Mexico for the Mexicans: Immigration, National Sovereignty and the Promotion of Mestizaje

Abstract

After peace was restored in Mexico following the Revolution of 1910, the country's rulers, like their Porfirian forebears, continued to believe in the need to attract foreign immigrants. However, this view began to shift in die mid-1930s in the face of fears about the arrival of foreigners that were considered undesirable. On matters of immigration, the country did not stray far from the restrictive practices that extended across the Americas from Canada to Argentina, yet in Mexico, unlike anywhere else on the continent, the authorities were forced to confront a dual problem posed by migration in the nation they sought to govern.

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).…”

“…Many historians have debated the origins of Mexican Sinophobia. Most believe that Sinophobia stemmed from the burgeoning Mexican Revolution that aimed to advance the concept of mestizo nationalism by casting aspersions on the racial others (e.g., Yankelevich, 2012). Some also believe that most Chinese Mexicans' occupation as small business owners posed serious challenges to the financial interests of other Mexican businesses, thereby fueling the anti‐Chinese sentiment (e.g., Hu‐DeHart 1982, 2002).…”

Hope beyond the Sea. Perceptions of the Return to Spain among Immigrants Seeking Assisted Repatriation from Mexico (1910-1930)

“…This was primarily caused by the economic crisis that beset Mexico in the aftermath of the armed clashes affecting citizens and aliens, Mexicans, and migrants. Now poor Spanish immigrants faced extra pressure to return home given the nationalist regulations enforced by the Mexican government after the Great Depression (Yankelevich, 2012). By issuing restrictive labour laws, the Mexican state wanted to aid and assimilate its own returnees, that is, those Mexican migrants expelled from the United States at that time (Alanís Enciso, 2017).…”

"I Killed Her Because I Loved Her Too Much": Gender and Violence in the 20th Century Sephardi Diaspora

“…54 Although the postrevolutionary prominence of the ideology of mestizaje ostensibly encouraged the entrance of white and European immigrants who would assimilate into the Mexican raza, the challenge of employing a growing number of Mexican workers repatriated from the United States in the late 1920s heightened the economic tensions around immigration. 55 In 1927, Mexican officials banned the entrance of Syrians, Arabs, Turks, Lebanese, Palestinians, and Armenians on the grounds that their activities in peddling and petty commerce damaged the Mexican petite bourgeoisie, and in 1933, sent out a numerically encoded memo to consulates abroad prohibiting the entrance of Jews regardless of nationality. 56 Individuals of Ottoman provenance, lumped together throughout Latin America under the appellation turco, did not fit easily into prevalent racial classifications.…”