No Place of Refuge: Mexicans, Anglos, and Violence in the Texas Borderland, 1900-1920

Abstract

This dissertation examines Mexican and Anglo race relations in the Texas borderland during the decade of the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920. The outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910 led to hostilities between Anglos and Mexicans in the borderland. Working-class Mexican men became targets of racial violence, and, when suspected of criminal activity, were sought out by Anglo posses. This dissertation analyzes the lynching of ethnic Mexicans in Texas, and the injustices within the legal system that targeted ethnic Mexicans in Texas. I argue that a culture of hatred developed between Mexicans and Anglos during the 1910s that was a result of tension brought on by international event in Mexico—the Mexican Revolution—and was intensified by feelings of nativism, nationalism, and sovereignty. I credit the actions of Mexican-American activists and World War I for the decrease in anti-Mexican violence: the former argued that citizenship guaranteed them equal protection under the law, and the latter led Anglos to target suspected un-American activity by Germans in the borderland as a new threat. I contribute to the historiography of violence in the borderland by introducing how the lynching of ethnic Mexicans became a common practice during the decade, and I illustrates a grass-roots movement of ethnic Mexicans in Texas that fought for their rights as American citizens.