CHAPTER 8 NATIVE MESOAMERICANS IN THE MODERN ERA 317Figure 8.8 Demonstrators confront the Mexican army near the Plaza of Three Cultures, Tlatelolco,
Mexico, in 1968. Courtesy of Bettma n/Corbis.
conditions. The refuge regions could not be allowed to persist unchanged if Mexico
was to fulfill the goal of creating a modern nation-state.
Development of modern Mexico was to be accomplished through industrializa-
tion, political reform, and formation of a national identity. Mexican anthropologists
such as Manuel Gamio and Alfonso Caso argued that the creation of a modern Mex-
ico required a common national culture, which in turn depended upon a common
language, an ethnic identity, and a set of customs. The development of nationalism
was to be achieved through a process of “acculturation,” the blending (mestizaje) of
the different races, ethnic groups, languages, and customs into a unified “Mexican”
people. This process meant that the refuge regions would have to be broken down
and their Indians integrated into national life.
The policy that emerged in Mexico, “indigenismo,” was officially enunciated in
l940 by President Lázaro Cárdenas at the First Inter-American Indigenist Congress
in Pátzcuaro, Mexico. The program was later institutionalized in Mexico through
the formation of the National Indigenist Institute (INI) under the direction of Al-
fonso Caso. Mexico, Caso argued, “could opt for no other way than to incorporate
the indigenous cultures into the great Mexican community” (García Moray Medina
1983:179). For the most part, the intellectual leaders of the indigenous development
program were students and advocates of the Indian cultures, and they labored dili-
gently to enhance appreciation of the Indians in Mexico. They believed that inte-
gration of the Indians, and hence their development, could be achieved through
managed acculturation: a selective blending of elements from both the Indian and
the mestizo cultures, mediated by indigenist agents. Nevertheless, the overriding
n