Copyright by Marian Jean Barber 2010 The Dissertation Committee for Marian Jean Barber Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: How the Irish, Germans, and Czechs Became Anglo: Race and Identity in the Texas-Mexico Borderlands Committee: David M. Oshinsky, Supervisor Guy Howard Miller Michael B. Stoff Thomas Jesus Garza John McKiernan-Gonzalez How the Irish, Germans, and Czechs Became Anglo: Race and Identity in the Texas-Mexico Borderlands by Marian Jean Barber, B.A., M.P.Aff., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May, 2010 Dedication To Steven Aleman and in memory of Mary Roberta and Archie E. Barber Acknowledgements I wish to thank the many teachers, librarians, archivists, friends and family who have made this dissertation possible, starting with my first great history teacher, Alvin Stanchos, Jr., and my first great writing teacher, Virginia Beck. I particularly wish to thank my dissertation committee. David Oshinsky, my supervisor, has been remarkably kind, patient, and encouraging. Howard Miller has been both friend and mentor from my first days in the doctoral program. Michael Stoff has seen me through comprehensive exams and doctoral defense, always challenging me and making my work better. John McKiernan-Gonzalez brought his special knowledge of health care and the border. And Tom Garza swooped in from Slavic Studies and South Texas to help make my defense rewarding and fun. I owe special appreciation to David Montejano, who welcomed me to the discipline of borderlands history and played an essential role in giving this project its focus. Mary Helen Quinn and Marilyn Lehman made administrative tasks a breeze, and George Forgie, Bruce Hunt, and Jim Sidbury were exemplary advisors. My heartfelt thanks go to the SCIPs and their growing families; to the friends I have made through British Studies, especially Roger and Dagmar Louis, Miguel Gonzalez-Gerth and Tita Valencia, Frances Terry, Lauren Apter, and Miriam Cunningham; and to my dog park friends, especially Rick Laskowski and Alice Vetter. Melba Vasquez has pushed when I needed pushing and listened when I needed to vent. I cannot thank her enough. My siblings and my in-laws have brought joy to my life and accepted the limitations a dissertation imposes. I am grateful to my parents for their many years of support, and wish they were here to share this moment. Last, for everything he does and everything he is, I thank Steven Aleman. v How the Irish, Germans, and Czechs Became Anglo: Race and Identity in the Texas-Mexico Borderlands Publication No._____________ Marian Jean Barber, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2010 Supervisor: David M. Oshinsky This dissertation argues that Texas, a border region influenced by the disparate cultures of Mexico and the southern and western United States, developed a tri-racial society, economy, and polity in which individuals were designated “Anglo,” “Mexican,” or “Negro.” When the Irish, Germans, and Czechs immigrated to the state in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they did not fit comfortably into these categories. They were always viewed as white, but certain traits kept them from being considered Anglo. Language, religion, the use of alcohol, and a real and reputed willingness to ally themselves with their black and brown neighbors set them apart. The Know-Nothing movement, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and an 1887 prohibition referendum brought them significant hostility, even occasional violence. Their experiences in 1887 sparked efforts to “become Anglo,” shedding or downplaying their prior identities. vi Even in the early twentieth century, the idea of Irish, German, and Czech “races” remained current; such thinking contributed to harsh federal immigration restrictions in the 1920s. But in Texas, the extension of Jim Crow-style segregation to Mexican- Americans during that period also extended the Anglo designation to all those who were not black or brown. The two world wars furthered Anglicization, making it undesirable to be identified as German-American and giving all Texans a taste of the wider world. Between the wars, the discovery of oil on land owned by some Irish helped make them Anglo. In the post-World War II era, education reform and other developments sounded the death knell for crucial Czech and German language use, while Mexican-Americans began to seek the privileges of Anglo-ness as a reward for service to their country, without having to become Anglo. Revelations of Nazi atrocities helped change understandings of race and the concept of ethnicity gained in popularity. By about 1960, most Texans considered the Irish, Germans, and Czechs Anglo. During the next decade, as legal restrictions based on race were repealed and black and brown Texans embraced their racial identities, the Irish, Germans, and Czechs not only embraced their Anglo-ness but once again began to celebrate their ethnic attributes as well. vii Table of Contents Introduction .......................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1 ..........................................................................................................................25 Chapter 2 ..........................................................................................................................73 Chapter 3 ........................................................................................................................127 Chapter 4 ........................................................................................................................155 Chapter 5 ........................................................................................................................185 Chapter 6 ........................................................................................................................249 Chapter 7 ........................................................................................................................274 Chapter 8 ........................................................................................................................322 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................370 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................376 Vita ................................................................................................................................389 viii Introduction On Thursday, May 26, 1887, the people of Texas learned to whom their state belonged, and to whom it did not. J.B. Cranfill, editor of the Waco Daily Advance, published that day what came to be known as “the Native White Man editorial.” He harked back to Reconstruction, the era of “Negro domination,” or, as he colorfully put it, “the time when the carpetbaggers, the bo-Dutchmen and ignorant negroes ruled Texas.” Now, he wrote, “In the full tide of prosperity, only interrupted by the orgies of the bo-Dutchman and the ignorant buck nigger, we hardly have the time to recall the horrors of that day.”1 The Daily Advance was the chief organ of the interests pushing an amendment to the Texas constitution that would have banned the production, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages in the state. In its pages, Cranfill trumpeted views that were broadly held, if seldom spoken in such blunt terms. “[T]he native white Anglo-Saxon element of the South are going to rule their native land,” he warned. “In their veins flows the blood of men unaccustomed to domination of any kind.”2 It was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that the term “Anglo-Saxon,” later shortened to “Anglo,” would be used to distinguish “native whites” from African Americans and Mexican Americans. Indeed, Texas from the middle of the nineteenth 1 Waco Daily Advance, May 26, 1887. 2 Ibid. 1 century to the middle of the twentieth can be considered a “tri-racial borderlands,” in which three “races” shared the land – the “Anglo,” “Mexican,” and “Negro.”3 Cranfill’s admonitions did not stop with the black and brown, however. Others who opposed prohibition had affronted the native white Anglo-Saxons as well. “[T]heir outrages,” he continued, “will not be tolerated, whether in the shape of the mutilation of the statuary at the Alamo by the Irish Catholics, or the raising of the Hohenzollern ensign over the flag of the United States by bo-Dutch beer guzzlers at Weimar. The color line,” he declared, “is not the only line that can be called to the support of the flag of their fathers.”4 Elsewhere in the issue, Cranfill explained exactly what he meant by the curious derogatory term he applied both to Germans and to Czechs. “Prohibition was born in the South,” he wrote. “The importations in this campaign are the . bo-Dutchmen from the slums of Germany. For years the low- bred Germans have flocked here for the privilege of earning their bread.” And “’[B]o’ is simply an abbreviation of the word ‘Bohemian,’ and refers to that class of animal that is trying to turn Texas into a Sunday beer garden, destroy the sanctity of the Sabbath and the happiness of the Texas home.”5 The editor laid it out clearly: the Irish, Germans, and Czechs were no more to rule the state than were the “ignorant buck niggers.”