 Within the larger national narrative of the Mexican nation as the product of European and Amerindian "race mixture," indigenism was the expression of freedom for an imagined, reclaiming identity that was stripped through attempted Spanish genocide.During the administration of Plutarco Elías Calles (1924–28), Moisés Sáenz, who held a doctorate from Columbia University and was a follower of John Dewey's educational methods, implemented aspects of indigenismo in the Department of Public Education.Sáenz had initially taken an assimilationist position on the "Indian problem," but after a period of residence in the Purépecha community of Carapan, he shifted his stance to one focusing on the material conditions affecting the indigenous.