Dancing hall offering “Cabaret & Dancing,” most likely within the Tijuana, Mexico, 1920
Mexico’s “Tourist in women”
Inside 1915, California push first started posting account out-of young girls’ “harrowing event having North american country light slavers” regarding the edging towns of Baja California. 38 In the April, the brand new Los angeles Minutes additionally the North park Sunlight one another recounted Selma Potwin and you may Mary Purcell’s scripted helping to make of its abduction and you may “torture” for the an excellent Tijuana opium den, “operate by Mexicans but…presided more than by the a horrible searching Chinaman.” 39 Each other documentation commented with the “scores” of most other sufferers and suggested sufferers and you will verified one to “its tale could have been told through many more.” 40 The experience ended up thus dreadful that every girl attempted committing suicide, “preferring dying to life toward draw out of Tia Juana up on him or her.” 41 Regardless of if ultimately started as the a little fictionalized, this new light thraldom fabrication nevertheless offered excuse to have an investigation because of the the latest U.S. 
State department and you may motivated San Diego’s captain from cops so you’re able to recommend a keen embargo with the passage of tourists so you’re able to Tijuana (Figure 6). 42
Both women can be the newest girl of municipal engineer Michael Maurice O’Shaughnessy, which set up San Francisco’s Hetch-Hetchy domestic plumbing. Many American girls ventured southern to Mexican border places having good blast, but You.S. click tend to informed you to such women have been apt to be kidnapped “to have depraved motives.”
Both women can be the girl out of civil engineer Michael Maurice O’Shaughnessy, exactly who setup San Francisco’s Hetch-Hetchy domestic plumbing. Of numerous Western females ventured south so you’re able to Mexican edging towns and cities to have a good good-time, but You.S. click usually cautioned one to such as lady have been likely to be kidnapped “having immoral intentions.”
About ages to check out, La and you may Hillcrest hit much more seemed accounts from trafficking and you may tales of “of numerous little girls, underneath the period of 20 are brought to Tijuana.” 43 Account advised out-of how “girls, appear to of best category, was indeed taken to own ‘immoral aim.’” Articles explained the latest “leap joints” in which girls were “remaining, powerless, susceptible to Chinese and negroes” and you can figured, into the Tijuana, this new victims “slip only females can go.” forty two Whenever you are for example remarkable paper profile illuminated white worries about racial fusion and sex transgressions in Mexico, however they shown the brand new sensationalized journalistic style of the day and therefore must be seen vitally. Nonetheless, authorities data and you will clubwomen’s characters on light slavery usually contained lurid renderings of your “indescribable requirements” and you will “demoralizing influences on the other side of range.” forty five
Surprisingly, western claims (so much more as opposed to those regarding South) enacted probably the most specialized restrictions outlawing marriage ceremonies ranging from whites and nearly some other racial categories: Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Hawaiians, Hindus, and you can Native Us americans, plus blacks
Within the 1920, the brand new Los angeles Cops Service affirmed you to, of your own a huge selection of women shed in the city, “some of the lady were tracked to Tia Juana and you will Mexicali, Straight down California border places where they certainly were into the ‘white bondage.’” 46 They concluded that “partners do get back because of fear out of disgrace.” To numerous white Us citizens, the fresh new “disgrace” regarding Mexico invoked the newest offense of interracial gender, an effective transgression they may simply establish due to tales out-of coercion and you may victimization. Profile one spoke of the “shame” and the “draw regarding Tijuana” taken advantage of local concerns about the chance out of miscegenation and the options regarding racial dilution regarding the American Western.
Borderlands students such as for instance id the new region’s varied demography out-of Mexicans, Chinese, and you can African People in america triggered distress certainly one of light Us americans in close proximity so you’re able to such as for instance “mongrel” room. 47 In fact, Western journalists, regulators documents, vice reports, and letters from protest seem to stated abreast of the latest “congress of all countries” from the North american country edging. 48 Perhaps the Nyc Times advertised “the individuals-it one live inside Tia Juana! The Places! Nevertheless the American, the fresh North american country, the Chinese additionally the ‘colored gem’man throughout the Souf’ [sic] predominate.” 49 Cumulative anxiety more damage mirrored the fresh scary possibility of racial domination of the “Negroes, mulattos and you will Indians,” a keen abiding fear rooted in the first You.S. conquest of the west boundary. fifty American acquisition of the fresh Southwest and its “mixed-breed” communities on the nineteenth 100 years increased local anxiousness on the sexual and you may social mixing and engendered an effective distinctively west obsession with racial purity. Anglo-Saxons regarding U.S. Western had a particular disdain having “mestizos,” who it experienced the newest “condemned progeny” of miscegenation. 51 Moreover, this new difficulty of your racial landscaping posed a formidable problem to help you the new imposition out-of white supremacy and you can engendered regionally particular manner of subordinating individuals of color, including such laws as the California’s 1851 Overseas Miners Income tax, Congress’s 1882 Chinese Exemption Act, and many of the country’s earliest and most complex antimiscegenation laws and regulations. 52 Particularly mandates facing illicit intimacies failed to hold not in the edging and you can offered only to magnify light Western worries regarding the racial disease from Mexico and shameless immorality of their night life.
