Strategic Charity: Mexico and the Spanish Refugees
Ann Elisabeth Laksfoss Hansen
ILASSA Conference, Austin, February 1999
|
Autobiography
I was born in Haugesund, Norway in 1970, where I
lived and went to school until 1987 when I spent a year in Granby, QC, Canada
as an exchange student. In 1990 I
entered the University of Oslo and while studying Spanish and History there I
also include one year as a Georgia Rotary Student in Americus, GA, where I
studied Japanese and Political Science In addition to this I did one semester
of Spanish History at the Autonoma de Madrid, all of which is included in the
BA from Oslo University (1994). After
graduating I returned to Madrid for a MA in International Relations from Instituto
Universitario Ortega y Gasset, and I studied did both a summer course in
French in Montpellier and in Portuguese in Braga, Portugal on a Luis Camoes
scholarship. In 1996 I went to Ohio
University where I studied American History on a Fulbright scholarship. After graduating from OU with a MA, I
transferred to University of Texas at Austin in fall of 1997. From UT I received a MA in Latin American
History spring 1999. For the past school-year I have
also taught Spanish at the University of Texas. Future plans include finding a fascinating job, but first I am
off to North Western Argentina, where I will accompany my beloved Nestor on
his geological expedition. Ann Elisabeth Laksfoss Hansen Geitafjellet
1B 5521 HaugesundNorway #
47 52728191 |
An eight-year old boy walked
wearily down the gangway from the ship Mexique. In his right hand he held a blue cardboard
suitcase, while his sister clung to his left hand. Emeterio and his three younger siblings arrived in Veracruz on 7
June 1937, in a group of 463 children, all traveling without their parents who
remained in Spain. Thousands of
Mexicans, touched to tears, watched the "güeritos"(little blond ones)
as they disembarked, and the sight prompted spontaneous offers of adoptive
homes, but President Lazaro Cárdenas declined these offers.
This scene is part of the
story of Spanish refugees arriving in Mexico in the late 1930s. The coming of these Spaniards can be
understood in the context of Mexican sympathy for the Spanish Republic, and it
certainly followed Cardenist ideas of international solidarity and cooperation. Mexican revolutionary rhetoric of the 1930s
outlined the methods by which Mexico would modernize. In this political project the government actively promoted the
image of an advanced, and humanistic Mexico.
By inviting Spanish refugees during and after the Spanish Civil War,
Mexico promoted its country internationally and encouraged internal cohesion.
The focus on Spanish
immigrants attempts to explore some of the premises of the Mexican immigration
practice in the late 1930s. Mexican
government officials offered economic and cultural reasons for preferring
"Latin" immigrants; but concepts of ethnicity, also played an
important role. The expression of
ideological affinities and exploitation of this immigration for propaganda
purposes illuminate the premises of this strategic charity.
THE SPANISH CHILDREN
Scrutinizing newspaper
editorials and diplomatic papers from some of the highly publicized voyages of
Spanish refugees offers clues as to the attitudes toward immigration in the
late 1930s. In June 1937 a group of 463
so‑called "war orphans" sailed from France to Veracruz on the Mexique. While they were victims of war most of them
were not orphans. Their Republican
parents and even a few Francoists had chosen to send their children out of the
war zone.[1] These are only a fraction of the approximately
22,000 Spaniards who arrived in Mexico from 1937-1949. This shipload, in many ways extraordinary
since only children came, serves as an example to analyze what some Mexicans
thought about Spaniards in specific and immigration more generally.[2]
Motivations for sending the children were diverse. Basically parents wanted to evacuate their
children from a country in war. Mexican
social worker Vera Foulkes, who investigated the event in the early 1950s,
suggests that some parents sent their children so that they could participate
more actively in the fighting.[3] Emeterio Payá Valera, himself a
"Morelia‑child," points to discipline problems, insinuating
that some of the children had been troublemakers in Spain, a condition which in
certain cases worsened over time.[4] It is doubtful that the parents should have
perceived the separation as permanent when they decided to send the children
overseas. It seems more plausible that
they should think of it in terms of a temporary separation. However, in the end only some sixty children
ever returned to Spain. The Mexican
motives for receiving the children were equally diverse. There is little doubt that Mexican charity
played a role, but equally valid are
concerns involving the propaganda opportunities the group of children brought
with it. With little investment Mexico
received positive publicity and stood out as a model for humanitarian behavior.
Political turmoil followed the children wherever they
went. The Spanish Republican government
used the publicity surrounding the children to gather political support for its
cause.[5] Kuhn reported that once the Mexique
reached Havana, Franco sympathizers
claiming that the children constituted "live" propaganda, and
therefore prevented the children from going ashore.[6] Payá does not remember this episode, but he
recalls that when the ship approached Havana, Cubans in boats cheered them with
Republican flags and political slogans.[7] Whether the children had to stay aboard or
not, a committee of pro‑Republicans and Spanish diplomats provided a warm
welcome by visiting while the ship was docked in Havana, and the children left
Cuba on their voyage to Mexico, their "cheeks lumpy with candy."[8]
Mexico, moved by Republican plights, offered to evacuate children
threatened by war. The evacuation of
Spanish children started in 1937, after Franco's forces had bombed Guernica and
other cities for months. The Mexican
government supposedly at the initiative of Amalia Solorzano de Cárdenas, the
president's wife, offered to bring in five hundred Spanish children.[9] What touched Mexican sympathies the most
were pictures of dead and wounded children after the bombardment of Madrid.[10] These reports spurred the creation of help
committees across Mexico. The Committee
for Assistance to Spanish children in Merida and Yucatán, collected more than
two thousand children's outfits, and shipped them via France to reach Spain, on
the same Mexique, which then and transported 463 Spanish children to
Veracruz.[11] The Mexican press reported from the horrors
of the Civil War every day and these horrors moved Mexicans to wanting assist
Spaniards.
Both strategic
and philanthropic motives guided the Mexican government’s decision to receive
the children. Historian John W. Sherman
suggests that Cárdenas, by inviting the children, managed to disarm his
conservative opposition by appearing as the quintessential protector of
children, countering attacks accusing him of being anti‑family.[12] The news reports of Fascist atrocities moved
Mexicans. Roberto Reyes, the director
of the España-México, makes special reference to an exposition about the
Fascist barbarities, organized by Frente Popular Español in Mexico. Mexico was not the only country to receive
groups of children; Russia welcomed 2,895[13]
and England received 4,000 youths.[14] Although numbers are unavailable, France
probably received many more, due to geographical proximity, and the fact that
we know roughly 500,000 Spaniards sought refuge in France during the civil war.[15] The uniqueness of the Mexican case consisted
in the children forming part of an experiment of cross-cultural understanding
and learning, in a country which earlier had been a colony under Spain, and
which had a considerable colony of Spaniards living in it. Also most of the in all 34,000 children at
some point evacuated from Spain returned to Spain.
Over four hundred Spanish
children lived and learned with one hundred Mexican children in Morelia. The president chose to establish the España-México
school in his own home state Michoacán.
The school constituted a perfect opportunity for an experimental
project. In Morelia the administration
could implement humanism and international solidarity in a controlled
environment. Director Reyes recalled
the children "like an invasion of whites among the brown (tostados)
children of military officers."[16] Cárdenas thought this living experience
would "establish between them a current of sympathy and solidarity."[17] It is possible that his last objective
materialized although it is difficult to measure whether with regard to degree
of integration, sense of belonging or identity. The school's organization in Morelia, is an example of how the
government thought about the children in terms of a social project between two
nations: Spain and Mexico. Although
several families offered to adopt the children, the government declined this
offer, insisting on the importance of keeping the children together as a group.[18] The Cardenist administration's ambitious
project of transforming Mexicans through education includes the invitation of
the children. In addition, Spanish
Republicans and the pro‑Cárdenas Mexicans forged deeper ties and Mexico
received favorable international publicity.[19]
THE STATE AND THE CHILDREN:
FLASHLIGHT PUBLICITY
By evacuating
the children Mexico projected itself internationally as a modern, resourceful
country capable of undertaking responsibilities suitable to modern
nations. The president explained that
the coming of the children was the result of altruistic, Mexican women ‑‑
among others his wife Amalia, here presented as Mother Mexico, who had insisted that something be
done. But the children called the
president "tata" not only because he was as fatherly to them, but out
of respect. Cárdenas became their
symbolic father.[20] The coming of the children marked an event
for the Cárdenas propaganda apparatus; as Mexique entered Veracruz
journalists filled the port. The Communication Department even engaged a
photographer to film the event. In
addition, strategically placed microphones transmitted speeches and grateful
testimonies from the children to Mexico, and in particular to Cárdenas on
national radio.[21] The conservative newspaper Excélsior
sent special envoys to cover the arrival in Veracruz, where crowds of waving
and cheering Mexicans welcomed the children.[22] Government supporters sympathized with the
cause of the Spanish Republic, and the arrival produced numerous curious
spectators at the port. 30,000 Mexicans
waited at the train station in Mexico City.
Both Mexicans and Spaniards had left their houses and spontaneous cries
of ¡Viva México! and ¡Viva España! filled the air.[23]
The administration orchestrated the event
beautifully. (see photo of Cárdenas with the children) The Communication
Department, a part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, transferred the
responsibility of the children to the Ministry of Education, thus suggesting
the event's propagandistic utility.
Mexico took advantage of the occasion, and DAPP produced a short‑film
called "The Spanish Children in Mexico." The film belonged to a series of "shorties" sent and
shown throughout Latin America in this the golden age of Mexican cinema,
covering all the wonders of modern Mexico, and depicting the successes of urban
planning, sewage systems, and highways.
In short, Mexican propaganda proclaimed the country to be the advanced
nation the rest of Latin American should follow. "The Spanish Children in Mexico" played for two months
in Santiago de Chile, and for a wide audience ‑‑ including
President Alcibiades Arosemena ‑‑ in Panama. Mexico even sent the film to Barcelona where
as many as 50,000 Republicans, including Luis Companys, watched it.[24]
Before the curtains went down of the media show in
Veracruz, Hidalgo transferred
the responsibility of the
group to under‑secretary of Education Luis Chavez Orozco, with the final
words, more directed to the Catholic opposition than to exhausted children
between the age of three and fourteen:
And now I address myself to
you cubs of the old Spanish lion. From today on you will remain under the
protective wings of the Aztec eagle . . .![25]
Hidalgo's words to meant to
calm the critical Catholics who claimed that the whole expedition had resulted
from Bolshevik perversity, which produced traitorous parents without family
values.
Both pro‑children and skeptics alike considered
the children more as ambassadors for the Spanish Republic than as refugee
children. The opposition accused the
government of preferring international prestige above suffering Mexican
children, while the pro‑Republicans celebrated the event as a victory for
Mexican humanism and international solidarity.
J.R. Hernandez, in an editorial for El Universal called the
evacuation "positive human solidarity" and went against critiques
calling it superficial and false.[26] Critical voices spoke up about Mexico
receiving the children in Excélsior editorials during the spring of
1937. Before the group of children
arrived a parliamentary representative even suggested that the "Iberian
colony" in Mexico should be taxed extra to finance the children's
maintenance.[27] Another editorial opposed the idea of extra
taxes, "It would not be very decorous" for Mexico to rely on
foreigners to finance this sort of project;[28]
accepting and providing for the children, it continued, was typical of
Cárdenas's charitable and political support to the Republic.[29] The criticism did not end after the children
had arrived. Querido Moheno Jr.,
criticized the government for indoctrinating the children, while welcoming the
income of "much needed" Spanish blood.[30] An ambitious Moheno hoped that Mexico, by
caring for Spanish children in a responsible way, could bridge ideological
differences and "conquer in the spirit of these children the gratitude of
Spain, all of Spain and the recognition of the world, and of everybody."[31]
Although the
political establishment favored it, not all Mexicans warmly embraced this
immigration, and many fervently opposed the coming of the Spanish
Republicans. The American Consul
General in Mexico, James Stewart, noted that the press clearly reflected the
reluctance of some Mexicans' to welcome Spanish immigrants.[32] The Mexican upper class, the Catholic
Church, Sinarquists, and right‑wing politicians all expressed their
concerns, as did elements from the conservative "old Spanish
colony." According to Stewart the
opposition feared that radical leaders, such as Lombardo Toledano of the Confederation
of Mexican Workers (CTM), would promote the immigration with the objective of
transforming Mexico into a Bolshevik state.[33] Neither the opposition nor the
administration differentiated between the arrivals; for Mexicans both the
children and the ex‑combatants, who came after the Spanish Civil War represented
the Republican cause.[34]
Mexicans did not distinguish
between the refugee children of 1937 and the political refugees who came
later. It is problematical to call the
children who came in 1937 Republicans because of their age, but at least they symbolized
their parents' Republican beliefs to Mexicans.
In 1937 the children aboard the Mexique could not enter Havana,
just as the Republicans onboard the Sinaia in 1939 were unable to go
ashore in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
While Mexico received the Spanish immigrants, and the majority of these certainly became loyal supporters of Cardenismo, they failed to integrate in the way Cárdenas had hoped. Cárdenas foresaw Spaniards becoming the warriors of agricultural development at the Mexican frontier, similar to European immigrants who induced development in the United States, but the colonization projects in northern Mexico fell apart due to harsh climate, inefficient administration, and internal disagreement among Republicans.
CONCLUSION
The Mexican government
enthusiastically welcomed the Spaniards because it perceived that the related
language, religion, ideology and ethnicity would facilitate integration. Even though revolutionary rhetoric sought to
eliminate race, and replace it with the more encompassing concept of culture,
racial preferences still prevailed in the 1930s. The ideal immigrant remained Spanish.
The Cardenist government, in true populist fashion of the period, used the media to project the image of a modern, advanced nation, fully qualified to receive immigrants. For once Mexico could decide whether to reject or to welcome large groups of Europeans. The newly established propaganda agency (DAPP) used radio, newspapers, and films, and sent it all abroad as publicity, advertising the triumphant heritage of the Mexican Revolution by showcasing humanism and solidarity. The Spanish children who came in 1937 were perfect for the media machine, skinny, fearful children with big eyes staring into the camera, made even the staunchest conservative opposition soften their critiques. Mexican assistance to the Spanish Republic culminated with the arrival of Spanish refugees from 1937 to 1950. While Cárdenas supporters perceived Mexico as profiting from this influx of Spanish blood, and modern, educated citizens, opposition forces feared further radicalization of government policies. Both the Spanish children and the later political refugees became a symbol of the Republican cause with which Cárdenas sympathized. Cárdenas managed to reinforce concepts of internal unity and national pride through charity and philanthropy, while simultaneously dismantling accusations of him being antifamily and on the road to Communism. The concept of using charity strategically can be seen as closely connected to the formation of a modern nation. The Spanish Republicans tied nicely into grandiose ambitions of the government in a period of increased state power. The influx of Spaniards became an opportunity for Mexico to advance its regional ambitions as a cultural and political leader in Latin America.
LAZARO CARDENAS WITH YOUNG SPANISH REFUGEES.
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