Variations of Documentation by Chronicles and Newspapers of Mexico’s 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre

Science Center A154

Mexico’s authoritarian Revolutionary Institutional Party, in presidential office for most of the twentieth century, reached its dictatorial climax with the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre, a national tragedy that government-influenced mainstream journalism assigned blamed to student leaders and other foreign influences. This project engages with crónicas (chronicles), writing of a newly emergent nonfiction genre of literature, as primary sources alongside other newspaper reportage on the Tlatelolco Massacre. This project closely analyzes famous chronicles such as La noche de Tlatelolco by Elena Poniatowska and Días de guardar by Carlos Monsiváis and periodicals from Reforma and El Universal published post-1968 to explore the gaps of information that chronicles address within their contents. This research paper argues that the unique hybrid style of chronicles, which employ both figurative and realist elements, will provide a more socially inclusive narrative of the 1968 Student Movement and Tlatelolco Massacre while also providing more accurate documentation as a primary source of a history of the events leading up to the fateful October 2nd.