Aliens in Their Native Lands: the Persistence of Internal Colonial Theory Author(S): JOHN R
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Southern Methodist University SMU Scholar History Faculty Publications History 12-2011 Aliens in Their aN tive Lands: The eP rsistence of Internal Colonial Theory John R. Chávez Southern Methodist University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.smu.edu/hum_sci_history_research Part of the Chicana/o Studies Commons, Ethnic Studies Commons, Intellectual History Commons, Other American Studies Commons, Other History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Chávez, John R., "Aliens in Their aN tive Lands: The eP rsistence of Internal Colonial Theory" (2011). History Faculty Publications. 5. https://scholar.smu.edu/hum_sci_history_research/5 This document is brought to you for free and open access by the History at SMU Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of SMU Scholar. For more information, please visit http://digitalrepository.smu.edu. Aliens in Their Native Lands: The Persistence of Internal Colonial Theory Author(s): JOHN R. CHÁVEZ Source: Journal of World History, Vol. 22, No. 4 (December 2011), pp. 785-809 Published by: University of Hawai'i Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41508018 Accessed: 24-07-2015 22:15 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41508018?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of Hawai'i Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of World History. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 129.119.5.96 on Fri, 24 Jul 2015 22:15:28 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Aliens in Their Native Lands: The Persistence of Internal Colonial Theory JOHN R. CHAVEZ SouthernMethodist University struggles, such as those of the Basques in Spain, Historically,the Palestinians in Israel, and Mexicans in the United States, have had much to do with claims to homeland, to issuesof indigeneity, ethnic intermixing,precedence, and immigration,where the claims of natives usuallytrump those of colonists,settlers, or immigrants,at least ethically.In the U.S. case, the view of Mexicans as alien immigrants to the Southwest has derived fromAnglo- Americans' perceptionsof themselvesas natives of the region despite theirown historicallylate arrivalas a people. One resultof that perceptionhas been the denial of freedomof movementto masses of Mexicans who have had to hide fromauthorities in orderto workand live in areas that were once part of Mexico. The predominantmyth of the "land of immigrants"with its theoreticalcorollary of assimilationhas served to justifythe unequal treatmentnot only of such "illegal aliens," but of legal residentsand U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. In response to that myth,ethnic Mexicans counteredwith theirown image of the northernborderlands as a lost homeland and in the 1960s helped develop a sophisticated theoryto supportthat image- internalcolonialism.1 1 JohnR. Ch&vez,Beyond Nations: Evolving Homelands inthe North Atlantic World, 1400-2000 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 190, 211; "ethnic Mexican" referstopeople of that heritage regardless ofcitizenship. JournalofWorld History, Vol. 22, No. 4 © 2011 by University ofHawai'i Press 785 This content downloaded from 129.119.5.96 on Fri, 24 Jul 2015 22:15:28 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 786 JOURNALOF WORLDHISTORY, DECEMBER 201 1 "Originally,"according to Mexican social scientistPablo Gonzalez Casanova, "the termfelony' was used to designatea territoryoccupied by emigrantsof the mothercountry. then colony was understood. ♦. as a territoryin which the . emigrantsdominated the indigenouspeo- ples." Subsequently,observers applied the termto peoples and regions within the boundariesof independentstates. By the 1960s this "inter- nal colonialism" became an importanttheory advanced to explain the historicaldevelopment of ethnic and racial inequality in the modern world. The concept gained wide acceptance among historians and others in Latin America, Europe, and the United States, especially as regardsethnic Mexicans in the latter.However, by the 1980s the the- oryhad been critiquedand dismissedas inadequate, forignoring class and genderamong other matters;nonetheless, the concept's influence persistedas more global colonial theoriesevolved.2 This development suggeststhat proponentsof internalcolonialism were too quick to sur- rendertheir arguments. Instead, they needed to revisethem and elabo- rate them in lightof the opposing opinions, because internalcolonial- ism continues to explain most effectivelythe historic subordination of indigenouspeoples withinlarger states dominated by othergroups. In short,internal colonialism seeks to explain the subordinatesta- tus of a racial or ethnic groupin itsown homeland withinthe boundar- ies of a largerstate dominated by a differentpeople. An example would be the Navajos whose reservationexists under the supervisionof the surroundingUnited States. Historically,that statususually results from militaryconquest, typicallyfollowed by political, economic, cultural, and complete social and even psychologicalsubordination. The degree of domination varies by time, locale, gender,class, and other factors, such as the presenceof additional ethnic groups,which create complex hierarchies- as in the nineteenth-centurydominance of Anglo-Amer- ican male merchantsover patriarchalMexican landowning families that in turnsubordinated matrilineal Navajos in New Mexico. Internal colonialism is the domesticsubset of a largercolonial (or imperial)par- adigm, includingformal colonialism, neocolonialism, postcolonialism, borderlandstheory, and postnationalism,that explains broader rela- tionshipsof ethnic inequalityacross historyand geography,thus sug- gestingmore appropriatesolutions to that inequalitythan other theo- ries.Internal colonialism is applicable globallyto dynasticand national 2 PabloGonzalez Casanova, "Sociedad Plural, Colonialismo Interno y Desarrollo," AmericaLatina 6, no. 3 (1963):16, 18, my translation. This content downloaded from 129.119.5.96 on Fri, 24 Jul 2015 22:15:28 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Chavez:Aliens in TheirNative Lands 787 states,as well as contiguousempires, from antiquity to the present- a breadththat atteststo this theory'simportance.3 Colonialism/Imperialism Internal colonialism derived fromearlier and even broader theories attemptingto explain territorialexpansion and ethnicconflict. Accord- ing to these, colonialism (often conflatedwith "imperialism")was the processthrough which manyif not mostpeoples confrontedeach other around the world.Through this process,colonial theoristsargued, one people forits own benefitdominates another, usually including the lat- ter's land. Formal colonialism is the acknowledged governingsystem utilizedby empiresin the provinces,but it has deeper economic, cul- tural,and social processes. Over the centuriesof European imperial- ism,thinkers as opposed as Adam Smith and Karl Marx had repeatedly examined colonialism, but with the intensificationof anti-colonial movementsin the twentiethcentury, the discussionbecame even more intense with the commentaryof such nationalist leaders as Mahatma Gandhi and Gamal Abdel Nasser.4 The internalcolonial concept initiallyappeared in scatteredobser- vations casually comparing domestic regions and peoples in Europe, forinstance, with those in formalcolonies. Perhaps the firstto develop the analogy (withoutthe internallabel) into an ethnic thesiswere actu- ally apologistsfor colonialism in response to decolonization pressures afterWorld War II. In 1952 Belgian delegates at the United Nations noted that expansion overseaswas not essentialto the colonial process since modernnational stateshad themselvesbeen formedby theircore populations dominating surroundinglands and neighboring ethnic groups.The delegates argued that in subjectingnative populations in 3 In thisarticle, the terms concept, model, theory, and paradigm refer to the increas- inglycomplex developments around the basic idea of colony. * rorsome of the many definitions orimperialism andcolonialism, seeAdam bmith, 1he WealthofNations, ed. Edwin Cannan (New York: Modern Library, 1937), p. 533;K. Marx andF. Engels, On Colonialism (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, [i960]), pp. 33,37; V. I. Lenin,"Imperialism, theHighest Stage of Capitalism," inSelected Works, vol. 5 (NewYork: International Publishers, 1943), pp. 80-81, 69-79; Mahatma Gandhi, "Essen- tialsof Peace," in The Moral and Political Writings, ed.Raghavan Iyer, vol. 2, Truth and Non- Violence(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 497-499; and Gamal Abdul Nasser, Egypt's Liberation: The Philosophy ofthe Revolution (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1955), pp.98-99; see also Jiirgen Osterhammel, Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview, trans. Shelley L. Frisch(1995; Princeton, N.J.: Markus Weiner Publishers, 1997), pp. 8-9, 15.