Elena Arizmendi Mejia, Mexican journalist and activist, founded the Neutral White Cross (d. 1949)
Elena Arizmendi Mejía (18 January 1884 – 4 November 1949) was a Mexican feminist who established the Neutral White Cross to care for casualties of the Mexican Revolution that the Red Cross would not aid. Participating in the first wave of Mexican feminism, she established two international women's rights organizations: the "Mujeres de la Raza" (Women of the [Hispanic] Race) and the International League of Iberian and Latin American Women.
Arizmendi was born in 1884 to a prominent and well-connected family in Mexico City. After completing her studies, she had a brief marriage which ended in divorce. As options for women were limited, she decided to study nursing at the School of Nursing of the Santa Rosa Hospital in San Antonio, Texas. Shortly before her graduation in 1911, Arizmendi returned to Mexico to found a medical relief organization. Since the Mexican Red Cross refused to provide care for revolutionaries, Arizmendi used her contacts to raise funds and organize the Neutral White Cross. The organization was apolitical and established field hospitals to care for any wounded combatants involved in the Mexican Revolution. During the war, she sought legal advice from José Vasconcelos and their relationship turned into a long-term love affair.
In 1915, the political climate in Mexico caused Arizmendi and Vasconcelos to go into exile. The couple lived briefly in the United States and Peru. When he made plans to return to see his wife in Mexico, Arizmendi broke off their affair and moved to New York City in 1916. She began working as a music teacher and journalist and married a German national, who later became a US citizen. Arizmendi lost her Mexican nationality because of nineteenth-century legislation which required married women to have the same nationality as their husband. Though the marriage was brief, Arizmendi remained in the United States working in feminist causes from 1921 to the mid-1930s. In addition to founding two feminist organizations, she founded the magazine, Feminismo Internacional (International Feminism), to publish feminist information by and about Spanish and Latin American women and combat the stereotypical views held about them from Anglo-American feminists. In 1927, she wrote a fictionalized autobiography, Vida incompleta (Incomplete Life), to explain her views on feminism and the double standards women faced in living their lives.
Returning to Mexico in 1938, she helped the White Cross change its direction into an organization to benefit children. At the time of her death in 1949, she was remembered primarily for her philanthropy. The White Cross, which still operates as a children's health organization, named its dispensary in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City after her and persuaded the government to name a street in Colonia del Valle in her honor in 1985. Scholarly interest in her life emerged in the 21st century, recovering her legacy as a feminist and writer.