Militarizing the Border: When Mexicans Became the Enemy

by Miguel Antonio Levario

As historian Miguel Antonio Levario explains in this timely book, current tensions and controversy over immigration and law enforcement issues centered on the US-Mexico border are only the latest evidence of a long-standing atmosphere of uncertainty and mistrust plaguing this region. Militarizing the When Mexicans Became the Enemy , focusing on El Paso and its environs, examines the history of the relationship among law enforcement, military, civil, and political institutions, and local communities. In the years between 1895 and 1940, West Texas experienced intense militarization efforts by local, state, and federal authorities responding to both local and international circumstances. El Paso’s “Mexicanization” in the early decades of the twentieth century contributed to strong racial tensions between the region’s Anglo population and newly arrived Mexicans. Anglos and Mexicans alike turned to violence in order to deal with a racial situation rapidly spinning out of control. Highlighting a binational focus that sheds light on other US-Mexico border zones in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Militarizing the Border establishes historical precedent for current border issues such as undocumented immigration, violence, and racial antagonism on both sides of the boundary line. This important evaluation of early US border militarization and its effect on racial and social relations among Anglos, Mexicans, and Mexican Americans will afford scholars, policymakers, and community leaders a better understanding of current policy . . . and its potential failure.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was difficult to read. Not because reading dense, historical non-fiction isn't COMPLETELY my thing, but because of the absolute depravity of what the federal government, Texas government, federal + local law enforcement, and Texas communities, have historically done to Mexican immigrants.

Reading in-depth about the El Paso Jail Holocaust, the Sanitation Bath Riots of 1917, and the Texas "Home Guard" forces that sprang up in cities and towns along the U.S. border to "fight back" against Mexican immigrants--think of the armed, camo-wearing idiots that today are intimidating other citizens and lawmakers at state capitals...and it's all so frustrating, disheartening, and shockingly similar to what is still happening today. Immigrants blamed as scapegoats for just about anything (crime! violence! disease!). The continued Othering of anyone not Anglo/white (because like it or not, the idea of who is allowed to be perceived as an American and who is not, is still prevalent in our society). The willingness to harm the bodies and livelihoods of anyone that is Othered, unless they're performing severely underpaid labor for you, or servicing you in other ways...

I'm honestly sickened. To think that these matters are not as widely taught in public schools, let alone universities, is a whitewashing of American history, especially U.S. Borderlands history.

I genuinely had no idea, as a *history* major, that sanitation baths were even a *thing* until I had access to my great-grandfather's oral history, both the recording of it and its (translated) script. But he experienced a toxic sanitation bath when he was crossing the border, via Laredo, in 1913, so that he could find a better paying job to help his family. He was barely into his 20s when he lost his mother, his father, and his first wife to influenza--and in hopes of finding a better life, he was forced to bathe in toxic chemicals before he was even allowed to continue into Texas...while white citizens certainly were not forced to bathe in gasoline. And that's only the start of the life he led...!

But still. It remains that the information in this book needs to be taught more often in classrooms. We need to be aware of the stark parallels to what is still being done today to POC, and we need to speak out against it--and vote people into office who will do better. Because if the Nazis were praising how the U.S. was treating Mexican immigrants, and then did the same--and worse, to Jewish people, then we should rightly be ashamed.

[Samel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Miguel Levario is a college professor who forces his students to buy his books in order to know material on the test. Shameful display of cash grabbing. Book is mid.