The 1938 Mexican Oil Expropriation in Latin American Politics and Culture

The Mexican oil expropriation of 1938 reverberated throughout Latin America, influencing business practices, government policies, cultural production, and labour relations in the region. This paper examines Mexico’s relations with Latin America in the wake of the nationalization of the Mexican oil industry, and the history of the expropriation’s multiple meanings for the fields of energy history and Latin American politics and culture.            Recent works have expanded the discussion of the international dimension of the oil expropriation, but most have focused upon Mexico’s relations with Great Britain and the United States. By examining the decree of March 1938 with reference to attempts to sell the expropriation to and in Latin America, the multiple meanings the oil controversy had for the region come into focus.  The expropriation and its associated events served as a lightning rod for debates regarding the legitimacy of the Cárdenas government’s claim to leadership in Latin America. Throughout the region—which shared Mexico’s long history of economic exploitation, first at the hands of Spanish and Portuguese colonisation and then through the economic imperialism of Great Britain and the United States – Mexico’s oil expropriation seemed to offer hope that Latin American nations could reclaim their resources for the benefit of their peoples. While workers, intellectuals, students, and leftist political parties hoped that it was the harbinger of social revolution, economic nationalists saw Cárdenas’s action as an important and possibly exemplary act. Business interests challenged this broad consensus and declared the illegality of the expropriation, echoing the fury of the expropriated oil companies.  The oil expropriation became a touchstone for Latin Americans’ understanding of the meanings the Mexican Revolution had for the region during the Cárdenas presidency.