Alejandro Gómez Arias (1906–1990) was a Mexican lawyer, journalist, essayist, teacher, political commentator and orator. He was one of the leaders of the 1929 student movement that resulted in the autonomy of the National University of Mexico, serving as president of its strike committee and of the . He subsequently pursued a career in journalism and teaching, edited the literary magazine , and became the founding director of Radio Universidad in 1937. He was also involved in the founding of the Partido Popular in 1948 and was associated with the creation of El Colegio Nacional. In 1979 the National University awarded him an honorary doctorate in recognition of his contribution to Mexican public and intellectual life.

He is probably best known in the Anglosphere as being the first boyfriend of the artist Frida Kahlo, and was present when she was injured in a serious traffic accident while they were both students.

Biography Early life Gómez Arias was born in 1906. He attended the (English: National Preparatory School): there he was a member of the student group the "Cachuchas", with whom he engaged in student journalism. The group brought together students interested in literature, politics and social questions; its members subsequently pursued careers in law, medicine, literature, politics and the arts, and many of them became leading figures of the Mexican intellectual elite. They were rebellious, opposed to everything conservative, and performed pranks, staged plays, and debated philosophy and Russian classics.

Relationship with Frida Kahlo At the he met Frida Kahlo, and became her first boyfriend, although her parents did not approve of their relationship. Gómez Arias and Kahlo were often separated from each other, due to the political instability and violence of the period, and exchanged passionate love letters. He was with Kahlo in September 1925, when the bus in which they were travelling was struck by an electric streetcar and Kahlo sustained serious injuries. She was impaled by an iron handrail, which was removed by Gómez Arias and others.

University Gómez Arias travelled to Europe, and upon his return, he studied law at the University of Mexico. In 1928, he won an oratory contest sponsored by the newspaper El Universal.

Gómez Arias became prominent nationally during the student movement of 1929. The immediate dispute concerned reforms at the (English: National School of Jurisprudence), particularly the introduction of additional examinations and attendance requirements, but the conflict developed into a wider movement concerning the relationship between the university and the Mexican state. The student movement advocated for university autonomy.

On 9 May 1929 students voted to strike, and a strike committee was established the following day with Gómez Arias as its president and Ricardo García Villalobos as secretary. The committee sought support from other university schools and pressed the university authorities to address the students' demands.

Gómez Arias also served as president of the (English: National Confederation of Students). During the 1929 confrontation he became one of the principal public spokespersons for the student movement. On 23 May he sent a letter to the authorities describing the violence that had accompanied the conflict and arguing that the students wanted the university's life to be organised according to its own rules, rather than by the government. He rejected the government's accusation that the strike was primarily political, and presented university self-government as the central issue.

President of Mexico Emilio Portes Gil ultimately accepted the principle of university autonomy. On 10 July 1929 he promulgated the new Organic Law of the University, establishing it as an autonomous institution named the (English: National Autonomous University of Mexico) or UNAM. The (English: National Institute of Historical Studies of the Revolutions of Mexico) later described Gómez Arias as one of the principal figures associated with the movement that produced the university's autonomy.

Radio UNAM One of Gómez Arias's most enduring institutional contributions was his role in the establishment of university broadcasting. The project for a university radio service developed in the 1930s, and he became its founding director. On 14 June 1937 Radio UNAM began broadcasting under the name , the original station transmitting on medium wave and initially broadcasting for four hours a day.

In his inaugural address, he presented the radio service as an instrument for extending the University's educational and cultural work beyond Mexico City. He envisaged broadcasts that would disseminate scientific and cultural material and make the University's intellectual resources available to audiences throughout Mexico and abroad. He also argued that the station should provide a forum for different political and social viewpoints rather than serve as a vehicle for a single ideology. The station's sound archive, the "Fonoteca Alejandro Gómez Arias", now bears his name; it was formally established in 1987, and contains recordings documenting the history of Radio UNAM and Mexican cultural and intellectual life.

Teaching, journalism and Gómez Arias combined his legal training with teaching and journalism. He taught literature and history and later worked in university and cultural education. He also became involved in editorial work and political commentary.

In 1934 he and the writer directed the literary magazine (English: Fable. Leaves of Mexico). The magazine appeared monthly from January to September 1934 and published nine issues. It was deliberately open to writers from different generations and literary tendencies rather than functioning as the organ of a single literary school. Gómez Arias was primarily responsible for the editorial side of the publication, seeking contributors and correcting their manuscripts, while Lira handled much of the printing and typography. The magazine published essays, poetry, short fiction, reproductions of artwork and photographs and provided a platform for both established and younger Mexican writers. The magazine's contributors included writers such as Xavier Villaurrutia, Salvador Novo, Alfonso Reyes, Julio Torri and Agustín Yáñez.

Gómez Arias subsequently became a prolific newspaper and magazine writer, his journalism dealing principally with Mexican political and social affairs. In later life he was particularly associated with the magazine (English: Always!), to which he contributed political commentary over many years.

Political activity Gómez Arias participated in Mexican political movements without making a conventional career as an elected politician. As a young man he supported José Vasconcelos's presidential campaign of 1929 and remained associated with the generation of intellectuals and activists that had emerged from the university movement.

He was subsequently involved in the political and intellectual circles around the labour leader Vicente Lombardo Toledano and politician Narciso Bassols. He was among the founders of the in 1948 and served on its initial leadership. The party was founded under Lombardo Toledano's leadership and advocated, among other objectives, nationalisation, opposition to imperialism, equality between men and women, and popular education.

Gómez Arias was among the promoters of (English: the National College) and delivered the institution's official inaugural address on 15 May 1943, on behalf of the Secretary of Public Education, Octavio Véjar Vázquez, who was representing President Manuel Ávila Camacho. In his address he described the new institution as a means of bringing together leading figures in Mexican science, literature, philosophy and the arts. His speech was subsequently published as and has been cited in studies of the intellectual history of El Colegio Nacional.

Later career and recognition Gómez Arias continued to write and comment on Mexican public affairs during the second half of the twentieth century. His memoir, , was published in 1990 and records his recollections of the university movement, Mexican political life and the intellectual circles and cultural environment in which he had participated.

In 1977 he received the , a national prize for journalism awarded by the Club de Periodistas de Mexico.

In 1979, during the commemorations of the fiftieth anniversary of university autonomy, the awarded Gómez Arias an honorary doctorate. He was among sixteen Mexican and foreign intellectuals and academics recognised by the university in connection with the anniversary; other recipients included Claude Lévi-Strauss, Octavio Paz, Rufino Tamayo, Edmundo O'Gorman and Alexander Oparin. His honorary doctorate recognised his connection with the university and, in particular, his role in the movement that established its autonomy.

Gómez Arias lived for many years with Teresa Salazar Mallén, who was commonly described as his wife. According to biographer Martha Zamora, an investigation of the Mexico City civil register found no record that the couple ever legally married. However, an official notarial notice published after Gómez Arias's death described him as Salazar Mallén's late husband.

He died in Mexico City on 3 March 1990.

Writings Gómez Arias wrote on law, education, university affairs and Mexican intellectual life. His early legal-philosophical thesis (On the Margins of Kelsen: Notes on the Aesthetic Sense of Law) was published in Mexico in 1938 by the of the . The work examined the ideas associated with the Austrian jurist Hans Kelsen. His study Justo Sierra, a biographical study of the writer Justo Sierra, examined Sierra's conception of the university. Other writings by Gómez Arias included articles on the 1929 university movement and university reform, including (English: "Some considerations regarding the University Reform of 1929") in the journal in 1953.

Selected publications

Notes

References

Sources

External links Article by Gómez Arias: "Awakening of political consciousness" (in Spanish) Article by Gómez Arias: "Guide them, do not condemn them" (in Spanish