Debated Whiteness amid World Events: Mexican and Mexican American Subjectivity and the U.S.' Relationship with the Americas, 1924–1936

Abstract

By the 1920s, anti-Mexican campaigns in the United States had become a major liability for US interests in the Americas, as rival imperial powers attempted to exploit growing anti-American sentiments in Mexico and Latin America against American imperialism. The U.S. State Department sought to curtail animosity in Latin America by contesting discriminatory domestic practices that angered elite Mexicans and Mexican-American leaders who identified as white. After blocking eastern and southern European and Japanese immigration in the 1924 National Origins Act, the eugenics movement turned its attention to excluding Mexicans from entering the US. When legislative attempts at restriction failed because they conflicted with national and international commercial interests, non-legislative avenues were sought, including the Census and the courts. The 1930 Census was the only census that categorized Mexicans as a separate “race.” In the context of a changing racial formation in the United States, this unique category was reversed in 1936 due to Mexican-American leaders leveraging the fragility of the “Good Neighbor Policy” to force the Federal government into action.

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