Una Escuela desconocida del exilio: la polémica en torno al Instituto Hispano Mexicano Ruiz de Alarcón = An unknown school of exile: the controversy surrounding the Instituto Hispano Mexicano Ruiz de Alarcón

Abstract

With the arrival of the exiled Spanish Republicans, Mexico consolidated the support of the Second Spanish Republic, making the country a place of refuge for those persecuted by the repressive Franco regime. A large group of teachers were part of this group and much of which found work and a continuation of his teaching in schools set up by the republican institutions in exile. The Instituto Ruiz de Alarcón was one of the first to be instituted and the short existence (1939-1943). His controversial closure cant be understood without considering the political landscape of exile and the performance of aid agencies established ad hoc. The controversy between two socialist opponents, Indalecio Prieto and Juan Negrín, was at the bottom of the closure of the Instituto and the founding of the Colegio Madrid. Jesus Revaque Garea, a key player in this question, was appointed supervisor of educational affairs of the Junta de Auxilio a los Republicanos Españoles (Jare) and had a devastating report on the Ruiz de Alarcon presented a detailed draft for a new school. This report written in 1941, will Revaque detailing problems and irregularities of the Institute in a very critical and harsh, leaving little doubt of his position as reporter of Jare regarding how the agency should proceed. The schools received significant financial support in the form of grants or direct payments, which allowed, in large part, its operation in the first years of life. In fact, the withdrawal of the scholarships to students in the Ruiz de Alarcón, was a considerable blow to the already weak economic capacity of the center, which concluded, among other reasons, the definitive suspension of its activity. Faced with poor management, which cant be questioned in the wake of the documents consulted, joins an explicit intention of the Jare, to carry forward the draft to consider itself a college, both in its inception and in its management later. Indalecio Prieto so acknowledges in an interview that the college students performed years after Colegio Madrid for a school publication. This control over education from politicians, beyond the management of resources and fell directly in the field teaching: how to educate. The politicization of the exile was a constant that doesnt always reversed in the positive collective ideological confrontation resulted in open confrontations over resources and redistributing them, which directly affect the companies created in exile and, specifically, schools. The trances themselves from exile, they joined the political controversies that overshadowed even more, the republican unity so longed to recover the ill-fated Republican project.