Ricardo Chavira Chicano

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Actual Venezuelan History: Full Credit: Perplexity

Who was Carlos Andres Perez? What did the US have to do with him?

Carlos Andrés Pérez (1922-2010) was a pivotal figure in modern Venezuelan history who served as president during two critical periods: 1974-1979 and 1989-1993. His relationship with the United States evolved from a cooperative partnership during the oil nationalization era to direct support during crises in his second term, making him a key case study in U.S.-Latin American relations during the Cold War and post-Cold War periods.

Early Life and Political Foundation

Pérez emerged from Venezuela’s democratic opposition movement, joining the liberal Acción Democrática (AD) party led by Rómulo Betancourt. After the 1945 revolution that overthrew military rule, Pérez served as Betancourt’s personal secretary, establishing his credentials within Venezuela’s emerging democratic elite. When a right-wing coup exiled AD leaders in 1948, Pérez spent a decade in exile and imprisonment before returning in 1958 after the fall of Marcos Pérez Jiménez’s dictatorship.

During the 1960s, Pérez directed the Ministry of Interior (1962-1963), where he suppressed left-wing radicals challenging the Betancourt government. This hardline stance against communist insurgents earned him credibility with Washington while demonstrating his commitment to Venezuela’s democratic continuity. By the 1970s, Pérez had consolidated power within AD, positioning himself for national leadership.

First Presidency (1974-1979): The Oil Nationalization Era

Pérez won the 1973 presidential election by a wide margin, campaigning on a platform of national sovereignty and economic transformation. His administration coincided with the OPEC oil price revolution, providing Venezuela with unprecedented petroleum revenues that increased per capita income by approximately 40%.

The 1976 Oil Nationalization

On January 1, 1976, Pérez fulfilled his campaign promise by nationalizing Venezuela’s entire oil industry, creating the state-owned enterprise Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). This move affected major U.S. companies, including ExxonMobil, which had dominated Venezuelan production since the 1920s. Contrary to subsequent political narratives, the nationalization was “relatively uncontroversial” and fully compensated foreign firms with approximately $1 billion in payments.

The United States responded with remarkable restraint. Despite losing direct control over Venezuelan oil assets, Washington maintained friendly relations because:

Pérez preserved foreign technical and managerial personnel to ensure efficient operations.

PDVSA continued partnering with U.S. companies under joint ventures where Venezuela held 60% equity

Venezuela remained a reliable oil supplier, refusing to join the Arab oil embargo and supporting U.S. energy security

Pérez compensated American firms rather than expropriating assets without payment

Strategic Autonomy Within Partnership

While preserving U.S. friendship, Pérez demonstrated strategic autonomy by:

Supporting Panama’s demand for control of the Panama Canal

Reestablishing diplomatic relations with Cuba (broken since 1961)

Channeling petroleum income into domestic hydroelectric projects, education, and steel mills

Slowing oil production to conserve resources

This balanced approach allowed Pérez to modernize Venezuela’s infrastructure while maintaining Washington’s support, exemplifying the “punto fijo” democracy’s ability to navigate between national sovereignty and U.S. interests.

Second Presidency (1989-1993): Crisis and U.S. Intervention

After a decade-long legal prohibition on reelection, Pérez returned to the presidency in 1989, winning on nostalgia for the prosperity of his first term. However, Venezuela’s international reserves had dwindled to only $300 million, and the country faced a mounting debt crisis.

The Caracazo and U.S. Support

On February 27, 1989, Pérez implemented an IMF-sponsored “economic package” that removed fuel and transport subsidies, triggering the Caracazo—four days of nationwide protests, riots, and looting. The government responded by suspending constitutional guarantees and deploying the military, resulting in an estimated 300-3,000 civilian deaths.

During the massacre, President George H.W. Bush personally called Pérez on March 3, 1989, offering a $450 million emergency loan and commiserating with his handling of the crisis. This direct presidential support demonstrated Washington’s commitment to maintaining Pérez’s pro-market government despite its violent repression of popular dissent. The U.S. media subsequently portrayed Pérez as a “charismatic social democrat” while ignoring the Caracazo’s human rights violations.

The 1992 Coup Attempts and U.S. Backing

Pérez’s unpopularity following the Caracazo created conditions for military rebellion. On February 4, 1992, Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez led a coup attempt against Pérez, attacking the presidential residence and key installations. A second attempt occurred on November 27, 1992.

The United States provided crucial support to Pérez during these crises:

The Bush administration maintained firm backing for Venezuela’s “durable democracy”

U.S. intelligence monitored coup plotting but shared information with Pérez’s government

After the failed coups, Washington praised Pérez’s survival while blaming Chávez’s “oppressive methods”

The U.S. recognized Pérez’s legitimacy despite his minimal popular support

When Chávez appeared on television, calling for surrender “por ahora” (for now), he became a folk hero among the poor, who viewed him as fighting Pérez’s corruption. This moment catalyzed Chávez’s political career, ultimately leading to his 1998 presidential victory.

U.S.-Venezuela Relations Under Pérez: A Complex Partnership

Personal Diplomacy

Pérez cultivated a close personal relationship with George H.W. Bush, who visited Caracas in 1990. Declassified documents reveal their extensive cooperation on Central America, where Pérez served as an intermediary with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and Salvadoran rebels. Bush relied on Pérez’s regional influence, while Pérez secured U.S. debt relief assistance.

Economic Integration

Venezuela’s economy remained deeply integrated with the United States:

By the 1970s, U.S. refineries were specifically designed to process Venezuela’s heavy, sour crude

Venezuela supplied nearly one-sixth of U.S. oil consumption

American oil companies received $1 billion in compensation for nationalized assets

Pérez’s government accepted IMF loans despite previously calling the institution a “neutron bomb”

Democratic Conditionality

Washington’s support for Pérez reflected a broader strategy of promoting “democratic” leaders who implemented neoliberal reforms. As one analysis noted, “it did not matter if they were social democrats (such as Carlos Andrés Pérez) or conservatives—what mattered was their alignment with U.S. economic interests”.

Downfall and Legacy

In May 1993, the Supreme Court indicted Pérez for embezzling 250 million bolívars ($2.7 million) from a presidential discretionary fund, making him Venezuela’s first impeached president. He was sentenced to house arrest and later fled to Miami in 2002 to avoid Caracazo-related charges.

Long-term Implications for U.S.-Venezuela Relations

Pérez’s presidency established patterns that shaped subsequent U.S.-Venezuela relations:

Oil as leverage: The 1976 nationalization model—state control with foreign partnership—persisted until Chávez’s 2005 expropriations

Democratic legitimacy: Washington’s support for Pérez despite his unpopularity set precedents for backing Venezuelan governments based on alignment rather than popular mandate

Coup politics: U.S. involvement in 1992 coup monitoring foreshadowed more direct participation in the 2002 coup against Chávez

Economic conditionality: IMF-sponsored reforms under Pérez created the social crisis that ultimately produced Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution

The Trump administration’s 2025 military intervention and claims that Venezuela “stole” U.S. oil directly reference the 1976 nationalization under Pérez. This historical revisionism ignores the compensated, negotiated nature of the takeover and reflects a continuity in U.S. policy: treating Venezuelan sovereignty over oil resources as conditional on alignment with American interests.

Carlos Andrés Pérez embodied the contradictions of Cold War Latin American democracy—simultaneously advancing national sovereignty through oil nationalization while depending on U.S. support to maintain power against domestic opposition. His relationship with Washington demonstrates how the United States balanced strategic partnership with democratic rhetoric, ultimately prioritizing stable access to Venezuelan oil over concerns for human rights or popular sovereignty.

⁂
We’ve Been Here Before

We’ve Been Here Before

My book has an exceptionally relevant chapter. For context, the excerpt below is based on my visit to Panama less than a year after Operation Just Cause.

Ten months after the invasion, I went to Panama to report on the aftermath and get to the bottom of what really had happened when the American military might came crashing down on a miniature nation. The mood in Panama City was uncharacteristically somber when I arrived on November 15, 1990. Burned-out and heavily damaged buildings stood as grim reminders of the invasion. I found widespread discontent with the Endara government. It was grappling with the daunting task of strengthening an economy debilitated by years of corrupt governance and the substantial damage Operation Just Cause had left in its wake.

“The only thing that changed is that some of my neighbors are dead,” said Francisco Torres, a janitor and El Chorrillo resident. The impoverished district in central Panama City was heavily damaged during the invasion. “When the Americans attacked, it felt like the world was ending—explosions and fire everywhere. Thank God we weren’t hurt, but a lot of people were killed. This government does not talk about that,” said Torres. “For the poor like us, life has always been hard. Honestly, I don’t have much hope that things will change.”

Administration officials I interviewed before traveling to Panama described the portly Endara as well-meaning but not particularly well-suited to transform the nation into a stable democracy. I was left with the impression that Endara’s rapid and unconventional installation was yet another Washington misstep.

The city of Colón was emblematic of the country’s woes. Once a prosperous port of call for cruise ships, Panama’s second-largest city had become a collection of rotting tenements, beset by an unemployment rate of some 30 percent, rampant drug use, and violent crime. I met with Father Carlos Aziz, Colón’s bishop. When I told him I wished to take a walking tour, he warned against it: “You will be beaten and robbed, for sure.” I had parked two blocks from his church, but he urged me to move my car onto the church grounds so it would not be stolen. I told Aziz that when I visited Colón in 1984, there was no danger in walking the city streets. “We had Noriega’s people to keep some order. That is gone now.”

During my five days in Panama in 1990, I tried to pin down the number of dead and wounded caused by the invasion. I arrived with a variety of estimates in hand. The US Army initially said 516 Panamanians had been killed, but an internal study concluded that the actual figure was more likely about 1,000. Depending on the source, somewhere between 300 and 3,000 were killed. Twenty-four American soldiers were killed. In Colón, according to Aziz and several residents with whom I spoke, more than 80 were killed. Some died in an apartment building that was hit by helicopter rocket fire. The building had a huge gaping hole.

Aziz said locals were trying to put the horrors of the invasion behind them. At the same time, they were looking to the government for economic help and job creation. “We thought maybe this government would remember us,” said Aziz. “Instead, the government says it has no way to help.”

At the time, the United States had provided Panama with $130 million oﬀ arrears on its $5 billion foreign debt. An additional $70 million in direct aid was received. “What we’re giving them is not even equal to direct damages caused by the invasion,” former ambassador Ambler Moss told me.

Dependent on imported oil, Panama faced a global surge in petroleum prices. In the coming year, the nation would face nearly a doubling of petroleum prices, from $20.20 in 1990 to $38.28 per barrel in 1991. “The economy is strangled,” said comptroller Rubén Carles.

Operation Just Cause was officially meant to deal a blow to drug trafficking; instead, the flow of drugs continued under Endara.

Since the start of the Endara administration, more than 13,000 pounds of cocaine—worth $153 million wholesale—had been seized. “One can only surmise that if this much is being seized, a lot more is moving,” said Deane Hinton, the US ambassador to Panama, when I was there. Money laundering, which supported the drug trafficking, continued unabated.

However, Endara resisted any move to make banking in Panama more transparent. American officials sought access to accounts they suspected were linked to criminal activity. But Endara’s associates claimed that it would destroy the nation’s banking industry. And he also reimposed the oligarchic practice of handing out jobs to family members and cronies, all of whom were white. Rabiblancos, the wealthy white elite, would once again run the country, as it was during the pre-Torrijos years. Despite their grave faults, Torrijos and Noriega had revolutionized the country by giving jobs to blacks and mixed-race Panamanians.

As for Noriega, he would serve time in American, French, and Panamanian prisons. The ex-dictator was to live the rest of his life in prison. His term ended, however, after surgery for a brain tumor, when he died on May 29, 2017, at the age of eighty-three.

Contemporary Panama is on a much more solid economic footing than it was in 1990. The nation’s annual economic growth rate is among the highest in the world. Panamanians are the second-richest Latin Americans, and the Panama Canal generates approximately $2 billion in yearly revenue. However, strong economic performance has not translated into broadly shared prosperity, as Panama has the second-worst income distribution in Latin America, according to the CIA’s World Factbook. And Panama is still plagued by corruption. The Panama Papers scandal in 2016 proved that Panama’s leaders were content to have the nation used as a giant tax haven and money-laundering center. The 2015 release of more than 11 million files from the Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca exposed a complex web of tax shelters and money laundering.

Operation Just Cause had targeted money laundering, but over the years, the shady industry came to flourish once again. In an ironic twist, the candidate of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, the party Torrijos had founded, and Noriega later controlled, was elected president in May 2019. The party is reported to have re-made itself into an honest and truly democratic party. In taking office in July 2019, President Laurentino Cortizo vowed to root out corruption and tackle income inequality.
Where is American Democracy Headed?

Except for a few years, and despite being a third-generation United States-born citizen, I have never felt affection for the American government.

By the time I was six, I understood that the United States was not a country that embraced Mexicans, no matter where we were born. At that age, it was by design that we did not have careers comparable to our white compatriots. Assessing my world, I concluded Mexicans were consigned to non-prestigious manual labor or low-end retail workers, the folks who waited on restaurant customers, or labored in the construction industry.

I appreciated the many opportunities to carve out a job that would be decorous and respectable. Now that I am 75, I am still thankful for the hard-fought chances to make something of myself.

The American government opened the door just a crack to earn college degrees and gave me a fighting chance to get a foothold in a career that guaranteed my family and me middle-class lives. Significantly, this included a shot at getting my children into top-tier universities.

My grandparents’ and parents’ haunting accounts of pathological racism seeded the alienation. The estrangement was greatly augmented by my own struggles to cope with blatant and insidious institutional racism.

Yet, I did not move to another country because none were accessible to me. Even as an ethnic Mexican, I had no close familial ties to my ancestral homeland, essentially putting citizenship out of reach.

Despite all that I have just written, I found security and a degree of comfort in my country. It was famously and justifiably known as a nation of laws. The three branches of power, checks and balances, guaranteed that the United States would not descend into dictatorial rule. That was the fate of the world’s poor nations that had never known democracy.

I saw it routinely tested and brutally tried during Watergate and the Iran-Contra scandal. The executive branch went rogue, but it was thwarted and more or less returned to its proper role. Supreme Court rulings instantly became the law of the land.

Before the Trump ascendancy, there were only ten times that presidents either openly disagreed with rulings, ignored, or defied them. The president has openly defied 57 federal court rulings.

Moreover, he has routinely overreached his executive authority. Just in the first six months of his presidency, Trump has shattered modern history records by issuing more than 280 executive orders and proclamations. Those have been answered by approximately 300 lawsuits. Often, those are of no consequence because he will appeal to the rubber-stamp Supreme Court.

Congress is another rubber-stamp body, with Republicans morphed into Trump cultists.

We have an outright tyrant on the rise, and there is nothing in sight to check him. Anti-Trump protests are little more than political theater. He and his acolytes are winning the struggle to quash the Epstein files.

If I stick around long enough, I probably will live under a dictatorship.

French philosopher Joseph de Maistre originated the phrase “every country gets the government it deserves.” At this historical juncture, I’m unsure if that is true.
A Tale of Two Presidents

A Tale of Two Presidents

For the United States media, Mexico is a problematic nation. Its people come here illegally, snatch up jobs, and aid in the influx of narcotics into the country.

Mexico itself is mired in poverty and corruption. Violence is widespread, and economic opportunities are constrained. That is the standard view, propagated by the media.

However, journalists practically ignore the profound history being made to our south.

This is thanks to the 11-month tenure of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. Presidential terms in Mexico are six years.

Sheinbaum’s achievements so far center on advancing sweeping legislative reforms, improving the economy, and launching ambitious policies in social welfare, security, gender equality, and infrastructure.

Homicide rates have dropped by approximately 16–25%, with daily homicides down from 86.9 to 64.5 in the first months of her term.

Organized crime groups, including the Sinaloa Cartel, have been targeted with expanded intelligence and military operations, resulting in significant arrests and record drug and narcotic seizures.

Major deployment of the National Guard and implementation of gun buyback programs have bolstered public safety initiatives.

Landmark constitutional amendments have enshrined social programs, raised the minimum wage by 12%, and advanced the elevation of gender equality and anti-discrimination.

Social benefits for women aged 60–64 and new programs for students and pensioners have been launched, continuing and expanding AMLO-era welfare.

Mexico reached record foreign direct investment, is now the US’s largest trading partner, and sits as the world’s 12th largest economy.

Tax collection increased 8.5% annually in the first eight months of 2025, while inflation dipped to 3.5%.

Public works include new highways, completed Maya Train rail operations, new schools, and expanded healthcare facilities.

She is the first woman and Jewish person to be elected president of Mexico, representing a historic milestone for gender representation.

Constitutional reforms effected pay equity, enhanced protections against gender violence, and established a Ministry of Women.

Approval ratings have consistently exceeded 70–78%, making Sheinbaum Mexico’s most popular president at this stage in decades.

The Mexican leader publicly acknowledges the severe challenges facing the nation, and she vows to keep tackling them.

Oh, and President Sheinbaum is one of just seven world leaders with a doctorate.

Mexico and the United States have always been dissimilar. This is particularly true when assessing the current governments.

What to make of Donald Trump?

To begin, let’s examine the economy.

Tariffs have led to a significant contraction of the US economy, with persistent adverse effects on GDP, rising unemployment, and widespread job losses, particularly among government workers, since their imposition in 2025.

US real GDP growth over 2025 and 2026 has been about 0.5 percentage points lower each year because of tariffs, shrinking the economy by -0.4% in the long run ( a loss of roughly $125 billion annually in 2024 dollars).

The unemployment rate rose by 0.3 percentage points by the end of 2025, and payroll employment is 505,000 lower, with economic pain especially intense in manufacturing, agriculture, and construction. Tariffs have generated government revenue—up to 5% of the federal budget—but the fiscal gains are offset by dynamic revenue declines as the broader economy contracts.

Job losses have been widespread, with manufacturing output up 2.1% but more than offset by declines in sectors like construction (-3.6%) and agriculture (-0.8%).

Additional losses result from foreign retaliation, such as China’s counter-tariffs, which contributed to hundreds of thousands more lost jobs. The August 2025 jobs report noted only 22,000 jobs added, with layoffs in the federal government, construction, and retail directly tied to tariff policies.

The hardest hit sector has been federal government employment. Nearly 300,000 government jobs have been eliminated so far in 2025, surpassing other sectors—with 84,000 federal positions lost between January and July, and an additional 20,000 expected to be lost in August.

Many job reductions come from buyouts, layoffs, and program cuts, and tens of thousands of government workers remain in deferred resignation programs. These cuts have ongoing and not fully reflected impacts in monthly data due to legal challenges, with continued acceleration expected.

Trump has a thing for legal battles.

Over 337 active cases are challenging the Trump administration’s actions. More than 186 legal actions have been filed against the administration since January 2025.

There are about 298 active cases specifically challenging administration actions, with dozens more related cases.

The Supreme Court has been particularly active in 2025 regarding Trump-related cases:

Several rulings have been made on executive orders, including those regarding birthright citizenship, deportations, federal worker dismissals, and agency restructuring.

Some rulings favor the administration; others block its actions.

Significant legal challenges include: Birthright citizenship restrictions, federal worker dismissals, and “Reductions in force,” immigration and deportation policies

Trump has been involved in hundreds of court cases in 2025, ranging from his ongoing personal criminal and civil appeals to the massive wave of litigation challenging his administration’s executive actions.

While the exact total number fluctuates as cases are filed, dismissed, or resolved, the litigation tracker shows over 337 active cases against his administration alone, making 2025 one of the most legally contentious years for any presidency.

The huge takeaway is that while the Trump regime has overseen a troubled economy and been tangled in one legal tussle after another, Claudia Sheinbaum is focused on moving Mexico forward.
Why Can’t We Be Friends?

Before Osama Bin Laden, there was Pancho Villa. Neither needs an introduction. However, it is not widely known that the Mexican revolutionary organized what many consider the first terrorist attack on United States soil and a massive manhunt on foreign soil.

On March 15, 1916, 10,000 American troops invaded Mexico, storming across the border in Chihuahua. Just 70 years earlier, nearly 80,000 United States soldiers and sailors attacked Mexico.

These conflicts tore apart already tenuous relations between the nations. Yet, they alone did not poison the atmosphere that prevented the countries from being staunch allies. The earlier aggression marked only the second time the United States declared war. Significantly, it was an expansionist war, one that dispossessed Mexico of half its territory.

From the outset, Mexico and the United States were destined to be antagonistic neighbors. Tension and conflict best characterize ties even today. It became a long-running story of a powerful and aggressive nascent empire—the United States—trampling, bullying, and even brutalizing a weak and troubled country, Mexico. Today, official contact between Mexico City and Washington is tense and even tortured. Proximity has bred mistrust and dislike. There is also hubris and disdain that have long informed the official United States view of Mexico.

On August 13, 2025, a video shows Trump stating: ‘Mexico does what we tell them to do and Canada does what we tell them to do because we have the two borders. ‘”

On February 1, 2025, President Donald Trump uttered menacing and poisonous lies about a country with which it shares deeply rooted ties. Few countries are as naturally linked. Trump’s words were those reserved for enemies.

“The Mexican drug trafficking organizations have an intolerable alliance with the government of Mexico. The government of Mexico has afforded safe havens for the cartels to engage in the manufacturing and transportation of dangerous narcotics, which collectively have led to the overdose deaths of hundreds of thousands of American victims.

Trump’s fusillade went on.

“This alliance endangers the national security of the United States, and we must eradicate the influence of these dangerous cartels.

“The sustained influx of illegal aliens,” he alleged, “has profound consequences on every aspect of our national life – overwhelming our schools, lowering our wages, reducing our housing supply and raising rents, overcrowding our hospitals, draining our welfare system, and causing crime.”
Coffee With a Monster

Coffee With a Monster

“Are you a communist?” Roberto D’Aubuissson shouted at me, his face contorted by rage.

With that question, I found myself in one of the most perilous interviews I have ever conducted. Minutes earlier, he and I sipped coffee. Then things turned ugly.

My inquisitor was among El Salvador’s most savage killers, a death squad leader and ultra-right-wing politician. In the name of fighting communism, D’Aubuisson kidnapped and tortured hundreds of Salvadorans. Years after the crime, he was found to be instrumental in the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero.

He was a presidential candidate in 1984, and I went to his home for an interview. A chain smoker and non-stop coffee drinker, D’Aubuisson always appeared tense and sometimes angry.

A former intelligence officer, he founded the rightwing party, National Republican Alliance. As the party’s standard bearer, he made public, thinly veiled threats against alleged communists.

D’Aubuisson continued his savage rampage with the full knowledge and implicit blessing of Washington. The United States and the mass killer shared the same anti-communist fervor.

This is relevant history because it underscores the current U.S. government’s working alliance with the Salvadoran government. The Trump regime and the Nayib Bukele dictatorship have common ground in how to manage those who break the law.

Trump and Bukele put no premium on human rights.

I enraged D’Aubuisson by asking about what were then rumors of his death squad activities. Several of his hulking henchmen moved close to me as the fanatic berated me for asking questions he did not like

In that moment, I felt a palpable menace and feared that I might not leave unscathed.

Throughout my 30-year journalistic career, only a handful of individuals have emanated pure evil. This man did, and it is chilling to think that our government turned a blind eye towards this monster.
Not That Long Ago

California Mexicans and the Terror of the White Invasion

Today is a good time to revive the story of what happened to California Mexicans when the state suffered a white invasion, just 177 years ago.

In Los Angeles and all over the state, terrible things happened to Mexicans. At least 163 Mexicans were lynched there between 1848 and 1860. Ken-Kay Gonzalez deserves credit for this information.

Mobs lynched a boy, 15-year-old Francisco Cotta, in 1861. He was first dragged through downtown. He was hanged close to the intersection of what are now Union Station and the Metropolitan Detention Center.

Lynch mobs took a liking to the spot where Temple crosses Broadway. Few were prosecuted for these crimes, usually committed in daytime hours. Crowds converged on the murder sites to watch the hangings.

Statewide, during those years, 170 lynchings of Mexicans occurred.

I unearth this horrific history because it needs to be told, especially now.

ICE goons are dragging away Latinos to uncertain fates. No matter what crime those arrested may have committed, anonymous goon squads revive thoughts of mob justice.

Nowadays, European Americans are unsettled by the masses of brown people streaming into California. Fears that Latino immigrants come to rob and pillage en masse are demonstrably untrue.

But the fright Mexican and indigenous people in California felt at the coming wave of European Americans was solidly based.

There were an estimated 14,000 Mexicans and 300,000 indigenous people who lived in California.

By the 1880s, the indigenous population stood at 30,000. They were the survivors of systematic slaughter and disease.

Credit for this work goes to historian Arturo Marcial Gonzalez. He wrote of a period in American history that has been cast into the void.

It is a well-documented narrative of one of the many chapters in United States history that lay bare the sometimes brutal and racist behavior of European American occupiers.

The mass influx of European Americans into California is one such period. A handful of scholars, among them Leonard Pitt, extensively documented the Californios’ traumatic experience of suddenly being transformed from large landowners to peons.

They feared loss of their rights, but much worse took place: violence, some of it fatal.

The killings were not limited to lynchings. Some victims suffered death by beating.

During the Gold Rush, Mexican miners and workers, simply seeking a better life, were attacked by white mobs eager to claim their gold and land.

Those murders and lynchings rarely included police arrests. Newspapers of the time often justified or even celebrated the violence.

Many names and stories have been lost, hidden in forgotten court records and yellowed newspaper clippings, or carried quietly in the memories of those who survived.

For decades, we, California Mexicans, have seen the demographics transformed. It’s hard to imagine Los Angeles County when I was growing up there in the 1950s.

More than 93 percent of residents were white, and we, Mexican Americans, comprised a bit over 7 percent. And we lived in distinct, shabby neighborhoods. White America existed in a parallel world.

Our restrained acceptance and acculturation into White customs have been smooth. No white folks have been lynched.

We all know what is happening to our brothers and sisters under the Trump regime. Aside from scattered protests, we have quietly accepted our dehumanization. Think of Alligator Alley. Do we need to be presented as macabre theater?
The LA Times, Border Patrol Mouthpiece

The Los Angeles Times and the Border Patrol: Two Peas In a Pod

Fifty-one years ago, I was handed my master’s degree. My thesis was a comparative analysis of the Los Angeles Times and La Opinion’s coverage of immigration. The latter is a Los Angeles Spanish-language newspaper.

As you might expect, the coverage differed considerably. The Times typically acted as a mouthpiece for the government. La Opinion included government statements, but it often added interviews with those affected.

To be sure, 1974 was a long time ago, but it was in my adulthood and first years as a journalist. The excerpt from the thesis references “Operation Wetback,” a 1954 campaign to arrest and deport Mexican migrants. An estimated 300,000 were expelled in a few months. Here’s the excerpt.

A story reported in both La Opinion and The Times in March 1974 sounded much like a pre-Operation Wetback” press release. The Spanish-language paper quoted Richard Batchelor, deputy chief patrol agent in the San Diego area, as saying that the Border Patrol had caught 19,000 “illegals” during February, “and each month the problem grows.”

The Times’ version of the story was much longer, more detailed, and somewhat alarmist. The Border Patrol in San Diego, it was reported, was apprehending as many as 600 illegal aliens a night this year, as compared with an average of 300 a night in 1973 … The 19,000 caught was a record high for February. Batchelor reportedly said,

‘People think there has to be a limit, but the number of illegal immigrants keeps rising every year. ‘ Another agent added, ‘It’s just about getting to the point where they run over us every night.”

Batchelor concluded that there had been “no significant increase in the number of border patrol agents since early last year. The only thing we can do is work as hard as we can to contain the flow.’ ” The Times, just as it had in the early 1950s, by using only ‘authorities’ as sources, made it seem as though the state was being inundated by ‘wets.·”

In April 1974, it was reported in The Times that a Mexican woman, a government witness in the trial of an accused smuggler of “illegal aliens, ” had been in jail for 37 days because an assistant U.S. attorney feared she would go back to Mexico if set free. The Times, in its editorial of April 28, agreed with the judge’s decision to free the woman and claimed that by jailing her, she “was treated like an object stored in a warehouse.

In the following excerpt, compare what ICE is doing today to 1974 events. We have regressed.

Judging from news accounts in the Los Angeles press, wide scale roundups of undocumented Mexicans began within the first few months of 1973. A report in The Los Angeles Times told of a class action suit by the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund and The American Civil Liberties Union “seeking to halt alleged indiscriminate roundups of persons suspected of being illegal immigrants.

Four days later, on June 27, The Times took a stand on the issue of alien round-ups.” The editorial said that the Supreme Court action of placing some restrictions on the INS’s search operations was a “good decision.”

It continued, “The decision coincides with widespread complaints in the Los Angeles area of excesses by the Immigration and Naturalization Service during a recent round-up of aliens.

“There have been charges that Mexican Americans have been abused, that constitutional rights have been violated, that illegal searches and arrests have been effected. It will take time to sort out the truth of these accusations. But the court decision will serve to remind all involved in the enforcement of the law that the Constitution must not be set aside amid the enthusiasm for that enforcement.”
The Media and Us.

The American mainstream media are liberal or left-leaning. Perhaps that was or is true, but rarely when it has been about us Latinos.

As I began my journalistic career in Southern California in the early 1970s, the hallowed bastion of liberalism, The Los Angeles Times, resorted to racist tropes.

By chance, I was in the middle of researching my master’s thesis when I got my first reporting job. Here is a long excerpt from the thesis. Today, have added some comments to the text.

The Times, on occasion, chooses to describe the United States Border Patrol as a group of rugged cowboy-types, shorthanded, but nevertheless, struggling to stop the flood of “illegals. “This is exactly how the Border Patrol is portrayed in “The Border Game,” an article which appeared in a Sunday supplement in September 1972.

The author wrote, “· .. The outnumbered Border Patrol does little but track down the few hundred wetbacks (a racist cliche) it can grab daily, process them for ‘voluntary return, load them on buses and ship them home to Mexico. There is little to prevent the aliens from trying again.

The cost to the American economy in terms of lost jobs, squandered welfare funds and unfair competition is incalculable. (Basic journalism, even then, would have demanded that you provide hard stats. In truth, that would be difficult, because the assertions are false.)

Border Patrolman Ab Taylor, “The Hunter, expressed satisfaction in hunting undocumented Mexicans. When they were caught, Taylor explained, Mexicans were “reconciled and resigned.” (So we are stoic and fatalistic) He continued, “The Mexican people are more able to take adversity in their stride than we are. They don’t show their frustration so much at having their plans spoiled. “The implication, of course, was that Mexicans did not mind too much enduring hardships to get across the border only to be caught and sent back to Mexico.

More to come in near future posts
The Never-Ending Immigration Crisis

Anti-Mexican Xenophobia, An American Tradition

“We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.” — George Bernard Shaw.

“The illegal aliens hold millions of jobs, and draw on social services ranging

from schools to welfare, drain funds from the nation’s troubled

economy by sending away large amounts of money, and mock our system

of legal immigration.”

It was October 31, 1974, when Attorney General William Saxbe uttered these words. “The massive number of illegal aliens constitutes a severe national crisis—one that affects the lives of all Americans.”

The A.G. then rang the alarm bell. “Illegal immigrants do not constitute a trickle or a stream. They form a torrent that could inundate us unless effective action is taken soon,” he warned us. I say us because I was twenty-four at the time and living in my hometown of Los Angeles.

Yet, miraculously, 50 years later, Americans were not submerged by this human tsunami. That could be because it never occurred.

But Saxbe saw other alarming developments.

Migrants “pose a direct threat to those in the lowest economic groups—often poor blacks, often the poor of Mexican descent, the poor generally.”

These invaders “hold millions of jobs” that could otherwise go to U.S. citizens. And receive social services ranging from schools to welfare.

The millions of jobs presumably would have been in agricultural fields, picking grapes and such.

As for the proposed solution, Saxbe requested $50 million and 2,200 new employees for the Immigration Service, claiming this investment could “open up one million new jobs during the next year—simply by removing illegal aliens holding those jobs”

So, it turns out that Pam Bondi and Trump are largely recycling vintage anti-migrant blather.

Trump has given a bit more bite. Here is a sample.

“Illegal immigration hurts American workers; burdens American taxpayers; undermines public safety; and places enormous strain on local schools, hospitals, and communities in general, taking precious resources away from the poorest Americans who need them most.”

“Mass, uncontrolled immigration is especially unfair to the many wonderful, law-abiding immigrants already living here who followed the rules and waited their turn.”

Americans should be very afraid, Trump said.

“At this very moment, large, well-organized caravans of migrants are marching towards our southern border. Some people call it an ‘invasion.’ It’s like an invasion… These are tough people, in many cases. A lot of young men, strong men… They’ve overrun the Mexican police, and they’ve overrun and hurt badly Mexican soldiers. So, this isn’t an innocent group of people.”

About the author and his book