Arsenio Farell Cubillas (June 30, 1921 – May 15, 2005) was a Mexican lawyer and politician affiliated with the

Institutional Revolutionary Party The Institutional Revolutionary Party (, , PRI) is a List of political parties in Mexico, political party in Mexico that was founded in 1929 as the National Revolutionary Party (, PNR), then as the Party of the Mexican Revolution (, PRM) and fin ...

(PRI). He served as Secretary of Labor in the cabinets of

Miguel de la Madrid Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado (; 12 December 1934 – 1 April 2012) was a Mexican politician affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) who served as the 59th president of Mexico from 1982 to 1988. Inheriting a severe economic an ...

and

Carlos Salinas Carlos Salinas de Gortari (; born 3 April 1948) is a Mexican economist, historían and former politician who served as the 60th president of Mexico from 1988 to 1994. Considered the frontman of Mexican Neoliberalism by formulating, promoting, ...

and headed the Federal Comptroller's Secretariat in the cabinet of

Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León (; born 27 December 1951) is a Mexican economist and politician. He was the 61st president of Mexico from 1994 to 2000, as the last of the uninterrupted 71-year line of Mexican presidents from the Institutional Re ...

. Farell Cubillas was born in

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

to Spanish immigrants Enrique Farell Solá and Consuelo Cubillas Gutiérrez. His brother was General Luis Farell Cubillas. He received a bachelor's, master's and doctorate's degree in law from the

National Autonomous University of Mexico The National Autonomous University of Mexico (, UNAM) is a public university, public research university in Mexico. It has several campuses in Mexico City, and many others in various locations across Mexico, as well as a presence in nine countri ...

(UNAM), where he also taught several courses for almost 19 years (1954 – 1973) before heading the Mexican Institute of Social Security in the López Portillo administration.Murió Arsenio Farell Cubillas
''El Universal'' (16 de mayo de 2005) He was married to Rosa María Campa Padilla.

Cultural References

Arsenio Farrell Industrial Park (in the text, the name appears with an additional letter 'r') is a fictional maquiladora which is mentioned several times in

Roberto Bolaño Roberto is an Italian, Portuguese and Spanish variation of the male given name Robert. Notable people named Roberto include: * Roberto (footballer, born 1912) * Roberto (footballer, born 1977) * Roberto (footballer, born 1978) * Roberto (footb ...

's final novel ''

2666 ''2666'' is the final novel by Roberto Bolaño. It was released posthumously in 2004, a year following his death. It is over 1100 pages long in the original Spanish. It is divided into five parts. An English-language translation by Natasha Wi ...

'', specifically, in book four, ''The Part About the Crimes.'' It has been reported that Arsenio Farell Cubillas had assisted PRI's (

) Miguel Nazar Haro and

Luis Echeverría Álvarez Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archai ...

to detain and torture suspected terrorists (leftists, intellectuals, etc.) during the

Dirty War (Mexico) The Mexican Dirty War () was the Mexican theater of the Cold War, an internal conflict from the 1960s to the 1980s between the Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)-ruled government under the presidencies of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, Lui ...

, from 1964 to 1982. In the novel, several missing female persons are discovered at, or near, the maquiladora, which is located in Santa Teresa, a fictionalized version of

Ciudad Juarez Ciudad () is the Spanish word for "city". Ciudad or La Ciudad may also refer to: * La Ciudad (archaeological site), Hohokam ruins in Phoenix, Arizona * La Ciudad, district of Durango City, Mexico * ''La ciudad'', a novel by Mario Levrero published ...

. The plot alludes to Northern Mexico's

feminicide Femicide or feminicide is the intentional murder of women or girls because of their gender.Shalva Weil, "Femicide Across Europe: Research and prevention of femicide across Europe". Research Gate, October 2018. In domestic fields, 50% percent o ...

, beginning in the early 1990s and disproportionately affecting the border city. The maquiladoras also symbolize the PRI's long-standing facade of democracy and free trade built on the backs of the working poor. It has been reported that Farell helped cancel at least 400 unions across Mexico in the early 1990s. Regardless, other sources suggest 80-90% of all Mexican unions had fallen prey to organized crime by the 1990s.''Mexico’s Labor Reform: A Workers’ Defeat—For Now'' NACLA, April 3, 201

/ref>

References

1921 births 2005 deaths Institutional Revolutionary Party politicians Secretaries of labor of Mexico Politicians from Mexico City National Autonomous University of Mexico alumni 20th-century Mexican lawyers Mexican people of Catalan descent {{Mexico-law-bio-stub