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Benjamin C. Montoya explains how the prospect of immigration restriction affects diplomatic relations by analyzing U.S. efforts to place a quota on immigration from Mexico during the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Image courtesy of interviewee. June 10, 2024

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This video discusses the relationship between immigration and foreign policy, particularly between the United States and Mexico during the 1920s. The author examines how U.S. immigration policies were influenced by both economic considerations and racial biases, particularly against Mexican immigrants.

The author's research involved visiting archives in both the U.S. and Mexico to analyze historical documents, including congressional discussions, diplomatic communications, and labor union perspectives. They note that while Mexican immigration was not officially restricted in the same way as European immigration at that time, there were strong anti-Mexican sentiments that affected diplomatic relations.

This video argues that the context of U.S.-Mexico relations was shaped by the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution and the desire of Mexican officials to assert their national legitimacy. U.S. policymakers had to navigate the tensions caused by immigration rhetoric, balancing economic needs and diplomatic relations against growing nativist sentiments.

The author emphasizes that discussions around immigration are not new and are deeply intertwined with broader socio-political issues, including racism and economic conditions in both originating and receiving countries. They advocate for recognizing the complexity of immigration as it relates to diplomacy, culture, and historical context, highlighting the human aspect and motivations behind migration. Ultimately, the conversation about immigration and its implications continues to resonate today.

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The basic motivation was just

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how immigration affects foreign policy, right?

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So I was just, as I was digging into Mexican history,

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especially the revolution, really interested in

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that era in general, looking at post World War I America,

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the 1920s was just this really interesting convergence time,

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I think in US Mexican relations, on the one hand, again,

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Mexico trying to build legitimacy, in the United States,

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really in kind of this restrictionist mood against

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immigration in the 1920s.

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And what was interesting to me was

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how Mexican immigration wasn't included in those discussions

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of, well, it wasn't restricted, I should say,

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whereas Eastern European, Southern European immigration was.

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And, that, that's really kind of where it started.

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Just the, the basic question of

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how does immigration affect foreign policy in

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the states, in the United States.

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I visited the National Archives, I went to,

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Washington DC visit, visited paper collections of diplomats,

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looked at State Department records, of course.

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Um, I also went to Mexico City,

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so looked at their national archives,

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looked at presidential papers of Mexican presidents

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during the 1920s, went to their foreign ministry archives

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and was interested in

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how Mexican diplomats were talking about

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what the US Congress was doing, right?

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Talking about how, if the United States were to

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restrict Mexican immigration,

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what did Mexican politicians think about it?

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So yeah, I, I really was trying

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to balance out not just the American side,

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but how Mexicans reacted to it.

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And within both of those, that huge kind of collection of,

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research, I came across what journalists were saying,

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even what workers were saying.

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It was really interesting in the Mexican archives finding,

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coming across files of labor unions,

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basically writing into the government saying,

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we have this view about

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what the United States is trying to do.

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So, yeah, it was really, really interesting

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to kinda see all these different perspectives, I would say

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to a, a very large extent, up to the 1920s,

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obviously there's a long history of Mexican immigration

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to the United States when it comes

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to US Mexican relations in general, you know, it's a bit

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of a checkered pass with things like the

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Mexican American war.

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So you're talking about a region of the country

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that borders are fluid.

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And so the whole, the discussion

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of immigration is a bit fluid as well,

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because it's like b boundaries change, you know,

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national sovereignties change.

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Um, but yeah, what my book shows is in the 1920s,

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immigration was this animating topic in

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US diplomatic relations.

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And a lot of that had to do with the context.

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Um, again, the Mexican revolution had just recently ended

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completely upended, US Mexican relations.

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Um, you know, whether it was cross border raids

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by someone like Poncho Villa

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or just Woodrow Wilson trying to figure out which faction

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to support and which not to support,

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you know, and so on the one

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Hand, in 1920s, Mexico was a pretty different state than

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it was just a few decades before.

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It didn't want to be get pushed around

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by the United States, right?

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It wanted to be this strong post-revolutionary

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nationalistic power.

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And so to the, to allow the United States to say,

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we're gonna restrict it, re restrict Mexican immigrants

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because we feel like there are a racial

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threat to the nation, right?

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Pretty. Um,

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and I'm putting very much sanitizing the language,

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pretty racist language, for Mexican officials,

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for Mexicans of all kinds, right?

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This seemed like an affront, it seemed like,

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a real kinda slap in the face in a long history of

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being slapped in the face.

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Um, and then of course, from the American point of view,

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some congressman saying, as I just mentioned, we have

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to restrict Mexican immigration.

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It's a threat to the nation.

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Whereas other immigrant, other, excuse me,

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American officials and American businesses especially,

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started to say, there's a real problem with this idea.

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Um, there's an economic problem, right?

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Cutting off immigration from the diplomatic point of view.

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There's a political problem if we cut off immigration,

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if we, if we kind of let our legislation be guided

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by such racist rhetoric,

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this is gonna send a bad signal about the United States

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and really can have implications for the larger region,

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not just Mexico, but Latin America in general

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and all those kinds of things.

04:20.585 --> 04:22.885
So it really, what, what's interesting about

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what I found in my book is, you know,

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oftentimes immigration is boiled down

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to this economic discussion.

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Do they like it in economic terms or not?

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And what I found was, interestingly, the economics

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of immigration was recognized

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as an advantageous thing, right?

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So much of my, the chronology of most

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of my book precedes the onset of the Great Depression.

04:43.945 --> 04:46.685
So it wasn't a discussion of, okay, we're in the Myers

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of the Great Depression, we need to cut off immigration.

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A lot of it was the late, late twenties up to 1929.

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And so what was pushing this Mexican immigration debate was

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pure racism, right?

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Sure, economically Mexican immigrants are useful,

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but racially they are, a barr.

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We need to keep 'em in the way. So that's kind

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of a really big through line of the book of

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how racism really guides, diplomatic relations

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and have a big time effect.

05:13.725 --> 05:15.945
You had a, I use an example from Texas.

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There was a congressman named John Box

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who pretty much dedicated his entire congressional career

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to restricting immigration.

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And, he was from a state, from a region that

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arguably one of developed

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as well without Mexican immigration.

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And he would kind of, dedicate, as I just mentioned,

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his career to restricting immigration.

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Um, and he would go up against, such noble figures as,

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Charles Evan Hughes, secretary of State, other kind

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of major diplomats of that era.

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And really kind of, you know, on the, on the other hand,

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what they're arguing is to kind of push these efforts along,

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will break the relations that we're trying

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to build with Mexico.

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Um, 'cause a, another kind of context of the 1920s is

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how do you rebuild relations

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between the United States and Mexico?

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There's questions over oil expropriation, right?

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Nationalism, all these things. And so again,

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for diplomats like Charles Evan Hughes, Henry Stimson,

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who becomes Secretary of State in the latter power

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of the 1920s, they're saying, look, it's not,

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immigration's not just the only issue here.

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We've got debates over oil, foreign claims, right?

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American property owners who wanna get compensated

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for damages during the Mexican Revolution.

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This talk about immigration restriction is not helping us.

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So on the one hand, it's a very kind of strong opposition

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to some of the racist rhetoric being used,

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but also it's just kind

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of this very practical utilitarian view of, look, man, we,

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we wanna, they weren't saying that, look, man,

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but we wanna maintain good relations in general.

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And so to, it's a bad look

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to restrict Mexican immigration if we're trying

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to solve problems with Mexico.

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So obviously the Harris bill eventually fails.

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So it starts off, I mean, throughout the twenties,

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there's all kinds of versions of how to restrict,

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restrict Mexican immigration.

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Sometimes there are large proposals

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to restrict Western hemisphere immigration in general,

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so Latin American and Canada.

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But what becomes clear throughout those discussions

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that it's, it's really Mexican immigration

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that restrictionist are going after.

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Um, the great,

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the largest immigration waves came from Mexico.

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And so by the late 1920s, you see very Mexico

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specific bills being, suggested in Congress.

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Well, eventually one of these called the Harris Bill, named

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after a guy named, named William Harris,

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who is a congressman from Georgia, one of these strong,

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anti-Mexican politicians,

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actually gets through the Senate.

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Um, it eventually gets abandoned,

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doesn't get taken up by Congress.

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And my argument is a lot of this is

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because of the pressure from the State Department pressure

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from, other critics of the Harris Bill.

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So the bill itself dies by the early 1930s, right?

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And the great depression hits and all, you know, kind

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of history keeps taking its course.

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But I think in the context of US Mexican relations

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and immigration especially,

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what you see in the latter half of the 20th century,

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whether it's, deportation efforts in the 1950s,

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operation w*****k, changes to immigration law

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of the United States in the 1960s,

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but even more recent, in the 1980s, 1990s,

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the United States government trying to figure out how

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to regulate immigration, should it,

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should amnesty be allowed or should it not be?

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And it really kind of brings us up

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to the presence in the sense of,

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and this was a discussion that was being had in the 1920s.

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Uh, can you restrict immigration one

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and will it solve the problem

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of immigration if you put more border guards, for example?

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Walls weren't being discussed in the 1920s,

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but what was being discussed was this idea that you can

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limit the inflow of people,

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and that somehow this is gonna

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solve the problems of immigration.

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I hope what this take is just this, first of all, this idea

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that this, the discussions we see going on now in the

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United States about immigration are not new.

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Um, much of the language that we see, the political rhetoric

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that we see going on is not new.

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And I hope what they really understand is

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how immigration is much more than just this, issue

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of economics, that it ties into

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what are the conditions in sending countries,

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what are the conditions that draw

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immigrants to those countries?

09:32.955 --> 09:35.495
Um, really the kind of shortcomings of just

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for focusing on border enforcement

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and ultimately how diplomacy plays a big part in

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determining immigration, you know,

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and even the legacy of diplomacy.

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So the legacy of US intervention, for example, how,

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I mean, a good example is Central America, right?

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The United States had a pretty strong presence in countries

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like Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador in the 1980s.

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I don't, it's not a coincidence that many

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of these countries are sending a lot of immigrants

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because of, you know, a history

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of weak institutions, civil wars.

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And so I'm, I'm hoping that the, my book,

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while it's a Century in the past,

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really gives readers an idea

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that immigration indeed is a diplomatic issue,

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that ties into culture, into race, into economics,

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but also is something that, it's just complicated, hard

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to understand, not, not so much hard to understand,

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but, hard to figure out a solution.

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You know, I think what we,

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what we miss o oftentimes is the human aspect of the people

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who are crossing and why they're crossing.

00:00 - The basic motivation was just how immigration affects foreign policy, right? So I was just, as I was digging into Mexican history, especially the revolution, really interested in that era in general, looking at post World War I America, the 1920s was just this really interesting convergence time,

00:18 - I think in US Mexican relations, on the one hand, again, Mexico trying to build legitimacy, in the United States, really in kind of this restrictionist mood against immigration in the 1920s. And what was interesting to me was how Mexican immigration wasn't included in those discussions of, well, it wasn't restricted, I should say, whereas Eastern European, Southern European immigration was. And, that, that's really kind of where it started. Just the, the basic question of

00:49 - how does immigration affect foreign policy in the states, in the United States. I visited the National Archives, I went to, Washington DC visit, visited paper collections of diplomats, looked at State Department records, of course. I also went to Mexico City, so looked at their national archives, looked at presidential papers of Mexican presidents during the 1920s, went to their foreign ministry archives and was interested in

01:15 - how Mexican diplomats were talking about what the US Congress was doing, right? Talking about how, if the United States were to restrict Mexican immigration, what did Mexican politicians think about it? So yeah, I, I really was trying to balance out not just the American side, but how Mexicans reacted to it. And within both of those, that huge kind of collection of, research, I came across what journalists were saying,

01:44 - even what workers were saying. It was really interesting in the Mexican archives finding, coming across files of labor unions, basically writing into the government saying, we have this view about what the United States is trying to do. So, yeah, it was really, really interesting to kinda see all these different perspectives, I would say to a, a very large extent, up to the 1920s, obviously there's a long history of Mexican immigration

02:09 - to the United States when it comes to US Mexican relations in general, you know, it's a bit of a checkered pass with things like the Mexican American war. So you're talking about a region of the country that borders are fluid. And so the whole, the discussion of immigration is a bit fluid as well, because it's like b boundaries change, you know, national sovereignties change.

02:29 - but yeah, what my book shows is in the 1920s, immigration was this animating topic in US diplomatic relations. And a lot of that had to do with the context. again, the Mexican revolution had just recently ended completely upended, US Mexican relations. you know, whether it was cross border raids by someone like Poncho Villa or just Woodrow Wilson trying to figure out which faction to support and which not to support,

02:57 - you know, and so on the one Hand, in 1920s, Mexico was a pretty different state than it was just a few decades before. It didn't want to be get pushed around by the United States, right? It wanted to be this strong post-revolutionary nationalistic power. And so to the, to allow the United States to say, we're gonna restrict it, re restrict Mexican immigrants because we feel like there are a racial

03:18 - threat to the nation, right? Pretty. and I'm putting very much sanitizing the language, pretty racist language, for Mexican officials, for Mexicans of all kinds, right? This seemed like an affront, it seemed like, a real kinda slap in the face in a long history of being slapped in the face. and then of course, from the American point of view, some congressman saying, as I just mentioned, we have

03:44 - to restrict Mexican immigration. It's a threat to the nation. Whereas other immigrant, other, excuse me, American officials and American businesses especially, started to say, there's a real problem with this idea. there's an economic problem, right? Cutting off immigration from the diplomatic point of view. There's a political problem if we cut off immigration, if we, if we kind of let our legislation be guided by such racist rhetoric,

04:10 - this is gonna send a bad signal about the United States and really can have implications for the larger region, not just Mexico, but Latin America in general and all those kinds of things. So it really, what, what's interesting about what I found in my book is, you know, oftentimes immigration is boiled down to this economic discussion. Do they like it in economic terms or not? And what I found was, interestingly, the economics

04:34 - of immigration was recognized as an advantageous thing, right? So much of my, the chronology of most of my book precedes the onset of the Great Depression. So it wasn't a discussion of, okay, we're in the Myers of the Great Depression, we need to cut off immigration. A lot of it was the late, late twenties up to 1929. And so what was pushing this Mexican immigration debate was pure racism, right? Sure, economically Mexican immigrants are useful,

05:01 - but racially they are, a barr. We need to keep 'em in the way. So that's kind of a really big through line of the book of how racism really guides, diplomatic relations and have a big time effect. You had a, I use an example from Texas. There was a congressman named John Box who pretty much dedicated his entire congressional career to restricting immigration. And, he was from a state, from a region that

05:27 - arguably one of developed as well without Mexican immigration. And he would kind of, dedicate, as I just mentioned, his career to restricting immigration. and he would go up against, such noble figures as, Charles Evan Hughes, secretary of State, other kind of major diplomats of that era. And really kind of, you know, on the, on the other hand, what they're arguing is to kind of push these efforts along, will break the relations that we're trying

05:56 - to build with Mexico. 'cause a, another kind of context of the 1920s is how do you rebuild relations between the United States and Mexico? There's questions over oil expropriation, right? Nationalism, all these things. And so again, for diplomats like Charles Evan Hughes, Henry Stimson, who becomes Secretary of State in the latter power of the 1920s, they're saying, look, it's not, immigration's not just the only issue here.

06:23 - We've got debates over oil, foreign claims, right? American property owners who wanna get compensated for damages during the Mexican Revolution. This talk about immigration restriction is not helping us. So on the one hand, it's a very kind of strong opposition to some of the racist rhetoric being used, but also it's just kind of this very practical utilitarian view of, look, man, we, we wanna, they weren't saying that, look, man, but we wanna maintain good relations in general.

06:52 - And so to, it's a bad look to restrict Mexican immigration if we're trying to solve problems with Mexico. So obviously the Harris bill eventually fails. So it starts off, I mean, throughout the twenties, there's all kinds of versions of how to restrict, restrict Mexican immigration. Sometimes there are large proposals to restrict Western hemisphere immigration in general, so Latin American and Canada.

07:15 - But what becomes clear throughout those discussions that it's, it's really Mexican immigration that restrictionist are going after. the great, the largest immigration waves came from Mexico. And so by the late 1920s, you see very Mexico specific bills being, suggested in Congress. Well, eventually one of these called the Harris Bill, named after a guy named, named William Harris, who is a congressman from Georgia, one of these strong,

07:43 - anti-Mexican politicians, actually gets through the Senate. it eventually gets abandoned, doesn't get taken up by Congress. And my argument is a lot of this is because of the pressure from the State Department pressure from, other critics of the Harris Bill. So the bill itself dies by the early 1930s, right? And the great depression hits and all, you know, kind of history keeps taking its course.

08:08 - But I think in the context of US Mexican relations and immigration especially, what you see in the latter half of the 20th century, whether it's, deportation efforts in the 1950s, operation w*****k, changes to immigration law of the United States in the 1960s, but even more recent, in the 1980s, 1990s, the United States government trying to figure out how to regulate immigration, should it, should amnesty be allowed or should it not be?

08:36 - And it really kind of brings us up to the presence in the sense of, and this was a discussion that was being had in the 1920s. can you restrict immigration one and will it solve the problem of immigration if you put more border guards, for example? Walls weren't being discussed in the 1920s, but what was being discussed was this idea that you can limit the inflow of people, and that somehow this is gonna

09:01 - solve the problems of immigration. I hope what this take is just this, first of all, this idea that this, the discussions we see going on now in the United States about immigration are not new. much of the language that we see, the political rhetoric that we see going on is not new. And I hope what they really understand is how immigration is much more than just this, issue of economics, that it ties into what are the conditions in sending countries,

09:29 - what are the conditions that draw immigrants to those countries? really the kind of shortcomings of just for focusing on border enforcement and ultimately how diplomacy plays a big part in determining immigration, you know, and even the legacy of diplomacy. So the legacy of US intervention, for example, how, I mean, a good example is Central America, right? The United States had a pretty strong presence in countries

09:55 - like Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador in the 1980s. I don't, it's not a coincidence that many of these countries are sending a lot of immigrants because of, you know, a history of weak institutions, civil wars. And so I'm, I'm hoping that the, my book, while it's a Century in the past, really gives readers an idea that immigration indeed is a diplomatic issue, that ties into culture, into race, into economics,

10:21 - but also is something that, it's just complicated, hard to understand, not, not so much hard to understand, but, hard to figure out a solution. You know, I think what we, what we miss o oftentimes is the human aspect of the people who are crossing and why they're crossing.

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