JE #4

The Chinese Exclusion act, which forbade Chinese immigrants, particularly unmarried women, set the stage for Pancho Villa’s 1914 “expulsion act.” The attitudes the Mexicans took with the Chinese were very similar to the attitude that the United States has towards Mexicans and Mexican Americans to this day.  The mentality was, “They steal our jobs and they send our money out of the country instead of spending it.”  Interestingly, albeit sadly, the problem was more of being jealous of them than of looking down upon them.  All along both sides of the United States-Mexico border, this group was rising in the socioeconomic ranks very quickly, while the Mexican population was still straggling behind, trying to fight its way through a revolution.

The Japanese were only vaguely better off, having gained a strong favor with the Anglos in El Paso, they were allowed to settle and work while the Chinese were smuggled into and pushed out from both sides of the border.  African Americans faired only marginally better, still putting up with American segregation laws but pronouncedly less so in the border-towns than in the American interior.  These populations shed light on an interesting aspect of El Paso, the unique openness with which it survived housing all of these different races. 

This ability for El Paso to absorb and blend the people, aspects, and contradictions of various cultures is clear in the pictures of Pg. 204 and Pg. 233.  Page 204 shows that the “social fraternization between Blacks and Mexicans was not uncommon” by picturing smiling, dapper men of both races relaxing in chairs side by side.  The mere fact that these cultures mix daily provides a basis for cultural schizophrenia.  Each ethnic community had its own designated region of the city.  Even so, there are accounts in David Romo’s text to support the peaceful cohabitation and stereotypical pitting of races against each other.  I think it is worth noting that, among the African American and Mexican communities, the American military’s war strategies along the border played a crucial role is creating animosity between them.  Still, it is intriguing and touching to see such an idyllic moment come out of such a troubled time and place. 

Meanwhile, Anglos and Mexicans were practically standardizing their racism against each other in El Paso and along the border.  Anglos and Mexicans were one and the same in their fiery, indelible distaste for each other once the other had thrown the first punch.  The photograph on page 233 is a photocopy of sorts of a telegram from the El Paso Mayor to the United States Surgeon General, pleading for an immediate quarantine of Mexican immigrants.  This falls into line with the events of the 1917 El Paso Bath Riots at the Santa Fe Bridge.  The horrors of the Bath Riots, coupled with the El Paso “jail holocaust,” dramatically raised tensions among the Anglo and Mexican populations.  In that same year, the United States entered World War I, lending itself to a state of paranoia characteristic of war, prompting the Immigration Law of 1917 and the Manual for the Physical Inspection of Aliens.  This disgusting showmanship of racism was said to be in an effort to protect the American people, though no one ever said anything about protecting the Mexican American people.  In this time, the El Paso mayor sent his telegram to the Surgeon General.  It’s astounding to me that no one was willing to stand up for the Mexicans and Mexican Americans who were being violated on a daily basis.  The cultural schizophrenia is palpable in the way that he unashamedly calls the cities’ major population second class citizens who cannot be trusted.