating Participatory Indigenismo 143

the rightful representatives of the P’urépecha ethnic population. The group al­ leged that the official Tarasco Supreme Council, led by Natalio Flores Lázaro, had been created by the CNC and as such was illegitimate and failed to truly represent the concerns of the P’urépecha people. This certainly highlights the internal struggles among the P’urépecha; multiple groups were battling to rep­ resent the ethnic community and gain political legitimacy. This intraethnic conflict spilled over to the PCNPI when one group’s Supreme Council was ac­ cepted as the official one while the other was not.88 Both cases raise a number of questions over the official governmental claims that the First National Con­ gress of Indigenous Peoples was an inclusive event.89 During the closing sessions of  the congress, a group of  indigenous delegates gathered to listen to President Echeverría. A voice in the crowd interrupted the president during his speech, stating, “We have trust in you, but not always in your collaborators,” thus publicly vocalizing the distrust that perhaps other del­ egates shared.90 President Echeverría responded by stressing his commitment to a positive partnership between the government and indigenous communi­ ties. He reassured those before him that the issues brought to the attention of the federal government via the First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples would be taken seriously and considered carefully, not only by his administra­ tion but by all agencies directly working with indigenous communities, such as the CNC, SRA, and INI.91 One of the pacts forged during the Mexican Revolution that Echeverría at­ tempted to draw on during the national congress was that of  land reform. Early in Echeverría’s administration, the Secretariat of Agrarian Reform had devel­ oped the Plan Huicot; in 1971 the plan returned pastures to Huichol, Cora, and Tepehuan ethnic communities in Nayarit and Jalisco and also issued water and land rights to the Huave of Oaxaca. In addition, land titles to Tiburon Is­ land on the Gulf of California were issued to the Seri, and in 1972 titles to 600,000 hectares of tropical jungle were distributed to the Lacandon in Chi­ apas.92 Land redistribution continued into 1975. At the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples, land redistribution was carried out through a series of presidential resolutions, which restored, confirmed, and established land titles to indigenous leaders and community members. Echeverría appeared deter­ mined to trigger memories of Cárdenas’s administration. Because indigenous groups continued to claim a selective role as campesinos, they developed an uneasy alliance with the CNC to push for land reform. But this alliance proved tricky, as land disputes continued to be a problem. To further complicate the

14 4  chap ter 5

issue, the intricacies of combining and teasing out indigenous and campesino identities for political purposes created further confusion, uncertainty, and con­ flict. During the regional indigenous congresses it became obvious to campesi­ nos and indigenous peoples alike that they were directly competing for limited resources. This reality alone meant that the countryside would continue to be a site of negotiation and conflict, a field of force characterized by scarcity in terms of natural and economic resources. The First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples culminated with Presi­ dent Echeverría issuing 49,997 certificates of recognition to indigenous com­ munity members as well as handing land titles of the Lake Pátzcuaro islands (Tecuen, Yunuen, Pacanda, Jerécuaro, and Janitzio) to Tarasco Supreme Coun­ cil President Flores Lázaro. Echeverría also distributed 118 Presidential Reso­ lutions entitling 23,736 indigenous families to communal landholdings total­ ing one million hectares. Ten of those resolutions distributed 45,000 hectares to communities in the states of Nayarit, Guerrero, Michoacán, and Chiapas.93 These additional hectares brought the estimated hectares distributed to indige­ nous communities during Echeverría’s presidency to more than three million.94 In addition, BANRURAL sent Dr. Juan Manuel González Martínez, direc­ tor of the Department of Socio-economic Integration of Indigenous Commu­ nities, to host a session on credit with indigenous delegates. Representatives from forty-one communities presented proposals for obtaining credit lines for cattle ranching, coffee growing, fruit cultivation, and palm hat production ven­ tures  as well as for obtaining seeds, building fences, and drilling deepwater wells. The funds were to be distributed by local Indigenist Coordinating Cen­ ters and local SRA offices.95 It is unclear, however, whether the credit lines from BANRURAL were ever extended to those forty-one indigenous communities. The indigenous delegates’ continued insistence on the importance of land reform and property titles maintained a link to a class-based identity in spite of strategic arguments against it. This class-based link indicates a number of things. First, indigenous peoples, although having gained significant political capital already in the early part of the 1970s, understood the ongoing meanings and advantages of adopting and adapting a campesino identity. Second, these two ethnicity- and class-based identities (indígena and campesino), historically complex and connected, could in fact be understood and expressed simulta­ neously by a number of sectors, but not in mutually exclusive contexts. The du­ ality of the rural political identities complicated things in the already tensionladen countryside, where the federal government, on the one hand, claimed

Negotiating Participatory Indigenismo 145

the revival and renewal of a social contract with indígenas, while on the other hand it persisted in touting a campesino identity as the dominant rural one.96 In many ways indigenous leaders did not lose sight of the political resonance of campesino identities, especially when it came to claims and demands for access to land and credit. It remained important to intertwine campesino and indí­ gena identities as part of the discourse for pursuing land reform, social justice, and social debts owing from the Revolution. For his part, Echeverría himself framed the political identity of indigenous peoples in national terms. At the conclusion of the national congress, on his way to the pier to take the ferry back to the town of Pátzcuaro, he stated, “They [indigenous peoples] are as Mexican as we are; sometimes they are much more Mexican than those of us in the cities claim to be,” as if to publicly give them their place within the nation.97 What exactly did Echeverría mean by “they are as Mexican as we”? It is entirely possible that he was publicly advocating for in­ digenous peoples to no longer be reduced to second-class citizens. He seemed to be saying to the broader national public that it was time for all Mexicans to accept the place and rights of indigenous peoples as full political, social, and eco­nomic members of the Revolutionary family. But it can also be under­ stood that, as the president, the ultimate symbol of national political authority, he was communicating to indigenous peoples that they could now take their rightful place as full members of the nation, one that privileged a single ho­ mogenous national identity over an ethnic one; in doing so he echoed the calls of President Cárdenas, who in 1940 called for their integration as Mexicans, not as indígenas.98 And yet, even as President Echeverría was trying to stake claims to Mexican-ness, indigenous peoples were not framed as equal. They were either lesser or more “Mexican” but never the same. Their ideological value as encapsulating what Mexican-ness is or is meant to be remained, even when they were included as full citizens.

Conclusion Prior to the 1970s the indigenous sector in Mexico was viewed as passive; it did not carry much weight when making demands for federal and state aid programs. This changed as indigenous communities attempted to shift the con­ tours of the political field of force in order to have an active role in the negotia­ tion of their own economic development and to press for political and social

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inclusion. The First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples thrust onto the national stage the plight of the very people that the Revolutionary state posi­ tioned as the cultural foundation of the country. The meeting in Pátzcuaro was not just an indígena event but a national affair that shaped the empowerment process of indigenous communities after 1975 within the context of  twelve years of presidential populism (1970–82). Indigenous communities would no longer be appeased with minimal government subsidies. Not willing to remain within the shadows of nationalist and Revolutionary rhetoric, they pushed for recog­ nition of their rights as citizens of a nation that glorified its indigenous past while marginalizing its contemporary indigenous sector.99 Despite some problems, the congress facilitated interethnic cooperation be­ tween various indigenous groups that for the first time had gathered in a single place. As one indigenous delegate stated, “These are festive days for us . . . be­ cause we have gotten to know many of our brothers that are of our same race, seeing that our problems are repeated in other parts of the country.”100 Indig­ enous delegates perceived themselves as part of a larger community that faced the same economic hardships and had in common long-standing social and political marginalization. After 1970 official indigenismo surfaced as a national project to be examined, questioned, and revised, not just within government circles and by indigenistas, but also by indigenous leaders themselves. After 1983 the debates regarding indigenous policies intensified further as the indig­ enous sector mobilized and pressed for material assistance and programs as well as the right to make decisions about their lives and their communities.101 The First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples, although part of stategenerated indigenismo and far from all-inclusive in representing indigenous communities, still offered room for indigenous representatives to exercise a de­ gree  of  agency. Indigenous peoples took the opportunities available in Eche­ ver­ría’s populist project to craft the “Letter from Pátzcuaro,” a document that declared self-determination for a national indigenous population. In the process indigenous peoples strategically adopted a rhetoric that linked the congress to the legacy of Lázaro Cárdenas:102 Part of  your interest, Mr. President Echeverría, whom we now call the friend and companion of all indigenous peoples of Mexico, has been your support for the fruition of the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples, where we have

discussed and deliberated openly and freely without obstacles and with complete

Negotiating Participatory Indigenismo 147

liberty all members of 54 ethnic groups, with 74 delegations and 1,200 delegates in the three days of this event.103

With Echeverría constantly preaching Revolutionary ideals and compar­ ing himself to Cárdenas in implicit ways, he could not easily—or at least too openly—break the promises for material improvements and political inclusion made to indigenous Mexicans. In this way, the fundamentals of Revolution­ ary rhetoric served an indigenous agenda as well as Echeverría’s populist pro­ cess. Although the distribution of material concessions was limited, Echeverría found it very difficult to rein in the growth of social programs as the masses equipped themselves with the tools to remind the president of the promises made to them in the name of the Revolution, both in the past and in the pres­ ent. And although not all indigenous communities believed the interest of  fed­ eral officials, or even of  Echeverría, in helping indigenous peoples was genuine, they had in the president, at the very least, a public ally within the federal gov­ ernment, which had not been the case since 1940.104 The First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples was a complex event where the interested participants—indigenous leaders and delegates, federal and regional government officials, intellectuals—exchanged ideas, engaged in debates and discussions, disagreed, agreed, struggled, and negotiated. Binary interpretations of the motivations and impact of the congress—those seeing solely government manipulation or only indigenous defiance—ignore the com­ plex exchanges between and among individuals attempting to represent them­ selves as the vanguard of change, individuals who included both government officials advancing participatory indigenismo and indigenous leaders with de­ mands for self-determination. In 1977 the newly appointed director of the National Indigenist Institute, Ignacio Ovalle Fernández, claimed that José López Portillo’s just-begun presi­ dency would usher in an era of participatory indigenismo. But Luis Eche­verría had already done so six years before. In some ways, his statement reflects the desire to locate programs designed for indigenous communities as part of the participatory model associated with López Portillo, even if such policy forma­ tion did not always involve indigenous leaders. López Portillo’s presidency was characterized by the mass mobilization of popular groups, especially indig­ enous and campesino organizations, in response to unfulfilled social promises and economic decline. But the populist strategies that he used to deal with

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Figure 5.  President Luis Echeverría (front row, third from right, in the bolo tie) at the closing ceremonies of  the First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples,  Janitzio Island, Michoacán, October 10, 1975. (Source: Archivo Salomón Nahmad Sittón.)

those groups he inherited from Echeverría. Participatory indigenismo, begun as a branch of Echeverría’s populist tree, continued growing in many ways dur­ ing López Portillo’s presidency because popular groups were neither ready nor willing to give up what they had accomplished during the previous presidential term.105 Whether or not Echeverría’s political and economic overtures were genuine is hardly the issue. What is clear is that Echeverría’s sexenio was a significant pe­ riod in the evolution of indigenismo, from being exclusively an officially driven government program before 1970 to being one with an agenda influenced by indigenous peoples themselves. This does not mean that indigenous communi­ ties had not found ways to resist or strategically integrate themselves before 1970, but simply that they had more room to maneuver during Echeverría’s populist project. However, Echeverría was certainly not the second coming of Cárdenas, who died shortly before Echeverría took office, but a self-proclaimed inheritor of the ideals of the Mexican Revolution.

Negotiating Participatory Indigenismo 149

Far from being the end of participatory indigenismo or satisfying indig­ enous demands for material, economic, and political rights, the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples was part of a longer process in which indig­ enous leaders tried to shape the field of force in their favor. The third document that was drafted at the national congress, “The Act of the Reunion Celebrated by All Presidents of the National Supreme Council of Indigenous Peoples,” created the National Council of Indigenous Peoples. For critics of the CNPI, the organization was nothing other than an extension of federal government manipulation, simply because of the fact that it had been officially born at the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples; it was often denounced and dis­ missed as a government tool for social control. Yet its story after 1975 is much more complicated than that fact implies, as the next chapter shows.

6 In Defense of Our People The National Council of Indigenous Peoples, 1975–1985 ¡De Pie y en Lucha! C N P I S lo g a n

A

pril 19, 1977, marked the thirty-seventh annual Day of the Interamer­ ican Indígena, a day meant to celebrate the contributions of  indigenous populations throughout the Americas as well as to call attention to the social, political, and economic marginalization of that population.1 The day of recognition was first declared after the 1940 Interamerican Indigenist  Con­­ gress. As of 1977, no Mexican president had attended the ceremonies com­­ memorating the event since Lázaro Cárdenas in 1940. Recently elected, José López Portillo (1976–82) was not only present for the ceremonies held at the auditorium of the National Museum of Anthropology in 1977 but also de­­ clared his commitment to support the causes of indigenous peoples, as Luis Echeverría had done six years before. Mexico City newspapers hailed him as a benevolent president who sought to improve the lives of indigenous peoples. Very much like his predecessor, Echeverría, President López Portillo wished to create a political image of goodwill and honorable intentions publicly. In reporting on the ceremony, Mexico City newspapers hailed the efforts of the new president by focusing on the promise of future government projects, the forthcoming Tarahumara regional congress in 1977, and the official transition of control over Tiburon Island from the federal government to the Seri.2 Almost as an afterthought, El Excelsior mentioned that a representative of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples attended the event.3 Vicente Pau­ lino López Velasco is listed in such a capacity and referenced because he called

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for the freedom of Nahuatl Supreme Council President Pedro Hernández Amador. Hernández Amador had been imprisoned in Huejutla, Hidalgo, ac­­ cused of leading protests against the local government by organizing Nahuatl indigenous communities in his role as the Supreme Council president. The CNPI had pushed for his release for more than a year and took this public op­­ portunity to press the president for his freedom. López Portillo acquiesced to their demands and Hernández Amador was released, only to die a few weeks later. López Velasco claims the death was the result of the brutal beatings Her­ nández Amador was subjected to while in prison.4 Ironically, it was Hernández Amador who had led the session on justice and called for the freedom of in­digenous political prisoners during the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples in late 1975. That the National Council of  Indigenous Peoples was only briefly mentioned in the newspaper could be a result of a number of things, including the fact that in April 1977 the CNPI was only eighteen months old and perhaps not yet taken seriously by government officials and/or the media. Still, the demands made by López Velasco in the name of justice and Her­­ nández Amador’s rights highlight both the efforts of indigenous leaders and the dangers and complications inherent in their struggles during a time of po­­ litical and social turmoil in the country. This chapter emphasizes the importance of  indigenous mobilization by way of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples within the context of populist politics during the 1970s and part of the 1980s. In trying to set up the CNPI as the singular organization within the state to represent indigenous interests, even if it operated under state supervision, indigenous leaders transitioned from being bilingual promoters to being Supreme Council presidents. In many ways, the burden of their responsibilities to their communities grew heavier. That transition was not easy and resulted in a redefinition of the field of force to include not only government agents at the local, state, and federal levels but also other indigenous organizations and leaders who were functioning within the state (rural teachers within the SEP or INI, for example). In addition, the field of force came to include struggles within the National Council of Indig­ enous Peoples itself, as bilingual promoters faced accusations of being ethnic usurpers, not “authentic” indígenas, while controlling the leadership of a na­tional organization that was charged with representing and protecting the in­­terests of the national indigenous population. One of the struggles of the CNPI leaders was the constant need to identify and justify their “authenticity” as indígenas as well as that of the organization

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they fought to establish, shape, and lead for more than a decade. While being cognizant of these debates over “authenticity,” we must, when analyzing the successes and limitations of  this organization, guard against reducing its his­tory to a superficial essentialism or to an either/or proposition, both of which tend to disempower indigenous peoples as actors with the ability to make choices regarding their own lives and communities. At times, “authentic indigeneity” seems to imply, at least for some authors, complete isolation from any involve­ ment with the state, the assumption being that such behavior can be nothing other than co-optation. CNPI leaders were, in fact, actors whose decisions and actions shaped federal policies; as such, their efforts should not reduce them to being regarded as simple and helpless pawns of the Mexican state. A contin­ ued analytical insistence on the discourse of “the manipulated versus the au­tonomous” misses the more important context for change in which indigenous peoples defied, rejected, modified, and/or accepted official policies. The hopes and dreams were not the same for all indigenous groups, leaders, or government agents. Rather, individuals exchanged ideas, disagreed, made and broke alli­ances, and experienced different understandings of victory and defeat; they shaped their views on the basis of personal experiences and their perception of  local and/or national interests. A broader analysis is necessary, one in which we view the CNPI as a complex organization that struggled to be included in the corporate structure as a part of the state, even if not a completely trusted one. Indigenous leaders navigated and helped construct the field of force in different ways: in how they dealt with state agencies, in how they responded to one another, in how they represented their communities, and through the ways in which they met their social and political responsibilities (or failed to do so). These struggles over authenticity played out not just in local contexts (see chapter 4); the rhetoric of the authentic was also used to challenge the legit­ imacy of Supreme Council presidents and thus their authority to represent indigenous communities when these leaders were not always themselves in­­ dígenas. However, the politics surrounding ethnic-identity authenticity should not be used as a pretext to dismiss the role of the CNPI. If anything, the history of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples adds another thread to the rich fabric of indigenous organizations and movements that shaped history and politics in Mexico in the second half of the twentieth century. After 1975 the CNPI served as a direct liaison between indigenous communities and the federal government and as a national watchdog organization; it also became

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part of the state, part of the federal corporate structure.5 In that role, the CNPI made demands for economic development and social and political inclusion. The federal government, used to dealing with indigenous communities on a one-to-one basis or in regional blocks, now had to engage the corporate and vertical structure of the CNPI, which was not always easy. This process altered long-standing relationships between these two entities, with mixed results.

Consolidation of the CNPI After the official creation of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples at the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples in early October 1975, CNPI members met at SRA headquarters in Mexico City. There, on October 27, 1975, they named longtime ally Augusto Gómez Villanueva as their general advisor, with José Pacheco Loya and Salomón Nahmad Sittón as additional consul­ tants. In doing so, they cemented a political relationship with strategic gov­­ ernment officials and, through them, the agencies they represented. Those at the meeting hailed President Echeverría for supporting the new national indig­­ enous organization and accepting the establishment of a Permanent Com­­ mission within the CNPI. The Permanent Commission served as a board of directors that would change every six months, an attempt to foster represen­ tational parity. The first members of the Permanent Commission were Galdino Perfecto Carmona (Amusgo—Guerrero), Espiridión López Ontiveros (Mayo— Sonora), Pablo Quintana Mauro (Mazatec—Oaxaca), Felipe Rodríguez de la Cruz (Chontal—Tabasco), and López Velasco (Chinantec—Oaxaca). More than a quarter of these leaders had been part of the group of DAAC bilingual promoters, foreshadowing the leadership dominance of this group over other Supreme Council presidents and those who were not part of the pre-CNPI leadership.6 By the time of the presidential transition in December 1976, the loosely organized CNPI leadership faced a crucial moment. José Pacheco Loya advised the CNPI members to establish a stable advisory organization and to select a leader who would be the public face of the organization, someone endowed with the political legitimacy to represent the CNPI and deal with multiple government agencies. López Velasco claims that Pacheco Loya first approached him to lead the organization, but that López Velasco recommended Galdino

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Perfecto Carmona to fill that role instead.7 López Velasco called a meeting with Perfecto Carmona, Efraín Orea Aguilar, Espiridión López Ontiveros, Samuel Díaz Holguín, and Pedro de Haro to inform them of the proposition, at which time Perfecto Carmona accepted the position of CNPI coordinator. A few days later the entire body of the Supreme Council presidents confirmed Perfecto Carmona as head of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples.8 Although the role of coordinator made Perfecto Carmona the leader of the organization, he could not make decisions on his own. He shared that responsibility with the Permanent Commission and the Council of  Elders. On January 27–28, 1976, the Permanent Commission met again and reconfirmed Galdino Perfecto Carmona as the coordinator. He, in turn, nominated Armando Montoya as his per­sonal secretary, claiming he needed Montoya to help him draft documents because he was unfamiliar with official processes within certain agencies; Mon­ toya was approved as Perfecto Carmona’s secretary.9 With the titular head of the CNPI in place, the organization moved on to the next matter. The Permanent Commission gathered later that year ( July 27–28) to begin their work, particularly in regard to accessing credit and launching a number of development projects. The CNPI was a fairly new organization in 1976, and although it enjoyed the support, monetary and otherwise, of outgoing President Echeverría, there were no guarantees that President López Portillo would be as supportive. Therefore, it was imperative that the group solidify the CNPI leadership structure and set into place a process that would survive administrative changes. Only in this way would they not be at the mercy of the Office of the Presidency. Still, they seemed to understand that they needed the office’s support. For example, on November 7, 1976, less than a month before the end of Luis Echeverría’s presidency, approximately fifteen Supreme Council pres­ idents (representing Mazahua, Lacandon, Mixe, Tarahumara, Tzotzil, Toto­nac, Zinatec, Trique, Huichol, Mayo, Otomí, and Popoluca eth­nic communities) attended a ceremony at Los Pinos where they stated their appreciation to Eche­ verría for being an ally of indigenous communities.10 Whether it was a genu­ ine expression or a calculated performance, clearly the CNPI leaders in­­tended to retain a favored position in the new administration. The outpouring of such gratitude was again repeated in a more public way during the presiden­tial inauguration of José López Portillo. Using their own funds to attend the ceremony in which Echeverría would pass the presidential sash to López Por­­tillo, national council members gathered in front of the Secretariat of Agrarian Reform office in Mexico City.11 However, as much as being a thankful gathering .

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in honor of Echeverría, it appears that it was also intended to send a message to López Portillo: indigenous peoples and the CNPI formed an important po­ litical and social core, one that could no longer be bul­lied or ignored. The First Extraordinary Assembly of the CNPI was held on November 5, 1976, in an attempt to maintain continuity with the first sets of meetings and establish continual contact among the Supreme Council presidents during a crucial and uncertain transitional moment. By then the indigenous presidents had completed their assessment of the issues that were important to their in­ dividual communities, which they reported to all members of the CNPI. Be­ sides setting up a Permanent Commission, they also drew up statutes that would govern the new organization.12 It was in these statutes that the hierarchical structure was defined, with power and representation anchored in the Permanent Commission and the Supreme Council presidencies. The leaders agreed to meet the third Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of April every year and that two-thirds of all indigenous presidents, generals, captains, and union leaders would have to be present for the decisions taken at these annual meetings to be valid.13 The Permanent Commission too was to process all demands and ac­­ cords related to conflicts and agreements involving indigenous groups as well as demands made of regional and federal government offices.14 Perhaps the most intriguing part of the statutes is a clause where the CNPI leaders placed the governing body of the organization on a par with the Mexican Congress: the “Indigenous Parliament,” they stated, “as intercultural liaison of all indigenous languages of the country, is the superior government organ in the absence of the National Congress.”15 In this context, the CNPI situated its governing body as equal in standing to the federal government through its function as a repository of indigenous languages, thus using language as a tool in the field of force. The use of and access to indigenous languages also factored into debates over the legitimacy of the organization and the authenticity of its in­­digenous identity. In fact, with the ability to claim that through the CNPI, by way of the Permanent Commission and Indigenous Parliament, all indigenous languages were represented, the organization could argue it was authentically indigenous and able to reach communities its federal mestizo counterparts in Mexico City could not. Perhaps this attempt at gaining power and leverage was a stretch, but at that moment, success seemed within reach. It certainly does not mean that this position was accepted and that indigenous groups functioning outside of the state did not push back, but it demonstrated the attempts to ex­­ tend the boundaries of state populism. The CNPI, as a new entity, surely wanted

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to be visible and present a strong position in the face of change, while José Ló­­ pez Portillo wished to begin his presidency on a high note and not suppress a new indigenous organization. Although the main goal of the CNPI was to represent indigenous Mexicans, it was organized into a hierarchical bureaucracy. The basic idea was for indigenous peoples at the local level to present their needs to the Supreme Council Assemblies in their communities, which would pass on petitions to the respective Supreme Council presidents. These presidents in turn were supposed to send petitions, demands, and other concerns up to the CNPI. The national coun­­ cil members would then decide which petitions to pass on to the appropriate authorities and which to stack in a growing pile of pending paperwork. Su­­ preme Council presidents also set up directive committees elected by the re­­ gional assemblies of individual ethnic groups to gather demands and concerns from communities whose interests they were charged with representing. It was made clear that Supreme Council members of the national organization carried the responsibility to represent the interests of their communities and not just their own individual agendas.16 For some CNPI members that burden would prove too heavy, for others it would be forgotten, and for still others it represented an opportunity to truly help their communities. Despite this hierarchical structure, the success of the CNPI relied on the ac­­ ceptance or rejection of Supreme Council authority by local community leaders. Therefore, local situations dictated the successes or failures of individual Su­­ preme Councils. The national council utilized the presidents as intermediaries between itself and communities. In this way Supreme Council presidents continued to serve as go-betweens, negotiating their place in the state structure as the new child in an increasingly fractured Revolutionary family. As the bilingual promoters transitioned into their new roles as national leaders of the organiza­ tion they had worked so hard to bring to fruition, they came to realize, like the youngest child, that their elder siblings were less than willing to share. Their work as go-betweens continued as they carried out their roles as Supreme Council presidents, except that now there was much more at stake. Their new roles as Supreme Council presidents meant they were responsible for the well-being of more than three million indigenous peoples. Carrying this social and political burden, these leaders would be tested in their abilities to endure the tensions inherent in the field of force they found themselves shaping, still very much as go-betweens, but now truly on the national stage.

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Figure 6. 

Vertical structure of the National Council of  Indigenous Peoples (CNPI) after 1975. (Source: Archivo Salomón Nahmad Sittón.)

The CNPI organized itself as a new corporate and vertical structure; this had both problems and unintended consequences. Having once accused the CNC, with its top-down organization, of misrepresenting indigenous peoples and thus being out of touch with the needs of its communities, the CNPI now created a vertical structure that also had the potential to ostracize indigenous communities and certainly raised questions as to its democratic nature. For some indigenous communities, the new Supreme Councils and their presidents had the potential to infringe upon traditional forms of governance in regions where these had survived.17 For example, among the Tojolabales (Chiapas), Tlapanec (Guerrero), and P’urépecha (or Tarasco, from Michoacán), op­­ position to the Supreme Councils emerged early on because these groups had

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existing viable forms of government and they refused to allow the new structure to replace or change the systems already in place.18 With the Cora and Huichol in Jalisco and the Tepehuan in Nayarit, elder leaders took active roles in electing Supreme Council presidents so that these elders would remain prominent in the decision-making processes and retain some local power.19 The Chatino in Oaxaca followed their own government system, which was led by a Council of Elders who appointed their Supreme Council president. It was this Council of Elders that appointed Cirila Sánchez Mendoza, the first female Supreme Council president, in 1980. The Cochimí, Paipai, Kiliwa, Cucapah, and Kumiai in northern Mexico chose a general, a traditional leader, to head their Supreme Councils.20 While they acknowledged the potential benefits of a national or­­ ganization, they were unwilling to restructure their form of local government, forcing the CNPI to adjust its statutes regarding leadership and representation in regional assemblies.21 In other communities, forms of traditional leadership had been fractured long before 1975. Mazahua, Matlatzinca, Otomí, Tlahuica, Chichimec, and Chontal groups in central and southern Mexico had long ago moved away from traditional forms of  local government, thus enabling the Supreme Council structure to fill a representational void.22 In these communities, rather than traditional leaders participating in the election of Supreme Council presidents, it was ejidal commissioners, municipal presidents, regional party officials, rural teachers, and CCI directors who voted and were elected to these positions; they did not always adopt an indigenous identity.23 These instances directly speak to the debates surrounding the authenticity of indigenous identity within the CNPI and the Supreme Councils. The challenges the CNPI leaders faced over whether the organization was led by “authentic” indígenas could in part be assuaged by their making claims that only an organization that could communicate with the majority of its indigenous constituents was legitimately able to represent them and was indeed indigenous. Some Supreme Councils made claims about their organization predating the efforts of the federal government and DAAC bilingual promoters. From an interview with the then Hñahñu (Otomí) Supreme Council president in 2000, Sabin O. Roque, Alexander Dawson recounts the influence of anthropologist and INI official Dr. Maurilio Muñoz Basilio in calling for the organization of local indigenous communities in 1970. Muñoz Basilio is representative of the cultural intermediaries who emerged from early twentieth-century efforts to create educational opportunities for indigenous peoples. However, on the

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Hñahñu Supreme Council website, as well as in the CNPI documents, its first president is listed as Apolinar Quiterio Hernández, an eventual member of the CNPI’s Permanent Commission, and its founding date as 1975. These competing narratives certainly reveal the dissonance between oral histories and official documents, but neither is to be dismissed as having less value in terms of telling this story. In fact, this reveals the political maneuvering, negotiations, and tensions involved when it came to having official ties to the CNPI. While the Hñahñu Supreme Council entered into a political relationship with the CNPI in 1975, local narratives might have been adjusted to emphasize local organization efforts. Or perhaps the CNPI record and López Velasco’s account attempted to privilege the DAAC bilingual promoters as the leaders in this organization process. What is clear is that not all Supreme Council leaders and the people they represented were happy with the CNPI relationship.24 Still other ethnic groups rejected the Supreme Council structure completely or accepted it only as a strategic structure. For example, the Mayo in Sinaloa tried to reproduce their own local government structures in the form of an In­­ dependent Federation of Communities, established in 1975.25 They participated in the CNPI in limited ways, focusing instead on strengthening the Independent Federation of Communities locally. The Mam from Chiapas offer one of the most interesting cases. Since the 1940s, the political structure of the Mam community had developed with that of the PRI, most noticeably through the local CNC agrarian league.26 Therefore by the 1970s and 1980s the community had accepted the Supreme Council structure, because members had already been organized through a similar vertical structure in the CNC, and the CNPI simply replaced it. In addition, by the the 1970s the majority of the Mam ethnic group in the region spoke only Spanish, and most Mam no longer wore what might be regarded as traditional clothing.27 Although I do not use clothing as a marker of supposed authenticity, the Mexican state at the time officially de­­ fined indigenous identity in cultural terms (language and clothing primarily).28 Definitions of indigenous identity would continue to be debated and negotiated, not only in Mexico but also throughout Latin America and in a global context.29 In 1971, the United Nations Sub-Commission for the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities commissioned José Martínez Cobo to conduct a study on the layers of discrimination indigenous peoples of the world faced. In part, this report was commissioned in response to alarming reports coming out of Latin America that ethnic groups were being displaced,

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discriminated against, and even killed during highway, mining, and other de­ velopment projects.30 Martínez Cobo’s report also included a working definition of indigenous identity as “those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies, . . . consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them.”31 In the case of the Mam of Chiapas, they did not hold fast to a political indigenous identity, but because they still lived in the area of their predecessors and perhaps because it was politically, socially, and economically beneficial during this period, they were courted by the CNPI and accepted becoming part of the organization. It is clear that the CNPI structure created tensions at the local level, and some of  its central leaders were unaware of situations playing out in the regions with which they were unfamiliar. Like López Velasco had done during the regional indigenous congress in 1975, some Supreme Council presidents missed the finer points of local conflicts and complexities. The limitations of the CNPI as a truly representative organization began with the vertical organization that was put in place. At times it was accepted, modified, rejected, or questioned, depending on the leadership at the Permanent Commission level as well as the men (and most were indeed men) who were appointed, assigned, or elected Su­­ preme Council presidents.

“Authenticities” The accusations and debates over the legitimacy of the CNPI and the authenticity of  its representatives were continuations of  long-standing debates regard­ ing indigeneity. These accusations only deepened tensions that in 1975 were already high among the CNC, local campesino leaders, and CNPI leaders and indigenous members. Some CNPI leaders believed they held a position of relative strength during this time in terms of support from the public and within government agencies. Vicente Paulino López Velasco remarked that in the countryside in the mid-1970s many people wanted to be indígena and that politically this identity carried an advantage, as the CNPI had influence within political circles:32 Now that time has passed and that people see how many are sympathetic to the National Council of Indigenous Peoples, everyone accepts or wants to be indí-

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gena. At first no one wanted to be indígena, because being indígena meant, and at times still does, being denigrated, and many feel that “today, politically I can

make enough to survive,” and thus people like this exist, without scruples, that want to participate within the Council.33

Here, López Velasco continues to be critical of those he viewed as trying to profit from “being indígena” in spite of the fact that he too was making a living from his participation in the council, although he himself claimed indigenous identity. He also faced charges of dishonesty, personal enrichment, and not properly representing his community as Chinantec Supreme Council president (Oaxaca), part and parcel of the politics of the time. By the mid-1970s a wider public had developed sympathy for indigenous struggles, and it became good politics for those who wished to tap into that potential political capital to adopt an indigenous identity. In international circles, too, attention was being paid to the plight of indigenous communities, with the work of the United Nations Sub-Commission for the Prevention of  Discrimination and Protection of Mi­­ norities. Beyond local and national borders, the emerging global concern to address the historical disadvantages indigenous peoples of the world faced in the past and continued to face in the present made it an intriguing moment for the negotiation over the authenticities of indigenous identities in Mexico. CNPI leaders were quick to understand the possibilities for advantage, given the political opportunity for indigenous peoples. But indigenous leaders also were faced with the reality that their authenticity as indigenous peoples could be both contested and elusive. In the case of the CNPI these tensions were visible through the problems related to the structure of the Supreme Councils and the people who held such leadership positions. Supreme Council presidents were supposed to be indigenous but at times were not. Likewise, some mestizo caciques and rural teachers, low-level local officials, or other government employees took leadership positions that gave them access to the CNPI.34 The leadership roles of nonindígenas in the CNPI created tensions within the representative body, because it made the CNPI vulnerable to accusations that the organization was not fulfilling its function as an authentic representative of the national indigenous population or adequately reflecting the interests of  indigenous peoples. This became a real problem as some indigenous leaders struggled and resisted the efforts of those they considered external and foreign—mainly CNC and other agrarian league leaders—to take over their organization. The original DAAC bilingual promoters who now made up the core of the CNPI

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accused members they viewed as external threats of not fully understanding the realities indigenous peoples lived every day. They also asserted that campesino organizations under the banner of the CNC had become ineffective in supporting their interests, arguing that decisions made in office buildings did not take into consideration the opinions and realities of those who worked the fields. Rather, under these circumstances, local leaders merely carried out instructions from above, without campesinos or indígenas participating in the formation of policies.35 Indigenous leaders did not want that to be the case with the National Council of  Indigenous Peoples. This is particularly ironic since evidence points to the CNPI being organized in precisely the type of corporate configuration that many of its leaders criticized and associated with the CNC. Tomás Esquivel was among the Supreme Council presidents who were viewed as nonindígenas by critics and some bilingual promoters and who publicly and internally raised doubts as to the so-called indigenous authenticity of the CNPI. Esquivel was an agrarian league leader in the state of Mexico who in late July 1975 had participated, along with CNC representative Julio Garduño, in breaking up the Mazahua regional indigenous congress.36 While Esquivel had fought against the regional congress then, he attended the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples in Pátzcuaro heading a delegation as the Mazahua leader. He also was part of the early core of the National Council of  Indigenous Peoples, but it remains unclear how long he was part of the or­ganization. He appears as a member of the Permanent Commission in CNPI documents until 1978. It is possible that the other Supreme Council presidents were able to nullify his influence in the organization by keeping him out of the core group after 1978, but whether they did so is unclear. Another leader whose indigeneity was also questioned by critics was Eusebio Catonga Baisano (Nahuatl—Morelos), who was not originally elected Supreme Council president. Rather, Daniel Patiño Córdoba had been elected at the regional congress in July 1975, but Catonga Baisano attended the First National Congress as the Nahuatl Supreme Council president that October, much to the dismay of the DAAC bilingual promoters. He maintains a constant presence throughout CNPI documents into the 1980s, and as recently as 2013, he continued to represent himself as advisor or leader of his Supreme Council.37 What seems to be important in this context is that the discussion around “authenticity” was a discourse used to qualify or disqualify certain individuals from leadership positions within ethnic communities and the CNPI—a practice that of course was not new. In this case, the use of this discourse functioned within a field of force

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surrounding ethnicity, political identity, and power and was less about whether or not someone was indigenous, however one defines that term. One of the most interesting cases is that of Pedro de Haro, whose story shows the fluidity of indigenous identity while also highlighting the functions of the discourse of indigenous “authenticity.” In 1975, Pedro de Haro served as the Huichol Supreme Council president at the First National Congress of In­­ digenous Peoples and was one of the original bilingual promoters within the Department of Agrarian Affairs and Colonization. He was born in 1921 on a ranch near Monte Escobedo, Zacatecas, and after the death of his mother, his father relocated the entire family to San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán, Jalisco. De Haro was orphaned at nine years of age. He had neither land nor cattle and only the six pesos his father left him at his death. With his older brothers unable and/or unwilling to care for him, he invested in a small business transporting first cloth, then cattle. He was very young but literate and able to keep his own books. The boy’s business grew modestly until a local strongman accused him of owing him money, which resulted in de Haro losing his business and left him in debt, with only fourteen pesos in his pocket. Manuel Martínez, a well-off Huichol who had known his father, gave him the additional eleven pesos he needed to pay off his legal debt. It was agreed that de Haro would work off the loan. He was only twelve years old, but de Haro was already disillusioned, im­­ poverished, and a social outcast.38 In 1933 de Haro arrived in the center of the Huichol region in northeast Jalisco to pay off his debt to Martínez.39 Events in the recent past had divided the Huichol. When Pancho Villa had entered the area in 1913, most vecinos (mestizos) supported him, but the Huichol, led by Patricio Mezquite, sided with Venustiano Carranza and successfully seized the opportunity to evict vecinos from San Sebastián. They enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity until 1927, when the Cristero Rebellion reached Huichol territories and divided their communities again. Some supported the Cristero rebels, taking the opportunity to profit personally, and others, including Manuel Martínez, dissented and were forced to leave San Sebastián for nearby Ocota de la Sierra. During the two years that de Haro worked for Martínez, he began to dress in Huichol clothing and quickly learned the language. After repaying his debt, de Haro chose to stay on, and Martínez became his foster father. De Haro garnered prestige among Huichol men as he gained a reputation as a capable worker and emerged as a community leader during the 1940s.40 At this time, during Miguel Alemán’s presidency (1946–52), military surveyors were sent to Huichol territory to divide lands for military colonists and other buyers. In the

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1950s, de Haro solidified communal acceptance of his Huichol identity when, as communal president, he mobilized between 150 and 200 men to patrol community lands and to raid vecino ranches. The raids frightened vecinos, who evacuated the area. With these actions he shed tewarí (non-Huichol) identity and earned wixárika (Huichol) acceptance from the Huichol community. Al­­ though he had planned to return to the mestizo community, because of  the raids local vecinos now viewed him as a traitor, so therefore he chose to stay with the wixárika.41 In some ways the fact that he was now considered a traitor by mestizos made the decision to stay an easy one, as he enjoyed social and political prestige in Huichol communities as well as having “become indígena.” De Haro repre­ sented himself as wixárika decades later during an interview, stating, “In the agrarian conflict the government has supported mestizos more than us, the Hui­­ choles. This conflict has negatively affected our lives because sometimes we can­­ not farm.”42 De Haro became a recognized indigenous leader who received na­­ tional attention when he was jailed in Tepic, Nayarit, in 1955 for his role in the raids. The National Indigenist Institute and other federal officials pressured  Ja­­ lisco Governor Agustín Yáñez to negotiate with Nayarit Governor José Limón Gúzman for de Haro’s release. While in jail, de Haro passed the time studying the Mexican Constitution and became familiar with national legal codes. By the time he was released, he was prepared to resume the struggle for Huichol lands, this time through litigation. The new approach toward struggle gave him a way to work the system to both his and his community’s advantage, but his sudden change in approach hurt the legitimacy of  his status as wixárika. Many Huichol considered the legal system a mestizo institution; thus, by his own actions, de Haro had reverted to being tewarí. That fluidity between indigenous and mestizo identities reflects how community acceptance and rejection could serve as key components in the production of ethnic identity, a point made by  John Wa­­ tanabe in his study of  highland Guatemala.43 Throughout the 1960s de Haro continued to seek external economic opportunities for Huichol communities. He applied for funds from the United States’ Alliance for Progress program to support a cattle ranching venture. In order to launch the project and to protect cattle and Huichol individuals from mestizo rustlers, he tried to organize Huichol community cattle drives to local markets. He also planned to buy prize bulls to improve the cattle stock. Finally, he petitioned for the construction of a road from San Sebastián to Mezquitic in order to improve transportation in the area. However, not all Huichol community

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members shared his vision. The community was split between the elders and younger groups, with de Haro caught in between. A younger generation viewed progress as an individual endeavor, often expressed through material possessions such as horses and radios. The older generation viewed wealth and progress as the retention of traditional religious rites and communal land. De Haro tried to bridge these two groups and often succeeded only in alienating himself from both.44 By the 1970s, both elders and the youth movement tried to weaken de Haro’s authority by asserting that he was tewarí. Yet de Haro was one of the original bilingual promoters hired by the Department of Agrarian Affairs and Colo­­ nization; as such, he participated in the planning of the national indigenous organization. The Huichol regional congress was held on June 8, 1975, in San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán, where de Haro, despite opposition, was elected the Huichol Supreme Council president. Those who believed de Haro had abandoned his wixárika identity refused to recognize him as their representative. In short, de Haro had become a polarizing figure in the community, part tewarí, part wixárika, depending on the politics, generational affiliation, and outlook of the person who was judging him. Eventually Pedro de Haro retired from politics and lived out his life on his sizeable ranch in Ocota de la Sierra. He died in 2005, at which time the Mexico City publication Ojarasaca stated that the funeral was well attended and that many attendees expressed their desire to receive one last piece of advice from the “Huichol legend.”45 In his death de Haro was wixárika even though he had been born tewarí. De Haro’s political biography reveals numerous tensions inherent in the pro­­ duction of  indigenous identity. Clearly, in the second half of the twentieth cen­­ tury,  indigenous political identity had a fluid quality. Phil Weigand’s study of  the social meanings of  identity among the Nayari and surrounding ethnic groups in western Mexico also examines the negotiations of identity on a local level and the ways in which other factors shape constructions of social and political identities in ethnic terms.46 Adopting a framework that stresses the fluidity of indigenous identity makes it possible to highlight the tensions of “being” and “becoming” in both cultural and political terms, within communities and more generally, as well as to situate the politics of authenticity within concerns of the time. Debates and tensions over political indígena identity swirled around the CNPI, whose leaders struggled to find a balance between creating alliances within government agencies, allowing nonindigenous peoples into the CNPI

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leadership structure, and building partnerships with rural teachers, campesino groups, and other popular organizations. It was a difficult process to navigate for these leaders, and they clearly struggled to establish legitimacy in the face of government agencies they were forced to deal with as well as with their peer organizations. Often criticized both for being co-opted by the government and for refusing to cooperate with other popular and indigenous organizations, the CNPI leaders found themselves in the middle of an unforgiving field of force, where they negotiated not only the legitimacy of their organization with government officials, intellectuals, and other indigenous organizations, but also their own indigeneity as an organization and as individuals, central to the right to represent the nation’s indigenous peoples and communities.

Reaching Too Far As part of the CNPI’s strategy to remain relevant during López Portillo’s pres­ idency, just a year after its official creation, the CNPI had earned enough credibility as a politically viable organization to co-organize a second national indigenous congress.47 The CNPI and the CNC jointly planned this Second National Congress of Indigenous Peoples.48 In January 1977, as the López Por­­ tillo administration settled in, the CNPI and the CNC issued the call for the congress. Yet, during this crucial moment, the National Council of Indigenous Peoples lost important allies in the Secretariat of Agrarian Reform when Ló­­ pez Portillo’s new administration created political turnover in the government’s bureaucracy. Augusto Gómez Villanueva and José Pacheco Loya, close CNPI allies, left the SRA. President López Portillo assigned Gómez Villanueva to the post of ambassador to Italy, removing him, literally and figuratively preventing him from even the possibility of continuing to support the CNPI on Mexican soil. Pacheco Loya made a lateral move when he was appointed the new subdirector of the National Indigenist Institute.49 He was not physically distanced from the CNPI and was housed in an organization that had largely supported the bilingual promoters under Salomón Nahmad Sittón’s time as INI director of operations. But with two of the CNPI’s closest government allies gone, there was a void in the SRA, the parent organization of the CNPI. This meant that the allies within the federal entity who were most familiar to the indigenous leaders turned bilingual promoters turned Supreme Council presidents were no

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longer present to provide the internal support system that they had relied on since 1971. CNPI leaders were unable to adapt to this change; many CNPI members resented the shift in government politics and initially ignored phone calls from the new SRA secretary, Jorge Rojo Lugo, who wanted to outline a plan to collaborate with the organization. It was at this point that some members of the CNPI attempted to break away from the SRA, approaching CNC Secretary General Oscar Ramírez Mijares and new INI Director Ignacio Ovalle Fernández to arrange a meeting with President López Portillo to petition for his ap­­ proval in carrying out this transition.50 CNPI leaders argued that the SRA had become an obstacle to the political and economic advancement of indigenous communities and the development projects from which they stood to benefit. They claimed their organization was in danger of extinction because of the manipulation of incoming government officials, although they provided no proof of such behavior. In retaliation, the new SRA officials contended that the CNPI was not officially recognized under SRA statutes anyway, and therefore the agency had no obligation to continue providing funds or other support to the National Council of Indigenous Peoples.51 Naturally CNPI members became upset over the administrative changes as they lost important allies. But they misinterpreted and overstated their own power and influence during such a critical transition. The SRA had been generous in sharing funding, space, and support for the organization, and nothing suggests that new incoming officials planned to end or even drastically change the working relationship between the CNPI and the SRA. Even López Velasco admits that it was CNPI leaders who refused to meet with the new SRA secretary general, not the other way around. According to López Velasco, Rojo Lugo made a number of overtures to the CNPI leadership, but out of petulance and stubbornness they ignored him. The proposal to move the CNPI from the SRA to the CNC fractured a cooperative relationship that could not be mended; it eventually proved to be a serious mistake. The irony in the situation was that, having once critiqued the CNC for not being aware of or responsive to the realities of indigenous needs, the CNPI now turned to it for support. In the process, the CNPI created a powerful adversary in the SRA, one that thereafter was not receptive to the idea of continuing to work with the CNPI. In this in­­ stance, in this performance within the field of force where the SRA, CNC, and CNPI wielded and shaped power, or at least tried to, the CNPI leaders played

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secondary roles and in effect proved their organization to be the weakest of the three entities. Despite these political mishaps, however, the National Council of Indigenous Peoples gained the new president’s support, although without managing to restore a fully cooperative relationship with the SRA. In the midst of the problems with the Secretariat of Agrarian Reform leadership, planning for the Second National Congress continued. The congress was held at the Mazahua Ceremonial Center in Santa Ana Nichi in the state of Mexico from February 23 to 25, 1977, only eighteen months after the First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples and two months following the presidential transition. The second national congress brought together seventy-six ethnic groups, of which sixty-four were organized under the Supreme Council structure.52 President López Portillo attended the event accompanied by INI Director Ovalle Fernández and CNC Secretary General Ramírez Mijares. During the congress the CNPI leadership reported on the organization’s last year and a half of activities. Many of those activities revolved around the structuring of the CNPI, the Permanent Commission; efforts to establish productive working relationships with government officials; and the beginnings of requests for land tenancy and education scholarships for indigenous youth, among other things.53 To close out the proceedings, government officials presented the final conclusions drafted by  CNPI members and ethnic community representatives.54 The collaboration that had characterized the First National Indigenous Congress was absent from the second congress. López Velasco argued that, compared to the first congress, little was accomplished in Santa Ana Nichi because of conflicts and limited indigenous participation.55 The tension between the SRA and CNPI deepened at the Second National Congress of Indigenous Peoples; upon returning to Mexico City, the CNPI vacated the offices they held at the SRA building. The CNPI members solicited yet another meeting with President López Portillo, who allotted a space for them in the CNC building. The president also allocated a budget of 120,000 pesos a year to the CNPI, independent of SRA or CNC oversight.56 Although the CNPI personnel shared office space with the CNC, they now had their own budget, which meant they were not beholden to any other agency. Perhaps just as important was the president’s symbolic show of support for the organization. Like Echeverría before him, it appears López Portillo was willing to continue the public and monetary funding for the CNPI as part of  his endorsement of participatory indigenismo. How far the CNPI leaders could push him remained to be seen.

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Apparently emboldened by the official recognition of their authority, CNPI leaders carried their feuds beyond the SRA. The CNPI, as an organization, turned on another ally and accused Salomón Nahmad Sittón of political sabotage. The CNPI sent a letter to López Portillo claiming that Nahmad Sittón, now director of indigenous issues with the Secretariat of Public Education, had attempted to undermine the authority of the national council by supporting the meeting of bilingual teachers in Vícam, Sonora, in 1976.57 These bilingual teachers launched the National Alliance of Bilingual Indigenous Professionals (Alianza Nacional de Profesionales Indígenas Bilingües, or ANPIBAC) as a new national indigenous organization that would focus on developing bilingual edu­­ cation and resolving struggles indigenous students faced in their quest to gain an education.58 The CNPI was staking a claim to being the exclusive organiza­ tion to represent all indigenous interests, even if it was overextended and un­­ derfunded. But again the national council overestimated its own power. The accusations only alienated the CNPI from other indigenous organizations that could have been important allies both in furthering their overall mission and in helping address issues that the CNPI could not pay enough attention to be­­ cause of  its limited reach and funding. This attitude might have had much to do with the way other indigenous organizations viewed the CNPI—that is, as ma­­ nipulated by the government and overreaching in trying to establish its dominance over various indigenous organizations. Having once accused the CNC of holding a monopoly over rural political identity and representation, it was now trying to do the same with ethnic-based organizations. Because CNPI leaders attempted to take advantage of what they viewed as their newfound political capital, they did not hesitate to keep tangling with federal agencies. Besides the SRA, they continually butted heads with the CNC and other federal bureaus, in particular with the Federal Electricity Commis­ sion (Comisión Federal de Electricidad, or CFE) and the Secretariat of Agri­­ culture and Hydraulic Resources (Secretaría de Agricultura y Recursos Hidráu­­ licos, or SARH). CNPI leaders accused the agencies of reporting, in indigenous zones, the presence of public works that did not exist. According to López Velasco, massive funds were being pumped into regional development programs in indigenous regions (see chapter 2), and at times the CFE and the SARH gave accounts of paving and electrification projects that may not have been finished or even begun.59 CNPI representatives interpreted their tasks as not only advancing indigenous interests by pushing forward demands but also questioning the validity of reports that misrepresented indigenous realities to

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federal officials. Their initial face-off with the CFE and SARH demonstrated that indigenous communities were no longer defenseless and easy prey for abusive government officials. Other federal agencies took notice and changed the way they interacted with the CNPI.60 These realities contradicted the CNPI’s official stance that the organization must “have positive relationships with the federal government to gain their support so that the Action and Development Program presented by the National Council of Indigenous Peoples is carried out.”61 But CNPI leaders were also trying to present a strong front. Finding a balance was proving difficult.

Intraorganizational Conflicts In some ways the CNPI leadership realized its mistakes and tried to repair the damage to their image and their organization. In attempting to prevent further missteps, the Permanent Commission decided to fully integrate the Council of Elders into the structure of the CNPI in 1977 to provide added review of the organization’s decisions.62 The Council of Elders undertook an advisory role that already existed in some indigenous communities. The Council of Elders was also envisioned as a body capable of mediating disagreements within the CNPI. This strategic move incorporated a former generation that perhaps still had significant influence in their communities, as well as among CNPI members, without giving them direct leadership roles. The new generation of indig­­ enous leaders seemed to recognize that they needed the elders to galvanize sup­­ port for the imploding agency and for their own leadership style. To form the Council of  Elders, the Permanent Commission approached Carlos López Ávila (Nahuatl), Marcos E. Sandoval (Trique), Trinidad Ayala Rojas (Popoluca), Flo­­ rencio Cruz, Francisco Pérez Pino (Otomí-Mazahua), Gregorio Constantino (Mam), and Pedro de Haro (Huichol). This group helped guide the organization during the CNPI meeting scheduled for mid-1977 to be held at the National Indigenist Institute’s auditorium in Mexico City.63 Permanent Commission members present at the meeting included Galdino Perfecto Carmona, Espiridión López Ontiveros, Efraín Orea Aguilar, Natalio Flores Lázaro, Tomás Esquivel, Gregorio Xochitiotzi Reyes, Apolinar del Ángel Dolores, Santiago Gutiérrez Toribio, Carlos Guzmán Dorantes, Francisco Alfaro Gómez, Ar­­ mando Montoya, and López Velasco. The majority of these leaders had previ­­ ously been elected to the Permanent Commission or had experience as Supreme

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Council presidents; for the first five years of the organization they represented the core of the CNPI. One of the long battles with the CNC since the days of organizing the re­­ gional indigenous congresses was over the position of the Secretary of Indigenist Action. The bilingual promoters had managed to wrestle the position away from Amelia Holguín in mid-1975, and since then Chihuahua State Deputy and Tarahumara Supreme Council President Samuel Díaz Holguín (no relation) had served in that role. But he had too many responsibilities as a Chihuahua state deputy and Tarahumara Supreme Council president, and by 1977 he had stepped down from the SIA. At the 1977 meeting, CNPI members were given the opportunity to nominate a candidate for the now-vacant SIA post, which meant that they could continue to have someone from their organization within the ranks of the CNC. The move could solidify the ability of CNPI leaders to influence the agenda of this particular office within the campesino organization. Sebastian Uc Yam (Maya—Quintana Roo) nominated Yucatán Maya Su­­ preme Council President Carlos Guzmán Dorantes to the position; Francisco Hernández Morales (Mixtec—Oaxaca) nominated Leandro Martínez Machuca, the Chontal Supreme Council president from Oaxaca; while CNPI Coordi­ nator Perfecto Carmona nominated Council Elder Trinidad Ayala Rojas.64 Af­­ ter a heated debate, Martínez Machuca was elected as the CNPI nominee, and later that August he was confirmed as the new CNC secretary of indigenist action. This process divided the CNPI further, as the group supporting Perfecto Carmona’s nominee refused to accept Martínez Machuca’s election, weakening the authority of the new secretary. The CNPI leaders were free to disagree behind closed doors, as most organizations are prone to do, but in public they failed in their task to “strengthen unity at all levels of the organization,” as was needed in order to chart their way through the complex and often unforgiving political field of force.65 The unresolved issues with the SRA, the break with Nahmad Sittón, and the incorporation into the CNC caused internal frictions. But more than that, seemingly arbitrary intraorganizational disputes tore at the very fabric of the CNPI. Typical of such factional disputes was the removal of Pedro de Haro from the Council of Elders and the CNPI’s refusal to recognize him as Hui­­ chol Supreme Council president because he had “collaborated” with the new communal property director at the SRA.66 The Permanent Commission also removed Natalio Flores Lázaro, P’urépecha Supreme Council president, from his CNPI post for betrayal and lack of discipline.67 To date no record remains of

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what, exactly, de Haro’s collaboration with the SRA was or what Flores Lázaro did to be branded a traitor, but the CNPI went to great lengths to discredit Flores Lázaro with federal officials and state governors. In addition, Galdino Perfecto Carmona, as CNPI coordinator, took the liberty of appointing members to the Permanent Commission and ignored the CNPI statute that all Permanent Commission members must be elected by the Supreme Council presidents.68 For example, without consulting other CNPI members, Perfecto Carmona replaced Camilo Martínez Sijuri with Eusebio Catonga Baisano, who was not a Supreme Council president at the time.69 According to the CNPI statutes, “the Permanent Commission will be made up of 13 members and 13 al­ ternates who represent the federative entities with indigenous populations” and “will exercise maximum authority in order to fulfill the statutes, declaration of principles, Action Program and in that way promote unity and lead the organization’s struggle.”70 CNPI members were supposed to represent indigenous peoples not only in the national context but also at the international level; thus, these leaders were acutely aware of the political power that they could express through the CNPI’s governing body. Perfecto Carmona’s actions were a cause for concern for other Permanent Commission members, and this situation created a great deal of distrust and resentment. As evidenced by continued abuses of power, López Velasco argued, Perfecto Carmona had lost sight of the CNPI’s goal to serve the indigenous population. Natalio Flores Lázaro (by then reinstated within the CNPI), Santiago Gutiérrez Toribio, Leandro Martínez Machuca, and López Velasco headed the opposition against Perfecto Carmona. Of course this only served to further strain an already shaky relationship between López Velasco and Pacheco Loya, his longtime mentor and friend. López Velasco claims that Pacheco Loya ac­­ cused him of having lost his way and that they ended both their friendship and their working relationship over this matter. Yet López Velasco blamed Perfecto Carmona for misinforming Pacheco Loya about the situation within the CNPI and the resulting end of their friendship.71 The rivalries that were emerging be­­ tween CNPI leaders were becoming clear. These internal rivalries reflected a deeply conflicted and fractured CNPI that had alienated itself from former institutional allies—the SRA and, increasingly, the INI—as well as from the individual allies Salomón Nahmad Sittón and José Pacheco Loya. The leadership hierarchy of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples had become so contentious that it was becoming almost impossible for them to work together, paralyzing the organization’s effectiveness. As a result CNPI

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members asked two council elders, Florencio Cruz and Marcos Sandoval, to preside over a meeting of the Permanent Commission to address these issues. Taking part in the meeting were Eusebio Catonga Baisano, Gregorio Xochitiotzi Reyes, Efraín Orea Aguilar, Espiridión López Ontiveros, Francisco Alfaro Gómez, Santiago Gutiérrez Toribio, Natalio Flores Lázaro, Armando Mon­ toya, Trinidad Ayala Rojas, Leandro Martínez Machuca, Perfecto Carmona, and López Velasco.72 The meeting began badly, as members traded insults, until the two elders intervened and persuaded the group to call all Supreme Council presidents together to revise the goals of the Permanent Commission and try to settle the discord. Perfecto Carmona’s faction refused to sign the letter that would be sent out to the Supreme Council presidents calling them to Mexico City and immediately left the meeting. Nevertheless, the CNPI, in its official capacity, called for a gathering of the Supreme Council presidents. According to López Velasco, Perfecto Carmona or one of his allies sent telegrams to all Supreme Council presidents informing them that the special assembly was cancelled. This prompted a third communiqué to rescind Perfecto Carmona’s message, reaffirm the previous plans for meeting, and inform the presidents that they would in fact gather in the CNC’s Casa del Agrarista in Mexico City.73 But before this meeting could be held, another matter worried the CNPI. Some CNPI members launched accusations of betrayal against Leandro Martínez Machuca, and he was forced out of the CNPI altogether. In his role as the CNC secretary of indigenist action, Martínez Machuca had claimed that the CNPI was not part of the CNC, putting the very survival of the organization in question—at least in the minds of CNPI leaders. The CNPI had already broken ties with the SRA and strained their relationship with Nahmad Sittón, Pacheco Loya, and INI Director Ignacio Ovalle Fernández.74 They simply could not afford to continue alienating sympathetic agencies and government officials, and they seemed to recognize that they were increasingly isolating themselves. The Permanent Commission requested that CNC Secretary General Oscar Ra­­ mírez Mijares replace Martínez Machuca with the alternate, Carlos Guzmán Dorantes.75 The CNPI went so far as to report all of this to President López Portillo, members of his cabinet, and state governors, to make it clear that Martínez Machuca no longer officially represented the CNPI or its interests. The Permanent Commission seemed to employ this strategy on a regular basis. In order to protect or retain some sense of monopoly over representation, they used the power of political exile against Supreme Council presidents and pre­­ sumably other “offenders,” thus protecting the legitimacy of their own bargaining

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power. It is unclear how effective stripping power from the blacklisted leaders was. More than likely, on the local level, it did very little to hurt them politically and socially—an implication that the CNPI was not influential at the local level. But at the state and federal levels, this practice likely had repercussions, as it reshaped the field of force in which these men operated, limiting the ability for movement and negotiation for some and perhaps even revealing the CNPI’s internal strife in a public way that government officials might exploit. When the Supreme Council presidents finally gathered on April 22, 1978, yet another source of internal conflict emerged. Most CNPI presidents and Permanent Commission members were from indigenous groups in the central and southern regions, and some groups from the north had begun to resent this geographic domination.76 For example, Perfecto Carmona was from Guerrero, López Velasco and Santiago Gutiérrez Toribio from Oaxaca, Pedro de Haro from Jalisco,  José Pepe Chan Bor from Chiapas, and Sebastian Uc Yam from the Yucatán. The only northern leader with significant influence inside and out of the council was Samuel Díaz Holguín, from Chihuahua. As a result of these concerns, a new Permanent Commission was elected, but the northern Supreme Councils were left out again: members included Jerónimo López Castro (Chiapas), Felipe Rodríguez de la Cruz (Tabasco), Máximino Bautista Her­nández (Veracruz), Ignacio Ochoa (origin unknown), Jacinto Gasparillo Anica (Guerrero), Valente Mata (Guanajuato), Felipe Ku Pech (Campeche), Feli­ciano Her­­ nández (San Luis Potosí), Apolinar Quiterio Hernández (Hidalgo), Nemesio Cruz Martínez (Puebla), and Díaz Holguín (Chihuahua). Only Díaz Holguín was from the northern region, and the rest were from the center and south, in­­ cluding the organization’s new coordinator, Jerónimo López Castro. The com­­ plaints centering on an unequal balance of power seem to have fallen on deaf ears. Rather than solve some of the internal conflicts, this election only created doubts over the direction of the organization. For his part,  Jerónimo López Castro faced a difficult path as CNPI coordinator. Although he was elected, his every decision as coordinator was questioned by many of the Supreme Council presidents.77 It is unclear what López Castro may have done to provoke the distrust of some CNPI leaders. According to López Velasco, López Castro tried to improve the CNPI’s image by renovating the office building, managing to secure additional funding that tripled the available budget, and reestablishing relationships with regional government officials.78 These efforts were significant, considering the damage done by previous CNPI disagreements with federal agencies. By many accounts these were

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important moves to reinvigorate both the image and the mission of the Na­­ tional Council of Indigenous Peoples and reorient its path. López Castro also led the preparations for the Third National Congress of Indigenous Peoples, which was scheduled to take place in Mexico City.79 In preparation for the third national congress, an Indigenous Parliament meeting was held on July 10–17 in Oaxtepec, Morelos, with approximately 250 indigenous delegates from the re­­ gional indigenous councils led by their Supreme Council presidents in attendance.80 Federal agencies, including the SRA, BANRURAL, SEP, and INI, also sent representatives. At that point not all these government officials were on friendly terms with the CNPI, including INI Director Ovalle Fernández and Salomón Nahmad Sittón. At the meeting Supreme Council presidents were assigned leadership responsibilities over a number of sessions: land tenancy (Fe­­ lipe Rodríguez de la Cruz, Chontal—Tabasco),  justice and law reform (Estanislao García Olivos, Nahuatl—Milpa Alta), statute reforms (Valente Mata, Chich­ imec—Guanajuato), infrastructure (Floriberto Díaz Gómez, Mixe—Oaxaca), education (Franco Gabriel Hernández, Mixtec—Oaxaca), credit and commer­­ cialization (Hermilio Holguín, Tarahumara—Chihuahua), and forestry (Natalio Flores Lázaro, Tarasco—Michoacán). The Third National Congress of Indigenous Peoples was celebrated in the National Auditorium in Mexico City on July 19, 1979. Pablo Quintana Mauro Papantla, the Mazateco Supreme Council president, served as the master of ceremonies, with President López Portillo, Secretary General of CNC Oscar Ramírez Mijares, INI Director Ovalle Fernández, Interamerican Indigenist Institute Director Oscar Arce Quintanilla, and Natalio Hernández from ANPIBAC in attendance. Representatives from the SRA, the Secretariat of Agriculture and Hydraulic Resources, and the Bank of  Rural Credit also attended.81 And yet CNPI members considered the third congress a failure.82 Confidence in López Castro’s ability to lead deteriorated quickly after the congress, and on February 14, 1980, he was removed from the coordinator position and Santiago Gutiérrez Toribio made interim coordinator.83 In spite of his efforts, López Castro did not succeed in revitalizing the image of the CNPI, and his leadership did nothing to ease tensions within the organization. By then the CNPI had become almost poisonous, as leaders came to distrust one another and the sense of camaraderie, enthusiasm, and hope for what the National Council of Indigenous Peoples could accomplish had dulled. In March 1980, less than five years after its official birth, the CNPI stood alone, without outside allies and fractured from within.

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To make matters worse, the battles over ethnic- versus class-based political identity continued. López Velasco claims that Felipe Rodríguez de la Cruz (Chontal—Oaxaca) invited a number of unknown individuals into the CNPI. These unknown people were tied to campesino and agrarian leagues. Perhaps Rodríguez may have been trying to establish relationships between the CNPI and other campesino organizations. Some CNPI leaders, including López Ve­­ lasco, were upset by this, claiming that additional interests would only further muddy the already murky political waters for the CNPI. Rural teachers also continued to work to enter lower-level CNPI ranks. These teachers directly challenged the Supreme Council structure by arguing that the CNPI should break away from the CNC and, instead of retaining the Supreme Council structure, should reorganize into comités de lucha while deemphasizing indigenous identity.84 The Supreme Council presidents from Guerrero, Veracruz, and the Mayo of Sonora backed López Velasco’s contention that the CNPI needed to remain within the CNC umbrella and retain its ethnic base.85 But the damage was already done; the CNC grew weary of rumors that the CNPI was going to break away and shortly thereafter pulled its support. The Permanent Commission members called an emergency meeting with CNC representatives to try to repair the fragile relationship, but they could not recreate the former trust. This situation, of course, was reminiscent of their mishandling of the conflict with the SRA. It seems that the CNPI had failed to learn the lesson of political nuance the first time and again managed to put in jeopardy its reputation and its effectiveness, which clearly were at a low point. Not long after this incident, an election to decide the next CNPI coordinator resulted in the appointment of Apolinar de la Cruz Loreto. As the fourth CNPI coordinator took office, he was quick to point out the accomplishments of the organization. He noted the CNPI had promoted retention of indigenous languages, culture, and traditions through bilingual education projects and had pushed out groups that created divisions within indigenous communities, such as the Summer Language Institute.86 He restated the CNPI’s successes not only to justify CNC patronage but also to boost the morale of a battered and beleaguered group of indigenous leaders within the CNPI. The deep divisions, infighting, and constant confrontations had taken their toll on a number of its members. But his efforts to reinvigorate the image of the organization came too late: the CNPI had lost the favor of outgoing President López Portillo, who by early 1982 rarely returned their calls or granted them meetings.87 With López Portillo set to leave the presidency at the end of 1982, he might no longer have

In Defense of Our People  17 7

CNPI leaders in a meeting with President Miguel de la Madrid in early 1983. (Source: Archivo Salomón Nahmad Sittón.)

Figure 7. 

had a political interest in supporting the CNPI. In addition, the economic shakeup of 1982–1983 had hit, and certainly the CNPI was not high on the pres­ idential list of things to tend to. The opportunities present during the shortlived, and certainly problematic, populist administrations of Echeverría and López Portillo were no longer available. Although incoming President Miguel de la Madrid (1982–88) did not immediately withdraw funding from the CNPI, these concerns were validated when financial support for all social programs was significantly reduced.88 By then the national organization had little leverage to wield, because of its strained relationships with the SRA, INI, SEP, CNC, and former President López Portillo. Still, the National Council of Indigenous Peoples tried to salvage what it could. CNPI members moved quickly to set up a meeting with de la Madrid to petition the president for funds on July 1, 1983. As they had done in 1975 and 1976, they argued that indigenous peoples should receive priority in

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Figure 8. 

CNPI leaders with President Miguel de la Madrid in early 1983. (Source: Archivo Salomón Nahmad Sittón.)

social programs and employment opportunities.89 But yet again, CNPI leaders committed a political misstep, as they did not adjust their discourse to the realities of the time. In choosing to ignore the fact that the national economic crisis of 1982 could not be reduced to an issue affecting indigenous peoples alone, they erred badly. Urban poor, workers, even the middle class faced dire economic circumstances as well, and this problem was only deepened by austerity measures the new administration adopted. Populist politics and Revolutionary rhetoric, so useful in the previous twelve years, no longer served the federal government or the CNPI in 1983. President de la Madrid and his administrators faced a different economic, social, and political reality, including international pressures to adopt neoliberal economic policies. This left little room for mass government spending for social programs. Still, attempts to save the organization continued in the form of the Fourth National Congress of Indigenous Peoples, held in the state of Puebla

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in December 1983. The congress was initially planned for November, but the meeting was delayed because of the incarceration of Salomón Nahmad Sittón, who faced criminal charges for fund misappropriations. CNPI Coordinator de la Cruz Loreto, a close friend of Nahmad Sittón’s, had reestablished a CNPI relationship with him and publicly defended him when he was imprisoned.90 De la Cruz made attempts to atone for past slights toward all intellectuals, indigenistas, and government officials who had continued to champion the CNPI in spite of serious disagreements and disputes, but his efforts may have come too late to save the organization. The proceedings at Cuetzalan del Progreso, Puebla,91 were contentious, and the irreparable rifts within the CNPI showed as, once again, following the Fourth National Congress of Indigenous Peoples a CNPI coordinator was voted out. Apolinar de la Cruz Loreto was removed, and López Velasco finally held the post of  CNPI coordinator. What is apparent here is that the conflicts within the CNPI were not limited to the top levels of the organization but also were occurring at the bottom. Questions regarding the legitimacy of the Supreme Council presidents, of their own motivations and uses of government funding, and of their indigeneity were plenty and constant. It is likely that some of the indigenous leaders benefited personally from their status and access to funds, and it is also likely that their positions made them targets at local levels. These indigenous leaders were far from saints and closer to villainy in the eyes of many, including some of the communities they represented. The political, social, and economic opportunities believed to be tied to the National Council of Indigenous Peoples were sources of both possibility and conflict.

Conclusion After 1983 the stability of the CNPI was being challenged in direct ways by political alienation, internal strife, continual leadership turnover, and the existence of alternative indigenous organizations. Dissenting organizations challenged the CNPI’s position as the national indigenous agency. For example, the Coordinadora Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas emerged in 1972 and was led by Genaro Domínguez Maldonado, who had been an advisor to the CNPI in 1979–198092 and was now joined by groups of Nahua and Popoluca from Veracruz, Yaqui from Sonora, Zoque from Chiapas, and Chinantec from Oaxaca. Many CNPI members left the organization for the Coordinadora Nacional

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de Pueblos Indígenas and the Coordinadora Nacional Plan Ayala.93 These two organizations thrived on the alliance of indigenous peoples with campesinos and other popular groups in rural and urban areas. The increased number of campesino and indigenous organizations resulted in fiercer competition for the already greatly diminished government funds that were available. The Coordi­ nadora Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas continued to make demands for land and fair prices for basic necessities and credit, and to denounce government corruption, repression, and the austerity policies adopted by Miguel de la Madrid. All the while the CNPI continued to try to work from within the entrails of government agencies, although it seemed an increasingly less viable strategy to follow after 1982.94 As indigenous peoples grew weary of the CNPI’s effectiveness in representing their interests, the resonance of the Coordinadora Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas should not be dismissed. Although in his memoirs Vicente Paulino López Velasco paints himself as the utmost champion of the bilingual promoters since 1971 and a constant presence among the CNPI leadership since 1975, he never held the reins of the CNPI. He consistently presents himself as a man who put the general well-being of the organization he worked so hard to bring to fruition, to grow, and to rescue ahead of his own personal desires and interests. But perhaps that was not always the case. In a letter to the Coordinadora Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas dated December 9, 1984, Macrina Ocampo Hernández, a representative of the Dsa jmii peoples of San Juan Lalana, Jocotepec, and Petlapa in Oaxaca, charged that since 1974 López Velasco had been negligent in his role as Chinantec representative. She claimed that López Velasco never notified surrounding Chinantec communities of a regional assembly held in San José Río Manzo in 1984: He wanted to do it the same way he always does, with family members and friends and caciques and land owners where only he speaks and talks about the

things he does even though he is never here, for many years now he lives in Mex-

ico City. . . . They [López Velasco and his associates] directed the congress the way they wanted and not based on the grounds stated in the convocation, it was

not about democratically electing a council but rather a reunion to [put into] place a person he can control.95

Not only did Ocampo Hernández accuse López Velasco of misrepresenting himself to authorities and not following the statutes set by the CNPI, but she

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also framed him as a traitor against the cause of indígenas, maintaining that “what he [López Velasco] has done along with his cacique friends is manipulate, provoke, deprive, humiliate and imprison the Chinatecos who fight against them and then strip them of their [Chinantec] communal lands.”96 In her letter Ocampo Hernández is clear about how she views López Velasco—as an enemy—and it is also clear that her intention is to bring into question the integrity of the new CNPI coordinator and perhaps the National Council of Indigenous Peoples itself. She goes further by accusing him of doing all the things that the CNPI was created to guard against, including committing corruption: “Paulino asked INI for funds to build houses but instead caciques used them [houses] and he kept much of it [funds] for himself.”97 It is unknown what actions the CNPI or the Coordinadora Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas leaders took in response to the accusations Ocampo Hernández leveled against López Velasco, but after 1985 the CNPI records make reference to López Velasco only as an advisor to the Permanent Commission; his memoirs end in 1984 as well.98 It is possible that López Velasco was forced out after these charges were launched or that he left of his own accord or that he was relegated to a lesser role. In any case, he was no longer the CNPI coordinator after 1985. Other indigenous-based organizations too chastised the CNPI for missed opportunities. These organizations claimed the CNPI had not always taken full advantage of  the possibilities presented by Luis Echeverría and José López Portillo and had failed to create their own, had been too cautious, too rigid. For example, members of CODREMI (the Defense Council for Human and Cultural Resources of the Oaxaca Mixe) argued that allowing campesinos into indigenous movements would strengthen their overall goals. They pointed to the Coalition of Workers, Campesinos, and Students of the Isthmus (COCEI) in Oaxaca, Emiliano Zapata Campesino Union (UCEZ) in Michoacán, Campamento Tierra y Libertad Veracruz, Revolutionary Front of Guerrero Public Defense, Zacatecas Popular Front, and, in Morelos, a number of rural organizations led by Mateo Zapata, the son of agrarian icon Emiliano Zapata, including the Coordinadora Nacional Plan Ayala, as examples of successful grassroots political coalition in the 1980s.99 In hindsight, perhaps trying to keep campesinos out of the CNPI was indeed a mistake; the reality is, however, that the CNPI leaders had antagonized a number of campesino organizations throughout the years, and the internal divisions within the CNPI pushed some to establish individual alliances with campesinos. Yet others, like López Velasco and the original DAAC

182 chap ter 6

bilingual promoters, still recalled the confrontations during the early 1970s with CNC and local campesino organizations and thus rejected such alliances. I suspect that the inclusion of campesino leaders into the CNPI might have threatened the political power of these bilingual promoters turned Supreme Council presidents, and they wished to keep that threat at bay as long as possible. But by 1983 the national economic and political landscape had changed, and it appears CNPI founding members had not adapted and the leadership had failed to innovate in the midst of drastic challenges. The CNPI members neglected to take advantage of the opportunities that access to government resources offered their communities. Even with select government support, they encountered roadblocks from other government agencies, which is not surprising given the field of force they were operating in. But the most perplexing moves were those that led to self-alienation from the federal agencies that had proven to be allies early on, like the INI and the SRA. Moreover, the CNPI was not homogenous, nor did the members have a wealth of organizational experience in dealing with government entities. The intraorganizational conflicts greatly weakened their ability to make decisions, to maneuver from a position of strength, and to present a clear vision and direction. The National Council of  Indigenous Peoples survived until 1987, when, during the Fifth National Congress of Indigenous Peoples held in Mexico City, it was absorbed into the National Indigenous Institute—essentially into the state apparatus—as the National Indigenous Confederation (Confederación Nacional Indígena, or CONAI). By then the CNPI coordinator was Professor Domingo Solís López (Chol—Oaxaca), and it was he who proposed the change of direction, one that had been discussed among the Permanent Commission members since July 1986. Nicasio Valenzuela Garrido, a professor and local deputy representing the Mixe delegation from Oaxaca, Leandro Martínez Machuca, the onetime SIA secretariat within the CNC, and Orfa Aparicio, the P’urépecha Supreme Council president, vocally supported the rebranding of the CNPI. Other delegates in attendance were cautious of this strategy, but the CNPI leadership moved forward anyhow. In many ways, the CNPI finally became what the early bilingual promoters had wanted, part of the state structure, lasting players in the field of force—though certainly from a weakened place.100 By then the CNPI was a different organization, literally and figuratively, with some of the first Supreme Council presidents remaining and taking on advisory roles (Martínez Machuca and López Velasco) but also with an emerging youth movement. Many of these young delegates and CNPI members were bilingual

In Defense of Our People  183

teachers, a new generation of go-betweens. These young people, mostly indigenous teachers, had worked at the sides of the Supreme Council presidents like Eusebio Catonga Baisano and Juan Simbrón Méndez as personal assistants, secretaries, and apprentices since the mid-1970s.101 In that context the new generation of leaders had been privy to the inner workings of the CNPI, were aware of the difficulties that lay ahead, and were ready to engage in the field of force they would most certainly not only to face but also help shape, even if in a reduced manner from their predecessors.

Conclusion Reimagining the Field of Force

T

o tell the story of the First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples of Mexico and the formation of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples, this book has focused on the field of force created through the complex process of negotiation among various constituencies, agencies, and individuals at the local, regional, and national levels in Mexico. Arguing that a group of indigenous bilingual promoters chose to work within the system has meant moving away from the binary of independence/co-optation and instead looking at the state as an arena of negotiation in which bilingual promoters and indigenous community members, among others, were active participants. In the process, complex political identities as well as populism itself were refashioned. While it has made sense to locate the events and procedures of the congresses and council in the specific local, regional, and national contexts of the 1970s, it is also important to situate their history within a much more expansive international trajectory and, as well, to suggest the ways in which the political developments recounted here influenced or formed part of broader transformations continuing to the present day within Mexico. It is to these tasks that this conclusion section now turns, if in a somewhat tentative manner. The quincentennial of contact between Europeans and indigenous peoples, the year 1992 marked a shift in social, cultural, economic, and political discussions and relationships not only in Mexico but in many parts of the world. For

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some intellectuals and government officials in the international community, the recognition of indigenous peoples’ historic plight and the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Rigoberta Menchú Tum, the first indigenous person to be so honored in the twentieth century, represented the culmination of centuries of indigenous struggles. For others, including many indigenous leaders and activists throughout the Americas, far from being a satisfactory end, the year de­­ noted only the beginning of a serious global conversation regarding indigenous struggles for social and political justice and human rights. An early expression of the global focus on indigenous rights came in the form of the United Nations–sanctioned Martínez Cobo report. At the time this report was delivered, between 1981 and 1984, the Decade for Action to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1973–83) was coming to a close. One of the recommended actions was a call for another decade of commitment to international projects and symposia (1984–93). Specifically, the Cobo report proposed the resurgence of the Interamerican Indigenist Institute, a training symposium for government officials to be held sometime in 1985 and for a world conference on indigenous issues to take place in 1992. From October 28 to November 1, 1985, the III presented the IX Interamerican Indigenist Congress in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with Dr. Richard Montoya, New Mexico educator Dave Warren, and former OAS diplomat and University of  New Mexico faculty member Theo R. Crevenna of the U.S. delegation playing prominent roles in its organization. The III director, Mexican intellectual Oscar Arze Quintanilla, also served as the director of the congress. The III was permanently headquartered in Mexico City, and its board of advisors included influential Mexican intellectuals, such as Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, Rodolfo Stavenhagen, and Nemesio J. Rodríguez. Delegations from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the United States, and Venezuela were in attendance, with Canada and Spain participating as observing nations.1 Among Mexico’s delegation were a number of governmental officials from the National Indigenist Institute, including Miguel Limón Rojas, Guillermo Kelly, and Ignacio León Pacheco (son of the first Tarahumara Supreme Council president, Ignacio León Ruiz), as well as Cándido Coheto Martínez, from the Secretariat of  Public Education’s General Department of  Indigenous Education, and Domingo Solís López, the last secretary general of the National Council of  Indigenous Peoples. In addition to the national delegations, First Nations peoples from the Americas sent their own independent delegates. Vicente Paulino López

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Velasco was present as an independent delegate. Salomón Nahmad Sittón attended as well, but not as an official representative from Mexico. For this congress he came as a member of the Department of Anthropology from the University of Arizona. As this book has shown, Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, Salomón Nahmad Sittón, and Vicente Paulino López Velasco were all important actors in the regional and national indigenous congresses; the latter two had been central to the birth of the National Council of  Indigenous Peoples. All three participated in the IX Interamerican Indigenist Congress and, in their own ways, shaped the field of force surrounding indigenous political mobilization and demands for autonomy at the regional, national, and international levels. Of the three, Guillermo Bonfil Batalla worked in Mexico and abroad for an increased role for indigenous peoples in shaping their own political and economic futures, both nationally and internationally. He had been an intellectual organizer of the Barbados Conference in 1971.2 Sponsored by the World Council of Churches’s Program to Combat Racism and its Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, as well as the University of Bern’s Department of Ethnology, the gathering was meant to discuss ways that governments, religious organizations, and anthropologists could redirect their roles to assist indigenous communities in im­ proving their quality of life, preserving their culture, and making demands for self-determination. The Declaration of Barbados, which Bonfil Batalla was prominently involved in crafting, called for indigenous peoples to act as agents of that change. The declaration challenged state directives that denied indigenous peoples citizenship rights and direct roles in political life. Those who signed the declaration included Bonfil Batalla (Mexico), Darcy Ribeiro (Brazil), also a key figure in this process, and Stefano Varese (Mexico).3 The Declaration of Barbados reflected the ways that Bonfil Batalla thought the Mexican state and other governments should address the concerns of in­­ digenous peoples. He criticized the evangelization efforts of religious groups because, he argued, such processes reflected an external imposition that broke down the traditional social and political organization of ethnic communities. His contribution to De eso que llaman antropología mexicana (1970) reveals his contempt for the uses of anthropology in the process of shaping national identity in twentieth-century Mexico. Stating his views more directly in México profundo (1987), he argues that indigenous civilizations are the cultural and social basis of modern Mexican society and should be embraced, not subjected to transformation.4 In particular Bonfil Batalla urged national governments to

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recognize the value and rights of  indigenous peoples in legal and constitutional ways. For indigenous Mexicans, 1992 was also significant because of the changes taking place in the legal status of indigenous peoples within the Mexican nation. In 1991, the Mexican Congress had passed several amendments to key articles in the 1917 constitution; these amendments went into effect in 1992.5 Amendments to articles 2, 4, and 27 reframed the struggle for indigenous communities and reshaped the political field of force in fundamental ways. As it had been envisioned in 1917, article 27 had established collective land-use rights in the form of ejidos and had underwritten the expectation and promise of continued land reform for much of the rest of the century.6 After its amendment in 1992, ownership rights linked to ejido land could be legally transferred to individuals should the members of an ejido, as a group, decide to break up their communal holdings into smaller private land tracts, ending the Revolutionary promise for continued land redistribution.7 For campesinos and ejidatarios, as well as indigenous peoples who might view themselves as campesinos and/or ejidatarios, this amendment had a profound impact, as it changed the ways they could make demands, rendering the discourse of Revolutionary promises moot and reconfiguring the terms of negotiation for both campesinos and indígenas in rural Mexico. Similarly, the amendments to articles 2 and 4 reset the terms of engagement for indigenous leaders and communities with government officials at federal, regional, and local levels. From a homogenizing official policy of mestizaje to, after 1992, a reimagining of the Mexican population as multicultural, the constitutional changes effectively rejected the long-standing mestizo myth of national identity.8 The constitution now read: Mexico is a multicultural nation based originally upon its indigenous peoples. The law will protect and promote the development of their languages, cultures, practices, customs, resources and specific forms of social organization, and will

guarantee its members effective access to state jurisdiction. In legal matters relat-

ing to land issues, the legal practices and customs [of the indigenous] will be taken into account, in the terms established by the law.9

This shift could be seen as both a triumph and a setback in indigenous peoples’ quest for political and social inclusion. On the one hand, it was a triumph because, on the surface, the official end to the national project of cultural and

188 conclusion

biological mestizaje meant possibilities for the reimagining of  the national com­­ munity as a new nation where indigenous peoples would have a strong voice and a social and political role.10 On the other hand, although article 2 officially asserted the ethnic and cultural makeup of the nation as multicultural, it failed to go further to reinforce first-class citizenship rights of indigenous peoples. While after 1992 the constitution promised the promotion and protection of cultural attributes, such as language, customs, and other practices, it did not address direct political rights. Although the amendment pointed to indigenous peoples as the cultural foundation of that proclaimed multiculturalism, the 1992 edition of the amendment defined indigenous peoples solely in terms of community, failing to acknowledge their status as peoples: Indigenous community is defined as the community that constitutes a cultural, economic and social unit, settled in a territory and that recognizes its own authorities, according to their customs.11

This definition, along with the changes to articles 4 and 27, had broader consequences in relation to political rights and to land claims over communal property. Instead of satisfactorily settling the question of cultural and political identity—as, perhaps, some members of Congress wished to do by broadening cultural and ethnic definitions of Mexicanness—the changes created further spaces (political and cultural) for negotiation and debate over indigeneity. The politics of shaping indigenous identity were laid out in a passage from the 1992 version of article 2: “Consciousness of indigenous identity will be the fundamental criteria to determine to whom apply the provisions on indigenous people.”12 The fine print over who would be acknowledged as indigenous and how official acknowledgment of indigenous identity/ies would be addressed had important ramifications at national and international levels. The International Labor Organization’s Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention 169 (1989), an international law ratified by Mexico in 1990, stated that “self-identification as indigenous or tribal shall be regarded as a fundamental criterion for determining the groups to which the provisions of this Convention apply.”13 Such questions mattered because they had the potential to shape the ways in which indigenous peoples, as individuals and communities, could formulate and put forward their claims, demands, and grievances at local, regional, national, and international levels. Because of continued pressure from indigenous groups and

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the international community concerned with indigenous rights, the language of articles 2 and 4 of the Mexican constitution was further revised in 2001 to define indigenous peoples both as individuals and as communities.14 Henceforth, demands, complaints, and concerns would be deemed valid, whether made by a recognized or self-defined indigenous community or by an individ­ ual claiming indigenous identity. This meant that indigenous peoples did not have to belong to or be recognized as indigenous by a community in order for their rights to count. In addition to the struggles over legal recognition of definitions of indigeneity, the responsibility for replying to demands and concerns was also reshaped after 1992. Between 1948 and 1992 the National Indigenist Institute had been the branch of the federal government tasked with carrying out national action programs. After 1992, programs in areas such as health, economic development, and bicultural education fell under the purview of municipal and state governments, rather than solely the federal one.15 This meant that the federal government would no longer serve as the primary point of negotiation for indigenous leaders, resulting in the decentralization of official indigenismo, as well as in its redefinition. Indigenous peoples and communities now found it necessary to negotiate separately with state and municipal officials; they could rely little on the federal government to pressure local or regional officials. In this way the amendments to articles 2 and 4 reshaped the field of force in relation to how indigenous leaders and communities could engage and disengage the language of Revolutionary promises, especially those concerning the obligations surrounding land reform and the central role of the federal government in facilitating such processes. Changing economic and political realities in Mexico during the 1990s also dictated official and unofficial responses to economic challenges and contributed to the eventual shift in the promises of the Mexican Revolution that, by that point, had endured for decades. The changes in articles 2, 4, and 27 fundamentally reimagined the government’s commitment to the social and political pledges of the Mexican Revolution in practice and law. The amendment to article 27 dashed the expectation of continued land reform, erasing even the possibility of it. The amendments to articles 2 and 4 redefined the national conversation over the social and political place of indigenous communities in an officially acknowledged multicultural nation. What had served as the means of defining the terms of engagement between government officials and popular groups for almost a century was now no longer regarded as legitimate.

190 conclusion

That it did so while negotiating an economic agreement with its neighbors to the north cannot be mere coincidence. With the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 1994, an indigenous army arose, breathing new life into smoldering ashes, all that remained of the promises of the Revolution. The Zapatista National Liberation Army (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Na­ cional, or EZLN) in the southern state of Chiapas took up armed resistance as the last option available to them. Chol, Tojolabal, Tzotzil, and Tzeltal ethnic groups formed the nucleus of the fighting force, armed with some firearms but mostly with hatchets, machetes, sticks, and perhaps the most powerful weapon, their words (as their spokesman, Subcomandante Marcos, once stated).16 The group’s use of the Internet and willingness to communicate with national and international media led to national and international curiosity and interest in the reasons for the uprising. Members of the EZLN, particularly Subcomandante Marcos, took to radio, television, and the Internet to wage virtual and real war (as well as retreating into the Lacandon jungle for cover). As Natividad Gutiérrez has argued, it should come as little surprise that those who felt the tightening noose of the economic and social impact of the constitutional amendments, combined with the potential negative effects of an unfavorable trade agreement, chose armed uprising as their response to the long-term buildup of injustice and economic decline.17 Just like the Huichol, who rose up against government threats to their economic and political survival in the 1950s, the Maya in Chiapas resisted in 1994. The economic struggles, legal and political inequalities, and social marginalization experienced by indigenous peoples for much of the twentieth century, the end of Revolutionary promises, and the formalization of neoliberal economic policies that NAFTA represented dimmed hopes for economic improvements for many popular groups, including indigenous peoples. In many ways the twelve years between 1970 and 1982 marked a golden age for indigenous organization, particularly in the case of the DAAC bilingual promoters and the CNPI. Perhaps Presidents Luis Echeverría and José López Portillo did not genuinely believe in a democratic opening and their populist programs were simply meant as a stopgap in relation to the massive social and political upheaval of the post-1960s period. But that populism was reshaped from below and from the middle in order to craft political openings and make material gains. In some ways the populist years served as a safety valve, but after 1982, austerity measures, and the eventual dismantling of the social promises

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of the Mexican Revolution, containment was no longer possible. That federal officials in the top political tier, including recently sworn in President Ernesto Zedillo (1994–2000), were caught off guard by the uprising reveals how disconnected the state was from the needs of popular groups, in particular those affected by the end of the promise of land reform and the economic restructuring that NAFTA threatened to bring to indigenous communities. That disconnect was not the only way the federal government had lost a step. Guillermo de la Peña and Jane Hindley suggest that Mexico, once the vanguard in American indigenous policy with such strategies as participatory indigenismo, had fallen significantly behind in that regard.18 Mexican indigenistas and government officials were continental leaders in indigenismo policies after 1940 and again after 1970 with participatory indigenismo. But during the 1980s and 1990s Mexico’s government was slow to publicly and legally recognize the political and human rights of indigenous peoples. In comparison, national governments from Argentina, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Brazil passed legislation that recognized indigenous rights by 1988.19 In Mexico, indigenous peoples continued to be labeled as “bearers of cultural difference” who needed to be protected; yet their political and human rights as communities and individuals were not directly addressed. Even in the official language used in the amendment to article 4, the term “rights” is clearly sidestepped. After 1994 and the public negotiations the federal government held with EZLN leaders, the language of rights was avoided even more in official negotiations, including those about the broader issues with which many indigenous peoples, not just the EZLN, were concerned. That the Mexican national government had lost a step or two in their leadership of indigenous policy on the continent is apparent. But perhaps this was the point all along. In moving away from continental leadership of indigenismo and adopting a multicultural position, the government put forth an official language of equality for all. De la Peña, for one, points to the possible dangers of official state adoption of a multicultural position: inequality, ethnic cleansing, and human rights violations.20 The potential for such alarming practices might be overstated, but not the state washing its hands of its social and economic obligations to right historical wrongs. And all this to clear the way for the official adoption of neoliberal policies, of which NAFTA is the prime example. Indigenous organizations and their leaders were themselves pressuring na­­ tional governments for social, political, and economic programs meant to support and improve the lives of indigenous populations. Taking matters into their

192 conclusion

own hands, indigenous peoples did not wait for international agencies or na­­ tional governments to press on their behalf; rather, they shaped the field of force both inside and outside national borders. De la Peña highlights the ways indigenous organizations molded the conversation regarding indigenous policy, including what it might be in relation to the amendments to articles 2 and 4. Here it is possible to point to the multitude of movements and the rise of or­­ ganizations during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s that demonstrate how indigenous peoples have continued to push from below, from the middle, and from within—how they have been very much involved in negotiating indigenismos, including participatory indigenismo. The continuity of the Tarahumara Supreme Council, the DAAC indigenous bilingual promoters, the 1974 indigenous congress in Chiapas, the series of regional and national indigenous con­­ gresses in 1975, and the CNPI, CNPA, ANPIBAC, CODREMI, UCEZ, and countless indigenous organizations and movements that arose post-1940 reveal the long-term struggles, discourses, and tools used to sculpt and broaden the field of force where contestations over definitions of economic, social, and political rights and of citizenship shaped everyday forms of state formation. In 2003 the National Indigenist Institute became the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples, and many of its functionaries and workers were and still are indigenous.21 The amendments to the 1917 constitution changed the rules of engagement and rendered mute the demands of groups that tried to position themselves within the discourse of the Revolution and its legitimizing rhetoric.22 The Carlos Salinas de Gortari administration (1988–94) modified the discourse of negotiation, and indigenous groups too adapted to the change. After 1992, the language of engagement was one of political citizenship, multiculturalism, and human rights. This language was forged both within and outside of the Mexican experience, in the international field of force as well as at the national, regional, and local levels. The discourse and the setting changed, and the negotiation was reimagined, but the struggle remains. Indigenous leaders have learned to engage with government officials on new terms, making an old set of demands within new frameworks of struggle. From organizing from without to working within the system to defying it through armed uprisings, indigenous peoples continue to shape the contours of the conversation, negotiating with the social, political, and ideological tools available to them. For indigenous Mexicans during the twentieth century, the process and struggle for empowerment, the give and take, the negotiation of power and multitude of strategies utilized confirm that indeed history is living;

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it is not forgotten, as every struggle is etched in the collective and individual memories of all involved in the field of force. That imperfect process, the shape of struggle, recognizes that those working within the system have contributed to the breadth of effort and labor of the last century. Those continuing to employ the binaries of the independent versus the co-opted strip indigenous movements of their complexity and reduce those who engage in the movements, who join and lead organizations, to heroes or villains, depending on one’s perspective. But as the DAAC indigenous bilingual promoters, the history of the regional indigenous congresses, and the existence of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples remind us, the outcome of these political processes, as well as the politics of identity, are always far from preordained. Those who work within the system need to be examined with a critical eye, treated as actors in the context of political negotiation, as individuals operating in a contentious field of force and also as agents—not viewed in an oversimplified way as being co-opted or weak. The bilingual promoters who engaged with government officials, who collectively served as political mediators between the national government and indigenous communities, represent one of the many groups who took part in the long-term process in which indigenous peoples attempted to shape the direction of the conversation over meanings of populism, the Mexican Revolution, citizenship, self-determination, and political legitimacy tied to imaginings of indigenous identities.

Notes

Introduction 1. The first part of the book title, Stand Up and Fight, is taken from the slogan printed on the invitation to the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples, “Pónganse de Pie y Luchen.” The translation into English does not adequately capture the fervency of the call for the political consciousness of indigenous peoples and collective mobilization. 2. During the Cold War the nonaligned movement was broadly conceived as a group of nations that declined to ally themselves politically and/or mili­tarily with either the United States of America or the Union of Soviet Social­ist Republics. Instead these nations—including India, Egypt, Indonesia, and Ghana, among others—choose a third path, maintaining diplomatic and economic relationships with both parties in an effort to temper the tense relationships between the two major power blocs, the USA and USSR. Natasa Miskovic, Harald Fischer-Tine, and Nada Boskovska, eds., The Non-aligned Movement and the Cold War: Delhi-Bandung-Belgrade (London: Routledge, 2014). For student movements in the United States of America, Europe, and Latin America, see Robert Cohen and Reginald E. Zelnik, eds., The Free Speech Movements: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); Robbie Lieberman, Prairie Power: Voices of 1960s Midwestern Student Protest (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004);

196  Notes to Pages 4–5

3.

4.

5.

6. 7.

Robert Cohen and David J. Snyder, eds., Rebellion in Black and White: Southern Student Activism in the 1960s (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013); Angelo Quattrocchi and Tom Nairn, The Beginning of the End, France, May 1968 (New York: Verso, 1998); Kristin Ross, May ’68 and Its Afterlives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004); Timothy Scott Brown, West Germany and the Global Sixties: The Anti-authoritarian Revolt, 1962–1978 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Victoria Langland, Speaking of Flowers: Student Movements and the Making and Remaking of 1968 in Military Brazil (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013); Valeria Manzano, The Age of Youth in Argentina: Culture, Politics, and Sexuality from Perón to Videla (Chapel Hill: University of  North Carolina Press, 2014). Soledad Loaeza, El Partido Acción Nacional, la larga marcha, 1939–1994: Opo­­ sición leal y partido de protesta (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1999); Ricardo Pozas Horcasitas, La democracia en blanco: El movimiento médico en México, 1964–1965 (Mexico City: Siglo XIX, 1993); Daniel Newcomer, Reconciling Modernity: Urban State Formation in 1940s León, Mexico (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004); Pablo Serrano Álvarez, La batalla del espí­ritu: El movimiento sinarquista en el Bajío (1932–1951), 2 vols. (Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1992). Rogelio Hernández Rodríguez, La formación del político mexicano: El caso de Carlos A. Madrazo (Mexico City: Colegio de México, 1998); Ricardo Pozas Horcasitas, “La democracia fallida: La batalla de Carlos A. Madrazo por cambiar el PRI,” Revista Mexicana de Sociología 70, no. 1 (2008): 47–85; Miguel González Campeon and Leonardo Lomeli, El Partido de la Revolución: Institución y conflicto (1928–1999) (Mexico City: FCE, 2000). Amelia Kiddle and María L. O. Muñoz, eds., Populism in Twentieth Century Mexico: The Presidencies of Lázaro Cárdenas and Luis Echeverría (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2010). Monica Rankin, Mexico, La Patria: Propaganda and Production During World War II (Lincoln: University of  Nebraska Press, 2010). James Wilkie, The Mexican Revolution: Federal Expenditure and Social Change Since 1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 38; Ariel Rodríguez Kuri, “Los años maravillosos: Adolfo Ruiz Cortines,” in Will Fowler, ed., Gobernantes mexicanos, 1911–2000 (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2008), 263–86; Ariel Rodríguez Kuri, “Adolfo López Mateos y la gran política nacional,” in María José García Gómez, ed., Adolfo López Mateos: La vida dedicada a la política (Mexico City: Gobierno del Estado de México, 2010);

Notes to Pages 5–8  197

Juan José Rodríguez Prats, El poder presidencial: Adolfo Ruiz Cortines (Mexico City: Porrua, 1992). 8. Wilkie, The Mexican Revolution, 130–31, 138–39. 9. Samuel Schmidt, El deterioro del presidencialismo mexicano: Los años de Luis Echeverría (Mexico: EDAMEX, 1986). 10. William Roseberry, “Hegemony and the Language of Contention,” in Gilbert Joseph and Dan Nugent, eds., Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994); 355–66. In his chapter Roseberry reminds us about the complexity of the relationship between consent and coercion, which is a continual process. To frame opposition groups as dominant and dominated is rather simplistic. The multiple layers of hegemonic relationships (based on race, ethnicity, class, gender, power, position, wealth, language, religion, culture, et cetera) existing within such groups prevent such an easy divide. A dominant group in one region or particular context may have little influence or power over a subjugated group outside of its locality and sphere of influence and vice versa. We must also consider that power is not absolute—it is in constant flux, negotiated and renegotiated over time and changing contexts. Therefore, we must remember that the web of consent and coercion is woven tightly with a number of threads that must be taken into account. 11. Vinayak Chaturvedi, “Histories of  Politics After Political History: Reflections from South Asian Historiography,” Perspectives on History: The Newsmagazine of the American Historical Association (May 2011); Steven Pincus and William Novak, “Political History After the Cultural Turn,” Perspectives on History: The Newsmagazine of the American Historical Association (May 2011). 12. Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); Pierre Rosanvallon, “Toward a Philosophical History of the Political,” in Samuel Moyn, ed., Democracy: Past and Future (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 36; Pincus and Novak, “Political History After the Cultural Turn.” 13. Steven Fielding, “Looking for the ‘New Political History,’ ” Journal of Contemporary History 42, no. 3 ( July 2007): 515–24. 14. Roseberry, “Hegemony and the Language of Contention,” 355–66. 15. Pincus and Novak, “Political History After the Cultural Turn.” 16. Elisa Servín, La oposición política: Otra cara del siglo XX mexicano (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2007); Elisa Servín, Leticia Reina, and John Tutino, eds., Cycles of Conflict, Centuries of Change: Crisis, Reform, and

198  Notes to Pages 8–9

Revolution in Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007); Paul Gil­ lingham and Benjamin Smith, eds., Dictablanda: Politics, Work, and Culture in Mexico, 1938–1968 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014). 17. Robert Aitken et al., eds., Dismantling the Mexican State? (New York: St. Mar­ tin’s Press, 1996); Servín, La oposición política. 18. Sergio Aguayo Quezada, La Charola: Una historia de los servicios de inteligencia en México (Mexico City: Editorial Grijalbo, 2001); Aaron W. Navarro, Political Intelligence and the Creation of Modern Mexico, 1938–1954 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010); Fernando Herrera Calderón and Adela Cedillo, eds., Challenging Authoritarianism in Mexico: Revolutionary Struggles and the Dirty War, 1964–1982 (New York: Routledge, 2012). 19. Roderick Ai Camp, Generals in the Palacio: The Military in Modern Mexico (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Thomas Rath, Myths of  Demilitar­ ization in Postrevolutionary Mexico, 1920–1960 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013); Tanalís Padilla, Rural Resistance in the Land of Zapata: The Jaramillista Movement and the Myth of the Pax-Priista, 1940–1962 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008); Alexander Aviña, Specters of Revolution: Peasant Guerrillas in the Cold War Mexican Countryside (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); Rankin, Mexico, La Patria; Benjamin Smith, Pistoleros and Popular Movements: The Politics of State Formation in Postrevolutionary Oaxaca (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009); Paul Gillingham, Cuauhtémoc’s Bones: Forging National Identity in Modern Mexico (Albuquerque: University of  New Mexico Press, 2011). 20. Alan Knight, “Cardenismo: Juggernaut or Jalopy?,” Journal of Latin American Studies 26, no. 1 (February 1994): 73–107; Jürgen Buchenau, Plutarco Elías Calles and the Mexican Revolution (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006); Mary Kay Vaughan, Cultural Politics in Revolution: Teachers, Peasants, and Schools in Mexico, 1930–1940 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997); Adrian Bantjes, As if  Jesus Walked on Earth: Cardenismo, Sonora, and the Mexican Revolution (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1998); Stephen Lewis, The Ambivalent Revolution: Forging State and Nation in Chiapas, 1910–1945 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005); Douglas Richmond and Sam Haynes, eds., The Mexican Revolution: Conflict and Consolidation, 1910–1940 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2013). 21. Padilla, Rural Resistance in the Land of  Zapata; Louise Walker, Waking  from the Dream: Mexico’s Middle Classes After 1968 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University

Notes to Pages 9–16  199

Press, 2013); Jaime Pensado, Rebel Mexico: Student Unrest and Authoritarian Political Culture During the Long Sixties (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013); Robert Alegre, Railroad Radicals in Cold War Mexico: Gender, Class, and Memory (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014); Alexander Aviña, Specters of  Revolution. 22. Jeffrey Rubin, Decentering the Regime: Ethnicity, Radicalism, and Democracy in Juchitán, Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University, 1997); Knight, “Cardenismo: Juggernaut or Jalopy?” 23. Roseberry, “Hegemony and the Language of Contention,” 360. 24. Ibid., 360–61; Rubin, Decentering the Regime. 25. Jean L. Cohen and Andrew Arato, eds., Civil Society and Political Theory (Cam­­ bridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992). 26. Carlos Monsiváis, Entrada libre: Crónica de la sociedad que se organiza (Mex­­ ico City: Biblioteca Era, 1987), 78; Linda Egan, Carlos Monsiváis: Culture and Chronicle in Contemporary Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001). 27. Elena Poniatowska, Nada, nadie: Las voces del temblor (Mexico City: Ediciones Era, 2006). 28. “Martínez Cobo Study,” United Nations, Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, accessed July 22, 2013, http://undesadspd.org / IndigenousPeoples / Library Documents/Mart%C3%ADnezCoboStudy.aspx. 29. “Martínez Cobo Study, Part 3, Chapters 21–22: Conclusions, Proposals, and Recommendations,” United Nations, Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, accessed July 22, 2013, http://undesadspd.org / IndigenousPeoples / Library Documents/Mart%C3%ADnezCoboStudy.aspx. 30. Sergio Sarmiento Silva, “El Consejo Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas y la po­ lítica indigenista,” Revista Mexicana de Sociología 47, no. 3 ( July–September 1985): 197–215. 31. “The Belfast Project, Boston College, and a Sealed Subpoena,” http://boston collegesubpoena.wordpress.com.

Chapter 1 1. Samuel Schmidt, El deterioro del presidencialismo mexicano: Los años de Luis Eche­ verría (Mexico City: EDAMEX, 1986); Alan Knight, “Cárdenas and Echeverría: Two ‘Populist’ Presidents Compared,” in Amelia Kiddle and María L. O.

200  Notes to Pages 17–19

Muñoz, eds., Populism in Twentieth Century Mexico: The Presidencies of Lázaro Cárdenas and Luis Echeverría (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2010), 15–37. 2. Gilbert Joseph and Dan Nugent, eds., Everyday Forms of State Formation: Rev­ olution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994). 3. Jan Rus, “The ‘Comunidad Revolucionaria Institucional’: The Subversion of Native Government in Highland Chiapas, 1936–1968,” in Joseph and Nugent, Everyday Forms of State Formation, 265–300; Romana Falcón, “Force and the Search for Consent: The Role of the  Jefaturas Políticas of  Coahuila in National State Formation,” in Joseph and Nugent, Everyday Forms of State Formation, 107–34; Florencia E. Mallon, “Reflections of the Ruins: Everyday Forms of  State Formation in Nineteenth-Century Mexico,” in Joseph and Nugent, Everyday Forms of State Formation, 69–106; Elsie Rockwell, “Schools of the Revolution: Enacting and Contesting State Forms in Tlaxcala, 1910–1930,” in Joseph and Nugent, Everyday Forms of State Formation, 170–208. 4. E. P.  Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Vintage, 1966). 5. James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985); James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999); Derek Sayer, “Everyday Forms of State Formation: Some Dissident Remarks on ‘Hegemony,’ ” in Joseph and Nugent, Everyday Forms of State Formation, 367–77. 6. Parts of this section on populism appear in the introduction to Kiddle and Muñoz, Populism in Twentieth Century Mexico; Gino Germani, Política y sociedad en una época de transición: De la sociedad tradicional a la sociedad de masas (Buenos Aires: Editorial Paidós, 1968). 7. Torcuato Di Tella, “Populismo y reforma en América Latina,” Desarrollo Eco­­ nómico 4, no. 16 (April–June 1965): 391–425. 8. Ernesto Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism-FascismPopulism (London: Lowe and Brydone Printers, 1977). 9. Mariano Ben Plotkin, Mañana es San Perón: A Cultural History of Perón’s Argentina (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2003). 10. Joel Horowitz, “Populism and Its Legacies in Argentina,” in Michael L. Conniff, Populism in Latin America (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1999), 22–42.

Notes to Pages 19–21  201

11. Daniel James, Doña Maria’s Story: Life History, Memory, and Political Identity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001). 12. Michael Conniff, “Brazil’s Populist Republic and Beyond,” in Conniff, Populism in Latin America, 43–62; Robert M. Levine, Father of the Poor? Vargas and His Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 13. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, “Foreword: Populist and Popular,” in Kiddle and Muñoz, Populism in Twentieth Century Mexico, vii–x. 14. Diane E. Nelson, “Policing and Populism in the Cárdenas and Echeverría Administrations,” in Kiddle and Muñoz, Populism in Twentieth Century Mexico, 135–58; Michael Snodgrass, “How Can We Speak of Democracy in Mexico? Workers and Organized Labor in the Cárdenas and Echeverría Years,” in Kiddle and Muñoz, Populism in Twentieth Century Mexico, 159–89. 15. New York Times, August 17, 1937; New York Times, May 29, 1938; Chicago Daily Tribune, June 13, 1939. 16. Guy  Thomson and David LaFrance, Patriotism, Politics, and Popular Liberalism in Nineteenth-Century Mexico: Juan Francisco Lucas and the Puebla Sierra (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1999); John Tutino, From Insurrection to Revolution in Mexico: Social Bases of Agrarian Violence, 1750–1940 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986); Leticia Reina, Las rebeliones campesinas en México, 1819–1906 (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno, 1980); Peter Guardino, Peasants, Politics and the Formation of Mexico’s National State: Guerrero, 1800– 1857 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996); Alistair Hennessy, “Latin America,” in Ghįta Ionescu and Ernest Gellner, eds., Populism: Its Meanings and National Characteristics (New York: MacMillan, 1969); Partido Nacional Revolucionario, Plan Sexenal (Mexico City: Partido Nacional Revolucionario, 1934); Jorge Basurto, “Populismo y movilización de masas en México durante el régimen cardenista,” Revista Mexicana de Sociología 3, no. 4, Memorias del IX Congreso Latinoamericano de Sociología (October–December 1969): 853–92. 17. Di  Tella, “Populismo y reforma en América Latina,” 403, 420; Lorenzo Meyer, “El presidencialismo: Del populismo al neoliberalismo,” Revista Mexicana de Sociología 55, no. 2 (April–June 1993): 57–81. 18. Jorge Basurto, “Populism in Mexico: From Cárdenas to Cuauhtémoc,” in Con­­ niff, Populism in Latin America, 75–96. 19. Alan Knight, “Populism and Neo-Populism in Latin America, Especially Mex­­ ico,” Journal of Latin American Studies 30, no. 2 (May 1998): 223–48; Aníbal Viguera, “ ‘Populismo’ y ‘neopopulismo’ en América Latina,” Revista Mexicana de Sociología 55, no. 3 ( July–September 1993): 49–66.

202  Notes to Pages 21–22

20. Alan Knight, “Cárdenas and Echeverría.” 21. Plotkin, Mañana es San Perón. 22. John J. Johnson, Political Change in Latin America: The Emergence of the Middle Sectors (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1965); Soledad Loaeza, Clases medias y política en México: La querella escolar, 1959–1963 (Mexico City: Colegio de México, 1988); David S. Parker and Louise E. Walker, eds., Latin America’s Middle Class: Unsettled Debates and New Histories (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2012); Louise E. Walker, Waking  from the Dream: Mexico’s Middle Classes After 1968 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013). 23. Sergio Aguayo Quezada, La Charola: Una historia de los servicios de intelligencia en México (Mexico City: Editorial Grijalbo, 2001); Salvador Román Román, Revuelta civica en Guerrero, 1957–1960 (Mexico City: INERHM, 2003); Ve­ rónica Oikión Solano and Marta Eugenia García Ugarte, Movimientos armados en México, siglo XX (Morelia: Colegio de Michoacán, CIESAS, 2003); Laura Castellano, México Armado, 1943–1981 (Mexico City: Ediciones Era, 2007); O’Neill Blacker, “Cold War in the Countryside: Conflict in Guerrero, Mexico,” The Americas 66, no. 2 (2009): 181–210; Alexander Aviña, Specters of Revolution: Peasant Guerrillas in the Cold War Mexican Countryside (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 24. Enrique Krauze, Mexico: A Biography of Power; A History of Modern Mexico, 1810–1996 (New York: Harper Collins, 1997), 733; Tanalís Padilla, Rural Resistance in the Land of Zapata: The Jaramillista Movement and the Myth of the Pax-Priista, 1940–1962 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008). 25. Poniatowska, Nada, nadie, 210; Mexican citizens as well as government offi­ cials still have not fully reconciled the traumas surrounding the events of 1968. President Vicente Fox attempted to do so by appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the events surrounding the Tlatelolco student massacre and over­­ see the declassification of thousands of official government documents pertaining to it. Yet the actual number of the disappeared and killed that night, as well as which individuals are to be held accountable, remains unresolved. In late 2003 a warrant for the arrest of former DFS director Miguel Nazar Haro (1978–82) was issued, and he stood trial for the disappearance of a September 23 League member, Jesús Piedra Ibarra, for which he was acquitted; Washington Post, February 19, 2004. In 2006 Echeverría was to stand trial in Mexican court on charges of crimes against humanity and genocide, but in 2007 a federal judge deemed there was insufficient evidence for him to stand trial for genocide; New York Times, July 13, 2007.

Notes to Pages 22–26  203

26. Carlos Sierra, Luis Echeverría: Raíz y dinámica de su pensamiento (Mexico City: Editorial Tenoch, 1969), 10–15. 27. Ibid., 23–25. 28. Ibid., 25; Mario Colin, Una semblanza de Luis Echeverría (Mexico City: Editorial Tenoch, 1969), 21; Schmidt, El deterioro del presidencialismo mexicano, 5. 29. Elena Poniatowska, La noche de Tlatelolco: Testimonios de historia oral (Mexico City: Ediciones Era, 1991). 30. El Excelsior (Mexico City), November 17, 1969. 31. Enrique Galván Ochoa, El estilo de Echeverria (Mexico City: Costa-Amic, 1975), 55–57, 89–90; Samuel Schmidt, The Deterioration of the Mexican Presidency: The Years of Luis Echeverría, trans. Dan A. Cothran (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991); Knight, “Cárdenas and Echeverría,” 15–37. 32. Schmidt, The Deterioration of the Mexican Presidency, 88–89; Yoram Shapira, “Mexico: The Impact of the 1968 Student Protest on Echeverría’s Reformism,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 19, no. 4 (November 1977): 568. 33. Roderick Ai Camp, Mexico’s Leaders: Their Education and Recruitment ( Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1980), 208. 34. El Universal (Mexico City), June 11, 1971. 35. Aguayo Quezada, La Charola, 139; Shapira, “Mexico,” 569; Fernando Herrera Cal­­derón and Adela Cedillo, eds., Challenging Authoritarianism in Mexico: Revo­­ lu­tionary Struggles and the Dirty War, 1964–1982 (New York: Routledge, 2012). 36. Report by Luis de la Barreda Moreno, Department of Federal Security Director, Mexico City, March 14, 1975, Archivo General de la Nación/Ramo de Gobernación, Investigaciones Políticas y Sociales, Soporte 1940A (hereafter cited as AGN/SEGOB-IPS). 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid.; El Excelsior (Mexico City), March 15, 1975. 39. Dan Hofstadter, Mexico, 1946–1973 (New York: Facts on File, 1974), 136–37. 40. Hodges and Gandy, Mexico Under Siege: Popular Resistance to Presidential Despotism (New York: Zed Books, 2002), 107. 41. Department of  Federal Security Report, Mexico City, January 26, 1972, AGN/ SEGOB-IPS, Soporte 2490; Hofstadter, Mexico, 1946–1973, 147; Schmidt, The Deterioration of the Mexican Presidency, 84; Blacker, “Cold War in the Countryside.” 42. Department of Federal Security Report, Mexico City, December 2, 1974, AGN/SEGOB-IPS, Soporte 2744.

204  Notes to Pages 27–29

43. Alexander Aviña, “Insurgent Guerrero: Genaro Vázquez, Lucio Cabañas, and the Guerrilla Challenge to the Postrevolutionary Mexican State, 1960–1996” (PhD diss., University of Southern California, 2009). 44. AGN/SEGOB-IPS, 1970–1976. 45. Aguayo Quezada, La Charola, 125; AGN/SEGOB-IPS, Soporte 2744; AGN/ SEGOB-IPS, Soporte 2703. 46. Aguayo Quezada, La Charola, 92, 185; for analysis of different methods of spying and special operations by Mexico’s two top spy agencies, the Department of Federal Security and the Secretariat of the Interior’s Social and Political Investigations Unit, see the special edition of the Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research 19, no. 1 (2013) edited by Tanalís Padilla and Louise Walker. 47. Schmidt, The Deterioration of the Mexican Presidency, 87; Shapira, “Mexico,” 567; Hodges and Gandy, Mexico Under Siege, 88, 147, 150–53; Adela Cedillo, “Armed Struggle Without Revolution: The Organizing Process of the National Lib­ eration Forces (FLN) and the Genesis of  Neo-Zapatism (1969–1983),” in Herrera Calderón and Cedillo, Challenging Authoritarianism in Mexico, 148–66. 48. Marguerite Feitlowitz, A Lexicon of  Terror: Argentina and the Legacies of  Torture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 49. Aguayo Quezada, La Charola, 189. 50. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1951). 51. Jeffrey W. Rubin, Decentering the Regime: Ethnicity, Radicalism, and Democracy in Juchitán, Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997); Padilla, Rural Resistance in the Land of Zapata; Gabriela Soto Laveaga, “Angry Doctors and a Sick State: Physicians’ Strikes and Public Health in Mexico” (unpublished manuscript); Benjamin Smith, Pistoleros and Popular Movements: The Politics of State Formation in Postrevolutionary Oaxaca (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009); Paul Gillingham, Cuauhtémoc’s Bones: Forging National Identity in Modern Mexico (Albuquerque: University of  New Mexico Press, 2011); Aviña, Specters of Revolution. 52. Such congresses included the Second National Extraordinary Congress of the General Union of  Mexican Workers and Peasants,  June 1974, AGN/SEGOBIPS, Soporte 2703, and the First Ordinary State of the Student Congress, 1975, AGN/SEGOB-IPS, Soporte 1940. 53. For further insight on the relationship between workers and Luis Echeverría, see Kevin Middlebrook, The Paradox of Revolution: Labor, the State, and Authoritarianism in Mexico (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995);

Notes to Pages 30–33  205

Kenneth Coleman and Charles L. Davis, “Preemptive Reform and the Mexican Working Class,” Latin American Research Review 18, no. 1 (1983): 23. 54. Middlebrook, The Paradox of Revolution, 160, 171; Schmidt, The Deterioration of the Mexican Presidency, 81. 55. Padilla, Rural Resistance in the Land of Zapata. 56. Hodges and Gandy, Mexico Under Siege, 173. 57. La Prensa (Mexico City), November 24, 1975. 58. “Estado de Chiapas, información de Tenejapa, septiembre 19, 1970” (report), AGN/SEGOB-IPS, Caja 1544B, FS 267, Exp. 5; El Excelsior (Mexico City), September 12, 1973, AGN/SEGOB-IPS, Caja 1544B, FS 267, Exp. 5; Ultimas Noticias (Mexico City), November 5, 1973, AGN/SEGOB-IPS, Caja 1544B, FS 267, Exp. 5; El Día (Mexico City),  July 12, 1974, AGN/SEGOB-IPS, Caja 1544B, FS 267, Exp. 5. 59. Schmidt, The Deterioration of the Mexican Presidency, 75–76; Aviña, Specters of Revolution. 60. Schmidt, The Deterioration of the Mexican Presidency, 46–50. 61. Carlos Bazdresch and Santiago Levy, “Populism and Economic Policy in Mexico, 1970–1982,” in Rudiger Dornbusch and Sebastian Edwards, eds., The Macroeconomics of Populism in Latin America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 223–61. 62. Archivo General de la Nación /Ramo Presidentes/Luis Echeverría Alvarez, Box 392, Projects 1976 (hereafter cited as AGN/LEA). 63. “Projects to Be Inaugurated in 1976,” AGN/LEA, Box 392. 64. Schmidt, The Deterioration of the Mexican Presidency, 46–50; Trading Economics, accessed July 15, 2013, http://www.tradingeconomics.com/mexico/gdp. 65. Trading Economics, accessed July 15, 2013, http://www.tradingeconomics.com /mexico/gdp. 66. While Echeverría left office in 1976 and his successor, José López Portillo, is often singled out as the source of economic pilfering, financial miscalculations, and widespread government corruption, Echeverría’s liberal spending set the trend for López Portillo, who then took that spending a bit too far and most likely into personal pockets; El País (Madrid),  July 5, 1983, accessed  July 3, 2013, http://elpais.com/diario/1983/07/05/economia /426204009_850215.html; El País (Madrid), December 9, 1983, accessed  July 3, 2013, http://elpais.com/diario/1983 /12/09/economia/439772410_850215.html. 67. Luis Echeverría, “Problems of Developing Countries,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 32, no. 4 (October 1973): 419–20.

206  Notes to Pages 33–38

68. A. W. Singham and Tran Van Dinh, eds., From Bandung to Colombo: Conferences of the Non-aligned Countries, 1955–1975 (New York: Third Press Review Books, 1976), 15–17; Robert  J. C. Young, Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001), 192; Conference of Heads of State of Government of Non-aligned Countries, Belgrade, September 1–6, 1961 (Belgrade: Publicističko-Izdavački Zavod Jugoslavija, 1961). 69. Hofstadter, Mexico, 1946–1973, 153. 70. Luis Echeverría, “The Struggle Against Colonialism,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 33, no. 1 ( January 1974): 64; El Excelsior (Mexico City), December 13, 1974; Schmidt, The Deterioration of the Mexican Presidency, 123–24. 71. El Excelsior (Mexico City), October 8, 1975; Arif Dirlik, The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global Capitalism (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), 237. 72. El Excelsior (Mexico City), September 27, 1976; Schmidt, The Deterioration of the Mexican Presidency, 127. 73. Schmidt, The Deterioration of the Mexican Presidency, 128. 74. BBC News, June 30, 2006, accessed November 23, 2012, http://news.bbc.co .uk/2/hi/americas/5135378.stm; Washington Post, July 1, 2006, accessed Novem­­ ber  23, 2012, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006 /06/30/AR2006063001562.html; La Jornada, March 27, 2009, accessed November 23, 2012, http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/03/27/politica/017n1pol.

Chapter 2 1. El Día (Mexico City), November 8, 1976; Instituto Nacional Indigenista, “Los indígenas de México expresan su gratitud al señor Presidente Echeverría,” Acción Indigenista, no. 281 (November 1976). 2. Vicente Paulino López Velasco, Y surgió la unión . . . Génesis y desarrollo del Consejo Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas (Mexico City: Centro de Estudios His­ tóricos del Agrarismo en México, Editorial Hersa, 1989), 109. 3. “Show of Gratitude,” López Velasco in Y surgió la unión, 110. 4. Martin Stabb, “Indigenism and Racism in Mexican Thought, 1857–1911,” Journal of Inter-American Studies 1, no. 4 (October 1959), 405–23. 5. Alexander Dawson, “From Models for the Nation to Model Citizens: Indigenismo and the ‘Revindication’ of the Mexican Indian, 1920–40,” Journal of Latin American Studies 30, no. 2 (May 1998): 291.

Notes to Pages 38–41  207

6. Leopoldo Zea, Positivism in Mexico (Austin: University of  Texas Press, 1974). 7. Andrés Molina Enríquez, Los grandes problemas nacionales (Mexico City: A. Carranza, 1909). 8. For a discussion on the construction, adoption, and shaping of campesino identity, see Christopher Boyer, Becoming Campesinos: Politics, Identity, and Agrarian Struggle in Postrevolutionary Michoacán, 1920–1935 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003) and Alan Knight, “Peasants into Patriots: Thoughts on the Making of the Mexican Nation,” Mexican Studies / Estudios Mexicanos  10, no. 1 (Winter, 1994): 135–61. 9. Alan Knight, “Racism, Revolution, and Indigenismo: Mexico, 1910–1940,” in Richard Graham, ed., The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870–1940 (Austin: University of  Texas Press, 1990), 77. 10. See Guillermo Palacios, “The Social Sciences, Revolutionary Nationalism, and Inter-academic Relations: Mexico and the United States, 1930–1940,” in Amelia Kiddle and María L. O. Muñoz, eds., Populism in Twentieth Century Mexico: The Presidencies of Lázaro Cárdenas and Luis Echeverría (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2010), 93. 11. Manuel Gamio, Forjando patria (pro nacionalismo) (Mexico City: Libreria de Porrua Hermanos, 1916), 23; Luis Villorio, Los grandes momentos del indigenismo en México (Mexico City: Colegio de México, 1950), 194. 12. José Vasconcelos, La Raza Cósmica: Misión de la raza iberoamericana (Madrid: Aguilar, S. A. de C. V. Ediciones, 1966), 30–32; Alan Knight, “Racism, Revolution, and Indigenismo,” 77; Néstor García Canclini, Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005). 13. María del Carmen Carmona Lara, “La Política Indigenista en México,” Cua­ dernos del Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas 3, no. 7 ( January–April 1988): 39–43. 14. Angélica Murillo-Garza et al., “Moisés Sáenz Garza, Transformador de la Realidad Educativa en México,” Revista Iberoamericana de Ciencias 1, no. 4 (September 2014): 29–44. 15. Alexander Dawson, “ ‘Wild Indians,’ ‘Mexican Gentlemen,’ and the Lessons Learned in the Casa del Estudiante Indígena, 1926–1932,” The Americas 57, no. 3 ( January 2001): 329–61. 16. Dawson, “ ‘Wild Indians,’ ‘Mexican Gentlemen,’ ” 353; for a look into one of Sáenz’s indigenista experimental education projects see Moisés Sáenz, Carapan (Mexico City: Organización de Estados Americanos y Centro de Cooperación

208  Notes to Pages 41–43

Regional para la Educación de Adultos en América Latina y el Caribe, 1992); Philippe Schaffhauser Mizzi, “El proyecto Carapan de Moisés Sáenz: Una experiencia educativa entre indigenismo y desarrollo rural,” IndependenciasDependencias-Interdependencias VI Congreso CEISAL 2010, Toulouse, France, June 2010, accessed July 16, 2015, https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr /halshs-00504050/document. 17. Boyer, Becoming Campesinos. 18. Héctor Díaz-Polanco, “Indigenismo, Populism, and Marxism,” trans. Stephen M. Gorman, Latin American Perspectives 9, no. 2, Minorities in the Americas (Spring 1982): 46. 19. Natividad Gutiérrez, Nationalist Myths and Ethnic Identities: Indigenous Intellectuals and the Mexican State (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999): 137–42. 20. Marjorie Becker, Setting the Virgin on Fire: Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán Peasants, and the Redemption of the Mexican Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 155–62; Luis González, San José de Gracia: Mexican Village in Transition (Austin: University of  Texas Press, 1998); Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán, Regions of  Refuge (Washington, DC: Society for Applied Anthropology, 1979). 21. Departamento de Asuntos Indígenas, Memoria del Departamento de Asuntos Indígenas en el periodo 1945–1946 y sintesis de su labor en el sexenio 1940–1946 (Mex­ico City: Departamento de Asuntos Indígenas, 1946). 22. Alexander Dawson, Indian and Nation in Revolutionary Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2004), 96–126. 23. Consejo Supremo Tarahumara, Aspecto organizativo del Primer Congreso Tarahumara celebrado en Guachochi en 1939 (Guachochi, Chih., 1974); Departamento de Asuntos Indígenas, Memoria del Segundo Congreso Regional Indígena Tarascos (Mexico City: DAPP, 1938). 24. For a nuanced discussion of the roles of caciques and the reach and limitations of their political, economic, and social power, see Will Pansters and Alan Knight, eds., Caciquismo in Twentieth-Century Mexico (Chapel Hill, NC: Institute for the Study of the Americas, 2006). 25. Dawson, Indian and Nation in Revolutionary Mexico, 97–98. 26. Ibid.; Consejo Supremo Tarahumara, Aspecto organizativo del Primer Congreso Tarahumara. 27. Guatemala is an interesting case because then-president /dictator Jorge Ubico sent a delegation, an act that functioned more as a symbolic gesture than as

Notes to Pages 43–45  209

an active policy formation to improve social and economic opportunities for indigenous Guatemalans. It was not until 1945, under the fourth constitution, that the plight of indigenous peoples was addressed and attempts to implement projects discussed at the Interamerican Indigenist Congress were carried out; David E. Wilkins, “Guatemalan Political History: National Indian Policy, 1532–1954,” Wicazo Sa Review 9, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 17–31. 28. “Los Indígenas, Factor del Progreso,” speech given by Lázaro Cárdenas at the First Interamerican Indigenist Conference in 1940, Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social–Golfo, Papeles Privados de Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán (hereafter cited as CIESAS-Golfo/GAB). 29. Laura Giraudo, “Neither ‘Scientific’ nor ‘Colonialist’: The Ambiguous Course of  Inter-American Indigenismo in the 1940s,” Latin American Perspectives 39, no. 5 (2012): 1–21. 30. Departamento de Asuntos Indígenas, Síntesis de su labor en el sexenio 1940– 1946 (Mexico City: Departamento de Asuntos Indígenas, 1946). 31. Cecilia Greaves L., “Entre el discurso y la acción: Una polémica en torno al Departamento de Asuntos Indígenas,” in Yael Bitrán, ed., México: Historia y alteridad, perspectivas multidisciplinarias sobre la cuestión indígena (Mexico City: Universidad Iberoamericana, 2001), 247–48. 32. As a result, Alemán assigned educational affairs and policies to the Secretariat of  Public Education’s General Department of Indigenous Affairs; see Greaves, “Entre el discurso y la acción,” 260–62. 33. The 1940 census had the indigenous population comprising 20–25 percent of the national population (19.7 million), roughly 3 million people, so by the late 1940s it is reasonable to estimate the indigenous population at four million; see Anne Doremus, “Indigenism, Mestizaje, and National Identity in Mexico During the 1940s and the 1950s,” Mexican Studies / Estudios Mexicanos 17, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 376. 34. Greaves, “Entre el discurso y la acción,” 263; Instituto Nacional Indigenista, México indígena: INI 30 años despues (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1978), 359–60. 35. Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Seis años de acción (1970–1976) (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1977), 30–31. 36. Instituto Nacional Indigenista, ¿Qué es el INI? (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1955), 27–38; Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Seis años de acción, 32. 37. Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Realidad y proyectos: 16 años de trabajo (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1964), 16.

210  Notes to Pages 45–48

38. Instituto Nacional Indigenista, El indigenismo en acción: XXV aniversario del Centro Coordinador Indigenista Tzeltal-Tzotzil, Chiapas (Mexico City: Instituto  Na­­cional Indigenista y Secretaría de Educación Pública, 1976); Stephen Lewis, “ ‘Indigenista’ Dreams Meet Sober Realities: The Slow Demise of Federal Indian Policy in Chiapas, Mexico, 1951–1970,” Latin American Perspectives 39, no. 5 (2012): 63–79. 39. Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Los Centros Coordinadores (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1962); Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán, Regiones de refugio: El desarrollo de la comunidad y el proceso dominical en Mestizoamerica (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1973). 40. Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Seis años de acción, 49. 41. Ibid., 41–42. 42. Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Los Centros Coordinadores; El Nacional (Mexico City), August 12, 1972, AGN/SEGOB-IPS, Caja 1544B, FS 267, Exp. 5. 43. Lewis, “ ‘Indigenista’ Dreams Meet Sober Realities.” 44. Lourdes Arizpe, Indígenas en la Ciudad de México: El caso de las ‘Marias’ (Mexico City: SepSetentas Diana, 1979), 26–28. 45. Arizpe, Indígenas en la Ciudad de México, 23–25; Arizpe also explains that the popular film and television character of the 1970s known as “La India María” was molded after this group of women. La India María’s films reflected social issues that indigenous peoples faced in both urban and rural settings. The comedic films satirized the daily trials of indigenous peoples as her character was discriminated against. She often played a maid in upper-class homes whose life, although filled with difficulties, demonstrated that she was a hardworking woman. 46. Arizpe, Indígenas en la Ciudad de México, 143–45. 47. El Heraldo de México (Mexico City), July 11, 1973; El Universal (Mexico City), July 19, 1973; El Excelsior (Mexico City), August 8, 1973, and September 12, 1973; all in AGN/SEGOB-IPS, Caja 1544B, FS 267, Exp. 5. 48. Enrique Krauze, Mexico: A Biography of Power; A History of Modern Mexico, 1810–1996 (New York: Harper Collins, 1997); Jonathan Kandell, La Capital: The Biography of Mexico City (New York: Henry Holt, 1988), 530. 49. La Prensa (Mexico City), July 7, 1973, AGN/SEGOB-IPS, Caja 1544B, FS 267, Exp. 5. 50. For further reading on this group, see Claudio Lomnitz, Deep Mexico, Silent Mexico: An Anthropology of Nationalism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 228–62.

Notes to Pages 48–52  21 1

51. Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Seis años de acción, 150; Dirección General de Estadística, IX Censo General de Población: 1970, January 28, 1970; Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática, Estados Unidos Mexicanos: Cien años de Censos de Población (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática, 1996), 43–48, accessed July 23, 2013, http://www.inegi .org.mx /prod_serv/contenidos/espanol/bvinegi/productos/integracion/pais /historicas2/cienanos/EUMCIENI.pdf. 52. Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Seis años de acción, 33–34, 101. 53. El Nacional (Mexico City), August 12, 1972; El Excelsior (Mexico City), September 12, 1973; both in AGN/SEGOB-IPS, Caja 1544B, FS 267, Exp. 5. 54. Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Seis años de acción, 44, 47. 55. Ibid., 122–24. 56. El Excelsior (Mexico City), September 12, 1973, AGN/SEGOB-IPS, Caja 1544B, FS 267, Exp. 5. 57. Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Seis años de acción, 150. 58. El Universal (Mexico City), March 19, 1973, AGN/SEGOB-IPS, Caja 1544B, FS 267, Exp. 5. 59. Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Seis años de acción, 63. 60. Ibid., Seis años de acción, 66, 74. 61. El Excelsior (Mexico City), April 1, 1974, AGN/SEGOB-IPS, Caja 1544B, FS 267, Exp. 5. 62. In early 1974 the number of available scholarships for indigenous students reached 15,000; see Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Seis años de acción, 14, 103, 106–9; El Heraldo de México (Mexico City), January 2, 1974, AGN/SEGOBIPS, Caja 1544B, FS 267, Exp. 5. 63. Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Seis años de acción, 112. 64. El Heraldo de México (Mexico City), June 21, 1973; El Excelsior (Mexico City), August 8, 1973; both in AGN/SEGOB-IPS, Caja 1544B, FS 267, Exp. 5. 65. Ultimas Noticias (Mexico City), November 5, 1973, AGN/SEGOB-IPS, Caja 1544B, FS 267, Exp. 5. 66. Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Seis años de acción, 157. 67. Ibid., 157–60. 68. Ibid., 82–86. 69. Ibid., 93. 70. Carlos García Mora, “Los Proyectos Tarascos: Implicaciones Actuales,” Diario de campo: Boletín interno de los investigadores del área de antropología, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City, no. 95 (November–December,

21 2  Notes to Pages 52–59

2008): 100–15; Tania Avalos Placencia, “El Proyecto Tarasco: Alfabetización indígena y política del lenguaje en la Meseta Purhépecha, 1939–1960,” BA thesis, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás Hidalgo, 2006. 71. Report from the President’s Secretary, Lic. Everardo Moreno Cruz, to Lic. Alfonso Manzanilla González, December 6, 1973, Archivo General de la Nación, Ramo Presidentes, Luis Echeverría Álvarez, Caja 520, c. 3, Exp. 766/135–1 (hereafter cited as AGN/LEA). 72. Report from the President’s Secretary, Lic. Everardo Moreno Cruz, to Ing. Fernando Hiriart, PIDER Director, November 8, 1974, AGN/LEA, Caja 520, c. 3, Exp.766/135–1. 73. Report from the President’s Secretary, Lic. Everardo Moreno Cruz, to Ing. Fernando Hiriart, PIDER Director, June 4, 1974, AGN/LEA, Caja 520, c. 3, Exp. 766/135–2. 74. Report from Plan Huicot Council President Dr. Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán, November 26, 1974, AGN/LEA, Caja 520 c. 3 Exp. 766/135–1. 75. Ibid. 76. Report from the Centro Coordinador para el Desarrollo de la Región Huicot, 1973, AGN/LEA, Caja 520, c. 3, Exp. 766/135–1. 77. Office of the Director of Public Works for Región Huicot, 1973, AGN/LEA, Caja 520, c. 3, Exp. 766/135–1. 78. Programa de Desarrollo de la Meseta Tarasca, November 9, 1972, AGN/LEA, Caja 479, Exp. 748/19. 79. Patrimonio Indígena del Valle del Mezquital, AGN/LEA, Caja 474, c. 4, Exp. 766/55. 80. López Velasco, Y surgió la unión, 21. 81. Plan Seri, July 10, 1975, AGN/LEA, Caja 520, c. 3, Exp. 766/135–8. 82. Ibid. 83. Plan Seri, “Datos y Resumen Fotográfico de Obras, 1973–1976,” AGN/LEA, Caja 520, c. 3, Exp. 766/135–8. 84. Report from Fernando Córdoba Lobo to Hugo Cervantes del Río, September 24, 1973, AGN/LEA, Caja 520. 85. “Hydraulic Projects to Be Inaugurated in 1976,” AGN/LEA, Caja 392.

Chapter 3 1. The Department of Agrarian Affairs and Colonization (DAAC) existed between 1960 and 1974. It became the Secretariat of Agrarian Reform (Secretaría

Notes to Pages 59–6 4  21 3

2.

3.

4.

5. 6.

7.

8.

9.

de Reforma Agraria, or SRA) in 1975. Secretaría de Desarrollo Agrario, Territorial y Urbano, accessed July 2, 2014, http://www.ran.gob.mx/ran/index.php /conoce-el-ran/historia. Félix Báez-Jorge, “¿Líderes indios o intermediarios indigenistas? Dinamicas internas y externas en el caso mexicano,” Archivo Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social—Distrito Federal, Papeles de Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, Caja 46 (hereafter cited as Archivo CIESAS-DF/ GBB). Jorge Hernández-Díaz, Reclamos de la identidad: La formación de las organiza­ ciones indígenas en Oaxaca (Mexico City: Grupo Editorial Miguel Ángel Porrua, 2001), 28–31. López Velasco, “The Formation of Bilingual Promoters,” in Y surgió la unión . . . Génesis y desarrollo del Consejo Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas (Mexico City: Centro de Estudios Históricos del Agrarismo en México, Editorial Hersa, 1989), 15. López Velasco, “The Formation of  Bilingual Promoters,” 16. Ibid., 15; Secretaría de Educación Pública, ¿Ha fracasado el indigenismo? Repor­ taje de una controversia (13 de septiembre de 1971) (Mexico City: SepSetentas, 1971), 9. Rolena Adorno, Guaman Poma: Writing and Resistance in Colonial Peru (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000); Alida Metcalf, Go-betweens and the Colonization of Brazil: 1500–1600 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006); Yanna Yannakakis, The Art of Being In-between: Native Intermediaries, Indian Identity, and Local Rule in Colonial Oaxaca (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008); Matthew Restall, “Gaspar Antonio Chi: Bridging the Conquest of  Yucatan,” in Kenneth Andrien, ed., The Human Tradition in Colonial Latin America (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2002), 6–21. I use the term go-between in ways similar to how Alida Metcalf and Yanna Yannakakis use it in their work. Although their focus is the colonial context and I examine modern processes, the presence and functions of individuals who served as social, political, and cultural mediators and the tensions involved did not disappear—they simply evolved and changed with time. Ilene O’Malley, The Myth of Revolution: Hero Cults and the Institutionalization of the Mexican State, 1920–1940 (New York: Praeger, 1986); Thomas Benjamin, La Revolución: Mexico’s Great Revolution as Memory, Myth, and History (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000); Paul Gillingham, Cuauhtémoc’s Bones: Forging National Identity in Modern Mexico (Albuquerque: University of  New Mexico Press, 2011).

214  Notes to Pages 6 4–68

10. Mary Kay Vaughan, Cultural Politics in Revolution: Teachers, Peasants, and Schools in Mexico, 1930–1940 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997); Ad­rian Bantjes, As if Jesus Walked on Earth: Cardenismo, Sonora, and the Mexican Revolution (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1998); Engracía Loyo, Gobiernos revolucionarios y educación popular en México, 1911–1928 (Mexico City: Colegio de México, 1999); Stephen Lewis, The Ambivalent Revolution: Forging State and Nation in Chiapas, 1910–1945 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005). 11. Christopher Boyer, Becoming Campesinos: Politics, Identity, and Agrarian Strug­gle in Postrevolutionary Michoacán, 1920–1935 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003); Maria Consuelo Mejía Piñeros and Sergio Sarmiento Silva, eds., La lucha indígena: Un reto a la ortodoxia (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1991), 199. 12. Loyo, Gobiernos revolucionarios y educación popular en México; Alexander Dawson, Indian and Nation in Revolutionary Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2004); Stephen Lewis, The Ambivalent Revolution. 13. Dawson, Indian and Nation in Revolutionary Mexico, xvii–xxi. 14. Mejía and Silva, La lucha indígena, 201. 15. Shirley Brice Heath, La política del lenguaje en México: De la colonia a la nación (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1986). 16. Mejía and Silva, La lucha indígena, 201. 17. Natividad Gutiérrez, Nationalist Myths and Ethnic Identities: Indigenous Intellectuals and the Mexican State (Lincoln: University of  Nebraska Press, 1999), 119. 18. López Velasco, “The Formation of  Bilingual Promoters,” 15. 19. Mejía and Silva, La lucha indígena, 156; Secretaría de Gobernación, “Resolución del Consejo General del Instituto Federal Electoral, sobre la procedencia constitucional y legal de las modificaciones a la declaración de principios, programa de acción y estatutos de la agrupación política nacional Movimiento Nacional Indígena, A. C.,” September 20, 2001, accessed July 15, 2013, http:// www.dof.gob.mx/nota_detalle.php?codigo=720619&fecha=09/09/2002. 20. Diario El Martinense (Tlapacoyan, Ver.), October 9, 2013, accessed Decem­­ ber 17, 2013, http://issuu.com /diariodepozarica_issuu /docs/martinense_09°ct 2013/10. 21. López Velasco, “The Formation of Bilingual Promoters,” 17. 22. Parts of this section on the CST appear in María L. O. Muñoz, “¡De Pie y en Lucha! Indigenous Mobilizations After 1940,” in William Beezley, ed., A Companion to Mexican History and Culture (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell

Notes to Pages 69–71  21 5

Publishers, 2011), 589–603. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Reprinted by permission of  Wiley Blackwell Publishers. 23. Archivo CIESAS-DF/GBB, Caja 56; Salomón Nahmad Sittón, interview with the author, Oaxaca, Mexico, October 2007; Secretaría de Educación Pública, ¿Ha fracasado el indigenismo?, 9; Mercedes Olivera, “Integrationist ‘Indigenismo’ Neo-liberal De-ethnification in Chiapas: Reminiscences,” Latin American Perspectives 39, no. 5 (2012): 100–10; Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, “En torno al resurgimiento étnico en México,” 2, Archivo CIESAS-DF/GBB, Caja 56; “Movilización ideológica de los grupos étnicos de México,” Archivo Salomón Nahmad Sittón (hereafter cited as Archivo SNS). 24. Miguel Merino Rascón, El Consejo Supremo Tarahumara: Organización y resistencia indígena (1939–2005) (Mexico City: Doble Hélice Ediciones, 2007), 18. 25. Dawson, Indian and Nation in Revolutionary Mexico, 97; Departamento de Asuntos Indígenas, Memorias, corresponden a los períodos del 1º de enero al 31 de agosto de 1936 y 1º de septiembre de 1936 al 31 de agosto de 1937 (Mexico City: Departamento de Asuntos Indígenas, 1938); Consejo Supremo Tarahumara, Aspecto organizativo del Primer Congreso Tarahumara celebrado en Guachochi en 1939 (Guachochi, Chih., 1974), 8–13; Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, “Efectos del proceso educativo en los maestros indígenas Tarahumaras: Formación del Con­ sejo Supremo Tarahumara,” Archivo CIESAS-DF/GBB, Caja 63. 26. Bonfil Batalla, “Efectos del proceso educativo en los maestros indígenas Tarahumaras,” Archivo CIESAS-DF/GBB, Caja 63; Dawson, Indian and Nation in Revolutionary Mexico, 123; Juan Luis Sariego Rodríguez, El indigenismo en la Tarahumara: Identidad, comunidad, relaciones interétnicas y desarrollo en la Sierra de Chihuahua (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2002), 168–71; Merino Rascón, El Consejo Supremo Tarahumara, 23. 27. Julia O’Hara, “ ‘The Slayer of Victorio Bears His Honors Quietly’: Tarahu­ maras and the Apache Wars in Nineteenth-Century Mexico,” in Nicola Foote and René D. Harder Horst, eds., Military Struggle and Identity Formation in Latin America: Race, Nation, and Community During the Liberal Period (Gaines­­ ville: University Press of  Florida, 2010), 224–42. 28. Bantjes,  As if Jesus Walked on Earth. 29. Merino Rascón, El Consejo Supremo Tarahumara, 17–18. 30. Consejo Supremo Tarahumara,  Aspecto organizativo del Primer Congreso Tar­ ahumara, 11–13.

216  Notes to Pages 71–75

31. Ibid.; Chihuahua Congress Archive, “XLIV State Congress, 1953–1956,” accessed  June 9, 2014, http://www.congresochihuahua.gob.mx/diputados /diputadosAnteriores.php. 32. Consejo Supremo Tarahumara, Aspecto organizativo del Primer Congreso Tarahumara, 14–15; Sariego Rodríguez, El indigenismo en la tarahumara, 96; Archivo CIESAS-DF/GBB, Caja 63. 33. Consejo Supremo Tarahumara, Aspecto organizativo del Primer Congreso Tarahumara, 16–19; Sariego Rodríguez, El indigenismo en la tarahumara, 187–95. 34. Agustín Romano, “El Centro Coordinador Indigenista de la Tarahumara,” Ar­­ chivo SNS; Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Los Centros Coordinadores (Mexico City, 1962), 69–82; Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Realidad y proyectos: 16 años de trabajo (Mexico City, 1964), 16, 34. 35. Instituto Indigenista Interamericano, “Resumen de la política y la acción del Instituto Nacional Indigenista de México,” Anuario Indigenista 32 (December 1972): 102. 36. Merino Rascón, El Consejo Supremo Tarahumara, 26. 37. Instituto Nacional Indigenista, “Resultado del Primer Congreso Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas,” Acción Indigenista, no. 168 (October 1975): 5; Merino Ras­ cón, El Consejo Supremo Tarahumara, 27. 38. Merino Rascón, El Consejo Supremo Tarahumara, 33. 39. Consejo Supremo Tarahumara, Aspecto organizativo del Primer Congreso Ta­r­ ahumara, 24. 40. Bonfil Batalla, “Efectos del proceso educativo en los maestros indígenas Tar­ ahumaras,” Archivo CIESAS-DF/GBB, Caja 76. 41. López Velasco, “Beginnings of an Organization,” in Y surgió la unión, 18–19. 42. Consejo Supremo Tarahumara,  Aspecto organizativo del Primer Congreso Tarahumara, 23. 43. Ibid., 20; López Velasco, “Beginnings of an Organization,” 18–19. 44. López Velasco, “Beginnings of an Organization,” 19. 45. Enrique Ochoa, Feeding Mexico: The Political Uses of Food Since 1900 (Wil­ mington, DE: Scholarly Sources, 2000). 46. INI report from Salomón Nahmad Sittón to Dr. Víctor Alfonso Maldonado, Director of Presidential Reports and Documentation, Secretariat of the Presidency, National Palace, and Lic. Hugo Cervantes del Río, Secretary of the Office of the Presidency, 11 July 1973, Archivo General de la Nación/Ramo Presidentes /Luis Echeverría Álvarez, vol. 747, Exp. Instituto Nacional Indigenista (hereafter cited as AGN/LEA).

Notes to Pages 75–85  217

47. Merino Rascón, El Consejo Supremo Tarahumara, 36. 48. Andrae M. Marak, “The Failed Assimilation of the Tarahumara in Postrevolutionary Mexico,” Journal of the Southwest 45, no. 3 (Autumn 2003): 411–35. 49. López Velasco, “The Formation of  Bilingual Promoters,” 19. 50. López Velasco, “The Birth of an Organism,” 25 51. López Velasco, “Letter to CNC from CNAPACI,” September 27, 1974, in Y surgió la unión, 172. 52. Nahmad Sittón, interview with the author. 53. Bonfil Batalla, “En torno al resurgimiento étnico en México,” 2. 54. López Velasco, “Mam Regional Congress,” in Y surgió la unión, 40–41. 55. López Velasco, “Mayas del Camino Real Regional Congress,” in Y surgió la unión, 43. 56. “Document Presented by the Maya Supreme Council—Chenes Camino Real,” Archivo SNS. 57. López Velasco, “Maya Regional Congress,” in Y surgió la unión, 44. 58. López Velasco, “Quintana Roo Maya Regional Congress,” in Y surgió la unión, 45–47. 59. López Velasco, “Meeting with the Yaqui,” in Y surgió la unión, 59. 60. López Velasco, “Varogíos Regional Congress,” in Y surgió la unión, 61–62. 61. Graciela Flores Lúa, Luisa Paré, and Sergio Sarmiento, Las voces del campo: Movimiento campesino y política agraria, 1976–1984 (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1988); Lourdes Arizpe, Indígenas en la Ciudad de México: El Caso de las ‘Marias’ (Mexico: SepSetentas Diana, 1979); Consejo Supremo Tarahumara, Aspecto organizativo del Primer Congreso Tarahumara; Merino Rascón, El Consejo Supremo Tarahumara; Bonfil Batalla, “Efectos del proceso educativo en los maestros indígenas Tarahumaras,” Archivo CIESAS-DF/GBB, Caja 76; Sariego Rodríguez, El indigenismo en la tarahumara. 62. López Velasco, “Nahuatl Regional Congress,” in Y surgió la unión, 69. 63. López Velasco, “Totonac Regional Congress,” in Y surgió la unión, 70. 64. “Charges Presented by Juan Simbrón,” Archivo SNS. 65. Gabriela Soto Laveaga, Jungle Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects, and the Making of the Pill (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009). 66. “Invitation to the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples,” Archivo Instituto Interamericano Indigenista (hereafter cited as Archivo III); López Velasco, “First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples,” in Y surgió la unión, 79. Nahua and Nahuatl are descriptive and ethnic terms that refer to Nahuatl speakers in the central region of Mexico. Usually Nahua refers to the ethnic

218  Notes to Pages 85–93

group/identity, while Nahuatl refers to the language spoken by Nahua peoples. In the documents used in this book, both official and unofficial, indigenous and nonindigenous, Nahua and Nahuatl are used interchangeably. I do so as well in the text, as I interpret the deployment of these two terms as part of a political strategy that sought to complicate the politics of ethnic identities. 67. López Velasco, “First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples,” in Y surgió la unión, 81. 68. Ibid., 83. 69. Ibid., 79. 70. “Document of the Reunion Celebrated by Presidents of the National Indigenous Supreme Councils,” Archivo Instituto Nacional Indigenista /Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de Pueblos Indígenas (hereafter cited as Archivo INI-CDI). 71. It is unclear what that “unfavorable” language might be. 72. López Velasco, “First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples,” in Y surgió la unión, 85–86. 73. “Document of the Reunion Celebrated by Presidents of the National Indigenous Supreme Councils,” Archivo INI-CDI. 74. Ibid. 75. Celestino Salcedo Monteón, speech at the First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples, October 10, 1975, Archivo INI-CDI. 76. El Excelsior (Mexico City), October 9, 1975. 77. López Velasco, “First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples,” in Y surgió la unión, 79; El Excelsior (Mexico City), October 9, 1975. 78. López Velasco, “Evaluation of the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples,” in Y surgió la unión, 95.

Chapter 4 1. AGN/SEGOB-IPS, Caja 1544B, Exp. 7. 2. Ibid. 3. Jan Hoffman French, “Mestizaje and Law Making in Indigenous Identity Formation in Northeastern Brazil: ‘After the Conflict Came the History,’ ” American Anthropologist 6, no. 4 (2004): 663–74. 4. Speech by Luis Echeverría, AGN/SEGOB-IPS, Caja 1544B, Exp. 5, FS 267; El Nacional (Mexico City), September 14, 1971.

Notes to Pages 93–96  219

5. I want to make it clear that my book examines this change only in terms of political identity and in relation to the process of indigenous congresses, not the broader process of change in terms of cultural identity. 6. The PRM was reorganized in 1946 as the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). 7. Christopher Boyer, Becoming Campesinos: Politics, Identity, and Agrarian Strug­­ gle in Postrevolutionary Michoacán, 1920–1935 (Stanford, CA: Stanford Univer­­ sity Press, 2003), 155. 8. Boyer dates the formation of the campesino as a political category to the 1920– 1935 period; see Becoming Campesinos. 9. Gabriela Soto Laveaga,  Jungle Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects, and the Making of the Pill (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009). 10. Joseph Cotter, Troubled Harvest: Agronomy and Revolution in Mexico, 1880– 2002 (New York: Praeger Books, 2003). 11. Armando Bartra, “Sobrevivientes,” in Armando Bartra, Elisa Ramírez Castañeda, and Alejandra Moreno Toscano, De fotógrafos y de indios (Mexico City: Ediciones Tecolote, 2000), 61–62, 65; Armando Bartra, Los herederos de Zapata: Movimientos campesinos posrevolucionarios en México, 1920–1980 (Mexico City: Ediciones Era, 1985); Confederación Mexicana de Electricistas, El charrismo sindical y la insurgencia de los ferroviarios (Mexico City: Ediciones Solidaridad, 1958); Eduardo Montes, Como combatir al charrismo (Mexico City: Ediciones de Cultura Popular, 1972); Robert Alegre, Railroad Radicals in Cold War Mexico: Gender, Class, and Memory (Lincoln: University of  Nebraska Press, 2014). 12. AGN/SEGOB-IPS, Caja 1544B, Exp. 7, FS 267; Secretaría de Educación Pública, ¿Ha fracasado el indigenismo? Reportaje de una controversia (13 de septiembre de 1971) (Mexico City: SepSetentas, 1971), 26. 13. Archivo CIESAS-DF/GBB, Caja 30. 14. Salomón Nahmad Sittón, interview with the author, Oaxaca, Mexico, October 2007. 15. Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, “En torno al resurgimiento étnico en México,” 2, Archivo CIESAS-DF/GBB, Caja 56. 16. Vicente Paulino López Velasco, “Return from Chihuahua,” in Y surgió la unión . . . Génesis y desarrollo del Consejo Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas (Mexico City: Centro de Estudios Históricos del Agrarismo en México, Editorial Hersa, 1989), 21. 17. Ibid., 21–22. 18. Bonfil Batalla, “En torno al resurgimiento étnico en México.” 19. A sexenio is a six-year presidential term.

220  Notes to Pages 96–104

20. López Velasco, “Return from Chihuahua,” 23. 21. Ibid. 22. López Velasco, “National Council for Consensus and the Agrarian Planning of  Indigenous Communities,” in Y surgió la unión, 26. 23. Ibid. 24. Joseph Cotter, Troubled Harvest. 25. “Conclusions of Cucapah, Kiliwa Pai-Pai Congress”; “Conclusions of El Pueblo de la Mixteca Alta”; “Otomí Supreme Council Conclusions”; “Huas­ teco Regional Congress Conclusions”; “Zapotec Indigenous Delegation from Oaxaca”; “Totonac Supreme Council”; “Chatino Peoples of the State of Oa­ xaca”; all in Archivo SNS. 26. Professor Onofre Montes Ríos to Salomón Nahmad Sittón, March 24, 1975, Archivo SNS; López Velasco, “Mayo de Sinaloa Regional Congress,” in Y sur­­ gió la unión, 34–35. 27. López Velasco, “Otomí Regional Congress,” in Y surgió la unión, 35. 28. López Velasco, “Reunion of the Presidents of the Supreme Councils to Discuss Multiple Obstacles,” July 26, 1975, in Y surgió la unión, 185. 29. “List of Demands Presented by the Maya Chenes–Camino Real del Estado de Campeche Supreme Council,” Archivo SNS; López Velasco, “Mayas del Camino Real Regional Congress,” in Y surgió la unión, 43. 30. López Velasco, “Maya Regional Congress, Mérida, Yucatán,” in Y surgió la unión, 44. 31. Consejo Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas, “Comision Permanente: Documentos Básicos: Programa de Acción,” Archivo SNS; Bartolome Alonso Caamal, “Los mayas en la conciencia nacional,” in Arturo Warman and Arturo Argu­eta, eds., Movimientos indígenas contemporáneos en México (Mexico City: Centro de Investigaciones Interdisciplinarias en Humanidades UNAM, Grupo Editorial Miguel Ángel Porrua, 1993), 50. 32. López Velasco, “Maya de Quintana Roo Regional Congress,” in Y surgió la unión, 45–46. 33. López Velasco, “Reunion of the Presidents of the Supreme Councils to Discuss Multiple Obstacles,” 185; López Velasco, “Maya de Quintana Roo Regional Congress,” 47. 34. López Velasco, “Maya de Quintana Roo Regional Congress,” 48. 35. López Velasco, “Mixe de Ayutla Regional Congress,” in Y surgió la unión, 57. 36. “Declaration of the Mixe Campesinos,” Archivo SNS.

Notes to Pages 105–1 1 2  221

37. López Velasco, “Reunion of the Presidents of the Supreme Councils to Discuss Multiple Obstacles,” 186. 38. López Velasco, “Mazahua Regional Congress,” in Y surgió la unión, 75–76. 39. For further reading on the role of economic and political middlemen and caciques, see Will Pansters and Alan Knight, eds., Caciquismo in TwentiethCentury Mexico (Chapel Hill, NC: Institute for the Study of the Americas, 2006). 40. López Velasco, “Mixtec Regional Congress, Puebla,” in Y surgió la unión, 48. 41. “The Peoples of the Mixteca Alta,” Archivo SNS; López Velasco, “Mixtec Re­­ gional Congress, Yanhuitlán, Oaxaca,” 51. 42. López Velasco, “Reunion of the Presidents of the Supreme Councils to Discuss Multiple Obstacles,” 185. 43. López Velasco, “Mixtec Regional Congress, Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca,” in Y surgió la unión, 52. 44. López Velasco, “Problems upon Our Return,” in Y surgió la unión, 54. 45. López Velasco, “Letter to Augusto Gómez Villanueva, 12 June 1975,” in Y surgió la unión, 55. 46. Ibid. 47. In government records of the 50th Legislature (1976–79) Holguín’s name does not appear on the list of federal deputies; therefore it is most likely she did not succeed in her political bid; Cámara de Diputados, H. Congreso de la Unión, accessed May 25, 2015, http://www.diputados.gob.mx /sedia /biblio/virtual /dip /leg27–60/Legislatura_50.pdf. 48. López Velasco, “Reunion of the Presidents of the Supreme Councils to Discuss Multiple Obstacles,” 186. 49. López Velasco, “Letter to Augusto Gómez Villanueva, 12 June 1975,” 56–57. 50. Ibid., 56–57, 67; López Velasco, “Reunion of the Presidents of the Supreme Councils to Discuss Multiple Obstacles,” 186. 51. Several members of the CNAPACI signed the letter, including López Velasco, Galdino Perfecto Carmona, Mauro Rosas Cupa, Luz Coronado Álvarez, and Luz Coronado Vargas. Non-CNAPACI Supreme Council presidents were Onésimo González Saiz (captain of the Cucapah from Baja California) and Evaristo Adams Mata (captain of the Kumiai from Baja California), both representing the Pima Supreme Council, as well as Pedro de Haro Sánchez, a Huichol leader; Francisco Daniel Valenzuela, a Papago governor; Francisco Hernández Morales, president of the Mixtec (Oaxaca) Supreme Council; and

222  Notes to Pages 1 1 5–1 16

Espiridión López Ontiveros, president of the Mayo Directive Council from Sonora; López Velasco, “Problems upon Our Return,” 56–57.

Chapter 5 Parts of this chapter appear in María L. O. Muñoz, “Forging Destiny: Populism, Indigenismo, and Indigenous Mobilization in Echeverría’s Mexico,” in Amelia M. Kiddle and María L. O. Muñoz, Populism in Twentieth Century Mexico: The Presidencies of Lázaro Cárdenas and Luis Echeverría (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2010), 122–34. 1. Vicente Paulino López Velasco, “Transportation to the Island,” in Y surgió la unión . . . Génesis y desarrollo del Consejo Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas (Mexico City: Centro de Estudios Históricos del Agrarismo en México, Editorial Hersa, 1989), 88. 2. López Velasco, “Political Beginnings of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples,” in Y surgió la unión, 98. 3. William Roseberry, “Hegemony and the Language of Contention,” in Gilbert Joseph and Dan Nugent, eds., Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994): 355–66; ibid., 3–23. In his chapter in Everyday Forms of State Formation, William Roseberry does well to remind us that Antonio Gramsci grasped the complex nature of consent versus coercion as an ongoing process. The volume as a whole explains that in trying to comprehend hegemonic processes, we cannot simply pit two opposition groups against each other, the dominant and the dominated. What we must consider are the methods, strategies, and relationships forged between the two groups and the ways each group understood the responsibilities and limits of influence of the other. 4. Ibid., 355–66. 5. Secretaría de Educación Pública, ¿Ha fracasado el indigenismo? Reportaje de una controversia (13 de septiembre de 1971) (Mexico City: SepSetentas, 1971), 9–12; María Consuelo Mejía Piñeros, Sergio Sarmiento Silva, and Aída Hernández Castillo argue that the policy of participatory indigenismo emerged in the 1980s during the presidency of  José López Portillo in response to an emerging and evolving indigenous mobilization. While perhaps the 1976–1982 years are viewed as the apex of  indigenous mobilization and participation in government policies, it is the Echeverría presidency that serves as the precedent to

Notes to Pages 1 16–1 19  223

stimulate both. María Consuleo Mejía Piñeros and Sergio Sarmiento Silva, eds., La lucha indígena: Un reto a la ortodoxia (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1991); R. Aída Hernández Castillo, Histories and Stories from Chiapas: Border Identities in Southern Mexico (Austin: University of  Texas Press, 2001). 6. Archivo CIESAS-DF/GBB. 7. El Excelsior (Mexico City), September 14, 1971; Jorge Hernández-Díaz, Reclamos de la identidad: La formación de las organizaciones indígenas en Oaxaca (Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca, Grupo Editorial Miguel Ángel Porrua, 2001), 28; Shannan L. Mattiace, To See with Two Eyes: Peasant Activism and Indian Autonomy in Chiapas, Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003), 62. 8. “Ideological Mobilization of Ethnic Groups of  Mexico,” Archivo SNS. 9. Archivo CIESAS-DF/GBB, Caja 56. 10. “List of  Invites,” Archivo SNS. 11. Consejo Supremo Tarahumara, Aspecto organizativo del Primer Congreso Tar­ ahumara celebrado en Guachochi en 1939 (Guachochi, Chih., 1974), 14. 12. Some academics and nonacademics have suggested that the 1974 indigenous congress that took place in Las Casas, Chiapas, provoked federal government officials to react to the possible threat of independent indigenous mobiliza­­ tion  by organizing the First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples in Pát­zcuaro in 1975. This argument ignores the earlier organizational efforts for the PCNPI that had begun in 1971; Secretaría de Educación Pública, ¿Ha fracasado del indigenismo?; National Campesino Confederation, “Secretariat of Planning and Organization: Congress of  Indigenous Peoples, 1973,” Archivo SNS. 13. Centro Nacional de Comunicación Social, AC, Documentos, Primer Congreso Indígena (December 1974), 1, 4, Archivo SNS. 14. Centro Nacional de Pastoral Indigenista, “Conclusiones del I Congreso Indígena,” Estudios Indígenas 4, no. 2 (December 1974), 255, Archivo SNS; Hernández Castillo, Histories and Stories from Chiapas, 106. 15. Hernández Castillo, Histories and Stories from Chiapas, 106; Antonio García de León, Fronteras interiores, Chiapas: Una modernidad particular (Mexico City: Oceano de México, 2002). 16. Centro Nacional de Comunicación Social, AC, Documentos, Primer Congreso Indígena, 2. 17. Ibid., 1.

224  Notes to Pages 1 19–1 28

18. Centro Nacional de Pastoral Indigenista, “Conclusiones del I Congreso Indígena,” 255; “Report from Agustin Romano Delgado to Dr. Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán, October 21, 1974,” Archivo SNS. 19. Centro Nacional de Pastoral Indigenista, “Conclusiones del I Congreso Indígena,” 256. 20. “Report from Agustín Romano Delgado to Dr. Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán.” 21. Ibid. 22. For further reading into these tensions, see Gary MacEoin, The People’s Church: Bishop Samuel Ruiz of  Mexico and Why He Matters (New York: Crossroad Pub­ lishing, 1996); Jan Rus, Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo, and Shannan L. Mattiace, eds., Mayan Lives, Mayan Utopias: The Indigenous Peoples of Chiapas and the Zapatista Rebellion (Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2003); Tom Hayden, ed., The Zapatista Reader (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press/Nation Books, 2002); Shannan L. Mattiace, To See with Two Eyes. 23. National Campesino Confederation, “Secretariat of Planning and Organization: Congress of Indigenous Peoples, 1973,” Archivo SNS. 24. Speech by Dr. Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán, “Primer Congreso Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas,” Anuario Indigenista (December 1975), 196, AGN/SEGOB-IPS. 25. AGN/SEGOB-IPS, October 7, 1975, Soporte 2811. 26. “Transportation Needs,” Archivo SNS. 27. Ibid. 28. “Invitation to the First Congress of Indigenous Peoples of Mexico,” 1–5, Archivo III. 29. Ibid. 30. “First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples: Program, Day 7 ,” Ar­­chivo III. 31. “First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples of Mexico: Panels,” Dirección General de Información, Archivo Secretaría de Reforma Agraria, Dirección General de Información (hereafter cited as Archivo SRA). 32. “Land Tenancy Session Conclusions, 1975, First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples,” Archivo SNS. 33. Ibid. 34. “Complaint Presented by Juan Simbrón, Totonaco Supreme Council President,” Archivo SNS. 35. “Zapotec Delegation from the Sierra Juárez,” Archivo SNS; “Chatino Peoples, Juquila, Oaxaca, October 4, 1975,” Archivo SNS. 36. Hector Bonilla Lajud, anthropologist, to Salomón Nahmad Sittón, August 27, 1975, Archivo SNS.

Notes to Pages 1 28–1 32  225

37. “Address Presented to the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples,” Archivo SNS. 38. “Agriculture Session Conclusions, 1975, First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples,” Archivo SNS. 39. Ibid. 40. “Credit Session Conclusions, 1975, First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples,” Archivo SNS. 41. “Address Presented by Regional Campesino Alliance,” Archivo SNS; “Petition from Cora Communities,” Archivo SNS. 42. “Requests Made at Nahua Congress, July 1, 1975,” Archivo SNS; “Report on the Mayo Indigenous Congress in the State of Sinaloa from Anthropologist Guillermo Andrade Marín to Dr. Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán,” Archivo SNS. 43. “Petition to Luis Echeverría from the Yaqui Community of Agiabampo, Sonora,” Archivo SNS. 44. “Infrastructure Session Conclusions, 1975, First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples,” Archivo SNS. 45. The mention of the tuber barbasco is unsurprising, as it had become a highdemand product during the late 1960s and 1970s with the attempts to extract high quantities of the diosgenin steroid from the plant for national and international production of the Pill. For further reading see Gabriela Soto Laveaga’s Jungle Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects, and the Making of the Pill (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009). 46. CC Aweakudita Kikapoo tribe, via private secretary Lic. Juan José Bremer M., to Dr. Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán, March 22, 1973, Archivo SNS; López Velasco, “Cucapah Regional Congress, March 7, 1975,” in Y surgió la unión, 27. 47. “Collective Labor Organization Session Conclusions, 1975, First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples,” Archivo SNS. 48. El Excelsior (Mexico City), October 9, 1975. 49. “Forest Session Conclusions, 1975, First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples,” Archivo SNS. 50. Ibid.; Thomas Weaver, “Changes in Forestry Policy, Production, and the Environment in Northern Mexico, 1960–2000,” Journal of  Political Ecology 7 (2000): 1–18. 51. “Health and Labor Session Conclusions for the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples,” Archivo SNS. 52. Ibid. 53. Gabriela Soto Laveaga, “Searching for Molecules, Fueling Rebellion: Eche­ verría’s ‘Arriba y Adelante’ Populism in Southeastern Mexico,” in Amelia M.

226  Notes to Pages 1 32–140

Kiddle and María L. O. Muñoz, eds., Populism in Twentieth Century Mexico: The Presidences of Lázaro Cárdenas and Luis Echeverría (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2010), 87–105. 54. See Soto Laveaga,  Jungle Laboratories. 55. “Language, History, Tradition, Archeology Preservation Session Conclusions, 1975, First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples,” Archivo SNS. 56. “Youth and Development Session Conclusions, 1975, First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples,” Archivo SNS. 57. Cirila Sánchez Mendoza became the first woman to serve as an indigenous Supreme Council president. She also became the first indigenous woman to be elected to the Oaxaca State Senate and the Mexican Senate. 58. “Indigenous Women’s Rights Session Conclusions, 1975, First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples,” Archivo SNS. 59. Ann S. Blum, Domestic Economies: Family, Work, and Welfare in Mexico City, 1884–1943 (Lincoln: University of  Nebraska Press, 2010); Elena Jackson Albarrán, Seen and Heard: Children and Revolutionary Cultural Nationalism (Lincoln: University of  Nebraska Press, 2015). 60. Marguerite Guzmán Bouvard, Revolutionizing Motherhood: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1994). 61. “Indigenous Women’s Rights Session Conclusions, 1975.” 62. Ibid. 63. Ibid. 64. Ibid. 65. “Mazateco Delegation Address Presented at the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples,” 3, Archivo SNS. 66. Ibid. 67. “Zapotec Delegation from the Sierra Juárez.” 68. “Indigenous Women’s Rights Session Conclusions, 1975.” 69. “Justice Session Conclusions, 1975, First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples,” Archivo SNS. 70. “Political Action Session Conclusions, 1975, First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples,” Archivo SNS. 71. “Letter from Indigenous Communities,” Archivo III. 72. “Letter from Pátzcuaro,” 1–2, Archivo SNS. 73. Ibid. 74. Ibid., 3. 75. Ibid., 3–5.

Notes to Pages 140–145  227

76. Ibid., 6. 77. Instituto Nacional Indigenista, “Carta de Pátzcuaro,” in México indígena: INI 30 años despues (Mexico City, 1978). 78. Rosa María Jiménez Santos, Breve analisis de la Carta de Pátzcuaro (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1975), 1, Archivo INI-CDI. 79. “Letter from Indigenous Communities,” 6–32; Mattiace, To See with Two Eyes, 65. 80. Diario de México (Mexico City), October 11, 1975; El Universal (Mexico City), October 11, 1975. 81. La Voz de Michoacán (Morelia), October 8, 1975. 82. Gonzalo Rubio Orbe, “Sección Editorial: Un importante congreso indige­ nista,” Anuario Indigenista (December 1975), 8. 83. La Voz de Michoacán (Morelia), October 8, 1975. 84. Speech by Celestino Salcedo Monteón made at closing ceremonies of the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples, October 10, 1975, 3–4, Ar­chivo III. 85. Diario de Michoacán (Uruapan), October 10, 1975. 86. Alberto Medina Pérez to Salomón Nahmad Sittón, September 2, 1975, Archivo SNS. 87. Diario de Michoacán (Uruapan), October 10, 1975. 88. For further reading on the social movements and conflict within the Tarasco communities (P’urépecha) see Gunther Dietz, La comunidad Purhépecha es nuestra fuerza: Etnicidad, cultura y región en un movimiento indígena en México (Quito: Ediciones Abya-Yala, 1999) and José Eduardo Zárate Hernández, Los señores de utopia: Etnicidad política en una comunidad P’urhépecha; Santa Fe de la Laguna-Ueamuo, 2nd ed. (Mexico City: El Colegio de Michoacán, CIESAS, 2001). 89. Diario de Michoacán (Uruapan), October 10, 1975. 90. Diario de México (Mexico City), October 11, 1975. 91. “Letter from Pátzcuaro,” 7. 92. Diario de México (Mexico City), October 8, 1975. 93. Ovaciones (Mexico City), October 11, 1975; Gonzalo Rubio Orbe, “Sección Editorial: Un importante congreso indigenista,” 9. 94. “Program for the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples,” Archivo SNS. 95. “BANRURAL Credit List,” October 8, 1975, Archivo SNS. 96. See Soto Laveaga,  Jungle Laboratories. 97. Diario de México (Mexico City), October 11, 1975.

228  Notes to Pages 145–1 51

98. “Los indígenas, factor del progreso,” speech given by Lázaro Cárdenas at the First Interamerican Indigenist Congress in 1940, CIESAS-Golfo/GAB. 99. Jiménez Santos, Breve analisis de la Carta de Pátzcuaro, 1, Archivo INI-CDI. 100. El Universal (Mexico City), October 11, 1975. 101. Hernández-Díaz, Reclamos de la identidad, 32; Mattiace, To See with Two Eyes, 64. 102. “Letter from Indigenous Communities,” 33, Archivo III. 103. Ibid., 3. 104. Speech given by Celestino Salcedo Monteón in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, October 10, 1975, 5–7, Archivo III. 105. Hernández-Díaz, Reclamos de la identidad; Mattiace, To See with Two Eyes; Juan Luis Sariego Rodríguez, El indigenismo en la Tarahumara: Identidad, comunidad, relaciones interétnicas y desarrollo en la Sierra de Chihuahua (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2002); Zárate Hernández, Los señores de utopia; Lynn Stephen, ¡Zapata Lives! Histories and Cultural Politics in Southern Mexico (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); Arturo Warman and Arturo Argueta, eds., Movimientos indígenas contemporáneos en México (Mexico City: Centro de Investigaciones Interdisciplinarias en Humanidades UNAM, Grupo Editorial Miguel Ángel Porrua, 1993).

Chapter 6 Parts of this chapter appear in María L. O. Muñoz, “ ‘¡De Pie y En Lucha!’: Indigenous Mobilizations After 1940,” in William H. Beezley, ed., A Companion to Mexican History and Culture, 1st ed., 581–603. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Reprinted by permission of  Wiley Blackwell Publishers. 1. The title “Day of the Interamerican Indígena” is my own, since I wish to avoid the term indio, as stated in the introduction. Other names for this commemoration day are Día del Aborigen Interamericano and Día Panamericano del Indio. 2. El Excelsior (Mexico City), April 20, 1977. 3. Ibid. 4. “Día Interamericano del Indio,” in Vicente Paulino López Velasco, Y surgió la unión . . . Génesis y desarrollo del Consejo Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas (Mexico City: Centro de Estudios Históricos del Agrarismo en México, Editorial Hersa, 1989), 119.

Notes to Pages 1 53–1 59  229

5. El Día (Mexico City), October 10, 1975; Kjeld Lings, “Las organizaciones indígenas de México frente a la política indigenista del gobierno,” 1980, 18, Archivo CIESAS-DF/GBB. 6. Félix Báez-Jorge, “¿Líderes indios o intermediarios indigenistas? Dinamicas internas y externas en el caso Mexicano,” 23, Archivo CIESAS-DF/GBB, Caja 115. 7. López Velasco, “Consolidation of the Permanent Commission,” in Y surgió la unión, 103. 8. Ibid., 103. 9. Ibid., 104; “Conclusiones del II Congreso de Pueblos Indígenas,” Archivo SNS. 10. El Día (Mexico City), November 8, 1976; Instituto Nacional Indigenista, “Los indígenas de México expresan su gratitud al señor President Echeverría,” Acción Indigenista, no. 281 (November 1976). 11. López Velasco, “Show of Gratitude,” in Y surgió la unión, 109. 12. National Council of Indigenous Peoples, “Statutes and Action Plan,” No­ vember 6, 1976, chap. IV, art. 8, Archivo SNS. 13. Ibid., chap. V, art. 12. 14. Ibid., chap. V, art. 14. 15. Ibid., chap. V, art. 17. 16. López Velasco, “The Political Beginnings of the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples,” in Y surgió la unión, 98. 17. Báez-Jorge, “¿Líderes indios o intermediarios indigenistas?” 18. Ibid., 42. 19. Ibid., 38. 20. Ibid., 38–40. 21. National Council of Indigenous Peoples, “Statutes and Action Plan,” chap. V, art. 12. 22. Báez-Jorge, “¿Líderes indios o intermediarios indigenistas?,” 41; Andres Medina, “Los grupos étnicos y los sistemas tradicionales de poder en México,” Nueva Antropología 5, no. 20 ( January 1983): 5–29, Archivo CIESAS-DF/GBB. 23. Báez-Jorge, “¿Líderes indios o intermediarios indigenistas?,” 40. 24. Dawson, Indian and Nation in Revolutionary Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2004), 159–62; “Consejo Supremo Hñahñu: Ex-presidentes,” accessed July 11, 2013, http://www.consejosupremo.org.mx /conocenos.php. 25. Báez-Jorge, “¿Líderes indios o intermediarios indigenistas?,” 42. 26. Eugenio Robledo, interview by R. Aída Hernández Castillo, 1993, in R. Aída Hernández Castillo, Histories and Stories from Chiapas: Border Identities in

230  Notes to Pages 1 59–162

Southern Mexico, trans. Martha Pou (Austin: University of  Texas Press, 2001), 123. 27. Hernández Castillo, Histories and Stories from Chiapas. 28. Anne Doremus, “Indigenism, Mestizaje, and National Identity in Mexico During the 1940s and the 1950s,” Mexican Studies / Estudios Mexicanos 17, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 375–402; Cecilia Greaves L., “Entre el discurso y la acción: Una polémica en torno al Departamento de Asuntos Indígenas,” in Yael Bitrán, ed., México: Historia y alteridad, perspectivas multidisciplinarias sobre la cuestión indígena (Mexico City: Universidad Iberoamericana AC, 2001). 29. Victor Montejo, Maya Intellectual Renaissance: Identity, Representation, and Leadership (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005); María Elena García, Making Indigenous Citizens: Identities, Education, and Multicultural Development in Peru (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005); Jan Hoffman French, “Mestizaje and Law Making in Indigenous Identity Formation in Northeastern Brazil: ‘After the Conflict Came the History,’ ” American Anthropologist 6, no. 4 (2004): 663–74; Jonathan W. Warren, Racial Revolutions: Antiracism and Indian Resurgence in Brazil (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001). 30. Henry Minde, Asbjørn Eide, and Mattias Åhrén, “The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: What Made It Possible? The Work and Process Beyond the Final Adoption,” GÁLDU ČÁLA, Journal of Indigenous Peoples Rights, no. 4 (2007): 14. 31. “Martínez Cobo Study, Part 3, Chapter 21–22: Conclusions, Proposals, and Recommendations,” United Nations, Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, accessed July 22, 2013, http://undesadspd.org/ IndigenousPeoples/Library Documents/Mart%C3%ADnezCoboStudy.aspx; Megan Davis, “Indigenous Struggles in Standard-Setting: The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” Melbourne Journal of International Law 9 (2008): 4. 32. López Velasco, “Political Beginnings of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples,” in Y surgió la unión, 99. 33. Ibid. 34. Báez-Jorge, “¿Líderes indios o intermediarios indigenistas?,” 45. 35. López Velasco, “Political Beginnings of the National Council of  Indigenous Peoples,” in Y surgió la unión, 98. 36. López Velasco, “Mazahua Regional Congress,” in Y surgió la unión, 77. 37. El Sol de Cuautla (Morelos), February 27, 2013, accessed June 11, 2013, http:// www.oem.com.mx /elsoldecuautla /notas/n2894538.htm.

Notes to Pages 163–169  231

38. Phil Weigand, “The Role of an Indianized Mestizo in the 1950 Huichol Revolt, Jalisco, Mexico,” SPECI ALI A 1 (1969): 11–12. 39. Ibid., 12. 40. Phil Wiegand, Ensayo sobre el gran nayar: Entre coras, huicholes y tepehuanes (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Colegio de Michoacán, 1992). 41. Weigand, “The Role of an Indianized Mestizo in the 1950 Huichol Revolt,” 13. 42. Pedro de Haro, interview by José de Jesús Torres Contreras, 1993, in José de Jesús Torres Contreras, El hostigamiento a “la costumbre” huichol: Los procesos de la hibridación social (Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 2000), 53. 43. John M. Watanabe, Maya Saints and Souls in a Changing World (Austin: University of  Texas Press, 1992). 44. Weigand, “The Role of an Indianized Mestizo in the 1950 Huichol Revolt,” 13. 45. “Pedro de Haro, marakame,” Ojarasaca, no. 98 ( June 2005); José de Jesús Torres Contreras, El hostigamiento a “la costumbre” huichol, 57. 46. Wiegand, Ensayo sobre el gran nayar. 47. López Velasco, “Extraordinary Assembly Celebrated 5 November 1976,” in Y surgió la unión, 106. 48. Ibid., 107. 49. María Consuelo Mejía Piñeros and Sergio Sarmiento Silva, eds., La lucha indígena: Un reto a la ortodoxia (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1991), 166. 50. López Velasco, “The New Administration,” in Y surgió la unión, 114. 51. López Velasco, “Confrontation at the Inauguration,” in Y surgió la unión, 117. 52. Second National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples, “Transportation of the Delegations,” Archivo SNS. 53. “Conclusions from the Second National Congress of Indigenous Peoples,” Archivo SNS; CNPI Permanent Commission Coordinator Galdino Perfecto Carmona to INI Director of Operations Salomón Nahmad Sittón, July 30, 1976, Archivo SNS; CNPI Permanent Commission Coordinator Galdino Perfecto Carmona to INI Director of Operations Salomón Nahmad Sittón, August 2, 1976, Archivo SNS. 54. López Velasco, “Confrontation at the Inauguration,” in Y surgió la unión, 117. 55. López Velasco, “Difficulties During the Second National Congress of Indigenous Peoples,” in Y surgió la unión, 115. 56. López Velasco, “The National Council of Indigenous Peoples Acquires Its Own Office and Authority,” in Y surgió la unión, 118. 57. Permanent Commission of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples to President José López Portillo, November 24, 1977, Archivo SNS.

232  Notes to Pages 169–175

58. “Memoria de ANPIBAC,” Archivo III. 59. This is in reference to the multiple development projects throughout the country that President Luis Echeverría began and left to be finished under López Portillo or never finished at all: Plan Tarahumara, Plan Tarasco, Plan Huicot, Plan del Valle del Mezquital (see chapter 1); López Velasco, “Semanas Campesinas,” in Y surgió la unión, 101. 60. López Velasco, “Semanas Campesinas,” 102. 61. National Council of  Indigenous Peoples, “Statutes and Action Plan,” chap. V, art. 13, sect. G. 62. López Velasco, “Council of Elders,” in Y surgió la unión, 119. 63. López Velasco, “Extraordinary Assembly July 1977,” in Y surgió la unión, 121. 64. Ibid., 122. 65. National Council of  Indigenous Peoples, “Statutes and Action Plan,” chap. V, art. 13, sect. E. 66. López Velasco, “Extraordinary Assembly July 1977,” 123. 67. Comisión Permanente, “Asamblea extraordinaria de la Comisión Permanente del Consejo Nacional de Pueblos Indigenas,” April 15, 1978, Archivo SNS. 68. National Council of  Indigenous Peoples, “Statutes and Action Plan,” chap. V, art. 18. 69. López Velasco, “Consolidation and Challenges,” in Y surgió la unión, 124. 70. National Council of Indigenous Peoples, “Statutes and Action Plan,” chap. V, art. 26 and 28, Archivo SNS. 71. López Velasco, “Consolidation and Challenges,” 125. 72. Ibid., 127. 73. Ibid., 128–29. 74. “Report to Permanent Commission of  National Council of  Indigenous People by Galdino Perfecto Carmona, Espiridión López Ontiveros, Trinidad Ayala Rojas, Felipe Ku Pech, Efraín Orea,” February 8, 1978, Archivo SNS. 75. “General Communiqué,” April 6, 1978, Archivo SNS. 76. López Velasco, “Consolidation and Challenges,” 130. 77. Méjia and Silva, La lucha indígena, 166. 78. López Velasco, “Consolidation and Challenges,” 132. 79. López Velasco, “Oaxtepec, Morelos,” in Y surgió la unión, 136. 80. Ibid., 137. 81. López Velasco, “Third National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples,” in Y surgió la unión, 139. 82. Ibid., 142. 83. Mejía and Silva, La lucha indígena, 167.

Notes to Pages 176–181  233

84. López Velasco, “Conflicts After the Congress,” in Y surgió la unión, 143. 85. Ibid., 144. 86. Méjia and Silva, La lucha indígena, 168. The Summer Language Institute (SIL) was begun during the 1940s by United States missionary William Townsend as a way to document indigenous languages, part of an evangelization strategy. This process served the Mexican government in that SIL recorded indigenous languages and trained language intermediaries and translators at local levels. The relationship was often uneasy, as the SIL came under fire for interfering in local indigenous affairs, defying local, regional, and federal authorities, and taking jobs away from local indigenous and rural language teachers. In 1970 the SIL faced its strongest opposition in Mexico. Carlos García Mora, “Los Proyectos Tarascos: Implicaciones actuales,” Diario de campo: Boletín interno de los investigadores del área de antropología, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City, no. 95 (November–December, 2008): 100–15, Archivo CIESAS-DF/GBB, Caja 2; Tania Avalos Placencia, “El Proyecto Tarasco: Alfabetización indígena y política del lenguaje en la Meseta Purhépecha, 1939– 1960,” BA thesis, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás Hidalgo, 2006. 87. Méjia and Silva, La lucha indígena, 170. 88. Ibid., 174; Consejo Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas, “IV Congreso Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas: Memoria, Cuetzalan Puebla, diciembre de 1983,” Archivo INI-CDI. 89. “Carta del Consejo Nacional de Pueblos Indigenas al Presidente Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado, 1 julio 1983,” Discursos de Miguel Limon Rojas FD/09/1170, Archivo INI-CDI. 90. Comité de Apoyo y Defensa de Salomón Nahmad, Archivo CIESAS-DF/ GBB, Caja 53. 91. “Conclusions of  Fourth National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples of  Mexico,” Archivo INI-CDI. 92. Genaro Domínguez Maldonado and Georges Baudot, “Coordinadora Nacional de Pueblos Indios,” Caravelle, no. 59 (1992): 39–47; Méjia and Silva, La lucha indígena, 175. 93. Méjia and Silva, La lucha indígena, 167. 94. “Comunicado de la Coordinadora Nacional Pueblos Indígenas, 10 de abril 1985,” FD 30/0093, Archivo INI-CDI. 95. Macrina Ocampo Hernández to Permanent Commission of  National Council of  Indigenous Peoples, December 9, 1984, Fondo Documental FD 30/0093, Archivo INI-CDI. 96. Ibid.

234  Notes to Pages 181–187

97. Ibid. 98. In the CNPI letterhead that listed the members of the Permanent Commission on the left margin, the name Vicente P. López Velasco appears. Lic. Miguel Limon Rojas, INI Director, to Domingo Solís López, October 7, 1985, Fondo Documental, Exp. 925.1, Archivo INI-CDI. 99. Méjia and Silva, La lucha indígena, 197. 100. Juan Larios Tolentino, “V National Congress of Indigenous Peoples,” July 6, 1987, Fondo Documental 09/1244-D08697, Archivo INI-CDI. 101. José Joaquín Flores Félix, “Las luchas indias y sus intelectuales,” Veredas 18 (2009): 193–213.

Conclusion 1. Interamerican Indigenist Institute, “IX Interamerican Indigenist Congress: Final Acts,” Organization of American States Archive, Columbus Memorial Library (hereafter cited as OAS Archive). 2. Stefano Varese, Witness to Sovereignty: Essays on the Indian Movement in Latin America (Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, 2006). 3. Declaración de Barbados I, Archivo CIESAS-DF/GBB, Caja 42. 4. Arturo Warman et al., De eso que llaman antropología mexicana (Mexico City: Editorial Nuestro Tiempo, 1970); Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, México profundo: Una civilización negada, 2nd ed. (Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Editorial Grijalbo, 1990). 5. Guillermo de la Peña, “A New Mexican Nationalism? Indigenous Rights, Constitutional Reform, and the Conflicting Meanings of Multiculturalism,” Nations and Nationalism 2, issue 2 (2006): 279–302. 6. Gareth Jones, “Dismantling the Ejido: A Lesson in Controlled Pluralism,” in Rob Aitken et al., eds., Dismantling the Mexican State? (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996): 188–203. 7. Jones, “Dismantling the Ejido”; Jonathan Fox, “The Difficult Transition from Clientelism to Citizenship: Lessons from Mexico,” World Politics 46, no. 2 ( Jan­ uary 1994): 151–84. 8. United States of Mexico, Constitution of 1917, title 1, chap. 1, art. 2 (updated October 8, 2013), accessed July 20, 2014, http://www.trife.gob.mx/en /consultations/political-constitution-united-mexican-states.

Notes to Pages 187–192  235

9. Translation from de la Peña, “A New Mexican Nationalism?,” 287. 10. Ibid., 281; on national imaginings, see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Verso Books, 1991); on this process in Mexico, see Claudio Lomnitz, Deep Mexico, Silent Mexico: An Anthropology of Nationalism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001). 11. United States of Mexico, Constitution of 1917, title 1, chap. 1, art. 2. 12. Ibid. 13. International Labor Organization, C169—Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169),” art. 2, accessed July 24, 2013, http://www.ilo .org/dyn/normlex/en/f ?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO _CODE:C169. 14. De la Peña, “A New Mexican Nationalism?,” 291–92. 15. Ibid., 292–94. 16. Subcomandante Marcos, Our Word Is Our Weapon: Selected Writings, ed. Juana Ponce de León (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001). 17. Natividad Gutiérrez, Nationalist Myths and Ethnic Identities: Indigenous In­ tellectuals and the Mexican State (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999). 18. De la Peña, “A New Mexican Nationalism?,” 293; Jane Hindley, “Towards a Pluricultural Nation: The Limits of Indigenismo and Article 4,” in Aitken et al., Dismantling the Mexican State?, 225–43. 19. Hindley, “Towards a Pluricultural Nation,” 229. 20. De la Peña, “A New Mexican Nationalism?,” 281–82. 21. Mexican Congress, Law Creating the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples, accessed July 24, 2013, http://www.diputados .gob.mx /LeyesBiblio/pdf/261.pdf. 22. Alan Knight, “Salinas and Social Liberalism in Historical Context,” in Aitken et al., Dismantling the Mexican State?, 1–23.

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Index

Aguirre Beltrán, Gonzalo, 45, 48, 72, 80, 95, 120–21, 126 Ayala Rojas, Trinidad, 123, 170– 71, 173 Barbados Conference, 186 bilingual promoters (DAAC), 7–8, 10–13, 56–57, 59–63, 66–68, 75– 77, 80–89, 92–93, 96–100, 102–14, 116–18, 151, 153, 156, 158–59, 161–63, 165–66, 171, 182, 184, 190, 192–93 Bonfil, Alfredo, 67, 69, 72, 80, 95–97, 114, 117, 121 Bonfil Batalla, Guillermo, 14, 48, 69, 80, 117, 185–86 Cárdenas, Lázaro, 6, 16, 19, 23, 32, 35, 41, 43, 71, 88, 90, 146, 150 Casa del Estudiante Indígena, 40–41, 64, 66, 69– 70 Chan Bor, José Pepe, 61–62, 122, 130, 174 Confederation of  Mexican Workers (CTM), 20, 30 Coordinadora Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas (CNPI), 179–181

DAAC (Department of Agrarian Affairs and Colonization), 4, 7, 11, 48, 59–61, 66, 76– 77, 80, 97, 163, 165. See also bilingual promoters; Secretariat of Agrarian Reform De Haro Sánchez, Martín Pedro, 62, 76, 104, 123, 154, 163–165, 170–172, 174 De La Cruz Loreto, Apolinar, 176, 179 De La Madrid, Miguel, 177 – 178, 180 Declaration of  Barbados, 186 Department of  Agrarian Affairs and Colonization. See DAAC Department of  Federal Security (DFS), 8, 27 Department of  Indigenous Affairs (DAI), 42–44, 65, 69 Díaz Holguín, Samuel, 61–62, 73, 76, 80, 85–86, 88–89, 96, 104, 107 – 9, 112, 122, 154, 171, 174 Díaz Ordaz, Gustavo, 5, 23 Echeverría Álvarez, Luis, 4–6, 11–12, 16–17, 20–25, 27, 31–37, 45, 47–50, 52, 54–57, 60–61, 68, 72– 73, 80, 83–84,

260 inde x

Echeverría Álvarez (continued ) 87–90, 93, 97, 101, 106, 110–11, 114–17, 119, 121, 125–26, 131–32, 138, 141, 143–48, 150, 153–55, 168, 177, 181, 190 Esquivel, Tomás, 107, 162, 170 field of force, 3, 9–13, 184, 187, 189, 193 Fifth National Congress of Indigenous Peoples, 182 First National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples (Primer Congreso Nacional de Pueblos Indigenas, or PCNPI), 3–6, 10–14, 66, 83, 85–87, 90, 92, 94–95, 112–16, 118, 121, 135, 137, 141–44, 146–47, 149, 151, 153, 162–63, 168, 184 Flores Lázaro, Natalio, 123, 143–44, 170–173, 175 Fourth National Congress of Indigenous Peoples, 179 Gómez Villanueva, Augusto, 72, 97, 109–10, 112, 153, 166 Gutiérrez Toribio, Santiago, 62, 105, 123, 170, 172– 75 Guzmán Dorantes, Carlos, 103, 170– 71, 173

Interamerican Indigenist Congress (1940), 42, 150 Interamerican Indigenist Institute, 42, 117, 141, 175, 185 Járis Rosalío, José, 69– 70 Járis Rosalío, Patricio, 69, 73 León Ruiz, Ignacio, 40, 69, 70– 72, 185 Letter from Indigenous Communities, 138 Letter from Pátzcuaro, 138, 140, 146 Limón Rojas, Miguel, 185 López Ávila, Carlos, 85, 123, 170 López Castro, Jerónimo, 174– 75 López Ontiveros, Espiridión, 104, 153–54, 170, 173, 222 López Portillo, José, 4, 11, 37, 93, 116, 132, 147–48, 150–51, 154–56, 166–69, 175– 77, 181, 190 López Velasco, Vicente Paulino, 14, 61–62, 66, 68, 75– 76, 80–85, 89–90, 96–97, 102–10, 112, 123, 138, 150–51, 153–54, 159–61, 167– 70, 172– 74, 176, 179–81, 186

Hernández Morales, Francisco, 62, 104, 108–9, 123, 171 Holguín de Butrón, Amelia, 98, 102, 104–5, 107–14, 116, 171

Martínez Cobo, José, 12 Martínez Cobo Report, 159–60, 185 Martínez Machuca, Leandro, 171– 73, 182 mestizaje, 38–40, 44, 46, 187–88

Indigenismo, 4, 9, 38–43, 46–47, 49, 56, 66, 76, 116–17, 146, 148, 189, 191, Indigenistas, 12, 14, 39, 43–44, 46, 49, 64, 69, 117, 146, 179, 191 Indigenist Coordinating Center (CCI), 45–46, 48–52, 72, 99 144–45, 158 Indigenous Congress of  Chiapas, 118 infrastructural project plans, 52–53. See also specific plans by name Institutional Revolutionary Party. See PRI Integrated Rural Development Project. See PIDER

Nahmad Sittón, Salomón, 14, 48, 51, 69, 77, 80, 82, 95, 109, 112, 117, 142, 153, 166, 169, 171– 73, 175, 179, 186 National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), 22, 25, 27, 44, 117 National Campesino Confederation (CNC), 9, 20, 31, 57, 60, 64–67, 72, 77, 80, 84–86, 88–89, 94–102, 104–10, 112–14, 126, 128, 142–43, 157, 159–62, 166–69, 171, 173, 175– 77, 182 National Company for Popular Subsistence (CONASUPO), 29, 51–52, 54, 57

inde x 261

National Council of  Indigenous Peoples (CNPI), 3–4, 6, 11–14, 59–60, 75– 76, 87–88, 90, 103, 138, 149–62, 165–86, 190, 192–93 National Indigenist Institute (INI), 43–45, 48–51, 54–55, 72, 75, 81–82, 84–86, 89, 93, 95, 99, 102, 116–17, 120, 142–43, 147, 151, 158, 164, 166–68, 170, 172– 73, 175, 177, 181–82, 185, 189, 192 National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), 44, 117 Nolasco Armas, María Margarita 48, 80, 117 nonaligned movement, 3, 33–35 Olivera Bustamante, Mercedes, 48, 80, 117 Orea Aguilar, Efraín, 108, 154, 170, 173 Ovalle Fernández, Ignacio, 147, 167 –168, 173, 175 Pacheco Loya, José, 77, 82, 97, 108–109, 112, 153, 166, 172– 73 participatory indigenismo, 9, 11–14, 36–37, 39, 47–48, 58–61, 66, 68, 74, 87, 89, 93, 110, 116, 118, 125, 132, 141, 147–49, 168, 191–92 Perfecto Carmona, Galdino, 76, 82, 85, 104, 123, 153–54, 170 Permanent Commission (of  CNPI), 153–55, 159, 160, 162, 168, 170– 74, 176, 181–82 PIDER (Integrated Rural Development Project), 51–52, 54 Plan Huicot, 52–54, 143 Plan Seri, 52–53 Plan Tarahumara, 53, 74 Plan Tarasco, 52–53 Plan del Valle del Mezquital, 52–53 populism, 9, 11, 17 –21, 36, 52, 56, 58, 60, 75, 111, 146, 155, 184, 190, 193 PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), 3, 5, 7–9, 16, 20, 22–23, 29–30, 67, 75

Quintana Mauro, Pablo, 86, 153, 175 Quiterio Hernández, Apolinar, 159, 174 Ramírez Mijares, Oscar, 167–68, 173, 175 Recalachi García, Santiago, 69– 70, 72 Rodríguez de la Cruz, Felipe, 86, 124, 153, 174, 176 Rojo Lugo, Jorge, 167 Ruiz, Samuel, 118–120 Rural Bank (BANRURAL), 52, 102, 144, 175 Salcedo Monteón, Celestino, 67, 88, 95, 98, 107, 110, 114, 126, 142 Sánchez Mendoza, Cirila, 133, 158 Sandoval, Marcos E., 104, 109, 123, 170, 173 Second National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples, 166, 168 Secretariat of Agrarian Reform (SRA), 37, 80, 82, 85–86, 89, 91, 99, 101–2, 104, 106, 108–10, 143–44, 153, 166–69, 171– 73, 175–77, 182 Secretariat of Indigenist Action (SIA), 41, 65, 95, 98, 101, 107, 110, 171, 182 Secretariat of Public Education (SEP), 41–43, 48–50, 64–65, 72, 151, 169, 175, 177, 185 self-determination, 3–4, 10, 88, 114, 125, 132, 140–41, 146–47, 186, 193 Solís López, Domingo, 182, 185 Stavenhagen, Rodolfo, 48, 117, 185 Tarahumara Supreme Council (CST), 41, 53, 67– 75, 88, 118, 171, 185, 192 Third National Congress of  Indigenous Peoples, 175 Uc Yam, Sebastián, 82, 103–4, 123, 171, 174 Velasco Suárez, Manuel, 48, 81, 118–19 Warman Gryj, Arturo, 48, 117

About the Author

María  L. O. Muñoz is an associate professor in history and associate director of the Honors Program at Susquehanna University. She earned her degree at the University of Arizona in Latin American history and cultural anthropology. In 2006 she was awarded a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship, which allowed her to conduct thirteen months of research throughout Mexico. Dr. Muñoz is the co-editor of Populism in Twentieth Century Mexico: The Presidencies of Lázaro Cárdenas and Luis Echeverría (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2010). Her academic interests include constructions of race, ethnicity, political identities, social movements, the nation-state, and national identity. Professor Muñoz currently sits on the American Historical Association’s Committee on Minority Historians and is co-director of the Oaxaca Summer Institute.