El Norte

by Carrie Gibson

  1911—Porfirio Díaz is forced from office, and Francisco Madero elected president.

  1912—The states of New Mexico and Arizona join the United States.

  1914—First World War begins. The Panama Canal opens.

  1916—Francisco “Pancho” Villa and his men raid Columbus, New Mexico, and U.S. troops are sent on a Punitive Expedition against him.

  1917—Jones-Shafroth Act grants Puerto Ricans U.S. citizenship. The United States enters First World War. The Immigration Act of 1917 is issued. Mexico draws up a new constitution.

  1919—Johnston McCulley publishes his first Zorro story.

  1924—The Johnson-Reed Act puts immigration quotas in place, and also establishes the Border Patrol.

  1931—Some 40,000 Mexicans leave California as immigration raids are made across larger U.S. cities. By the end of the decade some 400,000 Mexicans leave the United States.

  1936—Puerto Rican independence leader Pedro Albizu Campos is imprisoned after two members of his Nationalist Party assassinate the police commissioner in response to the killing of party members in 1935.

  1937—Members of Puerto Rico’s Nationalist Party and island police exchange fire in what becomes known as the Ponce Massacre, leaving twenty dead.

  1938—Lázaro Cárdenas expropriates the oil industry in Mexico, after a series of crippling strikes.

  1939—The Second World War begins in Europe.

  1940—Luis Muñoz Marín, leader of Puerto Rico’s Popular Democratic Party, is elected president of the Puerto Rican senate.

  1941—The United States enters the Second World War.

  1942—The Bracero program begins, granting seasonal visas for Mexican workers to come to the United States

  1943—The zoot suit riots take place in Los Angeles. Anita Brenner publishes The Wind That Swept Mexico.

  1945—Second World War ends. In California, Mexican parents go to court to fight school segregation in what would be landmark Mendez v. Westminster case.

  1946—The United States passes legislation allowing Puerto Ricans to vote for their own governor.

  1948—Luis Muñoz Marín is elected governor of Puerto Rico.

  1950—There is an armed uprising in Puerto Rico in October as the island nears a referendum to approve a constitution, stifling the independence movement. On November 1, two nationalists in the United States make a failed attempt to assassinate President Harry Truman. Nationalist leader Albizu Campos is arrested again.

  1951—Puerto Rico votes in favor of Public Law 600, paving the way for a constitution.

  1952—Puerto Rico becomes a Commonwealth, or Estado Libre Asociado, of the United States. The Immigration and Nationalization Act (also known as the McCarran-Walter Act) passes, upholding the quotas of the Immigration Act of 1924 and also introducing preferences for skilled workers and family reunification.

  1953—Fidel Castro launches an attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago, Cuba.

  1959—The Cuban Revolution, under the leadership of Fidel Castro, takes power. President Fulgencio Batista flees the island.

  1961—Cuban forces defeat CIA-backed exiles’ attack on the island at the Bay of Pigs.

  1962—Cuba, the Soviet Union, and the United States face off in the Cuban missile crisis. César Chavez and Dolores Huerta set up the National Farm Workers Association, the forerunner of United Farm Workers.

  1963—Mexico and the United States sign a treaty settling the long-running dispute over the Chamizal strip of land in the Río Grande.

  1964—The bracero visa program for Mexican workers ends.

  1965—The Hart-Celler Act overhauls the immigration system, with 120,000 visas now allotted for the entire Western Hemisphere. A decade later this is amended to give each nation a quota of 20,000.

  1980—Fidel Castro lifts restrictions on emigration, and the United States sees the arrival of more than 100,000 Cubans in what was called the Mariel boatlift.

  1986—The Immigration Reform and Control Act legalizes the status of undocumented people who had been in the United States since 1982.

  1994—North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) comes into force. A rebellion over land use starts in the Mexican state of Chiapas, led by a group calling themselves the Zapatistas.

  1996—The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act gives more funding to the Border Patrol.

  2005—The Secure Border Initiative aims to use surveillance and monitoring technology to further fortify the U.S.-Mexico frontier.

  2006—The Secure Fence Act leads to about 650 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexican border. A wave of marches and rallies takes place in support of Hispanic immigrants and against proposed legislation that included provisions to make it a felony to be in the United States illegally, causing the bill to be shelved.

  2012—The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program is established, delaying deportation for some undocumented people who came to the United States as children.

  2014—The United States and Cuba announced a normalization of relations, including the release of political prisoners and the loosening of travel restrictions.

  2016—Donald Trump is elected U.S. president, promising to build a wall on the border with Mexico.

  2017—Before leaving office, Barack Obama ends the Cuban Adjustment Act, which had given preferential treatment to Cubans, as part of ongoing opening of relations with Cuba. In the summer, Donald Trump rolls back the Obama deal. In September, a category 4 hurricane, Maria, slams into Puerto Rico, devastating the island.

  Acknowledgments

  WRITING AND RESEARCHING this book involved a tremendous voyage through the present as much as the past, and I am very thankful to have had so many people supporting me along the way. I would first like to thank the team at Grove Atlantic, not least my editor, George Gibson, whose insightful comments and suggestions added a great deal to this book; as well as his predecessor Jamison Stolz and publisher Morgan Entrekin, who were enthusiastic about the idea from the start. My gratitude also goes to Emily Burns and Julia Berner-Tobin for all their help and patience. Many thanks, too, to my agent, Bill Hamilton, for his ongoing support.

  Special thanks go to my very generous friends who took time to read earlier chapters, or, indeed, entire drafts. Thank you to Andrea Acle-Kreysing, Juan Cobo Betancourt, Teresa Cribelli, J. Michael Francis, and Juan José Ponce-Vázquez. Also, a big thank you to Rory Foster for helping me keep my comma usage, and my facts, straight. Any subsequent errors, despite their efforts, are my own.

  I was also fortunate to have the opportunity to work out some of my ideas through presenting seminar papers, and would like to thank Eduardo Posada-Carbó at the Latin American Centre at the University of Oxford and Kate Quinn, Gad Heuman, and Steve Cushion at the UCL Institute of the Americas Caribbean seminar for their interest in this project. A book like this could not exist without the work of so many others, and I am profoundly grateful that there is such a rich and diverse historiography from which to draw.

  * * *

  The travel for this book was extensive. Starting in Tennessee and Georgia, I’d like to thank my family, especially my mom and dad, whose homes were the hubs for my travel, as well as my brothers and extended family. In Georgia, thanks also go to Benjamin Carr, Hollie Cope, Beth and Nick Gadd, and Crystal and Teague Paulk-Buchanan. Special thanks are due to the Dalton High School class of 1994. My classmates threw a great twentieth reunion, and some even helped me contact the necessary people for my research. A special thank-you goes to the generosity of the Viamonte family.

  Over the course of my travels, I stopped at a lot of U.S. national parks, where I was impressed and touched by the obvious enthusiasm of the staff. The parks were one of the real joys of this trip, and the National Park Service employees deserve a great deal of gratitude for the work they do.

  In South Carolina, Eric and Charlotte Rayburn were, as always, exemplary hosts. In Florida, David and Rebecca Ferguson’s generosity allowed me to explor
e Pensacola, and Michael Deibert helped me make sense of Miami. The staffs at the St. Augustine Historical Society, the University of South Florida, and the University of West Florida were generous with their time. Farther north, in New York City, thanks go to Jennifer and Dana Burleson, Christine de la Garza, and Reynaldo Ortiz-Minaya. The Hunter College Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños and the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture continue to be wonderful places to work.

  Heading west, I found it a delight to make numerous trips to Arizona, and thanks go to Carol Brochin, Kira Dixon-Weinstein, Ceci Garcia, Valarie James, and Lauren Raine. In Texas, it was lovely to have Ernesto J. Cavazos and Kristal Gaston meet me while I was making my way around the exceptionally helpful special collections at the University of Houston, Rice University, Texas A&M Corpus Christi, and the wonderful Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. Thanks are also due to Tony and Carla Hughes for their hospitality in Harlingen. In New Mexico, a very big thank-you goes to Joseph Martin for my tour of Acoma Sky City. Thanks, too, go to the University of New Mexico Center for Southwestern Research and Special Collections in Albuquerque, and the New Mexico State University Special Collection in Las Cruces.

  On the West Coast, the Bancroft Library at the University of California Berkeley was a rich repository, and it was also a delight for me to talk history with Elena Schneider while I was in town. Farther up the coast, special thanks go to Renee Koplan for my memorable stay in Lopez Island, Washington. A big thank-you as well to Julie Schimunek and the crew of the MV Uchuck III for helping me reach Nootka Sound.

  A few thousand miles away in Cuba, Jorge Renato Ibarra Guitart was once again a great help, as was Angelina Rojas Blaquier. It was always a pleasure to stay with Armando and Betty Gutiérrez at my Cuban home away from home. At the Instituto de Historia de Cuba, thanks go to René González Barrios and Yoel Cordoví Núñez, with a special thank-you to Belkis Quesada Guerra. In Puerto Rico, thanks go to Héctor Feliciano and María Concepción for their hospitality.

  In Mexico City, many thanks are due to Lourdes Aguirre for her generosity in showing us so many of Mexico’s fabulous historical sites. Thanks also to Anne Staples, Ryan Jordan, Ricardo Fagoaga, and Isabel Povea Moreno. It was an added treat to cross paths with Iris Montero while we were both visiting the capital.

  My friends in the U.K. and Europe have been listening to me talk about this book for years, and for that alone they deserve a shout-out: thanks go to David Batty, Mark Berry, Victoria Burgher, Lucas Cavazos, Chloe Stockford, Yvonne Singh, Tiffany Ferris and Chris Hall, Vicky Frost and Anthony Pickles, Lisa and Simon Hill, Mariama Ifode-Blease and Oliver Blease, Diana Siclovan and Josh Newton, Anne-Isabelle Richard and Alexandre Afonso.

  More gratitude than I could fit on these pages is due to my husband, Chris Stanford, whose patience, humor, and generosity have helped me navigate the sometimes rocky logistical and emotional terrain of researching and writing a book like this. Finally, I must thank my dear friend and brother, Matthew Cavazos, who introduced me to the world of the border with his tales of growing up in Texas. Little did he know, a few years later he would be my guide through El Norte. This book is for him.

  Selected Bibliography

  I have included here more recent books or classic texts in English that might be of interest to the nonspecialist reader. For a full list of primary and secondary sources consulted in English and Spanish, see carriegibson.co.uk.

  Acuña, Rodolfo. Occupied America: A History of Chicanos. 3rd ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.

  Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Rev. ed. London: Verso Books, 1991.

  Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mesitza. 4th ed. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 2012.

  Arellano, Gustavo. Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. New York: Scribner, 2012.

  Aron, Stephen. American Confluence: The Missouri Frontier from Borderland to Border State. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.

  Ayala, César J. American Sugar Kingdom: The Plantation Economy of the Spanish Caribbean, 1898–1934. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.

  ——, and Rafael Bernabe. Puerto Rico in the American Century: A History Since 1898. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.

  Balderrama, Francisco E., and Raymond Rodríguez. Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995.

  Balsera, Viviana Díaz, and Rachel A. May, eds. La Florida: Five Hundred Years of Hispanic Presence. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014.

  Beltrán, Cristina. The Trouble with Unity: Latino Politics and the Creation of Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

  Brading, D. A. The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State, 1492–1867. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

  Brenner, Anita. The Wind That Swept Mexico: The History of the Mexican Revolution, 1910–1942. Photography assembled by George R. Leighton. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971.

  Brioso, César. Havana Hardball: Spring Training, Jackie Robinson, and the Cuban League. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2015.

  Cadava, Geraldo L. Standing on Common Ground: The Making of a Sunbelt Borderland. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013. Kindle e-book.

  Calloway, Colin G. One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West Before Lewis and Clark. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003.

  Carrigan, William D., and Clive Webb. Forgotten Dead: Mob Violence Against Mexicans in the United States, 1848–1928. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

  Clayton, Lawrence A. Bartolomé de las Casas: A Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

  Clendinnen, Inga. Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, 1517–1570. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

  Cohen, Deborah. Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011.

  Coronado, Raúl. A World Not to Come: A History of Latino Writing and Print Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013.

  Deibert, Michael. In the Shadow of Saint Death: The Gulf Cartel and the Price of America’s Drug War in Mexico. Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press, 2014.

  de la Teja, Jesús F., and Ross Frank, eds. Choice, Persuasion, and Coercion: Social Control on Spain’s North American Frontiers. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005.

  Delpar, Helen. The Enormous Vogue of Things Mexican: Cultural Relations Between the United States and Mexico, 1920–1935. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1992.

  Dunkel, Tom. Color Blind: The Forgotten Team That Broke Baseball’s Color Line. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2013.

  DuVal, Kathleen. Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution. New York: Random House, 2015. Kindle e-book.

  Elliott, J. H. Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006.

  Fernández-Armesto, Felipe. Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States. New York: W. W. Norton, 2014.

  Ferrer, Ada. Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868–1898. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.

  Fitz, Caitlin. Our Sister Republics: The United States in an Age of American Revolutions. New York: Liveright, 2016.

  Flores, Juan. Salsa Rising: New York Latin Music of the Sixties Generation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.

  Flores, Richard R. Remembering the Alamo: Memory, Modernity and the Master Symbol. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002.

  Foley, Neil. Mexicans in the Making of America. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014.

  Fowler, Will. Santa Anna of Mexico. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007.

  Gallay, Alan, ed. I
ndian Slavery in Colonial America. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.

  Glasser, Ruth. My Music Is My Flag: Puerto Rican Musicians and Their New York Communities, 1917–1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

  Gómez, Laura E. Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race. New York: New York University Press, 2007.

  Gonzalez, Juan. Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America. Rev. ed. New York: Penguin Books, 2011.

  Gonzales-Berry, Erlinda, and David Maciel, eds. The Contested Homeland: A Chicano History of New Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000.

  Grady, Timothy Paul. Anglo-Spanish Rivalry in Colonial South-East America, 1650–1725. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2010.

  Gray, Paul Bryan. A Clamor for Equality: Emergence and Exile of Californio Activist Francisco P. Ramírez. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2012.

  Grillo, Evelio. Black Cuban, Black American: A Memoir. Houston: Arte Público Press, 2000.

  Greenberg, Amy S. A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012.

  Gutiérrez, Ramón A. When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500–1846. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1991.

  Hahn, Steven. A Nation Without Borders: The United States and Its World in An Age of Civil Wars, 1830-1910. New York: Penguin, 2016.

  Hann, John H. A History of the Timucua Indians and Missions. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996.

  Henderson, Timothy J. Beyond Borders: A History of Mexican Migration to the United States. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.

  Hernández, José Angel. Mexican American Colonization During the Nineteenth Century: A History of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

  Hernández, Kelly Lytle. Migra! A History of the U. S. Border Patrol. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.

  Hilfrich, Fabian. Debating American Exceptionalism: Empire and Democracy in the Wake of the Spanish-American War. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.