Tlatelolco Massacre - Background

Background

"The year 1968 in Mexico City was a time of expansiveness and the breaking down of barriers: a time for forging alliances among students, workers, and the marginal urban poor and challenging the political regime. It was a time of great hope, seemingly on the verge of transformation. Students were out in the streets, in the plazas, on the buses, forming brigades, "going to the people." There were movement committees at each school and heady experiences of argument, exploration, and democratic practice. There was no central leader. Families were drawn in, whole apartment buildings and neighborhoods. A revolution was happening - not Che's revolution - but a revolution from within the system, nonviolent, driven by euphoria, conviction, and the excitement of experimentation on the ground."

The Mexican government invested a massive $150 million in preparations for the 1968 Olympics that were to be hosted in Mexico City. That amount was equal to roughly $7.5 billion dollars by today's terms. The Mexican president during the Olympics, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, strained tenuous conditions in Mexico in an attempt to preserve the peace. During his presidency, Mexicans endured the suppression of independent labor unions, farmers, and the economy. Under the administration of Díaz Ordaz's predecessor in 1958, labor leader Demetrio Vallejo attempted to organize independent railroad unions, which the Mexican government quickly ended, arresting Vallejo under a violation of Article 145 of the Penal Code that made "social dissolution" a crime.

Although at first simply a response to the violent repression of fights between rival porros (gangs), the student movement quickly grew to include large segments of the student body who held general dissatisfaction with the regime of the PRI. Sergio Zermeño has argued that the students were united by a desire for democracy, but their understandings of what democracy meant were incredibly different.