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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
In May 2006, foreign-born workers, largely from Latin America, mobilized across the United States in response to calls from anti-immigrant groups for tougher federal policies against illegal immigrants. About 400,000 protested in Chicago, 300,000 in Los Angeles, and 75,000 in Denver. In fifty cities between Los Angeles and New York, workers organized walkouts, demonstrations, and rallies in an effort to show just how important they were to the smooth operation of the U.S. economy.
Many thanks to Jason Colby and David Woolner for commenting on earlier drafts of this article. In addition I am grateful to the two anonymous readers engaged by The Americas who provided encouraging comments and helpful feedback.
1 Washington Times, May 2, 2006.
2 Guardian, May 2, 2006.
3 Providence Journal, June .14, August 3, 2006.
4 From an online newspaper, http://immigrationoutpost.com/the-sandman-motel, April 30, 2006.
5 McCreery, David J., “Debt Servitude in Rural Guatemala, 1876–1936,” Hispanic American Historical Review 63, no. 4 (1983): pp. 735–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cambranes, Julio Castellanos, Coffee and Peasants: The Origins of the Modern Plantation Economy in Guatemala, 1853–1897 (Guatemala: Universidad de San Carlos, 1985);Google Scholar Smith, Carol A., ed., Guatemalan Indians and the State, 1540 to 1988 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990).Google Scholar
6 The neglect of people of African descent is noted by Ramos, Danilo Palma in “El Negro en Las Relaciones Etnicas de La Segunda Mitad del Siglo 18 y Principios del Siglo 19 en Guatemala” (Tesis de Licenciado en Historia, Escuela de Historia, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, 1974), p. 16.Google Scholar The historiography of blacks in Latin America is discussed in Woodward, Ralph Lee Jr., “The Historiography of Modern Central America since 1960,” Hispanic American Historical Review 67, no. 3 (Winter 1987): pp. 468–85,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Andrews, George Reid, “Afro-Latin America: The Late 1900s,” Journal of Social History 28, no. 2 (Winter 1994): pp. 363–379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Important contributions to Afro-Hispanic scholarship include Pérez-Medina, M.A., “The Situation of the Negro in Cuba,” Negro: Anthology Made by Nancy Cunard, 1931–1933, edited by Cunard, Nancy (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1934);Google Scholar Rout, Leslie B. Jr., The African Experience in Spanish America: 1502 to the Present Day (London: Cambridge University Press, 1976);Google Scholar Whitten, Norman E. Jr. and Torres, Arlene, eds., Central America and Northern and Western South America, vol. 1 of Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean: Social Dynamics and Cultural Transformations (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998);Google Scholar Conniff, Michael L., Black Labor on a White Canal: Panama, 1904–1981 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985);Google Scholar Bourgois, Philipe I., Ethnicity at Work: Divided Labor on a Central American Banana Plantation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989);Google Scholar Wright, Winthrop R., Café con Leche: Race, Class, and National Image in Venezuela (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990);Google Scholar Gillick, Steven Scott, “Life and Labor in a Banana Enclave: Bananeros, the United Fruit Company and the Limits of Trade Unionism in Guatemala, 1906–1931” (Ph.D. diss., Tulane University, 1995);Google Scholar Gordon, Edmund T., Disparate Diasporas: Identity and Politics in an African Nicaraguan Community (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998);Google Scholar and Opie, Frederick D., “Adios Jim Crow: Afro-North American Workers and the Guatemalan Railroad Workers' League, 1884–1921” (Ph.D. diss., Syracuse University, 1999).Google Scholar New works on Central America include Harpelle, Ronald N., The West Indians of Costa Rica: Race, Class, and the Integration of an Ethnic Minority (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001)Google Scholar and Putnam, Lara, The Company They Kept: Migrants and the Politics of Gender in Caribbean Costa Rica, 1870–1960 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).Google Scholar
7 Dailey, Jane, Gilmore, Glenda Elizabeth, and Simon, Bryant, eds., Jumpin’ Jim Crow: Southern Politics from Civil War to Civil Rights (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 140, 147.Google Scholar
8 Scott, James C., Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985);Google Scholar Scott, , Domination and the Arts of Resistance: The Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990);Google Scholar Kelley, Robin D.G., ‘“We Are Not What We Seem’: Rethinking Black Working-Class Opposition in the Jim Crow South,” The New African American Urban History, edited by Goings, Kenneth W. and Mohl, Raymond A. (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1996), pp. 190–91.Google Scholar
9 Examples of scholarship that gives the impression that workers in Guatemala in general were helpless include Kepner, , Social History, p. 181 Google Scholar; Recinos García, Maria Elena, “El Movimimiento Obrero en Guatemala, 1900–1954” (Tesis Licenciatura en Historia, Escuela de Historia, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, 1977);Google Scholar Rigoberto Urzua Sagastume, “La Empresa de Los Ferrocarriles de Guatemala Como Fuente de CESANTIA Laboral en El País, Análisis Socio-Político de la Situación Actual de los Empleados Indemnizados” (Tesis Licenciatura en Historia, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala Facultad de Ciencias Jurdicas y Sociales, Junio 1976); Balcárcel, José Luis, “El Movimiento Obrero en Guatemala,” tomo 2, Historia del movimiento obrero en América Latina, edited by Casanova, Pablo Gonález (México: Siglo XXI, 1985).Google Scholar The exception to the orthodox view is Asociación de Investigación y Estudios Sociales Dirección, Artesanos y Obreros en el Periodo Liberal, 1877–1944, vol. 1 of Más de 100 Años del Movimiento Obrero Urbano en Guatemala (Guatemala: Editorial Piedra Santa, 1991). This work does not address workers outside the capital in any depth, however.
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17 Walterman to the Secretary of State, January 31, 1920, Despatch no. 173, pp. 1–5, RG 59, micro copy No T–337, roll 3.
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19 Más de 100 Años, pp. 15–19, 27–28, 31.
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27 L. P. Pennypacker, Inspector Engineer, to Jose M. Amerlinck, Technical director of the Ferrocarril del Norte, November 11, 1897, Zacapa, pp. 100–103, MF Correspondencias M. S. Miller Camacho Pennypacker Amerlinck y Ferrocarriles 1897 Legajo 15819.
28 Penney, William T., “Notes and Comments on Travels through Mexico and Central America, Being the Personal Happenings to and Experiences of Yours Sincerely,” Guatemala City, 1913, pp. 112,Google Scholar 134, 141. Indexed as the “Penney Manuscript” at the Latin American Library, Tulane University, Rare Book and Manuscript Department, New Orleans, Louisiana. Hereafter cited as Penney.
29 F. G. Williamson, General Manager, Ferrocarril de Guatemala, to Leslie Combs, American Minister to Guatemala, RG 84, vol. 91, Miscellaneous Letters Received 1905 American Consulate General Guatemala January 30, 1905 Gualan.
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37 El Norte, April 30, 1893, June 10, 1893, June 17, 1893.
38 Penney was born in Quebec, Canada, in 1865. At the age of twenty, he formed a partnership to build bridges in Mexico. Penny relocated to Guatemala City in the late 1890s, where he continued to manage the company alone. While in Guatemala, he became identified with the construction of the Northern Railroad. El Libro Azul de Guatemala, eds. Bascom Jones, Colonel J., Soto Hall, Maximo, Scoullar, William T. (New Orleans: Searcy and Pfaff, LTD, 1915), p. 134.Google Scholar
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42 El Norte, Livingston April 20, 1893 Año 1 No. 7 Colleccion de Venezuela HBNG.
43 Pedro Ramos Jefatura Politica y Comandancia de Armas de Departamento de Jalapa a Ministerio de Gobernacion y Justicia Feburary 2, 1897 Jalapa, MGJ Legajo 28935 Año 1897.
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48 Harpelle, , The West Indians of Costa Rica, p. 13;Google Scholar Bourgois, , Ethnicity at Work, p. 47;Google Scholar Echeverri-Gent, , “Forgotten Workers,” p. 280;Google Scholar Putnam, , The Company They Kept, p. 40.Google Scholar
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54 Statement of Ernest Willis to Dennis, July 5, 1897, RG 84, vol. 7, pp. 169–71.
55 Wm. Rockwill, assistant secretary of state, to D. Lynch Pringle, consul general, January 12, 1897, RG 84, vol. 26 .
56 Dennis to Beaupré, October 29, 1898, RG 84, vol. 76, pp. 1–3.
57 Thomas Perry and John Green to President William McKinley, August 25, 1898, RG 84, vol. 27.
58 Vincent Lamantia to N. C. Blanchard, governor of Louisiana, January 19, 1905, RG 84, vol. 145, pp. 1–3.
59 Dispatch from Edward Reed to the Guatemala City Consular, June 9, 1908, RG 84, vol. 40, p. 1; Reed to Owen, June 18, 1908, RG 84, vol. 40, p. 1.
60 Dispatches from Reed to Kent American, October 24, 1908, RG 84, vol. 40, pp. 1–3.
61 H. Remsen Whitehouse Guatemala City Consular to James B. Porter Assistant Secretary of State RG 59 Micro Copy No T-337 Dispatches From United States Consuls in Guatemala, 1824–1906 Roll 5 Jan 25, 1883-April 28, 1886, Guatemala City, May 24, 1885 no 41 p. 1–7 plus three enclosures, May 24, 1885 article from El Guatemalteco on Decree No. 330; Map showing the district opened for colonization by Decree of May 15, 1885.
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65 Will Glover, August 20, 1910, record group 59 1910-29, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland (hereafter cited as RG 59 1910–29), box 3834, dispatch 469.
66 Evans to Reed, May 20, 1908, RG 84, vol. 40.
67 Kent to assistant secretary of state, June 19, 1907, RG 84, vol. 122.
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70 Letter from William Evans to Stuart Lipton, American consul general, Guatemala City State, February 18, 1916, RG 84, vol. 186; Certificate of Registration of American Citizen, 1916, part 2, vol. 190, 1917, part 2, American consul general to Mateo Vives, jefe politico y comandante de Armas Zacapa, March 27, 1917, vol. 209, 1921 Part II, Louis McPherson, June 21, 1921, Guatemala City.
71 Reed to Owen, RG 84 vol 140, Correspondence Consular Agency American Consulate General 1910–1911, January 20, 1910, RG 84, vol 184, Enclosure No. 1., p. 17.
72 Reed to Winslow, May 23, 1903, RG 84, vol. 39; Ira L. Penix to Lipton, October 20, 1915, RG 84, vol. 182; Jay McCall, consular agent, Puerto Barrios, to Lipton, November 3, 1915, RG 84, vol. 182.
73 Reed to Kent, February 23,1909, RG 84, vol. 138, p. 221; Henry Collins to American council general (hereafter ACG), January 25, 1909, RG 84, vol. 40.
74 Reed to Kent, September 22, 1907, RG 84, vol 122, Dispatches to State Department 1907 American Consulate General, pp. 201–202.
75 H. B. Hodgedon, manager and general superintendent of the Ferrocarril Central, to MF, December 9, 1894, Ministerio de Fomento (hereafter MF), Legajo 15861, AGCA, p. 3; William Douglass, Jessie Jackson, and Junicus Thompson to President William McKinley, June 17, 1898, RG 84, vol. 27, nos. 31–69.
76 Wm. Rockwill to Pringle, January 12, 1897, RG 84, vol. 26.
77 It appears that the unnamed author of the letter was Ernest Willis of Monroe, Louisiana. The author identified himself as being from Monroe.
78 Letter by anonymous author, 1897, Jefatura Política de Alta Verapaz (hereafter JPAV), packet 1, AGCA.
79 George Chapman, Henry Williams, Jim Johnson, Henry Willison, T. Tazerend, Will Dully, and John N. Misanys [sic] to the secretary of the U.S. Navy, September 1896, RG 84, vol. 25, no. 82, pp. 1–2.
80 Chapman, Williams, Johnson, Willison, Tazerend, Dully, and Misanys, September 1896, pp. 1–2; Douglass to McKinley, June 17, 1898.
81 Penney, p. 66.
82 Reed to William P. Kent RG 84 vol 122 Dispatches to State Department 1907 American Consulate General September 22, 1907 Livingston, pp. 201–202.
83 George Walters, September 16, 1907, RG 84, vol. 40.
84 Reed to Kent, September 22, 1907, RG 84, vol. 122, pp. 201–202.
85 Reed to Kent, September 22, 1907
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92 Consuls to American consul general, Guatemala City, Tegucigalpa, Honduras, From Consuls, February 28, 1910 to December 30, 1910, McCreery American Legation Tegucigalpa, Honduras, G. H. Watts, American vice consul, Puerto Cortés, Honduras, to Owen, May 18, 1910, RG 84, vol. 48.
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97 George Phillips & Co. to Sarg, March 4, 1885, RG 59, microcopy no. T-337 DUSCG, 1824–1906, roll 5, pp. 30–33.
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99 Hitt to Secretary of State, June 1, 1911, RG 59 1910–29, box 3835, pp. 2–3.
100 Garrard Harris, 1914, RG 84, vol. 179.