UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ Rightful and Moral Work: Rethinking Free Labor and Sex Work at the California Borderlands, 1877-1937 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in HISTORY with an emphasis in LATIN AMERICAN AND LATINO STUDIES by Erik Bernardino June 2021 The Dissertation of Erik Bernardino is approved: Professor Grace Peña Delgado, chair Professor Matt O’Hara Professor Gabriela Arredondo Professor Veronica Terríquez Quentin William Acting Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Erik Bernardino 2021 Table of Contents TABLE OF FIGURES iv ABSTRACT v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS viii CHAPTER ONE 1 CHAPTER TWO 46 CHAPTER THREE 98 CHAPTER FOUR 141 CHAPTER FIVE 191 EPILOGUE 243 APPENDIX ONE 262 APPENDIX TWO 263 BIBLIOGRAPHY 264 iii Table of Figures 1 CARLOS PACHECO C. 1870 69 2 1926 PASS-BOOK 151 3 CONTRACT LABORER RECRUITMENT ADVERTISEMENT 201 iv ABSTRACT Rightful and Moral Work: Rethinking Free Labor and Sex Work at the California Borderlands, 1877-1937 Erik Bernardino “Rightful and Moral Work: Rethinking Free Labor and Sex Work at the California-Baja California Borderlands, 1877-1937” explores Mexican working-class identities from a transnational perspective. I argue that Mexican workers, specifically agricultural workers and sex workers, leveraged their crossings between the United States and Mexico to assert rights favorable to themselves and their families. Migrants’ proximity to the US-Mexico border was a critical factor in defying the most exploitative elements of free and semi-free labor systems in which agricultural and sex workers toiled. At the California-Baja California borderlands, mobility disrupted some of the most visible forms of labor exploitation, including contract labor and poverty wages. Mobility also altered how growers and immigration officials understood laborers who struggled against state control of their movement and labor power. Three overarching questions underscore this study: 1) in post-1877 borderlands society, why did Mexican agricultural workers and sex workers resist constraints against their mobility by Mexican and American state-makers; 2) why did Mexican working people living on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands contest state-based definitions of labor and morality by developing and asserting their own ideas about work and honor; and 3) given that scholars have understood the border as v fluid for Mexicans before 1917, what do these early border crossings tell us about the nascent regimes of federal immigration regulation at the Baja California-California borderlands? “Rightful and Moral Work” shifts our understanding of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands through a focus on morality that considers freedom and unfreedom in everyday identity formation. In connecting morality to labor, this study redirects our attention to early policing mechanisms that created and favored certain laborers over others. Chapter One engages key debates and questions in the historiography of labor, migration, and policing by scholars in Mexico and the United States. Besides identifying the historiographical commitments of the study, Chapter One explores why American society sought to criminalize certain workers, while in Mexico, the same laborers were free from such punishments. In the same vein, Mexican contract labor workers, when they crossed into the United States, entered as free laborers. The difference lay in what each nation considered rightful and moral labor to be. Chapter Two examines the colonization projects of the 1880s in northern Baja California. It lays out a new understanding of labor based on a blended system of both wage labor and debt peonage. Ultimately, Mexicans rejected this combined free labor system and developed strategies to retain political rights like migrating to other places in Mexico or crossing north into the United States. Chapter Three examines the early years of Mexicali’s prostitution industry and the construction of morality from two contested views of labor and morality: the commerce in sex as a threat to decency and an affront to respectability controllable through strong regulatory measures, and the commerce vi in sex as a part of the local economy and as a temporary measure used by women to support their families. Chapter Four explores the 1926 Pass-book Plan in California’s Imperial Valley, also known as the Gentlemen’s Agreement. The Plan, developed by U.S. immigration inspectors, local entrepreneurs, the Calexico Chamber of Commerce, the American Consulate in Mexicali, and Mexican labor contractors, allowed 6500 Mexican men, women, and children to enter the U.S. The Pass-book Plan recognized these efforts and afforded pass-book Mexicans a pathway to American citizenship. Chapter Five examines the labor strikes of the 1920s and 1930s at the California-Baja California borderlands. Municipal police and federal immigration agents policed strike activity and impeded cross-border movement. The Chapter shows that agricultural and sexual commerce workers defined labor as based on one’s ability to provide subsistence for family survival, not morality tied to middle-class religiosity or female chastity. The Epilogue discusses the 1990s and the growing militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border alongside the trope of immigrants as criminals and undeserving welfare users. “Rightful and Moral Work” recasts Mexicans as circulating in a complicated political and cultural landscape between freedom and unfreedom through which they strived toward a better life. vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful for the support of the faculty and staff of the History Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. This dissertation would not exist without the support of my incredible advisor and dissertation chair, Dr. Grace Peña Delgado. I thank Dr. Delgado for being so patient, supportive, and encouraging through the entirety of my graduate career. I can never repay the tremendous debt I owe her for the career guidance and all the countless hours spent meeting with me to improve my arguments. Dr. Delgado was always ready and willing to provide feedback at every stage of the writing process. The day I met her was the day I hit the academic jackpot. I am grateful for the time and assistance of the members of my committee. Dr. Matt O’Hara provided key insight that pushed me early on in the dissertation’s writing. I also thank Dr. O’Hara for his support when my wife and I lost our twin daughters. I thank Dr. Gabriela Arredondo for her constant support and encouragement to engage with theory. Dr. Arredondo also taught me how to create community in graduate classrooms and the importance of carrying myself as someone who belonged in the academy. Dr. Verónica Terríquez has always been a supportive and enthusiastic mentor. I met Dr. Terríquez at a critical time when I was considering ending my graduate career, but her willingness to help me was a turning point. I viii would also like to thank Aaron Aruck, Priscilla Martinez, Bristol Cave-La Coste and Carlos Cruz. Thank you for forcing me to step away from the dissertation to socialize. I would not have completed the dissertation without the generous financial support that allowed me to conduct research. The UC Santa Cruz History Department funded research trips to Southern California, Baja California Sur, and Mexico City. The Lionel Cantu Memorial Award funded a most productive research trip to Mexicali, Baja California. The Research Center of the Americas’ Writing Community Dissertation Award funded professional editing for Chapter Four. A yearlong position with the History and Civics Project at UC Santa Cruz provided me necessary time to write Chapters One and Two. The HCP at UC Santa Cruz also reminded me of the importance of Mexican American history, engaging with public audiences, and my passion for teaching history. Thank you to Dr. Daisy Martin, Emily Howe, and Dr. George Bunch for the wonderful opportunity. I could not have completed this dissertation without the support of my family. To my mother, I would not be here without you. You are my inspiration. Above everyone else, you have never doubted me and or my ability to complete the dissertation. You can now brag you have a Doctor for a son. Tias Naty and María, gracias por los chistes, pozoles, y atoles. To my brothers, Aldo and Andy, thank you for driving to Santa Cruz and bringing me Tomy’s and excusing my less than helpful demeanor at various stages of the writing process. My in-laws, Salim and Mina, thank you for driving to Santa Cruz to care for Javi when I needed help meeting deadlines. ix My wife Saira, my first editor, soundboard, and unwavering supporter, I cannot thank you enough. We moved away from everything and everyone we knew, and at times I left you in solitude to write. But through it all, you worked hard to give me time to complete the dissertation. Lastly, to my children, Javier, Kira, Estrella, and Luna, los quiero a todos. Javier, your smile reminded me there were more important things in life than sentence structure. Kira, I only held you for a short time, but I will treasure it until the end of my days on this earth. Estrella and Luna, we never had the opportunity to meet, but I see both of you in my mind’s eye when I look up to the night sky. To all three of my daughters, so long as your mom and I remember, you will never truly be gone. Gracias. x CHAPTER ONE Introduction In 1929, Miguel Armenta, a legal resident of Calexico, California, and a citizen of Mexico received a home visit from Zachary T. Forester, a U.S. immigration inspector. What prompted Forester’s visit to the Armenta home was an anonymous letter alleging members of the Armenta extended family entered the United States without authorization.1 The anonymous letter-writer characterized the Armenta family as “no good” and suggested that they posed a danger to society.