Quincy Adams developed the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, when he was President James Monroe’s Secretary of State. The main thrust of the doctrine was that, as countries in the Americas were becoming independent from the imperial European powers, the United States did not want Europe to recolonize the western hemisphere. In his State of the Union message in December of that year, President Monroe declared that the United States would not interfere in European wars or internal affairs, and expected Europe to stay out of the affairs of the new world. European attempts to influence the new world would be interpreted by the United States as threats to its “peace and safety.”
President James Polk invoked the principle of manifest destiny and the Monroe Doctrine in an 1845 address to Congress in support of westward expansion into Mexican territory. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt added the “Roosevelt corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, which defined US intervention in Latin American domestic affairs as necessary for US national security:
All that this country [the United States] desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.26
This corollary was used to justify US intervention in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic. It was officially reversed in 1934 with the advent of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “good neighbor” policy toward Latin America. Yet the principle that the United States’ political and economic interests are intimately related to those of Latin America remained. Throughout the twentieth century, the United States’ economic interests played a central role in the development of Latin American banking, infrastructure, and industry. Similarly, the US government, particularly after the start of the Cold War, continually intervened in Latin American internal governmental and military affairs.
This US involvement is critically important for understanding Latino migration flows to the United States. Many Latin American migrants worked for US companies in their home countries. Many were directly recruited by those companies to come to the United States, and those companies often lobbied the US Congress to ensure that these migration flows would continue. The economic development policies pursued by Latin American governments, and therefore the economic opportunities available to their populations, particularly employment, often were strongly influenced by the US financial sector and by the US government. After the advent of the Cold War, US strategic concerns and levels of military aid often affected the success or failure of social movements to redistribute wealth in these countries. Thus, the way the United States expressed its political and economic interests in the region affected the Latin Americans’ economic and political situation on the ground, the facility with which they were able to migrate to the United States, and the legal terms under which they were accepted (or not) under US immigration policy.
Conclusion
We will see in the following chapters that there were important domestic and international political reasons why the US government involved itself in the politics of Latin American countries and encouraged or discouraged migration from them. For different reasons, the US government has made immigrant settlement much easier for some national-origin groups than for others. This, in turn, has affected how quickly and under what terms Latino immigrants have been allowed to join the polity. These decisions also have affected the immigrants’ choice of places to settle, the kinds of transnational and co-ethnic social networks available to them in those places, and what political and economic opportunity structures were present in those communities. It follows that that experience has had an important impact on these immigrants’ trust in government, feelings of personal efficacy, and willingness to become engaged politically. These opportunity structures also affect their socioeconomic mobility; immigrants of higher socioeconomic status are more likely to engage politically. This means that having more economic opportunities also affects political incorporation. This is a good example of how agency and structure interact. A particular immigrant brings a set of skills (education, funding, personal drive) which affect her ability to succeed in her new country. But that success is also affected by the institutions she must interact with on the ground. How open those institutions are, and how much they will enable her to take advantage of their resources, is outside of her control.
What this interaction looks like for immigrants from each national-origin group also varies over time. Each national-origin group discussed in this volume has faced particular challenges, has organized so as to improve its position, and all have achieved important successes. That mobilization, in turn, has changed the structural context for new immigrants. Therefore, nothing in these stories is “static”; there is constant movement across historical time. It is only by looking at the historical trajectory of each national-origin group that we may understand fully the Latino political incorporation process today. This is what we will be doing in the following chapters.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1 What are two examples of how agency and structure affect Latino political engagement?
2 Do Latinos comprise a social group in the United States? Why, or why not?
3 What do Latinos teach us about the difference between race and ethnicity?
4 How did Latinos’ racial ambiguity affect their treatment under US law?
5 Why is it important to look at the Latino experience through an intersectional lens?
6 How did manifest destiny and the Monroe Doctrine affect Latino migration patterns and political incorporation in the United States?
Notes
1 1. It must be noted that the selection of two Latinas for this performance needs to be situated within the fraught context of racial politics within the National Football League, which has been strongly criticized for its retaliation against quarterback Colin Kapernick in response to his refusal, as a player, to stand during the national anthem, in protest at state violence against African Americans and in support of the Movement for Black Lives. Despite his success in the league, no NFL team has been willing to sign Kapernick since the protests.
2 2. Alex Seitz-Wald, “Actually, Salsa Dethroned Ketchup 20 Years Ago,” The Atlantic (2013), www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/10/actually-salsa-dethroned-ketchup-20-years-ago/309844.
3 3. Ibid.
4 4. Gary Trust, “Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee & Justin Bieber’s ‘Despacito’ Ties for Longest Run at No. 1 in Hot 100’s History,” Billboard (2017), wwwbillboard. com/articles/columns/chart-beat/7942306/despacito-hot-100-number-one-ties-record-luis-fonsi-daddy-yankee-justin-bieber.
5 5. Gary Trust, “Cardi B Becomes First Female Rapper with Two Billboard Hot 100 No. 1s, as ‘I Like It’, with Bad Bunny & J Balvin, Follows ‘Bodak Yellow’ to the Top,” Billboard (2018), www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8463605/cardi-b-i-like-it-hot-100-number-one-j-balvin-bad-bunny.
