“Only the Best Class of Immigration”

American Journal of Public Health, 2011

Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2003

Even before the influx of Mexicans, public health officials in Los Angeles constructed very sick and very poor tubercular people as an illegitimate presence who not only endangered others but also represented weakness and failure and imposed intolerable economic burdens. The identification of tuberculosis with Mexicans during the 1920s hardened the perception that they did not belong in Los Angeles. Because Mexicans lived and worked in dangerous surroundings, it is likely that they bore a very high burden of tuberculosis. Contemporary statistics, however, tell us less about the prevalence of disease than about the attitudes of health officials. Most were convinced that Mexicans had an innate susceptibility to tuberculosis. Concerns about the cost of supporting tubercular Mexicans figured prominently in efforts to restrict their immigration in the 1920s, and in the deportation and repatriation drives of the 1930s.

JAIDS Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, 2004

This analysis focuses on public policies that affect primary HIV prevention and access to HIV care for Mexican migrants residing in California. Policy or structural level interventions, as opposed to behavioral or psychologic interventions, help to shape the environment in which people live. We use a conceptual model for policy analysis in public health to understand better the challenges faced by Mexican migrants. We assess potential policy level interventions that may serve as barriers to or facilitators of primary HIV prevention and care for Mexican migrants. Among potential barriers, we discuss restrictions on public health services based on legal immigration status, limits placed on affirmative action in education, and laws limiting travel and immigration. Under potential facilitators, we discuss community and migrant health centers, language access laws, and the use of community-based groups to provide prevention and treatment outreach. We also report on the limited research evaluating the implications of these public policies and ways to organize for more responsive public policies.

Becoming Mexican" traces the establishment of segregated schools for children of Mexican descent in southern California in the 1910s and 1920s. The resulting substandard education led to poor test results. Based on these low scores, social scientists in the 1930s and 1940s concluded that Mexican students were inherently inferior, buttressing a biological definition of racial inferiority with far-reaching consequences.

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

Gi lbert G. Gonza l e z University of Cal ifornia-lrvine The theme of equal educational opportunity was a major concern of the urban Chicano Movement in the late sixties. Chicanos accused the entire school system of racism and insensitivity towards the Chicano community. Schools, declared the activists, used institutionalized techniques such as intelligence tests and a tracking system to insure that disproportional numbers of Chicano children would be placed in vocational education courses or in classes for the mentally retarded.

Rockefeller Archive Center, 2011

Julia Rodriguez, Professor University of New Hampshire