Globalization and International Community

Society and Culture: A New Internationalism

• Post-WWII Mexico deepened its integration into the international community.
• Mexico began focusing on global issues, not just local concerns.
• Mexican presidents promoted their message across Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America.
• Mexico sought to lead the developing world and redefine its self-image.
• The issues facing the nation such as population growth, urbanization, poverty, pollution were also global.
• The world became increasingly interdependent because of science, technology, and economy.
• Solutions to global issues became difficult within national boundaries, and globalization posed new challenges.

Population

• Postwar social and cultural shifts equaled the dramatic changes of the Porfiriato.
• Population growth was extremely rapid.
• The population doubled between 1940 and 1963.
• The population increased from 22 million at the end of WWII to over 80 million by 1980.
• Population control advocates experienced mixed success after the revolution.
• The 1968 papal encyclical banning artificial contraception hindered population control efforts.
• The encyclical supported the idea that the rich get richer while the poor have children.
• Presidential candidate Luis Echeverría, a father of eight, claimed Mexico didn't need to limit family size in 1970.
• Six hundred thousand Mexican women underwent illegal abortions that year.
• 32,000 women died as a result.
• The Council of Mexican Bishops issued a pastoral letter stating couples should make responsible decisions about family size in 1972.
• Government-sponsored clinics began providing birth control information.
• By 1980, López Portillo allocated over 500 million pesos annually to family planning.
• The population growth rate dropped from around 3.2-3.4 percent in the 1970s.
• Demographers were cautiously optimistic the birth rate would continue to decline, with women entering the workforce and advocating for their rights.
• Women's rights movement gained momentum after WWII, with full enfranchisement in 1955.
• Posters promoting smaller families became common in Mexican cities in the 1970s and 1980s.
• Billboards in Mexico City urged Mexicans to use condoms in the war against AIDS, shocking conservative Catholics in 1997.

Leisure and Sport

• Mass communication, especially television, altered leisure patterns and increased urban citizens' information.
• By the mid-1960s, TV was no longer exclusive to the upper and middle classes.
• TV antennas appeared in urban slums, demonstrating its broad viewership.
• Television sets became more common than refrigerators and showers in Mexican homes.
• Millions of Mexicans watched Neil Armstrong's moonwalk in the summer of 1969.
• Access to television increased, with soap operas (telenovelas), musicals, and sports becoming popular viewing.
• Comic books (historietas) offered another form of entertainment for adults and children.
• These comics often acted as moral guides and covered a range of topics.
• Sports were a major source of entertainment.
• Fútbol (soccer) remained popular, played both on local fields and in stadiums.
• Soccer leagues became professionalized in the 1940s.
• Club América and Guadalajara Chivas developed a national rivalry.
• The Estadio Azteca, opened in 1966, became the home stadium for América and the Mexican national team.
• Mexico hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1970, however, its high altitude posed a challenge for some teams.
• Other sports became more popular due to TV coverage.
• Boxing became professionalized, with Mexican athletes achieving international recognition.
• Baseball, introduced in the 19th century, struggled to maintain leagues, but many players were successful in US major league baseball.
• Fernando Valenzuela, a pitcher from Sonora, played for the Los Angeles Dodgers and earned the Rookie of the Year award in 1981.
• About 100 Mexicans are currently in the major leagues.

Lucha Libre

• Lucha libre (Mexican professional wrestling) became a popular spectacle after WWII.
• Wrestlers wore masks adding to the mystery of the sport.
• Heroes (técnicos) faced villains (rudos), representing life's struggles choreographed in physical melodramas.
• The audience's emotions were intentionally manipulated in the matches.
• Técnicos often adopted names linked to the church.
• El Santo dramatically unmasked and shamed Sombra Vengadora in an epic 1955 match.

Civic Fiestas

• Civic fiestas with parades and music provided entertainment on national holidays, such as September 16, celebrating independence.
• Historical commemorations honored figures like Benito Juárez and Emiliano Zapata to reinforce revolutionary nationalism.
• Religious holidays with processions and pilgrimages resurfaced after the 1930s due to accommodations made with the government.
• Mexican Catholicism included socially progressive groups from Vatican II and right-wing branches like Opus Dei.

Mexican Museums

• Mexico City's museums, with free Sunday admission, combined leisure and learning.
• The Museum of Anthropology has artifacts from the pre-Columbian era
• The Museum of Anthropology covers 20 acres in Chapultepec Park and shows artifacts from various regions and cultures, including Teotihuacan, Olmeca, Tottecs, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, Aztecs, and Mayas.
• A highlight is the Aztec calendar, a large basalt slab from the fifteenth century.

INAI

• In the 1940s the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAI) cataloged and protected over 300,000 monuments and sites, then developed archaeological sites and museums nationwide.
• Under Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, INAH started excavating the Templo Mayor in 1978-1982.
• The Museum of the Templo Mayor displays artifacts, including the Coyolxauhqui monolithic disk from the 15th century.

Mexico City's Subway System

• Mexico City's subway system was an emblem of Mexico's technological modernity.
• Work on the subway began in 1967.
• By 1990, the modern Mexico City system was at or beyond capacity.
• More than 5 million passengers used 87 miles of double tracks daily.
• Plans to add 37 miles of track were cancelled due to financial constraints.
• The subway entailed modernization of the cityscape.
• Planners used a pictographic system and a connection to an existing historical urban architectural for the subway.
• The sign for Balderas station is a cannon and the stop at the huge Merced market is represented by a crate of apples.

Film and Music

• Mexican filmmaking's "golden age" was from 1935 to the late 1950s.
• Mexicans favored actors such as Pedro Infante, Jorge Negrete, María Félix, and Dolores del Río.
• Films had budgets subsidized by Hollywood, were made in the style of melodrama, and were shown to Mexican audiences.
• These films taught lessons about mexicanidad, gender norms, and surviving in cities.
• Early post-revolutionary films sought to create a cohesive national image that downplayed class and ideological differences.
• The 1946 film Enamorada shows an upper-class woman's revolutionary education to place the nation's needs above her own.
• Women's suffrage was postponed, revealing the fear that women were being given the right to vote and thus would not support the party.
• María Candelaria (1943) and Río Escondido (1947) presented narratives about women sacrificing their lives for the greater good.
• These films used rural Mexico to reflect an indigenous ideal, but also showed how women were narrative in making the state.
• Films of the Golden Age taught moviegoers how to navigate urban society.
• From 1920-1960 cinemas multiplied and centered on 'neighborhood identity'.
• By the mid-1960s audiences began to disengage from melodrama and rather look to identity, women's roles, or the ills of urban life.
• Hollywood invested less in Mexican cinema as television replaced movie theaters for many.

Rock Music in the 1960s-70s Mexico

• Americanization of pop culture after World War II caused criticism from both post-revolutionary governments and Mexican intellectuals.
• Though foreign based, Mexican culture evolved in novels, comic books, and shows.
• Rock music became a popular music form and replaced traditional Mexican music. Following the 1969 Woodstock festival produced Avándaro Music Festing in 1971 attracting over 200,000 rockeros.
• During the festival, government repression was broadcasted as well as prompting shut off of a radio station broadcast and some performers hounded by the government.
• New genres were discovered and some purists viewed it as a more subversive view of US hippie culture and cultural forms preferred by Mexico's institutional revolution.

Literature, Art and Scholarship

• In the half-century following WWII Mexico became flourished with literary journal and magazine of social protest.
• By 1985, Mexico City had 20 daily newspaper and 250 periodicals.
• Mexico City was he center for television and film industries as the capital for the nation.

This lesson covers the emergence of a new international community and the affects of globalization. It explores family planning, population dynamics, science, technology and economic conditions.