A Quiet Victory for Latino Rights: FDR and the Controversy Over "Whiteness"

10. Consequences, Unintended Consequences, and Failures

171 10 Consequences, Unintended Consequences, and Failures one of the most important aspects of policymaking and implementation is policy analysis; that is, reviewing any given policy to determine successes, failures, and possible unintended consequences . The “Andrade policy” is no exception. Until the passage of the Nationality Act of 1940, which added Western Hemisphere natives to the list of those racially eligible for naturalization, the Andrade policy did exactly as it was intended with respect to Mexican immigration. In terms of foreign affairs, it helped to keep USMexican relations at a friendly level, at least until Mexico’s oil expropriation of March 1938. But it failed in one respect, although not from the perspective of the policy makers. Civil rights activists had been fighting for this official recognition for several years, in the hopes that it would support their agenda. But being officially classified as white did not cause Latinos/as to be suddenly accepted by Anglo-Americans as white. It also had unintended consequences when it was applied to Latinos/as in a negative aspect : putting Latinos/as on trial with an all-white jury of their “peers.” 172 a quiet victory for latino rights The Course of Mexican Immigration After Knight’s Ruling An analysis of official Census Bureau statistics on Mexican immigration shows that the implementation of the policy to classify Mexicans as white did effectively neutralize Judge Knight’s application of the Ozawa, Thind, and Morrison decisions to Mexican immigrants , at least until the implementation of the Nationality Act of 1940. Had the nativists been successful in having Knight’s judgment affirmed, the numbers would have substantially decreased afterward . Instead, for each year after the Andrade decision, the numbers of immigrants continued to increase at a steady rate, consistent with the kind of immigration that would result from the continually improving economy (table 10.1). A look at the numbers illustrates that immigration increased steadily, so that within ten years of the Andrade decision, the number of immigrants had more than quadrupled. These numbers remained high throughout the 1940s. One major reason for the increase in this period is that as the United States geared up for war, Mexican labor again became desirable . The Roosevelt administration implemented temporary labor programs such as the Emergency Farm Labor Program (1942) and TABLE 10.1. Mexican Immigrants to the United States, 1935–1950 Year N Immigrants Year N Immigrants 1935 1,560 1943 4,172 1936 1,716 1944 6,598 1937 2,347 1945 6,702 1938 2,502 1946 7,146 1939 2,640 1947 7,558 1940 2,313 1948 8,384 1941 2,824* 1949 8,083 1942 2,378 1950 6,744 *From 1937 to 1940, Mexican immigration was allowed under the Andrade policy. After January 1941, it was allowed under Section 303 of the Nationality Act of 1940, which was also a direct result of the Andrade decision. source: Adapted from US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington, DC: US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1975), Series C 89-119, Immigrants by Country: 1820–1970. Consequences, Unintended Consequences, and Failures 173 other bracero (helping arms) programs that allowed Mexican laborers to enter the United States. These programs continued in the postwar period and were finally terminated at the end of 1964. US-Mexican Relations During and After Andrade Just before both governments learned of Knight’s first decision regarding Timoteo Andrade’s naturalization petition, Ambassador Castillo Nájera had told Sumner Welles that “relations between Mexico and the United States had never seemed so promising as at this moment.”1 Obviously, the State Department went to great lengths to keep relations moving in that direction. From south of the border, Ambassador Josephus Daniels reported the same sentiment directly to President Franklin Roosevelt. In two personal letters, Daniels marveled at the fact that “the Mexican Government and the Mexican people . . . opened their hearts to representatives of the Navy of our country” despite memories of the Tampico incident.2 Daniels and Roosevelt had both been senior Navy Department officials at the time of the 1914 Vera Cruz intervention where President Woodrow Wilson ordered the US Navy and Marines to occupy the city of Vera Cruz in response to the arrest of several US sailors in Tampico, and to prevent German weapons from being delivered to the armies of General Victoriano...