Time to Take a Stand
On Anti-Mexican Racism
By David Montejano
This is a brief
overview of exploratory research I did many years ago, in the late 1990s. The catalyst for this exploration was the
passage of Proposition 187 in California in 1994. Prop 187 was a comprehensive anti-immigration proposition
that would deny social services to undocumented immigrants and require teachers
and medical personnel to ascertain the legal status of students and
clients. Its landslide passage of 60%
was a shocking result in supposedly liberal California.
In 1994 I was
living in northern California. I
witnessed the Prop. 187 campaign, which went by the moniker “Save Our
State.” It was an SOS warning to
California voters about the increase and notable presence of Mexican
immigrants. I saw “Citizen Council”
protests in Mountain View, held across a corner where many immigrant day
laborers gathered and waited for work.
The citizens held signs that said “Go Back to Mexico” and “Don’t Make
Our Community a Third World City.” The
scene reminded me of the White Citizens’ Councils that surfaced throughout the
South in response to the Supreme Court’s Brown decision regarding school
desegregation. Governor Pete Wilson, who was up for re-election and behind in
the polls, sensed a winning issue and made Prop. 187 the centerpiece of his political
campaign. Wilson rode to victory on the back
of Prop. 187.
For me as an
analyst, the passage of Prop. 187 meant revisiting my optimistic conclusion in Anglos
and Mexicans in the Making of Texas.
I had interpreted the 1981 election of Henry Cisneros as Mayor of San
Antonio as a positive turning point in Anglo-Mexican relations. Cisneros was the first person of Mexican
descent to be so elected since Juan Seguin in the 1840s. Now I had to reassess my position.
Based on a review
of mainstream magazines and journals, could I construct a negative scenario and
even envision a reversal of rights that Mexican Americans had achieved the past
fifty years? Could I find discussion of
border closures, immigration sweeps, interior checkpoints, tightened voter
qualifications, and the like? Unfortunately,
I found all this and more. In The
Atlantic Monthly I found a serious analysis that proposed stationing armed
guards along the US-Mexican border. The
author said, based on the experience of the Berlin Wall, that “not much
ammunition would be expended” since would-be immigrants would be deterred. These policy ideas had been circulating
widely for some time before Donald Trump proposed many of them.
I collapsed my
findings into three categories or tropes regarding Mexicans in the United
States. It is important to note that
rarely did the public discussion differentiate between Mexican Americans and
Mexican nationals—both were simply Mexicans.
The first trope or
theme had to do with demography.
Mexicans had become too numerous and were too fertile. A population “reconquista” was taking
place. The American “lifeboat” was full
and could not accommodate more immigrants.
The more refined essays focused on the demands on schools, hospitals,
police, and other institutions. But
generally there was an obsession about deadlines on when “whites” would become
a minority. The “browning of America” was
raising much anxiety about the character of the country.
That leads to the
second trope or theme of American identity.
Mexicans spoke a different language and came from a different
culture. Many of them were
nonwhite. We were not considered
assimilable. After decades in the US,
large barrios still existed. What did
this mean for American identity? One
distinguished scholar, Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard, believed that
Mexicans threatened the Anglo-Saxon Protestant core culture of the United
States. Huntington had earlier written about the external Muslim threat facing
the United States, which he called A Clash of Cultures. In his sequel, titled Who Are We?, he
focused on the internal Latino danger facing the country. Mexican Americans were basically “Mexicans not
born in Mexico” whereas the descendants of the Mayflower were the true “native
Americans.” Should these native whites
feel that they were under siege, Huntington predicted that they would deviate
from political norms. Was January 6th
a precursor? Huntington was only
one of many intellectual voices decrying the Latino presence in the country.
The third theme
behind anti-Mexican sentiment had to do with Mexico itself. Mexico was seen as a failed state--corrupt,
violent, and dominated by drug cartels. Mexican culture, according to Ann Coutler, was
nothing more than “rape culture.” Mexican
immigrants crossing the border were said to be carrying not just drugs but also
dangerous cultural baggage. Thus, the
southwestern border was portrayed as a fragile divide between order and
criminality. A wall had to be
built. Mexico represented a security threat
to the United States. The Pentagon, in
fact, has long had contingency plans for military intervention.
How do these
negative themes become translated into actual policy? Such ideas gain influence through the play of
partisan politics. In a competitive
political arena, the temptation to use fear or anger in order to secure votes
always exists. This was the case when Governor Wilson used Prop. 187 to win
reelection in 1994. For Republicans in
Texas and elsewhere, this was a sign that anti-immigration sentiment was a
favorable “hot button” that could be exploited.
But a negative campaign could also have unintended consequences. In California, the passage of Prop. 187 was a
wakeup call for Mexican American activists to launch voter registration
campaigns and citizenship drives. The
result of that organizing can be seen today in the dominance of the Democratic
Party in California. It is the mirror
opposite of Texas.
For those
interested in further reading, see the following:
David
Montejano, “On the Future of Anglo-Mexican Relations in the United States,” in
David Montejano, ed., Chicano Politics and Society in the Late Twentieth
Century (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1999)
____________,
“Who is Samuel P. Huntington? The
Intelligence Failure of a Harvard Professor,” Texas Observer, August 13,
2004.
____________,
“Deconstructing Trumpism: Lessons from
the Recent Past and for the Near Future,” in Phillip B. Gonzales, Renato
Rosaldo, and Mary Louise Pratt, eds., Trumpism, Mexican American, and the
Struggle for Latinx Citizenship (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2021)
__________________________________________________________________________________
A statement at the San Antonio City Council
session on the relationship between the City and ICE.by
Arturo Madrid, on behalf of the Surviving
the ICE Age Coordinating Committee.
I begin my remarks with our thanks and our
appreciation to Mayor Ortiz Jones and to our council members for making it
possible for us to express our concerns about the presence of ICE in our
community. My name is Arturo
Madrid. I am a resident of District 1, a
taxpayer and a voter. I am also a retired professor, as are various colleagues
who accompany me here today: Professors Gilberto Hinojosa, Jose Jiménez, David
Montejano, and Gerry Poyo.
We are particularly concerned because ICE
is deliberately targeting persons they deem to be undocumented or criminals
simply because they appear to be of Mexican or Latino origin. The president has made multiple public
anti-Mexican statements. Stephen Miller, his principal advisor on immigration,
is deeply antagonistic towards Mexicans.
The Supreme Court decision that allows ICE to detain people based on
their ethnic origins, their speech, and their appearance has resulted in the
detention of U.S. citizens simply because they look “Mexican” or Latino. The
majority of detainees and deportees to date are Mexicans, Central Americans and
Venezuelans.
Until recently, media coverage of ICE
actions has principally focused on California.
However, over 75% of detentions in 2025 occurred in Texas. A very large percentage of the detainees are
being held in Texas. ICE is active in
San Antonio and is detaining citizens and non-citizens, but except for the
highly-publicized action against members of the alleged Tren de Aragua in
December, little or nothing is being reported by the media or by our elected or
appointed governmental officials.
In response to the aggressive, destructive
and indefensible policies and actions of ICE, my colleagues and I have
established a grass-roots initiative, SURVIVING THE ICE AGE. Two mantras from the Civil Rights Movement
period, both attributed to the late Martin Luther King, Jr., guide our efforts.
The first is: The silence of good people is worse than the brutality of bad
people. The second is: When bad
people plot, good people plan. Our
goal is to engage the good people of San Antonio and Bexar County in defending
our community, our society, and our institutions against those assaults.
We believe that at the very least our
elected city officials should
·
provide us with information on what is occurring
in our city as relates to ICE or Border Patrol actions
·
develop a mechanism whereby city residents can
report arbitrary or questionable actions against them or their neighbors by
federal, state, county or city officials
·
express their concern about ICE and Border
Patrol policies and actions.
We have been told that our city and county
officials are severely constrained by both state and federal agencies, that
opposition to allegedly legal ICE policies and activities, either speech or
actions will constitute a violation of U.S. laws and will be prosecuted. We will remind you that the policies and
actions of Nazi Germany, of Fascist Italy, of Imperial Japan, and of the USSR
may have had a legal basis, but that did not make them ethical, or moral, or
just, or right or humane.
We remind you also that all of us, citizens
and officials alike, have the protections against unlawful or arbitrary actions
by governmental officials granted to us in the Bill of Rights and the
Constitution. These include being
innocent of any allegation of criminality unless proven guilty in a court of
law. Our rights include being able to
hold governmental bodies and officials accountable.
Over the past 12 months we have seen
elected and appointed officials cowed or stymied, the judicial system
hamstrung, institutional leaders intimidated, corporate officers bought off, and
the mainstream media sidelined. There is no cavalry who will ride to our
rescue. Therefore, we, ordinary citizens, will have to join the battle
ourselves.
Our responsibility is not to be silent or
to allow ourselves to be silenced, as well as to hold the leaders of our
institutions accountable for silence or inaction. We ask you to join us in speaking out and to defend
our rights as citizens and residents.
On Anti-Mexican Racism
By David Montejano
This is a brief
overview of exploratory research I did many years ago, in the late 1990s. The catalyst for this exploration was the
passage of Proposition 187 in California in 1994. Prop 187 was a comprehensive anti-immigration proposition
that would deny social services to undocumented immigrants and require teachers
and medical personnel to ascertain the legal status of students and
clients. Its landslide passage of 60%
was a shocking result in supposedly liberal California.
In 1994 I was
living in northern California. I
witnessed the Prop. 187 campaign, which went by the moniker “Save Our
State.” It was an SOS warning to
California voters about the increase and notable presence of Mexican
immigrants. I saw “Citizen Council”
protests in Mountain View, held across a corner where many immigrant day
laborers gathered and waited for work.
The citizens held signs that said “Go Back to Mexico” and “Don’t Make
Our Community a Third World City.” The
scene reminded me of the White Citizens’ Councils that surfaced throughout the
South in response to the Supreme Court’s Brown decision regarding school
desegregation. Governor Pete Wilson, who was up for re-election and behind in
the polls, sensed a winning issue and made Prop. 187 the centerpiece of his political
campaign. Wilson rode to victory on the back
of Prop. 187.
For me as an
analyst, the passage of Prop. 187 meant revisiting my optimistic conclusion in Anglos
and Mexicans in the Making of Texas.
I had interpreted the 1981 election of Henry Cisneros as Mayor of San
Antonio as a positive turning point in Anglo-Mexican relations. Cisneros was the first person of Mexican
descent to be so elected since Juan Seguin in the 1840s. Now I had to reassess my position.
Based on a review
of mainstream magazines and journals, could I construct a negative scenario and
even envision a reversal of rights that Mexican Americans had achieved the past
fifty years? Could I find discussion of
border closures, immigration sweeps, interior checkpoints, tightened voter
qualifications, and the like? Unfortunately,
I found all this and more. In The
Atlantic Monthly I found a serious analysis that proposed stationing armed
guards along the US-Mexican border. The
author said, based on the experience of the Berlin Wall, that “not much
ammunition would be expended” since would-be immigrants would be deterred. These policy ideas had been circulating
widely for some time before Donald Trump proposed many of them.
I collapsed my
findings into three categories or tropes regarding Mexicans in the United
States. It is important to note that
rarely did the public discussion differentiate between Mexican Americans and
Mexican nationals—both were simply Mexicans.
The first trope or
theme had to do with demography.
Mexicans had become too numerous and were too fertile. A population “reconquista” was taking
place. The American “lifeboat” was full
and could not accommodate more immigrants.
The more refined essays focused on the demands on schools, hospitals,
police, and other institutions. But
generally there was an obsession about deadlines on when “whites” would become
a minority. The “browning of America” was
raising much anxiety about the character of the country.
That leads to the
second trope or theme of American identity.
Mexicans spoke a different language and came from a different
culture. Many of them were
nonwhite. We were not considered
assimilable. After decades in the US,
large barrios still existed. What did
this mean for American identity? One
distinguished scholar, Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard, believed that
Mexicans threatened the Anglo-Saxon Protestant core culture of the United
States. Huntington had earlier written about the external Muslim threat facing
the United States, which he called A Clash of Cultures. In his sequel, titled Who Are We?, he
focused on the internal Latino danger facing the country. Mexican Americans were basically “Mexicans not
born in Mexico” whereas the descendants of the Mayflower were the true “native
Americans.” Should these native whites
feel that they were under siege, Huntington predicted that they would deviate
from political norms. Was January 6th
a precursor? Huntington was only
one of many intellectual voices decrying the Latino presence in the country.
The third theme
behind anti-Mexican sentiment had to do with Mexico itself. Mexico was seen as a failed state--corrupt,
violent, and dominated by drug cartels. Mexican culture, according to Ann Coutler, was
nothing more than “rape culture.” Mexican
immigrants crossing the border were said to be carrying not just drugs but also
dangerous cultural baggage. Thus, the
southwestern border was portrayed as a fragile divide between order and
criminality. A wall had to be
built. Mexico represented a security threat
to the United States. The Pentagon, in
fact, has long had contingency plans for military intervention.
How do these
negative themes become translated into actual policy? Such ideas gain influence through the play of
partisan politics. In a competitive
political arena, the temptation to use fear or anger in order to secure votes
always exists. This was the case when Governor Wilson used Prop. 187 to win
reelection in 1994. For Republicans in
Texas and elsewhere, this was a sign that anti-immigration sentiment was a
favorable “hot button” that could be exploited.
But a negative campaign could also have unintended consequences. In California, the passage of Prop. 187 was a
wakeup call for Mexican American activists to launch voter registration
campaigns and citizenship drives. The
result of that organizing can be seen today in the dominance of the Democratic
Party in California. It is the mirror
opposite of Texas.
For those
interested in further reading, see the following:
David
Montejano, “On the Future of Anglo-Mexican Relations in the United States,” in
David Montejano, ed., Chicano Politics and Society in the Late Twentieth
Century (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1999)
____________,
“Who is Samuel P. Huntington? The
Intelligence Failure of a Harvard Professor,” Texas Observer, August 13,
2004.
____________,
“Deconstructing Trumpism: Lessons from
the Recent Past and for the Near Future,” in Phillip B. Gonzales, Renato
Rosaldo, and Mary Louise Pratt, eds., Trumpism, Mexican American, and the
Struggle for Latinx Citizenship (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2021)
Surviving the ICE Age
Dear Colleagues and Friends,
Our central message, that
ICE is an immediate danger to all immigrants, a clear and present danger to all
Latin@s and ultimately a threat to American society and its institutions, is
increasingly confirmed. A recent Supreme Court ruling and two Trump
Administration actions provide compelling motivation for our initiative. ICE and the Border Patrol are now authorized
to carry out ethnic and racial profiling in their sweeps; children can be
summarily deported; and national guard and federal forces can be deployed to
U.S. cities in support of ICE actions.
Some of our fellow
citizens have accepted an inhumane, dehumanizing and un-American narrative that
criminalizes immigrants and delegitimizes the standing of Latinos in the U.S. Too
many of our family members, friends, colleagues and neighbors are oblivious to
or find themselves incapacitated by the threat to their wellbeing or are intimidated
by the forces arrayed against them.
Our
objective is not only to challenge that false narrative, but also to advance one
that humanizes immigrants, asserts the legitimacy of the Latino presence the
U.S., and affirms that the U.S. is a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and
multi-cultural society. Our primary task is to
engage the good citizens of San Antonio and empower them. Let us gather again with a clear sense of
purpose:
· to
recruit other concerned citizens to this initiative
· to
identify and connect with other entities that share our concerns
· to
seek out anecdotes, ideas, images, stories that counter fraudulent and
dangerous narratives,
· to
develop a set of compelling messages and
· to
identify the means to disseminate them.
Surviving
the ICE Age Project
Some of our fellow citizens have accepted an inhumane,
dehumanizing, and un-American narrative that criminalizes immigrants and
delegitimizes the standing of Latinos in the U.S.
For more information:
https://www.survivingice.com/ 
Join us by writing to:
survivingice@gmail.com
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