Migra! by Hernandez Kelly Lytle;

Author:Hernandez, Kelly Lytle;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2010-09-17T16:00:00+00:00

THE LOGIC OF RESISTANCE

South Texans believed their defiance was justified because the U.S. Border Patrol was attempting to unravel their lives. In places such as Brownsville and Hidalgo, growers maintained deep social, cultural, and economic commitments to utilizing undocumented Mexican labor, and they expected cooperation instead of interference from U.S. immigration law-enforcement officers. When the new recruits began raiding and refusing to parole workers to the custody of growers, they not only threatened the supply of undocumented workers but also significantly challenged the farmers’ position of authority in the borderlands by intervening in the rhythms of migration and the lives of migrants. Therefore, although mass deportation created an atmosphere of fear among undocumented workers upon which growers capitalized, many Texans tended to regard the new era of aggressive immigration law enforcement as an unwanted shift in the world that they were struggling to maintain. So they cursed and shouted, booby-trapped their farm gates, placed lookouts along their property perimeters, hired armed guards, and even threatened to arm undocumented immigrants. But the officers kept on coming, threatening to undo their world by deporting their workers.47 The farmers’ struggle, some believed, was so monumental and fundamental that it reminded them of the battle between North and South during the U.S. Civil War.

“We had a large old 17-room farmhouse,” and “we had quarters for the Mexicans in the back. . . three good houses, and then they made some portales for themselves,” remembered D. C. Newton, whose family posted guards to warn of Border Patrol raids.48 But one night in 1952, after everyone had gone to bed, he reported, “We heard motor noises,. . . and suddenly the whole farmhouse compound is lit up, and there’s jeeps at the closure of every driveway to our house.”49 The Border Patrol had entered slowly and quietly before flashing on their headlights, surprising everyone who was settling to sleep in the farmhouse, back quarters, and portales.“I was petrified,” recalled Newton, who was a small child at the time. He saw “men running everywhere” and believed that the Border Patrol was “gonna come and take us all, everybody, take everybody, ‘cause this is what I understood happened.”50 As he watched the Border Patrol officers search in the dark for undocumented Mexicans, his mother or older brother held him tight.

The officers did not find many undocumented migrants that night because Newton’s eldest brother had already “run out” to “tell the Mexicans that the Border Patrol was here and to haul it, run south, or get into a tree.”51 By the time the officers reached the back houses that night, the migrants had scattered. Almost emptyhanded, the “ranking officer” of the Border Patrol and other officers came into the Newton home. They entered Newton’s parents’ bedroom and began “shining the flashlights in my mother’s eyes and my father’s eyes telling them to ‘Get up. We’re gonna go out and find where your Mexicans are.’ ”52 With his father in pajamas, his mother in a nightgown, and no one wearing

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