Mythmaking and he Memory of the Cristero War in Mexican Print Culture, 1952–68

"Memory and Mythmaking: David and the Cristero’s Legacy in Cold War Mexico (1952-1968)."

This paper analyzes the serial magazine David: Revista Mensual Ilustrada, Historia Cristera, Información y Civismo, published from 1952 to 1968 by the Legion de Cristo Rey y Santa Maria de Guadalupe, founded in commemoration of the war’s 25th anniversary, and personal correspondence from its editor, Aurelio Robles Acevedo. David purported to commemorate the death and lives of Cristeros, who fought in the Cristero Wars of 1926 to 1929. This paper analyzes the positionality of the magazine’s editors and authors–most of whom were veterans who fought for or assisted the Cristero cause–and their rhetoric in David to illuminate Catholic conservative anxieties regarding Mexican youth and culture during the Cold War. I argue that the legacy of the Cristero War becomes a memory and myth-making project for Mexican Catholic conservatives who, writing within a global context of the Cold War, reimagined “Mexicanidad” by alluding to the Cristero’s militancy, masculinity, and devotion to martyrdom as examples worth replicating. Therefore, understanding David as a memory project offers greater insight into how the people behind the magazine, such as Aurelio R. Acevedo and Father José Adolfo Arroyo, tapped into narratives of the Cristero War to underscore the need for a modern militant Mexican Catholic youth willing to defend Catholicism from communism and global secularizing trends of the era. Additionally, this paper applies a cultural-historical lens to examine how Mexican Catholic conservatives in the Cold War used the medium of print culture, specifically magazines, to defend traditional notions of gender, family, and the nation.