Description
Elsa De La Rosa's Paper examines the emergence and circulation of anti-Chinese sentiment in Mexico during the Porfiriato from a transnational perspective. It argues that anti-Chinese sentiment was shaped not only by local or national contexts but was by foreign examples, particularly that of the U.S. The paper analyzes how the Mexican political elite viewed China and Chinese immigration. It also explores U.S. efforts in shaping Mexican immigration policy through diplomatic pressure and its influence on the formulation of Mexico’s first immigration law in 1908. In addition, the chapter examines a study on Chinese immigration commissioned by the Mexican government, the role of the Sonoran press in disseminating an anti-Chinese discourse, and the influence of labor and political movements in the borderlands in disseminating anti-Chinese sentiment among Mexican workers. These dynamics reveal how ideas, fears, and exclusionary practices crossed borders and circulated throughout Porfirian society, underscoring the transnational roots of Mexican anti-Chinese sentiment.
Marla Ramírez's article provides the history of mass removals from both sides of the US–Mexico border during the Great Depression. The mass removals discursively transformed racially minoritized citizens into excludable foreigners. Though removals are often understood to be distinctly national policies, I argue that US immigration legislation has historically shaped immigration policy in Mexico and vice versa. As Mexican officials imitated US policies, US immigration laws shifted from a domestic purview to a transnational one. The Depression motivated mass expulsions of citizens perceived as immigrants to save national resources. I contend that US and Mexican officials during this period racialized Mexican Americans and Filipino nationals in the US and Chinese Mexicans in Mexico as foreigners in their own home countries. In doing so, they participated in a transnational exclusionary project that not only racially constructed their own citizens as undesirable “outsiders” but also proceeded to remove them.
About the Speakers
Elsa De La Rosa is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at Northwestern University. Her research focuses on anti-Chinese sentiment in northwestern Mexico, and her dissertation examines the anti-Chinese movements in Mexico, particularly Sonora, during the first three decades of the twentieth century, analyzing how U.S. anti-Chinese policies and measures were regarded as models to follow.
Marla A. Ramírez is a historian of the US–Mexico borderlands and Assistant Professor of History and Chicanx/e & Latinx/e Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She investigates how processes of mass immigration removals have imposed notions of illegality on citizens in their own native countries. Specifically, she centers the everyday experiences of women and children in mixed-status families. She is the author of the book, Banished Citizens: A History of the Mexican American Women Who Endured Repatriation (Harvard University Press, October 2025), which was named a Best Nonfiction Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews. Professor Ramirez has also published articles in the journal of Latino Studies, New Political Science, Aztlán, and Social Justice.
Respondent
Fredy González, University of Illinois, Chicago
About the Borderlands and Latino/a Studies Seminar Series
The Newberry Borderlands and Latino/a Studies Seminar provides a forum for works-in-progress from scholars and graduate students that explore a variety of topics in the field. Seminars are conversational and free and open to faculty, graduate students, and members of the public, who register in advance to request papers.
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