Women Drug Traffickers

by Elaine Carey

  The San Antonio INS office sent information to the FBN that Escudero had been arrested in Sanderson, Texas, in October 1940. At that time, he had two U.S. Selective Service cards in his possession: one in his name and one in another person’s name. The Sanderson sheriff questioned him and later released him with no charges. However, evidence that Escudero had been in the United States and that he probably held proper documentation fueled the search for him and la Chata. As it turned out, the man arrested in Sanderson was actually Manuel Quintero, who had spent time in the Mendocino State Asylum for the Insane and remained estranged from his family. Thus, the Sanderson arrest turned out to be a false lead. U.S. authorities pressed their search for la Chata and Escudero in the hopes of capturing them before they reached Canada.

  With the information about la Chata’s and Escudero’s alleged presence in the United States, James E. Ruffin, special assistant to the attorney general of the United States, analyzed the treaties between the United States and Mexico as they might relate to Lola la Chata. He concluded that her crimes were extraditable under the Supplementary Extradition Convention of July 1, 1926, which stipulated that “crimes and offenses against the laws for the suppression of the traffic in and use of narcotic drugs” were extraditable. The 1926 agreement also stipulated that “crimes and offenses against laws relating to the illicit manufacture of or traffic in substances injurious to health or poisonous chemicals” were extraditable. Ruffin then outlined U.S. codes, citing Section 651 of Title 18. He quoted that if a treaty or convention truly existed between the U.S. government and any foreign government,

  upon complaint made under oath, charging any person found within the limits of any State, District, or Territory with having committed within the jurisdiction of any such foreign government any crimes provided by such treaty or convention, issue his warrant for apprehension of the person so charged that he may be brought before such justice, judge, or commissioner, to the end that the evidence of criminality may be heard and considered. If on such hearing, he deems the evidence sufficient to sustain the charge under the provisions of the proper treaty or convention, he shall certify the same, together with a copy of all the testimony taken before him, to the Secretary of State, that a warrant may issue upon the requisition of the proper authorities of such foreign government for the surrender of such person, according to the stipulations of the treaty and convention; and he shall issue his warrant for the commitment of the person so charged to the proper jail, there to remain until such surrender could be made.70

  It was then concluded that if la Chata was found in the United States, she would be charged with violation of the Harrison Act.71

  If the FBN, FBI, or any other policing agents apprehended la Chata and Escudero, the federal government wanted to ensure that they would be able to hold them in custody while the United States pursued extradition, even if they were found without narcotics in their possession. Despite the legal preparations and a manhunt that extended across North America, Lola la Chata and Escudero were ultimately arrested in a hideout in Mexico City on July 5, 1945. Over the next few days the investigation in the United States wound down.72 The fact that Anslinger, Hoover, and others believed that la Chata had traveled through the United States to deliver heroin as far away as Canada demonstrates a misreading of her role. As many scholars have demonstrated, those who create the greatest amount of distance between their product, in this case heroin, and the actual sale are the most successful. In 1945, la Chata was not a mule. At the same time, the fact that the FBN ignored the connections between her lab in Monterrey, her ties to men in positions of power, and her status in the trade suggests an ongoing misreading of the importance of overlapping networks that helped distribute her heroin beyond Mexico City. Although la Chata sold in La Merced, she, like present-day drug bosses, would not have risked crossing the border with a load of heroin in her car even if she was not the driver. Like her contemporaries, she surely paid people to move her product, transfer it across the border, and deliver it to those who could effectively sell it in distant regions, far from where she sold to her local customers. Why would a boss drive from Mexico City to Canada when she was surrounded by numerous police officers and politicians who were on her payroll?

  Despite her arrest in 1945, she fought the presidential decree. Special employee Salvadore Peña noted that U.S. Treasury officials and Mexican officials were closely observing la Chata’s supporters. Peña had worked closely with Mexican authorities in searching for la Chata when it was believed that she had crossed into the United States. He wrote:

  A close watch was kept by agents of the Federal Narcotics Police of the Department of Health and Assistance and by this office over people who tried to help her by using their influence with the authorities. This was done in order to keep check on possible connections between this subject and any prominent Mexicans who might have some interest in the illicit traffic of narcotics.73

  Both Anslinger’s memo to Sharman and Peña’s letter to U.S. Customs reveal the complexity of the networks that surrounded la Chata. Anslinger saw her threat extending well beyond her stronghold in Mexico City. Evidence the she had laboratories throughout Mexico, particularly in states that bordered the United States, further contributed to fears about her enterprises. As la Chata evolved from a successful local peddler to a transnational trafficker, Peña made it clear that she had powerful friends who facilitated her business.

  Despite her powerful friends, in 1945 Mexican officials sent la Chata to the Islas Marías federal prison colony off the western coast of Mexico. In a letter to President Ávila Camacho, la Chata’s daughter requested her transfer to a prison in Mexico City, arguing that her mother was simply a businesswoman who had worked hard to accumulate a small bit of wealth. La Chata wrote to the president and his wife, Soledad Orozco, in a letter probably dictated to her daughter from prison.74 La Chata argued that she was a hardworking businesswoman who performed good works for the community of La Merced. She wrote that she provided shoes and clothes for the community’s children as well as candy and toys during the holidays. Moreover, she claimed that she regularly assisted her neighbors with sugar and coal and other household necessities.

  Her letter to Orozco suggests that she thought the president’s wife might be more sympathetic to her struggle as a mother and as a good Catholic woman. Just like the damas in Catholic organizations, la Chata established her own programs of public welfare without any institutionalized support from the Church, the state, or the elites of society.75 Thus, she filled the void of the state by offering public welfare where such did not exist. Her entreaties echo those of present-day drug traffickers whose generosity builds the social networks that expand their businesses and ensure protection and surveillance within a localized neighborhood. La Chata’s appeals to the president’s wife for a transfer back to Mexico City did not appear to be successful. Within a few months after her arrival at the island prison, however, she received a medical transfer that brought her back to Mexico City, where she continued peddling.

  Although Anslinger acknowledged that women profited from the sale of narcotics, he saw that other women were vulnerable and in need of protection from dope dealers and addicts. Popular perceptions held that women served to perpetuate societal standards. As mothers, they acculturated children into the family, the community, and the nation. Addicts, on the other hand, pursued their own self-interest at the expense of their children and families. Their individual pursuit to feed their addiction and thus encourage criminality disrupted their families, their communities, and the nation.

  Anslinger, with his discursive views of addiction as foreign and criminal, became particularly concerned about drug use and prostitution when he heard stories about rich Westchester County (New York) matrons who shuffled from their affluent suburban homes to Harlem for a fix. He concocted an image for the public of a young “flaxen-haired eighteen-year-old girl sprawled nude and unconscious on a Harlem apartment tenement floor after selling herself to a c
ollection of customers throughout the afternoon, in exchange for a heroin shot in the arm.”76 Once addicts, these especially vulnerable and weak women fell into the grips of prostitution, often leading these white housewives and teenagers to engage in miscegenation.77

  According to Anslinger, narcotics abuse was one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The white suburban addict was to be pitied for her weakness. How could she, a lowly woman, stand up against the communist, “oriental,” African, or “Central American” conspiracy against the United States that plagued not just women as victims, but also men? In public, Anslinger liked to elaborate on the potential sexual connection between suburbanites and urbanites, casting suburban women as the prey of urban men. He recognized that women, too, sold narcotics, but this fact also took on a sensational aspect that endangered “real” Americans.78 When he portrayed the Latin American woman in the drug trade, he cast her as the stereotypical Latina “firecracker.” According to Anslinger, with a sexy swish of her hips and a slip of a packet packed with heroin, a Latina dealer could intoxicate any good (white) American man with her feminine wiles and her drugs.79

  Despite the sexuality of the Latina, which Anslinger used to titillate his audiences in the United States, Lola la Chata complicated his narratives of deviance. In 1945, when Anslinger received a report about la Chata’s attempt to flee to Canada, he circulated his own report that described her as short and fat (180 pounds), with a “Negroid” complexion and features and with gold-capped teeth.80 By describing her as “Negroid,” Anslinger highlighted what differentiated her from other Mexican peddlers and traffickers, who many times were listed in documents as “white” or with a “dark complexion” by agents operating in Mexico. Anslinger’s continued exploitation of race, drugs, and the danger thereof continued. La Chata as black posed a far greater threat to the United States than if she had been light-skinned. Anslinger’s use of racially tinged rhetoric sought to ensure greater funding and wider authority for his agency to hunt traffickers. His reference to her race circulated to each of the FBN’s offices in Atlanta, El Paso, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, as well as to the headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Ottawa.

  In photos published in the Mexican press after her arrest, la Chata did not smile to reveal her gold-capped teeth, and she demurely covered her head in a silk rebozo. During her trial, she reiterated her Catholicism and devotion to good works for the poor, as she did in her appeals to the first lady of Mexico. For Anslinger, who enjoyed titillating the crowds that came to hear him speak on the perils of drugs and foreigners who turned good men and women into addicts, a short, squat, religious, grandmotherly figure seemed an unlikely seducer of men. Perhaps that was what made her all the more dangerous.

  La Chata obviously was not a stereotypical Latina firecracker, but her physical appearance drew considerable attention from men in positions of authority on both sides of the border.81 The focus on the feminine as a site of danger to men, children, and other women was not new in drugs. The danger associated with women users, pushers, and peddlers was continually reiterated in correspondence between narcotics warriors.

  Figure 16. Lola la Chata: “Fin al trafico del drogas en México.” La Prensa.

  Dr. Leopoldo Salazar wrote an open letter in 1938 to la Chata and those who were protecting her. Addressing the letter to the “White Lady,” he seized upon the concept of beauty as an aspect of a culture of restraint. He wrote:

  I was certain that you, Chata, I mean Lola, were a young, beautiful, and seductive woman, and really I was worried about the time you would finally be brought to me and would try your wiles upon me in an effort to obtain my complicity because, and I tell you this very confidentially, I am susceptible to feminine charms.

  Later, I discovered—and you need not worry about me now—that you were not born under the sign of Venus and further that the years, the sale of quick lunches, the drug traffic, police persecution—of which it must in all honor be stated has always been cordial and affectionate—had inexorably rounded your figure.82

  Both Anslinger and Salazar saw Lola la Chata’s body and physical attributes as a site of danger and obsession.83 They also make reference to her lack of beauty, which photographs contradict. She was an attractive middle-aged woman who was fastidious about her physical appearance despite what the men suggested. Her weight represented her rejection of the feminine addict—the image of the heroin and morphine habitué that was featured in women’s magazines and soft pornography for the elite classes. Her rounded body and face undermined the assumption of authorities that she was a heroin addict—a charge that she continually denied. Her weight and ethnicity ensured that she would attract no sympathy from men such as Anslinger. Physically, she revealed that she was beyond a culture of constraint. Her physical appearance, however, represented to officials a lack of control; her gold-capped teeth displayed her vulgarity, while her chosen profession hinted of “immorality.” She had constructed her own concepts of beauty that would have been completely alien to Anslinger because they were uniquely Mexican, although Salazar must have been more accustomed to these representations.

  Anslinger’s description of la Chata as “Negroid” reflected his suppositions of her sexuality, her morality, and her potential threat. He drew this description from the photos that the Mexican government had supplied. His labeling of her and his distribution of the label ensured that she embodied the sexually lascivious black woman who had to be restrained. Yet, she operated and moved about freely.84 Other Mexican female peddlers and dealers were described as “white Mexicans” or “notorious,” particularly those from northern Mexico.85 La Chata’s “blackness” further emphasized her deviance and her threat to the United States. For Anslinger, her purported ethnicity and her growing success reinforced his view of the dangers of heroin and the inability of Mexican authorities to control the growing drug problem.

  In a memo to Henry Morgenthau, secretary of the treasury, about the dangers of heroin and the need for aggressive control of its use and distribution, Anslinger wrote:

  The dangerous nature of heroin from the social point of view overshadows its therapeutic importance; . . . the social dangers of heroin arise from the great reputation this substance possesses among drug addicts and from the illicit traffic which has arisen, its habit-forming properties being much worse than those of other habit-forming narcotics; and . . . the effect of heroin is, in the main, to produce a change in personality characterized by utter disregard for the conventions and morals of civilization which progresses to mental and moral degeneration.86

  Anslinger’s fears regarding the narcotics trade and addiction combined with his thoughts about Mexican justice and nationalism. He grew obsessed with a desire to control not only Mexican smugglers but also those responsible for their capture. Although Mexican authorities lobbied the legislature to strengthen the penal laws against narcotics traffickers and peddlers, to develop programs to treat addiction, and to take measures to stem the flow of drugs in and out of Mexico, U.S. officials constantly questioned Mexican assertions about their seriousness in the war on narcotics.87

  Anslinger had his own issues with one of his Mexican counterparts, Salazar. In the late 1930s, Anslinger led a campaign against Salazar, who dared to question his narrative about “reefer madness” that was allegedly ravaging the United States and that was, in part, Mexico’s fault. Salazar, who publicly questioned the criminalization of addiction, found himself a target of character assassination by the FBN and Mexican criminologists who agreed with Anslinger.88 Although Salazar sought to undermine Lola la Chata in the 1930s, he was removed from his position in the Ministry of Health after less than two years in office, due in part to the efforts of Anslinger and Washington’s chief customs agent in Mexico, H. S. Creighton. Anslinger demonstrated greater success at removing legitimate Mexican officials than Mexican traffickers.

  To Anslinger, a woman like la Chata along with others involved in the trade remained a menace to the United States
. In his eyes, Mexican officials were weak when it came to dealing with traffickers and addicts. The FBN issued demands that infringed on Mexican national sovereignty. For instance, in 1947 the FBN requested a list of the names of all known traffickers in Mexico. Mexican officials replied that they could not turn over the names of people who were under surveillance, but they could provide the names of those who had been convicted of trafficking, one of whom was Lola la Chata.89 Anslinger hoped to pass the list of suspects to his own agents, who could then independently target traffickers in Mexico. The list provided to the FBN by the Mexican authorities simply gave them information they already knew. In subtle ways like this, Mexican authorities continually sought to outmaneuver Anslinger’s efforts to undermine their own control.

  Prior to his dismissal, Salazar took a very different approach from Anslinger when engaging Lola la Chata. In his “Open Letter to Lola la Chata,” Salazar recognized that her chosen profession may have contributed to her rounded figure, but he did not discuss her complexion or ethnicity, perhaps because he, too, was Mexican. Like Anslinger, Salazar saw la Chata as dangerous because of her physical rejection of elite masculine concepts of feminine beauty, morality, and restraint. Despite her profession as a drug dealer, she was not a fallen woman; and despite her wealth, she had not become an elite moral female crusader. Because of these peculiarities she was more threatening than the run-of-the-mill female addict to constructs of Mexican and U.S. civilization.90 Instead, she operated on the boundaries of cultural gendered expectations of both nations, and no one knew how to define her or how to approach her.