The Transnational Politics of Mexican Student Migration, 1910–40

This paper explores how Mexican student migration – the movement of Mexican youth to attend college or university abroad, especially in the United States – became a crucial part of the Mexican education system. I focus on the first decades of the twentieth century, a period of great upheaval in Mexico as a dictatorial regime was brought down by a social revolution, and a time when defining and strengthening Mexican nationalism was of great interest to political actors in Mexico. I explore the array of non-state actors and institutions that made study abroad possible by offering scholarships to Mexican youth, pointing out that while the Mexican government also offered funding, student migration was not the exclusive domain of the state. In particular, U.S. university-based and philanthropic initiatives opened avenues for Mexican youth to study north of the border, and they actively publicized and rationalized their efforts in both countries’ presses. At the same time, Mexican actors outside the educational apparatus weighed in on the desirability of importing foreign knowledge to the homeland, also using the press to disseminate their viewpoints against and in favor of student migration. The paper argues that while the Mexican government never offered a full-bodied, public endorsement of study abroad during this period, study abroad acquired new political meaning as a boon to the nation thanks to the projects and narratives produced outside the state and beyond Mexico. Establishing the place of study abroad in Mexican nationalism, then, was a transnational process involving actors and institutions on both sides of the border. This process ultimately allowed for the expansion of Mexican student migration after 1940 as the Mexican state took a growing, but never exclusive role in offering scholarships and encouraging study abroad.