Becoming Pedro: Racial Play at South of the Border, 1950–61

This project expands the terrain on which historians of the “Nuevo South” have begun to analyze the lives of Latinos in the U.S. South by analyzing the role of culture, more specifically Mexican restaurants, in shaping the Southern racial topography. To date historians have utilized social, labor, and political histories to tell the story of Latinos in the American South, excluding the important role of cultural production in shaping the racial ideology that set the stage for their arrival.

This paper analyzes the history of the famous South Carolina rest stop, South of the Border. It focuses on the years from 1950 to 1961, beginning with the founding of the restaurant and concluding with the construction of “Confederate Land.” Known for its racist, over-the-top representations of Mexican stereotypes, the South Carolina roadside attraction has been a popular road stop for I-95 travelers since 1950. This paper brings together food studies, cultural history, and Latino studies to capture a moment of Southern engagement with questions of “Latinoness.” South of the Border, still in operation today, offers scholars a new lens into the racial fantasies of Latinos held by Southerners. It demonstrates that the emphasis on the exotic and the foreign ultimately shielded those Latinos living in the South from the worst indignities of the Jim Crow system and differentiated them from Southern African-Americans.

This paper expands the geographical boundaries of where previous historians have considered questions about cultural representation of Latinos. South of the Border, situated on the border of North and South Carolina, is a distinctly Southern space. Therefore, I analyze the ways that ideas about Latinos are refracted through the legacy of race in the South.