Reading Mexico, Understanding
the United States: American
Transnational Intellectuals
in the 1920s and 1990s

Jesus Velasco

The history of United States-Mexican relations is a history full of events, images, bargains, anecdotes, and problems. Like any other relationship, it has its ups and downs, although there have been more downs than ups. Throughout all these years of permanent contact, Mexico and the United States have constructed a mutual history, a common past that has shaped our comprehension of each other. This common past clearly had different impacts and implications for each country, but one fact is indisputable: this shared past exists. It is a fragment of history that belongs to both nations, has been with us for centuries, and will remain with us for many years to come.	1
There are two moments of this mutual history that I want to explore in this paper: the early 1920s and the early 1990s. Both were periods of a tense and intense bilateral relationship, of an important flow of information between the two countries, of considerable exchanges, negotiations, and disputes. As a facet of the universe of transactions between the two nations, we discover the active participation of some American "public intellectuals," of thinkers who addressed a "general and educated" audience and who "contributed to public discussion."1	2
These intellectuals had a deep knowledge of Mexico and strong affiliations with American journals (in the 1920s) and think tanks (1990s). They were intellectually and politically active in both countries. In Mexico, they were in touch with influential politicians and intellectuals and advised governmental elites about the main features of American domestic and foreign policy. In the United States, they spread their opinions on Mexico throughout the labor movement (in the 1920s), the government, and business organizations. Their ideas and policy recommendations impacted both Mexico's governmental elites and the American big business and governmental community. In both periods, they formed (with the Mexican government) an intellectual lobby that sought to affect American public opinion by disseminating Mexican viewpoints.	3
The audience of these intellectuals in the United States was formed by certain sectors of American society (liberals and moderate leftists in the 1920s, free-market groups in the 1990s) that, for their own particular reasons and interests, shared the Mexican perspective. In both historical moments, the interest of those intellectuals in Mexico was not the only cause of their support and promotion of Mexican views. These intellectuals were, in the final analysis, permeated by their own historical context and time and responding to American domestic politics and concerns. For personal, political, or ideological reasons, their perspectives coincided with Mexican agendas.	4
These intellectuals were aware of their national context and of particular historical circumstances. They acted according to their own interests and at the same time internationally. They were, in a nutshell, American transnational intellectuals. The term transnational intellectuals is not common in political or historical discourse. I use it to call attention to the manner in which thinkers and writers interconnected Mexico and the United States through their oral and written words.	. . .