© Copyright by Natalie M. Garza December, 2014 MEXICO FLOTANTE: MIGRATION, CULTURE, AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN POST-REVOLUTIONARY MEXICO _______________ A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History University of Houston _______________ In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy _______________ By Natalie M. Garza December, 2014 i MEXICO FLOTANTE: MIGRATION, CULTURE, AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN POST-REVOLUTIONARY MEXICO _______________ An Abstract of a Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History University of Houston _______________ In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy _______________ By Natalie M. Garza December, 2014 ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the cultural impact of transnational migration at the intersections of race, class, and gender within Mexico from 1929 to the present. Reading the cultural production of Mexicans as text, this study utilizes music, film, and literature as primary sources alongside oral histories, and archival research from Mexico and the United States. I argue that the popular culture and media is both reflective of the migrant experience and contributes to the development of a transnational identity which challenges the official narrative of Mexican nationalism. In the post-revolutionary period, the Mexican government promoted a nationalism rooted in the racial identity of mestizaje, the social values of the middle class, and a gendered patriarchal order. Mexican labor migration to the United States de-territorializes national identity both for the migrants and the communities they leave behind. This lived experience combined with the media and cultural production which reflects Mexican migration serves to normalize the experience of movement, creating a sense of transnational identity for communities on both sides of the border even when one has never experienced the process of migration. Examining the role of migration in defining national identity complicates the official narrative to reveal that communities touched by migration develop a sense of rootedness in Mexico while simultaneously imagining a transnational existence. Acknowledgements I would like to first of all thank my committee. Dr. Hart I am grateful for your constant support and positivity, Dr. Kellogg and Dr. O’Brien for encouraging me along the way, and Dr. Schiff for your constructive feedback. Thank you to my family for your unconditional love, forgiving me every time I missed events because I was busy doing work, and the help you gave which allowed me to progress. On many occasions you gave of your time, taking care of the kids while I disappeared into the library on weekends, or you traveled to Houston from San Antonio to make sure my family was eating and my house did not fall apart. I am grateful in particular to the women in my life, my mom Yolanda, my sister Mandie, and my mother-in-law Roxana because your help made it possible for me to pursue my professional goals. I want to thank my Houston History clan, Dr. Debbie Harwell, Aimee Bachari, Wyndham Bailey, Kristin Deville, Dr. Martin Melosi, and Dr. Joseph Pratt. You always provided encouragement, advice, and support of the emotional and financial kind. I will be forever grateful for allowing me the space to grow creatively and professionally. Thank you to La Colectiva for helping me find a home when I first arrived in Houston, and especially to Dr. Jesus Esparza and Juan Manuel Galvan for always believing in me, serving as my sounding board, and reaffirming the value of my work. Your friendship and words have meant more to me than you will ever know. Thank you to Mo for not letting me quit, for standing by me, and sometimes carrying me along the way. Our own journeys from San Antonio, Texas to the far-away lands of New England felt like a migration to a different country. I am grateful to go through life with someone who shares that experience and supports me in the aspirations that prompted that journey. Lastly to Mauricio and Santos, my sweetest boys, thank you for enriching my life beyond academic pursuits. It is a beautiful existence to be your mom. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Perspectives on the Causes of Migration 23 Chapter 2 Lo Mexicano: Writings on Mexican Nationalism 71 Chapter 3 Mexico for the Mexicans: Anti-Americanism and Mexico’s Case 104 Against Migration Chapter 4 Escape Valve: Modernity, Consumption, and the Role of 136 Remittances in Stabilizing the Mexican Economy Chapter 5 ¿Quien manda?: Migration and its Impact on the Patriarchal 171 Order Conclusion 211 Introduction “Identities are the names we give to the different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves within the narratives of the past.” 1 - Stuart Hall The 1943 Mexican film, Hotel de Verano, introduced a new character by the name of Tin Tan to Mexican audiences. Tin Tan walked onto the screen wearing a grey zoot suit which consisted of a knee-length, double breasted coat, and high-waisted pants that ballooned out at the knee and tapered at the ankle. His thin tie lay on top of a white, wide-collared shirt. His accessories included a flower in his lapel and a black fedora with a large feather extending from the back. When Tin Tan finally spoke he engaged in a dialogue of misunderstood language with Marcelo Chávez, the supporting actor in most of his films. In the course of the conversation Tin Tan said, “Oye carnal, ¿no trae una trola?... ¿Una torcha?... Yo vengo de Santa Moroca…Conoce un relativo mio?” It takes Marcelo some time to deduce that trola and torcha mean match, Santa Moroca translates to Santa Monica, and relativo refers to a relative or cousin. Mexico’s quintessential pachuco, Tin Tan embodied the clash of cultures that has emerged with Mexico-U.S. transnational migration, and demonstrated the impact this movement had on both the popular culture and identity of Mexico. This dissertation examines the role of migration in defining Mexican nationalism at the intersections of race, class, and gender in the post-revolutionary era. Following the 1910 revolution, the Mexican government promoted a nationalism rooted in the racial 1 Quoted from John Mraz, Looking for Mexico: Modern Visual Culture and National Identity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009), 4. 1 identity of mestizaje, the social values of the middle class, and a gendered patriarchal order. Utilizing a cultural analysis, I will argue that the cultural production relating to Mexico-U.S. migration both reflect migrant experiences and contribute to causative change in the development of a popular nationalism characterized by a transnational identity which challenges the official narrative. The Mexico-U.S. relationship is transnational in nature, meaning interactions between the two countries exist beyond the political and geographic boundaries of the nation-state. This is not to say that borders do not matter, or that there are not real distinctions between the people and place of each country. As George Lipsitz explained, the nation-state remains crucial to transnationalism but there also exists a rupture between culture and place. He asserted that binary oppositions between the local and global are no longer rigid, finding that people maintain a local identity and local ties while also abandoning those ties as they become part of the global system through processes like migration.2 Migration is but one component of the transnational tie binding Mexico and the United States, but it remains the most personal. Therefore, the daily encounters with transnational material goods, images, ideas, political arrangements, and economic policies, all become personalized. These routine interactions in combination with connections to migrant relatives and knowledge of migration as portrayed in popular culture and the media, lend themselves to the development of an experience of transnationalism among those who have never migrated. In the context of real and imagined experiences of transnationalism, Mexico flotante references a deterritorialized 2 George Lipsitz, “World Cities and World Beat: Low-Wage Labor and Transnational Culture,” Pacific Historical Review 68 (1999), 213-231. 2 identity both in that people do not have to be attached to the place of Mexico to identify as Mexicano, and that evolving interpretations of what it means to be Mexican incorporates the experiences of those living beyond the nation-state. In this sense the transnational is localized and the local is transnationalized.3 Approach In my approach to this study I explicitly argue that the cultural production of migration serves as a primary source in uncovering the changing conceptions of Mexican nationalism. In the absence of extensive documentation detailing the experience of migrants and how migration impacts communities within Mexico, this approach interrogates cultural representations for what they reveal about these “silenced” stories. Using the cultural studies method of reading literature, music, movies, photographs and political cartoons as text, emphasis will be placed on how the cultural consequences of Mexican migration to the United States both fit within the racial, class, and gendered narrative of Mexican nationalism and conflict with the state’s definition of lo Mexicano. In challenging official conceptions of national identity, migrants develop a transnationalism that is woven into the tapestry of Mexican consciousness. Emma Perez wrote in The Decolonial Imaginary, “There is a complicit and implicit understanding about what is privileged in current [historical] debates….Going outside the accredited realm of historiography means daring to be dubbed a-historical. It means transversing new territories and disciplines, mapping fresh terrains such as cultural 3 See Rebecca Golbert, “Transnational Orientations from Home: Constructions of Israel and Transnational Space Among Ukranian Jewish Youth,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 27 (2001): 713-731. With this article, Goblert argues against those who claim transnationalism exists only in the maintenance of regularly sustained social contacts.