Kelly Lytle Hernández > Quotes

“U.S. settler citizens expected Mexico’s labor migrants to bow to the settler order. As Victor S. Clark, the first Anglo-American economist to study Mexican labor migration to the United States, explained in a 1908 report for the Department of Labor: “The Mexican laborer is unambitious, listless, physically weak, irregular, and indolent. On the other hand, he is docile, patient, usually orderly in camp, fairly intelligent under competent supervision, obedient, and cheap. If he were active and ambitious, he would be less tractable and would cost more. His strongest point is his willingness to work for a low wage.”38”
― Kelly Lytle Hernández, Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands

“Ricardo Flores Magón had been in the United States for six years, agitating for revolt. His followers, known as magonistas, had few resources. They were poor men and women, mostly miners, farmworkers, and cotton pickers, many of them displaced from Mexico when President Díaz gave their land to foreign investors.19 They wanted their land back and they were willing to fight for it. For challenging his rule, the Díaz administration dubbed them “malos Mexicanos” (bad Mexicans).”
― Kelly Lytle Hernández, Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands