Doctrine and Action

Hermila Galindo’s Contributions to Mexico’s Foreign Policy

Abstract

This essay identifies and reviews some contributions made by Hermila Galindo to Mexico’s foreign policy in three main sources: the constitutionalist journal El Pueblo, La Mujer Moderna magazine, and the book titled La Doctrina Carranza y el acercamiento indolatino. It enriches the knowledge held by the main characters (both men and women) who designed and executed Mexico’s foreign policy to identify processes and mechanisms that led to the building of a school of thought and international action on Mexico’s part. Studying Galindo’s work allows us to delve into the foundations of international policies Mexico must face in the XXI century. This approach allows us to understand her ideas and the mechanisms she used for her political and diplomatic career. The article proposes that Galindo designed and executed tasks at the national and international level, linking theory and action in diplomacy during the Mexican Revolution, through journalism, diffusion, and systematization of constitutionalism ideas. Besides the linkage between suffragism, feminism, and foreign policy, an indubitable trait in Galindo’s work is her explicit political commitment: her work, next to Venustiano Carranza; the search to improve the feminine condition and to build a Latin-American identity guided by the international policies of constitutionalism.

It is noteworthy that the intellectual and material effort that was required to design and execute a book to systematize the thought and work of the constitutionalist movement, and of Venustiano Carranza as its leader. Reviewing today Galindo’s work sheds light on its validity in a time where international pacts, that stemmed from diplomacy in the XX century, are being disrupted. This diplomacy was greatly defined by the innovative proposals from different countries, such as Mexico, as well as from characters such as Galindo, in an international system which was in urgent need to leave behind habits and doctrines that only benefited the strongest in the international scope and the men at the national level. The relevance of this topic resides in considering that, if by the end of World War I, this diplomacy was set as an ideal that would be established throughout the XX century, today it is clearly going through a crisis. Reviewing Galindo’s work illuminates the creativity of her time to channel the international system in new and improved ways.