Topic 6: Gender Empowerment and Family in a global context... (perception/acts of gender equity, double shift, home-host dichotomy); 2. Topic 7a: Understanding Migration and Incorporation (push-pul

M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~264~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 A Comparative Analysis of Mexican-and European-Origin Immigration to the United States: Proposing an Interactive Colonization Theory Manuel Barajas California State University—Sacramento Received December 2011; Accepted July 2012 ___________________________________________________ ___ Abstract From the 1970s, Latin American immigration, mainly from Mexico, increased rapidly surpassing European migration in the 1980s for the first time in US history and now constituting over half of the total foreign-born po pulation in the United States. In this paper, I compare this newer, Latin American wave of immigration to earlier, European waves and find that though a combination o f push-pull and structural perspectives does much to explain the European expe rience, it fails to explain Mexican-origin migration and nature of incorporation. Therefore, I argue for an interactive colonization approach to understanding the uniqueness of the Mexican- origin immigration experience. Keywords Mexican Migration, Colonialism/Neocolonialism, Race /Class/Gender From 1970 to 2010, Latin American 1 immigration, particularly from Mexico, increased from 1.8 million (10%) to 20 .5 million (53%) of the total foreign-born population of 38.5 million in the United States (Grieco and Trevelyan 2010:2). The four-decade , net-plus immigration from Mexico slowed around 2006 and may have possibly reversed in the past year (PEW Hispanic Center 2012:6,1 3)2 . These trends have excited many scholars and policy makers se eking to understand the causes, experiences, and consequence s of the largest and continuous immigration from Mexico, a third of th e total foreign born (Massey, Durand, and Malone 2002; Portes and Ru mbaut 2006; Sassen 1988, 1996). Much of the scholarship relies uncrit ically on theories based largely on the European experience. This paper contests the generic application of traditional fra meworks in explaining the causes of Mexican-origin migration a nd the form of M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~265~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 incorporation into the United States. To this end, I compare the newer wave of immigration (predominately Mexican) in late t wentieth and early twenty-first centuries to earlier ones (overwhe lmingly European) in the mid-nineteenth through the twentie th century. This paper shows that Mexican-origin migration is rooted to neo-colonial/ internal colonial domination and subjected to unjus t borders violating human rights (Teyefi 2007:289–290; Falcón 2007:221) . Comparing the contexts of exiting and reception fo r both European- and Mexican-origin migrations and examini ng their general group incorporation trends, the paper shows that a combination of structural and push-pull perspectives explains the European experience but fails in explaining Mexican migratio n. These findings are significant because these frameworks are generally u sed to make sense of Mexican migration (Massey, Alarcón, Durand , and Gonzalez 1987; Massey et al. 2002), and frame human rights c oncerns as matters of economic development, subordinating the human ri ghts and self- determination of indigenous people (Frezzo and Araghi 2007:1 1-12, 15). To understand the Mexican-origin migration experie nce, one must recognize that Mexicans are generally indigenou s, though racial- ethnic diversity and mestizaje3 are common among them (Aguirre Beltran 1972:234; Ochoa Serrano 1997:38; ScienceDai ly 2010: May 3). 4 Several historical, anthropological and other empir ical studies inform this observation. Menchaca (1993: 591, 593–59 5) examined how US acts generally treated Mexicans as indigenou s people denying them citizenship by birth and naturalization until the mid-twentieth century. 5 Gamio (1930:197) described migrants in the 1920s a s predominately indigenous and mestizos. Bonfil Batal la (1996:15–18, 45-58) problematized mestizaje as largely a de-indianization project in Mexico, and Leon-Portilla (1990:10) and Quijano (2000:541) elucidated how indigenous cultures were endangered withi n oppressive national contexts. After the 1910 Revolution, for instance, Mexico aggressively advanced a melting-pot ideology known as mestizaje , articulated by José Vasconcelos in La Raza Cosmic a (1948), which sought to Mexicanize indigenous communities. Wo lf (1959:44) documented that by the 1950s only about half the Mexican p opulation maintained an indigenous language, though Mexican peop le remain very indigenous in many other forms, i.e., religiou s expression, M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~266~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 communalism, language, and food (Bonfil Batalla 199 6: 45-53, 61-69).

Migration and colonial experiences nonetheless shifte d indigenous identities to mere identifications with hometowns and Mexicanness (Barajas 2009:65-66, 80; Weber 1998:218; Zabin et al. 199 3:9; Forbes 1982:156). Mexican-origin people, in brief, have experienced colonial projects that have dislocated them from their lands , resources, and ethnic identities, and their experiences with incor poration into the modern nation reflect their continuous historical m arginalization along racial-ethnic, gender, and class lines. I the refore propose an interactive colonization framework to explain Mexic an migration, which highlights the historical dialectical relatio nships of domination shaping immigration to the United States. PUSH-PULL A common theory of immigration is the push-pull mo del. Its simplicity and alignment with the dominant philosop hy of neoclassical economics make it intuitively popular, though not necessarily empirically or historically valid. Three core tenets form the theory’s explanation of migration (Massey et al. 2002). One, unequ al distribution of resources (e.g., political, economi c, and cultural) among global regions creates attractive regions and unattractive ones. Thus, good conditions pull people i n, and bad ones push them out. Two, supply and demand market forces encourage migration. The US economy has jobs (i.e., agricultu re, service, transportation) and needs workers, and the homeland has low wages and an abundance of unemployed and/or underemployed workers.

Three, migrants are rational actors, who assess the costs and benefits of migration and ultimately decide whether or not to migrate. New economic theories elaborate the push-pull model by placing rational actors in a web of family and community relations t hat shape their decision to migrate (Massey et al. 2002; Yang 2011). Assessment of Push-Pull Model The push-pull model and its variants seem evident b ecause they seem to capture a movement of people from a re latively poor region to a richer one, but upon closer examination one finds serious flaws. They do not explain why some regions fitting the conditions of M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~267~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 push-pull have emigration and others do not, as the Mexican and European immigration comparison will demonstrate below. Further, the push-pull models do not elaborate the historica l origins of resource differences between regions or elaborate the structural relationships between the sending and the receiving so cieties that precede the initial migrations (Gonzalez and Fernandez 2003 ; Parreñas 2001; Portes and Rumbaut 1996). These omis sions obscure the causes of modern migration and fail to consider that the differential regional conditions are interconnected (Bonacich and Cheng 1984; Sassen 1988, 2003). Furthermore, push-pull models do not explain the “differential inclusion” of foreign laborers and th e racism and sexism that underpin their exploitation (Espiritu 2003; Gonza lez 2006). For instance, migrants are not necessarily absorbed as cheaper l abor through supply and demand economic principles, e.g. , shortages of workers do not translate into better wages in farm labor (Barajas 2009:108–109; Ngai 2004:106–109); 6 and immigrants are not all devalued and exploited in the same way, contingent on race, ge nder, class, and national origin (Barrera 1979; Bonilla-Silva 2001; Ngai 2004). STRUCTURAL PERSPECTIVES Overcoming the push-pull model’s flaws, structural theories identify imperialism—that is, monopoly capitalism—a s the chief cause of mass migration from specific world regions. This app roach corrects the causal order of migration and roots it in global c apitalism (Cockcroft 2010; Fernández-Kelly 1983; Gómez-Quiñon es 1994; J.

Gonzalez 2000; Gonzalez and Fernandez 2003; Kearney 1986, 1996; Portes and Rumbaut 1996; Sassen 1988, 1996). From this perspective, capitalism has intrinsic co ntradictions and imperialistic tendencies. The system suffers from recurring cr ises rooted in “a decline in the rate of profit, leading capitalists to reduce their investments, which in turn leads to rising un employment, and so on, in a downward spiral” (Bonacich and Cheng 1984:4). 7 Consequently, capitalists cross borders in search o f new markets, higher profits, and still lower costs in labor, inputs, and regulations.

Corporate and national interests in foreign resourc es, therefore, contribute to the politics of empire, that is, mili tary, political, and/or M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~268~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 economic interventions in less capitalistic societies (Cockcroft 1998:186–190; Gómez-Quiñones 1994:88–89; Gonzalez 2 006:1–5; Gonzalez and Fernandez 2003:38–45; Hart 2002:502–503; Po rtes and Rumbaut 1996:272–274; Sassen 1996:76–85). These interve ntions cause migration (Bonacich and Cheng 1984:2; Cockcroft 2010:84–87).

For example, foreign investment in maquiladoras—global assembly plants in export processing zones—hurt domestic industries; exploit local labor and environment; and acculturate workers f or international migration (Fernández-Kelly 1983; Sassen 1996). As i n the past, when subsistence-based and self-sufficient societies bec ome absorbed into capitalist relations, they lose their local autonom y and become part of a global division of labor, serving the corporate i nterests and consumer needs of the core regions rather than thos e of the periphery (Wallerstein 1974, 2003; Sassen 1988). M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~269~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 Nascent capitalism at the turn of nineteenth centu ry in northern Europe displaced rural people from a feuda l economy and directed them into an industrial economy based on w age relations and mass production (Massey et al. 1987; Zolberg 2006). Emig ration from Europe to the United States correlates with these p olitical-economic dislocations in the European continent (See Table 1 and Figure 1). As capitalist relations spread and displaced or articu lated with feudal economies in Southern and Eastern Europe in the mid-ni neteenth century, one finds similar population shifts from t he rural zones to the urban industrial cities and to the United States. T he European economic integration disrupted local economies in t he mid-nineteenth century and pushed peasants into migration across t he Atlantic Ocean (Sassen 1988:33–34; Zolberg 2006:130). European imm igrants pre- dominately from Ireland, Germany, Britain, and Swit zerland…and later also from Italy, Portugal, Spain, Russia, Pol and…went from being disposable proletarians and peasants to small farm ers and citizens in the newly colonized territories west of the Mississippi. M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~270~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 Assessment of Structural Perspectives Structural theories examine how historical unequal relatio ns benefit some nations with wealth and development and disadv antage others with debt and poverty and thus contribute to contemporary labor migration. Structural views vary in what econ omic process they stress—global exchanges and/or labor exploitation—a nd how they theorize capitalism relating to other modes of production— displace it or integrate it (Brewer 1990:181; Gonzalez and Fernand ez 2003:6–7, 48; Kearney 1996:83; Stavenhagen 1979:31–36), but o verall the perspective underscores how monopoly capitalism imp acts world economies and forces people into migration (Masseye t al. 2002:144– 146; Portes and Rumbaut 1996:282–284). There are several concerns, however, with structural view s’ application to Mexican migration. For one, their near-exclu sive focus on how the political economy shapes labor migration neglects the roles of racism and patriarchy (Espiritu 2003; Gonz alez 2006; Gonzalez and Fernandez 2003). The modern nation-sta tes developed concepts of citizenship, boundaries, and rights tha t excluded, segregated, and marginalized racialized natives and wome n (Glenn 2002; Menchaca 1993; Nevins 2002). These countries differentially incorporated immigrants into the nation on the basi s of race, gender, and class, and excluded indigenous people from the Americas (Espiritu 2003; Menchaca 1993; Ngai 2004; Zolberg 2 006). Secondly, the structural perspective suggests that imperialistic relations between regions stimulate migration from the subordinated region to the dominant one (Sassen 1988:34). This do es not account for why the United States, which did not have such r elationships with Europe, nonetheless received most of its migration from there in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 8 The structural dislocations of peasants in Europe merely coincided with and con tributed to the territorial and colonial expansion of the United St ates through the nineteenth century. Lastly, Mexico also experienced structural dislocation s from the mid to latter part of the nineteenth century, but these produced only a small fraction of the total international mi gration to the United States (see Figure 1; Pew Hispanic Center 2009:1). Hence, the structural perspective does not explain why Europeans constitu ted the great majority of the immigrants throughout the nin eteenth and for M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~271~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 most of the twentieth century, when Mexican-origin people experienced similar dislocations within their terri tory, had lost most of their land by the turn to the twentieth century, suff ered labor exploitation by the few who owned most everything, and were closer and integrated to the United States and its expanding indus trial economy (Barajas 2009:76–77; Cockcroft 1998: 82–90; Casanova 1963, 292–294; Gonzalez and Fernandez 2003:38–43; H art 2002:262– 267). From 1860 to 1910, Mexican migrants averaged a mere 1 percent of the total foreign-born population compared to the 8 5 percent plus from Europe. A fuller explanation of Mexican migration is warranted, and an integrated and historical expl anation is offered below. AN INTERACTIVE COLONIZATION THEORY OF MEXICAN -ORIGIN MIGRATION AND INCORPORATION Unlike European immigrants, the first waves of Mex ican migrants originated from a nation that had recently lost half of its territory and whose remaining territory also became subordinated to US national interests (Acuña 1988; Casanova 1963; C ockcroft 2010; Gonzalez 2000; Hart 2002). Racial and patriarchal s tructures intersected with economic ones to create unique Mexican-origin migration patterns. For example, Mexican-origin men we re recruited as “imported colonial labor” or as guest workers (Gonzalez 200 6:2, 5, 31–38; Ngai 2004:94–95). 9 Although exploited in the United States, they experienced relative material improvement and escaped overlapping oppressions, one from their own nation (internal colonialism) and the other international (neocoloni alism) (Casanova 1963, 1965; Stavenhagen 1964). 10 The proposed interactive colonization framework (XC) therefore examines rela tionships of domination within and between nations to understand Mexican-origin migration. In what follows, I outline XC and elaborat e how Mexicans have been historically incorporated into the United States. Interactive Colonization (XC): An Outline XC integrates the colonial, structural, and transnatio nal11 frameworks, highlighting three central concepts: co lonialism, dialectics, and social interaction. Thus, XC grounds the migr ation and incorporation experiences in a historical context s haped by M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~272~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 colonialism (various and overlapping forms), dialec tical relations (intersecting systems of racial, class, and gender oppression), and social interactions (transnational networks). Unlike t he structural perspective and other colonial models, 12 XC integrates macro to micro level processes, underscores specific dialectical s ystems of oppression, and elucidates emergent social formations across bo rders for understanding labor migration. XC’s central concept s are elaborated below. Colonialism XC underscores the historical fact of colonialism in the making of existing national and global inequalities an d consequently in the shaping of migration and incorporation patterns of dislocated people (Quijano 2000; Grosfoguel, Cervantez-Rodrigue z, and Mielants 2009; Mirandé 1985). Regarding Mexico, Cas anova (1963, 1965:32–36) and Stavenhagen (1964:1156–1158) noted the continuity of colonialism, observing that while the expression of domination had changed, its practice—racial, cultural, and class oppre ssion—persisted.

The historical repression of indigenous communities “de-indianize”13 many of them (Bonfil Batalla 1996; Leon-Portilla 1990; Wolf 1959), and reflect an internal colonial continuum of domin ation with the indigenous people at the bottom, emergent mestizas/ os (westernized or mixed indigenous people) in between, and Europeans a t the top (Casanova 1965:35). Quijano (2000) articulated the “coloniality of power” that imposes a Eurocentric modernity in the entire global system concentrating wealth and power along racial lines. Building from this foundational scholarship, my conc eption of colonialism stresses the following ideas: 1) colo nialism specifies the history of the Americas that constructed race and natio n and that universalized them along with gender and class hierarchie s; 2) it advances a fuller analysis of intersecting dialectical sy stems of domination—i.e., race, gender, and class—not subsum ing any as less important; 3) it considers that colonial domination can occur within a nation (e.g., internal colonialism of indigenous people within the United States or Mexico), 14 between nations (e.g., neocolonialism of Mexico by the United States), and both (e.g., indigenous peopl e are internally colonized in Mexico, which is neo-coloni zed by the United States) (Casanova 1965:33-36); and 4) it emphasizes “oppression” M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~273~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 rather than “competition” or “influence” to undersc ore relationships of domination and exploitation. In effect, overlapping f orms of colonialism have produced migrations from Mexico to the United States, distinguishing it from European migrations. After the US conquest of Mexican-claimed Southwest territory in 1848, original (native) people, whether Me xicanized or not, experienced dislocations from their lands, resource s, and cultural identities. These forced migrations occurred within each emergen t nation, but Mexico’s international migrations to the United S tates correlated with the overlaps of neocolonial and int ernal-colonial conditions, which occurred most acutely during the Porfiriato period (1876–1910) and neoliberal period (1980–present) (Barajas 2 009:76– 78; Portes and Rumbaut 1996:275). 15 Mexican immigration is rooted in US neo-colonialis m that appropriated the former’s wealth, including labor, and directed it to the north (Portes and Rumbaut 1996; Gonzalez 2006). Immediately after the Mexican “Independence,” the 1823 Mon roe Doctrine warned Europe that the Americas were off l imits to their colonial ambitions, and enacted the US Manifest Destiny . By 1848, the United States took over half of Mexico’s territory an d soon after benefited from colonized labor on both sides of the newly imposed border (Cockcroft 2010; Gómez-Quiñones 1994; Hart 200 2; McWilliams 1990; Mize and Swords 2011); and through “peaceful conquest” neocolonized the rest of Mexico without i ncurring the cost of military occupation and of national entitlements (Gonzalez 2006:19 –20; Grosfoguel 2003:240–41). The saying “I didn’t cross the border, the border crossed me” is thus historically accurate .

The Porfiriato dictatorship (1876–1910) collaborat ed with US neocolonialism and sought an illusory “dependent de velopment” by opening itself more to foreign investment (Cockcroft 2010:52–53; Hart 2002:266). The dictatorship intensified internal- colonial conditions for indigenous people dislocating them from their lands, resources, and cultures (Bonfil Batalla 1996; Casanova 1965). The Baldio Laws of 1883 and 1884, for instance, freed ha cienda expansion onto indigenous communal lands, and “Criollo landowners were thus able to achieve what not even colonial elites had b een able to do: take over the vast of majority of land” (Cockcroft 1998: 72). Only about 3 percent of the population in Mexico owned agricultu ral lands by 1910 M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~274~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 (Galarza 1964:18; Hart 2002:262–263; Weber 1998:215 ). The Porfiriato also allowed the appropriation of nation al resources by foreigners, who constructed railroads, roads, and port s that directed much wealth and labor out of Mexico and into the Un ited States (Galarza 1964; Gamio 1930; Gómez-Quiñones 1994; McWillia ms 1990), and as elaborated below the migratory flows refle ct the dialectics of capitalism, racism, and patriarchy. Dialectical Relations Dialectical relations involve power inequalities and exploitation, and produce oppositional interests among those i nvolved in these relationships. 16 A dialectical analysis thus examines relationships rooted to systems of domination such as capitalism (capitalists vs. workers), white supremacy (Eurocentric ra cism vs. multiculturalism), and patriarchy (male domination vs. gender equality). 17 Such relationships have been theorized by various scholars, including Mario Barrera’s class segmentation (1979), Edu ardo Bonilla- Silva’s racialized social system (2001), Patricia Hi ll Collins’s categories of analysis and connection (2003), Kimberlé Crenshaw’s inte rsectional theory (1997), and Evelyn Nakano Glenn’s integrated framewo rk (1994, 2002). These theorists explain how race, gend er, and class inequalities are constructed, and how they structure patte rns of opportunity and mobility. In this case, through a d ialectical analysis I examine how each system of oppression and their inte rsections shape the migration and incorporation of Mexican-origin p eople.18 In the late twentieth century, US capitalists incr easingly dominated Mexico and contributed to its immigration flows (Cockcroft 2010:72–76; Hart 2002:432–446 ). As during the Porfiriato, powerful foreign corporations, along with collabora tive Mexican elites, benefitted from privatization, deregulation, and oth er laissez- faire policies; and US multinationals increasingly cont rolled capital, credit/investment, and profits (Barndt 2002:173–175 ; Hart 2002:437– 453, 466–474). Neo-liberalism shifted into a higher gear with the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) among the United States, Canada, and Mexico; and hurt the latter’s d omestic manufacturing and agricultural sectors (Barndt 2002 :73–75; Johnson 2011:A14; Kraul 2002:A11; Thompson 2002:A3). Mexica n communities and small/medium ejidos (collective farms) lost national M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~275~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 subsidies and legal protections over communal land and resources,19 and multinational corporations and foreign investor s benefited from a Mexican export-oriented economy with 80–90 percent going to the United States (Cockcroft 1998:326–328, 332; Hart 2002:4 39–441, 451 –452; Hing 2010:26, 61). Mexico was subordinated to the consumer needs of the United States (Mize and Swords 2011:xx vi–vii), and became more dependent on remittances from US relati ves, whose contributions surpassed any other sources of revenue, inclu ding foreign investment, petroleum, and tourism (Gonzalez 2006:164). The national inequalities are revealed in the grow ing gap in GDP per capita between the NAFTA participants. In 1 993, a year before NAFTA, the GDP per capita difference between Mexico and the US was $17,752, and in 2008, almost double at $ 32,685 (see Figure 2). As migration from Mexico increased so did the US GDP per capita M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~276~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 income. The gains of a more productive and exploite d workforce, however, do not benefit everyone, 20 as income and wealth inequality increased within each NAFTA participant, particularly Mexico (Collins and Yeskel 2005; OECD 2011:6). In this NAFTA context, overlapping national and international oppressions stimulated the Zapatista reb ellion in 1994, when original peoples of the Americas rebelled agai nst the latest in a series of colonial acts that have dislocated them f rom their land, resources, and Mesoamerican cultures (Stavenhagen 2 005:18–22; Bonfil Batalla 1996: 112, 129). Migration from Mexico to the United States rose to unprecedented heights, increasing from 2.1 million in 1990 to 12.4 million in 2010 (Pew Hispanic Center 2 011b:8). From 2006 to 2010, however, the US economic downtur n and enforcement-only immigration policy reduced bord er crossing to and from Mexico (Pew Hispanic Center 2011b:3). Altho ugh some claim that national inequalities are decreasing and that the standards of living in Mexico (i.e., education, health, and inco me per capita) are improving (Esquivel 2010; Maganini 2011), others do cument that the nation suffers from higher levels of wealth inequal ities, poverty, violence, militarization (war on drugs), and contin ued US dominance (Cockcroft 2010:41–45; Gonzalez 2006:142–143; Tucker 20 11). In 2002, 58 percent of rural Mexico lived below the po verty line, earning less than $3.00 a day (Taylor, Mora, Adams & Lopez-Fel dman 2005:23); and from 2008 to 2011, the poverty rate grew by 2 percentage points, increasing the impoverished to at least 52 million people, about half the population (Geo-Mexico 2011). Political-economic domination, important as it is, has not alone shaped Mexican migration to the United States. If it were all determinant, migration north would continue given Mexico’s subordinate economic position observed above. As in the past, racial and gender dialectics mediate migration and incorpo ration of Mexican -origin people across borders. From the formation of the nation, racist and patri archal structures restricted membership to the United Stat es. The Naturalization Act of 1790 restricted full citizenship and membership to “free white persons” (Glenn 2002:24–25). The mod ern nation-state was a new construct in the Americas, and people of color, particularly women of color, were not desired or treated as equal member s M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~277~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 (Anderson 1991; Ngai 2004; Quijano 2000). From about 1 607 to 1803, Northern European colonists were largely concentrated e ast of the Mississippi; and with the colonization of the w estern territories (1803 and 1848), settlers and labor were in demand. Land and immigration acts encouraged White settlement west o f the Mississippi, including the Gwyn Land Act of 1851 which set a land review board that did not validate all land grants from the Mexic an period; the Homestead Act of 1862 which encouraged squatting and d ispossessed indigenous people from their land; the Immigration Act of 1864 which facilitated European migration to the United States; and the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 that con nected the east with the west. Restrictive immigration policies targeted Asians and ot her people of color in the late nineteenth and early tw entieth centuries.21 During this Social Darwinist period, Mexican-origin me n were exempted from the exclusions and recruited as importe d- (from Mexico) and internal-colonial (from Southwest) work ers (Barrera 1979; Ngai 2004; Gonzalez 2006), because they were n ative to the land, though their full humanity was oppressed in terms o f race, gender, culture, and work (Bonfil Batalla 1996; Cas anova 1963, 1965; Gamio 1930; Menchaca 1993; Ngai 2004). After the restri ctive Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924 and the deport ations of the 1930s (Balderrama and Rodríguez 1995:121–122; Ngai 2004 :60–87),22 the identification of Mexicans as “natives” changed to the stereotypi- cal view of “Mexican aliens” and after the Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 to “illegal immigrants” (Barajas 2009:31; Nevins 2002: 111–112; Portes and Rumbaut 1996:274). In effect, US acts historica lly have constructed Mexican-origin people as “aliens” to the nation.

The patriarchal order intersected with these racia l and class structures (Dill 1988; Glenn 1994). While women were generally marginalized in society, women of color were denied the ideals of domesticity (imposed on White women) at the turn of the twentieth century, and many labored in colonial-type jobs, such as agriculture and service, along with men and children. Mexican-o rigin women were also excluded from the various guest-worker programs e nacted throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Such exclusions discouraged Mexicans from settling in the United St ates and kept their numbers and cost of reproduction low (Chavez 1997, 2008). So while M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~278~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 the United States actively recruited men from Mexico and other non- European regions, women were not encouraged to come o r settle in the nation, unlike migrants from Europe, who were d esired for populating and controlling the newly acquired territ ories west of the Mississippi (Dill 1988; Espiritu 2003; Glenn 1994; Gonzalez 2006).

Consequently, European migration to the United States was mo re gender balanced, and Europeans constituted the great ma jority of foreign-born immigrants from 1790 to 1980, only exc eeded in numbers by Mexican-/Latin-origin and Asian migrants for the first time in 1990. Gender balancing did not begin until the 1960s in the context of US civil rights and de-colonial movement s throughout the world (Donato, Alexander, Gabaccia & Leinoen 2011; Sassen 1988). The Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 ended National Origin Quotas and permitted family reunification and exercise of employment preferences. Previously, many Mexican-origin people had been split from their families for generations, reflecting the U S interest in forming a racial-ethnic homogeneous nation (Anderson 19 91; Barajas and Ramirez 2007; Dill 1988). Evidently, Mexican migration patte rns were shaped by racist and sexist labor markets and nation-state acts.

The changes in the racial and gendered makeup of the foreign-born population began in 1960s, as the regional and global dialectics of resistance heightened against internal-, neo-, and classical colonial systems. In the United States, civil rights, women’ s rights, farm labor rights, and antiwar movements advanced, and the internal col onialism changed from legal and manifest forms to informal, s ubtle systemic racial, gender and class domination. US domination, nonetheless, continued and expanded in Latin America (e.g., the border industrial program of maqu iladoras in Mexico and military interventions in Central America ) and in Asia (e.g., the Vietnam War) in an effort to slow the de cline of the United States’ hegemonic global position (Frezzo and Aragh i 2007; Wallerstein 2003). Migration followed from those impacted regions, whose politicians and domestic elites facilitated the subj ugation of their people. Neo- and internal-colonial processes expelled Mexican s into international migration, which now represent the la rgest group of immigrants at 32 percent, and Filipinos, a distant second at 5 percent (Pew Hispanic Center 2009:1). 23 Along with other Latinos, the M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~279~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 Mexican-origin population account for half of the U S nation’s growth over the past decade (Pew Hispanic Center 2011a:1; US Census Bureau 2012: Table 42). Nativistic immigration polic ies, however, keep 55 percent of the Mexican immigrants as undocumented and make them 60 percent of the total unauthorized population (Pew Hispanic Center 2009:1). From 2007 to 2010, the rem oval of undocumented immigrants averaged 335,694 a year for a t otal of 1.34 million, exceeding the total number of deportations from the great depression period ( http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/files/ removals2007-2010_0727101.pdf ; Ngai 2004:72–73). Moreover, the militarized racist and patriarchal border perpetuates system atic violence and rape against women crossing the southe rn border (Falcón 2007:204–208). These migration trends can onl y be understood from a colonial, dialectical, and intera ctional framework, which reveals a long US tradition of excluding, sub jugating, and removing people on the basis of race, gender, and c lass in clear violation of human rights (2007:218–219; Tamez 2012 :5–6).). Social Interactions An analysis of social interactions zooms in closer to the migrant subjects and their social networks for unde rstanding the migration process across borders (Massey et al. 198 7, 2002; Menjívar 2000; Portes and Rumbaut 1996, 2006; Richter, Taylor, and Yúnez- Naude 2007). Many scholars conceive of migrant’s network s as social capital, which constitutes assets that reduces the cost of migration (Grasmuck and Pessar 1991:13; Massey et al. 2002: 18 –21).24 Accordingly, as they mature over time, networks for m a social structure that makes migration self-sustaining and inde pendent from the original factors that caused it. Portes and Rum baut note, for example, “At some moment, networks across international bo rders acquire sufficient strength to induce migration for motives oth er than those that initiated the flow” (1996: 276). Massey e t al. similarly observe, “Once the number of network connections in a community reaches a critical threshold, migration becomes sel f-perpetuating because each act of migration creates the social struct ure needed to sustain it” (2002: 20). The social networks alone, in spite of the expectation s above, do not cause and sustain migration without controlling f or the M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~280~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 continued unequal and exploitative relations betwee n sending and receiving nations (Barajas 2009:39). If social networks st imulate migration long after the initial structural dislocations (e. g., Richter et al. 2007:286), why did European migration cease to dominate in numbers by 1990? 25 Irrespective of Europe’s recovery from World War II, Europeans with more relatives and social ties i n the United States should have benefitted more from the 1965 Har t-Cellar Act’s family reunification provision than all the other n ationalities.26 It was the expectation (Zolberg 2006:330–336). However, it was the Mexican -origin migration that increased in that period, be cause of overlapping internal- and neo-colonial relationships in the sen ding country that involved the receiving nation’s politics of domination. In The Xaripu Community across Borders (Barajas 2009), for example, the case study shows the migratory changes of a small community from Michoacán, Mexico, to the United States t hroughout the twentieth century. During the Porfiriato period the first Xaripus, Purepecha-origin people, migrated to the United Sta tes. The migrants were mostly young men working throughout the countr y in various industries (agriculture, railroads, and steel) and then return ing to Mexico. Many continued their migration throughout t heir lives, and were later accompanied by younger cohorts (second-generation migrants) during the Bracero period (1942–1964). Only during the civil and labor rights movements of the sixties, Xari pu families (third- generation migrants) began to settle in the United States, leading to a transnational experience, that is, having a dual sense of h ome and maintaining active social networks across national b orders (2009:147). The Xaripu case illustrates how the change from labor migration to transnational migration during the lat e twentieth century was intensified by neocolonialism, advances in tech nology, and racist nativism in the United States (Barajas 2009:146–147; Es piritu 2003:70 –71; Goldring 2003:166–170, 189; Guarnizo and Smith 2003:24). Beginning in the 1970s, Mexico’s emigration rates inc reased not primarily because of mature social networks and/or liberal immigration policy (the Hart-Cellar Act 1965 and, l ater, IRCA 1986) but because of the overlaps of internal and neocolo nialism in Mexico (paralleling the Porfiriato period). The Hart-Cellar Act, in fact, imposed the first quotas of 20,000 per nation in th e western hemisphere (Ngai 2004:227–228). Mexican-origin migrat ion had been M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~281~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 unrestricted before 1965, and up to half a million Br aceros had been brought for 6 to 9 months annually from 1942 to 196 4, for a total of 5 to 7.5 million over the 22-year period (Gonzalez 20 06:118; Mize and Swords 2011:8–9). 27 By the end of the sixties, the Xaripu networks that ha d developed over the twentieth century facilitated th e migration and settlement of their families in the United States. The recei ving country, however, was far from being open and welco ming. Xaripu families experienced occupational, residential, edu cational segregation and racist nativism that blocked their full integra tion and that of later generations as full members of the nation. Thus, th eir networks work within powerful dialectical barriers noted above, a nd their emergent transnationalism reflects a desire to embrace their full humanity, feeling complete across borders (Barajas 2009:222). They moved from being “ ni de aqui, ni de alla ” [neither from here nor from there] to “ de aqui y de alla ” [from here and there]: sin fronteras [without borders] .

Some scholars see “transnationalism from below” 28 as empowering (Alicea 1997; Espiritu 2003; Goldring 2003) and oth ers disagree (Parreñas 2001; Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila 1997; Po rtes and Rumbaut 1996). In the Xaripu case transnationalism reflects the dialectics of survival among those who live in-betw een two very unequal worlds and attempt to weave the best of them by transcending the modern nation that imposes racial/ ethnic, gender, and class borders as criteria for full and equal me mbership (Barajas 2009:174–176, 181; Guarnizo and Smith 2003:6; Mahle r 2003:89, 91).

They create networks of support, build transnationa l communities, and develop identities that reflect their new experi ences in a context of unequal power relations. CONCLUSION The study of Mexican-origin migration and incorpor ation has been simplified by frameworks claiming universal ap plication based on the European immigrant experience. Research on m igration is dominated by political-economic perspectives: on th e one hand, neo- classical models emphasize modernity, supply and de mand forces, and rational actors shaping migration processes; and on the other hand, structural perspectives underscore monopoly capital ism and highlight relationships of political-economic domination disl ocating people M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~282~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 from their homelands. Other dialectical relationshi ps—i.e., racial and gender oppression—are considered less significant a nd often as functional or super-structural systems to capitalism. This paper moves beyond these reductionist views and proposes interactive colonization theory as providing more comprehensive and integrat ed understanding of Mexican-origin migration experiences. Overlapping internal and neo-colonialisms have cau sed Mexican-origin migrations as seen in the Porfiriato period and more recently in the neoliberal period. These migrations can only be understood from a longitudinal historical perspectiv e and with a dialectical analysis of the intersecting systems of racism, patriarchy and capitalism. In a fairly short period of human histo ry, Mexican-origin people, generally indigenous, were largely displace d from their land, resources, and cultures/identities. Today, as befor e, these forced migrants are treated and imagined as “aliens” to the m odern nation.

The dehumanization goes beyond economic exploitatio n, because it denies their right to exist within distinct cultural communities and to move, express, and pursue their dreams freely and with d ignity (Bonfil Batalla 1996; Casanova 1965; Leon-Portilla 1990; Sta vehagen 2005). In 2010, for example, Arizona’s SB 2281 outlawed Mexic an American Studies and SB 1070 formalized racial profiling and deten tion of perceived undocumented immigrants; and in 2011 Alaba ma’s HB 56 went further, essentially outlawing undocumented pe ople’s right to exist, by denying them the right to employment, hou sing, education, transportation, and private or public assistance. I n violation of Human Rights, the construction of borders and “illegal al iens” oppress the original peoples of the Americas (Tamez 2012), and the treatment of their homelands as frontiers to be civilized/ liber alized/modernized alienate them from their lands, resources, and culture s (Smith 2011).

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A Nation by Design: Immigration Policy in the Fashioning of America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ENDNOTES 1. “Latin America” should really be “Indigenous America” as a way of recognizing the continued existence and influence o f Indigenous people in the Americas. The use of “Latin America” p rivileges only the contributions and influences of Latin European cultures in the American continents and suppresses those of the indigenous nations.

In addition, the melting-pot concept (and ideology) of “Latino” or nationality-based labels such as “Mexican” obscure the racial, class, and gender stratification universalized by colonial ism in the Americas, and omit the political-ideological state efforts to Latinize and/or Mexicanize diverse indigenous nations into an imposed natio nalism (Barajas 2009:75, 219). 2. Nonetheless, over the past decade, the general Lat ino population grew from 35.3 million to 50.5 million, accounting for 56 percent of the national growth (PEW Hispanic Center 2011a, 1), and no n-White births became the majority for the first time in th e nation’s history (New York Times 2012: A1). 3. Mestizaje refers to racial and/or ethnic mixing, and is often associated with Spanish and indigenous mestizas/os t hough it can be of any mixture.

4. Without dispute, Mexico is racial and ethnically di verse, and mestizaje is very common, as it is within the Unite d States and its major racial categories, e.g., Black and White. These c ategories do not reflect more pure racial groups, but reflect the po litics of racial formation, whereby racial classification and valuat ions are imposed (and resisted) on to ethnicities with the purposes of placing them in a social hierarchy (Omi and Winant 1994). 5. Mexico had extended formal citizenship to indige nous people since early in the 19 th century, possibly because they were the majority righ t after the Mexican Independence (Menchaca 1993). M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~290~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 7. In the never-ending competition for greater prof its, capitalists overproduce a good which hurts its product’s price. Em ployers respond by downsizing the workforce, maintaining high levels of production with fewer workers, depressing wages, an d/or automating to reduce labor cost. Eventually, high unemployment leads to low consumption rates and lower profits (Bonacich and Appel baum 2000:102–3; Bonacich and Cheng 1984:7–8; Cockcroft 1998:172–73).

8. England did have such an imperialistic relation wit h Ireland, and also experienced high levels of Irish migration during the mid- nineteenth century (Smith and MacRaild 2009:153).

9. In Mexico, indigenous communities were forced into labor migration to neighboring and distant haciendas that had appropriated their lands (Barajas 2009:77–78; Fonseca and Moreno 1 984:95–95) 10. In neocolonialism, a colony gains independence but becomes subordinated to another empire [or the same one]. When Mexico won independence in 1821, the United States appropriate d half of their territory by 1848, and eventually neocolonized the remaining ha lf of Mexico’s territory, monopolizing its resources and infrastruc ture.

Across borders indigenous people went from being extern ally colonized by European Kingdoms within their territories to becoming internally colonized by newly-formed nations. In effect, indigenous people suffer the impacts of overlapping oppression s, one from within Mexico and the other from the United States. M estizos [acculturated or mixed indigenous people] occupy an int ermediary position. 6. Ngai (2004) illustrates the devaluation of Filipi no workers based not on supply and demand principles or the workers’ willingness to work for less but, rather, on racist employers. M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~291~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 11. The transnational perspective relates to the co nceptual framework of interactionism (e.g., George Mead’s and Herbert Blumer’s symbolic interactionism), because it underscores social ties and rel ationships affect thought/behavior, self concept, and sense of community. The transnational perspective further communicates the ability of people being able to relate/exist across national borders through their social networks that facilitate communication, migration, and the reproduction of community.

12. For example, Quijano’s (2000) “coloniality of pow er” is one of the most comprehensive discussions of colonialism and i ts continuous impacts on the modern world, global capitalism, and cu ltural/racial domination. Quijano’s theory, however, does not exp lain migration; for example, why Mexican-origin migration was low o r high over time? Interactive colonization offers a better spec ified framework with broader explanatory power for understanding labor m igration and incorporation of Mexican-origin people into the Uni ted States. For instance, Mexican migration occurs in specific historical periods when internal and external colonialisms overlap, and the d ialects of racial, gender and class mediate its form and level. 13. “De-indianized” refers to the suppression of their c ultures and identities, and what some called mestizaje. 14. G. Gonzalez (2006) uses the concept of colonial ism, but does not employ the term of internal colonialism. Quijano’s (200 0) theory of “coloniality of power” misses the internal diversit y within the colo- nized and colonizers. Barajas (2009) draws attention to this internal diversity (45), and also elaborates how intermediar y groups are formed in a context of unequal power relations (51–55) and develop distinct interests reflective of their social location. 15. Sassen (1988, 31–34) suggests that colonial-based migrations took place in earlier stages of capitalism and that newe r forms of migrations are not directly forced as in the past. I argue th at Mexican- origin migrations are as voluntary as they were in the past, and that the general context stimulating these movements are responding to top-down policies and acts that benefit largely tho se that resemble and/or share the values of the earlier colonizers. M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~292~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 16. Dialectics is an important analytical concept f ocusing on unequal and exploitative relationships that create conflict and change; and while Quijano (2000:548–549) examines such oppressi ve relations (e.g., contradictions and ambiguities of modernity) he does not employ an explicit dialectical analysis. 17. These dialectical relations produce binary repr esentations that justify and normalize the dominant group’s hegemony , for example, primitive/modern, savage/civilized, and irrational/ rationa l.

18. The structural perspective above underscores one dial ectical relation, monopoly capitalism, as the most importan t explaining modern migration, and some scholars expand the analysis to include racial and gender systems as well, but subsume it in sign ificance to the global economic system (Gonzalez and Fernandez 2003; G onzalez 2006; Sassen 1988, 2003).

19. Article 27 of Mexican Constitution that protected collectiv e land grants ( ejidos) was dismantled in the early 1990s, facilitating t he sale of ejido lands and leading to the concentration of farm lands in fewer hands. 20. The real wages for US native workers appear to rise from 1990 to 2004, while those of foreign-born ones declined (Pe ri 2007:15).

21. These exclusionary acts targeted Chinese (1882, 189 2), Japanese (1908, 1913), and more generally Asians and Africans (19 21, 1924).

While Southern and Eastern Europeans were later targeted by the National Origins Quota Acts (1921 and 1924), they were no t categorically excluded but restricted to a quota of 15 percent of the legal entries to the United States, reserving 85 perc ent of the admissions for northern Europeans (Ngai 2004:21). 22. Ngai (2004) elaborates that though the national origin quotas exempted Mexicans from the restrictive immigration act, the law nonetheless created the concept of “illegality,” wh ich became primari- ly applied to Mexican immigrants, irrespective of t heir immigration status. M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~293~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 23. The top sending countries of immigrants during th e 1990s all had experienced colonial and/or neo-colonial interventi ons by the United States (Portes and Rumbaut 1996:274–76; Sassen 1996 :76–85).

24. Other research, however, points to the limits o f social capital as an explanatory factor and demonstrates how access to networ ks is mediated and shaped by gender, class, generation, and race/ethnicity (Barajas and Ramirez 2007; Grasmuck and Pessar 1991; Hondagneu- Sotelo 2003; Mahler 2003; Menjívar 2000; Parreñas 2001). Mo reover, individuals and their networks are placed in larger contexts—national politics, labor market opportunities, and the recei ving society’s attitudes to migrants—that affect the form and success o f their incorporation into the nation (Menjívar 2000; Porte s and Rumbaut 2006). 25. Since the foundation of the US nation, European immigrants had constituted the great majority of the total immigrants u p to 1980.

26. Resources differences were less different betwe en Europe and the United States in the late 20 th century, but they had been less different throughout history given both regions’ colonial position in the world, and yet only recently did Mexican migration numbers to th e United States surpass Europe’s.

27. Economic domination, via foreign investment (Sassen 1988), is not sufficient in itself to cause migration in Mexi co. Casanova (1963:

292–294) documents that the US increasingly dominated foreign investment from 65 percent in 1938 to 75 percent in 1963 , monopolized about 60 percents of its imports and export s, and unilaterally absorbed a surplus value from a very uneq ual trade. However, during that twenty-plus year period, migrat ion from Mexico did not rise, and in fact, remained flat from 1940 to 1960 (Hispanic Pew Center 2009:1). Moreover, now about 80–90 percen t of Mexico’s exports go to the US, reflecting a subordinate expo rt-oriented economy, but migration has paused since 2008 (Hing 2010). 28. “Transnationalism from below” (Guarnizo and Smi th 2003) or “alternative circuits” (Sassen 2003) are networks of c ommon people as opposed to those of global corporate elites. M. Barajas/Societies Without Borders 7:3 (2012) 264-294 ~294~ © Sociologists Without Borders/Sociólogos Sin Fronter as, 2012 Manuel Barajas, associate professor of sociology at California St ate University-Sacramento, specializes in migration stu dies, Chicana/o studies, and race, gender, and class inequality. H e is author of The Xaripu Community across Borders: Labor Migration, C ommunity, and Family (Notre Dame University Press) that received the 2011 Distinguished Book Award Honorable Mention from the Latino Sectio n, American Sociological Association; and he is co-author with Elvia Ramirez of “Beyond Home-Host Dichotomies: A Comparative Examin ation of G e n d e r R e l a t i o n s i n a T r a n s n a t i o n a l M e x i c a n Community” (Sociological Perspectives).