Elvia Carillo Puerto
Born(1878-12-06)6 December 1878
Motul, Yucatán
Died15 April 1968(1968-04-15) (aged 89)
Occupation(s)Activist, feminist, suffragist
SpouseVicente Pérez Mendiburo
ChildrenMarcial
Parent(s)Adela Puerto Solís and Justiniano Carrillo Pasos

Elvia Carrillo Puerto (6 December 1878 – 15 April 1968)[1] was a Mexican socialist politician and feminist activist.[2] Carrillo had been married by the age of 13 and widowed by 21. She founded some of Mexico's first feminist organizations,[3] including the League of Rita Cetina Gutierrez (Spanish: Liga Rita Cetina Gutierrez) in 1919. In 1923, Carillo became Mexico's first woman state deputy when she was elected to the Chamber of Deputies.[2][4][5] Due to Carrillo's contributions to Mexican government and history, she was officially honored as a "Veteran of the Revolution." Carillo's tireless dedication to the revolution and women's movement earned her the nickname "The Red Nun" (Spanish: La Monja Roja).[4][6]

Feminist leagues

1912–1922

Elvia Carrillo Puerto is credited with starting numerous feminist organization in Mexico, the most prominent being the Rita Cetina Gutiérrez League, named after one of Yucatán's most prominent educators. The feminist organizations focused on many tasks to promote women's rights, beginning in Mérida, where the first were founded in 1912, and eventually spreading through Southeastern Mexico, then into Central Mexico.[4] The groups led campaigns against prostitution, the use of drugs, alcoholism, superstition, and fanaticism.[7] In attempts to uplift women, the Liga Rita Cetina Gutierrez, founded in 1919, often gave talks on child care, economics and hygiene for poor women.[5] The organization inspected schools and hospitals and helped to establish a state orphanage.[8] Through the feminist organizations which Carillo founded, family planning programs were instituted, including legalized birth control, the first in the Western Hemisphere.[3] Elvia believed large families were a barrier to a better life for the poor and distributed literature by Margaret Sanger, who would later go on to found the American Birth Control League, later known as Planned Parenthood; Sanger could not distribute this literature in the United States for legal reasons.[5][7] The leagues also set up prenatal and postnatal care for women.[3] Carrillo Puerto participated in the First Feminist Congress of Yucatán in 1916.

1923–1931

Carrillo devoted herself full-time to touring Southeastern Mexico with the goal of organizing Mayan women into leagues and preparing them for civic responsibility.[3] The leagues would identify women of special aptitude and train them to fill elective posts in the city and state government. After Carrillo's brother, Governor Felipe Carrillo Puerto, permitted women the right to vote and hold office, in 1923 she was elected to the Yucatán state legislature, becoming Mexico's first female member of a state legislature.[4][8] Carrillo won the election by an overwhelming 5,115 votes.[5] As a lawmaker, Carillo promoted the issue of land reform, proposing plans that would provide campesinos with farms capable of sustaining their families.[8] She also organized local chapters of women into Gualbertista Central Agrarian Communities for Females, named after her brother Gualberto, a senator and land reform activist.[6]

In 1924, as women's rights were advancing, Felipe Carrillo Puerto was assassinated. His death led to change in local government, as well as in women's rights. While Felipe Carrillo Puerto had allowed women's rights in Yucatán, he had not been able to have those rights formalized in the constitution of Mexico, and after his death they were rolled back by the subsequent administration of Juan Ricardez Broca. With a new government in power, women were removed from positions in municipal and state government offices, women's suffrage was repealed,[7] and social programs by feminist organizations were no longer supported.[9] Also following Felipe Carillo Puerto's death, Elvia Carrillo Puerto moved to San Luis Potosí, the new center of the women's rights movement.[10] In 1925, she was elected to the national Chamber of Deputies as a representative of San Luis Potosí, but she was not allowed to take the seat, as suffrage and the right to hold elective office were still restricted to men. While local governments had allowed women to vote and hold office, these rights were not recognized nationally in Mexico until 1953.[11]

In 1931 she founded the Women's Action League, which had the mission to fight for the political rights of women. This organization only lasted until 1938.

Later life and death

Elvia fled the Yucatan after suffering two physical attacks. In her later years, she moved to Mexico City and continued to work on women's rights for the rest of her life. Neglected and impoverished, she survived some years by giving music lessons. A car crash in 1941 left her almost blind. Elvia died in Mexico City at the age of 86.[12]

Recognition

On December 6, 2017, Elvia was the subject of a Google Doodle.

References

  1. ↑ "Elvia Carrillo Puerto". www.senado.gob.mx (in Spanish). Retrieved 2018-08-03.
  2. 1 2 Boles, Janet K.; Diane Long Hoeveler (2004). Historical Dictionary of Feminism. Scarecrow Press. p. 70. ISBN 0-8108-4946-1.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Reed, Alma M.; Michael Karl Schuessler; Elena Poniatowska (2007). Peregrina: Love and Death in Mexico. University of Texas Press. pp. 2, 148, 181. ISBN 978-0-292-70239-4.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Joseph, G. M. (March 31, 1982). Revolution from Without: Yucatán, Mexico, and the United States, 1880-1924. Cambridge University Press. p. 218. ISBN 0-521-23516-2.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Lavrin, Asunción (1978). Latin American Women: Historical Perspectives. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 291. ISBN 0-313-20309-1.
  6. 1 2 Fallaw, Ben (2001). Cárdenas Compromised: The Failure of Reform in Postrevolutionary Yucatán. Duke University Press. p. 184. ISBN 0-8223-2767-8.
  7. 1 2 3 Ruiz, Ramón Eduardo (1992). Triumphs and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People By p303. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 303. ISBN 0-393-31066-3.
  8. 1 2 3 Pilcher, Jeffrey M. (2003). The Human Tradition in Mexico. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 145. ISBN 0-8420-2976-1.
  9. ↑ Raat, W. Dirk; William H. Beezley (1986). Twentieth-century Mexico. University of Nebraska Press. pp. 20, 22, 23. ISBN 0-8032-8914-6.
  10. ↑ Rodríguez, Victoria Elizabeth (2003). Women in Contemporary Mexican Politics. University of Texas Press. p. 97. ISBN 0-292-77127-4.
  11. ↑ Exteriores, Secretaría de Relaciones. "63rd anniversary of women's suffrage in Mexico". gob.mx (in Spanish). Retrieved 2023-04-16.
  12. ↑ "The Yucatan Governor Who Empowered Women". www.the yucantanimes.com. Retrieved 2023-11-05.
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