Elena Arizmendi Mejía: Pioneer of Feminism and Humanitarian Efforts in Mexico (1884–1949)

Elena Irene Arizmendi Mejía, Mexican feminist, founder of La Cruz Blanca Neutral (The Neutral White Cross), daughter of Jesús Arizmendi and Isabel Mejía, was born in Mexico City, Mexico, on January 18, 1884. Her maternal grandfather was Maj. Gen. Ignacio Mejía, the minister of war and navy under Mexican president Benito Juárez. She grew up in Oaxaca with her grandfather until, at the age of eight, she returned to Mexico City. When her mother died in 1898, Elena Arizmendi assumed responsibility for her five brothers and the household. Their father remarried in 1900. In November 1900, when she was sixteen years old, she married Francisco Carreto. They had a son, Francisco Tiburcio, who died in infancy. After her marriage dissolved, Arizmendi cared for her brothers in Mexico City before moving to San Antonio, Texas, to study nursing.

In 1909 Elena Arizmendi Mejía began her studies at the Santa Rosa Hospital School of Nursing (now the University of the Incarnate Word Ila Faye Miller School of Nursing and Health Professions). The school was run by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. The academic program was competitive and prepared Arizmendi for her philanthropic work later in life. When she completed her studies in 1911, she was a professional nurse with scientific knowledge and “the spirit of social service” because of the Sisters of Charity.

While in San Antonio, she lived near Francisco I. Madero and his wife Sara Pérez de Madero, who were exiled to Texas because of their opposition to Porfirio Díaz’s presidency in Mexico. Her friendship and sympathy for the revolutionaries and Maderismo led Arizmendi back to Mexico. On April 17, 1911, a few days before her graduation, she boarded a train to Mexico City.  

Once back in Mexico, she was confronted with the lack of aid from the Mexican Red Cross towards her countrymen. Arizmendi wrote an open letter to Luz González Cosío Acosta de López, the president of the Mexican Red Cross, and called for the organization to help the wounded. She met with de Lopéz that same day, but de Lopéz refused to help the revolutionaries. Dissatisfied with the Mexican Red Cross, Elena Arizmendi and her brother Carlos organized the La Cruz Blanca Neutral (The Neutral White Cross) with medical students and nurses. The organization (not to be confused with the organization La Cruz Blanca Constitucionalista) was formally established on May 5, 1911, and within days Arizmendi had raised enough money for a field hospital in Ciudad Juárez. By the end of the year, La Cruz Blanca Neutral had twenty-five branches across Mexico. In the same year, Arizmendi was elected the first female partner of the Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística (Geographic and Statistical Society of Mexico), but she refused the offer. However, she did accept a gold medal presented by the Gran Liga Obrera (Grand Worker League) for her dedication to helping the wounded.

In 1915 she followed her longtime lover Mexican writer, educator, and Madero supporter José Vasconcelos, into exile in the United States even though he was married with two children. However, their relationship ended less than a year later. Vasconcelos later wrote about their affair in his memoirs. Arizmendi remained in exile in New York City from 1915 to 1938. While there, she married C. Robert Duersch in 1917, but they divorced a few years later. She also founded the feminist magazine Feminismo Internacional (International Feminist) when she was in New York. In 1923 she founded La Liga de Mujerez de la Raza (League of Women of the Hispanic Race). Arizmendi was also the secretary general for the International League of Iberian and Latin American Women. In 1927 she published an autobiographical novel, Vida Incompleta: Ligeros apuntes Sobre Mujeres en la Vida Real (Incomplete Life: Quick Notes about Women in Real Life), inspired by her relationship with Vasconcelos.

Arizmendi returned to Mexico in 1938. She continued her work with Cruz Blanca Neutral, but in later years, with the lack of government support, she sought private funding, and the organization shifted its focus to children’s services. Elena Arizmendi Mejía died on November 3, 1949, in her brother Fernando Arizmendi’s home in Coyoacan. She was buried in Panteón Jardín in Álvaro Obregón municipality of southwest Mexico City.