Deporting Dissidence

Abstract

This essay examines Mexican immigrant political and labor activism in Chicago through the life of Refugio Roman Martinez, an organizer for the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) who was deported by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Martinez’s history suggests that Mexican immigrant CIO members tended to be proud Mexican citizens motivated to join US unions by their understanding of the Mexican Revolution and rise of Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas (1934–1940). These Mexican immigrants campaigned for labor and immigration improvements and encouraged Mexicans to enter unions to attain equity; however, they concurrently rebuffed US naturalization as a means to achieve these ends. Indeed, Mexican immigrants fought for labor rights while rejecting US citizenship and did so in part because they were conscious of US hegemony and found it too intellectually problematic to become US citizens and to appeal to the US state for justice. As the United States entered the Cold War, immigrants paid a price for joining the US labor movement while retaining their foreign citizenship. From the Southwest to the Midwest, the INS disciplined immigrant labor leaders through deportation.