El exilio incómodo: México y los refugiados judíos by Daniela Gleizer (review)

Daniela Gleizer's book reads like a reworked doctoral dissertation: the content is mechanically organized, the style meretricious, and the language stilted. Still, the central argument of this historical exploration of the situation of Jewish refugees who came to Mexico during World War II is a revelation. Although common lore suggests that Mexico fostered a welcoming policy toward Jews during World War II, evidence points to the contrary. From 1933 to 1945, two successive presidential administrations engaged in a series of ambivalent policies that resulted in the embarrassing refusal to accept persecuted individuals into the country. Nothing remarkably similar took place in Mexico during the Spanish Civil War.

Gleizer lays out properly the antecedents to those policies. When it comes to active military participation in the conflict, she acknowledges the peripheral role played by Latin America. Yet, the region—to some extent as a result of that passive, non-involved role—was perceived as a potential safe haven for European Jews. International organizations such as the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society sought ways to open doors, at times through economic transactions. Several countries, for example, the Dominican Republic, agreed to such transactions under the assumption that Jewish refugees settling in rural areas like Sosúa would promote desperately needed economic development.

Mexico pondered a similar rationale, although the results were unfruitful. In the early 1930s, the country had approximately 10,000 Jews. Their origin was the Yiddish-speaking "Pale of Settlement" in western Russia, as well as the crumbling Ottoman Empire. When immigration quotas were established in the United States in the 1920s, President Plutarco Elías Calles did the opposite. His ongoing openness led to Jewish immigrant arrivals, peaking at close to a thousand persons in 1928. But the rise of Nazism in Germany, which ignited a deeply rooted anti-Semitism in Mexico, turned that openness into duplicity.

Gleizer details the difficulty of analyzing historical data associated with this immigration in archives. Not only is material often missing, but the inconsistencies between various wings of the government are impossible to reconcile. In El exilio incómodo she chronicles the disagreements within the cabinets and bureaucratic apparatus of two presidential administrations in Mexico: that of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940) and that of his successor, Miguel Ávila Camacho (1940-1946).

The former endorsed a receptive attitude, yet his cabinet ended up contradicting his efforts. Two examples highlight this split. The first was a visionary plan, the second an embarrassing betrayal. In 1939, an accord was signed to establish an agricultural settlement in the state of Tabasco. The force behind it was the perception of Jews as promoters of capitalism. But in spite of being signed by Cárdenas, the accord went nowhere. Then, in 1940, when the Quanza, a cargo ship sailing from Lisbon and carrying Jewish refugees arrived at the port of Veracruz, Jewish refugees without documents were not allowed to disembark. The boat is known as the "Mexican S.S. St. Louis," recognizing parallels between the refusal of refugees at Veracruz and the refusal of refugees by both Cuba and the United States just as the European theater erupted.

As for the role of Ávila Camacho, Gleizer's quest found even steeper obstacles. Although this U.S.-friendly president showed little interest in the issue of Jewish refugees, an assortment of policies institutionalized during the early years of his administration allowed for the disappearance of funds provided by world organizations to buy passports, visas, contracts, and other documents for Jewish refugees. There was also corruption in regard to real estate specifically designed for resettlement purposes.

To my mind, one of the most thought-provoking aspects of Gleizer's volume is the connection she makes between Mexico's tacit anti-Semitism and the official doctrine of mestizaje promoted by Minister of Education Jos...