Expert answer:Envisioning Victims and Creating Saviors: Colonial
Solved by verified expert:Envisioning Victims and Creating Saviors: Colonialist Representations of Mexican Repatriation in Mainstream American Newspapers, 1931 – 1933 by William F. CostleyRemember that you need a 50 word summary and answer the following questions?Discussion questions:How do you feel about Repatriation?Was it justified or not?Can anyone be deported from a country of their birth? Could Repatriation ever happen again?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Please 50word summary and no more!!!!!!!
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Envisioning Victims and Creating Saviors:
Colonialist Representations of Mexican
Repatriation in Mainstream American
Newspapers, 1931 – 1933
William F. Costley
The University of Arizona
T
he repatriation of Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans during the
Great Depression is historical fact, yet it is often glossed over in American
History courses. Indeed, as Francisco Balderrama and Raymond Rodríguez
declare in Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s, it is often omitted
entirely from the textbooks. They also note that when it does elicit comments, it is frequently referred to as a migration in which individuals “left ‘voluntarily’” (305). Recent
scholarship has revised the framework for discussing the repatriation, but many are still
unaware that it ever occurred.1
Such a state of affairs is not surprising. The relative lack of knowledge of this episode of American history stems from earlier colonialist representations that situate the
repatriation into a narrative that reinforces the United States as a beneficent force in
the trajectory of the history of Mexico and Mexican-Americans. I argue that most of
the journalism inscribes the repatriation within a colonial discourse that is explained
by Inderpal Grewal in Transnational America, in which post-colonial subjects are constructed as victims and the nations in which they claim asylum become their saviors.
Although Grewal’s work is situated within human rights discourse in the Sikh community, the fundamental victim/savior binary she elaborates serves as an appropriate optic
for analyzing mainstream news articles about the repatriation.
The articles cited in this study were published in the Los Angeles Times and the
New York Times in the early 1930s. Although many hundreds of articles related to repatriation appeared in these publications, I have selected the pieces that contain not
only facts and statistics about repatriation, but also editorial content about the phenomenon. This investigation is predicated on the assumption that the articles chosen
for this study reveal not only the opinions of the individual journalists, but also reflect
more generally held attitudes in contemporary American society. Although they consider a wide range of events and positions, the articles reproduce colonialist discourse in
specific ways. The first group portrays repatriates as victims and American government
and private organizations as saviors altruistically motivated in their quest to aid them
in their journey. The second group retains the construction of repatriates as victims
but places the government of Mexico in the savior position. In the third set of articles,
the subject positions are reversed as the repatriates become the saviors of a technologically backward Mexico. The fourth group is composed of articles that contest this dy-
Divergencias. Revista de estudios lingüísticos y literarios. Volumen7,número 2, invierno 2009
43
Divergencias. Revista de estudios lingüísticos y literarios. Volumen7, número 2, invierno 2009
namic by representing repatriates alternatively as
simple and primitive or as a burden to Mexico’s
economy. Despite the different ways in which
this journalism portrays the various actors of repatriation, as a whole they are invariably founded on some variation of Grewal’s victim/savior
colonial discourse.
The Anatomy of Colonial Discourse
In order to demonstrate that newspaper
articles written during the years of the repatriation reproduce the colonial discourse of the
colonizer as savior and the victim as colonized,
a brief discussion of colonial discourse is important. In The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology,
Allan Johnson notes in his entry on colonialism that, in addition to being a system of economic exploitation between powerful countries
and weaker ones, “the term internal colonialism
has been used to draw attention to the fact that
exploitative relationships can exist within societies as well as between them.” His example is
that “dominant ethnic or racial groups may exploit subordinate groups” (par. 3). Of course,
although colonial dominance is typically motivated by economics, corollary relations of power
and ideological positions are also established by
the colonizer. Such relationships are often conceived according to structuralist modes of seeing and can thus be expressed in binarisms of
how colonizers perceive themselves in contrast
to how they view the colonized. Paraphrasing
Edward Said, Ania Loomba explains that “if
colonised people are irrational, Europeans are
rational; if the former are barbaric, sensual, and
lazy, Europe is civilisation itself [. . .]” (47). Inevitably, the ultimate objective of such discourse is
to justify the authority of the colonizer through
the construction of himself as morally superior
to the colonized (Spurr 110). Although most
of Europe’s colonies were dismantled following
44
World War II, David Spurr argues that the discourse of imperialism has survived the formal
end of colonialism, as has colonial discourse
(5). Consequently, it serves as an appropriate
tool for analysis of the ways in which American
journalism of the 1930s constructed American
culture and government as superior not only to
Mexican culture, but to Mexican immigrants
and Mexican-Americans themselves. The use
of journalism is particularly fitting, considering
Spurr’s remark that “journalism follows on more
systematic orders of discourse, adapting them to
particular events and translating them into the
language of popular appeal” (3). Perhaps, then,
we should not even expect contemporary news
articles about the repatriation to produce an objective narrative—rather, we should anticipate
the reproduction of a colonial discourse.
Inderpal Grewal’s Transnational America
in chapter 4 of Transnational America, Inderpal Grewal elaborates the difficulties of various
cases of female Sikh refugees seeking asylum in
the West in the 1990s, particularly in the United
States. Initially, colonialism and refugee/asylum
discourse would seem to be located on opposite
ends of the spectrum. However, Grewal’s work
demonstrates that the asylum process constructs
“the refugee as a universal subject,” but always
within the framework of colonizing relations
(166). More specifically, the author shows that
Sikhs, rather than being permitted to relate their
own account of troubles in their homeland and
their reasons for requesting asylum, must instead conform to a particular narrative strategically circumscribed by the transnational firstworld discourse of human rights. This “official”
narrative requires the asylum-seeking subject to
position herself as a victim, and asylum-granting
agencies are consequently always constructed as
saviors. In citing the work of Sherene Razack, for
example, she contends that Asian women seek-
William F. Costley
ing asylum in Canada were “compelled to represent themselves as victims and their cultures as
pathological” (170). This discourse, though specific to the purpose of granting asylum, is subject
to the classic colonial binary that constructs the
sending country as backward, repressive, and inferior and the host country as advanced, enlightened, and superior.
A Brief History of the Repatriation
The massive repatriation of Mexicans and
Americans of Mexican descent during the 1930s
was a complex phenomenon that cannot be attributed to a singular cause. It should also be
noted that repatriation is not synonymous with
deportation. In fact, nearly all repatriates traveled to Mexico voluntarily, assuming that it
would be relatively simple for them to return
when economic conditions improved. In fact,
Abraham Hoffman indicates that many repatriates were led to understand that they could come
back whenever they desired or even explicitly
told that this would be the case (91). However,
he subsequently introduces this qualifying statement: “to say that these families ‘volunteered’ or
to charge that one way or another they were ‘coerced’ would be to oversimplify their problems”
(105). While their departure en masse may have
officially been considered voluntary, immigrants
and Mexican-Americans certainly did not leave
the United States without external pressure.
Many Americans were searching for a scapegoat on whom to place the blame for the economic hardships of the Great Depression. Unfortunately, this scapegoat was frequently found
in both the Mexican immigrant and MexicanAmerican community. The public viewed Mexican immigrants alternatively as taking jobs from
white Americans and as charity cases (Hoffman
90). However, once repatriation was underway, distinctions among different demographic
groups were lost—Mexican nationals, Mexicanborn legal residents of the U.S., and even U.S.born Mexican-Americans were repatriated to
Mexico. According to Camille Guerin-Gonzales in Mexican Workers and American Dreams:
Immigration, Repatriation, and California Farm
Labor, 1900-1939, programs were established at
local government levels that “made no effort to
distinguish between immigrants and U.S.-born
Mexicans” (78). In fact, the entire community
was subject to subtly intimidating practices by
immigration officials such as “scareheading,” in
which publicity campaigns were developed with
the express purpose of scaring both Mexicans
and Mexican-Americans into leaving the country (Guerin-Gonzales 78). Perhaps the most notorious instance of this tactic occurred in January of 1931 when Charles Visel, director of the
Los Angeles Citizens’ Committee on Coordination of Unemployment Relief, convinced local
newspapers and radio stations to run press releases announcing the impending roundup of all
illegal residents of the city and their subsequent
deportation. Visel’s hope was that “an army of
aliens would walk out on first publicity actuated by fright and that this would release jobs
for unemployed citizens” (Guerin-Gonzales
81). Because many newspapers (including those
published in Spanish) reported that all Mexicans would be deported, many legal residents
and even U.S.-born citizens of Mexican descent
left the country out of fear. Therefore, despite
the assertion that “no pressure was applied in either country” (Starr-Hunt I10), no resident of
the community was immune to intimidation. As
tactics such as scareheading demonstrate, large
sectors of the population were simply coerced to
leave through informal means.
In addition to the daunting methods of immigration officials, the economic hardship of the
Depression was an undeniable impetus to repa-
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Divergencias. Revista de estudios lingüísticos y literarios. Volumen7, número 2, invierno 2009
triation. As with the rest of United States’ workers, Mexicans lost their jobs en masse. However,
when employers were compelled to reduce their
workforces, they “often fired ethnic Mexicans
first,” which essentially became another subtle
tactic of coercion to repatriate (Meeks 94).
When Mexicans did repatriate they often found
that, even if they had their own automobiles and
possessions, they had to leave many of them behind due to strict weight limits placed on duty
at the border (Guerin-Gonzales 92). As a result,
repatriates were economically dispossessed of
whatever they had managed to accumulate. In
many cases, families were separated and women
were forced to make the journey without their
husbands and with or without their children
(many of whom, having been born in the U.S.,
refused to repatriate). Once repatriates arrived
in Mexico, most of them discovered that U.S. authorities had not simply returned them to their
native land, “but [had] sent many American
citizens into exile in a foreign country” (GuerinGonzales 94). A phenomenon that was generally perceived as an immigrant group returning
to their places of birth actually represented, in
effect, a significant number of American citizens
being banished from their country of origin.
Repatriates as Victims Saved by the U.S.
Grewal’s elaboration of the victim/savior
colonial discourse is culturally and temporally
situated within the Sikh refugee community
applying for asylum in the United States in the
late 20th century. Nonetheless, U.S. newspaper
articles of the 1930s, and particularly those in
the Los Angeles Times, also seem to reproduce
this discourse. In contrast to the situations described by Grewal, the victims are Mexican repatriates; another important difference is that
they are not constructed as such by their own
narratives, but by journalists who were typi-
46
cally white and middle-class. The saviors are a
myriad of local government, and sometimes private, organizations. “Horde Departs for Native
Soil,” published in the L.A. Times in 1931, states
rather succinctly that repatriates were subjects
with complete agency: “[They are] unable to
obtain work to earn sufficient money to sustain
themselves and their families under present economic difficulties, and they feel they may fare
better near friends and relatives in their native
land” (A1). Repatriates are thus constructed as
rational actors arriving at independent decisions
with no regard to the larger structural forces
that condition their choices. As a result, state
and immigration officials are absolved of any
responsibility they bear in influencing Mexicans
to repatriate. The same article features a photograph which the caption represents as a “sadfaced group of Mexicans [. . .] preparing to leave
the United States for their native land.” The conjunction of the image and the text has the effect
of essentializing the subjects as “belonging” to a
certain space, despite the fact that some of them
are children likely born in America. The article
not only absolves the state from any culpability,
but also proceeds to laud American big business for its altruistic concern for the well-being
of the repatriates: “Southern Pacific officials ordered extra equipment for each train to insure as
much comfort as possible for the travelers and
their children” (A1).2 Yet even though such a
vigorous campaign was mounted to portray repatriation assistance as a “gift” to the Mexican
population, accusations of a deportation drive
must have arisen, as the article deems it necessary to mention that “immigration authorities [.
. .] deny a campaign against any single nationality and assert they are interested only in those
subject to deportation under law” (A1). In addition to painting the actions of officials as a narrowly-focused targeting of illegal residents, the
William F. Costley
article omits any discussion of subtle means of
intimidation, such as Visel’s scareheading tactics
of announcing deportation campaigns through
the local media, that made repatriation the only
possibility for many legal residents of the United States.
In 1931 the New York Times published the
article “Mexicans Return Home” which claims,
as does the aforementioned L.A. Times article,
that “the government has provided free transportation for more than 70,000” (22). But unlike the previous article, this one distinguishes
itself by revealing the deplorable conditions of
the repatriation, citing the deaths of more than
twenty-six Mexicans in Ciudad Juárez from
“pneumonia and exposure” (22). Before the
reader can assign any blame to the American
government for pushing people to repatriate,
the article closes by emphatically affirming that
“the government has taken urgent measures to
remedy this condition.” Once again, the state is
not held to account for any suffering caused by
the repatriation (including the loss of material
goods accumulated over a lifetime in the U.S.)
but instead is seen as motivated only by its desire to improve conditions for the emigrants.
This discourse is further reinforced by the 1932
article “Repatriate Move Aided by Bay Area” in
the L.A. Times, which details a “unique arrangement between the Mexican government and the
city of Santa Monica together with Santa Monica Rotarians,” under which, “contrary to the
prevailing methods of dealing with repatriates
Santa Monica folk are providing them with food
and tents in which to live until adobe houses
may be erected, as well as other facilities” (A8).
A recurring pattern emerges in which repatriates
are constructed as victims not of intimidation of
any state apparatus, but as victims of the force
majeure of the Great Depression. Government
and private civic organizations are therefore
portrayed as never coercing anyone to repatriate; instead, they are represented as merely providing financial and material assistance to those
who have already decided to do so.
Mexico as Savior of the Repatriates
Just as American government agencies are
often represented as saviors of the repatriates
in contemporary news articles, the Mexican
government is often constructed as fulfilling
this role as well. One 1932 article from the
L.A. Times explained the objective of Mexico’s
efforts to set up colonies for repatriates as to
“remove them from a condition of jobless dependence and put them onto fertile land where
they can make their own living and regain happiness and prosperity” (“More Mexicans” 12).
According to this classically colonialist attitude,
the repatriates are incapable of success without
the paternalistic intervention of their “native”
government. Another L.A. Times article from
1933, “Mexico Colony Life Described,” depicts
the attempt to build colonies, out of previously uninhabited territory, as a “social experiment” with the utopian vision that will lead to a
“semi-Arcadian ‘new life’” (11). The thoughtful
reader may wonder how Mexico, which at that
time was suffering even more from the Depression than the Colossus of the North, planned
to realize such idealistic dreams for the repatriates. The article lists the elaborate planning
of the colonies, which included rationing of
staples, water, land for agriculture, schools, and
cooperation with the native population. In addition, the Mexican government was counting
on the technologically advanced equipment and
training the repatriates would bring with them,
which would “immediately place [them] in a
condition favorable toward effecting a transformation” (11). Indeed, this source indicates
that the colonists would receive a great deal of
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Divergencias. Revista de estudios lingüísticos y literarios. Volumen7, número 2, invierno 2009
assistance that would render their success quite
probable. This prognosis is belied in Decade of
Betrayal, in which Balderrama and Rodríguez
provide an account of how these colonies actually fared. Efforts to colonize Valle de las Palmas
failed because of insufficient rainfall, which led
to “prolonged irrigation [that] depleted the water table and brought harmful alkalines to the
surface, rendering intensive farming impossible”
(219). Pinotepa, a colony in Oaxaca State and
the subject of the latter article, failed even more
miserably than Valle de las Palmas. GuerinGonzales asserts that, although the colony received extensive investment from the Mexican
government and was set up for a capacity of half
a million inhabitants, the population reached
its maximum of approximately 800 in 1933.
Several years later, most of its intrepid denizens
had either left or perished as a result of the many
perils of the tropical climate, such as poisonous
insects and snakes (104-05). Therefore, despite
efforts to create flourishing repatriate enclaves
out of the Mexican wilderness, the projects were
ultimately failures that simply compounded the
nation’s problems as the Depression continued
into the mid-1930s. In summary, the representation of the Mexican government as savior to
the impoverished victims of the repatriation was
contradicted by the reality of the difficulty in establishing colonies for them.
The Repatriates as Coming to Mexico’s Rescue
The previous articles m …
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