Crying for Marta Acevedo / Elena Poniatowska

A lot of pain, many questions, arises from the disappearance of Marta Acevedo from our lives.

There are many of us who loved her in addition to admiring her for her commitment to feminism and women’s culture from her youth and her training at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech, by its acronym in English), in the south. from the United States, when she was a vigorous young woman, married to astrophysicist Emmanuel Méndez Palma and mother of two children.

In August 1959, Marta Acevedo and Emmanuel Méndez Palma traveled to Caltech, California, a center of scientific excellence. Emmanuel had won a scholarship that came from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the amount of which consisted of 4 mini-scholarships from the National Bank of Mexico, the Organization of American States (OAS) and I don’t know what other institution.

Caltech is a center of excellence with few researchers from Latin America subjected to enormous demands, since Nobel Prizes in physics and mathematics have come from that institute, as well as technological innovations for careers. hard science who demand everything from those who are accepted by a conclave of wise men who guide from above the chosen ones who do their doctorate.

I have always thought that the word doctorate It has to do with the word guillotine.

Marta Acevedo and Emmanuel Méndez Palma traveled to Caltech in 1959, in the era of Nixon and Kennedy, and of a lot of academic and political effervescence, since for the first time two candidates for the Presidency of Caltech would appear face to face on television and in all the media. USA.

“We arrived at a place where everything was new, everything was extremely demanding; There was a climate of change in the United States and, surely, in the entire world – Marta explained to me – because, as you well know, our neighbors are the mainstay of science, technology, culture and politics on our planet.

“John F. Kennedy won the elections and it was very shocking to see two candidates on television like fighting cocks throwing themselves to the death with their little murderous knives in their legs. In Mexico, cockerels tie knives to the legs of their roosters and that moment exalts the public for its color, but also for its cruelty. For Emmanuel and me, this public confrontation between two who are going to kill was something that had nothing to do with Mexico, because here everything is prepared, but there the candidates expose themselves to the knife. Furthermore, in our times, everyone knew that the PRI candidate would win.

“We arrived at a totally different life than the one we led in Mexico City; At Caltech we face a level of demand like I have never seen or will see again.

“On my second visit to Caltech, in 1962 (the scholarships from the OAS and the Bank of Mexico lasted two years), we already had two children, because we had them in less than three years, and I started working in California because I couldn’t reach the money right? With everything and a scholarship, four of us couldn’t live, so I started folding diapers in a factory, but I lasted three days. I arrived very tired to a meeting of astronomers’ wives. I showed up red, red. ‘What’s wrong, Martha?’ ‘I’m coming from work.’ ‘Where?’ ‘In the basement of a store’. ‘Oh, how horrible!’ The wives surrounded me: ‘Why don’t you take the place of a French woman who is going to have a baby and work on the Supernova Research project?’ Fritz Zwicky’s wife offered me, and he exclaimed: ‘But please, there was nothing more missing; I hope Marta Acevedo accepts!’ At that time, the director of American astronomy was Zwicky, a very important researcher.”

Fritz Zwicky, a Swiss astronomer responsible for 16 observatories in the northern hemisphere, hired Marta Acevedo for the supernova mapping project; The observatories of Tonantzintla, in Puebla, and Tololo, in Chile, appeared, as well as others in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

“In the United States they hired young people who asked for hours of observation, among others Emmanuel Méndez Palma. Do you remember, Elena, about Uzbekistan, and that Haro traveled to Georgia and Byurakan with Viktor Ambartsumian? In the United States, in Pasadena, Mount Palomar and Mount Wilson, sky maps were made to find supernovae. It was a pleasure when Zwicky accepted me immediately; When I discovered that new star, he immediately applauded: ‘Yes, of course, the star is very clear there; Martha, you are absolutely right. You really know how to observe.’ Zwicky hired me as another astronomer and put two plates in the blinker, one to compare and another, and from that moment on I analyzed the oldest and the newest.