1 Carving Out a Place for Youth
In 1962, in an article published by the journal of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), psychiatrist Telma Reca noted the rising interest in youth developed within “the journalistic, scientific, and cinematographic milieus.” While observing that mounting interest, she concluded that in Argentina “everybody is talking about youth; everybody has something to say.”1 Reca was a prominent speaker about youth, both as an expert in the media and as a professor at the UBA, where she trained the first cohorts of psychologists on adolescence and youth issues, terms that during that period, for the most part, were interchangeable. The psychological professionals and other “adult” actors (such as those from Catholic groups and state institutions as well as journalists and filmmakers) elevated youth as an object of analysis and concern. In its links with family life, authority and authoritarianism, and cultural and sexual mores, youth was as a venue for discussing the dynamics of sociocultural modernization. By discursively carving out a place for youth in modernizing times, those actors also shaped some conditions in which the experiences of flesh-and-blood youths—and, incidentally, adults—unfolded in the 1960s.
While part of a transnational phenomenon after the Second World War, the emergence of a broad discussion about youth in Argentina was framed by local preoccupations unfolding during Juan D. Perón’s first two governments (1946–55). A prominent example of populist politics, Peronism promoted industrialization, the expansion of the domestic market, and wealth redistribution. It was largely supported by urban workers and represented a democratization of well-being epitomized by the ample increase of wages and the improvement of working conditions as well as in the expansion of education, housing, and health programs. That egalitarian component, coupled with a political style that endorsed antagonism, generated a wide oppositional bloc that united most of the upper and middle classes and was represented in most political parties. As the 1950s wore on, that bloc came to include the Catholic Church and the military. After anti-Peronists failed to win the popular vote in the midterm elections of 1954, a consensus began to build favoring a coup d’état, which crystallized in the so-called Revolución Libertadora (1955–58). The libertadores sent Perón into exile (he came back in 1972) and proscribed his political movement in an unsuccessful effort to “de-Peronize” Argentine society. That effort informed more “positive” projects as well, including the one led by President Arturo Frondizi (1958–62) that focused on achieving the economic takeoff that the country allegedly needed to develop—a crucial term for transnational debates over modernization. Yet Frondizi’s project also failed, partially because the integration of Perón’s supporters was unfeasible. The Peronist and anti-Peronist divide was one of the key organizers of Argentine politics at least until the mid-1960s, when—as I briefly discuss below—youth had seemingly left it aside.
It was in the last years of the Peronist governments that youth became an object of contention, mainly since Perón politically and culturally mobilized secondary school students. For Perón’s opponents, that mobilization showed how the regime had corrupted the cultural fabric of the country by subverting moral values, sexual mores, and social hierarchies alike. Hence, one of the “legacies” of the Peronist experience was to situate youth at the center stage of public discussions. To many cultural and political actors, a main step in reconstructing a post-Perón Argentina involved the reeducation and scrutiny of youth. An emerging group of experts based their worries over youth in an alleged “crisis of our time,” which for many entailed a transition from a traditional to a modern society. This modern society was ideally egalitarian, tolerant, and rational.
The dominant voices (psychological professionals) conceived of youth as an agent in modernizing dynamics: youth helped to erode the residues of authoritarianism in the family and ultimately in society and politics through living their “normal rebellion” at a critical time. By contrast, some particularly active Catholic groups who were influential also in the only state-run institution devoted to youth emphasized the wearisome conduct of youth. They focused on how confronting patriarchal authority at home and in society made the spread of Communist ideas more likely. These conservative Catholic groups intervened in education policy and cultural censorship and thus set limits to the “progressiveness” of the local 1960s. Theirs remained residual voices when it came to the representations and understandings of youth, though. In the mid-1960s, psychological professionals, sociologists, journalists, and cultural producers seemed to have reached a consensus. They believed they saw the “Argentina of 1980” by unpacking the meanings of youth: a rational, democratic, and sexually prudent country.
Peronist Legacies
During Juan Perón’s first two governments, a myriad of political and cultural actors promoted an understanding of children as the only privileged individuals in the new, egalitarian Argentina. It was not until 1953 that the government mobilized youth as both a cultural category and as political actors. This mobilization took place at a paradoxical political time. In 1951, Perón had won the favor of two thirds of the voting population, which for the first time included women, and after the election his government attempted to control the entire political space. This effort was marked by an increasing repression of political opponents. In that context, Perón proposed the creation of the Unión de Estudiantes Secundarios (UES), an institution designed to organize students’ leisure activities and to engage them in the cultural renewal that his “new Argentina” claimed to enact. The UES epitomized Peronism’s moral corruption to the anti-Peronist field, whose effects touched primarily on youth.
The location of youth at the center of public attention was one of the legacies of Peronism, as important as the emergence of new educational opportunities. As a sign of and a means to achieve the democratization of well-being that Peronism promoted, secondary education expanded dramatically between 1946 and 1955, when the total enrollment went from 217,000 to 467,000 students.2 The transition rates from the primary school to the secondary school are particularly telling: while 23 percent of the children who finished the seventh year of primary school went to the first year of secondary school in 1940–41, the percentage rose to 48 percent in 1950–51 and to 63 percent in 1955–56.3 Although almost one half of the students dropped out before completing their secondary degrees (usually when they got an intermediate certificate that qualified them for the job market) the percentage is nevertheless significant, since it shows that a majority of Argentine families now had both the financial means and the cultural expectations to support upward mobility for their children through education.4 It was during Peronism, therefore, that adolescents from the middle classes and from the upper strata of the working classes began to gain access to the secondary schools.
The proliferation of secondary schools indicates that rising numbers of young people maintained a relationship with the state through the school system, but it does not explain why and how Perón attempted organizing them. Some scholars have claimed that the UES was the means through which youth became included in the “organized community” that Peronism attempted to create, a means that also served to indoctrinate a new generation.5 Across the same lines, other scholars interpret the creation of the UES as another step within the increasing authoritarianism Peronism displayed in the early 1950s, signaled by the project of enlisting the population in state-controlled organizations akin to the Fascist project.6 It is possible that the framing set forth by the Italian minister of education, Giuseppe Bottai, in the 1930s, in particular, had served as an example for the organizational structure delineated for the UES. As with groups of youths aged thirteen to eighteen in the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, the UES was a school-based, voluntary association, divided by gender, and geared to politicize the students’ “after-school” time.7 Unlike its Fascist counterpart, though, the UES was hardly doctrinarian and militaristic. It did, however, provide occasions for the intermingling of boys and girls, and it served to address discussions ab
out authority. Equally important, the UES represented a test case for how Perón imagined and tried to define the future of “his” Argentina.
Within the Peronist discursive framework, the interpellation of youth worked as a response to the possibility of the generational stability of the “new Argentina,” a task that required both continuity and change and that became all the more important as political confrontation mounted. Perón frequently argued that the youths of the mid-1950s had been the “privileged children” of 1945. “Now” was their time to collaborate, given that they had benefited from the expansion of the health and education systems, the opportunities for leisure, and the “good food” Argentines had enjoyed over the past years.8 Perón significantly dedicated to youth what was his last annual address to Congress, stressing that the young people of 1955 were the “first product of the Revolution” and that they would carry the burden of perpetuating it on their shoulders.9 The reasoning attributed a historical responsibility to a particular age group envisioned as molded by the social well-being that Peronism had impressed upon the country. Perhaps responding to the belief in the existence of a generation gap in postwar Europe and the United States, Perón also stressed that, in Argentina, “bonds of love” tied the generations, which helped maintain the “project of grandeur” that Peronism represented.10 Amid that apparent continuity, however, the new generation had particular tasks. Youths might learn how to “act independently and autonomously” and to become “modern men and women.”11
The Peronist discourse on youth entwined political and cultural requirements and, unlike the one that the Italian fascists deployed in the 1930s—with its focus on respecting hierarchies and obedience to authority—it emphasized the ideas of autonomy, independence, and modernity. However, it became apparent that not all youths were willing to face these challenges. At the time that the UES was created, the state-sponsored Confederación General Universitaria (University General Confederation) could not compete with the reformist student centers at most public universities, which were pillars of anti-Peronism.12 As the 1950s pressed onward, in addition, the state tightened its repressive tactics toward university students, ranging from the prerequisite of police “certificates of good conduct” in order to register for classes to the imprisonment of student leaders.13 The university students were targets of mockery as well. The pro-government press, for example, depicted them as always “wasting their time in senseless discussions.”14 The press also used derogatory terms to refer to another segment of youths, whom they called the patoteros (gangsters). The patoteros were working-class adolescents, portrayed as hanging around cities and towns without anything else to do but organize petty scandals. While the university students signaled a political menace, the patoteros represented a threat to the sociosexual order.15 They were young people, but they were not the youths that Perón envisaged as the venue for the continuity of the “new Argentina.” The secondary school students, instead, were devoid of the political traditions that university students had, and seemed more disciplined than the patoteros. Since 1953, youth meant secondary students and UES in Peronist discourse.
In the official accounts, the UES was the organization whereby secondary school students would learn “to govern themselves” and practice a new sociability. All students at public schools could affiliate with the UES. In Buenos Aires, where the organization rapidly crystallized, the headquarters of the feminine branch were located in the presidential residence in Olivos and the masculine ones at an elegant resort in Recoleta.16 In late 1953, the feminine president claimed her branch had 60,000 members nationally, while the masculine president claimed 42,000 members.17 If we attribute credibility to these figures, 52 percent of the secondary students in public schools were affiliated with the UES. Affiliation, though, did not mean participation. In 1954 the presidents repeatedly called on students to “make use” of their membership.18 What could students do in the UES? First, they could attend the movies for free. UES members had access to coveted seats in movie premieres because of the close relationship Peronism cultivated with local celebrities.19 Second, and most notably, youths were called to practice sports. The UES favored the practice of basketball for girls and boys, and soccer for boys. Furthermore, youths could make use of swimming pools and fitness facilities.20 In a widely publicized opportunity, boys and girls were encouraged to practice motorcycling, and Perón himself used to offer them practical lessons when riding his own motor scooter.21 Finally, in the summers of 1954 and 1955, the UES offered free vacations to its members in Bariloche, Córdoba, and Chapadmalal (on the Atlantic coast), at the same time that it organized groups of boys and girls from provinces such as San Juan, Tucumán, and Santiago del Estero to visit Buenos Aires.22
The UES was probably less successful than expected but still attracted large numbers of youths. It is likely that the cultural and gendered aspects of this state-controlled group were more significant than the doctrinarian ones. At the UES, youths had a chance to partake in mixed groups devoid of adult supervision. In the early 1950s, the secondary schools of Buenos Aires and Córdoba were not coeducational, and the prospects for interacting in dance halls were restricted since they hosted youths and adults alike.23 Besides the daily interactions, the UES offered boys and girls a space to organize parties, like the ones held for the Carnival of 1954, where they dressed as “existentialists” (wearing black apparel) or as “Americans,” wearing jeans and drinking Coke. This was a luxury that the working classes could hardly afford at the time.24 These chances had different meanings for girls, who regularly outnumbered boys in the UES. To many girls, the UES entailed the possibility of thwarting the school-home continuum and performing activities that they had previously been prohibited from engaging in, including motorcycling. This development allowed them to assume defiant attitudes to conventions and mores with regard to the “correct” place for women. Those attitudes and sociability, moreover, had the blessing of the country’s highest authority. Perón increasingly, and defiantly, sought to empower the youths involved in the UES by claiming that they might “learn only through their own experiences, delineate their own sense of morals, and leave all hypocrisy behind.”25
The very existence of the UES awoke anxieties among the Catholic groups, which became strongholds of the Peronist opposition in the critical biennium of 1954–55. Both the hierarchy and the many groups formed by the lay people—such as the League of Mothers and the League of Fathers—conceived of any state attempt to mobilize youth as a threat to the authority of the family and the Church over moral issues. In late 1954, the Argentine Catholic Action sent a communiqué to its members that called for their boycott of the UES. In the same period, Congress passed “anticlerical” laws granting equal rights to so-called illegitimate children and also granting the right to divorce in a mounting battle between Peronism and the Church.26 In that context, the UES was catapulted into the spotlight. In a pamphleteering campaign geared to gain civilian and military consensus to support a coup d’état, Catholics focused on the evilness of the UES. First, several pamphlets pointed out that Perón sought to attain the complete loyalty of youth. Pamphlets insisted on the fact that Perón had bought “youths’ dignity,” and many had already “sold their consciousness for a motor scooter.”27 Second, the pamphlets accused the UES members of spying on opponents at school and of exerting pressure on principals to expel teachers, a task that showed how the “next Peronist political generation” was being formed.28
Nonetheless, Catholic and non-Catholic opponents alike signaled a more explosive evil the UES represented in their view: sexual promiscuity. Pamphlets and communiqués illustrated this alleged promiscuity by stating that the girls of the UES were encouraged to wear tight short pants and nylon blouses, “to satisfy the desires of Perón and his aides.”29 Just like the motor scooters, those dressing items embodied the fantasies that opponents projected onto the UES: a voyeuristic Perón “corrupted” the girls, who accepted being corrupted in exchange for material advant
ages. The promiscuity that the opposition attributed to the UES was further embodied into a place: the feminine headquarters at the presidential residence. A memoir by a former attendant reveals the organizing ideas surrounding the “aphrodisiac paradise,” as the author terms it. With plenty of food, beautiful gardens, and goods to be enjoyed, the residence promoted and pleased the “consumerism, the frivolity” of the UES goers. In that climate of plenty, he pointed out, youth “liberated their sexual instincts.”30 Political opponents imagined the UES as their contemporary Sodom and Gomorrah: the references to sexuality, especially when combined with youth, allowed them to articulate other terms (like “tyranny” and “corruption”) and construct a coherent narrative of decadence. The vicious relationship they saw as taking place between Perón and the youths corroded the basis of Argentina’s future: it was crucial to expel Peronism from power.
In September 1955, a military coup d’état overthrew Perón and began
The girls of the UES. Esto es No. 11, February 9, 1954, cover.
a “de-Peronization” of Argentina, which included investigation of the effect of the “legacies” that the former regime allegedly had passed on to different social and political actors, including youth. The military that led the so-called Revolución Libertadora had the support of the Socialist, Communist, and Radical parties, as well as of the Catholic Church and most unaffiliated intellectuals. As they came into office, the libertadores sought to examine the supposed irregularities that had taken place during the Peronist regime within different state realms, including the UES. To that end, they appointed an investigative subcommittee composed of four women, who represented either the intellectual segments that were excluded from academia and public service in the previous ten years, or the oppositional political parties.31 Its report identified two lasting “legacies” that Peronism would have left to youth. First, they asserted that the experience of the UES showed that youths were willing to engage in a “deviated conception of life,” marked by the chance of “getting anything without any effort.” Second, they highlighted that Perón “used the youth impetus of renewal” to promote the “questioning of authority” at the school and family levels, which resulted in “uncontrolled liberties.”32 To the subcommittee, the “uncontrolled liberties,” coupled with the subversion of the established hierarchies, constituted the bequest that Peronism left to youth and, by extension, to Argentina’s future. In his attempt to configure a youth organization adapted to his needs, Perón would have forged an undisciplined, hedonistic, and sensual youth, whose values and attitudes challenged the ones of previous generations. To these investigators, even after Perón had been expelled from power and the UES dismantled, these legacies remained and constituted one grave dilemma that adults (parents, educators, teachers, psychological professionals) would have to face to reconstruct a post-Peronist Argentina.
Age of Youth in Argentina Page 4
