Making Mexico: Legal Nationality, Chinese Race, and the 1930 Population Census

Abstract

“Take the census; make the country. Let's do both together!” “Hacer censos, es hacer Patria. Ayúdenos a hacerlos” cajoled one bold, bright poster in the days before May 15, 1930 when census takers dispersed across Mexico to count its inhabitants. Other placards similarly played on multiple meanings for the verb “hacer”—to make or to do: “Taking a census will make the country …” “Hagamos censos y haremos patria…” At the same time, within that collective nation-building, a census jingle affirmed individual importance: “A census is a count. He who is numbered, counts. And he who counts, succeeds.” “Un censo es una cuenta. El que censa, cuenta. Y el que cuenta, acierta.” In government propaganda, the 1930 census made Mexico and drew its inhabitants into the national fold, an ongoing, delicate project after the fratricide of the 1910 Revolution.

Chinese migration to Latin America: From colonial to contemporary era

“…Because most Chinese migrants arrived in Mexico after 1899 when Qing government signed the Treaty of Commerce and Friendship with Mexican President Porfirio Diaz, studies on Chinese Mexicans concentrate on the modern period (Lakowaky, 1983). Earlier works, most in the form of journal articles, have paid much attention to the formation and the implementation of anti‐Chinese policies as well as the perspectives of anti‐Chinese activists especially in northern Mexico (Augustine‐Adams, 2009; Beja, 2008; Cumberland, 1960; Hu‐DeHart, 1982, 2010; Jacques, 1974, 1976, 1981; Trueba Lara, 1989; Trueba Lara, 1990; Navarro, 1969; Rangel, 2005; Rénique, 2001, 2003; Rico 2009; Yankelevich, 2004; 2012).…”

When Pernicious Foreigners Become Citizens: Naturalization in Early Twentieth-Century Mexico

“…Administratively, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs assumed the responsibility for granting certificates of nationality and letters of naturalization to foreigners in Mexico (Ley de extranjería y naturalización (20 de mayo de 1886)). Kif Augustine-Adams argues that arbitrary application of the 1886 law and the 1917 Constitution created ambiguous categories for Chinese Mexicans, whereby Mexican census enumerators changed the status of civilly married women's nationality from Mexican to Chinese (Augustine-Adams, 2009). Archival research on Middle Eastern immigrants also indicates that 39 Mexican-born women out of 8,036 registered foreigners were identified by Lebanese, Arab, or Syrian nationality por matrimonio (by marriage) (Alfaro-Velcamp, 2007).…”