Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America

Gonzales begins with the Mega Marches of March and April 2006, which were part of a historic protest movement that caught the political establishment by surprise. The protest was a reaction to the Sensenbrenner Bill that had passed the US House of Representatives and was in the process of moving through the Senate. Spanish-language media in particular was instrumental in galvanizing people to protest the bill. The movements culminated in a “Day without Immigrants” boycott, which was controversial and threatened to divide the movement.

There were three levels of experienced political leadership guiding the movement: the political leaders who were active in the 1960s and 1970s, the political leaders who were active during the 1980s with the amnesty and Central American Sanctuary movements, and a younger demographic who had worked in the 1990s with the anti-Proposition 187 movement.

The Sensenbrenner Bill—the official name of which was The Border Protection, Anti-terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005—would have mandated that a wall be built along the US-Mexico border and that the federal government take custody of unauthorized immigrants detained by local police forces, among other measures. The bill was passed by the House but was defeated in the Senate. After 9/11, a new Homeland Security branch was added to the government and tasked with securing borders. Infighting among protestors and boycotters, along with anti-immigration sentiment, disallowed for comprehensive immigration reform to occur.

Anti-immigration sentiments are nothing new in the US, and Gonzalez points to three major waves of anti-immigration policy. The first wave was led by the Know Nothings, a political party with Protestant roots that formed in response to growing numbers of Irish and German immigrants, who were mainly Catholic. These Catholics threatened the Protestant voting power. However, the Know Nothings’ power was eclipsed by the rising North-South division that would ultimately result in the Civil War, and the party faded away.

A second anti-immigrant wave arose from the 1890s-1920s. The scapegoats this time were immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. This was accompanied by anti-Black prejudice, as this was the time of Jim Crow laws and lynchings in the American South. Gonzalez points out that anti-immigrant and anti-Black feelings often go hand-in-hand.

The third wave started in the 1980s with the Mariel boatlift and continues into the present. People blamed immigrants for crime and for resisting assimilation. In addition, the great recession of 2008-2009 resulted in massive economic stagnation, which created an additional desire to scapegoat. From 2002-2008, ICE (US Customs and Immigration Enforcement) raids in the workplace and at home accelerated, often separating parents from their children without the ability for parents to create a plan for their children. In addition, many of the home raids were illegal, as they violated the Fourth Amendment. Many local areas determined their own anti-immigrant laws, the most infamous being Maricopa County, Arizona, under Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Even the conservative Goldwater Institute “labeled Arpaio ‘a genuine public menace with a long and well-documented trail of inmate abuses, unjustified arrests, racial profiling, brutal and inept policing and wasteful spending’” (215).

Three forces that show that immigration will continue despite these anti-immigrant waves are poor economies in Latin American countries pushing migrants to the US, US labor needs pulling migrants here, and an aging white US population needing young workers.

For many, language gets to the heart of one’s identity. Some want a constitutional amendment to make English the official language of the United States. While every modern nation-state must deal with linguistic minorities, the United States is in a unique position due to its position as the country with the largest number of English speakers and the country with the fifth-largest number of Spanish speakers.

The racist Manifest Destiny (as described in the “Roots” section) resulted in conquering and annexing lands full of people who spoke Spanish. Such actions meant that the US, from its inception, was never going to be monolingual.

Gonzalez points out that Latin American immigration differs from immigration by other groups. Immigrants from Europe and Asia chose to leave their cultures and accepted that their language would have a “subsidiary status.” Black enslaved workers were forced to come here and were prevented from learning to read or write English so that they would be easier to control. Some US citizens, however, were forced to be citizens: Mexicans who suddenly found themselves on land that was part of the United States. Since citizenship was forced on them by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, this demographic, Gonzalez contends, has the right to defend the use of their language.

Annexation does not mean assimilation. Language and culture are used as weapons of resistance. The author gives examples of how culture is always in a state of flux as more and more groups of people interact, bringing their diversity of experiences with them. This “culture clash” is the lifeblood of the arts, says Gonzalez, since art is constantly being made “anew.” Just focusing on music, one can see an explosion in musical genres that would not be possible without immigration:

This emerging U.S.-Latino culture combined with and reshaped aspects of African American and Euro-American music, dance, and theater, creating in the process a dazzling array of hybrid forms that are today uniquely American, and which are most evident in musical genres such as Tex-Mex, Cubop, Latin jazz, Latin rock, bugaloo, salsa, rap, and even country rock (227-28).

The arts thrive on diversity of experience. Immigrants from all parts of the world aid in making American art forms flourish. By embracing this culture clash rather than rejecting it, people can build:

cultural bridges. History is filled with examples of other great nations that sought to stamp out ‘differences’ of race, religion, and language, only to end up destroying themselves. We fool ourselves in thinking our fate would be any different (248).