“Mexico was a year of vivid impressions,” write four members of the class of 1946 in a reflection on their time abroad, “of color and contrast and chiascuro—of music, and markets, and mountains. We’ll remember also…the ever-present mariachis with their fugitive and haunting melodies—almost as fugitive and haunting as a year can be in its rapid change from present into past irrevocable.”
The latter half of the 1930s saw the Second Republic of Spain plunged into violent civil war, forcing the apparent suspension of a Smith College Junior Year Abroad program for students studying the Spanish language. In May of 1937, however, citing the “present internal unrest” in Spain, the college announced that Smith would be pioneering a junior year in Mexico for the following academic year, offering Spanish majors in good academic standing an alternative to the junior year in Spain. Mimicking the structure of the Spain program’s itinerary, students studying in Mexico would spend the month of September in Guadalajara, an old, coastal Mexican city, to gain familiarity with the language before moving to Mexico City, where they were to enroll in courses at a university. Already considered a pioneer in the field of study abroad for establishing programs in Europe (beginning with Paris in 1925), Smith attracted great curiosity as other institutions watched closely what was deemed an “experiment,” a certain stepping out of the comfort of Eurocentric study abroad.
The Mexico “experiment” was approached with some wariness on the part of administrators, who professed a need to “investigate the situation” and collect “evidence as to the feasibility of the project.” An initial skepticism of Mexico as a suitable location of study for “refined” American girls is palpable in the many letters exchanged during the establishment process—President William Neilson writes of wanting to “assure ourselves of the hygienic conditions, the possibility of an appropriate place to live, and the academic opportunities,” while program director Katherine Reding interrupts her long-winded admiration of the group’s “luxurious a la Mexican” residence to express her surprise that “[i]ncidentally, the floors are not deep in grime.” While Neilson’s investigations produced a decision against the practicality of housing students with Mexican families, Reding later writes to him of “beginning to see that we could have put the girls in private families…The family where I am living is charming.” “The Guadalajara idea is good,” she says in another letter. “I was very dubious before coming.”
A newspaper interview with Janet Tunison, 1938
Such hesitation and suspicion quickly proved unwarranted. In spite of early sickness, work deemed “too easy” by their rigid director, and frequent, “minor upsets” incited by the “difficult climate,” students left Mexico in 1938 feeling “so very happy,” reportedly trying to arrange “ways of staying in Mexico all summer.” Janet Tunison, one of the students on the trip, reported that she was “particularly fond of the Mexican cooking” and that her first few meals back in the United States seemed “a bit tasteless” compared with the spicy dishes she had been eating abroad. She also admired the hospitality and laid-back lifestyle of the people she encountered, musing that the people of Mexico City “always take their time and are never in a hurry.” When the group returned to their busy lives in Northampton, they had gained not only language proficiency but “considerable insight into the history and culture of Mexico.”
After a six-year lapse, said to be initiated by political unrest and financial insecurity of the Mexican government, the Junior year in Mexico “experiment” was revived in the fall of 1944, a plan met with significant student enthusiasm. This time, students were placed with homestay families for the duration of their time in Guadalajara, providing a far more immersive experience. “From the first, the girls fitted into the family life,” writes director Helen Peirce ‘1921, “[F]rom all the ‘mothers’ I had glowing reports of cooperation on the part of the girls and their desire to understand the dos and don’ts of Mexican society.” In a series of lighthearted anecdotes shared with a campus publication upon their return, the students touch on the difficulties of navigating the smallest of interactions and activities within an unfamiliar culture. One student relays the humorous tale of being unable to follow the procedure of turning on hot water in the showers, stepping in “with the utmost confidence” and stepping out again “a matter of seconds later” with skin blue and teeth “doing a rhumba.” After avoiding the showers for as long as they could stand it, the student and her fellow guests, “no longer able to bear up under the strain of martyrdom thrust upon us by necessity,” ducked under the frigid water and let out screams which “were heard from one end of the house to the other end of the neighboring house.” Another student shares the following:
“When one travel-weary and somewhat apprehensive student arrived alone at the house to which she was assigned, she attempted to explain to the Señora of the family in the highly inventive form of Spanish which one picks up so easily, that her roommate would arrive the following day. The Señora nodded encouragingly and said ‘Puro español, bien?’ The student, alas, knowing but one meaning for the word ‘puro’ understood the kind lady to offer her a Spanish cigar. Not wishing to appear ungrateful for any gestures of hospitality, she paled considerably and whispered ‘Sí.’ Although no immediate action was taken and with time came the knowledge that the Señora had merely remarked that only Spanish would be spoken, one ‘Gringuita’ spent several uneasy days stealing herself for the ordeal should the occasion present itself.”
The JYA Mexico group, 1944-1945
Students also had the opportunity to immerse themselves in broader cultural practices during their travels. Five in particular chose to take a six days’ detour between Guadalajara and Mexico City “to see some points of interest.” In a letter to Dean Hallie Flanagan Davis, the members of this trip highlight the famous Día de los Muertos, the Mexican holiday in which people pay tribute to their deceased loved ones. They write:
“This ceremony is very unusual on the little island of Janitzio, located in Lake Patzcuaro…To the cemetery which is in front of the church the Indian women brought flowers, candles and baskets of food and placed them on their particular lots. An interesting custom is the scattering of torn flower petals over the graves to cover the great number of dead buried there.”
“Term papers and soft music,” 1944-1945
Writing her report on the value of the students’ year in Mexico, Director Peirce ruminates that “[w]hat advantages they have gained from living in a foreign country are impossible to estimate.” In addition to learning and facing fears on a daily basis, equally valuable to participants in such an experience, particularly a non-Eurocentric immersion, was the opportunity to expand their perceptions of the world, their home country, and their place in it. “Living in a small country where one seems closer to the economic, social, political, racial and religious problems than one often is in the United States made them conscious of these same problems in their own country,” writes Peirce. Being able to view one’s own country with detachment and through the eyes of thinking people of a neighboring country is a valuable experience for anyone, especially for the young people who will be expected to help solve these many problems in the near future.”
References
Office of President William Allan Neilson, Smith College Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. Series: Smith Subjects, Junior Year Abroad Mexico — L, Box 52, Folder 1-2.
Helen Jeannette Peirce Papers, Box 42, Smith College Archives.
Junior Year Abroad Program, Smith College Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. Junior Year Abroad A-P, Box 1131.
Class of 1946 – Lundberg, Joan, 22E3 80.Cla Box 2156, Smith College Archives.
Smith College Alumnae Quarterly, Smith College Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. “Juniors in Mexico Mix Study and Travel,” February 1945.
Amanda Carberry ’21 is a prospective Government major with a strong interest in languages, the World War II era, international human rights, and the study of history as it relates to foreign policy today. She hopes to travel and study abroad in the near future. She is also an avid writer and looks forward to having the opportunity to refine her writing abilities during her years at Smith.
Within the walls of the idyllic Reid Hall, which once served as the academic center for a number of graduate and undergraduate American university groups in Paris, Smith students were busy making their year in France a memorable one. The year was 1968, and Smithies had been enriching their academic experience by participating in the Junior Year Abroad program for more than four decades. Though most likely embarked on the journey expecting to improve their French or gain first-hand appreciation for another culture, few would have anticipated bearing witness to events which would later be printed in history books. For beyond the tranquility of Reid Hall’s picturesque courtyard, excitement and turmoil brought on by students not unlike themselves had brought the city to a standstill. Sometimes, a picture cannot convey the whole story.
On May 10, 1968, days of student unrest in Paris reached a fever pitch: an estimated 20,000 student demonstrators had accumulated at the Sorbonne (the former University of Paris). As daylight faded, something changed: rather than gathering their belongings and disbanding for the night, students gathered rocks for launching at the police and began erecting a barricade of overturned cars, a monument to their steadfast commitment to the cause. Once given permission to launch an assault, police forces set off an hours-long, brutal struggle, during which hundreds sustained injuries as “passers-by as well as demonstrators were beaten by the police.”
Though the streets were cleared briefly, the crisis intensified. Political supporters of the movement’s leftist demands launched a march of solidarity with the students, who reoccupied the Sorbonne. Battles with police continued. Millions of workers hung up their uniforms and declared a strike. A week later, France was essentially closed down by the threat of revolution.
Twenty-five students enrolled in Smith’s Junior Year Abroad program in Paris were caught in the chaos of the revolution during the 1967-1968 academic year, a year which, according to the “Report on the Junior Year Abroad” from the Office of the Registrar, “progressed smoothly enough […] until May when the student uprisings and strikes in Paris and France caused some inconvenience but no serious danger to the group.” Though the students were first permitted to finish their exams, all were urged to leave the country via emergency transportation and funds. Students were also implored, as the report continues, “to use good judgment, caution, and restraint and were instructed not to go into the Latin Quarter,” where many riots were taking place. A letter from program director Andrée Demay takes on a tone of reassurance, stating that “[t]here is no panic whatever” and, regarding her students, that they “are not in a mood to expose themselves to danger.”
Eventually, though not until after Smith students had evacuated, the crusade presenting such danger began to lose momentum as labor strikes were gradually abandoned, students were formally evicted from the Sorbonne, and resistance to anarchist revolution diminished support among non-student groups. In a memo received by Smith President Thomas Mendenhall from the Information Service on Study Abroad, Vice President Harry Epstein acknowledges that, although “the government nearly fell as a result of the student revolt,” the effort had “pretty much run out of steam by early June.” Despite apparent defeat, perhaps amplified by the reelection of French President Charles de Gaulle, some reforms were spurred by the movement, having encouraged French society to employ introspection in reassessing itself and its values.
Posters on the walls of the Sorbonne, 1968
As the 50th anniversary of the protests approaches, we remember a bold endeavor which, according to a New York Times remembrance of the 40th anniversary, “did not aim at human perfectibility but only at imagining that life could really be different and a whole lot better.”
Although the Smith Juniors in Paris do not appear to have taken part in the protests alongside their French classmates, they bore witness to a branch of one of only a handful of truly global efforts for social change.
References
Junior Year Abroad Program, Smith College Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. Paris files 1927-, Box 1132.
Junior Year Abroad Program, Smith College Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. Association of Former Juniors in France records, Box 1133 and 1134.
Office of President Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, Smith College Archives, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. Series III: Academic Programs, Box 2 & 4.
“Protests Mount in France.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/protests-mount-in-france
Steinfels, Peter. “Paris, May 1968: The Revolution That Never Was.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 11 May 2008.
Amanda Carberry ’21 is a prospective Government major with a strong interest in languages, the World War II era, international human rights, and the study of history as it relates to foreign policy today. She hopes to travel and study abroad in the near future. She is also an avid writer, having self-published a novella, and looks forward to having the opportunity to refine her writing abilities during her years at Smith.
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Amanda Carberry ’21 is a prospective Government major with a strong interest in languages, the World War II era, international human rights, and the study of history as it relates to foreign policy today. She hopes to travel and study abroad in the near future. She is also an avid writer and looks forward to having the opportunity to refine her writing abilities during her years at Smith.
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Battles with police continued. Millions of workers hung up their uniforms and declared a strike. A week later, France was essentially closed down by the threat of revolution.
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