Conclusion

This chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. Looking back at how Baja California was transformed from a backwater to one of the most productive regions in northern Mexico, one could easily conclude that foreign investment was a catalyst for Baja California's dramatic economic success. But this is only part of the story. This book demonstrates that intermarriage, land reform, and migration were vital to the development of the Baja California peninsula and the Mexican borderlands. Without Asian, mestizo, and indigenous workers, it would have been impossible for the Compagnie du Boleo and the the Colorado River Land Company to become some of the most productive enterprises in Latin America. In the post NAFTA era, Baja California continues to be a strategic place for commerce and migration. The boom of maquilas (assembly plants) and agribusinesses persist in attracting migrant workers from different parts of Mexico.

Mexicali’s Exceptionalism

This chapter examines the impact of Mexican migration to the United States during the era of the Bracero Program (1942–64). It addresses the question of why migration to border towns increased during the 1940s in spite of U.S. immigration restrictions. Existing oral histories collected by the Bracero History Archive of migrant and local Baja families enriched the author's understanding of the ways in which families migrated and looked for work and performed gender roles in Mexico and in the United States. The memories of braceros provided a window into the daily lives and struggles experienced by millions of Mexican workers who migrated to the United States, stories often suppressed in official records.

The Making of Baja California’s Multicultural Society

This chapter tells the story of how migration and intermarriage changed Baja California's social and racial landscape at the turn of the century. It draws heavily from census records and company reports written by managers and administrators who kept a close eye on the workers' health and productivity and, to a greater extent, their personal lives. The Compagnie du Boleo kept detailed records of European managerial workers who married Mexican women. Baja Californian historian Pablo Martínez published birth, marriage, and census records of different municipalities in Baja California that allowed me to trace marriages and families into the twentieth century.

Building the Mexican Borderlands

This chapter examines the migrations of Diegueño and Californio families from the United States to Baja California, a migration previously unknown to U.S. historians. It delves into the tumultuous aftermath of the Mexican–American War, especially how indigenous peoples living on the banks of the Colorado River dealt with U.S. expansion into northern Mexico. Writing about indigenous people was challenging since they left almost no written documents. Moreover, the cyclical destruction of Baja's Catholic missions meant that only a few church records survived. The author spent three years piecing together small vignettes of indigenous people from scattered government and company minutes located in three countries.

Introduction

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to examine the interplay of land reform and migratory labor in the making of borderlands between the years of 1850 and 1954, focusing on Baja California. It argues that the Mexican borderlands emerged from efforts to keep labor moving across borders while fixing national communities in place. This intricate interplay shows how governments, foreign investors, and local communities engaged in the making of the Baja California borderlands that led to the booming cities of Tijuana, Mexicali, and Santa Rosalía. At the heart of the book is the story of how ethnically and racially diverse communities of laborers changed the social landscape of Baja California.

Conflict, Land Reform, and Repatriation in the Mexicali Valley

This chapter discusses Mexico's agrarian reform policy, one of the earliest land reform programs of its kind in Latin America. The labor unions that had formed in the 1920s became crucial to the movement for land reform in the 1930s. Under the two waves of agrarian reform, most land was distributed to single men and male heads of household. However, some women seized the limited opportunities they had to gain farmland. Anti-Chinese sentiment and President Lázaro Cárdenas' expropriation of U.S.-owned land in the Mexicali Valley ended the flow of Asian migration to the Valley's rural areas. Most Asian workers were excluded from obtaining communal farmland. Nevertheless, some Asian farmers purchased property and continued their commercial relationship with U.S.-owned companies on a smaller scale.

Revolution, Labor Unions, and Land Reform in Baja California

This chapter discusses the formation of labor organizations of Mexican and Asian workers, and their influence on both the labor movement and the movement for land reform. Following the decade of revolutionary upheaval, the population of Baja California increased from 23,537 in 1921 to 48,327 in 1930. During the same time frame, the Colorado River Land Company abandoned large tracts of uncultivated land, which led to an increase in unemployment and stiffer competition between Asian and Mexican workers. Unemployment, combined with the housing shortage caused by a new wave of Mexican migrant workers from the United States, led to the formation of labor unions where indigenous peoples, Mexicans, and Mexican Americans demanded access to farmland and called for restrictions on Chinese immigration. Chinese workers formed Chinese associations in the face of repression and forced deportations. While these struggles reveal how workers dealt with hard financial times, they also show how race, gender, and ethnic affiliations shaped activism and early land reform movements in the Mexicali Valley in the 1920s.