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155 In this chapter I focus on the visual record surrounding Mexican immigration to the United States, including photographs, posters, drawings, paintings, prints, installations, and performances. I draw primarily on work produced in the United States by Mexican and Chicano artists to construct a comprehensive account of the unique experience of Mexican migrants over the last century. Two objectives frame my efforts: to discern how the visual record lines up with the written account and to assess what can be learned about Mexican migration from its visual history and art. On the basis of available data I show how immigration as an artistic theme evolved slowly over the course of more than a century, in parallel fashion to the casting of an immigrant identity, which was gradually shaped by social interactions at the local level but also, more significantly, by government policies. Early representations of Mexicans in what is now American domain antedate the 1848 U.S.-Mexico War, a conflict that resulted in the annexation of nearly half of Mexico’s territory under the James K. Polk administration. From images of that period it is almost impossible to distinguish between residents with historical roots that antecede the war and those who arrived later. Photographs, paintings, and posters do not readily show when an immigrant identity began to take shape or when immigration began to be perceived as a separate phenomenon. Similarly, art produced in the early part of the twentieth century, whether by artists in Mexico or Mexican-origin artists in the United States, rarely focuses on the immigrant experience. That is even true about Mexican muralism, one of the world’s great aesthetic movements of the period. For reasons described later in this chapter, it is only after 1965 that immigration emerges as a significant subject in Unfinished Journey mexican migration through the visual arts Gilberto Cárdenas c h a p t e r 8  gilberto cárdenas 156 Mexican and Chicano art. In other words, the visual record offers an opportunity to investigate the way in which Mexican immigration emerged as an independent artistic theme and the manner in which that process was shaped by government actions. Mexican Migration in a Historical Context Mexican immigration to the United States has a long and distinctive history. Three factors set it apart from other flows: duration and varying modalities of entry; forced exit and state-induced return; and coexistence of temporary and circular flows. Nowadays, politicians, pundits, and the media starkly contrast legal and illegal immigration, as if the difference were obvious. The reality is more complex and embedded in the long relationship between two neighboring countries with a shared history and deep economic relations (García 1981; Kreneck 1988). The U.S.Mexico War of 1848 resulted in the blurring of national identity for Mexicans who had resided in the same lands for several generations but who were precipitously redefined as American citizens. Similarly, historical evidence shows an interconnection between legal immigration and prior undocumented residence in the United States in the early twentieth century (Gamio 2002). Overwhelming numbers of Mexicans lawfully admitted into this country previously resided in the United States without legal status. At least since the mid-1920s unauthorized and legal immigration have coexisted without interruption. As a result, Mexicans have been the target of the longest and most intense policing in the history of the United States (Adams 1987; Anastos and French 1991; Chavez 1997). Congressional initiatives have often focused on Mexicans working in this country, criminalizing them and putting in place disincentives for their longterm settlement. Such initiatives have included measures to prevent them from benefiting from government-sponsored programs despite their contributions to U.S. society and economy. Until recently, Mexican immigrants, many of them unauthorized, were able to cross the U.S.-Mexico border back and forth in response to labor demand. They worked seasonally in the fields of the American Southwest, and since the 1990s in urban service sectors, returning periodically to their homes south of the border. Starting in 1986, however, it became increasingly difficult for Mexican workers to engage in circular migration because of punitive measures like Operation Gatekeeper , Operation Hold the Line, and Operation Safeguard (Massey and Durand 2004). After the 9/11 attack on New York and Washington, anti-immigration measures reached a crescendo not seen since the 1940s, when approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans were held in internment camps. Hostility against immigrants has significantly heightened the costs of unauthorized crossings, and that in turn...

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