by Elaine Carey
101. For a discussion of the intersection between the private and the public in marginal women’s lives, see Sandra Lauderdale Graham, House and Street: The Domestic World of Servants and Masters in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992).
102. Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Domesticating Drink: Women, Men, and Alcohol in America, 1870–1910 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 47–49. Murdock argues that, by 1900, middle-aged women made up the majority of opium addicts in the United States. Women made up 40 to 50 percent of addicts in treatment facilities.
103. Tina Modotti, two drunk women, photo 35297, Casaola, Fototeca, Pachuga Hidalgo, reprinted in Pérez Montfort, Yerba, goma, y polvo, 36. It should be noted that morphine and heroin were prescribed to treat alcoholism.
104. Oscar Lewis, Five Families: Mexican Case Studies in the Culture of Poverty (New York: HarperCollins, 1975).
105. Silvia Marina Arrom, The Women of Mexico City, 1790–1857 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985), 180.
106. Bliss, Compromised Positions, 69.
107. William S. Burroughs, “Tío Mate Smiles,” in The Wild Boys, 11.
108. League of Nations, Advisory Committee on Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs, Twenty-Fourth session, June 2, 1939, box 22, RG 170, DEA-BNDD.
109. Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, “Open Letter to Lola la Chata.”
110. H. J. Anslinger to J. Edgar Hoover, July 28, 1945, RG 170, DEA-BNDD.
111. English translation of an article published in Excélsior, April 12, 1938, DEA-BNDD. While the article states that she was arrested with cocaine, a later memorandum described her as a heroin and morphine dealer.
112. Ibid.
113. For a discussion of the coverage, see Ricardo Pérez Montfort, “1937–1939: El extraño caso de Lola ‘La Chata’ y el Capitan Huesca de la Fuente Contra El Doctor Salazar Viniegra,” Humanidades: un periódico para la universidad, December 3, 2003, at http://morgan.iia.unam.mx/usr/huamnidades/262, accessed March 3, 2004.
114. James Stewart to Secretary of State, April 15, 1938, box 22, file Leopoldo Salazar, DEA.
115. “Opium Smugglers Are Using Planes,” New York Times, July 6, 1947.
116. James Stewart to Secretary of State, November 15, 1938, box 22, file Leopoldo Salazar, DEA.
117. Salazar headed the Division of Toxicological Studies at the Federal Hospital for Drug Addicts.
118. Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, “The Myth of Marijuana,” presented at the National Academy of Medicine, October 5, 1938, translated by Norman Christianson, vice consul, box 22, file Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, RG 170, BNDD-DEA.
119. Excerpt from translation of “Marijuana: A Medical and Social Study” by Jorge Segura Millán, box 22, file Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, RG 170, BNDD-DEA.
120. John R. Matchett, chemist, to Dr. H. J. Wollner, consulting chemist to the Secretary of Treasury, May 10, 1939, box 22, folder Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, DEA-BNDD.
121. Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra to H. J. Anslinger, April 29, 1940, box 22, folder Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, RG 170, DEA-BNDD.
122. “No Antiwoman Job Bias in the Narcotics Trade,” New York Times, April 22, 1975; and “Los dos mayores cárteles de México son dirigidos por mujeres: UEDO,” La Jornada, September 3, 2002.
123. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, 193.
CHAPTER FOUR
Note to Title: I would like to thank Howard Campbell and Bob Chessey for their help in compiling this chapter. Over the years, Bob has also kept me up to date on current events in Ciudad Juárez.
1. For an understanding of borderlanders, see Oscar J. Martínez, “The Dynamics of Border Interaction: New Approaches to Border Analysis,” in Global Boundaries, ed. Clive H. Schofield (London: Routledge, 1994), 1–15; and Oscar J. Martínez, Border People: Life and Society in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994).
2. Alfredo Corchato, “Mexico’s Drug War Shows a Virulent Feminine Side,” Dallas Morning News, July 12, 2008; and Rafael Nuñez, “A Not So Secret History of Vice in Juarez,” Newspaper Tree, March 6, 2006. For more current scholarly work, see Campbell, “Female Drug Smugglers on the U.S.-Mexico Border,” 233–67.
3. “Border Dope Queen Is Given Prison Sentence,” El Paso Herald-Post, April 23, 1943.
4. Campbell, “Female Drug Smugglers on the U.S.-Mexico Border.”
5. Andreas, Border Games; Nadelmann, Cops Across Borders; and Timothy J. Dunn, The Militarization of the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1978–1992 (Austin: Center for Mexican-American Studies, University of Texas, 1996).
6. Howard Campbell, Drug War Zone, 30–52.
7. “La reina de las drogas heroicas quedo ya libre,” La Prensa, August 28, 1930.
8. Affidavit of H. B. Westover, United States vs. Ignacia Jasso González et al., September 16, 1942, State Department (RG 59) Central Decimal Files, 1940–1944, 212.11, González Ignacia Jasso, box 105, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland. Initially, Westover worked with another agent, but Crook replaced him to become the second agent on the sting.
9. Smoking opium is simply derived from raw opium by boiling it to remove the alkaloids. The resulting liquid is strained. Once stained, the brown liquid is slowly boiled to create a paste that is then dried. Canned opium has a more liquid consistency than the putty-like consistency of smoking opium. Opium was frequently trafficked in small containers, from simple tins to highly decorated cans.
10. Affidavit of H. B. Westover. In 1944, a young woman, Hortensia Díaz, was arrested crossing the bridge from El Paso to Ciudad Juárez carrying $24,000 (2008: $313,000) hidden in her brassiere. She and a friend were later shot in El Paso. Díaz transported the money, a payment for opium, from New York. “Dope Ring ‘Dupe’ Who Hid $24,000 on Person Shot,” Washington Post, May 21, 1944.
11. United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, Report to the Economic and Social Council on the First Sessions of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs Held at Lake Success, New York, July 24 to August 8, 1947, 7.
12. Affidavit of H. B. Westover.
13. Affidavit of W. H. Crook, United States vs. Ignacia Jasso González et al., September 16, 1942, State Department (RG 59).
14. Extension of remarks of John J. Cochran, Congressional Record, Proceedings and Debate of the Seventy-Eighth Congress, First Session, vol. 89, no. 23, February 10, 1943, box 2, folder 20, Anslinger Archive. Cochran was a congressman from Missouri.
15. Ibid.
16. “Traficante en drogas ha sido aprehendida,” Excélsior, November 5, 1942.
17. “La Nacha apuesta que sales en libertad,” Diario de la Mañana, November 15, 1942.
18. “Una episodio más en la historias local de tráfico fuerte de drogas heroícos,” El Continental Span, November 6, 1942.
19. “Se dictó la formal prisión ayer en contra de la Nacha,” El Mexicano, November 11, 1942.
20. Treaty between the United States and Mexico, signed at Mexico City, May 4, 1978, Treaties and Other International Act Series, no. 9656, 31 U.S.T. For an overview of contemporary studies on extradition as associated with drug offenses, see Ethan A. Nadelmann, “The Evolution of United States Involvement in the International Rendition of Fugitive Criminals,” New York University Journal of International Law and Politics (Summer 1993): 813–85; Nadelmann, Cops Across Borders, 435–36; Sandi R. Murphy, “Drug Diplomacy and the Supply-Side Strategy: A Survey of United States Practice, Vanderbilt Law Review (May 1990): 1259–309; and John Patrick Collins, “Traffic in the Traffickers: Extradition and the Controlled Substances Import and Export Act of 1970,” Yale Law Journal (March 1974): 706–44.
21. “Ignacia Jasso González W/As La Nacha,” Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, 64-22536-1, March 25, 1943, 5, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, July 16, 2009. The request was based on Article 1, Sections 22–24 of the treaty of 1926 signed by Plutarco Calles.
22. Ibid.
23. H. J. Anslinger to Antonio Bermúdez, January 19, 194
3, Fondo Presidente Manuel Ávila Camacho, AGN.
24. In 1938, Mexican president Lázaro Cárdenas nationalized Mexico’s oil, triggering a fierce battle between foreign oil companies and the country’s executive branch. It was only in 1943 that Mexican officials and the foreign oil companies reached an agreement, partly due to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor policy, World War II, and sophisticated arguments on the part of State Department officials. For a history of U.S.-Mexico oil relations, see Linda B. Hall, Oil, Banks, and Politics: The United States and Postrevolutionary Mexico, 1917–1924 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995). Also see John J. Dwyer, The Agrarian Dispute: The Expropriation of American-Owned Rural Land in Postrevolutionary Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008).
25. Extension of remarks of John J. Cochran, Congressional Record, Proceedings and Debate of the Seventy-Eighth Congress, First Session, vol. 89, no. 23, February 10, 1943. Dutch Schultz (born Arthur Flegenheimer) was killed in 1935 by organized crime competitors. Schultz became successful in bootlegging and the numbers racket. Seven years after his death, his gang had allegedly moved into narcotics distribution, along with Lucky Luciano’s gang. Organized crime entities purchased opiates in a number of cities along the border. During World War II, Luciano was in prison and later deported to Sicily. There are many sensational accounts about organized crime figures; for example, Paul Sann, Kill the Dutchman! The Story of Dutch Schultz (New York: Da Capo Press, 1991); and Hickman Powell, Lucky Luciano: The Man Who Organized Crime in America (New York: Barricade Books, 2000).
26. Extension of remarks of John J. Cochran, Congressional Record.
27. “Ignacia Jasso González W/As La Nacha,” Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, 64-22536-1, March 25, 1943.
28. Antonio Bermúdez to Manuel Ávila Camacho, January 22, 1943, Fondo Presidente Manuel Ávila Camacho, AGN.
29. “Ignacia Jasso González W/As La Nacha,” Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, 64-22536-1, March 26, 1943.
30. Ibid., 3.
31. Higinio M. Reyes et al. to Manuel Ávila Camacho, January 1, 1943, Fondo Presidente Manuel Ávila Camacho, AGN.
32. Ibid.
33. Letter to Juan de Dios Bojórquez, n.d., Dirección General de Gobierno: Estupefacientes Drogas, vol. 2, file 3, AGN; and Letter to Ministro de Gobernación from José Mendiola, El Srio de Est. Liga Nacional Pro-Raza, Campaña Anti-Chino, January 14, 1927, file Manuel Chen, 362.2 (1-1), Expulsión y quejas contra exantrajeros, vol. 5, Dirección General de Gobierno, AGN.
34. See Oscar J. Martínez, Border Boom Town: Ciudad Juárez since 1848 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978); Oscar J. Martínez, Troublesome Border (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1988); and Martínez, Border People.
35. Howard Campbell, “Female Drug Smugglers on the U.S.-Mexico Border,” 249. Despite the lack of evidence to support stories that la Nacha and her husband used brutal methods to take control of the narcotics trade, the stories continue to circulate in the press. See “31 Women on List of Drug Smugglers Sought by DEA and FBI in U.S.,” El Paso Times, March 9, 2010.
36. “La reina de las drogas heroicas quedo ya libre,” La Prensa, August 28, 1930.
37. Rafael Nuñez, “A Not-So-Secret History of Vice in Juárez,” Newspaper Tree, March 6, 2006.
38. Higinio M. Reyes et al. to Manuel Ávila Camacho, January 1, 1943.
39. Denton, Dealing; Dunlap and Johnson, “Family and Human Resources,” 175–98; and Adler, Wheeling and Dealing.
40. Obviously, there are exceptions to this among present-day female drug traffickers, but la Nacha and la Chata were in the trade decades longer than many of their contemporaries.
41. Oscar Lewis, The Children of Sánchez: Autobiography of a Mexican Family (New York: Random House, 2011).
42. “La reina de las drogas heroicas quedo ya libre,” La Prensa, August 28, 1930.
43. Daniel Minjares Párea, Daniel Rodríguez et al. to the Governor of the State of Chihuahua, President of the Republic, Minister of Gobernación, March 2, 1933, Manuel Ávila Camacho, vol. 138, 525.3/189, AGN.
44. See Andrae Marak and Laura Tuennerman, “Official Government Discourses about Vice and Deviance: The Early-Twentieth-Century Tohono O’odham,” in Smugglers, Brothels, and Twine, ed. Carey and Marak, 101–21.
45. Nicole Mottier, “Drug Gang and Politics in Ciudad Juárez, 1928–1936,” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 25, no. 1 (Winter 2009): 19–46.
46. T. L. Lilliestrom, vice consul, Ciudad Juárez, to the secretary of state, October 13, 1939, Drug Enforcement Administration, Subject Files of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, 1916–1970, RG 170, DEA-BNDD.
47. Terry A. Talent to H. J. Anslinger, Treasury Department, Federal Bureau of Narcotics, El Paso, December 1, 1947, box 23, RG 170, DEA-BNDD. Seventeen names were on the list of Mexicans arrested for narcotics violations; la Nacha was the only woman.
48. “ ‘Border Dope Queen’ Gets Religion in Juárez Jail,” El Paso Herald-Post, March 14, 1944.
49. Ibid.
50. S. C. Peña, special employee to commissioner of customs, July 7, 1945, box 161, RG 170, DEA-BNDD.
51. Ignacia Jasso la viuda de González to President Ávila Camacho, Fondo Presidente Manuel Ávila Camacho, AGN.
52. Bob Chessey, interview with Joe Rey, attorney for the Jasso family, El Paso, October 1, 2007.
53. American Consulate at Ciudad Juárez, January 24, 1945, box 23, RG 170, DEA-BNDD.
54. “Fall of the Opium Queen,” American Weekly, January 4, 1948.
55. “Quash Indictment Against ‘La Nacha,’ ” El Paso Herald-Post, February 21, 1946.
56. “Fall of the Opium Queen.”
57. Memorandum Report, Bureau of Narcotics, El Paso, March 15, 1950, Consuelo Sanchez de Dovas alias Consuelo Rodriguez, Mexicali, box 29, RG 170, DEA-BNDD.
58. Mexican heroin accounted for 90 percent of the heroin sold in the state of Texas.
59. The Subcommittee on Improvements in the Federal Criminal Code, part of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, was composed of the following senators: Price Daniel (Texas), Joseph O’Mahoney (Wyoming), James O. Eastland (Mississippi), Herman Walker (Idaho), and John Marshall Butler (Maryland), along with C. Aubrey Gasque (general counsel) and W. Lee Speer (chief investigator).
60. “Soviet Retorts on Heroin: Charges in U.N. that U.S. May Be Behind Smuggling,” New York Times, May 3, 1952; and “Anslinger Replies to Zakusov Charges,” New York Times, May 6, 1952.
61. For a discussion of McCarthyism, see Ellen Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1998); and Richard M. Fried, Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).
62. U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Communist China and Illicit Narcotics Traffic, Hearing Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, Eighty-Fourth Congress, First Session, March 8–13, 1955, 14–17. For a discussion of his testimony, see Valentine, The Strength of the Wolf, 152–54.
63. Price Daniels to Óscar Rabasa and Carlos Franco Sodi, October 1, 1955, reprinted in Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Improvements in the Federal Code of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-Fourth Congress, Illicit Narcotics Traffic (Austin, Dallas, Forth Worth, Houston, and San Antonio, Texas) (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1956).
64. Telegram from consulate of Mexico City to Department of State, December 4, 1959, box 28, file Mexico Border, RG 170, DEA-BNDD.
65. “Two Arrested in Mystery Death of El Pasoan: Prisoner Says Man Was Slashed After Taking Dope,” El Paso Herald-Post, September 1, 1955.
66. “Five Held in Death Inquiry,” El Paso Herald-Post, September 2, 1955.
67. Salazar was born in Ciudad Juárez in 1928, but he grew up in El Paso. He entered the military for a two-year tour after he finished high school. After graduating from Texas Western Col
lege, he worked for the El Paso Herald-Post. He made his way to the Los Angeles Times, where he reported on the Vietnam War. He became bureau chief in Mexico City, covering much of Latin America. On August 29, 1970, Salazar, working for the KMEX television station as well as the Los Angeles Times, he attended the National Chicano Moratorium Committee to end the Vietnam War. He was killed by a police tear gas canister fired into the café where he and his crew had taken refuge during the riot. No police officer was ever charged. See “One Dead, 40 Hurt in East LA Riot,” Los Angeles Times, August 30, 1970.
68. Ruben Salazar, Border Correspondent: Selected Writings, 1955–1970, ed. Mario T. García (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
69. Urban myths routinely circulate about crime and drug issues. In Ciudad Juárez, there is an urban myth that Salazar was not permitted to return to the city because he had exposed details about its drug trade. In fact, his testimony reveals that politicians in the city knew that he was going to testify.
70. Ruben Salazar testimony, Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Improvements in the Federal Code of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-Fourth Congress, Illicit Narcotics Traffic, 3304–24.
71. Some of the images were published in the report, others were not. Price Daniel Committee, San Antonio Hearings, December 14, 1955, box 9, Daniel Hearings, File Texas, RG 170, BNDD-DEA.
72. Ibid.
73. Ruben Salazar, “La Nacha Sells Dirty Dope at $5 a ‘Papel,’ ” El Paso Herald-Post, August 17, 1955.
74. Ibid.
75. Ibid.
76. This may have been an error. Natividad had a closer relationship with his adopted or half brother Gilberto.
77. Salazar testimony, 3306.
78. Salazar testimony, 3317.
79. Appendix 1, Second International Opium Conference, Senate doc. 733, Sixty-Second Congress, Second Session; “La resolución tomada por el Consejo S. de Salubridad relativa a la ratificación de la Convención Internacional sobre el Opio celebrada en la Haya el año de 1912,” Fondo Presidentes Obregón Calles, AGN.