Tracing Mexico's Shifting Cultural Identity through Print Media: El Maestro: Revista de Cultura Nacional (1921)

El Maestro: National Culture Magazine is a 110 page magazine with dimensions of 14.6 x 22.1 cm

The cover of El Maestro: National Culture Magazine depicts an indigenous scribe writing on a tablet. He is a stoic looking figure, toiling away at his work. It appears as if he is trying to write down his knowledge for others to see, just as the writers of El Maestro tried to dispense knowledge to their citizens. The cover reflects the goals of El Maestro. It deals with a wide variety of issues, perhaps too many issues for one Magazine to deal with. From current events, the formation of the earth, world history, vegetarianism, and how to feed a cow there is not much this magazine doesn’t cover.

El Maestro was published in Mexico City in 1921 and was the brainchild of José Vasconcelos. 14 issues were printed by Vasconcelos during his time in charge of the Ministry of Public Education. He was deeply concerned with the creation of a national culture in post-revolutionary Mexico. Along with education reform he created El Maestro and gave copies out free of charge to help foster a national culture.  El Maestro is divided up into seven sections: Informative editorial magazine, History, Miscellaneous Topics, Literature, practical knowledge, Kids section, and Poetry. The section headings are very broad, displaying the number of varied topics within the magazine. With fifteen named contributors, El Maestro had a lot of people putting forth their work for the magazine.

Even though the topics are varied, the magazine’s main goal was educating the citizens of Mexico to promote a national culture. The inclusion of poems and stories aid in this function by providing literature the authors considered important. There are several sections in the magazine that deal with the place of indigenous people in the national culture. The section “Mexican history” details the pre-Columbian civilizations that existed in the region of Mexico. The author Rafael Ramos Pedrueza extols the virtue of these civilizations. The section called “Indigenous Mexican Tribes” written by José U. Escobar focus on a civic organization that is akin to the boy scouts. The goal of the group was to train Mexican boys in how to be model citizens, through the lens of Mexico’s indigenous past. The author considered past Indigenous society as one that post-revolutionary Mexico society should build its foundation upon.

Although some of the sections in El Maestro discuss indigenous people’s place in the national culture, José Vasconcelos did not believe that indigenous culture had a place in it. In his personal writings he talks about how Indigenous people need to assimilate into his view of Mexicans, as a people with predominantly Spanish heritage. The Magazine is a microcosm of the conflict going on in Mexico. It is a conflict over where Mexico should place its heritage. In its Indigenous or Spanish past.