Empire and the Origins of Twentieth-Century Migration from Mexico to the United States

Using Latina/o Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) and Racist Nativism to Explore Intersectionality in the Educational Experiences of Undocumented Chicana College Students

Abstract: Introduction One of the most powerful elements of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in Education is that it provides critical researchers with a lens not offered by many other theoretical frameworks--that is, the ability to examine how multiple forms of oppression can intersect within the lives of People of Color and how those intersections manifest in our daily experiences to mediate our education. A theoretical branch extending from CRT is Latina/o Critical Race Theory (LatCrit), which examines experiences unique to the Latina/o community such as immigration status, language, ethnicity, and culture (Solorano & Delgado Bernal, 2001). A LatCrit analysis has allowed researchers to develop the conceptual framework of racist nativism, a lens that highlights the intersection of racism and nativism (Perez Huber, et. al., 2008). This article examines how a racist nativism framework can help understand the experiences of undocumented Chicana college students attending a public research university in California. First, this article will provide a brief description of how CRT and, in particular, LatCrit have allowed researchers to develop the frame of racist nativism. Second, the framework of racist nativism will be described, including how it is used in this study. Third, this article will describe the data collection strategies, methodological approach and analysis process used to gather and analyze 20 critical race testimonio interviews. Following this description, I will present the findings that demonstrate the ways racist nativism, class and gender have manifested in the educational trajectories of the undocumented Chicana college students. The Need to Examine Undocumented Latina/o Educational Experiences There is a limited but growing body of research on the experiences of undocumented Latina/o immigrant students in the U.S. (Abrego, 2002; Bastida et. al., 2007; De Leon, 2005; Fields, 2005; Gonzales, 2007; Guillen, 2004; Madera, et. al., 2008; Oliverez et. al., 2006; Olivas, 1995, 2004; Pabon Lopez, 2005; Perez Huber & Malagon, 2007; Rangel, 2001; Rincon, 2005; Seif, 2004). We know that thousands of undocumented students graduate high schools throughout the country each year, but most are in state of California (Oliverez et. al., 2006). We also know that most undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are from Latin American countries, but Mexico in particular (Passel, 2006). The historical and continued efforts of U.S. foreign policy to ensure Mexican economic dependence on the United States suggests economic conditions in Mexico will continue to leave many Mexican citizens with no choice but to emigrate (Gonzalez & Fernandez, 2002). This means, until the U.S. enacts comprehensive immigration reform that offers the U.S. undocumented population with a path to citizenship, the number of undocumented Latina/o students will continue to grow. Research focusing on this group of students lags far behind this demographic growth. CRT, LatCrit, and Racist Nativism: An Intersectional Approach CRT and LatCrit. The overarching theoretical frameworks for this study are CRT, and in particular, LatCrit. CRT in educational research unapologetically centers the ways race, class, gender, sexuality and other forms of oppression manifest in the educational experiences of People of Color. CRT draws from multiple disciplines to challenge dominant ideologies such as meritocracy and colorblindness, which suggest educational institutions are neutral systems that function in the same ways for all students. This framework challenges these beliefs by learning and building from the knowledge of Communities of Color whose educational experiences are marked by oppressive structures and practices. The efforts of revealing racism in education is a conscious move toward social and racial justice and empowerment among Communities of Color (Solorzano & Yosso, 2001; Yosso 2006). LatCrit is an extension of the efforts of CRT in educational research. …

Challenging Racist Nativist Framing: Acknowledging the Community Cultural Wealth of Undocumented Chicana College Students to Reframe the Immigration Debate

Abstract: Using the critical race testimonios of ten Chicana undergraduate students at a toptier research university, Lindsay Perez Huber interrogates and challenges the racist nativist framing of undocumented Latina/o immigrants as problematic, burdensome, and "illegal." Specifically, a community cultural wealth framework (Yosso, 2005) is utilized and expanded to highlight the rich forms of capital existing within the families and communities of these young women that have allowed them to survive, resist, and navigate higher education while simultaneously challenging racist nativist discourses. Reflecting on her data and analysis, Perez Huber ends with a call for a human rights framework that demands the right of all students—and particularly Latinas/os—to live full and free lives.

The “Future Immense”: Race And Immigration In The Multiracial U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, 1880-1936

Abstract: THE “FUTURE IMMENSE": RACE AND IMMIGRATION IN THE MULTIRACIAL U.S.-MEXICO BORDERLANDS, 1880-1936 JULIAN LIM, Ph.D. CORNELL UNIVERSITY 2013 This study examines the multiple meanings of citizenship and belonging that emerged in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands from 1880 to 1936. The project focuses on El Paso, Texas, the region’s leading hub of economic activity and immigration during this period. Locating El Paso at the crossroads of multiple boundaries – among them the U.S.-Mexico border as well as the limits of Jim Crow, which ended where El Paso met the New Mexico Territory line – I trace the movements of Mexican, Chinese, and African-American men and women to the El Paso-Juárez region. This project presents a new study of the multiracial intersections of the borderlands, as diverse people crossed various borders in search of economic opportunities and freedom from popular and institutionalized racism. The project’s purpose is twofold. First, I examine the developments in immigration law and policy that transformed both the United States and Mexico during these years. Analyzing the emergence of racially restrictive immigration policies in Mexico as well as the United States, the project addresses a variety of legal, social, political, and economic changes affecting migration on both sides of the border as well as across it, including the shift from Reconstruction to Jim Crow in the United States, the modernization programs of President Porfirio Díaz and revolution in Mexico, anti-Chinese exclusion campaigns on both sides of the border, and a global economic depression. Second, I show how racialized people used national borders to renegotiate questions about their capacity for “belonging” in the United States and/or Mexico, thereby forcing redefinitions of citizenship and national identity. I argue that although the border harbored multiple perils, it also offered great promise: through it, Mexican, black, and Chinese subjects often challenged the constructions of their non-whiteness and improvised their own democracy. Integrating sources from both regional and national archives in the United States and Mexico, my project demonstrates the unique ways in which marginalized people used their cross-border mobility to blur the lines of state power and identity in the borderlands. Ultimately, however, the project demonstrates the incremental processes of immigration law-making from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, and highlights the ways in which binational immigration laws merged at the border and reshaped multiracial alliances into more discrete, segregated race relations. It presents a legal and social history of how the borderlands underwent a sweeping transformation, whereby the “open borders” of the 1880s hardened into much more racially discriminating boundaries – locally, nationally, and internationally – by the 1930s. In the process, as racial ideologies migrated across national boundaries, it became more difficult for racialized bodies to do the same. And as the United States and Mexico each developed more stringent detention, deportation, and exclusion policies based on race, multiracial relations and people were not only made less visible within the national body politic, but were removed from the boundaries of national identity altogether.

Chicano History: Transcending Cultural Models

Abstract: 1. Chicano historiography made impressive strides over the past twenty years. See, among others, the following studies: Pedro Castillo, "The Making of a Mexican Barrio: Los Angeles, 1890-1920" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1979); Albert Camarillo, Chicanos in a Changing Society (Cambridge, Mass., 1979); Juan G6mez-Quifiones, "The Origins and Development of the Mexican Working Class in the United States: Laborers and Artisans North of the Rio Bravo, 1600-1900," in Elsa C. Frost, ed., El trabajo y los trabajadomes en la historia de Mixico (Tucson, 1979), 463-505; Richard Griswold del Castillo, The Los Angeles Barrio, 1850-1890: A Social History (Berkeley, 1979); Mario Garcia, Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans ofEl Paso, 1880-1920 (New Haven, 1981) and Garcia, Mexican Americans: Leadership, Ideology, and Identity, 1930-1960 (New Haven, 1989); Robert J. Rosenbaum, Mexicano Resistance in the Southwest (Austin, 1981); Rodolfo Acufia, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos (2nd ed., New York, 1981); Ricardo Romo, East Los Angeles: A History of a Barrio (Austin, 1983); Richard Griswold del Castillo, La Familia: Chicano Families in the Urban Southwest, 1848 to the Present (Notre Dame, 1984); Antonio Rios-Bustamante, Los Angeles: Pueblo and Region (Los Angeles, 1985); David Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1986 (Austin, 1987); Vicki Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950 (Albuquerque, 1987). See also Carlos Cort6s, "Mexicans," in Stephan Thernstrom, Ann Orlov, and Oscar Handlin, eds., Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), 699; Arnoldo De Le6n, The Tejano Community, 1836-1900 (Albuquerque, 1982); Albert Camarillo, Chicanos in California: A History of Mexican Americans in California (San Francisco, 1984); John R. Chivez, The Lost Land: The Chicano Image of the Southwest (Albuquerque, 1984); Arnoldo De Le6n and Kenneth L. Stewart, Tejanos and the Numbers Game: A Socio-Historical Interpretation from the Federal Censuses, 1850-1900 (Albuquerque, 1989); Thomas E. Sheridan, Los Tucsonenses: The Mexican Community in Tucson, 1854-1941 (Tucson, 1986).