Leticia Neria PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

university. In the film El Águila Descalza, the young characters are factory workers.
The rich girl that Poncho, the protagonist, is secretly in love with, studied a technical
career as an interior designer. So, even as the young were increasing in number and
were attending higher education institutions in greater numbers, the films and comics
that we consider did not discuss them. This does not mean that the topic of higher
education was not present in other genres, but it is interesting that in a comic book such
as La Familia Burrón- which evolved over fifty years – education never emerged as an
issue. Eduardo del Río saw the relevance of basic education and, according to his point
of view, two years after the education reform, the basic levels of education and the
training and salaries of teachers were in crisis. He portrays his concern in Los
Agachados. 73
It is important to mention that during Echeverría’s presidency, violence
increased in high schools and universities. Young gangs called ‘porros’ were controlled
and paid for by the government, and they intimidated young people in order to maintain
fear and undermine efforts to organise. 74 The Principal of UNAM at that time, Pablo
González Casanova, pointed out the existence of these groups, but he suffered the
consequences and was forced by the government to resign. 75 Perhaps these groups
contributed to the idea of a lost and violent youth with no ideals or aims that was
represented in Hermelinda Linda and also in Los Agachados.
Although Echeverría appeared to have left wing tendencies, much of this was
simply rhetoric: ‘si para una parte de la clase política la apertura comenzaba a
vislumbrarse como una necesidad y para los intelectuales reformistas como una
73 For example in issues 161 and 162.
74 Inke Gunia, ¿“Cuál es la onda”? La literatura de la contracultura juvenil en el México de los años
sesenta y setenta (Madrid: Iberoamericana: 1994), p. 259 It is important to mention that the porros
existed before Echeverría’s term. Carlos Montemayor mentions that they participated in some of the
violence in 1968. Carlos Montemayor, La violencia de estado en México. Antes y después de 1968
(Mexico: Debate, 2010), p. 21.
75 A description of the facts that forced González Casanova to quit as a rector appears in José Agustín,
Tragicomedia mexicana 2… pp. 50-52.
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