José M. Muria
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and a little more was missing a six-year term to my very beloved teacher León Portilla to reach 100 years of life, which he would have turned on February 22. Although the truth is that, before dying, he spent the first nine months of 2019 hospitalized, fighting for a life that was no longer enough.
The university hosts and other academic institutions in the capital, more or less associated with history, are already preparing to pay him a series of more than well-deserved tributes that, without a doubt, will leave a deep mark remembering the splendid testimonies that he left us. There is no doubt that it can also be said about my highly esteemed and admired Miguel that “he is one of the best and most famous Mexican intellectuals in the world.”
Among many works, we can point out that his Vision of the defeated It is one of the Mexican books that have been published the greatest number of times and have been translated into more languages, but it is not the only one. Likewise, we can say that very few Mexicans have been so awarded inside and outside our country.
Only a gap, not a small one, by the way, it seems that will leave the trail of activities that, in the case of my dear teacher and friend, will be remembered by top-level specialists: his provincial feat. In both Jalisco and Baja California the man left a deep mark that in the capital they don’t give a damn.
His studies on the said peninsula and its bibliographic and academic legacy are of enormous importance, which increases given the little help that that land receives, both in the north and in the south, from the scholars who accumulate in the capital, including its natives who reside there. The fact is that now the capital conclaves do not seem to pay much attention to him.
The same can be said of Jalisco… As an example I refer to the case of Tenamaztli, the hero of the cazcana whom León Portilla contributed significantly to making known with his famous book The arrow in the target, and now, among other things, a statue located in the very center of the city of Guadalajara commemorates him, in addition to the fact that the main auditorium of El Colegio de Jalisco is also called that.
Don Miguel’s support for said institution, back in the 90s, contributed significantly to the institution’s emergence with vitality, although it has greatly diminished during the second decade of the 21st century…
In other words, León Portilla’s “provincial feat” has not been considered in the many activities, all of them very interesting and deserved, that have been scheduled to take place in the country’s capital, which is still a cause for sadness.
In this sense, the Autonomous University of Baja California gave us a real lesson, which gave its name to the library of the Institute of Historical Research, whose basic collection was gifted by the teacher himself.
My friendship with León Portilla, which became truly strong, began in the mid-60s, fulfilling orders from José G. Zuno, my teacher in Guadalajara, in the early 60s, to bring messages and books to the University City, first, and then his help for my doctoral thesis, which culminated with that fateful exam at El Colegio de México, at the end of which my teacher José Gaos died, flanked by him and me.
But it was truly consolidated during the 80s when, working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he made me his “second in command” of the “National Commemorative Commission of the Fifth Centenary of the Meeting of Two Worlds”, which had such an influence on the Latin American world and “belled the cat” on the Spanish right.
Returning to Jalisco, at the end of almost a decade in the capital, the relationship between the two continued to become increasingly closer. I repeat that El Colegio de Jalisco owes a lot to the fact that it helped me save his life and we left him sailing from strength to strength just over a decade later.
I must also regret that my successors at El Colegio de Jalisco have forgotten about him, especially the last two, whose management has been truly regrettable, to the point that the death of León Portilla, in 2019, did not merit at least a small comment from its then leaders.
