Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán


Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán was a Mexican anthropologist known for his studies of marginal populations. His work has focused on Afro-Mexican and indigenous populations. He was the director of the National Indigenous Institute and as Assistant Secretary for Popular Culture and Continuing Education he was responsible for forming government policy towards indigenous populations. For this reason he is important in the field of applied anthropology.

Life and career

Aguirre Beltrán was the son of a medical doctor in Veracruz state and he continued himself in medical studies, attending the National University and earning a B.S. in 1927 and his M.D. in 1931. He returned to his home state, and practiced medicine in the town of Huatusco for ten years.
In his early years as a medical doctor, he became interested in local history and published a book on agrarian struggle during the colonial era. In 1942 he met Columbia University-trained anthropologist Manuel Gamio, who suggested that Aguirre Beltrán study blacks in Mexico, resulting in his landmark study, La población negra de México, 1519-1810: Estudio etnohistórico. He left the practice of medicine in favor of becoming an anthropologist, although he pursued topics on medical anthropology.
He served in various government positions, including as head of the Sanitary Unit of Huatusco. He was appointed head of the Department of Demography in the Department of the Interior in the Manuel Avila Camacho and Miguel Alemán administrations. He director of Indigenous Affairs in the Secretariat of Public Education, a researcher for the National Indigenous Institute , coordinator of INI's Tzeltal-Tzotzil region, and subdirector of INI. He returned to Veracruz and became rector of the Universidad Veracruzana. Under the administration of Luis Echeverría he was sub-secretary of the Department of Culture and Continuing Education, creating a publication series disseminating research on indigenous communities.

Works