UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title A time for resistance : globalization, undocumented immigration, and the Chicana /o movement in the San Diego borderlands Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6gs4w33d Author Patiño, Jimmy C. Publication Date 2010 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO “A Time for Resistance”: Globalization, Undocumented Immigration, and the Chicana/o Movement in the San Diego Borderlands A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Jimmy C. Patiño, Jr. Committee in Charge: Professor Luis Alvarez, Chair Professor David G. Gutiérrez, Co-Chair Professor Lisa Lowe Professor Nayan Shah Professor Daniel Widener 2010 Copyright Jimmy C. Patiño, Jr., 2010 All rights reserved. The dissertation of Jimmy C. Patiño, Jr. is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Co-Chair Chair University of California, San Diego 2010 iii DEDICATION For those who shaped my past, Jimmy Patiño, Sr., Ricardo Cortez, Jr., Ruben Flores, and Oscar Niño, rest in peace. For my present, Nova Starr And for my future, Jimmy, III and LunaBella I dedicate this dissertation. iv EPIGRAPH It is, in the end the saving of lives we writers are about… We do it because we care… We care because we know this: the life that we save is our own. Alice Walker v TABLE OF CONTENTS SIGNATURE PAGE ......................................................................................................... iii DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... iv EPIGRAPH ......................................................................................................................... v TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................... vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................. vii VITA .................................................................................................................................. xi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION ......................................................................... xii INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER 1: Fronterizos in the Era of Border Enforcement, 1925-1968 ...................... 27 CHAPTER 2: “Raza Sí, Migra No!” Forging a Transnational Chicana/o Movement in the San Diego Borderlands ........................................................................................... 87 CHAPTER 3: “A necessary step and element in the struggle for political independence”: Autonomy and Chicano/Mexicano Mobilization in the California Borderlands ..................................................................................................................... 138 CHAPTER 4: Fragments of Chicano/Mexicano Mobilization: Forging Unity in a Heterogeneous Community ............................................................................................ 174 CHAPTER 5: Border Showdown: The Carter Curtain, the KKK and Chicano/Mexicano Autonomous Social Action.............................................................. 217 CHAPTER 6: Transnational Citizenship in the San Diego Borderlands: The Chicano National Immigration Conference and Tribunal ............................................................. 245 EPILOGUE ..................................................................................................................... 278 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………284 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the support given to me by my family, my professors and colleagues. This collective effort began with the inspiration given to me by my grandparents, Charles Patiño, Julia Patiño, and Reynalda Martínez who gave me my first history lessons through telling the stories of their lives as Chicanas/os and Mexicanas/os in Jim Crow Texas. I thank my mother, Linda Patiño, for convincing me that I was to do nothing less than go to college. I thank my sister, Linda Patiño Amador, and her family for reminding me how good I had it on my most trying days writing this dissertation as she beat cancer. I thank my brother Charles for showing me that you gotta take it day by day. I thank my new grandparents, Lito and Lita, Natividad and Juana Hernandez, for supporting me and inspiring me. I never forgot when Lita told me “You will do good mijo” when I first moved to San Diego. I thank my new parents, Jim and Martha Sheldon for always being just a phone call away when things got rough. I thank the Loeras, cousin Paul, Rick, Ramona and Little (now not so little) Ricky, Jack (Tio Joaquin) and Rosemary, Tía Mary, Troy, Stacy, Kimbie and Alfonso for coming to rejuvenate us during their visits. I especially thank Uncle Oscar and Aunt Lupe along with Sally and Jean Taramura, Annie Almazan, and Mary Hughes for opening their homes to us and making us feel close to family. I also thank the Patiño’s in Montebello, especially Robert and Linda, Suzie, Charlie and Kathy, and Jeanette for welcoming us to their homes and making us feel at home in Southern California. In San Diego, I thank Liz Rodríguez, Michael Bernal and family for coming into our lives and forming the basis of our San Diego family. I thank the Baca family for vii welcoming me into their homes. Thanks to all the West Mesa families that we shared our lives with and watched our kids grow up. There is not enough room on the page to fully thank all our family and friends for the all the little things, from a few bucks for groceries to watching our kids, that made this possible. My experience at UCSD was an amazing and unforgettable experience, largely due to the prolific mentors that surrounded me. To Luis Alvarez, who I met in my hometown in Houston and journeyed with to his hometown of San Diego, your mentorship encouraged me to think courageously and independently, challenging my ideas when I most needed it while respecting my own perspective. The single-most important mentor relationship that I formed when coming to UCSD was with David G. Gutíerrez. Dave taught me to see the migrant experience beyond simply an addition to Chicana/o history, but as a fundamental shift in our understanding of democracy, citizenship and struggle. Furthermore, he challenged me to dig through my work to find what my own politics were and as such, define myself in the academic world in the face of forces that seek to confine us. In relation to developing my own political identity, Danny Widener always encouraged me to maintain and further develop the relationship between activism and scholarship. Lisa Lowe was a gracious and engaged mentor. Working with Professor Lowe reminded me of the passion and joy that the world of ideas and its connections to struggle was. Similarly Nayan Shah was an example of scholarly excellence who challenged me to flesh out the gendered constructions of race and class as a way to maintain a critical approach to all social categories as mechanisms of power. I also thank UCSD professors Roberto Alvarez, Natalia Molina, Nancy Kwak, and Rachel viii Klein for engaging my work. I feel especially grateful for being surrounded by such prolific scholars. I also want to thank my colleagues for building an intellectual community of support and solidarity. In particular I thank my cohort, Gloria Kim and Alicia Ratteree for the support that got us through those first years; Jesus Perez, Lorena Marquez, Miguel La Serna, David Pye, Myrna Garcia, Dryden Hull, James Williams, Cutler Edwards, Israel Pastrana, Stevie Ruiz, Mayra Lucero, Harry Simon, Elizabeth Sine, Liz Mikos, Anita Casavantes Bradford, Maki Smith, Ricardo Fagoaga, and Matt Shindell for becoming part of a dynamic intellectual community that was central to my experiences at UCSD. I would also like to thank Herman Baca, veteran Chicano activist, for sharing his stories with me, introducing me to the San Diego Chicana/o community, and teaching me about grassroots activism through his experiences. A true organic intellectual, Herman was central to my learning experience in San Diego. I would also like to thank especially Lynda Claassen at UC, San Diego Mandeville Special Collections Library. Her assistance with navigating the Baca archives and giving me hands on access to them were crucial to the dissertation. Also, the dissertation would not have been possible without support from the Ford Diversity Fellowship, the Kenneth and Dorothy Hill Fellowship, the UC President’s Dissertation-Year Fellowship, the Historical Society of Southern California Haynes Fellowship, UC San Diego California Cultures in Comparative Perspective, and the UC San Diego Latino Studies Research Initiative. ix In closing I would like to highlight the efforts of my life partner, Nova Starr Patiño, who supported me by quite simply insisting that I balance my mind with my heart. She reminded me that I am much more than a scholar trying to think up ideas that can help the world, but also a human being worth taking time off work to watch the high tide roll in, the sun set, and our children grow. All the insights this dissertation might provide are truly due to her impassioned support, the flaws