The passage of Che Guevara through Mexico

The life of Che Guevara in Mexico encompassed the period of 1954 to 1956. During this time he worked to get out of his bad economic situation, he got married and had a daughter. Mexico was the place where he sealed his destiny with the Castro brothers, with whom he planned the Cuban revolution in Mexico City.

A brief biography of Ernesto "Che"

Guevara Ernesto "Che" Guevara was born in the Argentine province of El Rosario on June 14, 1948. Son of a middle-class family, during his childhood and adolescence, suffered constant asthma attacks, which forced the Guevara family to move to the city of Córdoba.

Due to his illness, his practice of sport was restricted, so he spent his free time being a regular reader of classic novels of adventure and travel around the world. After a new move to the Argentine capital, Ernesto Guevara enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine in 1948. During that time he maintained a relationship with Berta Gilda, a student of the communist ideology. It was during this period that he focused on reading Marxist works.

The first trip through Latin America

In 1952 he began his first trip to Latin America, together with his childhood friend Alberto Granado. Most of the route was made by motorcycle and they wrote diaries in which they relate their trip through the Southern Cone. About this stage of Che's life, the movie Motorcycle Diaries starring Mexican actor Gael García was produced. Once back in Buenos Aires, he dedicated himself to finish his career as a doctor; however, his vision had been transformed.

Second trip

With the intention of meeting with his friend Alberto Granado in Caracas, Che left Argentina in July 1953. During his trip, his plans changed and he went to Guatemala, where a revolution called by Colonel Jacobo Arbenz was taking place.

His arrival in Guatemala in 1954 was complex since his economic resources were scarce. Guatemala at the time was the refuge of different militants of the left, it was during his stay that met the Peruvian opposition Hilda Gadea, with whom he began a relationship.

Shortly afterward he was forced to take refuge as a communist in the embassy of Argentina, then exiled to the north, beginning with it the stay of Che Guevara in Mexico.

Che in Mexico

The life of Che Guevara in Mexico began in early 1954. He entered Tapachula, Chiapas. In those years Mexico received political refugees from different parts of the world. Due to his precarious economic condition, Che was forced to work as a photographer in the tourist areas of downtown Mexico City, before being hired as a correspondent for Agencia Latina. Later he got a job as an assistant in the General Hospital, where he worked as a researcher on allergies.

His work as a researcher allowed him to have contacts that placed him as an assistant professor in the Faculty of Medicine of the UNAM. There he took the time to enter as a listener to the economics classes of Jesus Silva Herzog. During that year he also managed to meet with his ex-Peruvian girlfriend Hilda Gadea, with whom he later began living in a free union in a department of the Naples colony.

At the end of 1954 his academic career in Mexico paid off and he had received a proposal to teach the subject of Physiology at the Faculty. Che Guevara's stay in Mexico was projected for the long term, but his encounter with the Cuban Ñico López would make him change his plans.

The meeting between Che Guevara and the Castro brothers in Mexico

On 26 July 1953, a group led by Fidel Castro attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba. After that, the Castro brothers were condemned, but thanks to an amnesty from the regime of Fulgencio Batista, they were released. Raúl Castro traveled to Mexico and Ñico introduced him to Che. Raúl prepared the arrival of Fidel Castro to Mexico with the intention of preparing the strategy to take over the government of Havana.

In July 1955 Fidel Castro and Che Guevara met in the Tabacalera neighborhood, after their first meeting, Ernesto joined the revolutionary movement "July 26" and began the planning to travel to Cuba. The iconic Café Habana of the Juarez neighborhood often served as a meeting place for revolutionaries. In those same days, Hilda became pregnant and the couple got married in the state of Morelos. His wedding trip was a tour of the archaeological zones of Chiapas and Yucatan. In February 1956, Hilda Beatriz, the first-born of Che Guevara, was born. Fidel Castro to Mexico with the intention of preparing the strategy to take over the government of Havana.

In 1956 the July 26 movement began paramilitary training outside of Mexico City. Although Che suffered from asthma, he did not limit himself in his physical conditioning. The training consisted of long walks, reconnaissance, hiking, mountaineering, etc. As a result of the espionage, Fidel was arrested in the Polanco neighborhood on July 21, the rest of the group was arrested in the following days. He was taken to a clandestine prison in the Colonia Santa María la Ribera, where they were tortured by the controversial Arturo "El Negro" Durazo.

The Castro went free in July thanks to the intervention of former President Lázaro Cárdenas, but for Che, the liberation process was more complicated because since his first declaration he confessed that he was a communist, a conspirator and that they prepared a military training to make an armed revolution in Cuba. The confessions elevated the esteem and loyalty of Fidel Castro for Che, so he mobilized in different diplomatic and political circles until he achieved his liberation.

The departure to the Revolution in Cuba

On November 25, 1956, Che, Fidel, and the rest of the movement sailed from the port of Tuxpan in the direction of Cuba. The yacht they traveled on had the name of Granma. This is how Che Guevara's stay ended in Mexico. As a sign of his loyalty in Mexico, Che wrote to Fidel the following verses:

"Let's move on

ardent prophet of the aurora

by recondite paths

wireless

to release the green alligator

you love so much

When the first sound

shot and wake up

in virginal amazement the jungle

entire

there, by your side, we will be

fighters,

you will have us

When your voice spills towards

the four winds

agrarian reform, justice, bread,

freedom,

there, by your side, with identical

accent,

you will have us

And when the end of the

working day

the sanitary operation against

tyrant,

there, by your side, awaiting the

last battle,

you will have us ...

And if on our way we

interpose the iron,

we asked for a shroud of

Cuban tears

so that the

guerrilla bones

in the transit of history

American Nothing else."

The original text of this article was published by Mexico Desconocido at the following address.