Misleading Citizenship: The Treatment of Mexican Women inside and out of the Houchen Settlement House in El Paso, Texas, 1912–30

This poster will trace the lives of ethnic Mexican women in the Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement House, an Americanization school located in El Paso, Texas, between the years, 1912 and 1930. I argue that although Mexican women were considered legally “white” and therefore worthy of American citizenship, at the same time, they were disenfranchised from their political and social citizenship by the training they received at the school. They were primarily offered classes on domesticity and low-wage occupations, such as maids, cooks, and laundresses, to keep them relegated to the bottom of the social ladder in a society that promised them the benefits of being an American citizen. Despite what the Mexican women were taught, most continued to attend the Americanization school as a way to make their presence known in American society.

This poster will provide a short background on the origins of the Americanization programs, which were created in the late nineteenth century by white, Protestant Anglo-American missionaries with the goal to acculturate European immigrants into “ideal American citizens.” They also sought to instill what they considered an “American” work ethic to ultimately transform immigrants into a workforce, filling the need for manual labor in the United States.

Between 1912 and 1930, Mexicans played a unique role in the Americanization efforts. During this stage, they were legally white (citizens) but not entirely European or Spanish because of their indigenous background, which disenfranchised them from holding a social and political status in the United States. Americanization efforts targeted Mexican women because it was their supposed duty to teach the future generation an American worth ethic. The ideal American woman spoke English and mastered the “American” way of cooking, dressing, and mannerism. Outside the Americanization schools, the women continued to be discriminated. This shows that because of racism and prejudice, Americanization in actuality kept the Mexican women at the bottom of the social ladder by teaching them gendered labor skills than actually having them be accepted into society.

After a massive wave of Mexican immigration during the Mexican Revolution, Americanization programs geared their efforts towards ethnic Mexicans on the southern border. I focus attention on El Paso because of the uniqueness of its location. El Paso neighbors Mexico’s northern frontier, Ciudad Juarez, whose people integrate with those of El Paso, due to the ease of crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. The unity of Mexicans on both sides of the border thus created a greater need to Americanize Mexicans living in El Paso because Mexican El Pasoans were believed to regress to their Mexican culture.

In order to visually represent this story, my poster will incorporate reproductions of primary source materials. These provide evidence of the different Americanization classes Mexican women took to be “ideal” American citizens but that did not necessarily function because the women were still excluded from American society. These sources include diaries and journals of the teachers, newspaper clippings, and photographs of students and teachers in the Houchen Settlement House.