Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas: Mexican Workers and Job Politics during World War II

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 1: Introduction This study examines employment discrimination, social inequality, the Mexican cause for equal rights in the United States, and the role that the government played in reinforcing and ameliorating the socially marginalized position that Mexicans filled in the urban and rural settings of Texas. One of my central arguments is that Mexicans made significant occupational gains during the Second World War but Anglos and African Americans benefited more from wartime opportunities and thereby recovered faster from the hard times of the Depression. The different rates of occupational mobility that also occurred in the Mexican community led to greater internal class differentiation , a trend that continued beyond the war years. The racial and class inequalities were striking because they emerged at a time of unprecedented opportunity made possible by wartime production and an expanded governmental apparatus that promoted the full, efficient, and nondiscriminatory use of the available labor supply. Wartime recovery was both obvious and unequal for many, including Mexicans. The promise and the disappointment of the New Deal were most evident in the ubiquitous wartime language of justice and democracy that public of- ficials, journalists, and other war enthusiasts used to elevate the conflict in Europe to a moral battle between a just cause and a fascist agenda. The high-sounding declarations made by the United States against injustice and oppression affirmed egalitarian values, validated social causes at home, and “Americans All, Let’s Fight for Victory—Americanos Todos Luchamos por la Victoria,” . (Artist: Leon Helguera. Rare Books and Texana Collection, World War II Posters, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas.) 2 Chapter 1 encouraged marginalized groups to hope for change. The disillusionment came when public officials and segregationists outside of government questioned the idea of a more just and democratic society in the United States or proposed a gradualist approach to change, which often amounted to public appeals for understanding instead of official prohibitions against racial discrimination . This study contributes to the history of home front causes by focusing on the response to discrimination, segregation, and inequality in Texas by the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the leading Mexican civil rights organization in the country at the time. Although LULAC was not the only Mexican organization to note the moral inconsistency of opposing or delaying change while fighting for justice and democracy abroad, it was one of the most visible and consistent in its actions. In addition to protesting discrimination and inequality in Mexican daily life, LULAC councils collaborated with other groups throughout the state, including the Mexican consulate and government agencies such as the Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC), the office that was responsible for implementing President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Orders  and , which prohibited discrimination in war industries, government employment, and unions. They also spoke on behalf of all Mexicans, regardless of nativity, and made rhetorical calls for the application at home of the Good Neighbor Policy, the U.S. initiative that promoted unity and understanding in the Americas. Persistent inequality at a time of great material and ideological promise achieved even greater importance when officials from the United States and Mexico gave discrimination a central place in their relations, elevated it to a level of hemispheric importance, and made Texas the testing ground for the application of the Good Neighbor Policy. The international emphasis on race and civil rights extends the reach of this study and distinguishes the Mexican wartime experience from those of other ethnic and working-class groups in the United States. This study shows how Mexico gained a negotiating advantage on behalf of Mexicans in the United States and strengthened the cause against racial discrimination, a worldwide issue that achieved greater importance in the Americas as the war progressed. Mexico’s intervention involved a consular campaign against discrimination in the United States and collaborative ties with LULAC’s own crusade for equal rights in Texas. The United States responded by extending its Good Neighbor Policy from the field of hemispheric relations to the domestic arena of racialized social relations . Mexico’s determined critique of racial discrimination coincided with the wartime understanding of nonintervention and mutual consultation in Introduction 3 the Good Neighbor Policy and with the State Department’s concern that Latin America and Mexicans in the United States were fertile ground for Axis influence. To understand how the high-sounding wartime principles of justice...