Drinking difference: Race,consumption,and alcohol prohibition in Mexico and the United States

Alcohol and identity

Alcohol and its consumption symbolize expressions of identity (Douglas, 1987) and are central elements ‘in the construction and dissemination of national and other cultures’ (Wilson, 2005: 3). Notably, in his research on masculinity in Mexico City, Gutmann (1996: 240) writes that, for the working-class men in his study, drinking tequila allowed for a type of bonding that made them feel ‘more like Mexicans, more like lugareños (homeboys).’ Mitchell (2004: 194) contends that within Mexican culture alcohol ‘validate[s] numerous modes of cultural confabulation.’ In particular, he asserts that references to alcohol (especially pulque and tequila) play not only a significant role in both Mexican history and popular culture, but also communicate expressions of pleasure and resistance. As Mitchell sees it, through intoxication, Mexicans coped with the turbulence of modernity as it initiated new parameters for full citizenship within the nation. Much like Gutmann and Mitchell’s findings, Alamillo (2006: 64–65) concludes that, for Mexican immigrants living in Southern California during the first two decades of the 20th century, ‘drinking provided a means to meet male and female companions and recoup and reclaim their bodies from alienating workplaces and racially charged climates.’

Together, these interdisciplinary perspectives call attention to the ways that consumers create and define their own identities in relation to what they drink. How are meanings about alcohol consumption shaped by cultural outsiders? Charting the evolution of alcohol’s symbolic authority in East Africa from the pre-colonial period until the end of the 20th century, Willis (2002: 6) argues that officials frequently expressed concern that alcohol caused poverty, incited immorality, and was ‘the enemy of self-control.’ In their pursuit of new markets and in an effort to extend their authority, politicians and elites emphasized the dangers of alcohol consumption to Africans and imposed various prohibition policies to ‘ensure the wellbeing of empire and its subjects’ (2002: 169). Notions of racial superiority and inferiority were adopted by, and codified through, state-supported discourses regarding civility and how much alcohol Africans should be able to consume.

Beckingham’s (2009) work on the politics of perceived Irish drunkenness in Liverpool, England provides vital insight into the intersections of temperance and ideas about respectability. The late 19th-century Irish migrant population was consistently scrutinized for disregarding reformers’ calls for abstinence and ‘spreading physical and moral contamination’ (2009: 132). In particular, city officials and church leaders (both Protestant and Catholic) criticized Irish cultural practices by relying on ethnic stereotypes and employing judicial statistics to narrate a ‘moral geography of drunkenness’ that emphasized drinking as a social problem (2009: 125). Temperance efforts from within and outside of the community reinforced racialized tropes and provided a new language for expressing increased anxieties about immigration in general, and competition over jobs, more specifically. Taken together, intemperance, race, and religion worked in concert to reinforce and reproduce prejudices regarding the diasporic Irish community.

Likewise seeking ‘to preserve, defend, or enhance the dominance and prestige’ of some groups over others, the American temperance movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries turned their attention to issues of morality, sobriety, and civility (Gusfield, 1963: 3). Importantly, the movement was diverse and their tactics and goals changed over time, especially as the American public started to associate sobriety with the ideals of progress and productivity (Tyrrell, 1991). One consistent theme, however, was that of American virtue – a narrow conception of righteousness that was steeped in the language of decency. This judgmental sentiment patterned relations between ‘drys’ and ‘wets’ as a metaphor for ‘native’ and ‘foreign’ as well as ‘moral’ and ‘immoral.’ Under these conditions, notions of superiority and inferiority easily linked onto the symbolic binary that fashioned categories of difference.

Herd (1991) addresses the challenges that less powerful groups faced amid shifting attitudes about alcohol during this same period. Temperance advocates deployed two dominant discourses with regard to blacks’ consumption practices. On the one hand, blacks were considered dangerous and rebellious when they drank alcohol. Journalists and landowners frequently described blacks’ consumption of alcohol as having the potential to lead to ‘barbaric and cruel acts’ (1991: 356). On the other hand, some black temperance leaders advocated abstinence. As Herd explains, ‘Black leaders invariably linked abstinence with abolition, holding that to keep sober, was to strike a blow at slavery’ (1991: 362). Thus, within this paradox, blacks were forced to negotiate ‘a variety of cultural fears’ (1991: 355) as they cohered along a judgmental continuum through which people determined who should and who should not drink based on heredity, discipline, and skin color.

As these findings show, drinking is implicated in a range of social issues, including one’s sense of belonging to a neighborhood, class, culture, or nation. Ideas regarding race are also central to the politics of alcohol consumption. To be sure, the ‘complexity of alcohol derives from its capacity to function as a multipurpose symbol capable of reflecting and refracting a wide array of socially embedded issues’ (Cruz, 1988: 151). Although alcohol is a commodity with an elaborate social life (Appadurai, 1986), surprisingly little scholarship documents how it intersects with the formation of racial subjectivities from a comparative, cross-border perspective. In what follows, I focus on how ideas regarding race became closely associated with distinct alcoholic drinks. First, I begin by discussing pulque and tequila in the context of US–Mexican relations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Second, I address the rise of prohibition in the United States and describe its anti-immigrant underpinnings. Next, I shift to an analysis of alcohol prohibition in Mexico. Finally, I conclude by examining the similarities and differences of the effects of these policies in both nations.

Background: Pulque, Tequila, and the Mexican Revolution

Tequila and pulque are manufactured from the juices of the agave (or maguey), a plant native to Mexico. ¹ Characterized by its long spiny leaves (pencas) and pineapple-shaped heart (piña), in early Meso-America agave was a vital source of sustenance and its fibers were used to build roofs, walls, and houses (Bruman, 2000). Pre-dating colonization by more than 1000 years, pulque is a low-proof, fermented alcoholic beverage produced by various Mexican indigenous groups (Montiel et al., 2011). During the colonial era it provided nutrients and was also used for medicinal purposes. Tequila is a type of mezcal (a general term for distilled agave drinks) manufactured primarily in the western state of Jalisco. ² Unlike pulque, it was not consumed for nutritional reasons, nor was it exclusively indigenous. Although today tequila is considered Mexico’s national spirit, up until the middle of the 20th century, pulque was more widely consumed and was more commonly regarded as Mexico’s national drink (Gaytán, 2008).

Both pulque and tequila’s symbolic significance is tied to Mexico’s evolution and progress as a nation. Infrastructural advancements, especially the expansion of the railroad system, provided new modes of transportation that connected states and enabled greater access to locally produced goods. Pulque was among the products that filled the cargo coffers (Ramírez Racaño, 2005). The construction of railroads, including the ferrocarril interoceánico (interoceanic railroad) and the ferrocarril de Hidalgo y nordeste (Hidalgo and northeast railroad), together with highway pavement and expansion, likewise made diverse forms of trade possible. Because pulque was a fermented drink, it spoiled quickly, and thus could not travel long distances, while tequila, a distilled product, could withstand longer journeys. As a result, pulque was not widely available in the United States, while tequila was sold in places like Los Angeles, California and Kansas City, Missouri (Las dos repúblicas, 1892). ³ The onset of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, however, stifled the trade, transport, and accessibility of tequila as well as a number of other goods.

As the violence of the revolution spilled into the United States, already fragile political relations between the countries became increasingly strained. Over the course of the conflict, revolutionary and counter-revolutionary insurgents occupied the international boundary, prompting the US government to enact arms embargoes and invoke neutrality laws (Lorey, 1999). In addition to rebel soldiers, outlaws frequented the porous border zone. In both countries, civilians were affected by the violence. Less affluent Mexicans migrated to the United States to escape the poverty and hunger caused by the war, while wealthier families sought political asylum in cities such as El Paso, Los Angeles, Tucson, or San Antonio. At the same time, more than half of all Americans residing in Mexico returned to the United States (Delpar, 1992). Insurrections along the Arizona, California, and Texas–Mexican border were common; so too were a variety of other unlawful activities including arms dealing, cattle rustling, and alcohol smuggling (Carey and Marak, 2011).

The growing unrest likewise alarmed foreign industrialists. Holding or controlling interest in mines, public utilities, railroads, and oil wells, American capitalists grew increasingly concerned about their investments south of the border (Martínez, 1978). By 1910, US citizens owned more than half of the major mining companies operating in Mexico and controlled over 80 percent of Mexican railroad stock (Lorey, 1999). With millions of dollars at stake, not even assurances from the Mexican government could assuage the fear of political instability or lift declining investor confidence. One report out of Mexico cautioned that ‘even sober-minded Americans of long residence stated that a rabid leader provided with a few barrels of native liquors could at any time put in peril the lives and property of Americans’ (Rosales, 1999: 11). Together, these conditions, in combination with the push to outlaw alcohol, became the backdrop for the spread of a potent new form of anti-Mexican sentiment, one that stressed American superiority. In the following section, I describe the rise of the American temperance movement and discuss the context in which stereotypes regarding Mexicans and Mexican immigrants gained currency in the US media and legal system.

Prohibition in the United States: Temperance, immigration, and criminality

The US temperance movement was established in the early 19th century by professionals including physicians, ministers, and employers concerned with the sobriety of their workers and servants (Levine and Reinarman, 1991). By 1830, the movement had a large middle-class following whose members were concerned that alcohol was posing an increasing threat to family life and American society. More moderate advocates maintained that temperance ‘would energize political reform, promote community welfare, and improve public health’ (Blocker, 2006: 234). Organizations such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the National Prohibition Party, and the Anti-Saloon League argued that alcohol contributed to crime, unemployment, and an overall decline in morality. In 1885, the WCTU established a Department of Social Purity, ‘whose purpose was to promote a single moral standard for both sexes’ (Odem, 1995: 10). Members frequently relied on the language of religion and integrity in their campaign for its elimination. For instance, priests and ministers mobilized their parishioners by preaching that prohibition was ‘Christ’s work … a holy war, and every true soldier of the cross will fight for it’ (Fumas, 1965: 165).

Church leaders, progressive social reformers, and women’s groups were not alone in their battle – a number of eugenicists also supported the cause (Rosen, 2004). Many activists spoke openly about their concerns over the consumption of alcohol in relation to the demise of the ‘American way of life.’ As Ella Boole, president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union avowed, ‘This is the United States of America, my country, and I love it … It is all I have … As my forefathers worked and struggled to build it, so I will work and struggle to maintain it unsoiled by foreign influences’ (Barr, 1999: 109). Temperance activist Mary Hunt is recorded as stating that ‘the enormous increase of immigrant population flooding us from the old world, men and women who have brought to our shores and into our politics old world habits and ideas [favorable to alcohol]’ and making reference to ‘undesirable immigration’ and ‘these immigrant hordes’ (Hanson, 1996: 21). The Prohibition Party proclaimed that the influx of immigrants was a ‘menace to our institutions [and] established itself as the champion of the ancient American culture by calling for the “Americanization of aliens”’ (Buenker, 1969: 364).

The growing presence of Mexican immigrants and reports of border unrest drew the attention of alcohol reformers. Before long, Ku Klux Klan members ‘entered into the picture as border moralists and vigilantes’ (Rosales, 1999: 73). Caught ‘in the shifting path of disruption and destruction’ (Lorey, 1998: 69), during the 10-year period from 1900 to 1910, an estimated 50,000 Mexicans relocated to the United States (Ramírez Berg, 2003). By the mid-1920s, this number exceeded one million (Marez, 2004). In the years leading up to the revolution, movement northward continued as conditions worsened and food shortages became more frequent. Similar to the temperance movement’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, some newspapers framed discussions about the revolution – and its demographic effects in the United States – in a manner that highlighted Mexico’s inferiority. One such press, the Los Angeles Times, associated Mexican backwardness with racist stereotypes, stating that their alleged inbred behavior was related to ‘ferocious’ Aztecs and ‘barbarous’ Spaniards (Anderson, 2000: 136). An article in the North American Review (1914: 33) observed, ‘Mexico is not, in fact, a nation, but a country peopled by many tribes of Indians … none reaching what we would call civilization.’ Describing Mexico as comprised of various tribes rather than a singular nation, this writer’s comment positions Mexico as a nation of racial ‘others’ who are not only uncouth but stand in opposition to the civility of the United States.

Debasing Mexico as a country of uncivilized Indians is an example of what is known as the ‘Black Legend,’ or the degradation of Spanish colonialism (ironically by other colonizing cultures) in the ‘New World.’ The Black Legend originated amid religious strife in 16th-century Europe and was promoted by Northern Europeans who ‘loathed Catholic Spain and its American empire’ (Horwitz, 2006: 2). Often used to discredit Spanish-speaking America, the Black Legend was an early source of anti-Hispanic prejudice. ⁴ American newspapers promoted the Black Legend stereotype by framing Mexicans through six categorizations: as Indians; illegitimate; illiterate; inefficient workers; quarrelsome; and intemperate (Anderson, 2000). Mexicans were portrayed as ignorant or ill-bred, and in many cases, functioned ‘as the antithesis of American normality’ (Anderson, 2000: 139). These portrayals were especially destructive as most readers had little or no contact with Mexicans and thus relied on newspapers for information about other cultures.

Temperance advocates employed and perpetuated these and other racial stereotypes as their organizations evolved. For example, initially the Women’s Christian Temperance Union addressed how temperance could improve the circumstances of underprivileged groups, fought for suffrage, and supported women’s education (Giele, 1995). As the organization became more critical about alcohol’s negative effect on society more broadly – and on women in particular – they began to question different nationalities’ moral character and equated abstinence with Protestant values (especially those associated with Scandinavian nations) and middle-class lifestyles (Tyrrell, 1991). Their message began to convey a more judgmental tone that often criticized the drinking habits of newly arrived immigrants over those members of more established ethnic groups (Rouse, 1991). Such appraisals translated to the broader public and policy makers. For example, reflecting on a report about prohibition in San Francisco, a California state administrator commented that, ‘One cannot fail to be impressed with the great preponderance of the foreign born among those who engage commercially in the illegal traffic of liquor. A careful check of records discloses all those arrested are foreign born, and a large proportion of them are un-naturalized’ (Panunzio, 1932: 151). Religion infused notions of decency – Protestant immigrants were regarded as sharing American beliefs, while those who came from eastern and southern Europe were seen as bringing with them significantly different cultural values than their northern European predecessors (Barr, 1999).

While numerous communities bore the brunt of the increased nativism, Mexicans were often singled out, especially those who lived in the border region. For instance, the Texas Rangers frequently exceeded their authority, ‘submitting suspected lawbreakers, particularly those of Mexican descent, to unrestrained brutality’ (Lorey, 1999: 69). When President Woodrow Wilson deployed federal troops along the border, Texas Mexicans not involved in revolutionary activity often found themselves the target of law enforcement. Assessments about Mexican deviance varied as government officials, social workers, and the clergy ‘depicted Mexicans as being unfairly stereotyped, resorting to crime because of poverty and discrimination, or being inherently villainous’ (Rosales, 1999: 49). However, it was the media representation of one of the period’s most notorious figures, Pancho Villa, which produced some of the most powerful racial ‘truths’ about Mexicans.

Born Doroteo Arango, Pancho Villa symbolized the spirit of the revolutionary movement in Northern Mexico. American newspapers were fascinated with Villa and ran numerous stories about his campaign against the Mexican establishment. The press both praised and denigrated Villa. For example, the Nation magazine described him as ‘very different from the purely selfish and utterly ignorant cutthroat and robber,’ while the Fortnightly Review explained Villa’s actions as ‘a recital of cold-blooded murders, thefts, torturings [sic], and atrocities of an even worse description’ (Brandt, 1964: 154). These contradictory media depictions ‘visually reinforced’ Villa’s ‘radical otherness’ to Americans (Marez, 2004: 215). Indeed, one newspaper went so far as to claim that Pancho Villa was actually a Black man from Maryland, who as a bandit, changed his name to ‘Rondolz,’ and fought for the Mexican army (Los Angeles Times, 1914: I2). This type of depiction not only stressed Villa’s supposed proclivity for deviance, but mobilized a racialized trope which fed on Anglo fears of black male criminality (Herd, 1991).

The press often portrayed Mexican revolutionaries such as Villa as insatiable drunks. Even sympathetic accounts, such as John Reed’s famous book, Insurgent Mexico, relied on this stereotype and represented Mexican soldiers as unpredictable and prone to drink, ‘You can never tell what a Mexican will do when he’s drunk. His temperament is much too complicated’ (1914: 161). Reed cast revolutionaries as impulsive and other times depicted them as imbecilic. For example, Major Fierro, Pancho Villa’s superintendent of railroads, was described as getting so drunk that on one occasion he forgot to prepare the train for equipment delivery. Statesmen such as Mexican president Victoriano Huerta were frequently belittled in the press as having an overpowering penchant for alcohol. Reporting from Mexico, one journalist wrote that during battle, Huerta never left the confines of his coach because he was intoxicated (Brandon, 1914). If well-known political figures were unable to control their consumption of alcohol, surely ‘ordinary’ Mexicans were equally, if not more irresponsible. As a result, Mexican men were frequently described in newspapers as drunk, ignorant, or savage. This dominant discourse allowed the press to easily communicate the ineptitude of Mexicans to the American public by illustrating the so-called ‘Mexican tendency toward intemperance’ (Anderson, 2000: 149).

Within the complex contours of this paradigm, intemperance and banditry became inextricably (but mistakenly) linked through the press’s portrayal of Pancho Villa. A strict teetotaler, Pancho Villa was often portrayed in relation to tequila (Gaytán, 2010). For example, when Villa’s army was suspected of killing British rancher William Benton, the front page headline of the Los Angeles Times (1914: I2) declared, ‘Blame Tequila for Execution: Benton Victim of Villa’s Lust for Liquor, It is Said.’ The article continued by explaining that ‘Gen. Francisco Villa, with four of his cronies, were crazed with marijuana and tequila at the time’ when they gave orders to kill Benton (1914: I2). When Villa ordered the deportation of American media representatives from Mexico, the newspaper reported that Villa and his ‘so-called advisors’ were ‘more or less under the influence of the native tequila’ at the time (Los Angeles Times, 1914: 2). As these examples illustrate, tequila was associated not only with Villa’s supposed violent inclinations, but its consumption served as one of the sources that marked and amplified his disregard for civility.

The rise of rebellions in the southwestern part of the country (especially those incurred by Villa), in combination with increased levels of immigration, fuelled the momentum for the passage of legislation to ‘ensure the return to decency and morality’ (Ramírez Berg, 2003: 89). In 1919, the US government passed the Volstead Act, outlawing the manufacture and sale of alcohol throughout the country. Just 5 years later, in an attempt to limit the flow of migration, public policy shifted to transform Mexicans into ‘alien others’ through the passage of the 1924 National Origins Act and the establishment of the Border Patrol (Stern, 1999: 50). Specifically, modern regulations set out to pathologize Mexican bodies by initiating a program to disinfect and quarantine individuals as they entered the United States. Only after they were sanitized were Mexicans ‘allowed to cross the threshold from diseased body to desired laborer’ (Stern, 1999: 73). The medicalization of immigrants extended the reach of US imperialism, served as a means to demarcate the border, and racialized Mexicans through metaphors of germs, genes, and blood. Medical metaphors that linked ‘cleanliness and life on the one hand, and pestilence and death on the other, […] [became] integral to the eugenic lexicon and criteria for national inclusion and exclusion’ (Stern, 1999: 75).

Cloaked in the language of ethics and analogies between the threat of alcohol and the need to safeguard American innocence, US prohibition policy easily linked into the criminalized narrative of Mexican immigration and bolstered efforts to militarize the border. The availability of alcohol, gambling, and prostitution in Mexican border towns compounded the intensity for control and intervention (Martínez, 1978). In particular, reformers saw Mexico as ‘a haven for outlawed Americans who have expatriated themselves for the clear purpose of evading American laws and reaping a fortune […] by preying on American victims’ (Stern, 1999: 22). From this perspective, Mexico served as a refuge for communities of corrupt Americans. For consul members like John W Dye, Ciudad Juarez was an ‘immoral, degenerate, and utterly wicked place […] a Mecca for criminals and degenerates from both sides of the border’ (Langston, 1974: 245). At the same time, Mexico was also a site of potential danger to respectable Americans who could be tempted to travel to border towns in search of alcohol. For example, public concern focused on ‘protecting’ soldiers at military bases such as El Paso’s Fort Bliss from prostitution, liquor, and sexually transmitted diseases. As an official explained, ‘for soldiers to frequent these districts is more dangerous to their lives than war … [because] disease destroys the body; temptation, the soul’ (Langston, 1974: 55).

The arrival of baseball players for spring training in cities such as El Paso and San Antonio spurred similar anxiety. One newspaper, while reporting on the annual arrival of several teams to Texas, warned against the dangers ‘just across the way.’ Making reference to tequila specifically, the columnist cautioned,

[tequila] has the average quality of moonshine and hooch looking as

bleating and peaceful as a lambkin on a hillside in the drowsy summer

afternoon, tequila is bottled third rail, with a dash of murder, massacre,

and suicide thrown in for goodly measure. To flirt with tequila is to woo

sudden death (The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1922: 14).

The above insinuation is clear: even for healthy athletes in training, giving in to temptation and traveling to Mexico (to drink tequila) would risk the worst outcome of them all, death. Despite what could be interpreted as a light-hearted tone, I argue that the association of tequila with bodily danger consolidated ideas about the consumption of foreign products (in this case, of Mexican tequila) as a threat to American consumers. As a nation, Mexico was defined by its excess and volatility, and Mexicans were defined by their disregard for American virtues. Following this line of reasoning, prohibitionists sought to pass legislation that would dissuade Americans from entering Mexico for the purpose of consuming or purchasing alcohol. For instance, they suggested the creation of a 50-mile vice-free zone and the implementation of earlier closing hours for drinking establishments in Mexico (Sandos, 1984).

Male and female alcohol bootleggers criss-crossed the boundary line, evaded detection, and brought a range of ‘fiery intoxicating liquors’ within ‘purchasing reach’ of Americans (Los Angeles Times, 1916: I5). From the perspective of the US media, it was not enough that Mexican immigrants were coming into greater contact with American citizens, their drinks were also threatening American values. Described as the ‘worst evils the Mexicans have,’ pulque and tequila were represented as commodities that accentuated Mexican otherness, highlighted Mexican affinity for danger, and established a new language through which to narrate Mexican inferiority (Los Angeles Times, 1916: I8). The discursive linkages that bound notions of menace and corruption to Mexican products were easily transferable to Mexican people that not only included revolutionary figures, but also Mexicans immigrants in the United States. For example, Alamillo (2006) describes how officials in Southern California rationalized the implementation of laws that targeted Mexicans. As one administrator put it, ‘Mexicans and booze can’t mix. A white man can drink where a Mexican cannot. The latter becomes crazed when intoxicated and is much more apt to be troublesome that a white man’ (Alamillo, 2006: 62).

Not all law enforcement officials subscribed to the notion that Mexicans were intemperate or criminally minded. However, in cities that experienced unprecedented immigration, such as Los Angeles, police were known to use excessive force against Mexicans (Escobar, 1999; Marez, 2004). In his work on Mexican Americans and law enforcement in Southern California, Escobar (1999: 127) writes that in 1928 alone, ‘arrests for alcohol-related offenses and vagrancy accounted for over 70 percent of all arrests of Mexicans.’ Arredondo’s (2004) research on Ethnic Mexicans in Chicago from 1916 to 1939 found that it was often the case that Mexican immigrants who were arrested for drinking alcohol were taken to jail, while European immigrants were taken home. Describing the unequal treatment, one man living in Indiana asserted, that ‘if the police saw a Mexican drunk, they run him in,’ but that if he was a Polish drunk, ‘they [would] pat him on the back, take him by the hand, and say “Go home and sleep it off”’’ (Escobar, 1999: 129). Not surprisingly, Mexicans throughout the country believed that police officers ‘enforced the liquor laws against them more stringently than they did against others’ (Escobar, 1999: 129). ⁵

Criminalized in the press and on the streets, Mexicans and their relationship to alcohol were incompatible with American values of respectability, tolerance, and respect for law enforcement. Pulque and tequila were used not only to demonstrate, but to punctuate Mexican deviance. The consumption of pulque and tequila therefore became part of the repertoire that explained how and why Mexicans threatened Americans. This new lexicon of pathology was mobilized in the enforcement of the US–Mexican border and was later incorporated by police departments in cities with growing Mexican immigrant populations. In addition to containment, the fusing of tequila and pulque with notions of incivility and disobedience highlighted Mexicans as undeserving and incapable of becoming ‘proper’ citizens. The knowledge produced and associated with consumption emphasized the necessity to control, discipline, and subordinate Mexican immigrants. Across the border, meanings regarding alcohol consumption were similarly being marshaled to underscore a different, but equally problematic mode of urgency: the need to modernize Mexico.

Prohibition in Mexico: Pulque, beer, and tequila

Despite the closure of breweries, distilleries, and drinking establishments in the United States, the alcohol industry did not disappear; instead, it went underground. When the domestic demand could not be met, consumers turned to the international community, especially neighboring Mexico (Díaz, 2011). Within Northern Mexico, US prohibition created lucrative black markets, and the shared border with the United States ‘encouraged the expansion of liquor and narcotics markets on the Mexican side’ (Recio, 2002: 27). In cities such as Tijuana, two new industries quickly emerged: saloons and smuggling. ⁶ As one historian explained, ‘Although it is not clear how much the latter contributed to Tijuana, the former contributed greatly to Tijuana’s economy and its “black legend”’ (Proffitt, 1994: 261). El Paso, Texas reportedly had highly organized contraband rings that became more extensive and elaborate after the 1919 passage of the Volstead Act (Rosales, 1999). Officials in both countries acknowledged the problem and took measures to prevent the smuggling of alcohol and drugs.

Prohibition in the United States made it difficult, if not impossible, for Mexican officials to implement prohibition in Mexico. As one Mexican economist commented, US laws resulted in ‘an eighteen year bonanza to the border’ by prompting ‘the vigorous local development of liquor, gambling, and associated vices’ (Sandos, 1984: 205). The increased demand for alcohol by American consumers had a significant impact on tourism and development in border cities. For example, not only did Tijuana experience a spike in population growth, but new waves of investment by Americans led to the establishment of businesses such as luxury spas, upscale hotels, and race tracks. In casinos and race tracks (that included purses of US$100,000) American tourists could drink and gamble without fear of arrest. As Proffitt (1994: 192) put it, it was prohibition that gave Tijuana a bad name; yet, the problem ‘was not Tijuana, but Californian propensity to get around prohibition.’

In contrast to the US media’s portrayal of Mexico as a nation unconcerned with the ‘vices’ of alcohol, Mexican politicians, including President Venustiano Carranza (1917–1920) and then Governor of Sonora, Plutarco Elías Calles, sought to ban the sale and consumption of liquor. While officials of both countries expressed interest in preventing the dangers associated with addiction, public interest groups and lobbyists in the United States and Mexico had distinct motives for seeking its enforcement. In the United States, grass-roots groups initially swayed public sentiment and lobbied for the criminalization of alcohol, while in Mexico, it was politicians and first-generation revolutionaries who spearheaded its regulation (Recio, 2002). However, similar to US prohibitionists whose energies focused on the decline of morality, Mexican temperance reflected the elite’s concern for the poor and working classes (Buffington, 1994). Specifically, prohibition advocates drew on the precepts of developmentalism, an ideology which supported the adoption of ‘new’ Mexican values that emphasized a strong government role in economic and social matters (Knight, 1994). Progress could be accomplished through the passage of legal and institutional reforms and revolutionaries led the way by trying to regulate the use of alcohol so to ‘eradicate poverty, backwardness, and sloth’ (Fallow, 2001: 40).

Several measures were introduced during the Mexican Revolution, including the temporary outlaw and sale of alcohol in Durango, Chihuahua, Sonora, and Sinaloa. Regardless of state laws prohibiting alcohol production, enforcement was uneven as alcohol taxes provided much-needed assistance during and following the revolution. ⁷ The tequila industry alone provided one thousand pesos a day in revenue (La Prensa, 1918), while taxes on beer yielded 2.4 million dollars annually (Christian Science Monitor, 1925). When prohibition laws were enforced in Mexico, not all industries were treated equally. In particular, officials expressed little concern about the increasing presence of foreign-owned beer companies. ⁸ Initially, most beer in Mexico was imported from Europe or the United States and was considered a ‘luxury drink favored by foreign communities that settled in the country’ (Recio, 2004: 2). Seen as an ‘aristocratic drink,’ (Hibino, 1992: 26) whose cost was out of reach for members of the working class, in 1911, ½ a liter of beer was thirty times more expensive than the same quantity of pulque (Recio, 2004). Beer was publicized as a civilized drink ‘renowned for its healthful influences, consumed by all classes in the productive countries of Western Europe and the rest of North America’ (Bunker, 1997: 263). In the United States, beer’s association with European consumption norms was also touted. In comparison to other forms of alcohol, beer was depicted by proponents as made ‘under the strict supervision of the law, which is rigidly enforced […]’ and often consumed in ‘beautiful gardens’ by ‘respectable classes of society’(Watterson, 1911: 254). As one Harvard University Medical professor wrote in 1911, beer ‘was the common drink of most European peoples before the colonies in America, it followed naturally that the early settlers of this country brought the art of brewing with them’ (Harrington, 1911: 219). While most reformers still sought its elimination, beer was heralded as having European ancestry, and thus was viewed as having ‘natural’ place in American society. In both countries, beer was portrayed by supporters as progressive, and in the case of Mexico specifically, it was the ‘alternative to the lower-class symbolism of pulque or mescal [sic] that Mexico’s rulers blamed for the low productivity […] of Mexican workers’ (Bunker, 1997: 263).

In contrast to beer breweries, pulque shops (pulquerías) became the object of intense scrutiny by officials in Mexico City. Even for a century before prohibition measures were passed, pulquerías were considered ‘nauseating’ and ‘insulted the senses’ of educated elites living in urban Mexico City (Picatto, 1995: 217). While drinking together, customers’ ‘sayings and colloquial expressions led to the emergence of slang and albur [double-entendre]’ that helped forge important aspects of urban and working-class camaraderie (Toxqui Garay, 2008: 69). ⁹ Inside walls were adorned with strange and exaggerated scenes. Pulquerías ‘bore absurd names that underscored the contrast with the “civilized” world … pulque drinkers were perceived as the clearest example of the shameful consequences of vice’ (Picatto, 1995: 217). Conversely, social drinking in cantinas where imported wines and distilled drinks were sold was seen as a measure of good taste. Unlike pulquerías, cantinas had distinctively European décor and design elements such as private rooms called reservados where customers could avoid public contact. For gente decente (respectable people), the unrestricted display of pulque consumption ‘served as visual evidence of the problem (alcoholism) and contrasted with the image of modernization they preferred’ (Picatto, 1995: 220). The enactment of prohibition provided an effective pretext for gente decente to publicly convey and reiterate their self-perceptions of racial and class superiority (Bunker, 1997).

Beer’s popularity increased throughout the early 20th century – in 1903 there were 19 breweries, and by 1918, there were 36. ¹⁰ The industry’s success was related to the types of industrialization developing in Northern Mexico as foreigners ‘working as technicians in these new companies contributed to the expansion of local infrastructure and industry by demanding urban amenities and finished goods’ (Hibino, 1992: 26). Both Mexican and American miners and railroad workers in states such as Monterrey and Sonora were known to drink on the job, however it was Mexicans’ consumption of products such as mezcal that was blamed as the ‘greatest cause of [their] inefficiency’ and thus served as another measure with which traditional Mexican drinks were deemed antithetical to development (Brown, 1993: 814).

Before, during, and after the revolution, ‘modern and educated’ Mexicans considered pulque ‘the curse of Mexico,’ while one popular legend of the time held that excessive pulque consumption led to the demise of the powerful Toltec society (New York Times, 1916: 3). Pulque was also depicted as promoting delinquency. Noted attorney Francisco A. Serralde reported that 80% of all crimes were committed as a consequence of alcohol, ‘principally as a result of the alcohol produced from our magueys [agave plants]’ (1889: 13). As he saw it, pulque was a drink for ‘repugnant’ and ‘miserable’ people (1889: 25–26). Beer, however, was characterized as an ‘enlightened’ product that was distinct in terms of economic cost, foreign traits, and industrious connotation. For instance, when President Carranza outlawed pulque throughout the republic in 1916, beer and wine were described by officials as the proper substitutes for the antiquated drink. The Mexican Consul General in New York stated that ‘instead of filthy pulquerías, it [the Mexican government] will endeavor to encourage the establishment of modern drinking places, similar to those of Germany and the Scandinavian countries, where the whole family may gather and spend time at a glass of beer or a bit of light wine’ (New York Times, 1916: 3). Beer and wine consumed in ‘modern drinking places’ not only signaled proper cultural (i.e. European) attributes, but promoted family interaction.

Presidents Álvaro Obregón (1920–24) and Plutarco Elías Calles (1924–28) advocated the passage of laws to regulate alcohol, but found little support at the state level where officials in need of the revenue from alcohol taxes continued to permit its manufacture and sale. When laws were enforced, pulque was targeted for elimination and beer was deemed an appropriate alternative. ¹¹ Foreign-controlled and catering primarily to Europeans and Americans in Mexico, the beer industry became associated with positivist attributes. Consequently, elites relied on the assumption that if the lower classes drank beer instead of pulque they would eventually adopt the progressive qualities of Western Europeans and Americans.

Notions of indigenous racial inferiority played a crucial role in this process – beer and pulque embodied the measured distance between those who were enlightened and those who were uncivilized. Gente decente could easily communicate distinction through the language of consumption. Importantly, during the early 20th century, consumption served a new function in Mexican society. Specifically, ‘both production and consumption characterized the rapidly growing and transforming milieu in which increasing numbers of Mexicans lived’ (Bunker, 1997: 228). In addition to playing a vital role in economic growth, consumerism increasingly defined the self-image and culture of Mexicans (Hershfield, 2008). Within this shifting context, government officials and gente decente sought to move away from a rural-based economy that was denoted by racial, class, and linguistic differences. With its archaic methods of production and insalubrious reputation, pulque (and its consumers) embodied the anxieties of backwardness that contrasted against the goals of modernity. Further, as personal identities became more tied to the marketplace, drinking beer, and not pulque, allowed more affluent, middle-class individuals the opportunity to illustrate their sophisticated taste and highlight their avant-garde values. ¹²

Beer and pulque were not the first commodities in Mexico to embody these tensions. As Pilcher (1998) explains in his work on the politics of Mexican cuisine and identity, a similar racialized hierarchy was established with wheat bread and corn tortillas during the early colonial period. Specifically, Spanish missionaries and officials launched campaigns to persuade Indians to eat bread (among other things) instead of tortillas so that they would become like the Castilians, ‘strong and pure and wise’ (Pilcher, 1998: 35). What people consumed or did not consume was seen as reflecting one’s values and loyalties. However, in the highly race-conscious New World, it also signaled a form of conspicuous consumption that was closely associated with racial characteristics. Thus, the ability to ‘brush bread crumbs from […] ruffled collars […] affirmed both social status and Creole identity’ (Pilcher, 1998: 42).

Much like the Indian reaction to Spanish laws under colonialism, the regulations imposed on pulque were met with resistance through editorials and essays that highlighted how pulque benefitted society. Refuting claims of its insalubrious qualities, pulque advocates provided evidence of chemical analyses that demonstrated its nutritious effects when consumed in moderation. This debate was so prevalent that public deliberation and publications from as far back as the mid-19th century emphasized its value to the Mexican diet (Payno, 1864). In the 20th-century text, En defensa del pulque (In Defense of Pulque) author José Paz (1935) outlined economic, health, and cultural arguments to combat the tightened restrictions on Mexico’s then ‘national drink.’ Incorporating the language of nationalism, especially in relation to his objection of the benefits reaped by foreign investors (i.e. beer financiers), Paz attempted to appeal to Mexican officials:

The pulque industry is legitimately national and as such has the right to enjoy the same exemptions as foreign industries, here we refer especially to the beer brewing industry. It is high time that the state abandoned its unjust and incongruent stance which imposes, on the one hand, exorbitant taxes, while it incites extortion and persecutes with the other. Now, in order to be moral, fair, and honorable, they should impose equal taxes on all alcoholic beverages … The landscape for economic possibilities in our country is unknown and as long as we neglect working to discover it, we will remain poor and miserable, subject to vandalistic and parasitic foreign capitalism, slaves to our own ignorance (Paz, 1935: 11–12).

While pulque denoted rural and stagnant forms of production, tequila became associated with a different set of characteristics, ones that were tied to its primary place of manufacture: the state of Jalisco. Unlike other states that are considered indigenous, ‘Jalisco is considered to be a state that has more European racial influences’ (Mulholland, 2007: 98). What is more, Jalisco was relatively unaffected by the violence of the revolution. During the period of post-revolutionary recovery, officials sought to distance the nation and its identity from the image of the war and indigeneity. Other circumstances contributed to tequila’s more neutral and modern-leaning reputation, including technological advancements related to manufacturing (e.g. bottling and distillation) which sped up production and enabled easier shipment and transport (Muriá, 2002). Tequila companies like José Cuervo and Sauza entered their products in World’s Fairs, winning several top awards all while promoting Mexico in the global marketplace. Bottled in modern factories in increasingly cosmopolitan cities like Guadalajara, tequila began to take on a more hygienic presentation than the earlier ‘unwieldy casks’ bottled in the countryside (Muriá, 1995: 87). Further, tequila’s taste improved over time, while pulque, which was packaged in pigskin pouches, went sour after 36 hours.

In addition to the introduction of new technologies, global events such as the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic further increased tequila’s ties to Mexicanness (lo mexicano). According to historian José María Muriá (2002), when the Spanish flu arrived in Mexico, doctors began to recommend tequila, lemon, and salt as treatment for its symptoms. Although the concoction did not restore people’s health, it ‘did make the sick happier as well as tequila producers because of the rise in sales’ (Muriá, 1995: 75). While no one knows exactly when lime and salt began accompanying tequila, their association with each other certainly gained momentum during this period. Therefore, tequila’s reputation, production, and consumption aligned with qualities that were important under developmentalism and the project of modernity.

Discussion and conclusion

Interdisciplinary scholars contribute much to our understanding of how alcohol and its consumption are mobilized in the creation, affirmation, and degradation of various identities. Researchers have also cast much-needed light on the politics and outcomes of prohibition measures in both the United States and Mexico. Building on these contributions, this article focuses on how meanings about certain alcoholic beverages were incorporated into racial discourses from a transnational perspective. Rather than position the pursuit of temperance as a discrete, nationally bound project, I show how these measures sometimes clashed and exacerbated existing racial tensions, on the one hand, and instigated a new language for creating distinctions across racial lines, on the other.

In the United States, tequila and pulque came to embody deep racial anxieties pertaining to immigration and the revolution. Underlying these tensions was the insistence that modern and civilized citizens should be protected from aberrant populations (Shah, 2001). The notion that unpredictable Mexicans and their insalubrious intoxicants were growing in number carried distressing undercurrents of racialized danger that not only depicted Mexicans as intemperate, but also portrayed them as criminals (as in the case of revolutionary figures and statesmen). The media and law enforcement agencies shaped and perpetuated these linkages so to uphold and defend the ‘American way of life.’ Tequila and pulque, as monikers of Mexican deviance, contradicted Anglo, middle-class norms of respectability that embraced the precepts of temperance. The demonization of Mexican consumption practices during this period ‘represents a central strand in the web of social controls’ that the media and police used to discipline Mexicans as subordinate to, and incompatible with, American values (Marez, 2004: 151). The symbolic appeal of tequila and pulque – as evidence of Mexican inferiority – was part of the arsenal that helped define Mexicans as the opposite of Americans.

Officials and elites in Mexico were no less guilty of perpetuating discriminatory stereotypes that likewise targeted the consumption practices of less powerful groups. During and after the revolution, Mexican officials sought to regulate alcohol but encountered difficulties in light of American prohibition and the much-needed taxes that its sale provided. Amid these challenges, pulque re-emerged as the embodiment of backwardness, while beer symbolized the characteristics of modernity. This symbiotic arrangement solidified the notion that pulque consumers, who were primarily working class and indigenous, stood in the way of development. In contrast, beer consumers, distinguished by their European tastes, were associated with the qualities that officials and elites deemed vital to the nation’s prosperity. Sustained by the ideological strands of developmentalism, new restrictions codified ideas pertaining to which types of people were valued and which were not. In light of increased scrutiny and the amplification of regulations, pulque advocates challenged the notion that they were unpatriotic or that they opposed progress.

Examining prohibition measures through a cross-border optic, this work responds to the call made by Gutmann (2004: 494) and others ‘to study more carefully the impact of stereotypes on the people stereotyped’ and illustrates the effects of racialized analogies as they ‘create[] dissonance as well as resonance’ in the media and the marketplace in different national settings (Kaplan, 2002: 10). In both countries, structural conditions fermented and enabled the production of new and recycled antagonisms, which were then used to produce ideas about rational and civilized conduct. Central to this process, the drive for modernity inscribed new boundaries of national belonging that manifested in ideas regarding what people consumed. While this research is certainly not alone in its search for insight into how racial ‘truths’ are crafted or deployed, more critical attention should be paid to commodities as they traverse borders and shape meanings that affect people’s lives. Taking up the challenge to unravel the influence of ‘unseen and difficult-to-detect structuring forces on social life,’ this work seeks to provide a better understanding how overlapping ideological pursuits codified new standards of morality and progress within the United States and Mexico (Gómez-Barris and Gray, 2010: 9).