This City Belongs to You: A History of Student Activism in Guatemala, 1944-1996

USAC students served in, advised, protested, and were later persecuted by the government, all while crafting a powerful student nationalism. In no other moment in Guatemalan history has the relationship between the university and the state been so mutable, yet so mutually formative.

By showing how the very notion of the middle class in Guatemala emerged from these student movements, this book places an often-marginalized region and period at the center of histories of class, protest, and youth movements and provides an entirely new way to think about the role of universities and student bodies in the formation of liberal democracy throughout Latin America.

CONTENTS

Introduction : "Do not mess with us!"

--The republic of students, 1942-1952 

-- Showcase for democracy, 1953-1957 

-- A manner of feeling, 1958-1962 -- Go forth and teach all, 1963-1977 

-- Combatants for the common cause, 1976-1978 -- Student nationalism without a government, 1977-1980 

-- Coda : "Ahí van los estudiantes!", 1980-present