This book traces “the rise” of Mexico's “student problem” in the context of the long—and global—sixties (1956-c.1971). It is the first study to see the university as a physical space and a way of life that became a crucial point for the transformation of political and cultural values, with key ramifications for the country as a whole. Here, students participated in the formation of Mexico's New Left by challenging the state's economic and political projects, exposing the limitations of “national unity,” and contesting traditional values and gendered norms. It refutes many of the basic assumpti ... More

This book traces “the rise” of Mexico's “student problem” in the context of the long—and global—sixties (1956-c.1971). It is the first study to see the university as a physical space and a way of life that became a crucial point for the transformation of political and cultural values, with key ramifications for the country as a whole. Here, students participated in the formation of Mexico's New Left by challenging the state's economic and political projects, exposing the limitations of “national unity,” and contesting traditional values and gendered norms. It refutes many of the basic assumptions that the scholarship has had about post-war Mexican political culture. In including national and international opinion about the 1968 student movement and its brutal repression, it simultaneously challenges the dominant assumption that the movement was fundamentally “popular” within the citizenry. In exposing the limitations of Mexico's “Economic Miracle” and the shortcomings of the state's projects of “national unity,” it reveals the “deep” history of the 1968 movement and its immediate aftermath. This becomes evident in the government's failure to attend to the needs of the children of the working class whose long history of militancy is traced to the 1940s-1950s.In paying close attention to sports, hazing rituals, and porrismo (student thuggery/provocation) it analyzes, for the very fist time, the crucial roles “fun” and “clientelism” played in youth politics and state response; and, in so doing, provides an explanation of the irrefutable longevity of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).