The Mexican Immigrant Press Beyond the Boederlands: the Case of El Cosmopolita, 1914-19
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University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for 1990 The Mexican Immigrant Press Beyond the Boederlands: The Case of El Cosmopolita, 1914-19 Michael M. Smith Oklahoma State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Smith, Michael M., "The Mexican Immigrant Press Beyond the Boederlands: The Case of El Cosmopolita, 1914-19" (1990). Great Plains Quarterly. 417. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/417 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. THE MEXICAN IMMIGRANT PRESS BEYOND THE BORDERLANDS THE CASE OF EL COSMOPOLITA, 1914,19 MICHAEL M. SMITH During the first three decades of the twentieth who settled in the Southwest, immigranrs in century, a variety of factors-overpopulation, the Great Plains and Midwest found no recep endemic poverty, inflation, stagnant wages, tive Mexican communities or barrios. More than peonage, and, especially, the Mexican Revo a thousand miles from home and facing an alien, lution of 191O-drove hundreds of thousands often hostile, environment, they encountered of Mexicans from their homeland and into the an unfamiliar language, cultural tradition, and United States. Although most of these migrants legal system. To cushion the shock of migration settled in the contiguous southwestern Ameri and to help satisfy their fundamental need for can states, tens of thousands proceeded north community life, Mexicans created their own into the Great Plains and the Midwest, estab national institutions. One of the most signifi lishing dozens of colonias (settlements) in rail cant products of ethnic institutional develop road centers, mining camps, industrial districts, ment was the immigrant press. Denied access and agricultural encampments. From 1900 until to information in American newspapers by their the Great Depression, the creation of these cul inability to speak or read English, Mexicans tural islands of Mexican immigrants in such depended upon their native tongue for news not places as Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Omaha, only of this country and their adopted com Chicago, Gary, and Lansing enriched the social munities but also, and more important, of their fabric of those regions of the United States be homeland and their own people. yond the borderlands. Unlike their compatriots This study will examine the history, func tions, and vicissitudes of El Cosmopolita, pub lished in Kansas City between 1914 and 1919. 1 Michael M. Smith is associate professor of history and The four-page weekly is significant for several coordinator of the Latin American Area Studies Program reasons: it was the first newspaper established at Oklahoma State University. He has written several in and for a Mexican community outside the articles about Mexicans in the Great Plains plus The borderlands; its contents offer intriguing in Mexicans in Oklahoma (1980). sights into the conditions, attitudes, and dy namics of an evolving heartland colonia; and [GPQ 10 (Spring 1990): 71-85] it provides a broader understanding of the role 71 72 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1990 and ideological tone of the immigrant press dur zations, churches with Spanish-speaking ing a critical period in Mexican and Mexican Catholic priests or Protestant ministers, and American history. dozens of Mexican-operated businesses. Among these enterprises were several short-lived news THE KANSAS CiTY COLONIA papers of which EI Cosmopolita was the most enduring and significant. 3 Between 1900 and 1920, the Kansas City colonia in which EI Cosmopolita arose became FOUNDING EL COSMOPOLITA the first substantial urban concentration of Mexicans outside the Southwest. 2 Kansas City's In August 1914, Manuel A. and Juan M. position as a major railway hub made it the Urbina founded EI Cosmopolita as an independ principal interior distribution point of Mexican ent weekly newspaper dedicated to "news, en workers destined for myriad locations through tertainment, and information." The brothers out the Great Plains, Midwest, and elsewhere, were well educated-Manuel attended nearby and its increasingly extensive commercial and William Jewell College-but apparently neither industrial development had attracted approxi possessed abundant financial resources. The Ur mately ten thousand Mexican immigrants by binas were active in local Mexican affairs and 1920. Initially comprised of solos (transient, un during the preceding month had joined several accompanied male laborers under short-term members of the Westside barrio to establish a contracts), immigrants typically held low-sta patriotic and mutualist society, the Union Me tus, poorly-paid positions in railway transpor xicana Benito Juarez. Their announced goals for tation, meatpacking plants, construction the paper coincided closely with those of the projects, and municipal and private services. Union Mexicana Benito Juarez-the promotion They lived in crude boxcar camps, overcrowded of ethnic solidarity and national pride and the residences, unsanitary tenements, and cheap defense of colonia interests. 4 boarding houses. Prevailing cultural and racial Despite its altruistic aims and philosophy, EI attitudes commonly debarred them from certain Cosmopolita was a commercial enterprise de residential areas, businesses, churches, munic pendent for survival upon subscriptions and ad ipal services, and social and recreational facil- ' vertisements. But like the vast majority of ities. Mexicans suffered overt segregation, Spanish-language newspapers of the era, EI Cos personal affronts and mistreatment, police ha mopolita was not a profitable endeavor and prob rassment, judicial inequities, and crass exploi ably operated at a loss throughout its half decade tation by Anglos and their own countrymen. of existence. 5 Many of its potential readers were After 1913, the unremitting violence of rev illiterate even in Spanish, and it is unlikely that olutionary upheaval and attendant social and the profits of local Mexican businesses were suf economic dislocations forced many Mexicans ficient to generate the needed advertising rev to remain in Kansas City for extended periods enue. The Urbinas struggled unsuccessfully to of time, but the circumstances of their daily keep the paper operating, and in December they existence only served to strengthen their at were forced to sell out to their business manager, tachment and loyalty to their native land. Im Manuel P. Martinez. Martinez, however, could migrants persisted in considering themselves not surmount the financial difficulties. In Feb Mexican nationals, seldom learned English, re ruary 1915, he sold EICosmopolita to three Kan sisted overtures to "Americanize," and refused sas City Anglos, who formed El Cosmopolita to become citizens of the United States. Re Publishing Company. The new owners prom sponding to their physical and social isolation ised to maintain the paper's goals and orien from the dominant society, Mexicans created tation and continued to employ Mexicans for their own ethnic institutions, including a num its editorial, newswriting, and production staffs. ber of social, patriotic, and mutualista organi- Shortly thereafter, Jack Danciger (fig. 1), a EL COSMOPOLITA 73 Spanish, speaking Anglo entrepreneur and E1 Cosmopo1ita's leading advertiser, became a part' ner in the venture and ultimately acquired sole ownership of the publishing company. 6 JACK DANCIGER Danciger's access to more substantial eco, nomic resources than those available to the pre' vious Mexican owners allowed him to place E1 Cosmopolita on a secure financial footing. He and his several brothers managed a highly suc, cessful family corporation that, in addition to real estate and mineral and petroleum proper' ties, included several enterprises directly tied to the Kansas City colonia and Mexican settle, ments throughout the region and the South, west. The Dancigers' Royal Brewing Company sold beer on both sides of the border; their Har, vest King Distilling Company imported and bottled a variety of Mexican alcoholic bever, ages, which were distributed through Danciger FIG. 1. Jack Danciger, El Cosmopolita. Repro~ duced courtesy of Joseph Regenstein Library, Uni~ Brothers Wholesale Liquor Company; and their versity of Chicago. Bernardo Lopez Mercantile Company imported and marketed a wide assortment of Mexican items. 7 More than likely, the Dancigers ac, General Venustiano Carranza's Constitution~ quired E1 Cosmopolita not as another business alist movement to those of his chief rivals, Fran, investment but as an instrument to control and cisco "Pancho" Villa and Emiliano Zapata. facilitate the promotion of products they sold Under Danciger, however, E1 Cosmopo1ita be' to a predominantly Spanish, speaking clientele. came stridently pro,Constitutionalist, reflect' Danciger improved the paper's technical and ing both his own connections to Carranza and journalistic quality and greatly increased distri, his family and the political affiliation of the bution. By 1918 weekly production reached Mexican editors he employed. In July 1915, 9,000 copies, making E1 Cosmopolita the second Danciger had granted Colonel Sebastian