United States imperialism along the border

Rhetoric of Dominance

The phrase "rhetoric of dominance" was first used by Leticia Garza-Falcón in her book "Gente Decente: A Borderlands Response to the Rhetoric of Dominance." One example of the U.S. rhetoric of dominance strives to persuade the public that whites are superior and should dominate inferior races, by expanding, for instance. Before technology advanced and the media became widespread, oral communication was one of the most powerful ways of sharing information. Because so many individuals talked about white supremacy, it was ingrained into the minds of the majority of the population that whites were better than anyone else. Whites from the United States in particular were seen as the worthiest human beings, because not only were they white, but they also lived in a Protestant, democratic country. These individuals began to have a superiority complex, a term conceived by Alfred Adler, meaning they had an exaggerated feeling of being superior to others. This idea of white supremacy is also explored in Jovita González's book Life Along the Border. In Maria Cotera's introduction to this book, she also uses the term "rhetoric of dominance" to describe a technique used by Anglo-Americans to maintain an uneven hierarchy over Mexicans along the border, which is explored in González's work. In order to justify their feeling of superiority, the ideas of manifest destiny and Social Darwinism were widely used.

Manifest Destiny

Manifest Destiny was the idea that it was God’s will for the United States to expand because it is Protestant, democratic, and white. It promoted the notion of American racial superiority, casting all nonwhites, including Native Americans, Mexicans, and blacks, as inferior beings. John L. O'Sullivan coined the phrase in 1845, first using it in his newspaper, the United States Democratic Review. Manifest destiny soon became an important element of American political rhetoric. It called for the expansion of the United States and was a justification used by southerners for extending slavery. An example of this was the annexation of Texas. President James K. Polk used the argument of manifest destiny to support his intentions of claiming Texas. In 1845, Texas entered the United States as the fifteenth slave state. Since whites were seen as superior beings, slavery didn’t seem like such a brutal practice. The whites were not the ones suffering, and that is all that mattered.

Social Darwinism

Social Darwinism is another concept that justifies the discourse of white superiority. Herbert Spencer, a 19th-century philosopher, advanced the idea of Social Darwinism. Social Darwinism is an application of the theory of natural selection to social, political, and economic issues. This theory was used to promote the idea that the white race was superior to others, and therefore, destined to rule over them. It gave a scientific justification for white dominance, exploring ideas of head size, eye color, and other traits. At its worst, the implications of Social Darwinism were used as scientific justification for the Holocaust. The Nazis claimed that the murder of Jews in World War II was an example of cleaning out the inferior genetics. Various other dictators have claimed the cause of Social Darwinism in carrying out other such acts. Even without such actions, Social Darwinism has proven to be a false and dangerous philosophy. However, it was yet another way for whites to defend their claim of being a superior race. It could potentially be used, as manifest destiny was, as a reason for expansion.

Economic motives

Aside from feelings of superiority and divine right, the U.S. was motivated to expand along the border by many other possible benefits. There were many enticing economic motives for U.S. imperialism in the Southwest on top of just taking over on the basis of race. As the U.S. expanded westward, the need for trade and transportation became a very prominent concern. The area along the U.S.–Mexican border quickly became a highly sought-after property for the United States. As Rachel St. John describes in Line in the Sand: A History of the U.S.-Mexican Border, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California were all incredibly valuable properties at the time. She continues to state that California was particularly beneficial, but in order to get there, the U.S. would also need New Mexico and Arizona. The economic benefits of California were endless. It was very profitable in multiple industries including agriculture, mining, trapping, and trading. The soil was fertile, there were many rich mineral deposits, and the Pacific Ocean provided a wonderful opportunity for trade with the Eastern hemisphere.

Another reason why this area was intriguing to the U.S. was the need for a new railroad. This area was an ideal place to construct the transcontinental railroad the U.S. had wanted. The land along the border was well suited for a railroad both by its geographic characteristics and the promise of economic benefits. The geography of the land that helped make it ideal for a railroad was that it was unobstructed, open, and very flat. The railroad would be easy to construct and would instantly provide the U.S. with a way to transport supplies and resources both to and from its western outskirts. The idea of a transcontinental railroad that connected both ends of the country was too enticing for the United States to pass up. Adding a railroad near the border would also assist in the increase of trade with Mexico. By making it easier to get tradeable goods to Mexico, the United States would quickly increase profit, and getting Mexican imports to other parts of the country would be made easier and more efficient. Along with ideas of manifest destiny or religious and racial superiority, U.S. imperialism along the Mexican border was highly motivated by economic reasons.

U.S. - Mexican War

Perhaps the ultimate example of U.S. imperialism and expansionist ideas along the border is the U.S.–Mexican War. From 1846 to 1848, the United States was involved in a series of many battles with Mexico with the intention of claiming New Mexico and California as part of the United States, and also getting Mexico to recognize Texas as an official U.S. state. This two-year-long war was a prime illustration of just how far the U.S. would go to achieve its ambitious imperialistic goals.

Action of the war

The U.S. military was organized into three separate armies, sent to different locations, at the beginning of the war. Stephen W. Kearney led the Army of the West and was sent to take New Mexico. This section of the army was the first to mobilize on June 5, 1846, and reached Santa Fe on August 18. They met very little resistance in this process, because the governor of New Mexico and his forces had fled south out of fear of Kearney's numbers. The Army of the West took New Mexico without firing a single shot. Similarly, the people of New Mexico did not put up any sort of fight either. Polk assured the civilians that all of their rights would be preserved and the people were placid, if not happy. There was no form of resistance in New Mexico at all until well after Kearney had left the area.

The second section of the U.S. military, the Army of the Center, was led by future president Zachary Taylor. Taylor originally recommended his army station at Veracruz, but the War Department disagreed and sent the Army of the Center to Monterrey. During his conquests, Antonio López de Santa Anna made an advance on Taylor's troops at Buena Vista. This resulted in many days of fighting between the two sides that ultimately ended in a stalemate. The battle of Buena Vista exhausted Santa Anna’s troops and played a very large role in demoralizing the Mexican Army.

The third and final army of the U.S. military was Winfield Scott's Army of Occupation. They were given the order of taking Mexico City with the hope that this would be absolutely to the Mexican Army. However, in order to get to Mexico City, Scott took his forces through Veracruz and did something considered unthinkable at the time. When advancing through Veracruz, which happened to be the site of a significant Mexican military force, Scott began attacking civilians and the city rather than strictly the opposing military. Using a strategy of “Attack the city, not the fort”, Scott's army devastated the city and killed approximately twice as many civilians as soldiers. This display of cruelty by Scott severely hurt the United States’ reputation, further raised the hatred of Mexican citizens toward the U.S., and lowered the support of the war effort domestically. However, despite the negative opinion of these actions, Scott took over Veracruz and quickly made his way to Mexico City. As the U.S. forces entered Mexico City, Scott was brought face to face with Santa Anna and what may have been the longest, bloodiest series of battles of the war ensued. From the end of March 1847 until September, the two forces fought brutally. As the United States' forces began to gain the upper hand, 1,000 Mexican cadets from the military school at Chapultepec Castle intervened and fought courageously against the United States. These efforts were ultimately in vain, and the young cadets were all killed in battle. These brave young soldiers became known as the "Niños Héroes". In the end, Scott claimed victory in Mexico City on September 14, 1847.

Results of the war

In April 1847, Polk sent Undersecretary of State and Chief Clerk Nicholas P. Trist to Mexico with a draft treaty. Secretary of State Buchanan told Trist that the Californias, upper and lower, New Mexico, and the Texas boundary were not negotiable. Because of the continued fighting and the reluctance of the Mexican government to appear frail, Trist did not make contact with Mexican authorities until June. On September 1, negotiations began and lasted five days, breaking down because Polk would not compromise on the Rio Grande boundary and Santa Anna would only give up the area north of Monterey, California, to the United States. He refused to yield any of New Mexico. Mexican politicians argued for continuing the war and stressed their reluctance to endorse any agreement that would give up national territory. Hearing about this, Polk decided to recall Trist, since Mexico would negotiate only if the terms were different. Trist became the Mexican government's only hope for resolution, and therefore gained power in the negotiations. He stayed true to the United States’ territorial ambitions, not yielding on the Rio Grande boundary, or backing down to Mexican resistance to giving up New Mexico and California.

The way the Polk administration handled the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo demonstrated that Mexico had become a conquered nation. After the treaty reached Washington on February 19, 1848, Polk sent a message to Congress recommending two changes to the treaty. First, he wanted the insertion of a secret article protecting the treaty’s validity. Second, Polk asked for the deletion of Article X, which declared that the United States would respect land grants given by the Spanish and Mexican governments to residents of the conquered territories. This article was aimed specifically at protecting land grants in Texas, and Polk objected to it, arguing that it would affect the property grants made by the Texas republic following its independence.

Though the president endorsed the treaty, issues of territory and race, expressed by concern over the expansion of slavery, slowed ratification in the Senate. After some revisions, the Senate ultimately ratified the treaty. By taking away Article X, they ensured the Mexican population’s loss of land grants. Also, the Senate changed the wording of Article IX, by adding that Mexicans will be admitted as U.S. citizens at the time seen proper by the U.S. Congress. Technically the United States never had to give them their rights.

By allowing Mexicans to become citizens, the Senate, for legal purposes, made them white, since under the provisions of the Naturalization Act of 1790, only whites could become citizens. This was an unstable whiteness, however, and Mexican Americans would constantly have to fight for their rights.

With these changes in place, the Senate ratified the treaty on March 10, 1848, by a vote of 38 to 14. The vote split along sectional, rather than party, lines, foreshadowing the Civil War. The treaty then had to be approved by the Mexican government. It received the greatest opposition from the Chamber of Deputies, which ultimately ratified it 51 to 35. In the end, the Mexican Congress ratified the treaty to ensure that the nation would be free of foreign rule, to prevent further loss of land, and to help the country begin to heal.

Post-war effects

Following the U.S.–Mexican War, relations between the United States and Mexico remained tense for many decades to come, with several military encounters along the border. The United States obtained more than one-third of Mexico’s territory through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. All of the Mexicans living in this territory had the option of either becoming U.S. citizens or retaining Mexican citizenship, but they had to decide within one year. Along with vast territorial expansion, the U.S. assumed control over the rivers essential to sustain the environment and the economy of northern Mexico. Several border treaties are jointly administered by the International Boundary and Water Commission, which was established in 1889 to maintain the border, allocate river waters between the two nations, and provide for flood control and water sanitation. Viewed by some as a model of international cooperation, in recent decades the IBWC has been heavily criticized as an institutional anachronism, by-passed by modern social, environmental and political issues.

Expansion into Mexico affected the political balance between pro- and anti-slavery states. To allow slavery in the newly acquired Mexican territory would be to allow slave-holding states to have greater representation in Congress, an idea that the North did not favor. Though the South had a smaller population, it sent and suffered greater casualties in the war than the North, which had disapproved of the effort. Southerners felt that the Wilmot Proviso, which would have banned slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico, was unjust, since the South had risked more lives to win the Southwest. This disagreement was one of many factors leading up the Civil War. The expansion of the United States into Mexico caused increasing tensions within the United States itself, as well as between the United States and Mexico.

Along with hostility between the North and the South, there was friction between Mexicans and whites. For example, in New Mexico there was active resistance to the United States in the Taos Revolt, resulting in the execution of the U.S. governor of New Mexico. New Mexico proved to be the safest place for Mexicans in the United States because there is strength in numbers. Texas and California were more dangerous places because Mexicans were not the majority, and not all whites appreciated their presence there. California was particularly profitable for the United States, so many Americans wanted to move to that area. For instance, gold was discovered in 1849, causing Euro-Americans to rush to California. These individuals were very hostile towards Mexicans. In California alone, over 302 lynchings occurred between 1849 and 1902. During those years there were at least 5,000 lynchings in the United States as a whole. Most people associate lynchings with blacks. With about 73% of lynchings that occurred in the U.S. being those of African Americans, this association is understandable. However, Mexicans were lynched as well, though it is not talked about as often. Not all resistance to Mexicans included violence, however. On April 13, 1850, the state legislature passed a $20 per month tax on non-American-born miners in California during the Gold Rush. The tax primarily targeted Latin Americans. Resistance to the Foreign Miners Tax came not only from Mexicans but also from French, Chilean, and German miners, along with merchants whose businesses suffered as a direct result of the tax.

After the official physical boundary between the United States and Mexico was set, Mexicans that lived in territory now belonging to the U.S. faced a new kind of border. This border was much more than simply a line dividing two nations. Although the geographic boundary was permanently set to the south of them, these new Mexican Americans were still seen as foreigners and outcasts in their new country. The rhetoric of dominance used by Euro-Americans prevented Mexican Americans from feeling like true American citizens. The steadfast public opinion of white superiority prevented Mexican Americans from being treated as equals. This racial difference is what caused a new type of border to form between the two groups. This racial border unfairly discriminated against Mexican Americans even though they had the same status as citizens of the United States. Due to the rhetoric of dominance utilized by whites, Mexican Americans were given a much lower social and economic status that they could not overcome. It also caused many Mexican Americans to question their cultural identity. As the border shifted and they became U.S. residents, the culture shifted around them, too. Some homes that used to be on Mexican territory were now on American soil and were surrounded by a new, unfamiliar culture. The decision each individual had to make was whether to embrace their new citizenship and assimilate into American society or hold tight to their culture and continue to self-identify as Mexican. By way of the rhetoric of dominance, Mexican Americans faced new social, economic, and identity crises in the United States.

Americanization

While some whites responded with violence or exploitation of Mexicans, another recurring effort was Americanization. Since many Mexicans were now a part of the United States, it was expected that they would act like Americans. The national language in the U.S. is English, so it was thought that the Mexican Americans should be speaking English like the rest of Americans. In 1907, United States’ President Theodore Roosevelt wrote, “We have room for but one language in this country, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house”. It was clear that a lot of Americans were hostile towards Spanish speaking Mexicans. The English Only movement is a political movement for establishing English as the only official language in the U.S., and using only English in official government operations. Learning a new language as an adult is a very difficult thing to do, so this effect of imperialism was challenging for a lot of new Americans.

The English-only movement started over 90 years ago, but in 2000 18 percent of the total United States' population aged 5 and over, or 47 million people, reported that they spoke a language other than English at home. Out of those 47 million people, 28.1 million spoke Spanish, the clear majority. Since so many Americans were still speaking Spanish in their homes, action needed to be taken. In May 2006, the U.S. Senate voted on two separate changes to an immigration bill. The amended bill recognized English as a "common and unifying language"; however, it has yet to become a law. Another effort was made in Tennessee in 2009. A referendum election attempted to make Nashville the largest city in the United States to prohibit the government from using languages other than English, with exceptions allowed for issues of health and safety. However, on January 22, 2009, voters in Nashville rejected the proposal by a vote of 53% to 47%.

The map to the right shows the 2000 U.S. Census representation of the percentage of Spanish-speaking people in the United States by county. It clearly illustrates that the majority of Spanish speakers are in the Southwestern region of the country. Not only do they speak Spanish, but their English language skills are less than adequate. Many of those states were acquired by the United States from Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo over 160 years ago. Despite constant pressure for Mexican Americans to learn English by advocates of the English-only movement, the map shows that many Mexican Americans along the border are still not fluent in English. The map exemplifies this separation of cultures and lack of Mexican American acculturation to the U.S. by the contrast from dark blue to white or lighter shades. Though the physical border encompasses all citizens of the United States, the cultural border is very divisive.

Current U.S. influence in Mexico

It has now been over 160 years since the U.S. took over land previously controlled by Mexico; however, the U.S. still remains in indirect control of the Mexican economy. Today, by playing such a large role in the economic factors of its neighboring country, the U.S. continues to show some current attributes of imperialism. Since January 1, 1994, Mexico and the United States (and Canada as well) have eliminated numerous tariffs on imports through the North American Free Trade Agreement. This agreement, despite its benefits for all countries involved, favors the United States. Originally, NAFTA eradicated tariffs on about one-half of U.S. imports from Mexico, and only approximately one-third of Mexican imports from the U.S. After 10 years, NAFTA eliminated all tariffs between the U.S. and Mexico with the exception of some U.S. agricultural exports including grains, meat and some fruits. More recently, the Mexican economy has relied largely upon the U.S. demand for its exports in order to support itself. It is because of this dependence that the United States still has significant control over the Mexican economy. Nearly one-fifth of the Mexican economy alone is dependent upon its manufacturing exports to the U.S. With the economy of the United States currently being in recessed condition, the U.S. has had to decrease production of imports from Mexico. This has hurt the Mexican economy tremendously.

Still, as the U.S. economy begins to recover, America might still be too skeptical to increase imports from Mexico right away. With American consumers spending less money, it may be likely that the government will choose to do the same. The United States may disregard the struggling state of Mexico in order to fulfill its own self-interest which will further devastate Mexico. It is this type of influential relationship that implies that U.S. imperialism has yet to cease along the southern border.

With the Mexican economy struggling due to the complications of trade with the United States, the job market has also taken a tremendous hit. This is what may be considered the main motivation behind Mexican immigration to the U.S. Due to the failing economy in their home country, many people have been forced to leave their homes and look for work in the United States simply to support their families. Since the United States is a major contributor to the economic problems and lack of jobs in Mexico, undocumented workers should not be viewed in such a negative light by American citizens. These workers have been forced out of their jobs due to the United States and its negative influence on the Mexican economy. These immigrants really have no other choice but to come to America in search of jobs and a better life for their families. In a sense, these workers are only doing what is necessary based on the situation they have been put in by the United States.

Conclusion

Throughout the last two centuries, the United States has played a huge role in shaping the social and economic state of Mexico along the border. The U.S. has taken land, waged war, impacted the economy and changed the lives of thousands of citizens during this time. Using many different strategies including military force, a rhetoric of dominance, and economic influences such as NAFTA, the U.S. has displayed imperialistic tendencies in the area along the border. U.S. imperialism played a significant role in world history and is typically thought of in regards to smaller islands or colonies, such as the Caribbean islands or others in the Pacific. Rarely is Mexico involved in the discussion of imperialism. However, the United States’ influence and impact on its neighbor to the south certainly justifies its rightful involvement in this topic. Many of the actions and opinions of the United States throughout the course of history have proven to express superiority in an attempt to justify expansion and foreign influence. Had it not been for U.S. imperialism along the border, Mexico’s past, present and future would not be the same.