In late September 2024, civil war erupted in the home of one of Mexico’s largest cartels––the Sinaloa cartel––after the abduction of two key leaders, Joaquín Guzmán López and Ismael Zambada. Following the incident, the city of Culiacán saw unprecedented levels of crime and bloody in-group warfare. Though, while many view the abductions as outliers, this instance was not one of isolated violence. Rather, it was a calculated result of years of bitter conflict and power struggle among competing groups and internal rivalries. In the early 1990s, lenient anti-drug campaigns saw a dramatic rise in cartel presence, one which did not go away even after the introduction of stricter enforcement policies such as militaristic intervention under former president Felipe Calderón, elected in 2006. These cartels not only competed for a lucrative market of illicit drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine but also controlled a significant portion of political and law enforcement officials, something only mediated years later following the electoral defeat of the largely cartel-controlled Institutional Revolutionary Party. Ultimately, the exponential rise in homicides heading into the 21^st century and larger political changes within many Latin American countries marked an era of violence, fear, and conflict. But, the decision to fight for control of a market or territory is not a simple one; war has an incredibly high opportunity cost. Essentially, these “agency costs” are manifested in the money and resources funneled into the creation of private militias, planning of strategy, and possible risk of losing territory or vital funds. Nevertheless, data demonstrates that cartel violence is very much still a presence in Mexican society. Between 2015 and 2022 alone, there was an exponential increase in the deaths of both combatants and civilians fighting in non-state armed groups like cartels, reaching up to nearly 20,000 killed in a single year alone. But if violence is largely undesirable due to its unprofitability, what are the forces that drive cartels such as the Sinaloa toward conflict? Essentially, why do they engage in inter-cartel fighting in lieu of better options? This analysis seeks to use academic frameworks to better understand the factors contributing to cartel violence––namely, the logical underpinnings of violence––to better address the root causes of both internal and external fighting, and devise a path to possible solutions in the future.

As political scientist Christopher Blattman explains in his book Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Path to Peace, there are five principal reasons why conflict occurs: leader interests, reputational concerns, commitment problems, uncertainty, intangible incentives, and misperceptions. Cartels in Mexico seem to continuously face a combination of the first three. Because large cartels such as the Sinaloa obtain a large stream of income from the sale of illicit drugs, they become more sensitive to political and economic changes. If these groups feel as if they are being tapped out of the market, or something threatens their hegemonic hold on a particular territory––such as the city of Culiacán––they are more likely to believe that warring to attain possible benefits outweighs the potential risk of conflict. For instance, in the case of the Gulf Cartel, a paramilitary breakaway subgroup, the Zetas, triggered the cartel’s perceived decline in the early 2000s. The Zetas’ increasing monetary power and military influence over critical regions, combined with President Calderón’s harsh anti-drug campaign, left the Gulf Cartel feeling pushed out of the market. These frustrations led to violent reactions by the Gulf Cartel, prompting the beginning of infighting in 2010 when Zetas leader Heriberto Lazcano made a formal split as a result of tensions in the Northeastern region of Tamaulipas, which served as a significant trading route between Mexico and the United States, ultimately demonstrating the slippery slope leading economic insecurity to snowball into intercartel warfare. 

Moreover, in Guillermo Trejo and Sandra Ley’s paper “Why Did Drug Cartels Go to War in Mexico?” greed and reputational concerns are cited as principal causes for group conflict. This is best realized in 2023, when more than 70 active armed groups vied for command over the top drug hubs. Notably, contentious areas such as Michoacán have been a recent battleground for skirmishes with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, led by Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, who seeks to take territory from local criminal organizations who are blocking his expansion. To further this effort against rivals like the Sinaloa, Cervantes has strengthened presence in nearly 27 different territories, especially in contentious areas where there are challengers for control over drug-producing and trafficking routes. As leaders climb the ladder and get closer to controlling more of the profit, their desire for reputation––and the destruction of anyone who threatens it––continues to build. In this instance, intangible factors such as reputation and the ambitions of leaders seeking to dominate competitors and control resources play a significant role in understanding why cartels choose the unprofitability of war.  But this occurs with nearly every member, not just those at the top. 

These reputational concerns start young, when men from impoverished backgrounds, with lack of access to schooling and the traditional job market, take positions as cartel soldiers to boost their social status in their communities. For instance, a 2021 study from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography found that the majority of those imprisoned in Mexico––especially for drug-related activity––were men under the age of 29 who had previously experienced poverty, hunger, and unemployment. A lack of access to employment opportunities has led many young men to join cartels because they feel they have no other option to escape cyclical poverty. Moreover, they have a greater incentive to follow their leader because reputations of cartel members are so contingent on the success of the cartel, these leaders may decide to go to war to win hegemony over a particular market or geographic territory. 

Another critical incentive is commitment problems; the inability to negotiate or secure agreements with opposing sides fosters a lack of faith within the negotiating cartel, ultimately resulting in fracturing and civil war. The most poignant example of such is the instance of splintering in the Zeta cartel following stricter anti-drug laws from former Mexican President Felipe Calderón. Because Calderón’s policies sought to drastically increase prosecution and militarization in response to cartel activity, there was larger pressure put on groups such as the Zetas. Given that many were already facing in-group struggles, this political pressure made it more difficult to bargain with each other and the government, resulting in groups choosing to fight.  In “War as a Commitment Problem,” political theorist Robert Powell expands on this take, arguing that a party’s inability to fulfill inter-cartel agreements can create a vacuum of trust, where neither party feels confident about continuing their relationship. Given two rational actors, either one or both always believes that the other is trying to deceive them, especially if there are significant economic or social interests at play. These suspicions, intensifying under political and reputational pressures, drive cartels toward conflict. Notably, lack of communication between splintering cartel groups who seek to compete for hegemony or sign a concession agreement causes structural factions to deepen, limiting opportunities for peace.

Violence, or lack thereof, is surprisingly logical in many cases. But while groups such as rival cartels often make rational choices to go to war, they may also do the same in bargaining, serving as a deterrent to war. This can occur within cartels, or between cartels and third parties such as the government, NGOs or members of the Church. For instance, in February of 2024, four Roman Catholic bishops organized meetings with leaders of cartels in cities like MichoacanMinchoacan to bargain for a peace agreement following presidential approval, demonstrating that peace, just like war, according to Blattman and other political theorists, is a matter of strategic game theory, taking into account vast incentives of numerous actors. Essentially, bargaining can be a double-edged sword, either it falls victim to reputational concerns or commitment problems, or, it is able to prevail as a deterrent to violence. While there are many cases of violence occurring within conflicting groups, this does not tell the full story. Mexico is a burgeoning democracy, but despite its improvements in access to education and employment outcomes, much of the country still remains impoverished with a large amount of government corruption due to the hegemonic rule of cartels such as the Sinaloa and JNGC. This leads one to question: can sustained, perpetual peace be a true possibility, or is it just a fleeting goal? 

It is critical for neighboring countries––especially those with significant power and resources such as the United States––to push for policy that may allow for the opportunity for in-group fighting to be ameliorated. Through the introduction of initiatives reducing the incentive for cartels to go to war, and decreasing incentives to join cartels in the first place (by reducing poverty and increasing access to education) as well as stronger controls to prevent civilian casualties and commitment problems, the bloody strife present in major drug trafficking zones such as Michoacan and Veracruz can face a continuous shift towards mutually beneficial concessions. While cartel violence is unlikely to go away entirely, and simple incentives are unlikely to be a solvent for the entire problem, they provide a good start to promote a pathway to peace.

Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: Mexican Army in Tamaulipas, taken on Feb 19, 2024 | Image sourced from FMT | CC License, no changes made

Scarcity or plunder?

My family has been affected by the worst national drought in a decade. My grandmother, who lives in Mexico City, went from having everyday access to water to relying on a scheduled distribution of tanks. She has been affected by the low reserves of the Cutzamala system, which holds 25 percent of the supply of Mexico City’s Metropolitan Area and is expected to dry by June 2024. In my case, Querétaro is one of the municipalities with extreme drought conditions. And prior to this investigation, I hadn’t even known about this grave scarcity due to the lack of media coverage on the issue. The water I receive is administered by a private enterprise, who have raised prices and made it impossible to know when the tap will be closed. Nonetheless, I must highlight the fortunate conditions that surround me. I live in a city, and I was born into a family that can buy a water tank that protects me from droughts.

Theoretically, Mexico can provide 549 cubic meters of water per person out of the 50 recommended by the United Nations. This is the Mexican paradox of water: over 80 percent of the territory is facing drought in 2024 while having more than five times the required resource. As such, we are forced to ask who manages water in the country? Article 4 of the Mexican Constitution establishes that water management and distribution is a state responsibility. Yet, the National Law of Waters, promulgated in 1992, interprets the resource as one tied to the market. 

Water is administered as a product sold to the highest bidder. Purchasers such as public and private enterprises and individuals have permits to extract over 237 billion cubic meters of water each year—the equivalent to around 94 million olympic-size swimming pools. Furthermore, not only has water been privatized, but it has also been politicized. Politicians have not made a change to this law for 32 years, which allows municipal governments to grant water administration to over 2,826 operators, all the while lowering the budget allocated to water distribution. Thus, to seriously analyze this impending national crisis it becomes imperative to look at the exacerbating inequality, environment, security, and gender factors. 

In power, there is no drought

I hold even higher privileges in comparison to the periphery communities, both rural and indigenous, that have not had water for years. This is contrary to governmental data, which says 96 percent of Mexicans have access to water—an increase of 20 points compared to 30 years ago. However, such data is estimated by the number of homes connected to the public pipeline without considering if the pipeline has water. An example of such a contradiction is Oaxaca, a state in southern Mexico with the third highest poverty index level and second largest water reserves in the country. Despite the latter, at least 40 percent of the population obtains their water by purchasing water tanks.

Particularly, indigenous populations have borne the brunt of this inequality and have not remained silent. For instance, in 2022, their advocacy led to the first community water concession to 16 indigenous groups in central Oaxaca. Said grant was the outcome of 17 years of fighting spearheaded by the Zapoteca people. This fight to bridge inequalities touches the “[…] most sensible of fibers of all of the power mafias.” 

Additionally, the impacts of wealthy interest groups are felt in Mexico’s water uses: 76 percent of water functions for the agricultural sector as a result of lobbying by enterprises and the agroindustry. This sector wastes the most water in the country. A further example of mismanagement, estimates say 6 out of 10 sources of drinkable water in Mexico have pollution of some type, and even more alarming is that nearly all bodies of water have some level of pollution. The repercussions of such mishandling is felt across the country with examples ranging from reports of synthetic-smelling water to the bleak case of the polluted Santiago River, which has provoked the death of more than 2,647 people. Adding to the distressing environmental prospects is the climate change phenomenon El Niño, which impacts Mexico by causing rain in the winter and drought in the summer. 

Such conditions leave Mexicans with scant prospects of water security—a problem that has not been prioritized by past and present administrations. This is illustrated by the National Water Commission (CONAGUA), an overwhelmed institution that has been unable to inspect concessions, fulfill legal obligations, or give maintenance to outdated hydraulic infrastructure, among other shortcomings. Basic human rights such as access to food and health are simultaneously put at risk with the government’s neglect of water. Furthermore, it seems as if water shortage is often overlooked as a threat to national security despite its prevalence. Water conflicts are increasingly ubiquitous, such as the armed violence that victimized the inhabitants of Ayutla, Oaxaca in 2017, and the increasing looting of water by organized groups which has sparked the creation of a regional Prosecution Office for Hydric and Environmental Crime. Despite all this, CONAGUA’s budget was lowered by 12.6 percent in 2023.

Water for care and protecting the territory 

Bearing in mind how water impacts inequality, the environment, and security, it is possible to observe the gender perspective is missing. Water is a human right, but water also portrays relationships between a community through which gender dynamics are conspicuous. The United Nations estimates that, worldwide, 7 out of 10 people without water and sanitation are women. Not to mention that when water is scarce, the labor of getting and storing water falls mainly on women and girls who spend double the time men do on the same job. Gathering and securing water for a community and a household is inherent to the unsalaried, invisible care and domestic work women bear. 

In addition to spearheading the labor of carrying, filling, boiling, filtering, and negotiating with authorities and water providers, women face a series of vulnerabilities throughout these processes.¹ For example, many women experience higher exposure to violence, especially in cases of harassment perpetrated by water truck drivers who demand sexual favors in exchange for water trucks.² Human rights are also imperiled as women’s societal responsibility for water increases their chances of being school dropouts, diminishes their time for recreational activities, and reinforces the feminization of poverty.³ And unfortunately, it is impossible to quantify or completely understand the extent of age, gender, and geographic inequalities because of a lack of data.⁴

Regardless of women being most affected by the use of water, men tend to be decision-makers in institutions and dialogues related to water rights, and there is discrimination towards social and environmental topics developed by women.⁵ In the field, women tend to work in administrative not operational areas, whereas in communities they tend to pressure men to improve access to and care for water.⁶ All in all, this leads to the verticalization of water policy which emphasizes infrastructure (such as dams or processing plants)—without considering care and the conservation of water and land.⁷ 

Therefore, incorporating gender perspective, from decision-making to grassroots initiatives, can contribute to diminishing the social, political, and economic inequalities faced by women. Still, women defend water in ecofeminist collectives to prevent the vulnerabilities, conflict, and social exclusion that stem from its privatization and politicization. As water activist and academic Claudia Elvira Romero Herrera notes, “women are pillars to defending water and the territory due to their integral vision and their capacity to set the collective good above the particular.”⁸

Watered, clean, accessible pipelines 

Mexican water is accessed, polluted, and controlled by the (usually cis-male) rich elite. These privileged few both ignore and cover up the scarcity and plunder of water. They are far removed from the 74 percent of citizens who have experienced an interruption to their water sources, 48 percent who said they have not had water, and 20 percent who went to sleep thirsty in January 2024. Politicians and the private sector contribute to downplaying conditions that do not allow for water to take its place at the top of the national agenda. This will proliferate with the upcoming presidential elections in June 2024, where voters will expect proposals from each candidate on how to face the water crisis. Solutions have been proposed by various activists all over the country, such as the Center for Sustainability Incalli Ixcahuicopa or Water and Life, an ecofeminist organization. These are just some of the organizations that risk their lives in one of the deadliest countries for environmental activists. One of their main demands is a new national law that can install new parameters for water sanitation, bar companies from 100 year concessions, and more. It is time for the Mexican hydrocracy to promote and undertake a shared, proportional, and gender-conscious approach to defending this vital liquid.

References

Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: Water truck refilling home storage tanks in Oaxaca de Juarez, Oaxaca, Mexico on April 23, 2011| Image sourced from Wikimedia Commons

1.  Claudia Elvira Romero Herrera, “De la estadística a la realidad: las mujeres en el cuidado, gestión y defensa del agua” Impluvium 19, (April – June 2022): 21-28, http://www.agua.unam.mx/assets/pdfs/impluvium/numero19.pdf ↩︎
2. Ibid. ↩︎
3. Denise Soares, Omar Fonseca, Juan Gabriel García, “Mujeres y Agua: Reflexiones desde los Derechos Humanos,” Impluvium 19, (April – June 2022): 8-14, http://www.agua.unam.mx/assets/pdfs/impluvium/numero19.pdf ↩︎
4. Juana Amalia Salgado López, “Seguridad Hídrica y Género: Desafíos en Agua, Saneamiento, e Higiene.” Impluvium 19, (April – June 2022): 14-21, http://www.agua.unam.mx/assets/pdfs/impluvium/numero19.pdf ↩︎
5. Eloisa Domínguez-Mariani, Carmen Julia Navarro-Gómez, Rebeca López-Reyes, “Participación de las mujeres en áreas de gestión de agua” Impluvium 19, (April – June 2022): 14-21, http://www.agua.unam.mx/assets/pdfs/impluvium/numero19.pdf ↩︎
6. Ibid. ↩︎
7. Ibid. ↩︎
8. Claudia Elvira Romero Herrera, “De la estadística a la realidad: las mujeres en el cuidado, gestión y defensa del agua” Impluvium 19, (April – June 2022): 21-28, http://www.agua.unam.mx/assets/pdfs/impluvium/numero19.pdf ↩︎

“There is nothing else to say… it was a crime of passion.”

Jesús Ociel Baena Saucedo, the first openly non-binary magistrate in Latin America, was found murdered alongside their partner Dorian Daniel Nieves Herrera on November 13, 2023, in Aguascalientes, Mexico. In less than 24 hours, their death was shelved and disparaged as “a crime of passion.” Mexican authorities came to this inconsistent conclusion by claiming to have found evidence that Baena’s partner had committed the murder and that there was no evidence of a third party. Yet, the dismissal of further investigation comes as no surprise in a country as impune and corrupt as Mexico. In 2022, only one percent of all committed crimes were reported, investigated and resolved. Correspondingly, the police’s murder-suicide narrative was quickly disputed by family and friends. 

Baena’s activism for the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community led them to make history as the first non-binary person to assume a judicial position and to be given a non-binary passport, national identification, and master’s degree. Their murder portrays a state-media-netizen-sponsored LGBTphobia — a sociopolitical umbrella that tolerates the alarming rate of LGBTQIA+ violent deaths in Latin America and the Caribbean. These murders scream a blunt message — LGBTQIA+ individuals must hide their sexuality and identities in exchange for staying alive. Such dehumanizing discourse is found in many public social media posts informing of Baena’s murder. Thus, despite the X — formerly Twitter — user’s bold statement, how much is there to say about this crime (not) of passion?

“So is it femicide or non-binary-cide?”

As mentioned above, another X user depicts how hate does not end even in death. Not only does the remark ooze derogatory sarcasm by appropriating sexism and LGBTphobia, but it discloses a pervasive cultural phenomena of stigmatization, prejudice, and discrimination against diverse sexual orientations and gender identities in Latin America and the Caribbean.¹ The origin of said bigotry can be traced to European colonization’s crackdown on indigenous sexualities and the Catholic binary gaze.² Subsequently, the persecution of cis-heteronormative dissidents prevailed, and outlived the violent authoritarian regimes of the twentieth century. Yet resistance prospered in the 1970s and 1980s, breaking through the oppressive system.³ Latin American LGBTQIA+ associations spearheaded the most improvement of diversity rights and policies outside of the North Atlantic.⁴ In 2016, Latin America (excluding the Caribbean) had one of the most progressive legislation and policies towards LGBTQIA+ individuals. For instance, the decriminalization of homosexuality, improvement of anti-discrimination statutes, and right to serve in the military.⁵

Nonetheless, these legal shields have not sufficed to halt — nor correctly count — the number of LGBTQIA+ murders. The first network to do so,  Sin Violencia LGBTI, recorded a total of 1,300 lives violently taken from 2014 to 2019 in nine Latin American countries. Notably, two of the following regional factors worsen such vulnerability to murder. On the one hand, LGBTQIA+ people have not remained unscathed from macro criminality patterns, as Latin America and the Caribbean are some of the most unequal and violent regions in the world. The second factor is the increasingly powerful conservative opposition to the expansion of LGBTQIA+ rights.⁶ So, is it macro criminality or violent prejudice?

“Enough about the assassination of these perverts, there are more important stuff to attend to in this country.”

This is just one example of the kinds of harassment and threats Ociel Baena often received on social media. Accordingly, Magistrate Baena Saucedo was assigned personal state protection four months before their assassination. This happened right after the assassination of LGBTQIA+ activist Ulises Nava, who was shot after attending Mexico’s first Litigation Congress for Rainbow Quotas with Baena. Nava suffered a hate crime pervasive in Mexico, which is second only to Brazil in the number of hate crimes committed against LGBTQIA+ people. Disregarding this nationwide fact, the state prosecutors in Baena’s case offered a hurried, undignifying, ignorant conclusion to explain their murder: a crime of passion. Despite these statements, when interviewed by El País, the local prosecutor stated that social media is being considered as a line of investigation to indicate a hate crime and that they are not closing the door to this possibility in any way. Somehow, the door appears semi-closed by the publicized narrative.

Wilfrido Salazar, legal advisor for the Community for Diversity, Rights, and Citizenship (CODDEC) in Aguascalientes, related the rash scenario reached by the state regarding Baena’s death to the frequent crimes of passion discourse of the  1970s and 1980s , therefore exhibiting the modernization of strategies to suppress LGBTQIA+ rights. Such setbacks are enabled by a system of oppression composed of the state, media, and netizens. They abide by the secondary victimization suffered by LGBTQIA+ individuals like Magistrate Baena. First, the state plays a major role in creating biased public narratives. In Ociel Baena’s case, the State did so by abruptly establishing a crime of passion, overlooking the Magistrate’s gender identity and previous threats. Additionally, Latin American politics are entrenched to a greater extent by politically engaged evangelical groups that double-victimize using an opposition to gender ideology.⁷

Next in the system is the media. Latin American and international press such as BBC News, El País, La Jornada, El Universal, Milenio, and AP News, to name a few, re-victimize Baena using LGBTphobic language. Articles combine or at least do one of the following gender aggressions: putting commas around to set apart their pronouns or non-binary identification, misgendering the magistrate with “he/him” pronouns, and even italicizing inclusive language as to contrast or draw attention.

The aforementioned study is the only cross-cultural, systematic measure of the challenges embedded in the region. And notably, the study only focuses on homophobia, not on the entire LGBTQIA+ spectrum. Consequently, the cultural aspect of LGBTphobia is yet to be academically published. Still, it is possible to find cultural manifestations of the cis heteronorm in the categorization of Ociel Baena’s murder as a crime of passion.  First, Spanish and Portuguese are gendered languages, which transmit a core foundation to how Latins perceive the LGBTQIA+ community. Examples range from press misgendering to the mockery and dismissal of inclusive language and pronouns on social media. Such incidents play into what Miskolci analyzes as the Latin American crusade against gender ideology, polarizing societies into good citizens adverse to feminists, homosexuals, and trans people.⁸

Netizens, or active internet users, complete the tripartite dehumanizing LGBTphobic system. While attitudes towards the LGBTQIA+ population have favorably changed, prejudice has persisted.⁹ Anonymity, confirmation bias, and an unquestioned cis-heteronormative mindset independently aid in the propagation of LGBTphobia. Findings by Chilean psychologists Jaime Barrientos and Joaquín Bahamondes relate the pervasive non-acceptance, stigmatization, and discrimination to sociocultural characteristics of Latin Americans.¹⁰

It may seem as if oppression, fear, and discrimination will inevitably spread into the region and quell the voices of LGBTQIA+ voices. This was the prevailing atmosphere in the early morning of November 13, 2023, when news of Ociel Baena and partner Dorian Daniel Nieves’  violent murder first spread. A heavy-hearted LGBTQIA+ community experienced fear and grief beyond the accustomed, as hatred appeared even in death. Notwithstanding, as Ociel once said, “We all fear for our lives. It could have been any of us. We’re dismayed, of course, we’re afraid… but we’ll be more afraid if we stop raising our voices, if we continue pretending that nothing is happening.” The resistance showed up; thousands protested for justice the same day in Mexico City.

Thereafter, two initiatives for the Ociel Baena Law were presented by transgender federal congressperson Salma Luévano, and sexual diversity associations. This law seeks to prevent and punish hate crimes in Mexico in order to create a gender and sexual diversity perspective in legislation. The Ociel Baena Law is yet to pass from the analytics committees to Congress since it was presented in December 2022, hence it was promoted as a municipal law. As of January 2024, the initiative is simultaneously built in the state of Puebla, and at a federal level. If approved, the law would punish LGBTphobic, xenophobic, racist, and other violent discourses in social media with prison ranging from 15 days to six months and fines up to $183 USD. Additionally, the initiative could raise incarceration penalties from 40 to 70 years for those who commit murder motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, sexual characteristics, race, religion, disability, ethnicity, and nationality.

While the local prosecutors still maintained their initial versions when interviewed in January 2024, and even called for international or national organizations to take over and prove them wrong, justice continues to be demanded by a series of LGBTQIA+ collectives and Baena’s family. So, to address the X comment above: no. There is not even close to enough when it comes to supporting these inspiring dissidents, and perhaps addressing such rooted cultural hatred can change something for Mexico, and the region.

No fear, no forgetting, with pride: forward

LGBTphobia has led to uncountable loss of life which, despite embedding fear, has also mobilized the LGBTQIA+ community and its allies. The 88 legal protections and anti-discrimination laws portray such mobilization for rights in Latin America and the Caribbean. While the mechanisms are lacking for now, the goal is that these legal frameworks could one day be compiled into an internationally-recognized treaty. Latin America and the Caribbean owe recognition, dignification, memory, and more reparations to those with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. The tripartite-supported discourse nor the hate tweets weaken the LGBTQIA+ movement. Rest in power, Ociel Baena. Rest in assurance that your fight endures.

References:

Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: Pride Flag | Image sourced from Rawpixel

1. Barrientos, Jaime., Bahamondes, Joaquín. “Homosexuality Justification and Social Distance: A Cross-Cultural Approach from Latin America Using World Values Survey Data.” In Latinx Queer Psychology, by Chaparro, R.A., Prado, M.A.M., 127-139. Springer, Cham., 2022.
   ↩︎
2. Bisso Schmidt, Benito., Mascarenhas Neto, Rubens. ‘History and Memory of Dissident Sexualities from Latin America: An Analysis of the Foundation, Current Activities, and Projects of AMAI LGBTQIA+.” The International Journal of Information, Diversity, and Inclusion 5, 4 (2021). https://doi.org/10.33137/ijidi.v5i4.36914
   ↩︎
3. Ibid.
   ↩︎
4. Corrales, Javier. “The Expansion of LGBT Rights in Latin America and the Backlash.” In The Oxford Handbook of Global LGBT and Sexual Diversity Politics, edited by Michael J. Bosia, Sandra M. McEvoy, and Momin Rahman., 185-200. Oxford Academic, 2019.
   ↩︎
5. Ibid.
   ↩︎
6. Ibid.
   ↩︎
7. Ibid.
   ↩︎
8. Richard Miskolci. “The Moral Crusade on ‘Gender Ideology’: notes on conservative political alliances in Latin America.” Journal of the Brazilian Sociological Society 4, 2 (2018): 44-59. http://dx.doi.org/10.20336/sid.v4i2.99.
   ↩︎
9. Barrientos, Jaime., Bahamondes, Joaquín. “Homosexuality Justification and Social Distance: A Cross-Cultural Approach from Latin America Using World Values Survey Data.” In Latinx Queer Psychology, by Chaparro, R.A., Prado, M.A.M., 127-139. Springer, Cham., 2022.
   ↩︎
10. Ibid.
    ↩︎

“The Picasso of Pakistan” has traveled the world to show off his art. He has painted in St. Petersburg, held an exhibition in L.A., and created a piece for the Smithsonian. As the honorific suggests, Haider Ali got his start in Pakistan. His father first put a brush between his hands at the age of seven, but Ali did not touch a truck for years. He spent his time painting perfectly straight lines, circles, and other simple shapes with only his steady hands. Ali took on his first job as a professional truck painter at the age of 16. He only recognized his mastery when he painted the Smithsonian’s Jingle Truck exhibition in 2002.

Diego Rivera’s life is the stuff of legend in Mexico and the United States. An avid artist from a young age, Rivera’s family sent him to the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City at the age of 10. In 1907, the 21-year-old Rivera received government funding to study in Europe. Rivera remained in Europe for the following decade, coming back to Mexico in 1921 as the Mexican Revolution came to an end. The Revolution stoked Rivera’s Marxist leanings and reinvigorated his deep reverence for indigenous, working-class Mexican culture–a foundational starting point for most if not all of his work thereafter. The growing political nature of his artwork led to some of his most famous murals, many of which he would paint in the United States after the Mexican government’s public mural program stopped commissioning him in the late 1920s.

Mexico and South Asia have both wrestled with political, cultural, and economic structures put in place by their former colonizers. These colonial legacies continue to influence the art of both regions. South Asian truck art directly traces its roots to British colonial rule. The first trucks in South Asia were large, Bedford-brand military vehicles used to transport military equipment during World War II. When the British hastily left the subcontinent in the late 1940s, the trucks proved essential for traversing South Asia’s vast distances, complex topography, and sprawling urban centers. Truck painting grew in popularity a few years later as drivers who slept, ate, and worshipped within their trucks began beautifying their living spaces. Soon after, truck painting became a mainstay of commercial transportation—the better the truck looked, the more clients would want to contract it.

Mexican muralism, as well as the other art styles born during the “Mexican Renaissance”— the title often given to the decade following the Mexican Revolution—has a complex colonial legacy. Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Jose Clemente Orozco—“Los Tres Grandes”—are often credited with being the three most influential Mexican muralists. They came together in 1923, under the patronage and eager support of Mexican President Alvaro Obregon’s secretary of public education, Jose Vasconcelos, to create a set of large government murals. Vasconcelos had tasked the artists with painting these murals to foster a new National Mexican identity. Indigenous livelihood served as the bedrock for this new Mexican identity, and the murals offered the chance to effectively communicate with Mexico’s mostly illiterate populace.

Rivera and Siqueiros both studied and cultivated their artistic skills by traveling to Europe. Orozco received his art education at the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts and developed his own artistic philosophy from the teachings of Dr. Atl, a professor at the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts, who encouraged Orozco and other students to reject European artistic traditions in favor of Indigenous visual aesthetics. Orozco became a muralist when the government commission gave him the chance to return to Mexico after fleeing to the United States during the revolution. Much of Orozco’s decisions throughout his artistic career would be driven by his pursuit of patronage and his desire to live and work in Mexico. Rivera’s interest in painting murals partly emerged from a trip to Italy during which he studied frescoes. Rivera also wished to spread his Marxist beliefs through his work. Siqueiros—an avid Stalinist—tied his devotion to murals to the artwork’s fundamental monumentality. Murals can not be privately owned.

As Yale art history professor Subhashini Kaligotla, an expert in Medieval Deccan Indian creations, explains, South Asian aesthetic theories have long incorporated discussions on “essence” or “rasa”—a fundamental quality found in aesthetic interpretation. South Asia’s beautiful, intricate truck art consistently serves as an exercise in both function and aesthetic. When it comes to painted trucks, South Asians see their aesthetic qualities and their functionality. Some of the most common and popular symbols on painted trucks began as religious iconography. Hawks pepper many trucks—an important symbol Sikh drivers use to express their faith. Some drivers adorn their trucks with political figures. Almost every truck includes instructions to other drivers, such as “Horn Please.” In Pakistan, a popular joke is often written in Urdu across the back bumper: “Don’t get too close, or you’ll fall in love.” The vivid colors, patterns, sprawling designs, and scenes on these trucks play upon aestheticism and functionality and do so at the behest of the painter, driver, and company.

Haider Ali is no stranger to the individual nature of truck art. Each truck is as much a reflection of the driver and their business as it is a testament to the painter’s skills and story. Take the white van Ali painted for the Pacific Asia Museum in Los Angeles. Throughout the van, he includes symbols of both Pakistan and California—connecting the regions together through the importance transportation, natural beauty, and language play in both cultures.  On one side, the American and Pakistani flags are joined by a bouquet of flowers. On the hood flies a bald eagle painted in the distinct truck art style. The rest of the van features symbolism from route 66, The Grand Trunk Road, native flora and fauna, and a dizzying array of design elements. Ali also painted a small easel as a thank you to the museum for facilitating his visit.

Orozco, Siqueiros, and Rivera all came to the United States in the late 1920s in search of patronage. A change in the Mexican government’s leadership led to the mural program ending in 1927, meaning the artists had to seek patronage elsewhere. After finding success in San Francisco and Detroit in the early 1930s, Rivera ended up in New York City in 1932. Influenced by his wife’s love for Rivera’s work, John D. Rockefeller Jr. contracted the muralist to paint a monumental fresco in the lobby of the near-complete Rockefeller Center. Rivera’s vision centered around the idea of competing social developments. He designed the piece to evoke a sense of symmetrical asymmetry—everything on one side has its equal and opposite on the other. Though the painting might lack diversity of gender, body type, and ability, Rivera ensured that throughout the mural workers, aristocrats, and historical figures of varying race, class, power, importance, and expertise were present. Rivera never finished the fresco. After painting the likeness of Lenin, local newspapers decried the mural as anti-capitalist propaganda. The development company responsible for his commission demanded he remove the Communist figure. Rivera refused; instead, he offered to paint Abraham Lincoln to juxtapose the Soviet figure’s presence. The development company eventually paid Rivera’s full commission and destroyed the work in its entirety. The turn of events scandalized artists and Marxists across the world. Writers deplored the loss of Rivera’s masterpiece. Rivera, a fond follower of Trotsky’s teachings, had his work besmirched, denigrated, and destroyed by the wealthy capitalists of New York City, yet Rivera had chosen to work for John D. Rockefeller Jr.—an almost archetypal embodiment of nepotism, capitalism, and class distinction. He chose his patron, and he chose a capitalist.

Professor Kaligotla emphasizes that many people are quick to discredit the agency medieval creators enjoyed under their wealthy patrons. She explains that in studying the creations of master craftsmen for various elite families, she found that there was always a degree of agency in the work. The patron—though influential and powerful in the relationship—did not control every aspect of the creative process as many might assume would occur under dynastic or feudal power structures. Kaligotla also suggests that modern creators and thinkers might be quick to diminish the agency of past creators while simultaneously overestimating their own.

Liz Ohanesian—a writer for KCET, a cultural programming organization in Southern California—wrote an article for Haider Ali’s painted van exhibition in the Pacific Asia Museum. In the article, Ohanesian described Ali’s professional trajectory: “At 16, he took on his first job, but was unsure of his skills. Ali spent nights practicing the paintings that he would apply to trucks during the day. It wasn’t until he painted trucks at the Smithsonian that Ali realized that he was good at his job.” Ali, who in other places is described as a truck painting prodigy, felt unsure of his skills until he painted a truck for the Smithsonian museum. Ohanesian may have exaggerated this point or Haider Ali may have meant something different than what is written in the article itself, but Professor Kaligotla describes what Ali’s story seems to verify: many South Asian creators seek out “ratification” from Western art institutions. As Kaligotla elaborates, these creators want the material wealth and global prestige that comes with the respect of “international”—most likely Western—institutions. Without access to that wealth and prestige, artists will almost never achieve international respect for their work.

In 1922, Siqueiros wrote the manifesto for the Syndicate of Technical Workers, Painters, and Sculptors—a Mexican trade union he helped organize. He entitled the work A Declaration of Social, Political and Aesthetic Principles and demanded the world of art to fundamentally change: “We repudiate so-called easel painting and every kind of art favored by the ultra-intellectual circles, because it is aristocratic and we praise monumental art in all its forms, because it is public property… Art must no longer be the expression of individual satisfaction, but should aim to become a fighting, educative art for all.” Art, he declared, must exist for anyone and everyone. Perhaps Siquieros believed he could find a wall large enough for the world—that is the seeing world—to see. Has there ever been an artwork physically accessible to everyone—let alone culturally relevant to everyone? Rivera’s Man at The Crossroads would have displayed itself to a primary audience of wealthy New Yorkers. Each exhibition Haider Ali paints for a museum can only ever benefit those people who can afford to go to museums. Do creators ever choose their audience? Can creators choose their audience? Can creators ever choose correctly?

Siqueiros believed that monumental artworks, such as murals, could evade class distinction and aristocratic appropriation. After all, powerful and wealthy classes could not possess the wall of a government building in Mexico City. This resilience to the influence of money and power in art is a rare attribute. Debbie Lechtman—an Israeli and Costa Rican anthropologist specializing in Jewish history—remarks that, in both Costa Rica and Israel, artists and creators usually focus on producing work to sell to American tourists, even if it comes at the cost of their local cultural ideals and customs. In Israel, Jewish creators often appeal to the American Evangelical narrative which views Judaism as a precursor to Christianity rather than an independent, ancient tribal and religious tradition. This trend worries Lechtman. Even in Israel—where Jewish ethnic traditions are widely respected and cherished—the perspectives of Jewish creators are treated as secondary to the desires of Western tourists. How much worse it must be outside of Israel, where antisemitism remains a pernicious, daily reality for Jewish communities. Lechtman laments that creators often need to seek out financial stability by diminishing their own culture. She sees a similar situation in Costa Rica, where creators often caricaturize facets of Costa Rican identity to sell to American tourists.

Lechtman is herself a creator; she runs a small business making Jewish-inspired jewelry by hand. Lechtman knows that appropriation has become commonplace in jewelry-making, especially when it comes to Native American creation styles, but she continues to work against appropriation however she can: “As far as what I’ve done to combat it, I’ve done what I always do… Try to educate people on the cultural significance of those amulets. I don’t directly confront those who appropriate them because it seems like a waste of time and I don’t think it’d really be effective. My approach to these things is always education.” 

Discussions on cultural appropriation—what it is, how it works, and the consequences it has—inevitably lead to questions about power. Under this structural reading, cultural appropriation is understood to occur when members of a dominant culture take cultural elements from a systematically oppressed minority culture. Members of the minority thus take elements from the dominant culture not out of choice, but out of a need to assimilate. This reading leads to the following conclusion: cultural appropriation occurs wherever a power imbalance exists. When creators who are driven by their cultural heritage and personal experiences—as most creators are—seek out patronage outside of their original cultural context, they—in some capacity—engage with appropriation.

The city of Phoenix, Arizona’s tourism website, visitPhoenix.com, offers a gallery of photographs directed to potential and prospective tourists. The images show everything from desert parklands and mouth-watering tacos to crystal blue pools and breathtaking sunsets. They often also include a mural, painted on one of Phoenix’s many alley walls. The Chicano mural movement began in the Southwestern United States in the 1960s as a way for Mexican-Americans to showcase their culture. The mix of Indigenous iconography with motifs and scenes from the tumultuous shared histories of Mexico and the United States are a direct descendent of the Mexican Mural Movement of the late 1920s and early ‘30s. They often feature scenes of social upheaval and are meant to spark debate with their vivid and dynamic compositions. Many of the muralists who work in Phoenix often emigrate from Mexico; like “Los Tres Grandes,” they develop their work within Mexico and then find patronage in the United States. Rivera chose to paint for Rockefeller; Ali chose to paint for museums in Los Angeles and Washington D.C. Few of these creators’ work derives cultural meaning and influence from the audiences that ultimately end up having access to their work—at least the work they create outside their original cultural context. Even if it is a public mural or a large truck free from the restrictions of a paywall, what does it mean when a creator—whose work builds upon unique cultural traditions defined by complex historical legacies—creates for a community distant from that cultural narrative? Can those creations ever stay true to themselves while sitting within the walls of a museum—while adorning the communities that have no inherent connection to their origins?

Rivera did not need to paint for Rockefeller; he had enjoyed plenty of financial success in Detroit and San Francisco. Rivera chose to do so, maybe precisely because it was Rockefeller. Ali chooses to travel to spread his artwork because he wants the tradition of truck painting to live on. Young people throughout Pakistan are no longer interested in painting trucks. When he painted the van for the Asia Pacific Museum, Ali made a deliberate effort to advertise the craft to as many potential students as he could. Ali even runs an organization devoted to continuing the practice of truck painting. Many of the Mexican muralists who emigrate to Phoenix do so to gain access to opportunity, to fulfill their creative desires. It is much harder to find the kind of financial security they enjoy in the United States in their hometowns. Often the question of why a creation is located in a particular space at a particular time comes down to whether the creator had any other choice.

Contemporary creators seldom, if ever, choose their audiences. Even Rivera—who at the time of the Rockefeller incident had wide appeal and international acclaim— could not select his audience. Unless he wished to paint without concern for money or without concern for conveying a particular idea through a large platform, his audiences would almost always be limited to the Western world. Once the Mexican government stopped commissioning him, he worked all across the United States. One can blame Rivera for appropriating his own work; one can decry his pursuit of material gain over the ideals of artistic integrity; one can call him a hypocrite for following his Marxist philosophies only when it benefitted him. One can also recognize that Rivera had two basic choices: cultivate his art and philosophy within Mexico despite threats, coercion, and lack of patronage; or work in the United States and sell his artistic creations to those who might never properly understand them.

There are plenty of articles about cultural appropriation, as the topic is varied, complex, and impossible to easily solve. Despite the many articles on the subject, there is often a defensive stance those afraid of being labeled appropriators resort to: “It’s cultural exchange, not appropriation.” Sadly, it isn’t. When Orozco began working in the United States, he wanted nothing more than to return to Mexico as a respected artist. When Rivera’s Man at the Crossroads was destroyed by Rockefeller, he recreated and completed the project in Mexico. When Ali left Pakistan to share his craft, a huge factor was the ongoing survival of his life’s passion. When creators from across the Global South enter the lucrative creative markets of the West, they rarely do so out of an honest desire to play with those markets’ inherent cultural narratives and complex traditions. More often than not it is out of a sense of necessity. Today’s wealthy institutions are full of art that would rather reside and grow somewhere else. 

In a world where “Los Tres Grandes” had never left Mexico and Ali never left Pakistan, there would be no international tradition of Muralism or truck art. There would be no discussion of Rivera’s interactions with the Rockefellers. There would be no elaborately painted white van in Los Angeles. This is not the world of art without cultural appropriation. It is impossible to understand what the world of art would look like without cultural appropriation. The only thing about this world that can be predicted with any degree of certainty is that creators would be driven by something beyond the physical need to create. They’d be driven by something within themselves. There is a high degree of probability that creators the world over already do behave like this—that they “follow their hearts,” so to speak. For a select lucky few, their desires and interests align with the resources the world has bequeathed onto them, but no creator can ever know if they belong to this lucky few. Imagining this world counterfactually can never truly determine whether the ideally perfect choice was even available to the creator, let alone if they made that choice. In a world where the options are limited, there is little agency. Choosing between so-called “international” cities leaves creators with little say. Their creations will inevitably always form a conversation with an audience, with a culture, that has no foundational understanding of who they are. Appropriation is the use, manipulation, adoption, or fetishization of someone’s work without their consent. Creators currently cannot consent. They do not have enough options to do so. It wouldn’t be enough if creators had guaranteed economic security. It wouldn’t be enough if creators have the chance to work for patrons and audiences from numerous, distinct backgrounds, cultures, and desires. It will only begin to be enough when creators have both. Until then, patrons the world over will buy and commission art that never truly belongs to them. Creation without meaningful consent is appropriation.

Works Cited

Acosta, Teresa Palomo. “TSHA | Chicano Mural Movement.” Accessed February 9, 2021. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/chicano-mural-movement.

Dean, Carolyn. “The Trouble with (The Term) Art.” Art Journal 65, no. 2 (July 1, 2006): 24. https://doi.org/10.2307/20068464.

DeYoung, Bill. “SHINE up Close: Truck Artist Haider Ali.” St Pete Catalyst, October 4, 2018. https://stpetecatalyst.com/shine-up-close-with-truck-artist-haider-ali/.

“Diego Rivera – Paintings,Murals,Biography of Diego Rivera.” Accessed February 9, 2021. https://www.diegorivera.org/.

Hart, Hugh, Hugh Hart, and Hugh Hart. “A Jingle Truck Artist Brings The Mobile Art Of Pakistan To America.” Fast Company, November 12, 2014. https://www.fastcompany.com/3037627/a-jingle-truck-artist-brings-the-mobile-art-of-pakistan-to-america.

Haskell, Barbara. “América: Mexican Muralism and Art in The United States, 1925–1945.” Accessed February 9, 2021. https://whitney.org/essays/america-mexican-muralism.

Johnson, Maisha Z. “What’s Wrong with Cultural Appropriation? These 9 Answers Reveal Its Harm.” Everyday Feminism, June 14, 2015. https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/06/cultural-appropriation-wrong/.

Lewis, Robert. “Diego Rivera | Mexican Painter | Britannica.” Accessed February 9, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Diego-Rivera.

“Man at the Crossroads by Deigo Rivera.” Accessed February 9, 2021. https://www.diegorivera.org/man-at-the-crossroads.jsp.

Nolen, Jeannette L. “José Clemente Orozco | Mexican Painter.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed February 9, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jose-Clemente-Orozco.

Ohanesian, Liz. “Haider Ali: The King of Pakistani Truck Painting.” KCET, October 29, 2014. https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/haider-ali-the-king-of-pakistani-truck-painting.

“Siqueiros Speaks.” Accessed February 9, 2021. https://www.nga.gov/education/teachers/lessons-activities/self-portraits/siqueiros.html.

Tikkanen, Amy. “David Alfaro Siqueiros | Mexican Painter.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed February 9, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/biography/David-Alfaro-Siqueiros.

“Visit Phoenix | Find Things to Do, Hotels, Restaurants & Events.” Accessed February 9, 2021. https://www.visitphoenix.com/.Vox. India’s Trucks Are Works of Art, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlriwanO4e4&t=186s.

Image Caption: Former Mexican President López Mateos (left) was one of several presidents to navigate a complex and often contradictory Cold War foreign policy that tended to strain Mexican relations with the United States.

With the Allies’ victory in 1945, the United States cemented itself as a global superpower. The U.S. was the only major belligerent to escape the conflict largely unscathed. Its economy was thriving, and it was the only nation in the world to have developed and used atomic weapons. But just when it seemed that the United States would successfully set about crafting a new world order through the establishment of multilateral organizations like the United Nations, a new threat emerged. The Soviet Union, an American ally during World War II, developed a chokehold on Eastern Europe immediately after the war, propping up repressive communist satellite regimes to create what Winston Churchill dubbed the “Iron Curtain” in 1946.^[1] The U.S.S.R.’s totalitarian communism and America’s democratic capitalism were deemed irreconcilably different by the leaders of both nations, and the Cold War was born as “the superpowers engaged in a global struggle for nothing less than ‘the soul of mankind,’ each advancing their own agendas for the betterment of all.”^[2] Soon, both nations possessed nuclear weapons, meaning that a military conflict between them would have the potential to exterminate the human race.

Thankfully, the Cold War did not play out as a conventional war. Rather, it was a geopolitical rivalry that manifested itself through military alliances, clandestine operations, and proxy wars as both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. sought to spread their respective ideologies throughout the world. Caught between the competing American capitalist and Soviet communist camps was the so-called Third World, made up of nations that refused to align themselves either way in a bid to remain neutral. Despite its proximity to the United States, Mexico was one such nation.

Mexico neglected to join America’s bloc not because of ideological sympathy toward the Soviet communists, but because of its own sense of nationalist self-preservation. While the United States justified aggressive interventionist policies, most infamously in Vietnam, as a reaction to communism’s despicable threat, Mexico “viewed the Cold War not as a principled crusade, but as an example of aggression by imperialist states whose financial and military power allowed them to dominate less developed nations.”^[3]

In many ways, Mexico’s Cold War experience was shaped by the Mexican Revolution. The government’s decisions, first to stand with Fidel Castro’s leftist regime in Cuba and later to support insurgent movements in Central America, were founded on a tradition of defending national sovereignty and self-determination dating back to the Revolution. Furthermore, certain sections of Mexico’s population, namely college students, unionists, and peasants, commiserated with Marxism, yearning for a Revolution they felt had gone unfulfilled. This sentiment was only exacerbated by the Mexican state’s authoritarian streaks, as the Mexican government found itself forced to choose between opposing the United States or its own citizenry.

The Soviet Union and Cuba

Mexico was one of the few countries to enjoy virtually uninterrupted diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union from the 1920s until its dissolution in 1991. This relationship was diplomatically and economically modest, with neither Mexico nor the U.S.S.R ever seriously considering a formal alliance with the other.^[4] Its climax arguably came during the late 1950s, as Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev mandated an expansion of the Soviet Union’s influence in the Third World at the same time as Mexican president Adolfo López Mateos looked to decrease Mexico’s commercial dependence on the United States.^[5]

In November of 1959, the First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, Anastas Mikoyan, visited Mexico and opened an exhibit on life in the U.S.S.R. that was visited by over one million Mexicans in less than a month. The Soviet Ambassador raved of the visit’s success and negotiations over a trade agreement were rumored, but nothing ever materialized.^[6] The United States quietly accepted such mild engagement, with the only cause for concern being allegations of espionage operations based in the U.S.S.R.’s Mexico City embassy.^[7]

Fidel Castro’s capture of Havana and deposition of U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959, proved far more consequential to Mexico’s relationship with the United States. The Cuban Revolution had begun on July 26, 1953, when Castro and a group of his fellow insurgents unsuccessfully tried to seize a government barracks. Castro was arrested and jailed until 1955, when he was released and fled to Mexico City to reorganize his rebellion. He returned to Cuba, and completed his revolutionary mission. In just a few years, Castro’s crew of students and professionals became an organized movement capable of toppling a government. Once in power, Castro set about implementing a variety of radical reforms, including the nationalization of foreign property and the redistribution of land.^[8]

The Cuban Revolution shocked the United States because of its proximity. Although it had not been an explicitly Marxist movement, the radical views it brought to power presented a clear affront to the United States. As it became clear that Castro’s radicalism would not fade with time, President Dwight Eisenhower decided to take action. On January 4, 1961, the U.S. cut diplomatic ties with Cuba, marking the first major reversal of the World War II-era Good Neighbor Policy toward Latin America.^[9]

Tensions continued to escalate in the following months under new U.S. president John F. Kennedy, and on April 16, 1961, the United States launched the Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba. About 1,500 Cuban exiles, armed, trained, and financed by the American government, landed on Cuba’s southern coast, but were soundly defeated. When news of the invasion reached Mexico, former president and populist icon Lázaro Cárdenas tried to fly to Cuba as a show of solidarity toward Castro’s regime; it took a moratorium on all Mexican travel there by López Mateos to stop him.^[10]

Elected and inaugurated in 1958, López Mateos had been in office for less than a year at the time of the Cuban Revolution’s conclusion. He entered the presidency promising to accelerate reform, and by the time he left office in 1964 had redistributed about 30 million acres of land, more than any Mexican president since Cárdenas’ administration of the 1930s.^[11] Following the Bay of Pigs debacle, however, his presidency was dominated by questions over Mexico’s relationship with Cuba. With Mexico’s general population expressing sympathy for Castro at Cárdenas’ urging, López Mateos was paradoxically caught between disavowing communism and praising the Cuban Revolution to affirm his commitment to Mexico’s own revolutionary ideals.^[12] To this effect, López Mateos firmly condemned America’s attempt to invade Cuba and invited Cuban president Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado on an official state visit.^[13]

While López Mateos was certainly not interested in an alliance with Castro, he was willing to foster a relationship built on mutual nonintervention between Mexico and Cuba. In just a few years since the Cuban Revolution, Cuba had built a reputation for itself as an ‘exporter’ of revolution by encouraging subversives around the world and especially in Latin America. Implicit in Mexico’s decision to oppose American intervention in Cuba was an understanding that, in return, Cuba would not export revolution to Mexico.^[14]

On December 2, 1961, Castro declared himself a communist, further isolating Cuba and increasing international scrutiny on López Mateos.^[15] With several Latin American countries joining the United States in cutting ties with Cuba, the Organization of American States (OAS) convened in January 1962 to vote on whether or not to expel Cuba. Despite the fact that Mexico’s representative branded Cuba’s Marxism as “incompatible with the inter-American system” during the meeting, Mexico ultimately abstained from votes on expelling Cuba and on imposing economic sanctions and an arms embargo on the Cubans.^[16] Although Mexico was not alone in abstaining, all three motions were approved anyways.

Mexico’s decision to neglect the United States’ wishes at the OAS in January 1962 had an immediate impact on their bilateral relationship. Kennedy postponed an official state visit to Mexico until June, and there were rumors that American foreign aid to Mexico would be cut off.^[17] Pedro Teichert, writing later that year, argued that Mexico’s refusal to side with the Americans was proof of “Latin American determination to change the traditional setup in spite of U.S. opposition,” and that the continued antagonism of Cuba would push the rest of Latin America to pursue greater autonomy from the U.S.^[18]

In failing to endorse Cuba’s expulsion from the OAS, Mexico stayed faithful to the principle of mutual nonintervention that defined the two nations’ relationship. In fact, this tenet was based on a longstanding Mexican political tradition—the Carranza Doctrine. The Carranza Doctrine was the product of a 1918 proclamation by then-President Venustiano Carranza calling for mutual respect for national sovereignty through nonintervention. Before and during the Mexican Revolution, Mexico was the subject of repeated foreign interventions, most notably at the hands of the United States. Thus, post-Revolutionary Mexico championed nonintervention as a defensive reaction to its proximity to the United States.^[19] As one scholar put it, there is “only one credible threat to Mexico’s international security: the United States.”^[20] Given this, Mexico’s decision to stand by Cuba on the international stage is hardly surprising. Mexico was not defending Cuba for Cuba’s sake; in reality, Mexico was defending its own right to self-determination.

The indisputable climax of tensions between the United States and Cuba was the Cuban Missile Crisis of late 1962. After the discovery of Soviet nuclear warheads in Cuba by American reconnaissance planes on October 15, the world held its breath for almost two weeks, the threat of nuclear war more real than ever before. While López Mateos refused Kennedy’s request for assistance in blockading Cuba, he did release a statement calling for the missiles’ removal.^[21] In the end, cooler heads prevailed, and the situation was resolved on October 24 with the removal of the missiles after Kennedy promised Khrushchev that the U.S. would never again invade Cuba and that he would be removing U.S. missiles from Turkey.^[22]

Later, the United States resumed its attack on Cuba at the OAS. In July 1964, the OAS voted on a U.S.-sponsored resolution to mandate that member states cut all diplomatic ties with Cuba. While Mexico was not the only nation to vote against the resolution, it was the only OAS member to refuse to comply after it passed. Mexico became the only Latin American country with diplomatic relations with Cuba, cementing its autonomy from the United States on matters related to Cuba and exonerating itself from any future OAS-backed interventions in Cuba. Unsurprisingly, Castro lavished praise on Mexico, saying:

Mexico [is for us] an example of how relations between Cuba and the rest of the Latin American countries can be with only one condition: that our sovereignty is respected, that there is no interference in our domestic affairs, that no mercenary expeditions are organized, that no sabotage campaigns are organized.^[23]

Once again, Mexico had acted not in Cuba’s interest for Cuba’s sake, but for its own sake, upholding the principles of sovereignty and nonintervention and to appealing to a populace agitated over perceived mistreatment of Cuba by the United States.

By 1964, it was clear that Mexico could not be swayed in its defense of nonintervention and Cuba. These constant confrontations “convinced Mexico that the OAS had become a U.S. tool to undermine governments that Mexico deemed reformist but that the United States perceived as communist threats,” leaving Mexico reluctant to participate in OAS policy-making for the remainder of the Cold War.^[24] In light of this, the United States was forced to adapt to Mexico’s position. Because Mexico could not be convinced to abandon Cuba, the U.S. was determined to find a way to benefit from the situation. Ultimately, a compromise was reached, as López Mateos agreed to involve the United States in his pursuit of “contradictory overt and covert foreign policies” with Cuba.^[25]

In reality, López Mateos had pursued such contradictory policies since the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961. Although he publicly supported Cuba, declassified intelligence records show that he privately spied on Cárdenas, the student groups that formed as a result of his agitation, and on the Cubans themselves through the Mexican embassy in Havana.^[26] Details remain murky about how or when exactly this came to be, but it is widely accepted that he eventually acceded to U.S. involvement in espionage efforts in Havana. On September 3, 1969, Cuba’s ambassador to Mexico famously sent a diplomatic note to Mexico’s foreign ministry accusing Humberto Carrillo Colón, a Mexican national and press attaché at the Havana embassy, of being a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative. While the evidence behind this allegation never surfaced, Carrillo Colón was recalled from the embassy almost immediately.^[27]

The United States tolerated Mexico’s continued relations with Cuba once it found a way to benefit from them, but Cuba found itself with even less of a choice. While Castro privately distrusted the Mexicans in much the same way they distrusted him, he was forced to limit the extent of any response, as covert actions in Mexico would surely provoke an aggressive American reaction if discovered.^[28] Furthermore, Cuba’s relationship with Mexico remained commercially and symbolically significant to the island nation, and a loss of diplomatic relations would come at a great economic and political cost for the Castro regime.^[29] Thus, Cuba’s only real option for retaliation was to spread leftist propaganda in Mexico and hope to inflame the ideological strife that swept the country in the midst of the Cold War.^[30]

Leftist Dissent in Mexico

The Cuban Revolution inspired a heated debate over the legacy of the Mexican Revolution in Mexico. While leftist protestors maintained that its ideals had gone unfulfilled and looked to Cuba as a model to be followed, the Mexican government sought to quell the protests and assure the public that it stood for the values of the Revolution. As Renata Keller puts it, “Castro and his fellow Cuban revolutionaries had unwittingly exposed a contradiction coded deep in the DNA of Mexican politics: the tension between the country’s revolutionary past and its conservative present.”^[31] This ideological tension gave way to a very real struggle, as leftist protestors and guerrillas clashed with clandestine and brutal government forces.

In the 1960s, Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)^[32] was roughly halfway through its uninterrupted 71-year rule over the country. Founded in 1929, the PRI maintained power until 2000 by rigging presidential elections, deceiving the public, and silently crushing the opposition. In 1990, Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa famously declared that “the perfect dictatorship is not communism, nor is it the Soviet Union, nor is it Fidel Castro: it is Mexico.”^[33] The party’s name, laying claim to ‘institutionalized revolution,’ is an oxymoron, exemplifying its paradoxical claim to radical rhetoric and liberal ideals despite its conservative and strict style of governance.

The PRI was not used to serious opposition, but this is exactly what it encountered in the wake of the Cuban Revolution. The Cuban Revolution had grown out of a tiny group of radical protestors; with the rise of leftist student movements and the latent presence of communism in Mexico’s unions, the country’s ruling elite felt they had a real cause for concern.^[34] Starting with López Mateos’ Cuba policy, the government employed a foreign policy aimed at appeasing Mexico’s dissenters, but as the protestors grew increasingly radical, the government’s response became distinctly authoritarian.

The bulk of Mexico’s Cold War-era protest movement was made up of middle-class college students who commiserated with certain Second World nations antagonized by the United States, namely Cuba, the People’s Republic of China, and Vietnam. This was not necessarily motivated by ideology. Though the protestors were certainly left-leaning and radical, they were not necessarily communists. Rather, their solidarity was inspired by the sense that, like the aforementioned nations, Mexico was subject to American imperialism, ruled by a government that failed to truly represent its people. Protestors’ chants eulogized Castro, Mao Zedong, and Ho Chi Minh, and annual demonstrations on July 26 in commemoration of the Cuban Revolution became commonplace.^[35]

The suppression of Mexico’s radical leftists began under López Mateos, who in 1959 ordered the removal of communist union leaders and university rectors and in 1960 authorized the imprisonment of famous muralist David A. Siqueiros for his role in organizing a student demonstration.^[36] However, it was under his successor, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, that the situation truly escalated. Despite being extremely conservative, Díaz Ordaz maintained the public relationship with Cuba fostered by his predecessor. Domestic policy was what changed, and as Díaz Ordaz abandoned the agricultural reform championed by López Mateos, the student movements he detested grew stronger and louder.^[37]

Protests attended by as many as 500,000 people gathered to denounce Díaz Ordaz for his increasing willingness to incarcerate leftists. The most significant of them all was staged by just over 15,000 people ten days before the inauguration of the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. Díaz Ordaz wanted the Olympics to display Mexico’s economic progress and social stability, but on October 2, protestors gathered at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Mexico City’s Tlatelolco section to chant “no queremos olimpiadas, queremos revolución”— we do not want the Olympics, we want revolution.^[38] Hoping to quietly end such protests, which he feared would hurt Mexico’s image internationally, Díaz Ordaz authorized the creation of a plainclothes police force, which infiltrated the crowd at Tlatelolco while government snipers occupied rooftops around the plaza.

In the evening, the government forces opened fire, although it remains unclear exactly what caused them to do so. Over 1,300 protestors were arrested, and although official government records that were classified until 2001 claimed that only 38 people were killed in the Tlatelolco Massacre, tallies based on eyewitness accounts estimate the number to be closer to 400. This hurt Mexico’s image more than any previous student demonstration had, and tens of thousands of tourists canceled their reservations in the week before the Games. More significantly, this marked the beginning of Mexico’s Dirty War, as the government would, for the next decade or so, sponsor a militaristic counterinsurgency meant to silence leftist agitators once and for all. Both the media and the general population blamed Díaz Ordaz for the violence, and he defended himself by baselessly alleging that the police acted to defend themselves after foreign communists among the protestors shot first.^[39]

Luis Echeverría, elected to succeed Díaz Ordaz in 1970, embodied Mexico’s contradictory Cold War policies. His foreign policy was designed to curry favor from Mexico’s generally liberal and anti-American population, as he “repeatedly called for Third World countries to maintain their economic independence from the United States.”^[40] Looking to emphasize Mexico’s neutrality in the Cold War, he became the first Mexican president to visit the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. On the domestic front however, he embraced the use of violence of against Mexico’s radicals. During his presidency, right-wing paramilitary groups such as Los Halcones flourished and targeted leftists—on June 10, 1971, Los Halcones killed about 120 people in the Corpus Christi Massacre.^[41]

At the same time, leftist groups themselves became increasingly violent, and guerrilla groups emerged. One group in particular, the Revolutionary Armed Movement (MAR),^[42] became particularly notorious after a series of bank robberies and kidnappings between 1971 and 1974. Most notably, the group kidnapped Terrence Leonhardy, the U.S. consul for Guadalajara, in May 1973. They held him hostage for four days before releasing him in exchange for the release of several prisoners.^[43]

Mexico took its first step toward real democratization in 1977, when José López Portillo permitted the formation of new political parties and legalized Mexico’s Communist Party. However, this came as a bid to increase his legitimacy after winning the 1976 presidential election unopposed and not as a well-intentioned reform. Furthermore, the reform did nothing to reverse the Dirty War, as the government’s efforts had “wiped out the extreme left by the mid-1970s.”^[44] In the early 1980s, the last leftist guerrilla groups were defeated and disbanded.^[45]

It took decades and further democratization for the Mexican government to support any real investigation of the Dirty War. Ernesto Zedillo, elected in 1994 and last in the PRI’s uninterrupted presidential line, implemented a series of reforms to free Mexico’s Federal Electoral Institute from government manipulation and revise campaign finance laws. These reforms successfully strengthened Mexico’s democracy, as the 1997 congressional elections were, at that point, “the most competitive ever held,” resulting in the PRI losing its congressional majorities.^[46] On October 2, 1998, Zedillo ordered an investigation into the Tlatelolco Massacre. Unfortunately, this yielded no real results as records remained secret.^[47]

In 2000, Vicente Fox of the center-right National Action Party (PAN)[48] was elected president of Mexico, putting an end to the PRI’s electoral dominance. In November 2001, he created the Special Prosecutor’s office and ordered it to investigate political violence during the Cold War; this move proved more fruitful and yielded thousands of declassified documents.^[49] A report released by the Fox administration documented the disappearance of 275 individuals and the torture of 523, and it was used to indict several former government officials, including Echeverría, on human rights abuse and genocide charges.^[50] Of course, these efforts did not expose each and every of the thousands of disappearances and killings of Mexico’s Dirty War, and many of those who carried out these despicable acts will have done so with impunity.

But what role, if any, did the United States play in the political violence that occurred in Mexico during the Cold War? Immediately after World War II, cooperation between Mexico and the United States on security dramatically increased. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) helped organize Mexico’s Federal Security Directorate, while the CIA established contacts at every level of the Mexican government. Thus, the United States had considerable knowledge of Mexico’s security concerns during the Cold War, but refrained from intervening in any substantive way because “U.S. leaders knew that their Mexican counterparts shared their anti-communist orientation and trusted them to manage their own affairs.”^[51] There was an implicit agreement between the two countries, holding that Mexico would be allowed to pursue a foreign policy that presented a public challenge to the United States, but that on the domestic side, Mexico would align itself with the United States by fervently opposing homegrown communism.^[52]

Beyond this, there is some concrete evidence of direct U.S. involvement in Mexico. For example, the paramilitary group Los Halcones was trained and obtained its weapons in the United States, which the Mexican government went to great lengths to conceal in the aftermath of the Corpus Christi Massacre.^[53] In 2003, the American government declassified documents pertaining to Mexico’s security preparations for the 1968 Olympic Games. Specifically, these documents revealed that the United States supplied the Mexican government with radios, weapons, and ammunition both before and after the Tlatelolco Massacre and that the CIA had been monitoring Mexico’s student protests movements for months before the Massacre but had been told by unnamed high-ranking Mexican officials that the situation was under control.^[54]

Further declassifications in 2006 revealed the existence of LITEMPO, a secret network of high-level Mexican informants managed by the CIA’s Mexico Chief of Station, Winston Scott. Among these informants were Díaz Ordaz and Echeverría, both of whom were also personal friends of Scott’s. LITEMPO was in operation from 1960 to 1969, and was described in one internal document as “a productive and effective relationship between CIA and select top officials in Mexico.”^[55] In another memo, John Whitten, chief of the clandestine services Mexico desk, complained about the fees paid to the program’s informants, although it remains unclear how much the CIA paid Mexico’s former presidents.^[56] Their involvement clearly influenced the CIA’s response to the Tlatelolco Massacre, as the agency’s internal accounts of the incident regurgitate key aspects of the government’s account, including the presence of violent foreign communists. Clearly, Díaz Ordaz and Echeverría had a much closer relationship with the CIA than was previously known.

The United States ensured its participation in the Dirty War was covert, and as such, its full extent remains unclear. It cannot be denied that the main driver behind Mexico’s Dirty War was the PRI’s desire to defend its power at any cost in the face of new leftist opposition, but it must also be acknowledged that the horrors that resulted were in line with America’s Cold War-era policy goals.

Central America

Facing unprecedented opposition at home, the Mexico’s PRI government needed to prove its loyalty to the values of the Mexican Revolution if it hoped to preserve its legitimacy. Cooperating with the United States became a political liability for the Mexican government, and it faced no choice but to challenge American action abroad that the Mexican population generally perceived as imperialist. Early on in the Cold War, it did this by refusing to cut ties with Cuba, but by the late 1970s, the focus of Mexico’s foreign policy became Central America. Most significantly, Mexico opposed American policy relating to a leftist insurgency in Nicaragua and a civil war in El Salvador.

In Nicaragua, the Sandinista National Liberation Front had begun its insurgency in July 1961 seeking to overthrow the right-wing government and pursue social and agricultural reforms.^[57] Under López Portillo, Mexico financially supported the Sandinistas mid-insurgency at the same time as the United States backed Nicaragua’s dictator, Anastasio Somoza, in an apparent suspension of mutual nonintervention.^[58] Mexico cut diplomatic ties with Somoza’s government on May 20, 1979. That July, he was deposed and the Sandinistas formed a Nicaraguan government of their own.^[59]

Ronald Reagan’s victory in the American presidential election of 1980 stoked tensions with Mexico over Central America. Within the first few years of his presidency, the American government began to provide material support to the rightist Contra counterinsurgency in Nicaragua as well as to El Salvador’s conservative government.^[60]

Mexico simultaneously aided leftist insurgents in El Salvador and called for peace negotiations at the United Nations in August of 1981. By February of 1982 it was clear that this strategy had failed to accomplish much, and López Portillo approached the Reagan administration with a plan to facilitate negotiations in El Salvador in exchange for an end to U.S. intervention in Nicaragua. Reagan stalled on a response, hoping that Salvadoran elections later that spring would help validate the ruling party. El Salvador’s far right emerged victorious, but this failed to stop the violence.^[61]

Miguel de la Madrid succeeded López Portillo as Mexican president in 1982. Although he supported reforms that began to liberalize Mexico’s economy and believed that closer economic relations with the United States were needed to boost Mexico’s development, he refused to back down in Nicaragua and continued Mexico’s political and economic support of the Sandinista government.^[62] In 1983, Mexico formed the Contadora Group, along with Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela, as an alternative to the OAS in the search for a peaceful solution to the ongoing Nicaraguan crisis.^[63]

Ultimately, the United States and Mexico did not have to find common ground in the cases of either Nicaragua or El Salvador. In Nicaragua, the Sandinistas allowed free elections for the first time in 1987, and lost power through this new medium in 1990.^[64] Meanwhile, U.N. arbitration of peace negotiations for the Salvadoran civil war began in late 1989, and resulted in a peace agreement in 1992.^[65] The Soviet Union officially dissolved on December 26, 1991, ending the Cold War and making Castro’s Cuba an international pariah.^[66]

These changes “removed some obstacles to U.S.-Mexican collaboration, among others their differences over policies toward Central America and their assessments of the Soviet Union.”^[67] It was actually before the Cold War’s formal conclusion, in September of 1990, that Carlos Salinas, the Mexican president elected in 1988, declared that “trade integration with the United States had become a necessity,” foreshadowing the groundbreaking cooperation between the two countries that defined the turn of the century.^[68]

The Cold War was an extremely uncomfortable period for U.S.-Mexico relations. The Cuban Revolution triggered an existential crisis in Mexican politics over the Mexican Revolution’s legacy, which in turn pushed the Mexican government to both oppose the United States on the international stage and use violence against its own citizens. For all intents and purposes, real collaboration between the two nations was a political impossibility during this period, and the Cold War’s conclusion brought with it a tremendous opportunity to change the bilateral relationship for the better.

About the Author

Jorge Familiar Avalos is a first-year student at Yale University, where he is studying economics. Born in Mexico City, he resides in Potomac, Maryland, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. Because of his ties to both countries, the U.S.-Mexico relationship is one of his main academic interests. He is on staff with the Yale Review of International Studies, and he also writes an online column on Mexican politics for The Politic.

Endnotes

^[1] “Cold War.” Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History, edited by Thomas Carson and Mary Bonk, Gale, 1999. U.S. History in Context.

^[2] Sloan, Julia. “Carnivalizing the Cold War: Mexico, the Mexican Revolution, and the Events of 1968” European Journal of American Studies, European Association for American Studies, 18 Mar. 2009. Web. p. 1

^[3] Ibid, p. 2

^[4] Domínguez, Jorge I., and Rafael Fernández de Castro. United States and Mexico: Between                   Partnership and Conflict. 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 2009. p. 39

^[5] Pettinà, Vanni. “Mexican-Soviet Relations, 1958-1964: The Limits of Engagement.” Cold War                    International History Project. Wilson Center, 18 Nov. 2015. Web. n.p.

^[6] n.p.

^[7] Ibid, p. 39

^[8] Powelson, Michael. “Cuban Revolution.” Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, edited by Jay Kinsbruner and Erick D. Langer, 2nd ed., vol. 2, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2008, pp. 704-707. World History in Context.

^[9] Teichert, Pedro C. M. “Latin America and the Socio-Economic Impact of the Cuban Revolution.” Journal of Inter-American Studies, vol. 4, no. 1, 1962, pp. 105–120. JSTOR, JSTOR.

^[10] Keller, Renata. Mexico’s Cold War: Cuba, the United States, and the Legacy of the Mexican Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2015. pp. 1-12

^[11] “Adolfo López Mateos.” Encyclopedia of World Biography, Gale, 1998. World History in Context. n.p.

^[12] Sloan, p. 5

^[13] Ibid, pp. 1-12

^[14] Covarrubias, Ana. “Cuba and Mexico: A Case for Mutual Nonintervention.” Cuban Studies, vol. 26, 1996, pp. 121–141. JSTOR, JSTOR.

^[15] Ibid, pp. 704-707

^[16] Ibid, p. 124

^[17] Fenn, Peggy. “México, La No Intervención y La Autodeterminación En El Caso De Cuba.” Foro Internacional, vol. 4, no. 1 (13), 1963, pp. 1–19. JSTOR, JSTOR.

^[18] Ibid, p. 111

^[19] Ibid, pp. 1-19

^[20] Ibid, p. 35

^[21] Ibid, p. 39

^[22] “The Cuban Missile Crisis: October 16–28, 1962.” Global Events: Milestone Events Throughout History, edited by Jennifer Stock, vol. 3: Central and South America, Gale, 2014. World History in Context.

^[23] Ibid, p. 126

^[24] Ibid, p. 58

^[25] Ibid, p. 6

^[26] Ibid, pp. 1-12

^[27] Ibid, pp. 133-136

^[28] Ibid, pp. 1-12

^[29] Ibid, pp. 39-40

^[30] Ibid, pp. 1-12

^[31] Ibid, p. 4

^[32] Partido Revolucionario Institucional

^[33] Ibid, p. 106

^[34] Ibid, pp. 232-237

^[35] Ibid, p. 7

^[36] “Adolfo López Mateos.” Encyclopedia of World Biography, Gale, 1998. World History in Context. n.p.

^[37] “Gustavo Díaz Ordaz.” Encyclopedia of World Biography, Gale, 1998. World History in Context.

^[38] “The Tlatelolco Massacre: October 2, 1968.” Global Events: Milestone Events Throughout History, edited by Jennifer Stock, vol. 3: Central and South America, Gale, 2014. World History in Context. n.p.

^[39] Latin American Newsletters. “Mexico: Conflict on the Campus.” Terrorism: Essential Primary Sources, edited by K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, Gale, 2006, pp. 41-43. World History in Context.

^[40] “Luis Echeverría Alvarez.” Encyclopedia of World Biography, Gale, 1998. World History in                 Context.

^[41] Latin American Newsletters, n.p.

^[42] Movimiento Armado Revolucionario

^[43] “Luis Echeverría Alvarez.” Encyclopedia of World Biography, Gale, 1998. World History in                 Context.

^[44] Doyle, Kate. “‘Forgetting Is Not Justice’: Mexico Bares Its Secret Past.” World Policy Journal, vol. 20, no. 2, 2003, pp. 61–72. JSTOR, JSTOR. p. 62

^[45] Ibid, p. 236

^[46] Ibid, p. 64

^[47] “The Tlatelolco Massacre: October 2, 1968.” Global Events: Milestone Events Throughout History, edited by Jennifer Stock, vol. 3: Central and South America, Gale, 2014. World History in Context.

[48] Partido Acción Nacional

^[49] “The Tlatelolco Massacre: October 2, 1968.” Global Events: Milestone Events Throughout History, edited by Jennifer Stock, vol. 3: Central and South America, Gale, 2014. World History in Context.

^[50] Ibid, pp. 41-43

^[51] Keller, Renata. “U.S.-Mexican Relations from Independence to the Present.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, Mar. 2016. Web. p. 13

^[52] Ibid, p. 13

^[53] Pansters, Wil G. “Spies, Assassins, and Statesmen in Mexico’s Cold War.” ERLACS. European             Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 27 June 2017. Web. n.p.

^[54] “The Tlatelolco Massacre: October 2, 1968.” Global Events: Milestone Events Throughout History, edited by Jennifer Stock, vol. 3: Central and South America, Gale, 2014. World History in Context.

^[55] Doyle, Kate and Jefferson Morley. “LITEMPO: The CIA’s Eyes on Tlatelolco.” National Security Archive. George Washington University, Oct. 18, 2006. Web. n.p.

^[56] Ibid, n.p.

^[57] Everingham, Mark. “Nicaragua, Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).” Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, edited by Jay Kinsbruner and Erick D. Langer, 2nd ed., vol. 4, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2008, pp. 835-836. World History in Context.

^[58] Ibid, p. 40

^[59] Herrera, René, and Mario Ojeda. “La Política De México En La Región De Centroamérica.” Foro Internacional, vol. 23, no. 4 (92), 1983, pp. 423–440. JSTOR, JSTOR.

^[60] Ibid, p. 13

^[61] Ibid, pp. 423-440

^[62] Ibid, p. 21

^[63] p. 24

^[64] Ibid, pp. 835-836

^[65] Arnson, Cynthia J. “El Salvador.” Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, edited by Dinah L. Shelton, vol. 1, Macmillan Reference USA, 2005, pp. 282-286. World History in Context.

^[66] Ibid, p. 23

^[67] p. 3

^[68] p. 22

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