Southwestern Historical Quarterly

The first great change elucidated in this fine new book is the pressure that Mexico and other Latin American countries brought to bear on the United States to begin treating immigration as an international rather than a domestic matter. The second is the way that the importance of U.S.–Mexican relations swayed immigration policy, with the State Department itself demolishing the case for a numerical quota on Mexican immigrants. As Montoya notes, "administrative restriction was the perfect compromise between a Westphalian sense of national sovereignty and a Wilsonian notion of more cooperative diplomatic relations" (250).

U.S. immigration policy was traditionally handled as a domestic matter, taking into account economic needs, expanding territorial boundaries, and explicit concerns about supposed racial characteristics. The Immigration Act of 1924 tightened the existing quota-based system that sought to constrict the flow of migrants from large sending nations such as Italy and Poland. Cultural arguments were paramount in limiting these groups, and overt racism abounded. This model of a quota on what were considered undesirable migrants was the goal of restrictionists who "believed Mexicans [End Page 492] were racially inferior and a hazard to U.S. society and its institutions" (126). Montoya ably discusses the variables that made Mexican immigration different: it was seasonal, it was critical to agriculture in the Southwest and Texas, and it was locally common but invisible in Washington, D.C. In addition, Mexico's geographic position, with a long land border, made the bilateral relationship with the United States a special diplomatic and strategic environment. Plus, after the population dislocations of the Mexican Revolution, Mexico was attempting to consolidate its national government, a process that would benefit U.S. interests.

The twist in Montoya's story is that restrictionists in Congress were opposed by the State Department, which argued that singling out Mexico for an immigration quota "would bring embarrassment on the Mexican people, poison U.S.–Mexican relations, and threaten U.S. diplomacy with the rest of Latin America" (66–67). The State Department pushed for a non-confrontational way to reduce Mexican immigration: administrative restriction. The strategy was "to enforce strictly existing immigration laws that excluded the entry of immigrants into the United States who were illiterate, diseased, or likely to become public charges" (245). Experts like Manuel Gamio testified before Congress in 1930 with the geopolitical argument that "the quota would undermine the long-term structural solution to the immigration problem—Mexico's political stability" (199).

The second front against the quota was full of Latin American diplomats. In one of the most intriguing parts of the book, Montoya dissects U.S.–Mexico negotiations at the Second Conference on Emigration and Immigration in Havana in 1928, writing that it was "the closest both nations would come to brokering a bilateral treaty on immigration before the 1940s" (123). By dragging the issue of immigration into the international arena, Latin American states acted in unison to limit Washington's latitude to go it alone with its own numerical (and racial) goals. Mexican diplomat Francisco Suástegui's notes from congressional hearings in February 1928 offer readers a microscopic view of the restrictionists' 'kitchen sink' strategy of arguing for a quota.

The push to enforce a quota on Mexican immigration ended in 1932 for several reasons. The pressure of the State Department was effective, "Administrative restriction slowed legal immigration … [and] the Great Depression curbed illegal immigration" (128). The U.S. would not revisit the issue of Mexican immigration until the Bracero program began in 1942 under wartime pressures.

Montoya has written an elegant study of the deep historical roots of immigration policy and the challenges of asymmetric diplomatic engagement. His ability to weave together U.S. and Mexican diplomatic sources is exemplary. This analysis will surely be enlightening for students, scholars, and policymakers alike. [End Page 493]