The History of Border Patrol (part one)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We're going to be reading some old acts and the
word alien is in them, but we do not personally
use this term, but it is part of the language
of these laws. Hi. Everyone, this is Carmen and Christina

(00:20):
and this is Estoria's Unknown, a podcast where we talk
about Latin American history. Sometimes it's horrible and so tavy
topics like racism, corruption, and genocide. But more than that,
it's not about resistance, power and community. And Carmen, Christina,
what are we talking about today? So I'm trying to
open my sparkling water. Oh god knows, are like little

(00:42):
grown out there? We do, good job? Okay, well, Christina,
Today we are talking about the history of border patrol.
And this is gonna be a series because there's a
lot to this and you've taken so long. Yeah, well no,
I have not why it's going to be a series,

(01:03):
but yeah, that's that's like in addition to it being
a series, I have taken so long. And when did
I start reading this, It's like August. Yeah. Yeah. My
main source is Kelly Little or Little her Nasis book
titled Mira, a History of US Border Patrol. Her book

(01:25):
is like obviously most books are organized in a specific way, structure, whatever.
And so I'm kind of using the book also to
outline my notes. Supplemental, simplemental, supplementing, Okay, yeah, supplementing. Why
does that sound weird anyway here and there for whatever,

(01:45):
you know, things that come across. But this first part
it's basically how the border patrol came to be. But
before we talk about the border patrol, we have to
talk about the history of immigration law and restrictions in
the US. So you have talked about a little bit
before a little bit. Yeah, before I get into the
history of immigration restriction and blah blah, I wanted to

(02:08):
share a quote of Kelly and it kind of like
it encompassed like what border patrol is or whatever. This
quote to me, so quote border patrol literally embody the
site of political disenfranchisement, economic inequity, and social suspicion within
the United States. Like I don't know if that makes

(02:29):
sense to you, but basic, I mean, the way I
understood this is like border patrol presents all these things. Yes,
thank you, thank you for that, because I needed the
dumb bitch explanation for myself. So the border patrol was
established after the passage of the Department of Labor Appropriations Act.
And like I mentioned before, migration control in the US

(02:52):
has been happening since the creation of the United States,
since the gendercided a creation of the United States. I add, yes,
So we've talked a little bit about these laws. I
don't remember specifically which ones, but I know we have
talked about some of them. If I if I recognize someone,
but we said we talked about that one, I know
we did, And yeah, I know we talked about it.

(03:13):
I think in the well, we've done a lot of
immigration yeah episodes, and that would probably be where we
talked about them, right, right. So a series of anti
immigration laws were passed in the US, beginning with the
internal fields beginning, but at least for my purpose, it's
beginning eighteen sixty two Act to Prohibit the COOLi Trade
and culminating with the National Orange Just Act of nineteen

(03:36):
twenty four. And then we should note that this word
cooly is a derogatory slur against Chinese workers, so I
won't be repeating it. Oh, I was like, what is that?
I don't recognize that word, But okay, I looked up
why it started, and I don't remember why. How that
specifical word came to be. But it's a slur against
Chinese workers. What's that act called? I just want to

(03:57):
see how it's filmed. Coo l E. But it's the
eighteen sixty two Act to Prohibit the Cooley Trade. Oh
Kooley is a derogatory term used for low wage laborers,
typically those of Indian or Chinese descent. It was first
used in the sixteenth century European traders across Asia. I

(04:17):
just don't know why that word. Oh, I just know
what you was to slur, right, Okay, I see what
you're saying. Yeah, oh okay. The term kooli is widely
believed to have originated from the Tamil word cool, meaning
higher or wages. Oh you know what, yes, now that
you said that, I remember reading that. Yeah. And it

(04:39):
was the during the British colonial rule that they started
using this as a derogatory term. Yeah, okay. So this
law masqueraded as an anti slavery law to protect supposedly
protection Ese laborers from enforced labor, but in reality it
pushed Chinese workers out by imposing a monthly acts on

(05:00):
Chinese immigrants seeking to do business in California. Oh my, gosh,
this sounds like the Anti Miners Act. It was like
that basically, but specifically for Chinese laborers. And this law
was later declared unconstitutional. When seeing the Washburn, what a surprise. Yep, shocker.
Wait wait, year is this again? This is in the

(05:21):
eighteen hundreds. Okay, and they like you. And this act
was passed in eighteen sixty two. I didn't write down
when it was declared uncon unconstitutional though, so okay, no,
I was wondering when it was passed. So after this law,
in eighteen seventy five, Congress passed a law prohibiting criminals

(05:41):
and sex workers from legally entering the US, and they
also extended the ban on contract workers from China. This
one I think we talked about probably yeah in the
Lagan matcha episodia. Then in eighteen eighty two, Congress passed
a General Immigration Act that band all quote lunatics, idiots, convicts,

(06:04):
those unliable to become public charges, and those suffering from
contagious diseases quote. And then this law also expanded the
restrictions on Chinese migrants by banning all Chinese laborers, not
just contract workers. So the other one was the eight
contract to one was, yeah, contract workers specifically, and these
were all workers. What year eighteen seventy five, right, okay, yeah,

(06:29):
well okay, this was eighteen eighty two. Eighteen seventy five.
One was prohibiting criminals and sex workers from literally entering
the US. Yes. Yeah. And then besides these national laws,
there was also a series of state specific anti Chinese
laws passed in states like California. Just to give one example,

(06:49):
in eighteen seventy, San Francisco passed the law requiring every
lodging house to be no less than five hundred cubic
feet of aerospace for each larger and this targeted China
because they tended to be more crowded. And then also
in eighteen eighty two, Congress introduced a fifty cent tax
on each person entering the US to fund the bureaucracy
of their growing migration control. In eighteen eighty five, Congress

(07:13):
prohibited the import of any contract labor, not just Chinese
contract labors, into the US. In eighteen ninety one, Congress
banned polygamists to the list of banned persons in the
United States, and they authorized the deportation of any person
who unlawfully entered the United States. So I guess deportations
were not a thing before that. I don't know, right,
I wonder what they did then. In nineteen oh three,

(07:36):
Congress added people with epilepsy, anarchists, and beggars to the
list of banned people. Okay, very uGenius of them. Yes, yeah,
they The Immigration Act of this year also allowed for
the deportation of anyone who became a public charge within

(07:56):
two years of arriving to the United States. Okay, anyone
arrested with an entry. I think a public charge is
also anyone who is using who becomes like dependent on Oh,
I don't know that. That's what I mean. That's what
public charge means. Now, Oh, I don't know that either. Okay, Yeah,

(08:17):
you still can't become a public charge if you are
going through the process of becoming a resident or things
like that. Okay, so this is when you use like
government aid. Yeah. Oh, but I thought it was kind
of government aid existed back then. That's why I'm not
sure if it's the same thing, or if it just
means if you can't work for yourself or on your own.

(08:38):
I'm not sure exactly the meaning of public charge in
this sense, right, right, because if it was about criminal
or becoming going to job, they would say criminal anyone
who writes you know what I mean. Yeah, And the
restrictions abandoned. Taxes just increased from there. By nineteen seventeen,
the tax for entry in the United States was eight dollars.

(09:00):
All eligible immigrants bes a literacy test, and the scope
of deportation was brought into five years, and all entry
into the United States outside of an official part of
entry was banned. But that wasn't enough, Okay, I mean
it already sounds like a lot. That wasn't enough. It
wasn't enough for the eugenists, xenophobes, and nativists, but really

(09:23):
like racists, right right, right. But they are referred to
as navists nativists, you know, in the book, So that's
what I'm gonna call them. And who is a nativist.
They're the people that wanted the United States to be
native to Europeans. That's crazy, crazy things to say. They
are not native Americans, if that's what you're asking, Okay, yeah, yeah,

(09:48):
they're people who famously are not native to the United
States wild and yeah. So that wasn't enough for them,
and they kept pushing for more restrictive laws, specifically for
anyone that was not from the northwestern areas of Europe
of course. Yeah, and eventually the National Origins Act was passed.

(10:08):
Oh and way, or is this I'm scrolling down? That
was in nineteen twenty four though law in nineteen twenty four, Yeah, okay.
The National Origins Act introduced a nationality based quota system
that limited the number of immigrants allowed into the US
every year. The quota system gave Germany, Britain, and Northern

(10:31):
Ireland sixty percent of all available Thoughts, wow, I'm sorry
that that kind of sounds like DEI wow, because that's crazy. Yeah,
a little bit codify the DEI mm hmm. The Act
also reconfirmed the complete Asian exclusion from the United States,

(10:52):
and I favored Europeans so heavily that historian John Higgham
described the Act as a quote Nordic victory. That sounds
like DEI for the Nordics. Yeah, okay. While many wanted
all non white nationalities excluded from entry to the United States,

(11:12):
there was one group who was in favor of exempting
Mexicans from these exclusions and quotas. Who Southwestern agricultural businessman
South Western agricultural businessman. Yes, oh, because they depended on
Mexican labor, right right. I had to like think about it,
and I'm like, no, of course they didn't want this. This

(11:34):
reminds me of when uh, Texas landowners got in a
firefight with border patrol over their Mexican workers. But it
wasn't like to defend American rights. It was because they
didn't want their workers picked up until it was convenient
for them. I think that is mentioned in this book
later on. Oh, okay, of course it is or was

(11:56):
it Texas Ranger. It might have been Texas Rangers and
Board Patrol. It's probably the Texas Ranger and Border Patrol,
yeah together, and if a preceder Border patrol, it was
the Texas Rangers. Yeah, because they became a lot of
them went in the same or whatever. Yeah. After the
National Origins Act passed, there were Congressional hearings about the
National Origins Act in which nativists and agricultural businessmen debated

(12:21):
whether quotas should be added to the Act to limit
Mexican immigration. So they were arguing about this, like should
Mexicans be restricted, Mexican immigration be restricted or not. One
congressman complained, quote, what is the use of closing the
front door to keep out undesirables from Europe when you
permit Mexicans to come in here by the back door,
by the thousands and thousands, bitch the back shut up

(12:45):
my quote. Stop fuck up. Nativists argued that Mexico was
a nation of mongrels, that Mexicans were in assimilable racial inferiors,
and that unrestricted Mexican what the fuck I'm sorry finished
that quote. I couldn't that this quote was coming, and

(13:11):
that unrestricted Mexican immigration were threatened the goals of the
National origin to act so just basically to make the
US a Northwestern European white country. I mean, if they
wanted a Northwestern they should have been because they should
have stayed in northwestern Europe or whatever. The fuck. Yeah,
we're gonna have more quotes like this, by the way,

(13:33):
especially because, like you know, if you think way way
back to pre colonization time periods, the continent we know
as North America now was used to going back and forth.
There was so much cultural exchange between indigenous groups that
are now and what is considered the US and what
is considered Mexico. There was exchange. That's why a lot

(13:53):
of the foods are so similar. A lot of like
so it insane to have like two No, I can't
even go into this. Like yeah, that quote shook me,
so warn me next time. There's more quotes like that. Okay, yeah, yeah.
Congressman John C. Box from Texas said, quote, the continuance

(14:13):
of a desirable character of citizenship is the fundamental purpose
of our immigration laws. Incendental to this are the avoidance
of social and racial problems, the upholding of American standards
of wages and living, and the maintenance of order. All
of these purposes will be violated by increasing the Mexican
population of the country. And quote the native is warned.

(14:38):
Quote our great Southwest, it's not yours, bitch, right, what
I mean? What do you mean? Our our great Southwest
is rapidly creating for itself a new racial problem, as
our old South did when it imported slave labor from Africa.
And what kind of fucking shit is this to say?
Oh my god, while the agricultural businessmen wanted unrestricted Mexican

(15:02):
immigration for their own benefit, they put them. Yes, they were,
of course as racists. As a nativist, and they did
express concerns that Mexican immigration would pose a threat to
the quote American way of life. But still the agricultural
businessmen argued that without Mexican labor, the whole industry would
fall apart. Yeah, And the agri businessmen argued that they

(15:26):
could control the Mexican population, so you know, there's nothing
to worry about. Oh, because they're so dumb, they can
be easily controlled, that's what they're saying. Yeah. One agricultural
businessman said the following quote, if we could not control
the Mexicans and they would take this country, it would
be better to keep them out. But we can and
do control them. And sadly they did because they had

(15:49):
all the power, of course. Yeah. Yeah. The agricultural businessmen
owned the land, They exploited Mexicans for the labor, and
the Southwest socially segregated. Mexicans were repressed in all the
ways they faced violence, were economically exploited, and so in
the end, the agricultural business meant they got their way.

(16:12):
There was no quotas placed on Mexican immigration at this point.
The legislators who were drafting the National Origins Act knew
that without enforcement, all of the restrictions they placed on
immigration would mean nothing. So three days after passing the Act,
Congress established the Border Patrol within the Immigration Borough Bureau,

(16:35):
within the Immigration Bureau of the Department of Labor. So
what year is this. This was in nineteen twenty four.
Still in nineteen twenty four? Is now the creation of borders? Yeah,
so the National Origins Act passed and then the enforcement
aspect of the act. Three days there is Border Patrol
and they are at this point under the Department of Labor.

(16:58):
One million dollars was set aside for the of the
Border Patrol. That's chump change now, baby. Yeah. They they
had a small budget and stayed like that for a
few years. H One major reason that the Border Patrol
had difficulty expanding and getting more money was because Southerners
were opposed to federal intervention when it came to anything

(17:20):
having to do with the race. And one of the
main reasons they didn't want any federal intervention was because
black Southerners were protesting lunching during this time, and they're like,
we don't want any federal intervention. We can't have them
come sniffing around here. Yeah, we don't want. Yeah, exactly that.

(17:41):
And another issue for Border Patrol was that at the beginning,
their directive directives were too broad and they had no
actual authority as law enforcement in addition to their limited funds.
But despite all of that, they were on duty at
both the Mexican and Canadian board by July first, nineteen
twenty four. The Canadian borderm surprise interesting huh yeah, and

(18:08):
having no actual legal authority put Board patrol in a
predicament because the officers would be guilty of assault if
they used any amount of physical coersion to prevent a
violation of reagion law. So they really couldn't do anything. Wow,
I imagine if they have to stay that way. It's
literally my next sentence. I think they got their shit together. Unfortunately, unfortunately,

(18:35):
in December nineteen twenty four, Border patrol officers finally got uniforms.
They were just walking around on they were street closes before. Okay,
kind of like Ice is doing today. What what years
this nineteen fifty four? Twenty four? This is still nineteen
twenty four? Oh should I jumped tway too? Four? I
was like no, because the operation went back is nineteen

(18:55):
fifty is yeah? Okay, nineteen twenty four, they got uniforms. Yeah,
we're in the very incept Naster uniforms, and we're going
to be the nineteen twenties and thirties for a while. Actually,
don't even ta We're going to get into the thirties.
And this part fascinating. I love adep dive. So yeah,
they got their uniforms two months after in December, sorry

(19:16):
in December, and then two months after that, in February
nineteen twenty five, they were vested with authoritative powers to
enforce the US immigration laws. Okay, And that was with
the passage of the nineteen twenty five Act and also
the Supreme Court decision in the case of Leu Moy v.
United States. According to the Act of February twenty seventh,

(19:37):
nineteen twenty five, a border patrol officer was authorized to
arrest any alien who, in his presence or view, is
entering or attempting to enter the United States in violation
of any law or regulation made in pursuance of law
regulating the admission of quote aliens, and to take such
alien immediately for examination before an immigrant inspect or other

(20:01):
official having authority to exact I'm trying to say an aliens.
I'm gonna say immigrants, but just know they use aliens here,
and to take such alien immediately for examination before an
immigrant inspector or other official having authority to examine aliens
as to the rights to admission to the United States.

(20:23):
There's a lot of aliens. It's physically like, physically say
that thing. I know people cannot be aliens. Stopping And
how come they can say immigrant inspector. They don't say
alien inspector, do they? I mean? Interesting? Okay. The Act
also authorized for patrol officers to board and search for

(20:43):
quote aliens on any vessel within the territorial waters of
the United States railway cars, conveyance, or vehicle in which
he believes immigrants are being brought into the United States,
and such employees shall have power to execute any warrant
or other process is by any officer under any law
regulate regulating admission, exclusion, or expose explosion of immigrants. And

(21:08):
they did use aliens, and just was started of seeing it, okay.
And the Lumoy Supreme Court decision determined that an alien
is in the act of entry in the United States
until he reaches his interior destination. So together, the Act
and decision gave border patrol the power to interrogate, detain,
and arrest any person they believe to be engaged in

(21:28):
the act of legal entry, a valilation of US immigration
law that extended from the moment on authorized immigrants cross
the border until they reached wherever they were going. So
basically they could get them wherever they wanted. Oh I see, okay.
Basically that's what it means, because they could just say,
you're lying about your destination, you know I because I say, well,

(21:48):
if they get to their destination, then they're fine. But
I guess they could just change that. They can just
saying well, you're headed to say over there, so we
can deport you. Yeah, okay, Meaning border patrol officers could
chase quote unsanctioned. That's how Kelly again we're on a
first name basis, that's how Kelly describes immigrants to enter

(22:10):
the United States without quote permission, unsanctioned, unsanctioned. Yeah okay.
So this meant that border patrol officers could chase unsanctioned immigrants,
search vessels beyond the border without warrant, arrest those they
suspected of engaging in the active unlawful entry, and so
the US Board Patrol in this way, you know, became

(22:31):
the law enforcement wing of the US Immigration Service. Okay,
that's a lot of power. Yeah and yeah, that was
a bit of the legal aspects of how border Patrol
became established. And let's now talk about the man and
organization of the early border patrol. Okay, many of the

(22:54):
men who first joined the Border Patrol were already working
in the Immigration Service as mounted Chinese inspects in the
Chinese Division. Yes, there was a Chinese division. I was
about to say there was a Chinese division, like a
division dedicated to Chinese hunting. Okay, oh my god, so disgusting,

(23:16):
bleak very I didn't know that, Like I knew there
was Chinese exclusian laws, but I didn't know there was like,
you know, they were hunting them down, Like I didn't
know that. Yeah. I thought we were the only hunted ones.
You know, we're all being hunted. And that's true now
more than ever. Yeah. So many of the men worked

(23:40):
as mounted Chinese inspectors or as Texas Rangers, or there
were low income working in farms, but notably we're not landowners.
And they also worked in other areas like construction and
so on, working class basically. And then I rode a
little blurb about the Mounted Chinese Inspectors because I was
interested in learning a little bit more about them. So

(24:03):
the Boundary Chinese Inspectors were established to enforce the Chinese
Exclusion Act along the Mexican and Canadian borders, and they
monitored the border towns to apprehend undocumented Chinese immigrants. Wow,
that's all I wrote. I'm sure there's more, right, Yeah.
And one of these men was Clifford Allen Perkins, who
started his government work as a post office worker. Clifford

(24:27):
Allen Perkins Perkins, Oh no, and Perkins, I didn't watching and yeah.
So he started his government work as a post office
worker and eventually worked as a mounted Chinese inspector and
rose up the ranks to inspector in charge. And so
when the Border Patrol was created, he became the chief

(24:47):
of the Border Patrol under the Immigration Service. Okay, And
one of the first things that Clifford did was divide
the US Mexico border jurisdiction into three patrol districts. So
he divided up the jurisdiction of Border Patrol. Who would
be in charge of what area. Yeah. So this division,

(25:12):
along with the lack of definitive directives, led to the
three districts developing their own versions of border patrol like basically, yeah,
so the offices became highly localized, regionalized, locally controlled, and
vary from region to region. That doesn't sound good. Yeah.

(25:33):
The Los Angeles Border Patrol District went from the Pacific
Ocean to about fifty miles east of Yuma, Arizona, and
extended northward in California to San Luis Obispo. And then
the El Paso Border Patrol started where the La District
ended and extended to Devils River, Texas. And the San

(25:57):
Antonio Border Patrol District went from the Devil's to the
Gulf of Mexico in Brownswell, Texas. Of course Texas needed too,
and these these districts were then divided into subdistricts. Even
though they were all, you know, highly localized and regionalized,
they all had one thing in common, which was a

(26:18):
lack of training. This sounds like a recipe for disaster
and violence. There you go, violence ding ding ding. Wow. Yeah,
and I'm not surprised. Edwin Reeves, an early border patrol officer,
said that all he receives from his training was a

(26:41):
zero point thoty five single action revolver and they with
the web belt and that was it. Wow, just a gun.
Here you go. And also in common among all these
early border patrol officers, they're racism and zenophobia obviously, so
they are racisms, you know, fabe and lack of training.
Really just put a web them together. Fascinating, fantastic. One

(27:08):
of these early border patrol officers was Jefferson Davis Milton,
and he came to be known as the father of
Border patrol, but a disgusting thing known yeah real. Jefferson
was born on November seventh, eighteen sixty one, during the
early months of the Civil War, to a large enslaver family.

(27:31):
Of course, he was named after one of his father's besties,
the president of the Southern Confederacy Okay yep, and his father,
John Milton, was the governor of Florida. But towards the
end of the Civil War, when Jefferson was just a
young child, he died from a self inflicted gunshot, and

(27:53):
some said John ended his life because of the Confederacy
losing the war, while others said it was due to
a hunting accident. Oh so, who knows. Right after the war,
the family lost their free and labor and were forced
to work to fuel themselves. Oh no, losers, and teenage

(28:14):
Jefferson didn't like that, so at eighteen he went west
to Texas. I'm not working in these films. I'm too
good for this. And he went to Texas where he
promptly joined the Texas Rangers for a few years. Okay,
of course. He then moved to New Mexico, where he
worked as a sheriff and a peace officer before joining

(28:36):
quote the hunt for Victorio and Geronimo and elicted the
armed forces to find the Indian Wars. Okay, okay, wow,
Like this man's entire existence is looking for non white
people to hunt and kill. Yeah. Basically, he made his
way through the Southwest, working different jobs again, like I said,

(28:59):
usually in law enforcement before joining them Migration Service, which
again was then under the Labor department. Oh wow. A
tradition of violence. Truly, truly, And he was sixty three
at this point when he joined the Border Patrol. What
the grit hire, old man, there's no retirement during this time.

(29:20):
Now he got to work. He was from a working
class background because his family lost all their money during
the Civil War, rightfully so, and then they didn't have
their free labor force to live off of, and so
he became working class. He had to work, okay, And
so he was sixty three, a sixt three year old
border patrol agent. Yeah, And there was a lot of

(29:41):
myth making yeah around border patrol and early border patrol officers,
and so legends arose during Jefferson's long career, and he
was known as a lone ranger type person. But really
he just needed a job. He was sixty three and
he needed isn't that dad, sixty three having to work

(30:01):
as a border patrol Yeah. I think they were proud
of it, I guess, but I think it's done. Yeah yeah.
And so yeah, with his smith making, it was often
said that his pursuits would be his last. Like people
would be like, you know, like, oh, there he goes
off again to pursue someone. He might not come back
this time. Oh you know, things like that. I mean,

(30:23):
at sixty three, I would not expect him to come back.
But yeah, I guess he kept coming back. He just
loved hunting down brown people so much that he kept
coming back. But then Jefferson would send a telegraph from
whatever remote location he was at, saying, send two coffins
and a doctor. I'm rolling my eyes. It was said
that Jefferson always returned from his pursuits alive, while his

(30:45):
opponents didn't. Oh real, uh gunslinger, mm hmm yeah. And
he was often called a one man border patrol throwing up.
So this man who grew up owning enslaves, he owned people.
That that's a disgusting thing to even say, you know,
and laborer became an old ass fuck border patrol agent

(31:09):
who loved killing people. No, let me see my thing. Sorry,
this sense labor of black people who hunted the Native
Americans in the name of war, who went after Chinese immigrants,
often killed the migrants and bandits quote bandits right, because
migrants were always labeled as bandits even when they were
not right. He often killed the people he was pursuing,

(31:33):
and he was celebrated by generations of border patrol agents.
So life said, a history of violence. Traditions. Oh that's
what we said, a tradition of violence. It sounds more
the implication is worse and it's tradition. Yeah, yeah, it's worse. No, Yeah,
then that's what I was saying in my head, but
I didn't say it out loud, Okay, But yeah, it's

(31:53):
about it's that tradition of violence that is celebrated by
a border patrol. This legend of Jefferson as a loner
and a social nomad contributed to the myth making of
the board Patrol, whose origin is often painted as a
quote hardy band of border law enforcement officers. In reality,

(32:13):
they were just working classmen who needed jobs. Yeah, and
what better job? And to hunt down brown people that
they get to kill and then they celebrate it like
of course, that was the perfect job for them. This
reminds me of a video I mentioned a few episodes back.
I remember when, and even could have been during one
of our feature in episodes that I remember, but I

(32:35):
mentioned a TikTok. I saw someone who explained it much
better than me, because it's only what I remember now
off the top of my head. But they talked about
how law enforcement and the police basically serves as a
job filler for underemployed, uneducated men. Yeah yeah, yeah, and
this you know that goes way back to these times

(32:57):
eighteen hundreds. Yeah, I guess we're in nineteen five now,
but still right right, there was barely any requirements, but
because of the high turn of our rate, this led
to lowering the requirements for hirings even more, which benefited
the unemployed, working class white men from the border lands. Yeah,

(33:18):
and one of these men was Doggy right. What Doggy right?
His name is dog It's dog I E wow? Okay
dog or Doggy? Do you think it's dog? I don't know.
I never heard of that before. What a wild name?

(33:39):
I don't know. And I didn't even say quote doggie
or anything. It just said like that was his name.
So I'm assuming God give a name. Wow, No wonder
he joined Borbitual with that name. And I'm just saying so. Yeah,
Doggy right worked on off as a Texas ranger for
brief periods, and he also worked selling gets in a

(34:00):
movie theater, as a clerk, a chauffeur, and in construction
before joining the Border Patrol. Wow. And others worked similar
you know jobs, train operators in grocery stores. On non
working class jobs. Only about twenty four percent of early
Border Patrol officers worked in agriculture, and only about ten

(34:23):
percent owned or operated farms, meaning they were average working
class white men and viewed Mexican immigration as a labor competition.
Oh okay, hmm, so yet another thing to add to
the end to the mix of like already racism, all
these dynamics. Yeah, that's the word. Yeah. And these were

(34:47):
the same men who opposed unrestricted Mexican immigration that the
agricultural businessman, so the elite of their societies were fighting for.
In the nineteen twenties, Texan labor union official said the
following quote, I hope they never let another Mexican come
to United States and quote the country would be a

(35:08):
whole lot better off for the white laboring man if
they weren't so many and words and Mexicans. Oh my god. Yeah.
And these were the men that later because these were
the men that became border pituationis yes. Yeah, again not
surprise yet still disgusted. Yeah. And while the white working

(35:32):
classmen didn't get their way with Congress back then, they
gained some power once they started working on the border patrol,
since they would come to have power over the workforce
of the elite, the Mexican laborers, the very people they
viewed as taking their jobs away. Wow. And in the book,

(35:53):
Kelly explained quote. The border patrols turned toward policing Mexicans
was much more than a matter of simply servicing the
interests of agribusiness in capitalist economic development. It was a
matter of community, manhood, whiteness, authority, class, respect, belonging, brotherhood,
and violence in the Greater Texas Mexico borderlands. So yeah,

(36:16):
working in border patrol allowed these average working class white
men to move up the societal ladder. They gained authority
and respect I was going to say respect right now,
because they were viewed as white trash by the leak. Yeah.
And so in this sense, they expanded the boundaries of whiteness. Right. So,

(36:36):
now whiteness was not only the elite, the agribusiness men,
it also included them them. Yeah. And so not only
did this dynamic, I guess, expand the boundaries of whiteness,
it also came to define the differences between the whites

(36:56):
and the non whites in the Southwest, you know what
I mean? Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Basically it came to equate
illegal quote illegal immigrants as Mexican these racial dynamics, yeah,
and separated them from their white orbital right people that
were punting them down, stopping them from entering. So yeah, yeah,

(37:18):
and then I have one more quote from the book
that kind of helped explain this, you know, better than
I could explain it. O quote. The project of enforcing
immigration restrictions placed border patrol officers at what police scholar
David Bailey describes as the cutting edge of the state's
knife in terms of enforcing new boundaries between whites and
non whites. End quote. Yeah, right, right, yes. An important

(37:45):
piece to this project that whiteness in the borderlands was
the few Mexican Americans who joined the early border patrol.
Of course they did, of course they did. While white
border patrol officers tended to be from lower income, working
class backgrounds, Mexican Americans who joined tended to be from
middle and upper class backgrounds. I'm rolling my eyes so hard.

(38:07):
Of course they were, because they're trying to what's it
called integrate themselves into whiteness. And this is the status
symbol of whiteness. If you get to enforce the laws
of whiteness, yeah, onto the people that are not your people,
because you're separating yourself from them. Yeah. We can just
end right here because you some raize my next few pages.

(38:27):
Oh no, yeah, that's basically it short version and now
stick around for the long version. In the nineteen twenty
nine roster of Border Patrol personnel, there were six officers
listed with Spanish last names. I'm sorry, I'm making such
a disgusted face at them. It's disgusting behavior. Yeah. Among

(38:50):
these men were Jesse Perez and Pete Torres. Jesse Perez,
who was known as a legend within Border Patrol. I
was gonna look more into him and then forgot a legend.
Oh I wish way. Yeah, he was the son of
a Texas ranger because of course he was, Oh my god,
fucking and he was actually married to one of the
founding families of the Rio Grand City mm okay, and

(39:12):
his father in law also worked as a Texas Ranger, sheriff,
and US marshall. I don't know if he held all
these jobs at once. Uh no, no, No, probably went back
and yeah, because that's that's what happened a lot. Yeah, yes,
revolving door between all these different law enforcement agencies. Yes, yes,
so yeah, his family, this family was entrenched in law

(39:33):
enforcement and police scene and Pete Torres was a part
of an influential family who identified as Spanish American. Oh okay,
they were Yeah, they were in Mexican, they were Spanish. Yeah.
And there was another officer listed in the ninety twenty
nine roster with with Spanish last names that identified as
partly of the Spanish race. That's how it was written
in the whatever roster anything anything to not say Mexican. Yeah,

(39:58):
And it is important to note that while there were
founding families in the Southwest who were Spanish, they tended
to live in the northern areas of the southwestern states.
And we're talking about the borderlands, so the southernmost parts
of these states, right, Okay. And I'm mentioning this because
I made a video about this on TikTok and someone

(40:20):
tried to argue with me about, like these are these
were these people were in Texas before it was even Texas.
They're Spanish, blah blah blah. But that's not the reality
that it's just not factual. Yeah. So yeah, like I said,
there was some you know, straight up Spanish heritage people,
but they were not in these areas as. The truth
is that in these areas mostly they were Mestizo, which

(40:42):
then yeah, makes them not Spanish, making them Mexican. Or
Mexican American. Yeah, they were now in today's terms, they
were straight up Mexican Americans like me and you. Yeah,
like a typical Mexican American, you know, with no traceable
or prominent Spanish history. Yeah. Yeah, Like you said, there

(41:03):
were mastisos, but they want to be Spanish Spanish at all. Yeah,
but what was it? Partially partially Spanish, partly of the
Spanish race. Yeah, okay, but there was a deliberate push
by middle and upper class Mexican Americans to separate themselves
from the newly arrived Mexican immigrants. We're not like them,

(41:24):
So they started identifying more with their Spanish side and
calling themselves Spanish Americans again, when in reality they were
not right. And this identification as Spanish continued generation after generation,
to the point that many Mexican Americans who happened in
New Mexico for generations to this day identify as Hispanic, Hispano,

(41:46):
no Mexicano, or a Spanish origin. In a commentary piece
from twenty twenty four, journalist Lauren Lifke recalls when she
was applying for college, she was confused when the application
asked her to imper her specific background and so the
options were Cuban, Mexican slash Chicano, Puerto Rican, Latin American,

(42:06):
and other. And she had only ever identified as Hispanic.
So she texted her mom. She's like, hey, what are
we and then her mom's like, of Spanish origin from Spain,
and then she's like that doesn't sound right, right, So
she's taking it upon herself to learn more about New
Mexican history and her own ancestry, and she you know,
came to learn about, you know, this deliberate push to

(42:29):
stinction separate themselves from Mexican. Yeah, but I thought that
was so interesting because obviously I don't know what it's like,
you know, as a first gen I don't know what
it's like to be you know, of having been here
a long time. Yeah, yeah, like generation after generation. And
then at what point do you do you lose the

(42:51):
Mexican part of Mexican American and you're just American. I mean,
these people didn't even they skipped Mexican and they just
went Spanish American. Right. So, and I'll get into this
like just now. But it was also in an effort
to protect to protect themselves from discrimination. But yes, it
doesn't help to align yourself with whiteness. How many times

(43:13):
have we stay tried it? But it doesn't work, especially
when we've talked about like school segregation and like anything.
To not be grouped with black people is how they
were finding the segregation. Yeah, because they wanted to be
included as white. And sadly, when you have agencies like
Border Patrol who've always looked for people that look like

(43:37):
a certain way, you're never going to be white like wow, yeah, yeah.
So yeah, back to Mexican Americans in the borderlands the
nineteen twenties, Spanish Americans, well, yeah, they wanted the ones
that joined Bord Patrol. The League of United Latin American
Citizens or lu LAC, which we have mentioned before. Yeah,
during this time, they're very different they now woman. Yeah,

(44:01):
but they helped promote Mexican American integration into mainstream American society,
and most of their members were middle and upper class. Yeah,
and that was the problem that a lot of Chicanos
and Dwaite Chicanismo grew into its own separate group from LULAC.
It was the reason that people weren't identifying as upper

(44:23):
middle class because they weren't and they didn't want to
conform to whiteness. They were like, we're not that, like
we know that. Yeah, that was a huge aspect of
like you said, the Chicano movement and lu LAC members
held American institutions, political philosophy, and capitalism and high esteem.
But they didn't like that they weren't allowed to fully
participate in these things because they were being discriminated against

(44:45):
because they were you know, they were racialize as Mexican
because they were right. American to them wasn't right because
they were, Yeah, And instead of challenging the black and
white racial hierarchy of the region, they decided to appeal
to whiteness to protect themselves from discrimination. According to Lulac,

(45:06):
which is what you said earlier, but you know to
my notes, so I had to say it right, right.
According to Lulac, it was the association of Mexican Americans
with the colored racist, which really just meant black people, right,
that prevented them from gaining a full access to white
American society. So they wanted to distinguish themselves from black
people and newly arrived Mexican immigrants, and they started to

(45:28):
push to define themselves as Spanish Americans. Well, I want
to say during operation they maintained this line of thinking
for a while. This went from generation of the generation.
That's why I had that. I meant Lulac specifically. Oh yeah,
this because during operation during Operation went Back, they were

(45:48):
for the deportations. For Oh no, am I thinking of
Mexican repatriation one of the two. You're probably thinking of growth, Yeah,
because Mexican reprepretation was in the thirties, right, Yeah, and
there's not long after the time period we're talking about. Yea.
Lulac as an organization supported it at first until citizens
started being deported as well. And it was the like

(46:13):
you said, the Chicano movement, which was well prominent in
Roads in the sixties, where New Mexicans who have been
here for generations started moving away from the Spanish American
label and started identifying in Chicago. And I don't know
if this was when luck also I think it, but yeah,
and I believe that's the case because and I don't

(46:34):
know when exactly, because it wasn't it recently like in
the two thousands that they apologized for their racism against
black people, Like yeah, I don't remember exactly what year,
but they have apologized for it. Which you know, yeah,
it doesn't make anything they did right, but at least
you know that that's what they do, what they do anymore. Yeah, no,

(46:55):
and yeah, many LULAC members felt that the newly arrived
Mexican immigrants threatened their goals, so they advocated for limiting
Mexican immigration and supported increased border enforcement and for middle
class Mexican americanment to join the born Patrol. I hate this. Yeah,
so yeah, I mean, and like I said before, lu

(47:15):
LAC today is different than lu LAC then. And so
this is a very interesting like the because today you
see people in the protests that were happening against ICE
and people like in the faces of Latino ICE agents,
like how could you do this? But there's a long
it's how, Yeah, this is how. This is how. There's

(47:37):
a very long history. And there's something about like a
uniform that makes someone proud. And I maintain this belief
that any uniform, unless it's the post office, it's not
something to be proud of. But like people look at
it and the like, oh, look at my son, like
my daughter. They're in the army or they're in Borbagel,

(47:58):
Like look at this uniform. They're doing good things, but like, no,
but but when people when you saw those or when
I saw those protests and I saw them yelling at
the vices like you betrayed, like your people, Like this
goes back to even the inception, way back. Yeah, yeah,
then and now it's an appeal to whiteness, to power,

(48:22):
to assimilation, and just like then, it doesn't pay to
do that. No, no, you will always be seen, you
will always be rationalized as other if you are not white. Yeah,
and this brings me back to Pete Taurus. He was
the exemplary of this dynamic of you know, he was
the embottoment, the embodiment. That's better, that's a better word.

(48:43):
He was then bbottoment of all this so embodiment I
said it wrong the first time. Uh. Yeah. Pete hated
being called Mexican, and uh, one day an acquaintance of
Pete started making fun of him by calling him Mexican,
and in response, Pete pulled out his revolver and he
shot at his and at his legs. Being called the
Mexican right, and he was like, I'm not Mexican, I'm

(49:05):
Spanish American. Wow. Yeah, And then I really like the
way that Kelly described this quote Indie Border Patrol, and
through Mexican exclusion, he Pete and the others literally shot
their way into whiteness. That's so violent, right, And the

(49:26):
earlier I talked about the working class white men viewing
Mexican liverers as labor competition, the racism and enophobia embedded
in the Southwest, and how the lack of direct rules
and training led to different border patrol districts to become
highly localized and regionalized, which led to the policing new Mexicans.
What a summary. Wow, yes, yes, and this was you know,

(49:50):
hugely because the border patrol agents grew up discriminating in
othering Mexicans, and as men, this othering became their job,
and their violence against me scans became sanctioned, state sanctioned violence.
Jeanie piet and fred D Albini were early members of

(50:11):
the Border Patrol and as children they used to gather
rocks and pile them up so they could throw them
at the Mexican kids during recess. And so these kids
that used to throw rocks at Mexican kids for fun
later became Border patrol agents. And Kelly wrote quote years later,
as officers of the United States Border Patrol. They traded

(50:34):
their rocks for shotguns and converted their child's play into
police practice. So it's not wild. It's not wild. It's predictable.
But like, just reading it like that, I'm like, I
don't know, it brings up it makes you feel feeling yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
like I don't know, anger, but then yeah, disappointment. I'm

(51:00):
not angry, I'm disappointed. The history an inception of border patrol,
And so I'm gonna leave off there, and next week
we'll get into some discriminatory and violent tactics of the
early bar patrol and probably some more history that I
can't remember right now, but okay, I will probably include

(51:22):
I'm excited, but not excited, you know what I mean,
I know what you mean. Yeah, all right, Well that
was a fascinating way too. In the end, learn that
the same kids who hated Mexicans then became border Patruegians.
Like yeah, and likewise today not us saying the same thing. Yeah,

(51:46):
I mean time in secular like sometimes say, I just
saw some posts I think I don't remember it was
if it was a subtact that I'm subscribed to, or
if it was someone on threads but basically like history
doesn't repeat it, so it's remix where it's like there
was an old version of that and now there's a
new version of the same thing, and ye remix. Yeah

(52:07):
that sounds about right, because that's what we're seeing back
then and today. And I don't like it, not one bit.
But wow, thank you Carmen for working hard on these notes.
So hard. It's so hard for me to sit down
write notes, it really is. She just not like me.

(52:29):
It's also hard for me to sit down and read
the book. Both are very hard for you. Yeah, yeah,
anything you want to say before we end or now,
just that right now at the time we're recording, it
is September fifteenth, twenty twenty five, and there has been

(52:51):
here in the US protests wherever CSPES is located, protests
against the dictatorship. In the Saladora and Indo as well,
there has been protests against the dictatorship of Buckle, people
holding signs like the safety comes with the Cost, people
holding pictures of their loved ones who have been disappeared
in prisons. Because as you know, if this is your

(53:13):
first episode listening, this is and and maybe you're not
aware of buckle and go back and listen to those
episodes we did. There's a long history of corruption, a
long history of again disappearing where it's like, yes, two
things going to be true and bald is safer and
yes at what costs? And there's you know a lot

(53:33):
of people that have been doing work talking about this.
But today there's a lot of protests because it today
is the independence day for and how can you claim
to be independent when so many of your population is
behind bars arbitrarily arrested and detained and then disappeared, right, right,

(53:54):
So there's nation like there's wide protests in because then
you get the people's and there has been for the
past several years. Yes, yeah, today is just another protest
against uh him, But I mean the they have been
protesting this on Independence Day for the past several years. Yes, yes, exactly. Yeah,
it's not new, and I think right now there's more

(54:18):
people realizing and learning that this isn't He's not a
good thing for especially in the recent months with coming
out with Trump. Yeah, during the I guess we could
say what kidnapping, I forgot what word people are using.
But of Kim right duringing, I mean, and it's not

(54:43):
really deporting because following any of the country right right, yeah,
and this is the taking of migrants into a third place,
uh like a different country completely and then signed a
deal with you know Trump, right And from that, so
from those events, people are realizing, oh, it's not who

(55:04):
I thought he was. Yeah, some people after that happened,
some people started waking up and saying, wait, maybe he's not.
It's not a good thing. But there have been people
in and in the diaspora that have been speaking out
against him for a long time, and today is just
another manifestation of that. Both seas past in the US

(55:25):
is doing it and then in activists or testing against
I mean so much. The state of Exception is still
going on. There's still you know, detained a bunch of people,
dispairing them into prison. So that's been happening today. That
does him recording and solidarity with our fellow stabs mm hmm. Yeah.

(55:52):
Also the craziest thing, I mean, I just don't under like,
I don't understand like, oh, dictator dictatorship for the but
not for me like Trump here. Yeah, that's what we
have been feeling from a lot of the diaspora that
they have been in the protests in l a uh

(56:12):
denouncing you know, Trump's author authoritativeness. Uh. Yet at the
same time they have been out there caping and kissing
asks for And I'm like, which is it, man? You
either support authoritarian governments or you don't. Right. You can't

(56:34):
pick and choose, right, And yeah, I think that was
the last thing I wanted to add. Okay, Also a
reminder for anyone who wants to see a line for
Spooky Tales will be a spooky focused We are going
to be in Yakima on November first at the Kukui

(56:58):
is Going to Get You events November first, seven pm
at the Baptist Event Center in Yakama, and we'll be
there Latinos again, spooky shit will be there, and there's
also going to be any spooky market, different stuff, fun
stuff is spooky stuff. It's gonna be a good time.
And I will put the link in the show notes

(57:19):
I forgot last week. Wow, I'll do it this time.
And yeah. Other than that, we hope that this was
one last Editoria unknown for you. Bye bye. Astorias Are
Known is produced by Carmen and Christina. Researched by Carmen
and Christina, edited by Christina. You can find sources for
every episode at Estoria unknown dot com and in our

(57:41):
show notes. Creating the podcast has a lot of work,
so if you want to help us out financially, you
can do so by supporting us on Patreon at patreon
dot com. Slash She studied as an own podcast

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