Member of the Roosevelt Library and become a member of the information table just outside the door. At this time i would like to ask you to turn off your cell phones and thank cspan for covering this today and quickly go over the format for this session. We will start with our speaker in just a moment. Then i will follow that up if you have questions make your way over to the microphone so we are able to pick up the question in the author will move down the hall to the table outside of our new deals bookstore where you can purchase the book and have the author signed them. 2012 is an adjunct member of the Arizona State university and his fields of study include Public Policy, political history, latin america, u. S. mexico border land and sanford, arizona, i want to introduce patrick lukens. [applause] thank you. I want to thank bob clark and the rest of the staff and the president ial library to be one of todays presenters. And preparing this presentation and Headline News over the past few days caused me to ad lib something quick. I dont know what is happening in the Dominican Republic. It is relevant to the research, mark twain said history doesnt necessarily repeat itself but often rhymes. 3,000yearold quote, there is nothing new under the sun. What is happening there for those who might not be familiar is two years ago the Dominican Supreme Court issued an interesting interpretation of their 1929 constitution on what constitutes citizenship and face said those born to transience i not dominican citizens and they define haitians as transients. So haitians who have been in the Dominican Republic entire lives born and raised in the Dominican Republic since 1929 which means you are safe if you are 87 years old, are no longer dominican citizens. That ruling two years ago didnt make Headline News what is making Headline News is deportations have started. The reason i bring that up is if it hadnt been for the changes that occurred the night detail in my research, we may have gone that direction ourselves. The Dominican Republic is not one of my areas of research during my student days. He told me the d are in haiti have similar relationship to the United States and mexico. Haiti is a dirtpoor country, the Dominican Republic is of very wealthy country and there are a lot of haitian Illegal Immigrants in the Dominican Republic and we have a lot of the same issues we have in terms of illegal immigration. The thing i find amazing, in the u. S. It seems to me politics would not matter, leftwing or rightwing, i cant imagine anyone denying birthright citizenship, that is what they have done in the Dominican Republic is denied birthright citizenship which the International Community is quite some time. It is phenomenal to me, returning to my prepared notes. What may have been overlooked, part of the reasons they may have been overlooked is because the publishing and cataloging process. Most of the authors, there are elements of publishing over which we have no control and people who tell us you cant do that, they have no control either because they have things on your end of the process my title went through several variations. The original file i submitted to the university of Arizona Press was too long. It was a quiet victory of Mexican American civil rights and the vote restriction. You got to narrow it down. In all of the variations i had two goals. I wanted to keep the quays the phrase acquired victory because it symbolized the hidden nature of these events and wanted to keep the phrase fdr state department because it tells you which part of the administration fought the fight. I had to abandon the fdr state department. Another area where i had no input was the library of Congress Classified the book and that determines a great deal about how it is received. They do a wonderful job at the library of congress that they have their own constraints. For latino rights. Books about mexicanamericans civil rights and ethnicity. I was trained in a lot of different areas and came about to write a book that focus on a lot of those areas. Were first in chicano history. A quiet victory is as multifaceted as my background. In addition to falling under 184 is about congressional debates on mexican immigration, the influences of the government of mexico which was involved here. Especially mexican ambassador to honda. It is a book about policy of president roosevelt and state department and the administration as a whole. None of that is conveyed under e 184. I pointed out call number determines how book is received, which journals review it, or the case of journals as serve the entire discipline of history, who reviews it, most of the scholars who reviewed my work at it published. Again it was a wonderful opportunity for me to come here because one of my other fields is public history, where University Trained historians for employment in areas Like National parks and state parks working for president ial libraries. This is a great forum for me to present my work on a quiet victory for latino rights. Even into fdrs presidencies, the last vestiges of the Nativist Movement that gave the United States the instruments johnson read immigration act were still trying to close what they perceived to be loopholes in that legislation. Anyone not familiar with that legislation this is the law the placed quotas european immigration. California nativists managed to insert section 13 a clause excluding asians entirely by tying Immigration Law to naturalization law. At the time naturalization was reserved exclusively for whites and africans and that is a funny dichotomy because anyone in between was not eligible to naturalize. All called the asian exclusion a literal beating of that section would exclude all races other than the white europeans and black africans. The johnson react left Latin Americans place no quotas on mexico or the rest of south america and immigration authorities at the time considered latinos eligible for naturalization and did the terms of the treaty of guadalupe. They were not excluded as nonwhite. This was up held in a federal court ruling from the Western District of texas calls i will visit the rodriguez decision in a few minutes. The important thing to note is a District Court ruling and not the Supreme Court ruling. 1930, nativists in congress attempted to add Latin Americans and mexicans to one category or the other. On this particular issue political lines had not been drawn the way they are today. You didnt have republicans on one side and democrats on the other. It was democrats in general fighting against restriction and exclusion but one of the key exclusions in congress was Texas Democrat john box. Many of the bills were called the box build. Republicans like arthur freed of california and bird vincent of michigan who opposed his efforts. Even Pennsylvania Republican senator david read his name is on the johnson read immigration act expos restrictions mexico. With no restrictive or exclusionary legislation emerging. Arguments against legislation were not always pro civil rights. Most of the reasons for opposing restriction were either economic, before the depression any way, toward diplomatic. Even before fdrs election, the Good Neighbor policy, coolidge and hoover tried to improve u. S. latin American Relations phone not to the extent of the fdr Good Neighbor policy. Congress took that into consideration and realized placing restrictions on mexico could be damaging. Congressional debates ended after 1930. That year john box cost the nomination on the democrat side. Arguably because of his stance against latino immigration. That year the democrats also won the majority in the house of representatives and entire research and messed democrat from new york took over as chair of the House Immigration Committee and any bill that came forward after that he stifled any efforts so from that point it looks like mexican immigration is safe. Under fdr relations between mexico and the United States took a huge turn to the Better Things to fdrs Good Neighbor policy. One of the key architects was directly involved in the events detailed in a quiet victory. From state Department Perspective fighting for latina rights was not necessarily about latino rights. It was about the Good Neighbor policy. That positive relationship was being built for nearly three years before nativists would test that relationship. After the congressional nativist failed to restrict or exclude latinos elements within the california Nativist Movement sought to use the Judicial Branch to the end. They will go to the judges the various California Groups that had obtained the asian exclusion act of 1924 had merged into a conglomerate called the california joint Immigration Committee. This new organization included also the California AttorneyGenerals Office headed by ulysses s. Webb. With attorneygeneral webs help they developed a legal argument based on several u. S. Supreme Court Rulings regarding asian and canadian indian immigration that they could use to counter henry rodriguez. That was a District Court ruling, Supreme Court trumps any District Court. In the rodriguez decision judge maxy and ignored race in favor of the treaty of guadalupe although rodriguezs opponents had tried to argue his racial in eligibility. But racial in eligibility to naturalize had been better defined by the courts after 1897. Most important was an almost and noted footnote in a 1934 u. S. Supreme court ruling, morrison vs. Calif. That footnote red indians not born in United States are ineligible for citizenship. There is a stream of indian blood in many of the inhabitants of mexico as well as the people of central and south america, whether persons of such a decent can be naturalized in the United States is an unsettled question. The subject was considered a matter of rodriguez but not all that was said was consistent with later decisions of this court. Mexicans have migrated into california and the increasingly large numbers and they have developed racial problems which have been considered by official bodies. The offer of this ruling was justice cardoso. I think theres an irony in that name. He is generally considered ethnically white. But that is a latino name. I think it is portuguese. This is a footnote. This is not in the ruling. It is a footnote. The footnote was placed there because the morrison case was argued by californias attorneygeneral web. This was a criminal prosecution of a man who sold land to have japanese gentleman in violation of california at alien land laws. Had nothing to do with mexican immigration. This was purely a criminal matter. With that footnote cardoso had given the california joint Immigration Committee with webs help a ruling that would counter the rodriguez decision. It was a stepping stone. They could use that ruling in the 1924 johnson read immigration act now to denied the immigration of mexicans to the United States but they needed a test case. They needed a ruling. Californians found an ally in buffalo, new york federal judge john night. I am sure fdr scholars are familiar with that name. Jon knight had been president of the state senate. I believe that the time fdr was governor. So you know they had to know each other. John night gave them their test case on december 11th, 1935. A fellow who had fled mexico at the height of the mexican revolution sought u. S. Citizenship after settling in buffalo. I did a lot of tracking, he had lived in tucson el paso and now being in new york i live in arizona. I understand why he came up here. When his petition went before judge night, night sighted but morrison decision and denied petition asserting that having native american blood, he was not white. Therefore ineligible. Again, their goal was nights decision would be appealed to and upheld all the way to the United StatesSupreme Court. Once legal analysts argued and i agree had this happen the nativists would have been successful. Makeup of the Supreme Court was the same quarter that rendered the morrison decision. Fdr at state department kept this from happening and so doing brought about a great deal of change. I get back to what the government was doing in a few minutes but i want to give you some background on what latinos were doing and it was classified as 184. During this era mexicanamericans differed on their view of race. In mexico scholars and politicians had embraced the concept, being part spaniard and part indian, however the ideas behind that in those days was being proud of being descended from the aztec civilization and political leaders in mexico in those days distanced themselves from the indian peasant of the 1930s. They didnt view themselves as the same but they were proud of their aztec indian heritage. In the United StatesMexican American civil rights activism was born out of the world war i generation. Gee is found themselves being discriminated against when returning home after having fought for their country in the great war. They had believed serving in the war would win the respect the respect they had been lacking for so long. With a few exceptions mexicanamerican leaders were fighting to be classified as white. Government officials, at least immigration officials already did that. They believed this classification would benefit demand legalize discrimination and hopefully counter social discrimination if white americans did not view them as similar to africanamericans. Suddenly members testified before congress during the debate but their most successful activities occurred at the same time as and contributed to state Department Efforts to counter the ruling. Their first major success came after el paso, texas. One of my favorite cities. Public Health Department issued an order that mexicans and mexicanamericans were to be classified as, quote, colored. El paso was trying to sell itself as a Health Resort and Health Problems among the latino population which at the time was classified as white worked against those efforts. City officials claim the reclassification was at the quarter of the u. S. Census bureau and the Census Bureau had in fact in trying to separate things out not necessarily racially but ethnically come up with new classifications one of which was not colored by the way but how el paso interpreted. They got help from congressman maverick and Dennis Chavez in getting this overturned. Part of my research what happened in el paso. The reason for the fdr administration uniform policy, classifying latinos as white. The research that i did. One aspect of my work is it deals with what if history. This is a tough history to deal with. Most people look at what if Something Different has happened like what if hitler had won world war ii. What if something it did change had not . What if some miracle fdr had lost in 1932 and the state department was not in a position to help latinos and therefore Nativist Movement would have considered continuing to move forward and this type of history is much easier to examine. In this case change did occur through the efforts of men working under core dell hole and a secret set secretary of Latin American Affairs sumner welles. They made nights ruling simply disappear to assure would not happen again. One of the fundamental changes, the election of fdr was how the government functions. The new deal saw the development of what scholars call the technocratic approach to policymaking. Some folks in the state department embraced this idea and some opposed it and it happened to fallout along the same lines as the rivalry between sumner, wells and core tell all. As i did my research on how the state department, that rivalry had a tremendous impact process. The state department, the key policymakers, secretary wilbur j. Carr, assistant secretary walton more and legal advisers, did most of the work hand the best way to describe them, introduce them in my book. When