Cecily Zamora
The history of anti-Latino discrimination in the United States is a long and complex one, with various laws enacted over the years that have targeted Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans. One of the earliest examples of this discrimination can be traced back to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which marked the end of the Mexican-American War and granted a significant portion of Mexican territory to the United States, resulting in a large Mexican American population within its borders. Despite the contributions of Mexican Americans to American society, they have often been subjected to racist and discriminatory laws and treatment. One notable example is the 1929 Undesirable Aliens Act (Blease's Law), which criminalized border crossing outside official ports of entry and was primarily aimed at restricting Mexican immigration. This law set a precedent for future anti-immigrant legislation and contributed to the mass incarceration and expulsion of Latinx individuals.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Year of implementation | 1929 |
| Name of the law | Undesirable Aliens Act (Blease's Law) |
| Punishment for "unlawfully entering the country" | Misdemeanor |
| Punishment for returning after deportation | Felony |
| Punishment for unlawful entry | Up to a year's imprisonment, fines |
| Punishment for returning after deportation | Up to two years of imprisonment |
| Prosecutions under the law | Over 44,000 cases, almost entirely against Mexicans |
| Current status | Codified in Section 1326 of Title 8 of the U.S. Code |
| Affected communities | Latinx, Black, and Brown people |
| Current efforts | New Way Forward Act to repeal harmful immigration laws |
| Historical context | Post-Mexican-American War, post-World War I |
| Driving factors | Anti-immigrant sentiment, economic downturns |
| Impact | Family separation, incarceration, expulsion |
| Nature of the law | Racist, unconstitutional, discriminatory |
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What You'll Learn
The Undesirable Aliens Act of 1929 (Blease's Law)
The Undesirable Aliens Act of 1929, also known as Blease's Law, was a US federal law that criminalized undocumented entry into the country. Proposed by Senator Coleman Livingston Blease, a white supremacist from South Carolina, the law was the first to impose criminal penalties on undocumented immigrants entering the US.
The Act proposed that "unlawfully entering the country" would be considered a misdemeanor, while "unlawfully returning to the United States after deportation" would be a felony. The punishment for the former included up to a year's imprisonment and fines, while the latter carried penalties of up to two years in prison, a fine of up to $1000, or both. The law was notable for its specific targeting of Mexican immigrants, marking a shift from earlier anti-immigrant campaigns aimed at other ethnic and religious groups.
The motivations behind the Act were rooted in pseudoscientific racism and eugenics. Its authors sought to preserve the supposed purity of the white race by preventing Latin American immigrants, whom they described as "mongrelized," "degraded," and "mixed blood," from settling permanently in the United States. They believed that Latin American immigration posed a "great race question" and an "invasion" by people of inferior racial characteristics. The Act was also influenced by Senator Blease's openly segregationist and anti-immigrant views.
The passage of the Undesirable Aliens Act had significant consequences for Mexican immigration to the US. It shifted the treatment of Mexican immigrants, with the federal government, along with state and local governments, initiating a program of Mexican Repatriation during the Great Depression. This campaign involved immigration raids and threats of penalties for those unable to prove their legal status, resulting in an estimated 20% of the Mexican population in the US returning to Mexico. The law also led to the imprisonment of tens of thousands of Mexicans for unlawful entry or reentry into the country. Throughout the 1930s, Mexicans made up at least 85% of all immigration prisoners, with some years this number rising to 99%.
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School segregation
The history of segregation against Mexicans in the United States is not widely known. While there were no explicit laws barring Mexican-American children from white schools, segregation was commonplace in the southwestern United States from the 1870s onwards. Mexican-American students were expected to attend separate "Mexican schools", which were in terrible condition compared to "American" schools. These schools were initially set up to serve the children of Spanish-speaking labourers at rural ranches.
In the early 20th century, Black and Mexican schools in Texas were in lamentable conditions, suffering from inadequate financing, poor educational facilities, and racist curricula. Mexicans were considered "White", and so Mexican schools did not receive the same budgeting as Black schools from the "separate but equal" policy. This led to educational inequalities that persisted into the 1950s.
In 1930, Mexican-American parents in the Lemon Grove School District of San Diego County, California successfully sued the schools for integration, in what became the very first legal victory against segregation in America. However, the decision only applied to that one school district. In 1945, Gonzalo Mendez and four other Mexican-American parents sued four Orange County, California school districts on behalf of their children and 5,000 other children of "Mexican and Latin descent", arguing that segregation violated their constitutional rights. The case, known as Mendez v. Westminster, became the first case in U.S. history to rule on desegregation, forcing schools in Orange County to integrate in 1947. This set an important precedent that the "'separate but equal' doctrine violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
In 1948, the case Delgado v. Bastrop ISD prohibited school boards from designating specific buildings in a school campus for Mexican children. In 1954, Hernandez v. State of Texas declared Mexican Americans to be a class to whom Jim Crow laws could not be applied. Despite these legal victories, Mexican-Americans continued to face de facto segregation in schools. In 1962, a teacher in Colorado instituted her own "Mexican school", forcing students who spoke Spanish during instruction to clean and scoop up dog faeces at her house.
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The Zoot Suit Riots
The riots were ostensibly caused by the zoot suits worn by many minority youths, which were considered unpatriotic during World War II due to the large amounts of fabric used in their creation. However, the violence was more about rising racial tensions and anti-Mexican racism than fashion. Zoot suits had become popular among young men in Black, Mexican-American, and other minority communities, but they had also gained a racist reputation. Latino youths in California known as "pachucos", who often wore flashy zoot suits with porkpie hats and dangling watch chains, were increasingly viewed by affluent whites as menacing street thugs, gang members, and rebellious juvenile delinquents.
During the riots, mobs of servicemen, off-duty police officers, and civilians brawled with young Latinos and other minorities, stripping them of their suits and leaving them bloodied and half-naked on the sidewalk. Local police officers often watched from the sidelines and then arrested the victims of the beatings. The violence spread outside of downtown Los Angeles to neighbourhoods like Watts and East Los Angeles, with taxi drivers offering servicemen free rides to rioting areas.
The riots only died down when U.S. military personnel were barred from leaving their barracks on June 8, and the Los Angeles City Council banned zoot suits the following day. The Zoot Suit Riots were one of many examples of anti-Mexican laws and sentiments that have been prevalent in the United States for decades. For example, the Undesirable Aliens Act of 1929 (Blease's Law) criminalized border crossing to limit the rights of Mexican immigrants, and even in the 2000s, laws were still being passed that discriminated against Mexican migrants.
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Bracero Program
The Bracero Program was a bilateral agreement between the United States and Mexico that allowed Mexican workers to be recruited and transported to the US for employment. It was created by executive order in 1942 to address labour shortages in agriculture and railroads due to World War II. The program lasted until 1964, resulting in an influx of documented and undocumented Mexican labourers filling labour gaps in the US.
During World War I and in the years leading up to World War II, US employers faced labour shortages as workers were drawn away from fields and factories to serve in the military and support the war effort. This resulted in a "pull" factor for Mexican workers, who were aggressively recruited and encouraged to migrate northward. However, poor working conditions and anti-Mexican hostilities caused many migrants to return to Mexico in 1917 and 1918.
The Bracero Program was intended to address similar labour shortages during World War II. Over 100,000 contracts were signed between 1943 and 1945, with 4.6 million contracts signed in total from 1942 to 1964. The program was jointly administered by the State Department, the Department of Labor, and the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) within the Department of Justice.
Under the Bracero Program, Mexican workers were promised certain protections and benefits, including decent living conditions, a minimum wage of 30 cents per hour, and protection from discrimination. However, the program faced criticism and controversy. There were concerns about the treatment of Mexican workers, with reports of discrimination and maltreatment, including lynchings along the border. The program was banned in Texas for several years due to these issues.
After the Bracero Program ended in 1964, there was a push to repatriate illegal labourers back to Mexico through initiatives like Operation Wetback, which resulted in the repatriation of over 3.8 million Mexicans. The termination of the program also led to increased farm mechanization and the admission of temporary agricultural workers with H-2 and H-2A visas.
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Mexican labor migration
During World War I, the US experienced labor shortages as millions of workers were drawn away from fields and factories. In 1917, the first Bracero program allowed farmers in the western US to recruit "otherwise inadmissible aliens" to work on farms and railroads. However, the entry of the US into World War I in 1917 and the drafting of Mexican nationals into the US military caused many Mexican migrants to cross back over the border in 1917 and 1918.
During the 1920s, severe immigration restrictions were put in place, such as the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act, which did not limit migration within the Americas. The Undesirable Aliens Act of 1929 (Blease's Law), proposed by segregationist Senator Coleman Livingston Blease, criminalized border crossing outside of official ports of entry to limit Mexican immigration. Between 1930 and 1933, about 300,000 Mexicans and their US-born children were repatriated or returned to Mexico due to the economic downturn of the Great Depression.
During World War II, the Bracero Program was initiated as a federally sponsored labor program to address labor shortages in agriculture and railroads. From 1942 to 1964, millions of Mexican migrant workers crossed the border into the US as braceros, or laborers, under contract. They faced harsh conditions, low wages, racism, and discrimination. Despite these challenges, the program allowed Mexican migrants to establish social communities and familial roots in the US and transition into urban, service-industry jobs. The program also fueled Cesar Chavez's Farm Worker Movement, leading to the successful unionization of farm workers.
In recent decades, Mexican immigrants in the Ninth District states have continued to migrate to the US, with most arriving between 1995 and 2005. They have a high labor force participation rate, with 87% in the region being in the labor force. Mexican immigrants often take up low-wage jobs in production, cleaning, food preparation, construction, and agriculture, contributing significantly to the region's economy, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, anti-migratory policies and increasing arrests of illegal workers from Mexico continue to impact Mexican labor migration.
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Frequently asked questions
Blease's Law, or the Undesirable Aliens Act of 1929, was an anti-Mexican law that criminalized border crossing outside of official ports of entry. It was designed to restrict Mexican immigration by making "unlawfully entering the country" a misdemeanor and returning after deportation a felony.
Blease's Law led to the prosecution of over 44,000 cases of unlawful entry, mostly against Mexicans. It also set a precedent for future anti-immigration policies, such as those implemented by the Trump administration, which resulted in the separation of thousands of children from their parents.
Mexicans have faced various discriminatory laws and practices in the United States, including school segregation, exclusion from public spaces, and anti-immigration policies. One notable example is the Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles in 1943, where media bias and anti-Mexican racism contributed to violent clashes. Mexicans were also subjected to de jure and de facto segregation, often being treated as socially, economically, and politically inferior to Whites despite being legally considered white.
