This article uses the 1968 Olympic Games as a lens to explore everyday forms of citizenship and nation building in Mexico City. To do so, it contrasts the political objectives of the federal government and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) with Mexico City’s citizenry. I use archival documents, the press, and semistructured interviews, as well as audiovisual records, to understand from a bottom-up approach the alliances and conflicts among these actors. The article claims that, by engaging with the institutional campaigns of the Olympic Games, the citizenry also took part in the nation-building process. At the same time, these interactions reflected debates regarding Mexico’s place during the global Cold War in the 1960s.
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