JE #4

David Romo's Ringside Seat to a Revolution definitely puts an interesting perspective on El Paso and the wild and crazy history that it has had. The identity of one city, especially a border town, has never been constant--it's always shifted and evolved to "fit" the needs of what's going on.  El Paso certainly has had an identity crisis: is it an Anglo, Mexican, Chinese, black city? With the annexation of Texas and the influx of Anglos into the state, the once Mexican majority forcibly shifted over to an Anglo dominating culture and with an Anglo dominating culture comes rules and regulations that benefit them, no one else. With the implementation of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which Lubheid also details, the once lively community of Chinese in El Paso had to go underground or flee, shifting the demographics of the El Paso and creating an extreme us versus them complex, going just beyond Mexico and the US. It's unfortunate to see hoe Romo details the accounts of how the Chinese were not welcomed in the US, then welcomed in Mexico only to be uninvited a few years later. Talk about a serious nepantla crisis--stuck in the middle with nowhere to go. Due to the exclusion act, it created an underground Chinese culture, one in which there was no choice but to create one.

It's also interesting to see how the Mexican Revolution factored into El Paso's identity crisis with Mexicans on both sides of the border were affected by it. Romo informs the reader that, "...not all Mexican Americans were sympathetic to the revolution or identified with the country south of the border" (213). This type of sentiment shifts the mentality of Mexicans living in the US, possibly creating a sense of internalized racism, going off what I mentioned earlier, an us versus them approach, only in this case it's the Mexican Americans versus the Mexicans. But, let's not forget the sentiment felt by the Anglo Texans towards the amount of Mexicans crossing the border to avoid the revolution and how that shaped Texas' identity. Romo noted that, "in 1916 there were 6,500 Mexican refuges in El Paso who had fled from the revolution. By 1927, there were 72,000" (214). These large figures are a great indicator for the shifting identity for El Paso. The details of how the Bath Riots became is unfathomable. To know that Mexicans were sprayed and "disinfected" while crossing the border is inhumane and further proves that the theory of eugenics stems prior to Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. The Bath Riots show how the Anglo Texans, and even Anglo America, viewed immigrants coming into the US. How, by not living here, they were hosts for diseases. The riots themselves demonstrate how Mexicans stood up to these inhumane practices, allowing  the "minority" community within the Anglo community to physically fight back. It pains me to know that Mexicans crossing the border were violated and mistreated. Tying back Romo's information to what Lubheid detailed her in book, immigration was not only sexist but in this case, it was extremely racist.

The two photos on page 204 were very interesting for me. The photos show how there were friendships between blacks and Mexicans during this time. With the amount of racism and strict immigration laws coming into effect, the fact that two distinct racial backgrounds came together as friends, coworkers, neighbors, etc. demonstrated the unjust Anglo supremacy in Texas but also shows that two cultures can work together and respect one another, something the Anglo Texans couldn't quite comprehend.

Another photo that stood out for me was the telegram on page 233 from Tom Lea, the mayor of El Paso at the time to Hon Rupert Blue, the Surgeon General in DC. It shows how Lea viewed Mexicans at the time, as "dirty lousy destuites." As I mentioned earlier, this type of mentality is no different than what Hitler was preaching: eugenics. That the Anglo race is the supreme race. That Anglos are clean and healthy and that there should be a quarantine for other races who are dirty and lousy. American History has taught us that the US was the great hero of WWII, how we foiled Hitler's evil plan of eugenics but through our historical amnesia, we fail to see that we implemented these concepts in our own country and that Hitler and Nazi Germany believed in what El Paso was doing. Oh American History, how forgetful we are sometimes...