Conflict, Land Reform, and Repatriation in the Mexicali Valley

Abstract

This chapter discusses Mexico's agrarian reform policy, one of the earliest land reform programs of its kind in Latin America. The labor unions that had formed in the 1920s became crucial to the movement for land reform in the 1930s. Under the two waves of agrarian reform, most land was distributed to single men and male heads of household. However, some women seized the limited opportunities they had to gain farmland. Anti-Chinese sentiment and President Lázaro Cárdenas' expropriation of U.S.-owned land in the Mexicali Valley ended the flow of Asian migration to the Valley's rural areas. Most Asian workers were excluded from obtaining communal farmland. Nevertheless, some Asian farmers purchased property and continued their commercial relationship with U.S.-owned companies on a smaller scale.