Children of the Revolution: Constructing the Mexican Citizen, 1920-1940

Abstract

The Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920 resulted in a massive population loss that revolutionary officials sought to replace with a generation of active citizens. This dissertation demonstrates that the child's role from 1920 to 1940 transformed from that of an individual bounded by the family to that of a member of the community, the nation, and a transnational generation. Children entered the historical record in unprecedented numbers. Due to the impressive expansion of public education and the increased civic engagement that it yielded, children produced a rich cache of documents--letters, drawings, plays, and speeches--that provide a measure by which to gauge their responses to revolutionary programs.First, I explore adult-produced rhetoric and policies that placed children at the center of plans for creating new revolutionary citizens. Lawmakers, professionals, and governors attempted to construct a homogeneous generation of citizens through the balanced application of sound pedagogy, firm ideology, and modern medicine. Adults transformed public space and assumed new rhetorical styles that refashioned the child as a metaphor for the nation's future.Second, I measure children's responses to government and popular efforts to construct a universal childhood, and I demonstrate the uneven process of cultural dissemination. Unexpected reactions by younger children to itinerant educational puppet shows revealed age as a factor in reception. Children's letters to radio officials demonstrated that middle class children had greater access to the new media. Contributions to the art magazine Pulgarcito suggested a romanticization of rural children.Third, I reveal the ways that participation in civic activities expanded children's social networks and allowed them to imagine themselves as part of a national and international community of their peers. Children's conferences, literacy campaigns, and anti-alcohol marches, allowed children to sample national political culture and gain exposure to its hierarchies and bureaucracy. Pan-American exchanges between schoolchildren meant that Mexican youth saw themselves as part of a hemispheric family, united by a common race and common colonial heritage. The children growing up during these decades learned skills, gained a sense of political awareness, and absorbed and created cultural expressions that became recognized the world over as being distinctly Mexican.