Class on February 4

Today was our second class with Professor Lopez and we discussed the social fluidity of Mexican Americans working in the Cotton fields in Texas during the period of the Great Depression. We examined and discussed pictures from Neil Foley’s the White Scourge: Mexican, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture. The first picture depicts black sharecroppers picking cotton. Though at the time blacks and whites often worked side by side in picking cottons, this picture does not show any white people. The next picture showed a family of Mexican sharecroppers. We discussed the social hierarchy in this community. Temporary workers were the lowest on the totem pole, followed by tenants, then sharecroppers like this family, followed by land owners who are the oldest. This picture was taken in 1937 and demonstrates the shift in level of permanency of Mexican workers in the cotton industry in Texas. At first most immigrants were Mexican men, but this picture shows that more families were coming. Although the American government sent approximately 1/3 of Mexican immigrants back to Mexico, but employment agencies needed workers so they recruited some Mexican families. Mexican workers who had families were more likely to be committed to working throughout the season. The next picture demonstrated that Mexican families that may have first come in as temporary workers were able to move up in social hierarchy and eventually achieve some level of status. This picture depicted a Mexican family with an automobile and dressed nicely. This demonstrated that some Mexican’s had disposable income and were achieving a level of higher status. The next picture we discussed was of a white family sitting on their porch playing with their children. This family was pretty well off and demonstrated that even in 1939 there was a leisure class that benefitted from other poor workers. The next picture was of a sign hung outside a restaurant that said “we serve whites only, no Spanish or Mexicans” This demonstrated that during the depression there was a racialized society and that Texas operated under Jim Crow-like laws. This most likely resulted from the fact that the whites were worried about lack of money and jobs and therefore blamed all their problems on immigration as we always do when an economic crisis strikes. This sentiment led to rampant racism during that time.

We then discussed the construction of whiteness in America during periods where there was an influx of immigration. During the time of lots of Mexican immigration there was a difference seen between dark and light skinned Mexican. In 1910 there was a Mexican dictator named Diaz who wanted to modernize Mexico and therefore wanted to take land away from indigenous Mexicans in order to build railroads. They got pushed up towards Oregon. Until 1917 there was an explosive atmosphere and tension between light and dark skinned Mexicans. Eugenicists construct what it means to be white and that white is good. This happened initially when lots of Irish immigrated here. They were at first not seen as being white and there was at first a lot of black and white mixing. However, the Irish, wanting to be accepted into society, started race wars against the blacks. By making a “common enemy” with those considered white in America, the Irish became accepted into white society. The Italians did this to. Thus some lighter skinned Mexican’s of Spanish, rather than pure Mexican descent did the same type of thing so that they might be considered to have more Nordic features and thus be considered “white” and achieve higher status than darker skinned Mexicans.

We went on to discuss the differences between Mexican communities before the treaty of Guadalupe and Mexican life in cotton farming. The Cotton crop is a cash crop and is extremely dependent on the economic market. People could lose everything in one bad season. Before the treaty, Mexican communities dealt more in trade and had diversified crops so they weren’t so reliant on just one thing. However, after the treaty when Mexican ranches were taken they were forced into the “king cotton” civilization where they had to sharecrop and were entirely dependent on cotton in the new hierarchical Americanized system of racial polarity. We then discussed the immigration quotas of 1920 and 1924 that let people in based on a racial hierarchy. Immigrants that were already in this country were not welcome. There were race wars and competition between Mexican Immigrants and those from Eastern Europe.
We continued to look at more pictures from the White Scourge. We saw a picture of a lynching that represented the strata of whiteness and the need to exclude people in order to feel powerful. The other pictures showed an employment agency recruiting seasonal Mexican workers who were brought in despite immigration quotas, and the picture of an older black couple who still had to work despite their advancing age. We also looked at a picture of all the workers of a giant farm coming out for the funeral of the farm owner. This was reminiscent of the slave age, when the only day a slave would have off was for a master’s funeral. These pictures depicted the harsh slave like conditions of the cotton plantations in Texas.
We moved on and began a discussion about the place of Mexican women in society and how it was different from that of American women. Mexican women were respected and had agency of their own. They were permitted to own land. Midwives were considered wise and were respected even above Mexican men. Spiritual leaders and healers who were women also had high status. Additionally, because men often had to leave and find seasonal work elsewhere, women took care of the land while they were gone, which was of integral importance to the Mexican community. We will continue to talk about the role of women in class next week.