ABSTRACT
In 1938, Ruben Jaramillo inaugurated a sugar-processing cooperative in Zacatepec, Morelos, and was elected to the mill’s first Council of Administration and Oversight. Jaramillo was often forced to go underground in order to avoid death threats meant to end his continued work on behalf of campesinos. Jaramillo’s Autobiography was written in the third person; Jaramillo claimed that his religious convictions prohibited him from speaking in a way that celebrated him. The reader might ask what aspects of Mexican political culture would have reinforced Jaramillo’s desire to deemphasize the self while at the same time telling his story. The Jaramillos came from the Zacualpan mines in the State of Mexico. During the 1960s, Jaramillo supported land invasions and the formation of a production collective. On May 23, 1962, judicial police and soldiers kidnapped Jaramillo, his pregnant wife, and their three sons and shot them near the Pre-Columbian ruins of Xochicalco.
