318 UNIT 3 MODERN MESOAMERICA
indigenist goal was for the Indians to adopt the fundamental ideas and institutions
of modern Mexico.
The indigenists set up coordinating centers in the main refuge regions of Mex-
ico, beginning in 1951 with the Tzeltal-Tzotzil Mayan center in highland Chiapas.
Gonzalo Aguirre was installed as the first director of the center in Chiapas. Aguirre
used his position to investigate the social features of refuge regions like highland Chi-
apas, particularly the highly unequal relationships that existed between the local Me-
somaerican Indians and the dominant mestizos. The indigenists also tailored programs
in education, health, agriculture, and community development to suit the needs of
the Indians. The precedent was established that modernization of the Indians would
be carried out with due regard for the special social and cultural conditions of the In-
dians and in a fair and comprehensive fashion. In the following years, coordinating
centers were set up among other native groups such as the Mixtecs, Zapotecs, and
Mixes of Oaxaca; Mayas of Yucatán; Mazatecs and Tlapanecs of central and western
Mexico; Otomís of Hidalgo; and Tarahumaras of northern Mexico.
It must be noted, however, that during this same time period the Indians of Mex-
ico were subjected to developmental forces even stronger than those emanating from
the National Indigenous Institute (INI) centers. Agrarian industries, for example,
were established in most of the refuge regions, resulting in the expropriation of
lands and other resources from the Indian communities. At the same time, the Mex-
ican government vigorously sought to modernize politics throughout the country, es-
tablishing branches of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the native
communities and reforming traditional political structures such as the Indians’ local
governing hierarchies. The Catholic and Protestant churches were also active mod-
ernizing agents among the Indians, as they proselytized to replace traditional native
beliefs and practices with doctrinal systems more in line with Mexico’s increasingly
secular society.
By the 1970s, Aguirre, now director of INI, could assert that the main goals of the
indigenist program were being achieved. The Indians had been largely “Mexican-
ized,” the census of 1970 revealing that only about 10 percent of the population
could now be classified as Indians. Furthermore, the Indians had been largely “Chris-
tianized,” the culmination of a process begun centuries earlier with the arrival of the
first Spanish missionaries. Most important of all, it was claimed, the Indians were
being integrated into national life without being subject to racial or ethnic preju-
dice. Because of indigenismo the Indians had avoided becoming ethnic “minorities”
in Mexico; that is to say, cultural groups seeking separate national status. Finally,
under President Luís Echevarría (1970–1976), the indigenist program was expanded
even further, as thousands of additional bilingual teachers and development agents
were assigned to the refuge regions.
Despite Aguirre’s optimism over the successes of Mexico’s indigenist program,
it came under severe attack from two fronts: the Indians themselves, and scholarly
critics of its underlying assimilation goals. For their part, the Indians had shown far
greater interest in retaining their native identities than expected, as well as resisting
specific features of the programs designed to integrate them into the Mexican nation.
In 1970, at least three million people in Mexico still claimed to be Indians, and about