'They are all equal:' Representations of Youth and Class in Early 1960s Buenos Aires"

MANZANO, VALERIA

Durham

Conferencia; 23rd Latin American Labor History Conference; 2006

Duke University, History Department

This paper focuses on a central aspect of the making of a new category of youth in early 1960s Argentina, that is, how it connected, as a category, with class. I show that different modernizing actors created a presumed classless category, which in fact mirrored the transformations in the youth experiences of the urban middle classes. First, psychologists, journalists, and filmmakers, asserted the very novelty: there was a “new youth,” they posited, which deserved thorough attention. Some of them, as psychologist Eva Giberti or cultural essayist Juan Jose Sebreli, clearly pointed out that the new youth was a result of the post-Peronist process, or, broadly, of the “modernized Argentine society.” They seemed to imply that, from the last 1950s on, there was social and cultural room for the creation of that new group, which did not have to work and could spend more money and more time in properly youthful activities. A new youth that turned to be problematic. Second, journalists and filmmakers, promised to document what would become a crucial trope: the lack of communication between adults and youth, or among youth themselves. To a large extent, one of the key differentiations I found between the representation of youth in Argentina and in other national settings at the same time period –notably Germany and North America, but also Mexico- is that youth was not associated with rebellion in the early 1960s. Rather, it was related to apathy, and eventually it became problematic for psychologists, sociologists, and cultural organizers alike. While the lack of communication issue further invited the creation of a field of experts in unraveling the mysteries of the new youth, it also became associated with apathy and isolation. However, looked from a more positive side, modernizing actors discovered that behind of the lack of communication there was still another central characteristic attributed to youth, which turned to be more optimistic. Third, sexuality and new youth seemed to be interchangeable at one point. All the surveys, in-depth interviews, movies, and books on youth almost invariable touched upon new attitudes toward sexuality, more relaxed but still prudent. Once again, Argentine youth did not seem to rebel, but instead to provide the basis for a lasting transformation of sexual mores that would bring to the country the “best” of the developed world.