REMEMBER WHEN U.S. COULDN'T GET ENOUGH MEXICAN WORKERS (BRACEROS)?

Carlos Francisco Jackson, “Departure: Braceros Departing Mexico City for California, 1943.” Courtesy of San Antonio Museum of Art. Gift from Harriett and Ricardo Romo. Photo by Ricardo Romo.

By Richard G. Santos

Zavala County Sentinel
richardgsantos@yahoo.com

Historically, political refugees and exiles are forced or voluntarily leave their homeland as a result of a revolution, or overthrow of the government with which they were associated.

Such was the case with numerous individuals and families of northeast Mexico with the fall and execution of Mexican Emperor Maximilian (1867), execution of Nuevo Leon-Tamaulipas and Coahuila Governor Santiago Vidaurri (1867), death of Benito Juarez (1872) and rise of Porfirio Diaz (1876).

Always thinking they would return to Mexico, the refugees and exiles settled in the townships, ranchos and farms along the Rio Grande with few venturing no more than fifty miles from the Texas-Mexican border. Their presence can be dated by the number of Mexican Masonic Lodges, Mutualista organizations and membership in socio-civic organizations including the Woodmen of the World chapters.

The building of rail lines from San Antonio and Corpus Christi to the Texas–Mexico border communities (1881-1883) energized the geographic area between the San Antonio River and Rio Grande as land owners now used the railways to move their horses, cattle, sheep, goats and agricultural products from the Winter Garden and South Texas to markets beyond San Antonio and Corpus Christi. Railroad work camps became loading sites which in turn became townships.

At the same time, older townships and communities skipped by the railroad became ghost towns. Lack of a labor force drove the land owners to recruit individuals and families from the Texas-Mexican border area and settle them in housing on the ranchos and farms where they were employed.

Few Mexican border laborers were settled at the railway loading townships but always in the segregated “across the tracks” or “across the main road/street” barrios. In time they established their own churches, civic, religious and social organizations, schools, “mom and pop stores”, bakeries, fruit stands and entertainment establishments (namely cantinas and dance halls).

Senior citizen “anglos” and “Mexican Texans” have told this writer how “in the old days grandpa would hitch the wagon and take all children at the ranch or farm to school. The “anglo” kids were the first to be taken to their school and then the others to the Mexican or Black schools across the tracks.

The same order was kept in picking up the kids after school. First the “anglo” kids, then the Mexican kids and finally the Black kids, if any. Although segregated at school, churches, cemeteries, movie theatres and such, at the ranch or farm all kids played together and got along fine.”

The Mexican Revolution of 1910 through 1929 saw an exodus of political refugees, exiles; anti-war people and members of defeated factions mass migrate to Texas and the United States.

The rebels in exile (Madero, Flores Magon, Reyes etc) who had been in Texas since 1904, were replaced by the followers of Porfirio Diaz when he abdicated in 1911 and thereafter by the followers or politically-militarily active members of the various governments between 1911 and 1929 including the devote Catholics forced to leave during the 1926 – 1929 Cristero Uprising.

The college educated, wealthy professionals gravitated to San Antonio and beyond away from the violence along the border. Many veterans, conscripts and Mexican labor class settled in the smaller communities in the Winter Garden area and South Texas.

A great number became migrant farm workers and more so during both World War I and World War II. The Corrido de Kansas of the 1920’s states “ya me voy pa’ pensilvania por no piscar algodon (I am going to Pennsylvania in order not to pick cotton). The ballad then related the trip by train, what they saw between “Forowes” (Fort Worth) and how they were greeted when they arrived at their destination. 

Many individuals and families stayed in the Midwestern states and communities where they can still be found today.
Far out numbering the Spanish Colonial Tejanos, it was and has been the Mexican families of the Revolution of 1910 that gave cohesiveness to the Hispanic Mexican American population of the United States and Texas.

They introduced the mariachi, quinceanera, Cinco de Mayo, Diezyseis de Septiembre, pinata, Our Lady of Guadalupe and initiated in 1911 the effort to establish English-Spanish Bilingual Education and the “Mexican culture” in the Texas public schools (Congreso Mexicanista; Laredo, Texas).

While waiting, they established the escuelitas (neighborhood school) also known as “the school of 400” (where pre-school and elementary aged children were taught the most basic 400 words of English they needed when attending school). 

Hundreds of photographs can still be found of the students of las escuelitas as well as socio-civic-religious organizations performing Christmas programs or celebrating the Fourth of July as well as Cinco de Mayo and the Diezyseis.

Today it is the grandchildren and great grandchildren of the refugees and exiles of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 that make up the vast majority of the Mexican Americans, Mexican Tejanos, Hispanics and Chicanos. They far outnumber the Spanish Colonial Tejanos.

Both groups, however, are fully fledged U.S. citizens, U.. S. English dominant, and most have never travel into Mexico beyond the border area. They are not to be confused with the individuals and families who have migrated to the U.S. since the Korean War and more so within the last twenty years.

In closing it should be stressed that as a rule in South Texas the term “Latino” is primarily used by Tejanos and Mexican Americans for Hispanics with a country of origin other than Mexico.

As stated at the beginning, once you understand the diversity and complexity of the ethnic group you begin to realize why we cannot agree on what to call the group and that there is not one thing all have in common. 

Members of the group come in all shapes, sizes and color of skin, eyes, hair type and anything else you may wish to cite. Incidentally, it is not true that all Spaniards are light skinned, have blue eyes and all Spanish women have a mustache and are as wide as they are tall.