I am in Austin, Texas, at the Meeting of Historians dedicated to Mexico. This meeting is held every four years in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. In 1949, the first of these meetings was held in Monterrey, Nuevo León. Initially, the intention was to bring together the most outstanding historians of Mexico and the United States to compare the historiographies. The objective was maintained at the meeting nine years later in Austin. Lewis Hanke chaired the conference on how historians of the Americas viewed their history. In 1969, the third meeting took place in Oaxtepec, Morelos. Unlike the previous ones, in this one, the theme was contemporary research on the history of Mexico.
From that moment on, the subsequent meetings addressed only Mexican issues. There were meetings in Santa Monica, CA (1973); Pátzcuaro, Michoacán (1977); Chicago, Ill. (1981); Oaxaca (1985); San Diego, CA (1990); Mexico City (1994); Fort Worth, TX (1999); once again in Monterrey (2003); Vancouver, Canada (2006); Querétaro (2010); again Chicago (2014), and Guadalajara, Jalisco (2018).
Therefore, this is the sixteenth meeting and the fifth I have attended. As conferences with many participants tend to be, in this one, there is little public in each room, as there are simultaneous sessions. Sometimes, the people who attend to listen to a paper are the same people with whom we usually discuss, so the usefulness of these meetings could be questioned. There is, however, a relevant element that justifies its realization. These meetings offer a space to get in touch with colleagues who work on different issues and with whom we do not usually talk. The meeting between American and Mexican historians has served to renew both historiographies since we have different traditions.
John Tutino told us today that when he first went to one of these meetings (the one held in Pátzcuaro), he felt embarrassed by the presence of great historians, such as Woodrow Borah or David Brading. I remember that, in my case, the meeting in Monterrey (the second, not the first) helped me to dialogue with Charles Hale. In those few days, I enjoyed and learned from the wisdom of the old professor. Now, there are young history students who participate in meetings with acclaimed colleagues such as Tutino himself or Silvia Arrom.
The next meeting will be in the Port of Veracruz. On this occasion, I presented the preliminaries of my research on cholera. I hope that, within four years, I will deliver the final results of this work.