3 “LATENT SITES OF AGITATION”
In october 1965, Francisco Chávez Orozco, director of federal education in the state of Chihuahua, received urgent orders from the Secretaría de Educación Pública (Ministry of Public Education, SEP) to visit thenormales rurales(teacher-training schools) of Salaices and Saucillo. Founded as boarding schools for the sons and daughters of campesinos, officials argued that their constant demonstrations “created complete chaos, a situation that made them latent sites of agitation.”¹ Chihuahua was indeed ripe with protest. In a state whose postrevolutionary land tenure system evoked Porfirian times, rural teachers andnormalistas(student teachers) joined campesinos demanding meaningful agrarian reform. Together, they
Chapter, 2018
México Beyond 1968 : Revolutionaries, Radicals, and Repression During the Global Sixties and Subversive Seventies, 20180918, 53
2018