The mural being painted by David Alfaro Siqueiros at the Escuela Universitaria de Bellas Artes in San Miguel Allende would be interrupted by disagreements with the school’s director, Alfredo Campanella. The director offers Siqueiros a change in his contract, without specifying what that change would be. The painter accuses the director of living in the Mexican capital and thus deceiving the students, who are, for the most part, American “war veterans.” Siqueiros states that he is incapable of changing his relationships with his students, which involve both theory and practice at the same time. He suggests that Campanella wants to force him to change his own methods. Siqueiros then asks his friends, coworkers and artists in general to boycott the Escuela Universitaria until the dispute is resolved. In his opinion, the institutions involved range from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico all the way up to the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA).

At the height of the Cold War, the mural Monumento Allende y la enseñanza by David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974) was causing problems at the Escuela Universitaria in San Miguel Allende. This was a small provincial city, on the conservative side, much to the liking of the large number of U.S. expatriates living there. Siqueiros had given five lectures at the school. His students—all World War II veterans—had been enthusiastic about painting a mural under Siqueiros’s direction at the Convento de la Concepción. However, as usual, a bureaucratic explanation was given for denying a timely permit to remove the plaster from the Convent’s walls; thus, the educational establishment would not have a mural by a Communist on display. This letter is published in Palabras de Siqueiros [The Words of Siqueiros], selected from the preface and notes by Raquel Tibol (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1996), 308-11.