Normalistas: The “Gen Z March” is Being Promoted by the Right Wing

ByLaura Poy Solano

This article by Laura Poy Solano originally appeared in the October 6, 2025 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Mexico. Students from rural teachers’ colleges demanded a meeting with the Secretary of the Interior, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, to seek solutions to the “escalation of violence that has been reached in our institutions and to stop the criminalization of students.”

However, they refused to participate in the so-called Generation Z march, announced for November 15, because “it promotes hatred and arises from interests that right-wing groups seek to promote.”

In a press conference in front of the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior (SG), they denounced the case of Eder Israel Aparicio, a student from the “Vasco de Quiroga” Rural Normal School of Tiripetio, Michoacán, who they claimed “was a victim of torture by officials of the state prosecutor’s office and remains deprived of his freedom.”

The students also condemned the murder of the mayor of Uruapan, Carlos Manzo, and demanded that justice be served for this “deplorable crime”.

They indicated that they requested a dialogue table to address their demands, which were submitted on October 15th without any response to date, and which include demands for infrastructure, equipment, and improvements to their schools. 

Elisa Martínez, a student at the “Carmen Serdán” Rural Normal School in Teteles, Puebla, recalled the “repression we experienced from the state government on September 2nd, when a peaceful protest was taking place in front of Casa Aguayo, which resulted in 105 classmates being detained, as well as students from other rural normal schools.”

We are the first to be criminalized by the authorities, even though we are also the most vulnerable to the violence that our communities and schools face.

We live under a “surveillance fence, in which drones are even used to monitor us on our campus, which we find unacceptable because the police should be there to protect us, not to monitor us and criminalize our right to demand security in our school and in the communities where we go to do internships.” 

Leidy Gómez, a student at the Mactumactzá Rural Normal School in Chiapas, pointed out that the federal government “talks a lot about how all the normal schools have the conditions to care for the students, and that a good education is given, when that is not true, and proof of this are the rural normal schools.”

He stressed that the call to the federal administration is to “address our demands, but also to take us into account when plans such as the peace and justice plan in Michoacán are designed, because we are the first to be criminalized by the authorities, even though we are also the most vulnerable to the violence that our communities and schools face.”