Abstract
The contemporary immigration debate is polarizing, but certainly not an unprecedented controversy, especially concerning the status of Mexican citizens residing in the United States. For over a century, Mexican labor has held a paradoxical position within U.S. politics because of its seminal contribution to the economy and yet controversial place within society. At the center of its contentious presence is the tremendous amount of mis- and dis-information about immigration in general, including the role of the Mexican Government within the overall phenomenon of immigration. At a basic level, we argue that since the mid-nineteenth century, Mexican officials have sought to build a formal relationship with its emigrant community within the United States, but various transnational factors have hindered such efforts.
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Notes
- 1.
Edgardo Flores Rivas (1987) La Institución Consular Conforme a la Práctica Mexicana, found in Instituto Matías Romero de Estudios Diplomáticos El Servicio Exterior Mexicano (Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Mexico City), p 61.
- 2.
Letter from J.R. Pacheco to Mexican Commissioners Jose Joaquín de Herrera, Bernardo Couto, Ignacio Mora y Villareal, and Miguel Atristain, September 5, 1847 found in U.S. Treaties, etc. 1845–1849, The Treaty between the United States and Mexico: In Proceedings of the Senate thereon, and Message of the President and Documents Communicated therewith (Washington, DC: United States. 30th Congress, 1st session, 1847–1848), pp 342–343.
- 3.
El Señor de la Peña y Peña, al abrir las sesiones del Congreso en Querétaro, en 7 de Mayo de 1848, found in Archivo Histórico Diplomático Mexicano, Un siglo de relaciones internacionales de México (A través de los mensajes presidenciales) Editorial Porrua, S.A., Mexico City 1970, p 72.
- 4.
Article VIII of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed February 2, 1848 found in Richard Griswold del Castillo, The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: A Legacy of Conflict. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), pp 189–190.
- 5.
Remedios Gómez Arnau, México y la protección de sus nacionales en Estados Unidos (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1990), 130–131; Iris H.W. Engstrand, "The Impact of the U.S.-Mexican War on the Spanish Southwest," 23–24 found in Iris H.W. Engstrand et all, eds., Culture y Cultura: Consequences of the U.S.-Mexican War, 1846–1848 (Los Angeles: Autry Museum of Western Heritage, 1998); Oscar J. Martinez, Border Boom Town: Ciudad Juárez since 1848 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978), pp 11–15.
- 6.
Martinez, On the size of the Chicano population, p 51.
- 7.
Juan Gómez-Quiñones (1973) Piedras contral la luna, México en Aztlán y Aztlán en México: Chicano-Mexican Relations and the Mexican Consulates, 1900–1920. In: James Wilkie, Michael Meyer and Edna Monzón de Wilkie (eds) Contemporary Mexico: Papers of the IV International Congress of Mexican History. University of California, Berkeley, p 498.
- 8.
Mexico is the United States’ third most significant trading partner, behind Canada and China. Mexico is also the top trading partner of over 20 U.S. states and is a G-20 economy.
- 9.
Bracero literally means someone who works with his arms or in other words a manual laborer.
- 10.
The El Paso Times, January 21, 2008 and The Los Angeles Times January 26, 1908, Friedrich Katz (1998) The Life and Times of Pancho Villa. Stanford University Press, Stanford, p 49.
- 11.
The Los Angeles Times February 26, 1908
- 12.
The El Paso Times January 27, 1908.
- 13.
Ibid., February 1, 1908.
- 14.
Report on Mexican Emigrants in the United States, Minister of the Interior to Minister of Foreign Relations, March 15, 1922, Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (hereafter cited as AHSRE) 36-16-318.
- 15.
Francisco Alba, The Mexican Demographic Situation, in Frank D. Bean, Jurgen Schmandt and Sidney Weintraub, eds., Mexican and Central American Population and U.S. Immigration Policy (Austin: Center for Mexican American Studies, 1989), 9; Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, La immigración y protección de Mexicanos en el extranjero (Mexico City: Ministry of Foreign Relations, 1928), 33 and Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Memorias, 1925–1926, 151 found in John R. Mexican Emigration to the United States, 1910–1930. Doctoral Dissertation, University of California, 1957, p 136.
- 16.
Louis Bloch, Facts About Mexican Immigration Before and Since the Quota Restriction Laws, Journal of the American Statistical Association 24 (1929): 51 and Jay S. Stowell, The Dangers of Unrestricted Mexican Immigration, Current History (1938): p. 763.
- 17.
Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, Anuario estadístico de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos 2008 (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, 2009), 71; Jeffrey S. Passel and D'Vera Cohn, Mexican Immigrants: How many come? How many leave? (Washington, DC: The Pew Hispanic Center, 2009), i; Jeffrey S. Passel and Roberto Suro, “Rise, Peak, and Decline: Trends in U.S. Immigration, 1992–2004, (Washington, DC: The Pew Hispanic Center, 2005), p iv.
- 18.
Immigration Raids Draw Protest from Labor Officials, The New York Times, January 26, 2007.
- 19.
Convención de Comisiones Honoríficas y Brigadas de la Cruz Azul Mexicana. (II), August 13, 1923, 6-13-70 Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (hereafter cited as AHSRE).
- 20.
For a more thorough description of President Carranza’s emigration policy see Ibid., 269–288 and Cardoso, Mexican Emigration to the United States, pp 44–70.
- 21.
New York Consul to Salvador Diego Fernández Ofical Mayor de la SRE Encargado del Despacho, September 9, 1919. AHSRE, 17-18-138.
- 22.
Linda Hall, Alvaro Obregón and Mexican Migrant Labor to the United States, 1920–1924, found in Ricardo Sanchez, Eric Van Young, and Gisela Von Wobeser, eds., La ciudad, el campo, y la frontera en la historia de México (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México, 1991), 760: Other books by Hall on Obregón include Alvaro Obregón: power and revolution in Mexico, 1911–1920 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1981 and Oil, banks, and politics: the United States and postrevolutionary Mexico, 1917–1924 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995).
- 23.
A definitive study of México de afuera’s role in the 1923–1924 de la Huerta revolt does not exist. However based on Aguila's research particularly at the AHSRE in Mexico City, Obregón’s support from Mexicans in the U.S. contributed to this rebellion’s defeat. See AHSRE 44-24-1 (I).
- 24.
Various Consular Dispatches from the New York Consul to the SRE concerning Felix Díaz rebel activity in New York City, Emigrados Politicos: Actividades Rebeldes, 1922, AHSRE 21-5-7.
- 25.
Raat, Mexico and the United States, 155.
- 26.
Report of Edurado Ruíz on the investigative trip made on behalf of President Alvaro Obregón, February 1, 1921 Archivo General de la Nación-Ramo Obregón-Calles, 429-P-2; Cardoso, La repatriación de braceros, 579 and Hall, Alvaro Obregón and Mexican Migrant Labor, pp 761–763.
- 27.
Jesús Franco attended both the initial conference that created the Comisiones Honoríficas Mexicanas in San Antonio, Texas on April 9, 1921 and the first Convention of the Comisiones Honoríficas Mexicanas in Laredo Texas, May 5-7, 1922. At the May 1922 Convention Franco was the Secretary General. Jesús Franco, El alma de la raza:. Narraciones históricas de episodios y la vida de los Mexicanos residentes in los Estados Unidos del Norte América: la repatriación. La vida y origen de las Comisiones Honoríficas Mexicanas y la Cruz Azul Mexicana (El Paso, Texas: Compañia Editoria “La Patria”, date?), 7.
- 28.
Franco (1922) El Alma, 7 and Programa Oficial de la convención de Comisiones Honoríficas Mexicanas y Brigadas de la Cruz Azul Mexicana, (May 5–7, 1922), AHSRE, 7-2-15, p 35.
- 29.
Fernando Saúl Alanis (1921) La Labor Consular Mexicana En Estados Undios: El Caso de Eduardo Ruiz (1921), unpublished manuscript, 5. The final version was published as La Labor Consular Mexicana En Estados Undios: El Caso de Eduardo Ruiz (1921), Secuencia: revista de historia y ciencias sociales, 52 (202).
- 30.
New York Consul General, Enrique D. Ruíz. to Consul in Detroit, Michigan, September 2, 1930, AHSRE V-99-51.
- 31.
New York Consul General Enrique D. Ruíz 7-5-1932 to: SRE, May 28, 1932, AHSRE, IV–339–21.
- 32.
Fernando Saúl Alanís Enciso (2007) ¿Cuántos fueron? La repatriación de mexicanos en los Estados Unidos durante la Gran Depresión: Una interpretación cuantitativa 1930–1934, Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 32.2 (2007), 65–91, and Que se queden allá. El gobierno de México y la repatriación de mexicanos de Estados Unidos, 1934–1940 (México: El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, 2007).
- 33.
See Miguel Angel Centeno’s Democracy within Reason: Technocratic Revolution in Mexico for a comprehensive discussion of the rise of technocratic governance in Mexico.
- 34.
Alba, "Mexico: A Crucial Crossroads".
- 35.
David Ayón, Mexican policy & Emigré communities in the U.S., work presented at the conference for Mexican Migrant Civic and Political Participation, Woodrow Wilson Center, Nov 4–5, 10–11
- 36.
For example, only a bit more than 32,000 Mexican expatriates voted in the 2006 presidential election, a disappointing turnout.
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Aguila, J.R., Lee, E. (2013). Mexico Renews its Relationship with its Expatriate Community in the U.S.: Comparing the Post-revolutionary Era with the Technocratic Free Trade Period. In: Magaña, L., Lee, E. (eds) Latino Politics and Arizona’s Immigration Law SB 1070. Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0296-1_9
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