Elena Arizmendi Mejia
| Elena Arizmendi Mejia | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | 18 January 1884 Mexico City, Mexico |
| Died | 1949 (aged 64–65) Mexico City, Mexico |
| Nationality | Mexican |
| Occupation | journalist |
| Years active | 1920–1938 |
| Known for | established the Neutral White Cross |
Elena Arizmendi Mejía (18 January 1884 – 1949) was a Mexican woman who established the Neutral White Cross organization during the Mexican Revolution. She was a feminist in the first wave of Mexican feminism and established the "Mujeres de la raza" (Women of the [Hispanic] Race) and the International League of Iberian and Latin American Women in cooperation with G. Sofía Villa de Buentello.
Elena Arizmendi Mejía was born 18 January 1884 in Mexico City to Jesús Arizmendi and Isabel Mejía, a family of privilege. She was the granddaughter of Ignacio Mejía who served as Secretary of War, and was a Division General under the regime of President Benito Juárez. Her great-grandfather was Lieutenant Colonel Manuel Cristóbal Mejía, who fought in the Mexican War of Independence in the army of Agustín de Iturbide. Arizmendi spent some of her early years with her grandfather in Oaxaca and then returned to Mexico City at about the age of 8. She was schooled in Mexico City, possibly at San Ignacio de Loyola, but when her mother died in 1898, Arizmendi took control of her five brothers and the household. When her he father remarried in 1900, Arizmendi hastily entered marriage with Francisco Carreto, but the union quickly crumbled and she decided to study nursing.
Her family had close ties with Francisco I. Madero and the school in which Arizmendi was enrolled was next door to Madero's Texas retreat. In 1910, she was studying at the School of Nursing of the Santa Rosa Hospital (now the School of Nursing at the University of the Incarnate Word) in San Antonio, Texas when the war broke out. On 17 April 1911, a few weeks prior to her graduation, Arizmendi returned via train to Mexico City to help with wounded combatants, as the Mexican Red Cross refused to provide aid to insurgents. Arizmendi arranged a personal meeting with the head of the Red Cross, who reiterated the refusal to support revolutionaries. Determined to help her countrymen, Arizmendi founded an organization to help and with her brother Carlos rallied medical students and nurses to organize the Cruz Blanca Neutral (Neutral White Cross).
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