Corazón de Dixie

Julie M. Weise

Description

When Latino migration to the U.S. South became increasingly visible in the 1990s, observers and advocates grasped for ways to analyze "new" racial dramas in the absence of historical reference points. However, as this book is the first to comprehensively document, Mexicans and Mexican Americans have a long history of migration to the U.S. South. Corazon de Dixie recounts the untold histories of Mexicanos' migrations to New Orleans, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, and North Carolina as far back as 1910. It follows Mexicanos into the heart of Dixie, where they navigated the Jim Crow system, cultivated community in the cotton fields, purposefully appealed for help to the Mexican government, shaped the southern conservative imagination in the wake of the civil rights movement, and embraced their own version of suburban living at the turn of the twenty-first century.
Rooted in U.S. and Mexican archival research, oral history interviews, and family photographs, Corazon de Dixie unearths not just the facts of Mexicanos' long-standing presence in the U.S. South but also their own expectations, strategies, and dreams.

Sujets

• Hispanic American Studies
• Ethnic Studies
• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Nueva Orleans
• Carolina del Norte
• Vidalia
• Arkansas Delta
• Racialization
• Mississippi Delta
• Charlotte, North Carolina
• New Orleans
• North Carolina
• American
• Georgia
• La Nouvelle-Orléans
• Charlotte
• Caroline du Nord

Informations

• Publié par: The University of North Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 30 septembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781469624976
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

Coraz n de Dixie
THE DAVID J. WEBER SERIES IN THE NEW BORDERLANDS HISTORY
Andrew R. Graybill and Benjamin H. Johnson, editors
Editorial Board
Sarah Carter
Kelly Lytle Hernandez
Paul Mapp
Cynthia Radding
Samuel Truett
The study of borderlands-places where different peoples meet and no one polity reigns supreme-is undergoing a renaissance. The David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History publishes works from both established and emerging scholars that examine borderlands from the precontact era to the present. The series explores contested boundaries and the intercultural dynamics surrounding them and includes projects covering a wide range of time and space within North America and beyond, including both Atlantic and Pacific worlds.
Published with support provided by the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas .
Coraz n de Dixie
Mexicanos in the U.S. South since 1910
JULIE M. WEISE
The University of North Carolina Press CHAPEL HILL
Published with support provided by the Oregon Humanities Center and the University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences.
Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Julie M. Weise The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ . Designed and set in Arno Pro by Rebecca Evans
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.
Cover illustrations: Courtesy (clockwise from top left) Humberto Mar n; Marcos Zervig n; Library of Congress; La Noticia ; and Richard Enriquez; background: depositphotos.com / day908; photograph frames: depositphotos.com / strelov; center taped panel: depositphotos.com / creisinger
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Weise, Julie M., author. Coraz n de Dixie : Mexicanos in the U.S. South since 1910 / Julie M. Weise. pages cm - (The David J. Weber series in the new borderlands history) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4696-2496-9 (pbk : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4696-2497-6 (ebook) 1. Mexicans-Southern States-History-20th century. 2. Mexican Americans-Southern States-History-20th century. 3. Mexicans-Southern States-History-21st century. 4. Mexican Americans-Southern States-History-21st century. 5. Mexicans-Southern States-Social conditions. 6. Mexican Americans-Southern States-Social conditions. 7. Southern States-Race relations-History-20th century. I. Title. II. Series: David J. Weber series in the new borderlands history. F220.M5W45 2015 305.8968 72073075-dc23 2015018768
This book was digitally printed.
For MATTHEW and for my mentors, teachers, and students
Contents
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE
Mexicans as Europeans: Mexican Nationalism and Assimilation in New Orleans, 1910-1939
CHAPTER TWO
Different from That Which Is Intended for the Colored Race: Mexicans and Mexico in Jim Crow Mississippi, 1918-1939
CHAPTER THREE
Citizens of Somewhere: Braceros, Tejanos, Dixiecrats, and Mexican Bureaucrats in the Arkansas Delta, 1939-1964
CHAPTER FOUR
Mexicano Stories and Rural White Narratives: Creating Pro-immigrant Conservatism in Rural Georgia, 1965-2004
CHAPTER FIVE
Skyscrapers and Chicken Plants: Mexicans, Latinos, and Exurban Immigration Politics in Greater Charlotte, 1990-2012
CONCLUSION
Acknowledgments
Appendix: Historical Sampling Methodology
Notes
Bibliography
Index
For a selection of original historical sources from this book, see http://corazondedixie.org ( http://dx.doi.org/10.7264/N3SJ1HWV ).
Maps, Figures, and Tables
MAPS
1 New Orleans and Mexico s Gulf Coast, showing popular steamship routes, 1920s-1930s 18
2 Mexicanos residences in New Orleans, 1930 29
3 Mexicanos in Mississippi Delta counties, 1930 54
4 Arkansas Delta counties and towns 84
5 Mexicanos presence in Georgia 123
6 Hispanic population in Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, and surrounding area, 2000 182
7 The geography of race and class in Indian Trail, North Carolina, 2012 183
8 Suburban and exurban districts of primary sponsors of anti-immigrant state legislation in the West and South 216
FIGURES
1 Goldcrest Beer 51-Caf -bar 2
2 Hortensia Horcasitas, New Orleans, Louisiana, ca. 1925 15
3 Robert Canedo, New Orleans, Louisiana, ca. 1945 15
4 Day laborers picking cotton on Marcella Plantation, Mileston, Mississippi Delta, Mississippi, 1939 52
5 Mexican seasonal labor, contracted for by planters, emptying bags of cotton on Knowlton Plantation, Perthshire, Mississippi Delta, Mississippi 52
6 Mexican and Negro cotton pickers inside plantation store, Knowlton Plantation, Perthshire, Mississippi Delta, Mississippi 53
7 Landrove family photograph, Mississippi Delta, ca. 1930 75
8 Wike s Drive Inn (Restaurant) 83
9 Come In Caf (restaurant and bar) 106
10 African American cotton day laborers in Memphis, July 14, 1954 112
11 Bracero reception center in Arkansas, probably Phillips County, exact date unknown 114
12 Bracero reception center in Arkansas, probably Phillips County, exact date unknown 115
13 A page from an Avalos family album: picking cabbage in Georgia in the 1970s 121
14 A page from a Mar n family album, 1970s 143
15 G mez family album, Florida, 1970s 144
16 G mez family album, Georgia, 1980s 145
17 G mez family photograph of agricultural labor in Georgia, ca. 1983 146
18 Westfield School students and migrant children at an Easter egg hunt, 1990 155
19 Janis Roberson hugs H2A workers arriving at her farm, ca. 1990 158
20 Wendell Roberson and migrant workers at a quincea era on the Robersons farm 159
21 H2A workers photos in the albums of employer Janis Roberson, 1995 160
22 H2A workers photos in the albums of employer Janis Roberson, 1991 161
23 English class at St. Juliana Catholic Church, Fort Valley, Georgia, ca. 1988 163
24 Ruth and Sonny Bridges and Mexican workers at Ruth s birthday party in the early 2000s 163
25 Mary Ann Thurman in her home with migrant workers at Christmas, 1988 164
26 Sonny Bridges teaching a Mexican agricultural worker how to make ice cream 164
27 Mexican migrant family, Fort Valley, Georgia, ca. 1988 165
28 Funeral program of former employer Roscoe Meeks, 2006 167
29 Angelina Mar n and supervisors, Toombs Manufacturing, 1989 168
30 Christmas card sent from employer Hank Dodson to crew leader Slim Avalos and his wife, Andrea 169
31 Kindergarten class picture from Berryhill Elementary School, Charlotte, 1994 180
32 Third-grade class picture from Poplin Elementary School, Indian Trail, Union County, North Carolina, 2010 181
33 Family outing to a shopping mall in North Carolina, ca. 2009 214
34 Mercedes R. s daughter Jacqueline 215
35 Mercedes R. at the North Carolina Zoo, ca. 2009 215
36 Immigrants rights vigil in Marshall Park, Charlotte, May 1, 2006 218
37 Photo postcard of the author s grandmother, Beverly Millman (later Weise), with friend, 1945 226
TABLES
1 Occupations of Mexicano men age sixteen and over in New Orleans, 1920 and 1930 25
2 Occupations of Mexicana women age sixteen and over in New Orleans, 1920 and 1930 27
3 Marriage partners of Mexicano men in New Orleans, 1920 and 1930 31
4 Marriage partners of Mexicana women in New Orleans, 1920 and 1930 32
Coraz n de Dixie
Introduction
A dark-skinned man, his face under the shadow of a brimmed hat, leans back against a corrugated metal wall (fig. 1). A beer advertisement marks the place as a bar. In the distance, two still darker figures walk along an unpaved street in a commercial district. It is November 1949 at the close of the cotton picking season in Marked Tree, Arkansas. The setting is the black side of town; the man in the foreground is Mexican. A Mexican Foreign Service officer, Rub n Gaxiola, took this photo in the fall of 1949. He had it printed and added a caption: Goldcrest Beer 51-Caf -bar. Corrugated metal construction. At the side of this establishment there is a sign that says, Garzias Mexicanas Servesa. In this place, blacks and also Mexicans are served. 1 Then the bureaucrat placed the photo in an envelope with nine other images documenting Mexicans racial position in Marked Tree and mailed it off to Mexico City, where another bureaucrat would review them and consider banning Mexican workers from Marked Tree s cotton fields.
Why was this Mexican man picking cotton in Arkansas in 1949 when so many poor white and black people still lived there? What did he hope to achieve in Arkansas, and what were his experiences while there? Why did he willingly associate himself with a group, African Americans, that had been systematically subjected to violence and deprived of social, economic, and political power? What was a Mexican bureaucrat doing in Marked Tree, and why did he and other elite officials care about the racial position of this poor Mexican laborer in the first place?
These are new questions in the histories of the United States and Mexico. When Latino migration to the U.S. South became visible seemingly out of nowhere in the 1990s, the newness of this Nuevo South went unquestioned. 2 Journalists asked, Will fajitas replace Moon Pie? as though Mexican food had no history in the region; 3 anti-immigrant activists decried the coming of Georgifornia, as though Georgia itself had not relied on Mexican and Mexican American laborers for more than forty years. 4 Extrapolating from individual case studies, some social scientists wondered whether anti-black prejudices born in Latin America would doom attempts at political coalition building while others pointed to possibilities for cooperation. 5 Southern teachers discussed Jim Crow as a matter of only black and white, and Latino elementary school students responded, Wh