Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America

With its victory in the Spanish-American War, the US acquired the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. As these places were populated by non-Europeans considered “backward, alien races” (98), statehood was not an option. The holding of colonial possessions clashed with American beliefs in democracy. The notion of benevolent assimilation was invoked as a rationalization, with the US performing a duty to protect and civilize these areas; such justification disguised the economic motivations for the arrangement. In reality, the US used military force to bring the Philippines under its control from 1899 to 1902. The Court ruled that Congress had the discretion to determine the status of these territories and to decide which provisions of the Constitution applied to them (100). The inhabitants of the Philippines did not have rights of representation or to jury trials but they did have freedom of movement within the US and its territories.

Beginning in 1910, Filipinos migrated to Hawaii to work in the sugar industry. During World War I, employers on the mainland sought to recruit Filipinos. After the 1924 Immigration Act, Filipino migration to the mainland increased dramatically despite official efforts to discourage it. Western agriculture needed to replace Japanese laborers with Filipinos and Mexicans who could still come to the US legally. By 1930, there were 56,000 Filipinos on the West Coast. Most were migrant laborers living in overcrowded camps and performing the “hardest and dirtiest work” (103).

The presence of these mainly young and single men sparked racial violence, beginning as early as 1926 in Stockton, California. Gangs of white men attacked Filipino laborers. There was a minimum of 30 incidents of racial violence against Filipinos on the Pacific Coast in the fall and winter of 1929-1930 (108). Before the Depression, Filipinos were not taking jobs that white people wanted, but they nonetheless garnered resentment for working. The hostility worsened with the arrival of the Depression, when nativists labeled the Filipinos the “‘third invasion’ from the Orient” (109).

White restrictionists were bothered by the Americanization of Filipinos, who were Christian, spoke English, and wore western clothing. Most concerning, however, was their interaction with white women. Filipinos attended dance halls on their leisure time and some dated white women. For doing so, they were labeled a “social and sexual menace to white society” (110). Ngai attributes the fears of racial mixing as fuel for the anti-Filipino riots. One Filipino man was shot and killed with no investigation or prosecution by authorities. When a court allowed for intermarriage of a Filipino man and a white woman, California made such marriages illegal retroactively. Ngai comments that Filipinos were denied American assimilation.

Those seeking to exclude Filipinos from the US, such as the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and CJIC, lobbied for the independence of the Philippines. The AFL invoked economic arguments, while the CJIC was openly racist and claimed that Filipinos were not assimilable. By the 1920s, most Filipino leaders wanted independence. In 1932, Congress passed the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act over President Herbert Hoover’s veto. It established the Philippines as a commonwealth that would transition to independence in 10 years, on terms extremely favorable to the US.

A re-negotiated act, named for Tydings-McDuffie, left open whether the US could retain military bases after independence. However, the terms were similarly favorable to the US. For example, the US could impose tariffs on Filipino products while the Filipinos could not impose tariffs on US ones. US citizens had unrestricted access to the Philippines. In contrast, Filipinos who arrived in the US before May 1, 1934, were now aliens and would be subject to deportation for acts after that date. The quota for immigration to the US was set at 50, lower than the typical minimum of 100.

In the 1930s, Congress passed legislation, which it extended three times, to fund repatriation of Filipinos in the US. A total of 2,064 Filipinos were returned to the Philippines via these programs and they would not be entitled to return to the US. Most who left were from California and were not indigent but wished to leave the US. Tens of thousands of Filipinos stayed in the US and often formed “‘little Manilas’ at the margins of Chinatown communities” (125).

Given the role that Filipinos played in World War II, they were made eligible for national citizenship in its aftermath. Ngai argues that the cultural impact of the repatriation program was to erase the Filipino migration experience from white society and to restore the myth of benevolent assimilation as the purpose of the colonial period (126).

Immigration law and practices shaped the political economy of the Southwest, ensuring commercial agriculture, migratory farm labor, and the exclusion of Mexican Americans and migrants from American society and politics. A form of “imported colonialism” (129) created a racialized agricultural workforce.

After World War I, agricultural production expanded dramatically and the Mexican population in the US was over 1.4 million. Large agribusinesses replaced small farms in the Southwest and employed migratory workers to pick crops. Restrictive immigration policies served the interests of agribusiness via the creation of an alien workforce without a political voice. The repatriation of 400,000 Mexicans in the early 1930s created a temporary labor shortage, which gave agricultural workers some leverage to demand better wages. However, the New Deal policies were not helpful to agricultural workers, as they were not covered by landmark pieces of legislation, namely, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Social Security Act, and the National Labor Relations Act. The exclusion of the agricultural worker ensured the domination of agribusinesses. With the outset of World War II, growers lobbied the government to bring in Mexicans as contract workers. In a “momentous break with past policy and practice” (137), the US agreed to import 6,000 contract laborers. Such foreign contract labor had been illegal since 1885 and was considered the “antithesis of free labor” (137).

Under the Bracero Program, 4.6 million contract laborers came to the US beginning in 1942 and ending in 1964. While these laborers worked in 26 states, the bulk of them worked as migratory farm workers in California and other states in the Southwest. Although the Migrant Labor Agreement with Mexico set their wages at prevailing rates and ensured amenities, its terms were routinely violated by employers. Ngai notes that farm workers made 36.1% of manufacturing wages in 1955, down from 47.9% in 1946. In other words, their wages depressed domestic wages. In filed complaints, underpayment was the most common issue (143) for braceros.

At times, the Mexican Consul interceded on the behalf of braceros and got US officials to penalize businesses. However, in March 1954, the terms of the Agreement were amended. Mexico surrendered its right to unilaterally blacklist employers or counties (146), which reduced its leverage. Ngai explains that Mexico feared the specter of unilateral contracting, without any input, and illegal immigration, and thus relented on this point. The Bracero Program had a 15% failure rate. When braceros deserted from the program, they immediately became illegal aliens.

Since the Mexican government refused to send braceros to segregated states, those states relied upon illegal immigrants who were paid a standard rate below that of braceros. Women who entered illegally were wrongly associated with prostitution when most worked as domestics. Illegal immigrants from Mexico, dubbed “wetbacks,” were racially stereotyped as dangerous and criminal. In reality, there were fluid lines between illegal immigrants and braceros within families and at work.

During the 1940s, the INS intercepted illegal crossings at the border but did not bother farms much. When growers came to prefer undocumented workers over braceros, the government attempted to save the program via a carrot and stick approach. Taking over the INS as its leader in 1954, Joseph Swing launched Operation Wetback in June 1954. Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans were apprehended and returned to Mexico, often in atrocious conditions. Additionally, the Bracero Program was reformed to allow for recruitment at the border instead of the interior of Mexico. Nevertheless, illegal immigration continued to exist.

Mexican Americans were conflicted about braceros and illegal immigrants, whom they saw as the cause of their own social and economic problems. The League of United Latin-American Citizens (LULAC) criticized the INS for allowing such large numbers of undocumented immigrants into the country. Unions were opposed to illegal immigration as well. Without the support of the AFL, the National Agricultural Laborers Union (NAWU) tried, and failed, to organize braceros and unionize domestic farmworkers. In 1959, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) organized a series of strikes at farms, which resulted in the removal of 2,052 braceros from California.

While these actions disrupted the Bracero Program, they had a “darker side” (164). Union members acted violently against braceros, resulting in negative publicity and causing the AFL-CIO to cut its support for AWOC within one year’s time. The AFL-CIO was uninterested in organizing farmworkers. Negative publicity about the poor treatment of braceros shocked liberals. However, the end of the Bracero Program was driven more by the mechanization of agribusiness. The exploitation of undocumented labor continued in the program’s aftermath and into the 21st century as a form of imported colonialism.