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 Haugesund

Norway

# 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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                           Bibliography

 

Boletín al servicio de la emigración española (Mexico City), Aug. to Oct. 1939.

 

Cárdenas, Lázaro. Obras: I apuntes.1913‑1940. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional

        Autónoma de México, 1972.

 

Cimet, Adina. Ashkenazi Jews in Mexico: Ideologies in the Structuring of a Communitv.

         Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.

 

Centro Republicano Español. México y la república española: Antología de documentos.

         1931-­1977. Mexico City: Centro Republicano Español de México, 1978.

 

Delavigne, August. "Souvenirs de l’Espagne en Guerre." Gavroche 13: 78 (1994), 11‑13.

 

Dominquez Pratz, Pilar. Mujeres españolas en México. 1939‑1950. Madrid: Comunidad

        de Madrid, Direccion General de la Mujer, 1994.

 

Enriquz Perea, Alberto ed. México y España: Solidaridad y asilo político. 1936‑1942. Mexico City: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 1990.

 

Excelsior (Mexico City), May‑June 1937 and May‑June 1939.

 

Fagen, Patricia W. Exiles and Citizens: Spanish Republicans in Mexico.Austin: University

            of Texas Press, 1973.

 

Fein, Seth. "Hollywood and the United States‑Mexico Relations in the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema." Ph.D. dis., University of Texas at Austin, 1996.

 

Foulkes, Vera. Los niños de Morelia y la escuela "España‑México:" Consideraciones analíticas sobre un experimento social. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1953.

 

Gonzalez, Luis. Historia de la revolución mexicana. 1934‑1940: Los dias del presidente Lázaro Cárdenas. 1981 Reprint, Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1988.

 

Gonzalez Navarro, Moises. Los extranjeros en México y los mexicanos en el extranjero. 1821‑1970. Vol. 3. Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1994.

 

Herf, Jeffrey. "From Periphery to Center: German Communists and the Jewish Question, Mexico City, 1942‑1945." In Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997.

 

Historia Gráfica de la Revolución. 1900‑1946. Mexico City: Archivo Casasola, Cuaderno      

            24. n.d.

 

Ley general de población. Mexico City: Ediciones Botas, 1936.

 

Lida, Clara E. Inmigración y exilio: Reflexiones sobre el caso español. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno, 1997.

 

Martinez Legorreta, Omar. Actuación de México en la Liga de las Naciones: El caso Español. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1962.

 

Mexico. Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores. Memoria (1937‑1940). Mexico City: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 1938‑1941.

 

Navas Ruiz, Ricardo. Jose Vasconcelos y la educación en México. Salamanca: Colegio 

           de España, 1984.

 

New York Times, May‑June 1937 and May‑June 1939.

 

Payá Valera, Emeterio. Los niños españoles de Morelia: El exilio infantil en Mexico. Mexico City: Edamex, 1985.

 

Partido Nacional Revolucionario. Plan sexenal. Mexico City: n. p., 1937.

 

Pla Brugat, Dolores. "Características del exilio español del 1939." In Una inmigracion privilegiada: Comerciantes, empresarios y profesionales españoles en México en los siglos diecinueve y veinte. Edited by Clara E. Lida. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1994.

 

--------. Los niños de Morelia: Un estudio sobre los primeros refugiados españoles

           en México. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1985.

 

Reyes Perez, Roberto. La vida de los niños iberos en la patria de Lázaro Cárdenas. Mexico City: Editorial America, 1940.

 

Sherman, John W. "Reassessing Cardenismo: The Mexican Right and the Failure of a Revolutionary Regime, 1934‑1940.” The Americas 54: 3 (Jan. 1998), 357‑378.

 

Sinaia: Diario de la primera expedición de republicanos españoles a México. Sinaia n.p., l940; Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Coordinación de Difusion Cultural, La Oca and Redacta, 1989.

 

Solorzano de Cárdenas, Amalia. Era otra cosa la vida. Mexico City: Editorial Patria,1994.

 

Sosa Elizaga, Raquel. Los códigos ocultos del cardenismo. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1996.

 

 

Stepan, Nancy Leys. "The Hour of Eugenics:" Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin America. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991.

 

Universal. El (Mexico City), June 1937, May and June 1939.

 

U.S. National Archives. Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs of Mexico. 1930-­1939. RGM 1370 "immigration" files 812.55/252‑812.5562/25.

 

Vasconcelos, Jose. La raza cósmica. Misión de la raza iberoamericana: Argentina y Brasil. Buenos Aires: Espasa‑Calpe, 1948.



         

[1] "Dos huérfanos son de ideas fascistas," Excélsior, 13 June 1937, p. 1, col. 5.

       

[2] Clara E. Lida, Inmigración y exilio: Reflexiones sobre el caso español (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno, 1997), 113.  Lida estimates the number to be approximately 20,000 adults.

         

              [3] Vera Foulkes, Los niños de Morelia y la escuela España-México:" Consideraciones analíticas de un experimento social (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), 46.

             

             [4] Emeterio Payá Valera, Los niños españoles de Morelia: El exilio infantil en México (Mexico City:

Edamex, 1985), 69‑73.

   

       [5] Go to, http://www.library.brandeis.edu/spcoll/spcvwr/posters.html, images

nr. 46,47, 248, 268. For fabulous posters in color on the children.

         

             [6] Kuhn, "500 Basque Children Fail to See Havana," New York Times, 6 June 1937, p. 30,

cols. 6‑7. The controversy even escalated to "gentleman chivalry" when two newspaper directors arranged a duel to settle the matter. "Solamente una hora escasa estarán el martes en esta cdad. [sic] los niños hispanos," Excélsior, 6 June 1937, p. 10, colt 4.

         

              [7] Payá, Los niños españoles, 32.

         

                [8] Kuhn, "500 Basque Children Fail to See Havana," New York Times, 6 June 1937, p. 30, cols. 6‑7.

 

      [9] Amalia Solorzano de Cárdenas, Era otra cosa la vida (Mexico City: Editorial Patria, 1994), 57.

Quoted from Lázaro Cárdenas, Obras, 369. "La traida a México de los niños españoles huérfanos no fue iniciativa del suscrito.  A orgullo lo tendría si hubiese partido del Ejecutivo esta noble idea. Fue de un grupo de dames mexicanas que entienden cómo debe hacerse la patria y que consideran que el esfuerzo que debería tracer Mexico pare aliviar la situación no debería detenerse ante las dificultades que se presentasen."       

         

      [10] Roberto Reyes Perez, La vida de los niños iberos en la patria de Lázaro Cárdenas (Mexico City: Editorial America, 1940), 13.

  

      [11] Comité de Ayuda a los Niños del Pueblo Español del Estado de Yucatan to Adalberto Tejada, Mexican Minister to France, Merida, 29 April 1937, in Alberto Enriquez Perea, ed., México y España: Solidaridad y asilo político 1936‑1942 (Mexico City: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 1990), 228‑231. About the children’s trip Dolores Pla Brugat, Los niños de Morelia: un estudio sobre los primeros refugiados españoles en Mexico (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, 1985), 39

          

              [12] John W. Sherman, "Reassessing Cardenismo: The Mexican Right and the Failure of a Revolutionary Regime, 1934‑1940," The Americas 54: 3 (Jan. 1998), 368‑370.

           

[13] Enrique Zafra, Rosalía Grego, Carmen Heredia, Los niños españoles evacuados a la URSS (1937) (Madrid: Ediciones de la Torre,1989).

          

[14] "Niños hispanos hallaron asilo," Excélsior, 25 May 1937, p. 1, colt 7, and "Ship takes aboard 4,000 Bilbao girls," New York Times, 21 May 1937, p. 5, colt 3.

          

       [15] Pla, "Características del exilio en México en 1939," in Lida, ed., Una inmigración privilegiada, 219.  Pla has calculated that around 160,000 Spaniards remained in exile after 1944.

   

       [16] Reyes, La vida de los niños, 19.

          

       [17] "Quienes recibirán en Veracruz a los niños españoles," Excélsior, 29 May 1937, p. 3, cols. 4‑5.

   

             [18] "Partieron para Morelia los huérfanos españoles," El Universal, 10 June 1937, p. 1, cols. 5‑6, and p. 12,

cols. 7‑8 (the reference is to p. 12).

   

           [19] Pictures of President Cárdenas in the middle of a group of children circulated in Mexicans newspapers,

for example "Los niños españoles en su nueva patria," Excélsior, 9 June 1937, 2nd section p.1 cols. 1‑4;  Archivo Casasolas, Historia gráfica de la revolución, no. 24, p. 2244 (Mexico City: Archivo Casasolas, n.d.);  "Espontáneos agasajos se hicieron a los huérfanos," El Universal, 9 June 1937, 2nd section, p.1, cols. 1‑8; and in New York Times, June 11, p. 12, colt 3.

 

               [20] Eric López, a native of Morelia, Michoacán, interviewed by the author at the University of Texas at Austin, 4 May 1998. López explains that the Purepechan word "tata" in Michoacán is an expression of honor, even if the term is confounded with that of "father" in the rest of Mexico.

 

               [21] "Llegaron ayer a Veracruz los niños españoles," El Universal, 8 June, 1937, p. 1, cols. 2‑3, and p. 5, cols. 2­-3.

 

               [22]  Mondragón, "Entusiasmo por la llegada del grupo infantil," Excélsior, 7 June 1937, p. 1, col 5;  Excélsior 9 June 1937 p.1 cols. 1-2.

 

              [23] Ibid.

 

              [24] Mexico. Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores. Memoria (1937‑1940). Mexico City: Secretaria de

Relaciones Exteriores, 1938‑1941.  1937: 44‑45.

 

              [25] Mexico, Memoria (1937), 46.

 

              [26] J.R Hernandez, "La llegada de los huérfanos españoles," El Universal, 3 June 1937, p. 3, cols. 7‑8. The DSRIAM.

 

       [27] "Absurdo proyecto de un impuesto a la colonia ibera," Excélsior, 26 May 1937, p. 3, colt 8. Diputado Rafael Silva Alvarez made this suggestion.

       

              [28] "Los niños españoles," Excélsior, 3 June 1937, p. 5, cols. 7‑8. critics called it an example of "candil en la calle y obscuridad en la case."

       

              [29] Ibid.

 

      [30] Moheno Jr., "Niños españoles," Excélsior, 7 June 1937, p. 5. cols. 1‑3. and p. 7, colt 6. ... de sentiendose del verdadero sentido y del alcance que una sabia educación implica, se les imbuye de la doctrine engañosa de que acaban de ser victimas.

       

             [31] Ibid., "conquistar en el espiritu de estos niños la gratitud de España, de toda España y la aprobación del mundo, de todo el mundo."

 

      [32] Stewart, American Consul General to Secretary of State, Mexico City, 23 March 1939, 812.55/307 in Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs of Mexico. 1930-1939.(DSRIAM)

 

      [33] The opposition regarded the children as potential troublemakers and anarchists, while the administration considered both the children and later the ex‑combatants as ideologically connected to or supportive of the Cárdenas administration.

 

             [34] Stewart, American Consul General to Sec. of State, Mexico City, 23 March 1939, 812.55/307 in DSRIAM.