Uncovering Historical Silences toward a Cageless Future

As I looked at the picture, I noticed we were standing next to an historical marker that was honoring a Confederate troop who was organized in the area. Before we left the “welcome” center, my daughter showed me a picture she had taken with her new camera. She proudly displayed a portrait of an older man and a dog at his feet. The man in the portrait was Jefferson Davis, former President of the Confederate States of America, and his dog Traveler. Yet, the Mississippi welcome center would not be the last state we passed through with “welcoming” messages and displays. Two gigantic Confederate flags waved unapologetically in the air just over the Alabama / Florida state lines.

These “welcome” symbols are part of institutions of systematic exclusion and speak to who does and does not belong in a White American society. As a retired military veteran and 47-year-old white male with family ties in law enforcement and the military, my identity fits firmly within the included status as an “American” citizen. Yet, it is this very identity that propels me to seek a future where the traditionally silenced histories of groups, like my daughter, are brought to the forefront and not background rhetoric for oppressive institutions and people that place confederate markers at welcome centers and enormous racist flags along state borders. I currently serve in an advisory position and intern role with the Carceral Geography in El Paso, Texas project for The Humanities Collaborative at EPCC-UTEP. I am also a graduate student at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) Department of History working on my Master’s thesis on the criminalization of immigrants, focusing on historical events and places in El Paso's history.

“Cleaning Up the Wretched Refuse: Creating the Criminal Immigrant” is the title of my working thesis, and my thesis project seeks to uncover the silences in historical criminalization of Mexican immigrants along with the carceral spaces that pushed so-called “undesirables” into the peripheries of society, both figuratively and literally. You might ask: “Why El Paso?” Besides the fact that El Paso is a border town and is a site of controversy for immigration much like other towns on the U.S.-Mexico border, what makes El Paso unique? El Paso is the site of a considerable amount of militarization and law enforcement, both currently and historically. Fort Bliss, the second largest U.S. Army military installation in the world is nestled within the city limits.¹ In addition, the city has the dubious honor of housing not just local police, but border patrol agents, Texas Rangers, ICE personnel, US Customs agents, military police,  and Drug Enforcement Agency officers. In fact, until recently (August 2021), the El Paso Police Department (EPPD) and the US Border Patrol did not have body cameras much like most of the cities in the country. So, while the local community becomes heavily surveilled, policed, and denied entry, the enforcement agencies are not subjugated to the same restrictions.

Historically, El Paso was the first city that served as a gateway between Mexico and the U.S., known as the “Pass of the North.” The El Paso area was also home to multiple forms of segregation. The region's railroad acted as a physical barrier for Jim and Juan Crow laws. Arriving at El Paso, people of color had to transfer to segregated railroad cars. Heading west, cars became desegregated after El Paso. Heading east, cars became segregated in El Paso. In addition, the boundary, railroad tracks, and later roads (e.g., Paisano Drive) create a physical barrier of segregation between the elite classes (often based on race) and marginalized groups in El Paso. The Southwest border towns, like El Paso, also lay claim to one of the most militarized regions in the world not currently at war with one another.²

While other marginalized groups are criminalized, especially the black community, immigrants are perpetually denied legal entitlements and basic human rights because of the dual perceived threat as a national security risk and a national employment risk, i.e. "stealing American jobs." The history of immigration in El Paso dates back to the advent of Texas independence, ending with the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836 (San Jacinto Plaza in downtown El Paso is named after this concluding battle). The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo that ended the U.S.-Mexico War in 1848 created a national border that made Mexicans outsiders in their own land. A long history of violence and land theft against Mexicans ensued until the end of the Civil War. The end of the war created a need for a cheap labor force that sought to replace newly freed African slaves and Chinese immigrants (anti “coolie” immigration laws went into effect with the Chinese Exclusionary Laws of 1882). The Mexican Revolution (1910-1917) also created an influx of Mexican immigrants seeking refuge from the war, especially along the El Paso / Juárez border. The projected political image of the Mexican immigrant created a dilemma and a contradiction for white American society, fulfilling a cheap source of labor that propped up the neoliberal capitalist economy, while, at the same time, constituting a perceived threat along the southern boundary.


Downtown El Paso street.

My research has been centered on historical ideas of "cleanliness." These appear as ideologies of a society free from non-white, non-Eurocentric people and cultures. The constant notion perpetuated from the U.S. government, media, and eugenics societies of a “wretched refuse” being cleansed from “American” society also contributed to the criminalization of “undesirables.” The idea of an “undesirable” immigrant was applied to multiple different groups of people at different points of United States history. My project is most concerned about the application of this ideology to immigrants from Mexico in the early twentieth century. Indeed, the process of criminalization contains multiple complex levels that include differing levels of whiteness. In this case, I refer to whiteness as not only skin color, but economic and social classes, political power, networks, or connections that include both familial / blood ties, and kinship through personal or business associations. Another related theme associated with desirability (whiteness) and undesirability (“wretched refuse”) comes from carceral geography. The criminalization of immigrants cannot solely be fixed to the bodies of immigrants.

For a more complete picture of exclusion and how that affects criminalization, we must understand how landscapes, spaces, and architectures have changed over time. Who possesses that land? What is that land used for? Who is welcomed? Who is made to feel unwelcome on that land? Who has access to water/survival? Gentrification and beautification of surrounding landscapes and the structures built upon the land offer forms of carcerality that serve to eradicate or segregate “unwanted” populations from the rest of “civilized American society.”


Construction in downtown El Paso, Texas.

In addition to my historical research, I am also contributing a soundwalk that encompasses the themes noted above along with historical events in El Paso. Some of these sites contain traumatic historical details which I will share here, but which may be disturbing to readers. One of the locations for the soundwalk is a parking garage designated for courthouse employees. However, in the late 1800's to mid 1900's, this site was a jail and police department. On March 6, 1916, a fire occurred at the jailhouse. Because of the fear of typhoid, the detainees were bathed in gasoline to ensure that they were “free” of lice and therefore “safe” from typhoid. An unknown person lit a match inside the fume-filled jail, and 26 people burned to death. The incident became known as the "El Paso Holocaust." Further details about this horrific event can be found on the Portal to Texas History. The soundwalk starts with the history of El Paso Holocaust and continues along a gentrified route from downtown El Paso to Segundo Barrio. The street Paisano Drive marks the segregated dividing line between the beautification of downtown El Paso and the area of Segundo Barrio, which has historically been economically disadvantaged through race-based homeownership, insurance, and development policies. This route addresses the history of criminalization of immigrants and people of color through the im/mobility of detention and forced relocation through gentrification. Mexicans erroneously branded as outlaws, bandits, and felons are shut out and shut in through racialized class structures embedded in a neoliberal capitalist landscape. Through the thesis and soundwalk, it is my hope that traumatic systems of colonization can begin to be deconstructed and torn down and violent injustices of inequality give way to a cageless society that can offer hope to younger generations like my daughter.

Written by Adam Heywood, Guest Blogger
The University of Texas at El Paso, The Humanities Collaborative at EPCC-UTEP

Images courtesy of Adam Heywood.

Bibliography

1.  U.S. Army Bases, accessed 25 January 2022, https://armybases.org/fort-bliss-tx-texas/.
2.  The Southern Border Community Coalition: Border Militarization, accessed 26 January 2022, https://www.southernborder.org/border_lens_border_militarization.