Transcript Document

Racial Violence on the U.S-Mexico
Border
Emma Lazarus, 1883
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, with
conquering limbs astride from land to land: Here at
our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand a mighty
woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned
lightening, and her name: Mother of Exiles. Her mild
eyes command the air-bridged welcome, “Keep
ancient lands, your storied pomp,” cries she with
silent lips. Give me your tired, your poor, your
huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the
wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these,
the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp
beside the golden door!”
Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882
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Forty-Seventh Congress. Session I. 1882
Chapter 126.-An act to execute certain treaty stipulations
relating to Chinese. Preamble. Whereas, in the opinion of the
Government of the United States the coming of Chinese
laborers to this country endangers the good order of certain
localities within the territory thereof. Therefore, Be it enacted
by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled, That from and after
the expiration of ninety days next after the passage of this act,
and until the expiration of ten years next after the passage of
this act, the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States
be, and the same is hereby, suspended; and during such
suspension it shall not be lawful for any Chinese laborer to
come, or, having so come after the expiration of said ninety
days, to remain within the United States.
Main Eras and Major Themes
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Conquest
1835-60: Manifest Destiny
1860-1910: Creating a New Racial Order
1910-1942: Revolution and Backlash
1942-1965: Operation Wetback & Braceros
1965-9/11/01: The Modern Border
“Post 9-11”
Main Points and Arguments
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U.S. Mexico Border was born in violence
Cycles of Conquest and dispossession
Most border history written to appease American
beliefs about its own sense of righteousness
History as patriotic propaganda and feel-good
mythology
Immigration policies based on race and
economics, not just democratic principles
Violence on the border was sanctioned by state
and territorial officials to maintain racial “order”
Conquest
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Conquistadors expanded the Spanish empire in
search of labor and gold
Missions and presidios on northern Spanish
Borderlands
Racial conflict with Apaches, Comanches,
Tonkawas, Tohono O’Odham
Pope’ & Pueblo Revolt 1680; De Vargas &
Reconquista
1700s-1815: weak frontier, growing influence of
Americans: Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and
Clark, Expeditions and border skirmishes
The Alamo: Myth and History
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Post-Mexican Independence, 1824
Mexican Colonization Laws: 1830
American Immigration
Illegal American Immigrants violate
Mexican Constitution: slavery, land theft
Tejas and Coahuilla: statehood
Texas Independence & the Alamo
Myth of the Alamo
U.S.-Mexico Disputed Area
Manifest Destiny, 1835-1860
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U.S. rejects Texas’ bid for annexation
President Polk and other empire builders
want expansion
Fabricate a border war as excuse for
invasion: “Blood on American Soil”
U.S—Mexico War, 1846-48
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Gadsden Purchase
A New Border
Ulysses S. Grant
“I do not think there ever was a more
wicked war than that waged by the United
States in Mexico. I thought so at the time,
when I was a youngster, only I had not the
moral courage enough to resign.”
Abraham Lincoln
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"...the president unnecessarily and
unconstitutionally commenced a war with
Mexico....The marching an army into the
midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement,
frightening the inhabitants away, leaving
their growing crops and other property to
destruction, to you may appear a perfectly
amiable, peaceful, un- provoking
procedure; but it does not appear so to
us.”
Colonel A. Hitchcock, 1847
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“The United States are the aggressors….
We have not one particle of right to be
here....It looks as if the government sent a
small force on purpose to bring on a war,
so as to have a pretext for taking
California and as much of this country as
it chooses....My heart is not in this
business."
Commentary
February 11, 1847:
The "Congressional Globe:" "We must march
from ocean to ocean....We must march from
Texas straight to the Pacific ocean....It is the
destiny of the white race, it is the destiny of the
Anglo-Saxon Race."
American Review [writes of Mexicans]: "yielding
to a superior population, insensibly oozing into
her territories, changing her customs, and outliving, exterminating her weaker blood."
Creating a Racial Order
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Post Treaty: states and territories passed laws
violating Mex Am civil rights
Many declared “non-citizens” due to “Indian
blood,” barred from court, voting
Indians onto reservations or Indian Territory
Railroads connected border to world economy
Anglo immigration increased, upset old racial
order, increased racial violence
Racial Hegemony
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Apache—Geronimo
Political corruption (Santa Fe Ring)
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Thomas Catron 1860s-1870s
Colluded with politicians, speculators
34 land grants for himself = 2 million acres
Ku Klux Klan
Sons of the Golden West
Japanese Exclusion League
Violence and Resistance
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Juan Cortina
(Brownsville)
Gregorio Cortez
Salt War of 1877
Juaquin Murrieta
Las Gorras Blancas
Texas: Lone Star State
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Texas Rangers
Ethnic conflict and Ethnic cleansing
Sul Ross: The Whiteman
South Texas: 1902-1918 poll taxes, white primary,
segregated education
Progressive newspapers’ view of Mexicans in
1913, “a class of foreigners who claim American
citizenship but who are as ignorant of things
American as a mule.”
Mexican Revolution
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Internal and external origins
Porfiriato: Order and Progress
Foreign ownership of Mexican industry
Railroads, mining, exports
Land loss
Peasant rebellion against Porfirio Diaz
and American capitalists
American Incursions
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General John “Blackjack” Pershing and Pancho
Villa
Columbus, New Mexico
Arizona
Pancho Villa and El Paso
Estimated 75 U.S. incursions into Mexico
between 1850 and 1929 (Anderson)
U.S. gave itself the “right” to unilaterally enter
Mexico, after Mexico rejected such a treaty
Racial Terrorism and Backlash
El Plan de San Diego
 Socio-economic
rebellion
 Texas Rangers &
massive violence
 @ 5,000 dead
Texas Rangers, 1915
The Border and Immigration
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States and territories regulated immigration until
the Supreme Court in 1875 declared it a federal
responsibility
Immigration Act of 1882
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Chinese Exclusion Act of 1883
Alien Contract Labor Laws of 1885 & 1887
Immigration Act of 1891
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Entry tax, prohibited “undesirables”
Unclean, “unstable”, polygamists,
Ellis Island, El Paso & Angel Island
Laws and Policies
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Naturalization Act of 1790: whites only
State Boards and Commissions under direction
of the U.S. Treasury Department
U.S. Customs officials and “Chinese Inspectors”
1891 Law created: Office of the Superintendent
of Immigration Service, in Treasury Dept
1903 transferred the Bureau of Immigration to the
Department of Labor and Commerce
Basic Naturalization Act of 1906 added
Naturalization to the Bureau of Immigration
The Border and Immigration, cont…
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1913: Bureau of Imm and Nat divided into
different Bureaus within the Dept of Labor
1917 Immigration Act (literacy)
1924 Reed-Johnson Act (1890 Census)
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Did not target Mexicans
1924 Border Patrol created
Fused two Bureaus into “INS”
1940 moved “INS” to the Dept of Justice
La Migra, 1920s
Unintended Consequences
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18th Amendment: Prohibition & Volstead Act
(1920-1930s)
U.S. businesses produced alcohol in border
towns, smuggled north with Mexican assistance
Border towns as places of vice (alcohol,
gambling, prostitution)
Myths of “Donkey Shows” and “Easy Mexicanas”
El Paso/Juárez & San Diego/Tijuana
Military bases and prostitution (Ft. Bliss)
U.S. Fraternities
The Great Depression: Repatriation
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Round-ups by U.S. Immigration Service
L.A. County chartered trains for 12,000 Mexicans
CO sent 20,000 & banned “foreign labor”
Mexican Texan citizens were denied relief by city,
county, state agencies
Deported Mexicans and New Mexican migrants
Over 500,000 deported: roughly half forcefully
World War Two and Bracero Program
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Urbanization,
Industrialization &
War Service
Used high school
students, JapaneseAmerican internees, &
prisoners.
Turned to Mexico &
created Bracero
Program in 1942
The Bracero Program
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Corporate farmers, states and federal gov’t
solicited Mexican workers or passively
encouraged them…before 1940s
Program lasted from 1942-1964
1 yr contracts paid 75% prevailing wage
Mex gov’t initially refused to send them to
Texas
4.5 million in program
Bracero Program and Racial Policitics
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Corporate farmers, state governors, and federal
gov’t solicited Mexican workers or passively
encouraged them…before 1940s
Soldiers returned and altered labor demands
1952 Mexico asked U.S. to pass Public Law 283
prohibiting importation of non-braceros
Mexico wanted better wages, contracts, and
working conditions for its workers in the U.S.,
which refused, so U.S. neglected bracero
program
“The Illegal Alien”
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1950s…
Business contracting
stations on the border,
illegal immigration grew
Mex reforms blended with
anti-Mexicanism and the
image of an “Alien
Invasion” of Mexicans with
diseases, immorality, crime,
welfare
Operation Wetback
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Reaction to “Illegal Immigration”
1954: Border Patrol immigrant round-ups
1 million deported in military style
Growers wanted workers, so legal
Braceros grew
1959 feds tightened laws for farmers
wanting braceros, so illegal immigration
grew
The Modern Border, 1964-9/11/01
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1964 Bracero Program ended,
undocumented immigration grew
1964 Maquiladoras first built
1965 Immigration Act amended the 1952
Immigration and Nationality Act
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Limited immigration from Western
Hemisphere to 120,000
Exceptions for family re-unification;
commuters, guest workers, “green carders”
Turning Points and Observations
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1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act
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Employer sanctions
Eligibility for citizenship for residents since
1982
2 million gained citizenship
90% of California’s agricultural labor force
in 1990 was foreign born
1994 California Proposition 187
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No social services
Xenophobia
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1970s: San Diego, Tom Metzinger reorganized
the KKK into the White Aryan Resistance
1974-5: INS sweeps of “Mexicans” in El Paso
resulted in deportation of dozens of U. S. citizens
1979: El Paso, border fences and walls,
observation towers
1980s: U.S. English, English Only movement
1990s: Police, Border Patrol, INS conduct
sweeps in Chandler, Arizona, arresting several
citizens
NAFTA: 1994
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“Free Trade” and neo-liberal policies
– U.S. continued price supports, subsidies, tariffs
U.S. Jobs, continuing a trend since deindustrialization
in the 1970s, went south and overseas
Maquiladoras boomed, attracted more migrants &
increased populations in under-developed cities.
Surplus and expendable populations
U.S. Job losses contributed to anti-Mexicanism
High standard & cost of living precluded “Americans”
from working in agr., meat packing, construction,
service sector and other segments of economy
Militarization of the Border
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Operation Hold the Line & Gatekeeper
Texas-based “Ranch Rescue”
“American Border Patrol
“Civilian Homeland Defense”
Minutemen
Shortsighted responses and narrow view
of larger U.S. policies and globalization
that force poor people to trek across the
desert and die in search of work
Post 9/11
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“Everything Changed…” and did not change
Massive build-up on southern border when 9/11
bombers came in from Canada, overstayed legally
acquired visas
Fused “national security” with anti-Mexicanism
U.S. agribusiness and other sectors fear loss of
cheap, seasonal labor pool
Minutemen part of long xenophobic tradition
“Other” helps bind the nation and justify largest
concentration of presidential power in U.S. History
Sensenbrenner Bill