Imperial (200 page)

Extract from “Singing Jailbirds”—Sinclair, pp. 38, 50.

Advance detachments of the Mexican Revolution have already infiltrated the Wobblies . . .—See Pike, p. 223. Article Twenty-seven; words of the Michoacán woman; casualties as of 1919—Boyer, pp. 75, 62-63, 69.

“When the men of Zapata entered the town, they came to kill . . .”—Wemark, pp. 375-76 (“Life and Death in Milpa Alta”).

Carranza’s lackluster commitment to expropriating the haciendas—Dwyer, pp. 30-31.

“People grew used to killing . . .”—Orozco autobiography, p. 53. In 1917, Orozco gets expelled from Canada, solely for his nationality, he believes; for by then most Northsiders consider “Mexican” and “bandit” to be synonymous (ibid., p. 67).

“A triumph for capitalism.”—Kerig, p. 4.

Confluence of interest and bribery keep CRLC in business—Dwyer, p. 43.

Birth of the word “campesinos”—My brief discussion in this chapter is indebted to Boyer.

Orozco’s “Head of a Mexican Peasant,” Orozco graphic work, p. 113.

Doings of Cárdenas and the CRMDT—Boyer, pp. 213, 191, 151, 192.

“MEXICO CENTER FOR BOLSHEVISM”—
Fresno Morning Republican
, Monday, March 22, 1920, p. 1.

Weapons of war now permitted to be exported to Mexico—Record Group 36. Records of the U.S. Customs Service. Calexico Customs Office. Incoming Official Correspondence (9L-60). October 15, 1902-March 23, 1916. Box No. 3 of 5: November 1913 to July 1914. Folder: “Nov. 15, 1913-Feb. 11, 1914.” Letter to the Deputy Collector of Customs, Calexico, Cal., from John B. [illegible; probably Cretcher], Collector, Office of the Collector, Treasury Department, U.S. Customs Service, Port of Los Angeles, Cal. February 14, 1914.

“American Troops Save Life . . .” and “Battle of Saltillo . . .”—
Imperial Valley Press
, vol. XIV, no. 16, Tuesday evening, May 18, 1914, p. 1.

“Great Battle” and “Mexicans Puzzled . . .”—Ibid., no. 18, Thursday evening, May 20, p. 1.

“While Mexicans Cut Gringo Pigs’ Throats . . .”—Womack, p. 185 (
El Independiente
, April 23, 1914).

Footnote: Number of shells fired into Vera Cruz in Mexican-American War—Bigelow, p. 59.

Footnote: Richard Henry Dana—Op. cit.

Debacle between Andrade and Holabird, 1912—
Los Angeles Times
, August 6, 1912, vol. II, no. 10, “INTERNATIONAL CLAIMS ARE STILL UNSETTLED.”

“A marked labor shortage in Imperial . . .”—
California Cultivator
, vol. LXV, no. 21, November 21, 1925, p. 516 (“Agricultural News Notes of the Pacific Coast”: “Southern California”).

The history of Riverside County: “The miserable half-breed race”—Holmes et al., p. 40.

“The rest being Mexicans, Hindus and other foreigners”—Tout,
The First Thirty Years
, p. 239 (files of
Imperial Valley Press and Farmer
).

The tale of Santiago Gonzales from Las Barrancas—Marilyn P. Davis (testimony of Don Ezekiel Pérez). Señor Santiago crossed in 1914.

Paul S. Taylor on Imperial Valley—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library. Paul S. Taylor papers. Carton 4. Folder 4:29: “Imperial Valley, Notes, Drafts.” Unnumbered small white sheet clipped to yellow sheets dated 1979, p. 4.

“And until 1913 there’s not a single labor union in Imperial County.”—In 1913 printers formed the first union in the Valley (Tout,
The First Thirty Years
, p. 194).

“The entire equipment of the United States regulars . . .”—
Imperial Valley Press
, vol. XIV, no. 8 (Saturday evening, May 8, 1914), p. 1 (“MEXICAN GUNS AT CALEXICO EQUAL DEPARTED MILITIA”).

“Twenty-five Imperial Valley School Teachers . . .”—ICHSPM photograph, uncoded in 2001; found near group #P85.111.1.

1914 page-1 news (embargo, platoon, cotton)—
Imperial Valley Press
, vol. XIV, no. 7, Friday, May 8, 1914. Re: the embargo, the
Press
remarks: “Many Americans are inside the rebel lines and are unwilling to leave.”

Doings of Huey Stanley—Roemer, pp. 38-39.

“Horses stolen by insurgents . . .”—ICHSPM, photo, uncoded as of 2002.

“Lieutenant Berthold inspecting insurgent troops . . .”—ICHSPM photo, cat. #P85.115.1 Now here is a photo of “insurgent guards, Mexicali, 1911,” one of whom expresses tolerance, one suspicion, one self-satisfaction, one neutrality; one sternly swaggers (he’s the only one whose hand rests in his pocket instead of on his rifle); the last appears calmly remote.

Doings of Magón, Pryce, Ferris, Mosby—Niemann, pp. 75-76.

Private army of Americans defend their ranches against Magonistas—Chamberlin, p. 46.

Night letter to Governor Johnson, 1911: “In sympathy with the Mexican Insurrectors”—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library, farm labor situation 1933-34. Folder: “Mexican border incidents.” G. Gordon Whitnall, Secretary of a mass meeting in Los Angeles, to Governor Hiram Johnson, 6 February 1911.

“A certain hardening of the line”—Major Esteban Cantú was Chief of the Line in Mexicali in 1911. He fought revolutionists along the Colorado. In November 1913 he defeats insurgents at Las Islitas and gets promoted to Colonel. Counterrevolutionaries rumored to be affiliated with Harry Chandler try to take over the Mexicali Valley, but Cantú stops that. He becomes famous for summoning pro-American secesssionist soldiers to his presence with these words: “You wish to betray your country. Very well, kill me and betray it if you are bad Mexicans.”—Farr, p. 302 (Hector González, “The Northern District of Lower California”).

“It is not possible any longer . . .” and Apricot Day—
Imperial Valley Press
, vol. XIV, no. 8 (Saturday evening, May 8, 1914), p. 1 (“MEXICAN OFFICIALS DOUBLE VIGILANCE”).

Rumors that Mexicans might cut the canal in 1914—Harris, p. 36.

“Mexicans getting ugly . . .”—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library, farm labor situation 1933-34. Folder: “Mexican border incidents.” Rockwood to Thomas, Adjutant General. COPY. 86SF JO 100 Blue. Heber Cal 1222P, June 25, 1916.

Labor and racial unrest in America in 1919—Pike, p. 221.

Phil Swing: “The uneconomic method of that great irrigation district . . . ,” etc.—Senate Committee on the Colorado River Basin (1925), p. 189 (Swing’s statement).

Tale of the American weapons smuggler in 1920—
Fresno Morning Republican
, Friday, March 26, 1920, p. 3 (“Attempts Arms Sale to Mexico”). Meanwhile, Cantú has himself considered seceding, but Carranza hears and fires him; he refuses to turn over reins to Baldomero Almada; they send in General Abelardo Rodríguez with troops to depose him.

Report on Mejía or Mejís
—Imperial Valley Press
, Wednesday, August 18, 1926, p. 1 (“INSURRECTORS ARE HELD FOR TRIAL IN SEPTEMBER”).

69. The Next Step (
ca.
1925)

“By the mid-twenties they succeeded in obtaining legislation . . .”—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library. Paul S. Taylor papers. Carton 4. Folder 4:26: “Future of Mexican Immigration: Draft w/Corrections and Notes, 1976” (published as Chapter 11, Arthur E. Corwin, ed.,
Immigrants
. . .), p. 3.

70. El Centro (1925)

Epigraph: “The husbandman here . . .”—Pattie, p. 264. He was writing about Mission San Diego.

Description of Roth and Marshall’s Feed Store—After an ICHSPM photograph, cat. #P91.45.1. (According to Tout,
The First Thirty Years
, p. 335, in 1920 “W. A. Marshall built a handsome store at Eighth and Main.”) The ICHSPM photo is undated.

El Centro Chamber of Commerce: Imperial County is “third richest growing county in the United States . . .” —Imperial County Agriculture Commission papers, “Facts on Imperial County California,” comp. by John S. Carmichael, Secretary, El Centro Chamber of Commerce, 1925.

Following crop statistics for 1925—Loc. cit.

“Mr. Cooper richly deserves whatever success has come to him . . .”—Farr, p. 388 (biography of Cooper).

Address of Otis P. Tout—Imperial Valley Directory (1912), p. 262. In 1925 Tout was still living in El Centro, and almost certainly at this address.
The First Thirty Years
, published in 1931, informs us that he dwells in El Centro.

Sinclair Lewis: “He had enormous and poetic admiration . . .” and “a high-colored, banging, exciting region”—Op. cit., p. 548.

“You can’t hate them properly . . .”—Ibid., p. 578.

Urban percentage of U.S. population in 1900 and 1925—Mott and Roemer, pp. 6-7.

Description of Main Street in 1918—ICHSPM photograph, cat. #P92.39 (“Main Street, El Centro”).

News of the Imperial Valley Motor Agency—Imperial Valley Directory (1926), p. 14.

El Centro’s “automobile laundries” and auto dealerships in 1930—Imperial Valley Directory (1930), pp. 347-48.

“El Centro has not acquired a large Japanese population . . .”—Farr, p. 281 (Edgar F. Howe, “El Centro”).

View of the Hotel Barbara Worth in 1928—ICHSPM photograph, cat. #P91.201.118.

Miss El Centro 1928—ICHSPM photograph, no cat. number recorded.

71. Mexicali (1925)

Epigraph: “Impressed with the success of numerous small commercial farmers in the Imperial Valley . . .”—Kerig, p. 139.

Description of the Puente Blanco in 1925—After a photo reproduced in Celso Bernal, p. 260.

Descriptions of Mexicali
ca.
1925—AHMM, photo album 3, cat. #29.AHM/166.1/1 and #29.AHM/166.3/17.

Hector González: “Due perhaps to the rosy prospects which the cultivation of cotton offers capital . . .”—Farr, pp. 207-8 (“The Northern District of Lower California”).

“The concession policies of the Porfirio Díaz Administration . . .”—Munguía, p. 159 (José Luis Castro Ruiz).

Comparative populations of Mexicali and Tijuana, 1910-30—Ibid., p. 158. In 1921 Mexicali held more than six times as many people as Tijuana.

Remarks of Hermenegildo Pérez Cervantes—Interviewed in the AHMM, December 2006. Terrie Petree interpreted. This man also said: “The major source of employment for us Mexicans at first was business, then construction, and then agriculture. We were building businesses, some apartments, some office buildings. They came from the interior: Guadalajara, Mexico, Mazatlán. They were the people with money. They brought land and built buildings. My father was a worker in that soap factory. There were five children in our family.”

Mexicali’s land purchase from the CRLC, 1920-21—Kerig, pp. 205-6.

“The entire plant is of steel and concrete . . .”—
Los Angeles Times
, April 11, 1926, p. J3 (Randall Henderson, “A New Kind of Pioneering in Imperial”).

Parnership between the ISCP (in Spanish, the Compañía Industrial Jabonera del Pacífico) and the CRLC—Kerig, p. 272.

Description of the premises of the Colorado River Ginning Co.—AHMM, unnumbered photo album. “Es de reciente contrucción, pues en 1923 un incendio destruyó la Planta primitiva.”

CLRC’s role and motives in building the Mexicali and Gulf Railroad—
Los Angeles Times
, April 26, 1925, p. J10 (A. W. Swanson, “A Remarkable Room in Which Cotton Experts Meet”).

Its shipping of cleared trees for firewood—Kerig, p. 84.

Episode of Marcelino Magaña—DeBuys and Myers, p. 142.

CRLC sales of 1927—Tout,
The First Thirty Years
, p. 364.

Mexicans put last among CRKC’s parcelees—Munguía, p. 117 (Fernando A. Medina Robles).

Miscellaneous facts and dates about the Chinese in Mexicali—Auyón Gerardo, p. 41ff. (Terrie Petree’s working translation.) Regarding the 50 Chinese ranches in the Mexicali Valley, Duncan for his part (p. 635) prefers to give a figure of “at least 32” out of 105.

Activities of the China Leasing Company, 1926—
Los Angeles Times
, February 7, 1926, p. J6 (“Potatoes to Be Tried Below the Line”).

Phil Swing: “. . . There have been 8,000 Chinese imported . . .”—Senate Committee on the Colorado River Basin (1925), p. 191 (Swing’s statement).

Cultivated acreage in the Mexicali Valley, 1920—Auyón Gerardo, p. 41ff.

Cotton acreage there, 1920—Duncan, p. 624.

One of the Imperial Irrigation District’s five directors: Irrigated acreage on Mexican side, 1925—Senate Committee on the Colorado River Basin (1925), Part 2, p. 259 (statement of C. W. Brockman, Calexico director of IID).

Advertisement for the Climax—Imperial Valley Directory (1930), p. 39. Meanwhile, from Hetzel’s files, although not from his shutter (he must have been too busy photographing the expanding perfections of Brawley and El Centro), I find a 1927 photograph of Avenida Obregón, sporting twinned streetlights; the arteries of Mexicali are as empty as ever but the median strip is clearer and more verdant than in my day; I can’t believe how clear the horizon’s mountains are.

72. Volstead (1919 -1933)

Epigraph: “The Mexican side of the border is a place where free-spending Americans go . . .”—Salazar, p. 60 (“No Troops Line Border That Has Become Big Business: Changes Loom,” January 7, 1962).

Doings of the WCTU—Farr, pp. 258-59, 261-62. (Mrs. C. Angie Miller, “Woman’s Christian Temperance Union”).

The WCTU in Riverside—Holmes et al., pp. 84-85. The organization was formed in that city in 1883.

Footnote: Date of first legal liquor establishment in Imperial County (1912)—Tout,
The First Thirty Years
, p. 266.

Same footnote: Poolhalls in Imperial County, 1912—Imperial Valley Directory (1912), pp. 295-96.

Same footnote: The wholesale liquor dealer in Imperial—Imperial Valley Directory (1914), unnumbered page (1 in from back cover).

Same footnote: Imperial’s 6 bars—Ibid., p. 352.

Same footnote: Number of bars in 2001—Imperial Valley yellow pages (2001), p. 64.

“Usual to all new countries”—
An Illustrated History of Los Angeles County
, p. 245.

“Average number of violent deaths . . .”—Ibid., p. 98.

Vigilance committee of 1856; first legal hanging—Ibid., pp. 99, 110.

Supposed cause of the Chinese Massacre—Ibid., pp. 249-50.

In 1916 Imperial County voted in favor of Prohibition by the widest margin in California and aftermath ten years later—According to Tout, the ballots went 2 to 1 in favor (
The First Thirty Years
, pp. 201, 248 [poll of
Imperial Valley Press
readers]).