Representing the Nation

It has long been understood that sports and athletic events have meaning far beyond their strictly athletic or ludic component. This is especially true of the modern Olympic Games, and the 1968 Summer Games in Mexico is no exception. British historians Claire and Keith Brewster have dedicated much of their careers to interpreting those games. The approach of this book, originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport (volume 26, no. 6), is refreshing, though similar to some of the ideas laid out in Reflections on Mexico ’68, edited by Keith Brewster (2010), and other publications.Much of what has been written by US scholars about the 1968 Olympics has focused on the black protest and other aspects of the race question. Mexican writings on 1968 tend to highlight the student and labor protests and the government reactions, culminating in the Tlatelolco massacre. Other historians and journalists have highlighted the superlative physical performances in all areas of the games. The Brewsters acknowledge the importance of both Tlatelolco and the black protest, as well as the high-level athletic achievements and the impressive number of Olympic and world records set at those games. However, their major focus is something else: the objectives, attitudes, and shifting behavior of the Mexican elites who organized the bid to host the games, designed the large organizational scheme, and handled the administration of all the aspects of the games not managed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).Why was Mexico awarded hosting rights at all? In part because the competitive bids were weak; in part because it had the enthusiastic support of IOC president Avery Brundage; and in part because there was a desire in the IOC to increase the importance of the nonwhite, non-Western, less-developed countries within the Olympic movement.The initial Mexican objectives, in the view of many, were to raise Mexico’s status in the world community and to promote future foreign tourism and investment. The elites who sought these ends were basically fair-skinned mestizos and near-Europeans. These people often followed the post revolution myth of Mexico’s indigenismo yet never really had confidence in that darker end of the mestizo spectrum, fearing that the “Indian” traits would embarrass the country and continue to feed foreign perceptions of Mexico as a backward society — think burros, sombreros, and mañana.They reacted in various ways to these deep feelings and their belief that foreigners, especially Americans and Europeans, had no confidence in Mexico’s ability to handle the games or in the culture of the Mexican masses. The high altitude was another issue. To prepare their “inferior” or “irresponsible” countrymen, they initiated a public education program aimed at teaching proper manners, courtesy, and honesty to the multitudes most likely to come in contact with international visitors during the games. They also developed an extensive cultural program (or Cultural Olympics) to be presented before and during the games, evidence of which is still scattered around the city. And they shifted their emphasis from equality with the developed countries of the world to leader ship of the Third World, a significant refocusing that reflected the Mexican elites’ uncertainty about where they really fit into the global hierarchy.Despite the fractured domestic society, the political discord, the foreign doubts and predictions of failure, the high altitude, the lack of administrative experience, and the economic and budgetary uncertainties, Mexicans, in the Brewsters’ view, hosted an Olympic festival of which they could be justifiably proud. Nevertheless, most Mexicans since have given more attention to Tlatelolco and even the World Cups of 1970 and 1986 than to those Olympics.This study is not a history of athletic activities. Rather, it is a documented analysis of the complex process of bidding for, organizing, and hosting a global sports festival and of the ways in which that process both reflects and influences the attitudes, behavior, and politics of a national elite that transcends the sports world. For this reason all students of post-1950 Mexico should read it. The interpretation of predominantly white elite attitudes toward Mexico’s mestizo-indígena majority may not be so original, but its application to the 1968 Olympic Games is.Readers of this volume might consult Jorge G. Castañeda’s recent Mañana Forever?, which seems to support many of the Brewsters’ views on the elites’ implicitly racist attitudes toward Mexico’s Indian element and insecurity in the face of international pressures and judgments. Blending Castañeda, and others, with the Brewsters we arrive at this question: What does it mean to be Mexican? And how does that affect attitudes of some Mexicans toward others and of Mexicans toward foreigners, and vice versa

Brewster · Government (linguistics) · Meaning (existential) · Media studies · Political science · Sociology · Spectacle · History · Law · Philosophy · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts · Sports and Physical Education Studies · Sports, Gender, and Society

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  Open Access•Jacqueline Eyring Bixler•Latin American Research Review•2020

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