Transnational Betabeleros: Sugar Beet Laborers and the Mexican Consulate in Western Nebraska during the Interwar Years

Mexican laborers came to western Nebraska for railroad and agricultural employment in increasing numbers during the first half of the twentieth century. And their migration began the formation of a transnational community shaped by their labor, post-revolutionary Mexico, and the Mexican consulate in Kansas City. This paper examines how ethnic Mexican institution building and workplace organizing created transnational space to expand Mexican autonomy in the region. Mexican migrants established social organizations in western Nebraska during the interwar years to support their community and maintain sociocultural ties to Mexico. The vibrant communities of Scottsbluff and other rural Nebraskan towns shaped a changing Mexican identity abroad. An identity both different from the national project of the Mexican Revolution and also from their compatriots in the Southwest and the Great Lakes regions. Migrants and their organizations negotiated the meaning of the Mexican Revolution and the Cristero War through fiestas patrias, religious worship, and correspondence with the Mexican consulate. Making sense of their relationship to Mexico while living outside of it allowed Mexican migrants to utilize their Mexican citizenship as a tool to pressure the Mexican government and local American officials and employers into expanding access to the necessities of everyday life. Overall, this paper provides a richer picture of the Mexican migrant experience prior to the Bracero Program and illuminates the transnational character of ethnic Mexicans in Nebraska.