by Elaine Carey
Although the study of the anti-Chinese movement has focused on the state of Sonora, the movement spilled across state borders and moved south to the Gulf Coast region, another “hot zone.”87 The governors of Durango and Tamaulipas, for example, both led campaigns against the Chinese in 1930. In September 1930, José Román Valdez, the governor of Durango, sent a telegram to the secretary of the interior requesting permission to deport first twenty-three, then an additional seventy-six Chinese men from his state. Police had arrested all ninety-nine targeted men at a private home where they were allegedly gambling and smoking opium. During the raid, police confiscated only 180 pesos as well as some playing cards, but Román requested permission to deport all the men. The arrest papers specified that all the men hailed from Canton, but this was only the port city from which they had left China and may not have been their hometown. Half of them were married. Only one out the ninety-nine had a previous arrest, for gambling. The other ninety-eight displayed buena conducta (good conduct), which meant that they had no criminal records, were hard working, and owed no debts.88
Figure 3. Pipes and opium. Serie Mariguana, opio, y drogas, ca.1935, 142913, Casasola, Mexico City, Fototeca Nacional del Instituto Nacional de Anthropología e Historia (INAH), Pachuca, Hidalgo.
Earlier in Tamaulipas, the arrests of Juan Lee, Enrique Lee, José Wong, and Manuel Ham exemplified the intersection of race, nationalism, and modernity in Mexico. They were arrested in September 1925 in an opium den, and they had all been arrested previously on similar charges. What made the case different was that it had been initiated in part by complaints sent to Governor Enrique Medina and the secretary of the interior by the Sindicato Nacional Pro-Raza (Pro-race National Syndicate, SNPR). In one letter dated August 20, 1925, the syndicate claimed:
The anti-Chinese leagues of this port and town of Cecilia in consideration of our society are justly alarmed and indignant at the continued cases of criminal opium dens that have been uncovered. We respectfully ask the Minister of the Interior that Juan Lee, Enrique Lee, José Wong, and Manuel Ham be expelled from our country. They bring shame to us and to all respectful citizens.89
The syndicate closed its letter by demanding the deportation of all vice-ridden classes that they believed to be degenerating the Mexican race. At that time, the state of Tamaulipas had the largest Chinese population among the Gulf States, but still it was a mere 2,918.90 Throughout the 1920s, the SNPR and other leagues demanded the expulsion of all Chinese from Mexico. In 1925, after the arrest of José Chiu, Rafael Leg, Manuel Chioke, and Chong Pérez, the SNPR demanded their expulsion, blaming the men for trafficking “huge quantities” of cocaine, heroin, morphine, liquid opium, and opium paste. The organization’s ads in newspapers became increasingly racist as they embraced the language of eugenics. One ad placed by the Liga Nacional Pro-Raza (Pro-race National League) and the Comité Feminil Anti-Chino de la Región Petrolera (Women’s Anti-Chinese Committee of the Petroleum Region) demanded a region-wide boycott of all Chinese businesses. The anti-Chinese campaign generated by these racist organizations created a hierarchy of acceptable foreign-owned businesses. Directing their statements to organized workers, these organizations argued that native-born, Spanish, and French business owners supported Mexican workers’ demands, while Chinese businessmen only wished to extend their “sick tentacles” to oppress Mexican workers.91 The fact that state governments responded to these tactics reflected the growing ties between bureaucrats and racist organizations.
Anti-Chino organizations posited a schizophrenic interpretation of Chinese masculinity that played out in popular culture. As discussed by historian Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Mexican nationalists cast Chinese men as “effeminate,” since they replaced women in certain areas of work; however, that work at times contributed to economic advancement for the men and their community. In the north, that work led to certain men finding success in the dry goods business, but the association with allegedly feminine work and Chinese contact with local women who patronized their stores led to rampant allegations of predatory sexuality. This appears contradictory since, on one hand, the men were described as feminine, but on the other they were portrayed as sexual predators who enticed women into prostitution. Both Robert Chao Romero and Hu-DeHart document that these portrayals also concealed jealousy over the economic success enjoyed by segments of the Chinese community. Wealthy Chinese offered lines of credit to young and newly arrived entrepreneurs, a common practice in all immigrant communities.92
By the late 1920s and early 1930s, the anti-Chinese movement in Mexico had grown in the number of both organizations and publications. The press in the northern and Gulf states associated the Chinese with drugs, addiction, and disease. The Chinese consul in Tampico, Tamaulipas, found himself under attack by a highly organized citizens’ group that had the ears of many politicians and the resources to take out ads in newspapers. In 1927, the Liga Nacional Pro-Raza placed an ad, “La bestia amarilla,” in newspapers. The ad was surrounded by the phrase “mujeres no degeneres tu raza” (women do not degenerate the race).93
Written as a song, “La bestia amarilla” refers to Mexico’s illustrious past, invoking the names of Cuauhtémoc, the Aztecs, and Hernán Cortés. In the text, the Chinese are responsible for all the travails of Mexico. They are “yellow beasts” who bring disease to the country through their drug use and addiction, creating “fetid bastions of misery.”94 Referring to an elusive, glorious past that ironically associated Cortés with Aztec rulers reflected a profound misreading of the national history that was propagated by the government. This revisionism supported the government’s rhetoric that created an external threat and focused attention on the enemy within.
As Canadian historian Catherine Carstairs notes, the moral panic surrounding drugs led to Canada’s passage of the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, which was designed to keep unwanted immigrants out of Canada.95 This act predates the height of the anti-Chinese movement in Mexico. Thus, there is a correlation with regard to the exchange of information in North America about drugs. North American governments attempted to link drugs to foreigners. The anti-Chinese movement that emerged in all three countries in the 1920s demonstrates a shared narconarrative of vice and race. In policy papers drafted by the three governments and even by the League of Nations, officials created an enemy that embodied internal vice and, further, contributed to the degeneration of the predominant race in each respective society. In North America, Chinese immigrants became that enemy.
Mexican women who associated with Chinese men became targets for “rehabilitation” by women’s organizations, public health officials, and politicians as fears of miscegenation fueled the anti-Chinese movement. Newspaper editorials, slogans, cartoons, and popular culture further maligned Chinese immigrants and their families.96 Some images showed native (although European in representation) women cast as slaves, tethered to plows, or trapped in the house. Mass arrests of Chinese men revealed a distinct narrative that differed from what the anti-Chinese leagues portrayed. Wives and other family members wrote to governors begging that their loved ones not be deported. In one appeal, a wife discussed how her husband had come to Mexico as a child. He no longer spoke Chinese and now had children and grandchildren born in Mexico. She explained that her husband was Mexican, that he supported the community and engaged in civic life. In other words, he was a good husband and a good citizen.97
Chinese officials in Mexico also took action. The Chinese consul, M. M. Chen, sent a letter of complaint to the secretary of the interior in 1930 about the continued arrests of Chinese immigrants in the cities of Tampico and Villa de Cecilia in the state of Tamaulipas. Chen’s letter only raised the ire of pro-Raza Mexicans, though, because he had dared to complain about the arrests, harassment, and poor treatment. More significant is how the letter became public. In his letter, Chen argued that the police illegally detained Chinese men, and, contrary to reports, they were not arrested for illegal entry into Mexico. Rather, Chen alleged, their homes were raide
d purely from information provided by citizens’ groups. Then, after arresting the Chinese men, the police withheld food and water for over twenty-four hours.98 The rhetoric of pro-Raza groups together with the growing awareness of the racial overtones of targeting immigrants as evidenced by Chen’s complaint led to a diplomatic problem in the Mexican government. The secretary of the interior circulated the letters to the governor and other officials since he himself was uncertain what to do. As in Canada and the United States, Chinese nationals and diplomats defended their compatriots against allegations that they associated with drugs.99
Chen’s letter provides an opportunity to investigate anti-Chinese sentiment. In their mass arrests, the police confiscated few opium pipes or decks of playing cards and very little money. In photographs taken of arrested men, some were posing with a pipe or two, but one wonders if the photos had been staged by the police and social workers. The fact that one-half of the men arrested were married, whether to Chinese or Mexican women, demonstrates that they were not criminals but that they were part of the fabric of the nation. Furthermore, most likely their wives were present in Mexico. Their ages ranged from quite young (teenage) to elderly. The lack of evidence of wrong-doing suggests that the raids and arrests took place in clubs or aid societies that pro-Raza groups easily identified rather than in shady alleged opium dens. The lack of drug paraphernalia also casts doubt on claims of rampant Chinese drug use. Thus, Chen and other diplomats had to defend not only those who had left China, but China itself from charges that it was a nation of opium addicts, white slavers, and shifty businesspeople setting out to exploit native masses around the world.
Figure 4. Public officials and Chinese men who had been detained. Serie Mariguana, opio, y drogas, ca. 1925, 142899, Casasola, Mexico City, Fototeca Nacional del Instituto Nacional de Anthropología e Historia (INAH), Pachuca, Hidalgo.
MUTUAL AID SOCIETIES AND POLICE CORRUPTION
Mexican government officials focused on the Chinese community because they blamed the immigrants for introducing poppy production and addiction to Mexico in the late 1800s. For many years, those Chinese who cultivated poppy in Mexico and extracted opium paste did so quietly and mostly for private consumption. As the demand for opium and its derivatives—whether legal or illegal—grew, so did the growing and processing of poppy.
In postrevolutionary Mexico, opium use moved far beyond the nation’s Chinese communities. With the U.S. government’s anti-immigration legislation directed at the Chinese and its greater surveillance of the Pacific coast, many Chinese immigrants made their way to Mexico. The Mexican government encouraged such immigration and worked closely with tongs (organized crime groups) to recruit and bring workers to Mexico. Historian Robert Chao Romero has discussed how Mexican officials sought labor and worked with the tongs to acquire men to work in a host of industries, whether agriculture, railroading, or mining. Vice-President Ramón Corral worked with the Chee Kung tong in San Francisco to recruit and acculturate Chinese workers.100 Chee Kung also organized Chinese businesspeople in both the United States and Mexico. Of course, that also opened up Mexico to Chinese organized crime in the areas of prostitution, gambling, and opium peddling. In the 1920s, a tong war emerged between Guo Min Dang and its Mexican affiliate, Lung Sung, who hoped to gain control of the drug trade from Chee Kung.101 More significantly, the competition between the tongs spilled over into other parts of Mexican society. In some ways, the tong wars fueled anti-Chinese sentiment.
Revolutionary rhetoric, concepts of nationalism, and xenophobia reached levels that made life increasingly difficult for Chinese immigrants and their families in Mexico. Moreover, Chinese businesspeople and the groups they formed to combat attacks also became suspect. The cases of the Chee Kung tong (frequently transcribed as Chee Quen Towan) and Lung Sung (which also appears as Lung Sing), affiliated with Guo Min Dang, reflected an internal struggle within the Mexican Chinese community for power. The two organizations had distinct ideological differences. The Chee Kung tong was more conservative than the Lung Sung, and its goal was to organize different business enterprises.102 These struggles in Mexico reflected power struggles that were taking place between Chee Kung and Guo Min Dang in China. Hence, the political infighting in China continued in Mexico. The power struggles between tongs fueled the anti-Chinese movement and served as an early narconarrative about police corruption in Mexico and its association with organized crime. More importantly, the tongs’ activities demonstrated Mexico’s centrality to the growing transnational criminal organizations, which were operating with greater impunity.
In 1927, J. Meza Terán, a government official, drafted a classified document in which he claimed that Chinese owners of grocery stores, cafes, bakeries, and other business establishments had formed a mutual aide society, the “Chee Quen Towan.”103 He argued that in Sinaloa, men who had become wealthy from selling drugs also established their own organization, Lung Sung. Lung Sung’s members hailed from Tampico, Veracruz, San Luis Potosí, and the Federal District. Meza Terán argued that Lung Sung aimed to control the opium trade and gambling houses in major cities throughout Mexico.
Meza Terán went on to explain that Lung Sung viewed Chee Quen Towan as a potential threat to their business enterprises throughout Mexico. That threat crystallized when Chee Quen Towan expelled members who had ties to Lung Sung. Meza Terán argued that the Chinese had turned on each other, behavior that was common of their race, he explained. Meza Terán’s racialized views of the tongs’ fighting blinded him to other realities, such as long-standing political and ideological differences that were imported to the nation. While Mexican authorities had confiscated materials from the tongs, it appears that many of their Chinese-language books and documents were never translated into Spanish, since few translations exist in the archives. Despite Meza Terán’s lack of knowledge regarding the Chinese, he did gather information about their important alliances with non-Chinese, an important feature in organized crime.104
After a raid on a Lung Sung establishment by Raúl Camarago, chief of the narcotics police of Mexico City, Lung Sung made Camarago an offer he couldn’t refuse. Meza Terán recounted that members of Lung Sung asked Camarago to work for them. In turn, Camarago arrested members of Chee Quen Towan for drug trafficking and demanded their expulsion from Mexico. Thus, Camarago accepted a bribe to expel principal members of Chee Quen Towan, who had never been involved in drug trafficking. Chee Quen Towan members protested the arrests and expulsions, but to no avail. How could the words of an immigrant stand up against those of the chief narcotics officer? Meza Terán also accused Camarago of working for other prominent drug dealers who were native-born Mexicans. Camarago helped Lung Sung gain control of various enterprises such as gambling dens and drugs. In his conclusion, Meza Terán lamented the immoral practices of his colleague, and he recommended that Camarago be placed under surveillance.
In 1929, Camarago was arrested for corruption, and his case revealed that ties existed between the police and drug traffickers beginning in the 1920s regardless of the hysteria and antidrug rhetoric then sweeping the nation.105 Camarago, like other police officers at the time, could be bought. Significantly, he played an important role in the early cross-ethnic alliances that were emerging in the world of drugs. Camarago’s job put him in contact with drug dealers and traffickers all the time. Men such as Camarago had an impact on the perceptions of Mexicans and their ability to police drugs and drug trafficking, since cases such as his not only were widely reported in Mexico but also became part of a transnational narrative of police ties to drugs.
FOREIGN VICES AND THE CREATION OF
MEXICAN DEVIANCY IN THE 1930s
While Mexicans used the Chinese as scapegoats for the scourge of drugs and vice, a competing narrative of vice, danger, and disease in the United States cast Mexicans in a similar position. Like Chinese workers who came to Mexico to fill a labor void, Mexicans moved across their own northern border in search of work and to engage in trade and commerce. Despite
the Mexican government favorably responding to its northern neighbors’ demands to tighten regulations regarding the distribution of narcotics and cocaine, 1930s images and rhetoric about drugs in the United States and Canada painted a different picture. While Mexicans looked to foreigners as undermining their nation, Mexicans themselves were seen as the foreign distributors of vice and disease by Americans and Canadians north of the border.
American nativists who feared the influx of immigrants and temperance crusaders who abhorred drunkenness realized that certain people sought to profit from Prohibition. The Mexican government, too, recognized that profits could be gained due to Prohibition. As men and women from the United States crossed the border in search of alcohol and entertainment, their demand created a lucrative border market. Thus, Mexican mayors and governors created “zones of tolerance” where foreign businesspeople could convene in border cities and enjoy alcoholic beverages. The border zones evolved into havens for Americans seeking a good time.
Despite the convenience of these zones of tolerance, economic problems in the United States ignited fervor against Mexicans. With the advent of the Great Depression, Mexican immigrants in the United States found a harsher social environment north of the border. Many Americans saw Mexican immigrants as competitors for scarce jobs and a drain on social welfare systems. In January 1928, prior to the collapse of the economy, C. M. Goethe published “The Influx of Mexican Amerinds” in Eugenics: A Journal of Race Betterment. He decried the growing migration of poor and working-class Mexican “peons” to California: “It is doubtful whether ten percent of Mexico’s say 15 million are free from Amerind blood. Eugenically as low-powered as the Negro, the peon is from a sanitation standpoint a menace. He not only does not understand health rules: being a superstitious savage, he resists them.”106 Mexicans, he argued, lowered wages for native-born workers. More significantly, they brought disease and vice and engaged in miscegenation. They had more children than native white women. He argued that, although Ellis Island may have closed, a back door to the United States existed that also needed to be closed. Goethe’s views and others like them, although extreme, found a growing audience in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s.