Labor migration on Mexico's southern border, 1880-1941: The quest for regulation and its aftermath. (Volumes I and II)

This is a study of immigration reform governing agricultural labor on Mexico's southern border from 1880 to 1941. In response to fears in the industrialized world that labor migration would soon deplete the available resources in some areas, Mexico sought a policy which would eliminate excessive emigration on its northern border and excessive immigration to the coffee fincas of Chiapas from Guatemala. In conjunction with an enlightened constitution promulgated in 1917, the Mexican government elected to revise categories of labor from wage versus forced to a full wage program based on legal, semi-legal (contract) and illegal designations. The plan was to allow Mexican agricultural labor to organize and to receive grants of ejidal lands while redistributing workers throughout the country according to the needs of each region.; Although land redistribution and labor organizing began in the northern and central areas in the 1920s, it was not until 1934 that Chiapas was included. The problem on the southern frontier was the presence of thousands of Guatemalans who had occupied Mexican territory before and after the political boundary had been fixed between Mexico and Guatemala in 1882. Still regarded as foreigners because they had never legalized their citizenship, these families and thousands of additional migrant workers who came without documents to harvest the coffee each year threatened the land and labor programs.; This study follows the Mexican reform programs of the 1930s and attempts to demonstrate that the granting of amnesty to thousands of Guatemalans and the dividing of workers into various legal categories with full or partial protection of the Mexican State allowed those with contracts to displace Mexican laborers. Those who could not obtain temporary legal status continued to come in large numbers as employers followed the practice of hiring the cheapest and most exploitable labor available. By dividing labor into antagonistic sectors, the Mexican government thwarted the ejidal program in Chipas and failed to curtail illegal immigration from Guatemala.