Unintended Lessons of Revolution: Student Teachers and Political Radicalism in Twentieth Century Mexico by Tanalís Padilla

Abstract

Reviewed by: Unintended Lessons of Revolution: Student Teachers and Political Radicalism in Twentieth Century Mexico by Tanalís Padilla Yoly Zentella Padilla, Tanalís. Unintended Lessons of Revolution: Student Teachers and Political Radicalism in Twentieth Century Mexico. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2021. [End Page 235] Unintended Lessons of Revolution: Student Teachers and Political Radicalism in Twentieth Century Mexico is based on a study of the rural normales, Mexican teacher training schools with a long tradition of radicalism and struggle for social justice, with origins in the Revolución of 1910. In eight chapters and an epilogue, Padilla succinctly and chronologically unwraps for the reader the role of the maestro, the teacher, as a radical archetype in the history of Mexican education, describing the interrelationship between the local populations, students, and government policies. The study, conducted by Padilla from which the book evolved, is of national scope and based on sources including declassified Mexican government documents from 2002, US Department of State records, local school archives, published memoirs, and more than fifty interviews conducted by the author in rural normales throughout Mexico. The author's intention was to fill a void in the Secretaria de Educación Publica's (Office of Public Education [SEP]) national archives, beyond the 1940s, by telling the story of rural normales from the perspective of student and graduate activists. Unintended Lessons of Revolution is an absorbing read for academics, students, activist scholars, and others interested in Mexican history, the education component, and student radicalism and its relationship with the Mexican state. Padilla is a historian of Latin America and history professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her focus is political and agrarian movements of modern Mexico. Among her publications is Rural Resistance in the Land of Zapata: The Jaramillista Movement and the Myth of the Pax Priísta, 1940–1962 (2008) centering on the history of an agrarian movement turned armed struggle. In 2013, she coedited and contributed to a special issue of the Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research (JILAR), in which the implications for post-revolutionary historiography of Mexico's recently declassified intelligence documents are analyzed. Padilla frequently publishes in Mexican periodicals. Unintended Lessons of Revolution narrates the relationship between student political struggle and the Mexican state. It also describes the progressive possibilities inherent in education and the development of student political consciousness as their identities unfold from campesino, to student, to teacher. Written in a linear, dynamic style, the chapters are chronological in nature, with a clear overlap of content, taking the reader from the revolutionary roots of the rural normales, their early formation during the 1920s, the impact of the liberal policies of president Cardenas (1934–1940) on the rural schools, and the [End Page 236] government's later shift to the political right resulting in a reduction of normales and demonization of activist-teachers during an anti-communist, Cold War climate. Padilla's narrative continues as students engage in agrarian struggle and political protests associated with uprisings leading to the student massacre at Tlatelolco in 1968 during the Ordaz administration (1964–1970), an atrocity that changed the normalista political approach to one of heightened activism. Here, the state accelerated the suppression of student militancy by reducing the number of rural normales and disbanding of the Federación de Estudiantes Campesinos Socialistas de Mexico (Mexican Federation of Rural Student Socialists [FECSM]). The book ends with attempts by rural normales at recovery and the re-establishment of the FECSM during the presidency of Echeveria (1970–1976). However, the rise of guerilla groups tied to the massacre at Tlatelolco, normalista collaboration with the guerrillas, the radical sector's realization of the government's unwillingness to bring about social justice to rural areas, and neoliberal encroachment on education created an explosive conflict between the rural normales students and the state. The state's response was heightened surveillance, infiltration, and horrific retaliation as in the disappearance in 2014 of the Ayotzinapa 43, students of the Ayotzinapa normal. The book is thorough, giving the reader a variety of ways to appreciate the importance of the topic—an appendix, notes, maps, and photos. While Unintended Lessons of Revolution is based on an academic study and...