The outcome of the Spanish Civil War, with the defeat of the Republican forces in 1939, sent thousands of people into exile, a real diaspora of the defeated supporters of the Republican government who were forced to flee their homes and to rebuild their lives scattered in a number of countries. The majority of them settled in France. Mexico sheltered more than 20,000 exiles, the second largest group welcomed by any country.

One of the first needs that Republicans had to meet was the education of their children, many of whom were of school age. They founded “los colegios del exilio " (schools of the exile), which also provided many Spanish teachers with a way to earn a living. These centers were modeled after the educational system of the Second Republic, which, heavily influenced by the principles of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza and the Escuela Nueva movement, had successfully integrated the most advanced and progressive trends of the time.

The adaptation of the refugees to Mexico was made easier by several factors. First of all, because of the language, but also because of the support from the Mexican government, which granted permits and recognized Spanish academic degrees. The main organizations of the exiles were also in Mexico, such as the Servicio de Evacuación de los Republicanos Españoles (SERE) and the Junta de Auxilio a los Republicanos Españoles (JARE). These organizations were supported by the funds that the Republican authorities had sent abroad before leaving Spain, and these groups played a decisive role in the integration of the exiles into Mexican society. All these elements played a crucial part in establishing the "schools of the exile,” an experiment which was not repeated in any other host country.

There were three “schools of the exile": the centers of Mexico City, the Cervantes Schools, which were established in various cities in other states, and the Freinet schools.

The first of the schools that opened in Mexico City was the Instituto Luis Vives, founded in August 1939. The Instituto Hispano-Mexicano Ruiz de Alarcón, and the Academia Hispano-Mexicana opened a few months later.The Ruiz de Alarcon closed its doors due to financial problems, and the JARE created the Colegio Madrid in 1941 to take care of its students and teachers. The teachers and students of these schools in the capital were almost entirely all Spanish refugees. All these schools received funding from the SERE or JARE for their establishment and maintenance during the early years.

The original intention of the exiles was to settle throughout Mexico. The SERE established the Patronato Cervantes in late 1939 to facilitate the creation of schools in other states. During the first months of 1940, several Cervantes Schools were created in various towns: Veracruz, Cordoba, Torreon, Tampico, and Tapachula. In addition to these centers, which did very well, there were two others, in Jalapa and Cuernavaca that only functioned for a few months. The Cervantes Schools were located in towns with few Spaniards and from the beginning the student body was largely Mexican, a fact that helped Spanish children to quickly integrate into those communities.

There were also the schools founded by Republican schoolteachers who were loyal followers of the educational methods of French pedagogue Célestin Freinet. In 1940, Patricio Redondo established the Escuela Experimental Freinet in San Andrés de Tuxtla, Veracruz. José de Tapia founded the Escuela Manuel Bartolomé Cossío in 1964, and in 1969, Ramón Costa Jou opened the Escuela Activa Ermilio Abreu Gómez.
All of those schools blossomed with the efforts of those teachers, without funding from aid agencies, and had, by far, the largest number of Mexican students and teachers.

There were some difficulties at the beginning mainly due to a lack of familiarity with the environment but most of the schools soon flourished even after the funds from the JARE and the SERE were exhausted in 1949 -- the most difficult period in the history of the centers in the capital – or the retirement of the founding teachers in the 1970s, especially in the Cervantes Schools. Their adaptability was such that many of these schools have survived and are active today, a fact that can only be explained by the efficiency of their educational methods, modeled after the liberal educational system of the Spanish Republic, and the quality of their teachers.

Today, thousands of Mexican students receive quality education in the "exile schools,” where they learn about the culture and history of Spain. The Spanish Republic is, to a greater or lesser extent, remembered in their classrooms. And it is remarkable that, due to a series of vicissitudes of fate, the only young people who today commemorate the anniversary of the proclamation of the Second Republic, singing its anthem with enthusiasm, are basically a handful of Mexican schoolchildren.