a Brief History of Mexicans in the Mississippi

0:10 Hi everyone. This is Carmen and Christina and this is Estodias Unknown, a podcast where we talk about Latin American history. Sometimes it's horrible and deals with tibe topics like it's corruption and genocide. But more than that, it's also about power, resistance and community. Resistance goes first, resistance, power on community. But okay, it's fine, it's fine, tam. Okay, Well, I tried to do it off at the top of my noggin. I mean, you said it, yeah, but it was wrong. It was wrong. It was wrong. Okay, Well, this is a me episode. I have the notes. I was very excited about this topic, so much that I changed last minute to this topic. So we both recently watched Sinners.

0:51 What are you talking about today? You'll see? Okay, yes we did, and we loved it. Yeah, and I hate to bring this up again because it's a very tired, uh topic. Oh, but it's what inspired my topic today. Okay. But unsurprisingly, after Sinners came out one Latino in a very Gina Rodriguez fashion. There might have been more, but that's the one that went viral. Yeah, he's the only one that went viral. The what I saw, and then people are answering him again and again and again and again. So yeah, he made a video, you know, for there was more to the video, and he's very annoying in it, and he was like, where are all the Latinos? Understandably, so this sparked off internet discourse after discourse, a little tiring, but all with good reason. You know, some creators are calling out Latinos for their anti blackness, for only asking about Latino representation when it comes to black movies. Hm. Yeah, it's very much deserved criticism. Yes. And then another thing that has come up, which a lot of people are saying this we weren't missing from the movie, which I agree with. And these are all valid points. But this is a history podcast, and you might be wondering, why are you talking about Sinners? Yeah? Why are you bringing centers up? Well, because in all this discourse, I keep seeing one event in your's history mentioned again and again.

2:12 It's given as a reason why there are no Mexicans in Sinners. Do you know that event? Repatriation? Yes, Mexican repatriation. Why did I think we talked about that already? I keep thinking we talked about it? And I was searching in my notes and I'm like, really, we don't have a full episode about this. Oh okay, it's because it's made appearances and various episodes, like a lot of episodes. Yeah, it has. And yeah, and you know what last time started to keep kidding off. Last time, I was like, have we talked about this already? And then you're like, we talked about it in episodes, but not as it's it's on topic. You're right, you're right, yeah, yeah, because it came up again in your payat episode. Yeah, that was the most recent time that I was wondering right about this topic. Yeah yeah, And uh so you know, my amateur historian obsessive brain, I was like, I need to figure out, is this really the reason why there's no Mexicans in the movie? Were we really not there?

3:09 Were we even there during this time period? Hence today's episode a brief History of Mexicans and the Mississippi Oh wow? Okay, yeah, so still not directly about the repatriation. No, No, otherwise I would have called it a brief history of Mexican repatriation. No. Well, that's what give me the hint that it's not about it. I thought at first it was about going to be about that. Okay, Yeah, your assumption makes sense. I'm here for it. Yeah. So Sinners is set in nineteen thirty two in the Mississippi Delta, and as we know because we've talked about it, we've mentioned it in other episodes, Mexican Repatriation, which was the deportation and expulsion of Mexican and Mexican American citizens from the US. This took place between nineteen twenty nine and nineteen thirty nine, during which three hundred thousand, two two million Mexican and Mexican American citizens were deported. Wow, during the Mexican repatriation. So it makes sense to say, well, there were no Mexicans in Mississippi because of Mexican repatriation, but there weren't much Mexicans before that anyway, right, No, in the other way. And so the answer, of course is more complicated than that, because I think there's like there's videos with like a million, five hundred thousand likes on Instagram and TikTok as well as posts on all social media saying like, well the reason Mexicans are in centers is because of Mexican repatriation.

4:34 But again, it's more complicated than that. And hence why I needed to look into this. So, if you recall from our episode episode fifty three, a short history of La Placita Vera and Operation Went Back Episode ninety, we talked a little bit more about Mexican repatriation then, and even outside of Mexican repatriation, there has been other mass deportations of Mexicans and Mexican Americans, and both of these instances, Mexican repatriation and Operation Wetback both included a lot of self deportations as well, which were included in that number. And again we have said this before, but these happened from that decade twenty nineteen twenty nine to thirty nine, and then in the nineteen fifties is Operation Wetback and the methods of deportation during Mexican repriatoration included mass raids.

5:26 But these mass raids really only took place in La and California, as we know from like La Placita l Vera when we talked about the raid that happened there. These type of big publicized raids were only there, and there were also small scale workplace raids across the Southwest. If you recall Jzuspayats. This was during Mexican repatriation and a lot of these deportations were to stop labor movements that a lot of them were workplace raids. And this happened yeah, across the Southwest, where there were more Mexicans obviously, and again the biggest number of deportees was from California, so much so that Los Angeles are and the state of California apologized for it. I didn't know they apologized. Yeah, I sit it in the Pleasitalbera episode. Oh I forgot, not for operation went back, but for the repretation they did.

6:19 And then there's that monument. That's what that's there for for that time period, and that's where most of these deportations took place. But they also happened in Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Minnesota, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Illinois, West Virginia, Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and Colorado. Oh wow, because Mexicans were there during this entire Yeah, I mean, you know, Mexicans follow the words. Yeah, outside of California, other than Texas, the states with the largest number of deported Mexicans. Can you guess which ones they were? Oregon, I would have guessed that too. I would have given Oregon in Washington. No, Indiana and Illinois, oh well, which are kind of next to each other. So unlike the raids in California, the raids in Indiana and Illinois were they were way more subtle and like even subversive you could say. And a quick reminder. But all of this the Mexican Repaid creation.

7:22 This is happening during the Great Depression. The Mexicans were blamed for the Great Depression which led to the all the deportations, and yeah, Mexicans were being blamed for the lack of work, and so in Indiana and Illinois specifically, they made these relief programs to help those affected by the growing number of unemployment of the people unemployed because of the Great Depression. But this assistance was withheld from Mexicans. They couldn't use this assistance as well as as well as Mexican American citizens. They couldn't use this to encourage them to leave. And so this encouraged a lot of self deportations and those who did not self deport were forcibly removed. So like in the Indiana Harbor there was one thy eight hundred deported. Wow, in Gary, Indiana, there was one thousand, five hundred deported, and the governor of Chicago reported deportations as saving the city of Chicago to twenty one thousand dollars because they were these Mexican children were no longer attending public schools, and they were like, Wow, look at all this money we can save. I'm just like, every time we hear like a racist coming from back then, I'm like, it does it? It floors me by At the same time, like it wouldn't surprise me to hear somebody say at present day either, you know, especially right now. Yeah.

8:52 On top of that, these areas, but they created programs where they made one way train rise to Mexicano go way cheaper to encourage self deportations, and a lot of people did take advantage of those lower fees. Mexican consulates in the US were willing to provide assistance to repatriate Mexicans. They were willing to work with getting them back and giving money to help them return. And this was coming all over the US except some locations where they were not willing to help. One of those places being Mississippi. They did not help Mexicans in Mississippi repatriate, like Mexico didn't help, like the Mexican consulates did not help Mexicans in Mississippi repatriot. So no, the reason Mexicans were not in Mississippi in the nineteen thirties was not Mexican repatriation because they were not helping them. Okay, I see what you're saying. Do you know what I'm saying? Yes, yeah, yeah, so yeah, I mean like all this to share Mexican Like I just said, Mexican repatriation is not the reason why Mexicans were missing from the movie. But this, you know, this leaves the question where there are even Mexicans there, And that's a yes, but not a lot. So Mexican labors were recruited to Mississippi as really as nineteen oh eight, wow, And this grew in nineteen ten and peaked in nineteen twenty five. And they were coming mostly from Texas. From Texas,

10:26 they were being recruited to work in other places like Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Mississippi. But most of these Mexicans or Techanos went to Mississippi to work by the Mississippi River the Mississippi Delta to pick cotton. And like with most Mexicans at that time and even like today, maybe not so much now, but Mexicans are seasonal workers. They travel, they're not afraid to pick up and leave to follow the work. Right, So the major already of these Texans that were going to Mississippi, it was seasonal work for them. So like thousands of them were in the area from September early September, which was the beginning of cotton picking season, and then by winter they would either return to Texas or to Mexico and then they would come back to work. And throughout the years, some of those thousands of workers that went from Texas to Mississippi did stay year round working alongside black sharecroppers picking cotton. And even though Mexican migration peaked in nineteen twenty five, there were small numbers of Mexicans in the area that stayed through even the Great Depression, through all of the nineteen thirties in the area. And so since the end of slavery in the US, white plantation owners they were dreaming, like feeding for a way to replace their formerly free labor due to the enslavement of black people. Of course, this dream of theirs and

12:01 you know, combined with being so racist that they were not willing to negotiate with black shattercroppers. This led them to seek immigrants to replace their formerly free black labor. That's frustrating. Yeah, and they tried with Chinese workers first, but Chinese workers were not willing to put up with the abuse from the plantation owners. Most of them left right away. Those that stayed in the area opened up grocery stores. Instead of picking cotton, they owned stores, and these stores worked around Jim crow By s we were seeing both white and black people like we saw on Sinners with the own race. That's why they're in the movie because Chinese communities were essential in this time period, and they were the first to really bend the Like white people didn't know what to do with Chinese people.

12:49 They're like, they do we include them with black people? Or we racist to them too, like they were. They didn't know how to treat them. Yeah, yeah, they were confused like this Jim crow strict era. But they worked with both people. So yeah, I mean that's the reason they're a big part of the movie because they were a big part of the community as well. And so Southern plantation owners then tried to use Italian immigrants to replace their free labor they had before, but this didn't work either because they were not willing to put up with the abuse, and most of them left the area as well because the pay was not worth the violence and tactics used by the white plantation owners. And this is where Mexicans enter the picture. So they started arriving in nineteen oh eight to work in the cotton fields, and a lot were unwilling to put up with the violence, and a lot of them left, and then they warn't other people not to go there because it was so violent, but a small amount did stay in the area. And the violence was so bad that Mexican revolutionaries were writing about the plight of Mexican immigrants in the South. Really wow. Yeah.

14:03 They wrote things like and a quote the abuse is evidence of the evils of Yankee capitalism. Here here. In an article from La Requeeneracion from nineteen twelve, Ricardo Floris Magone wrote the following, The treatment of Mexicans is worse than the blacks. It pierces the heart and makes the blood boil. To see the lives of our brothers in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Seeing the treatment that is given to Mexican workers in the South and witnessing how they are humiliated and degraded makes the shed tears and yearn for vengeance. Wow, it was bad, and these articles in Spanish newspapers led many Mexicans to not even try and go there for work, except for Mexicans in Texas who were used to similar abuses.

14:50 Like there was a whole period in Texas known as La Matanza, a ten year period where the what the fuck are they called the Texas Rangers were out here murdering Americans. Yeah, which is another topic for another day. So they were more used to this violence and they're like, I can't be worse in Texas. So because of that, that's why you see most of the Mexicans that ended up in Mississippi were from Texas, which is very interesting to me just to see where people like, you know, go, I think it makes sense because Texas is kind of like more in the middle and like easier to get from Texas to over there. Yeah. And so then World War One led to increased cotton production, which led planters to ask the government for a new workforce. They needed more workers. They didn't have enough. Because all this is also happening, there's a great migration of black people from the South to the West and north, including Brian Googler's family.

15:48 That's how they went arrived to Oakland. So they needed a new workforce, and they obtained Mexican workers, and so five thousand contracted workers to Arkansas, New Orleans and Mississippi. And this wasn't a better setup program yet, but contracted workers through the brow set of program did end up going to Mississippi, but this wasn't until the nineteen forties, but yeah, they were sent there too. In the nineteen twenties, many plantation owners used tactics like illegal debt pinage, making people rack up so much that they campaign, all right and it's illegal, and convict leasing, which we did see convict leasing in the movie Centers. And so the combination of these violent tactics with the former enslavers plantation owners not wanting to negotiate with black workers, this encouraged that the great migration that I mentioned earlier, and so they're still looking for a workforce to replace black people. Because the Chinese immigrants didn't work out, Italian immigrants didn't work out, and so this is when they really tried to re up their attempts to recruit Mexicans. And this is you know, now like nineteen ten to nineteen twenty five, they used what they what's called in ganchallo is labor recruitment agencies in Texas. And so most of the Mexican laborers who did leave Texas for Mississippi were creating contracts with these ganchalloes and they were expecting to find better wages and

17:20 working conditions than what they were used to in Texas, but they quickly learned that that was not the case. In Mississippi, Mexican sharecroppers were forced to purchase food on credit at the plantation stores. And that's that what I mentioned, the illegal debt pionage, that's what that is. Yeah. And it's also like similar to like what company towns do, yes or as ciendas right over Madam dacam, same system. And so this credit they would be forced to pay when they sold their cotton back, but they did this at a higher costs, so making them work longer to pay off this supposed debt collected from their food and again very enough to go on legal. Yeah. And so when encountering these conditions. Some Mexicans refused to work, but then their food Russians were cut and they're like, all right, you guys don't get to eat anymore, damn. And so there's this one plantation owned that was owned by a Richard Neely in Rolling Fork, Mississippi. There was thirty Mexican families working in this plantation and twenty three of the thirty Mexican families protested working conditions after the food Russians were cut, and they these twenty three families just grabbed their things on left. They're like, this doesn't work so well, they said, fuck this shit. Yeah, And one of these twenty three workers wrote a letter to a sister in Texas.

18:42 She alerted the Laredo Mexican Consulate, who then alerted the New Orleans Consulate, which is the closest Mexican consulate to Mississippi at the time, and then the New Orleans Consulate sent someone to investigate the mistreatment of Mexicans. But when they arrived, the seven in Mexican families that had stayed, they were gone, no, no, no, They said they weren't being forced to work and that everything was fine. So the case was closed. But I think it's because they were leaving anyway, because as soon as they sold their cotton they left right away too. But in other plantations, like one in Issequina County in Mississippi, Mexicans faced even worse treatment than like this one. So here, white plantation owners used those same tactics that were they were used to using on black workers, violence, you know, just punishment after punishment. When Mexicans tried to leave the plantations because of this mistreatment, owners used search parties to track them down.

19:43 Oh wow. And they would find Mexicans at train stations and roads, beat them up and force them to return to work. Oh wow, what if they weren't even working there right right. One Mexican couple tried to flee along the Mississippi River and a search party found them, shot the husband and then forced her to return into the field. Oh wow. That's I don't even have words. That's ridiculous. And then they just left him there on the side of the road. Oh my god. And this was not an uncommon practice. Wow. And then any Mexicans that tried to write about these abuses to their families or to the Consulate, they were stopped because the foreman inspected every letter leaving these plantations. Wow. Other Mexicans tried to leave, and when they tried to leave, they were arrested in the town jail and then they were put into the same convict leasing system used on black people. Wow. Foremen were known to kill Mexican workers and nothing never happened to them. They never faced any chargers charges nothing. Wow.

20:48 But even with these abuses, Mexicans were leaving Texas for Mississippi in record numbers. In the fall of nineteen twenty five, there were at least five thousand Mexicans in the area, and at one point there was Mexicans on every plantation in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Wow. And even though Mexicans were being treated the same way black shirtcroppers were being treated, they unfortunately did not work together to try and fight, unite to fight the suppression, which is not surprising to me knowing you know the history of anti blackness everywhere. Yeah, and white supremacy in all of Latin America, which of course includes Mexico and Mexicans, which we know to this day persists. Right. So, during all this research that I was doing for this episode, I learned that in other places, not California or Texas, but like in other places like New Orleans, Mexicans quickly assimilated into whiteness. Really, yes, they were not segregated. They were. They even started like a Mexican middle class. Like they were very successful in New Orleans, which is interesting because yeah, places where I think it has to do with like places where settlers, like you know, white settlers went into other places and found Mexicans there, and then they were very hostile towards those Mexicans and treated them the same way they treated other segregated groups.

22:14 Like white people are sending upon an area like California, Oh, okay, as opposed the Mexicans coming to an already established area. Yeah, I don't know. That's just the theory of mine. We can't say the same about Mississippi right when they got there, I guess because I was later they were going specifically, And I think it it also has to do with the type of work they were doing, because I mean, farm work is like considered one of those like low like oh, those are like peasants, right, like they're like nobody's And in New Orleans they were able to take up again the middle class. So I think it's a difference in the type of work that people were doing too. I've met two people so far here that they're like second or third gen and their families like their parents.

23:00 Our grandparents are from the Bayu. Oh and I'm gonna sound ignorant as hell, but I didn't know that there was Mexicans the Bayu. Well I'm learning. I learned this during all this research. So yeah, I found that very interesting, but I didn't look more into that. I wanted to, but again I was I wanted to focus on Mississippi, and I even didn't fully focus on misisipp because I also talked about other places. Yeah, in Mississippi, that was not the case. White plantation owners treated Mexicans just like they treated black workers, just like they tried to treat other immigrants that were arriving in the areas. The Mexicans were not excluded from this. But Mexicans did not want this.

23:45 They even nobody wanknew to know. Nobody wants that. Even being new to the US. They knew we cannot be classed with black people, which is terrible. Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. The way you were saying that, I thought they were it was going to be something different. No, it's horrible and racism. I forgot because you know, we started talking about like like Mexicans in the New Orleans and I forgot you before that you were talking about their anti blackness. Yeah. Yeah, they they knew they couldn't be classed with them because it would come with the same treatment. And so again just trying to be closer to whiteness, to be accepted by whiteness and to assimilate. Okay, yes, exactly. And so it was even like this was the case so much so that when Mexican workers died, plantation owners tried to bury them in black cemeteries, and this caused outrage with the rest of the Mexican migrants because they did not want to be buried in the black cemetery. You guys are dumb, Like it was so like undignifying. Is that a word indignifying? I don't know what the word is, not sure. It was such a like they did. They didn't want this so much so that a Mexican man remained where he died three days because nobody everyone refused to bury him in the black cemetery. The white plantation owners didn't want to bury him anywhere else. And the Mexican didn't want to bury him. Yeah. Uh, then they

25:16 asked to bury him at some random river bed instead of the already established black cemetery. That's ridiculous, it really is. But that's how they how much they were trying black they were. Yeah, like it's like trying to survive but at the expense of the black workers, which it's not surprising to me. Yeah, then like if only who knows what they could have they could have achieved if if they worked together. But it's not easy, and they're trying to survive, right, Like, I can see both sides of it, but it is messed up. It is like Mexicans wish to be included in whiteness. White plantation owners did not want them included in whiteness. They only wanted them for their labor, which is continues like a trend that is still going on today. Right. Yeah. The following quote is from the Sunflower County newspaper from white people. If the Mexican cotton pickers are ever needed here again, it will mean the beginning of another race problem. These fellows butt into exclusive white places and make themselves at home in Negro places. They marry Negro women and try to marry among the lower class of whites. We hope they will all leave this part of the delta and never come back here. Wow, that's how you really feel. Yeah. But they wanted the cheap labor. And despite these abuses, many, well some of the thousands that were doing seasonal work, they still stayed in the area year round, so many that of Mexican school was built because the white schools

26:48 didn't want them, and the Mexican families didn't want to send their kids to the black school Wow. Of course, yeah, so they made Mexican schools. There was even a big Sinco the Myo celebrate in nineteen twenty eight. Wow. And in nineteen thirty there was at least one thousand, two hundred Mexicans in the area. How many one thousand two hundred that were permanently there, not part of the seasonal work. And despite not wanting to be categorized with black people in terms of like you know, these racial social hierarchies, Mexicans were usually neighbors with black people. They formed intimated relationships with black people more than white Mississippians. Of course, of course they did. White people didn't want them. Yeah, Black families. It was common for them to make extra money by housing single Mexican labors for a fee. Oh wow.

27:42 I read a separate article of a family that they had two Samuels in the family, that one of the children of the black family and then one of the people that were that was being boarded by them. So they called the Mexican one Mexican Sammy. That's funny. Yeah, And it's also hard to know how many Mexicans were in the area because sometimes these Mexican single Mexican laborers living in these black households were counted in the census as black. They weren't counted as Mexican. Oh interesting. Yeah, Like this Mexican Sammy that I'm mentioning, he was counted as black in the census. Oh wow. Yeah, so just a I mean fascinating to me reading all this. And Mexican families in the area even won their own fights stored injustices. So in nineteen twenty eight, Huertina became the first Mexican student to finish a whole school year at Gunnison's white school. Oh wow, And like, yeah, it's a victory.

28:44 But again it's also like not amazing because they were refusing to send their children to the black school because they didn't want their kids in that either. Yeah. So it's like they advanced their rights while stepping down on the black people that were already there. Yeah, yes, exactly, so like a like a bitter suite of victory there. Yeah. Another family the it looks like land Rows, but it's in Spanish, so maybe Landrobe. But this family, the Landrobe family, they fought to enroll their daughter or Dancia Landrobe, in the white school and they were able to and there was a lot of like legal fights, which was more difficult because in this area there was no nice liberal white lawyers to take up the cause like in California, and there was no established Mexican consulates in the area.

29:41 The closest one was New Orleans. They also tried to get help from the Catholic Church to help them, like you know, assimilate. But the Katholic Church, many of them at the time like they're like, oh, these they're they're hardworking people, but they're dumb, like that's how they viewed Mexicans and so they didn't want to help them either. Wow. So yeah, but in nineteen thirty one, with the crash of cotton prices, the majority of Mexicans, including these two families I just mentioned, were forced to leave to look for work elsewhere and either back in Texas or returning to Mexico. And so Mexicans were leaving the area, but it was not due to repatriation. It was because there was no more work. And like in other parts of the US, Mexicans were encouraged to sell to port and to repatriate, often with federal and state assistants. This did not happen in Mississippi, the land of a family Like many of the other Mexican families in the area, they tried to get assistance from the New Orleans consulate because it was the closest one to repatriate. But Mexico was not interested in repatriating people from levers, from New or Lean or from Mississippi, because in Mexico they wanted like what they're calling, like the nice Mexicans, the middle class Mexicans.

30:57 Oh my god, that's what they wanted. Back in Mexico. They didn't want the them either, the lower working class. Yeah. Yeah. So they were denied financial assistance to repatriate. Wow, And so most of them stayed through the Great Depression in Mississippi, including the land rope. They stayed another eight years after they requested assistance, which was in nineteen thirty two, so they were not repatrited. They just left eventually to California. I want to say, after eight years of being in Mississippi, so I think nineteen thirty two. They were there another eight years, So nineteen forty is when they returned to California.

31:40 So they were most of these huh they were from California. No, they just went there after. So they said they returned to California. My bad. I did say that they were from Texas. Oh, okay, they left this area not during Mexican repatriation, but after and again and it was for better financial opportunities and they headed to California. Oh and some people again didn't leave, and those that remained were again still subject to the same similar treatment they had been, which was the same treatment that was given to black sharecroppers. They were buried in black cemeteries. They attended black churches because guests the Catholic Church didn't welcome them, but black churches did welcome them. Wow. Yeah, And though I will say sometimes when Mexican neighbors were in these same fields as black sharecroppers, and then it was like time to eat.

32:34 Sometimes they would try to eat with black people and they would be like, no, you're white, you don't get to sit here, like oh so, but more often than I was Mexicans trying to avoid Yeah, but yeah, it didn't always happen. Sometimes they were very intertwined cultures. So sometimes Mexican workers and their or sometimes the children of Mexican workers were allowed into white schools. Sometimes they were not. It was just like, however the administration felt like, no, you're not white, or fine, I guess you're not black, so you can be in the school. Like it was very random. And the Barrasceto program did bring more Mexicans into the area in the late nineteen forties, but even then, like friends and descendants of even the family I mentioned, the land Roba family remained in the Delta and they're still in the Mississipi Delta. They never left the area once they arrived. Yeah, that's cool to be able to being one place that long. Yeah. Yeah, And so it was never a huge population. But to say Mexicans were never there or Mexicans simply weren't there because of Mexican repatriation is incorrect. Interesting, and the reason they weren't in the movie is because the movie was not for us sick, that's the real reason. Okay, anyone can enjoy this movie. Okay, you don't have to see yourself in it. Mm hmm.

33:54 I will say though, if you were watching the movie, there's a sign that says Tamalis, Yeah, hatamalis, and a lot of people try and point to that, saying that was representation. Other people are like, no, those are not Mexican at all, That's what I've heard. But they are, Oh they are, yes, hot tamalies. So there's a couple several theories on how they arrived to the area, but the most accepted one is that Mexican migrant laborers brought them to the field with them to eat for lunch, and you know, working alongside black people, they were introduced to the regular tamal which then they adapted. So what the hot tamala is. What they are is they're made the same with like you know, massa. They have meat inside, they're wrapped in corn shocks the same way, but they're simmered in a spicy brine. That's the biggest difference. That actually sounds bombed. I want to eat some hot tamales, doesn't it sound delicious? They're usually filled with ground beef or pork though Oh okay, I think I could do pork, but I cannot do I don't care much for ground beef. Yeah, I can't do ground beef. Yeah. And they're a lot smaller than the traditional really as well. And are they like all over the south or just like Mississippi Do you know the hot taman specifically Mississippi Delta It seems oh okay, I don't know if I'm ever going to be there. Same they're known as either the Mississippi Delta tamal or hot Tamal. Wow. So some people say they came from the indigenous people in the area, because again, a lot of indigenous cultures have very similar foods and

35:24 including tamalis, like they're everywhere in meso America. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean Mexican, A lot of Mexican, Like, I don't know, the border is made up, okay, So yeah, the quote Mexican indigenous groups used to migrate all up and down, Yeah, throughout you know between what's now Mexico and the United States. Right, So that's why a lot of the culture is similar, why the food is similar, and why even some tribes are they're split by the border, like several Abacha tribes have like their Mexican yeah counterparts. I don't know how you would call it, but you know what I mean. Yeah, especially yeah in the southwest, yeah area, California, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, all those places. Yeah. So some people say it was actually like a Choctaw food that was then you know, black people loved it, changed it a little bit.

36:27 So that's what some people say. Other people say that it was black soldiers during the Mexican American War who were introduced to Tamalis that way and then they brought back the reci being changed it a little bit. But the most accepted theory is Mexican migrants working alongside the fields with black sharecroppers and then just these coaches mixing, and that's how the Hattamal was born. That's the most accepted way, and that's what that sign was and so honestly, that was the representation and that's fine. Today though Latinos make up three point six percent of the population in Mississippi, so it's still not still a little bit. Yeah, yeah, and I didn't know this, but I just wanted to mention this. One of the largest single workplace raids in all of US history took place in central Mississippi in twenty nineteen. Really. Yeah, seven hundred employees were detained. Wow. Terrible, and it really pisses me off because it's like we mentioned in the histoos Piatas video that these companies have been known to do it on purpose during an off season.

37:38 They'll call ice to get their workers supported because they're no longer you know, beneficial to them. But they have no problem hiring undocumented workers. They have no problem breaking the law when it comes to that. Yeah, and that's the brief history of Mexicans in Mississippi. Wow, that was so interesting, And I'm glad you brought that up because I wasn't wondering really, but it's always interesting to know. Yeah. I don't know why I needed to say that. I really wasn't wondering about this. I really wasn't asking, but no, I mean it was super interesting. Nonetheless, I do wish I wasn't as fucking dead as I am today. So but yeah, I was, so it was interesting. But yeah, it's a little different than our normal episodes where it's not about a single person or an event. Yeah, but I just I really was like, I need to know, like, is it really Mexican repatriation? Is that why Mexicans aren't weren't in the area. I know it's not. It wasn't. Yeah, yeah, you know what I figured it wasn't and now I know, so interesting. Yeah, and yeah, I was supposed to have another topic. But again I was just like, I'm obsessed.

38:57 I wasn't even expecting this. I know, I know so, but yeah, I was. I need to mention one of my sources because it's a very fascinating. I read chapter two of the book. That's why my notes took longer because I read chapter two of this book. But you can find it on you know, the jsto R like catalog of like articles, like scholarly articles. Yeah, so it's there. All the chapters are there. You can read everything a one but the book is called grasson the Dixie. Oh then colon different from that which is intended for colored race. And then chapter two is Mexicans and Mexico in the Jim Crow Mississippi nineteen eighteen to nineteen there nine. Wow, that sounds so interesting. It was that chapter alone was so fascinating. That's why I'm like, I need to mention it.

39:44 All our sources are always in the show notes, but yeah, this one particularly was very interesting. I really want to read the other chapters because it's like other things in Mexican US history that I just didn't know that this book specifically talks about, because like we're very invested in like California, because that's where we're from. We talk a lot about California and Texas, like the west, the West coast. Yeah, not that Texas in the west coast. It's like Midwest, right, or half of Texas is in the West coast. I don't fucking know. It's considered the southwest, Southwest. I guess we talk about the Southwest a lot, we do. We do because that's what we're more familiar with. But yeah, what a fascinating book. I tried. I spent way too long yesterday because I wrote these notes in like a day, because again, I was obsessed. This is the power of ADHD, y'all.

40:33 This is the only way that it benefits me. So yeah, in all other ways. That's not a superpower. But I found the book through like on page five of Google when I looked up Mexicans and the Mississippi or some shit. You have to go deep, you do. It took me to the Oxford Academy and I could not access the book through my library through Kyle's university logon. It was like, you're not you don't have access to this. And then I tried to make an account and I was even going to buy it, and it's like you can't buy this, and I'm like, what the fuck? How do I find this? So I just looked up the title and it was all free public access on JSTO R oh, so good to know. Get up there, you know, if you're going to read it. It's like five chapters, all different eras in that area of the US so and it's all different eras and Mexicans in that area or okay, okay, gotcha, gotcha.

41:33 But yeah, that's I know. It's fun. Actually, it was kind of nice to not although obviously we talked about mass raids, immigration raids and abuse, uh, work abuse whatever, like it was a little bit lighter than other episodes. It was yeah, yeah, and yeah again like not a single person or event, but like, I don't know, I find it very interesting to learn about. Yeah, this kind of stuff. So hopefully no one else found it, Like why are you even doing an episode on this? No, it was super interesting. If anything, I appreciated it, but no. Yeah, this is a reason another reason why I love historical fiction, because I love to learn about like people in that era, in that time, and you can tell, like just like in centers, like you can tell how much research Ryan Kugler put into it. You can tell in historical fiction books. Yeah, how much research they they put into it. Yeah, all right.

42:38 Do you have anything else to add before we end the episode? No, other than I guess plugging our Patreon where we yap we have been yapping about the horrors of the world. What does that mean? It's say it says the horrors persist, but so do I. Yeah, that's the vibe of twenty twenty five. The whores persists, and we were here to yap about them on Patreon. Yeah, yes, if you're interested, check it out. Oh, I guess, and we said it. We mentioned it on the Patreon episode about doing our defectors Chat along Read Along, whatever, we were calling it discussion, discussion the normal word, yes, and we're looking at doing that. We decided on discord, right then book tells discord. Yeah, oh, I'll put the link in the show notes as well. There's everyoneo there that says has a known related stuff and then one that Saystonia has a known book club and we're looking at we said mid May or the end of May something like that. Yeah. So yeah, if anyone wants to join and talk about Defectors, that is free to anyone write the book club aspect of the Patreon. Yes, and that is correct. It's not really a book club. We just you know, we decided to read We happened to be reading Diffactors around the same time, and we're like, hey, does anyone want to talk about it? Because it's such an important book. It really really helps us understand to

44:11 like how we got here. M Yeah, and yeah. A couple of listeners were like, oh I was going to read that or oh I did read that, so that's how that happened. Yeah. Another thing though, if you join the Patreon, not only are you supporting us, you're helping us support other causes, Like we donated to a pro an organization called that helps migrants with lowyer fees as well as a water drop program where they go into the desert and leave things that will help migrants survive out there. So that's one organization we've already donated to, and we're always looking for different ones to you know, donate to, and not joining the Patreon helps us do that, So that's another thing that you would be helping us with.

44:54 So yeah, other than that, we hope that this was one list Estoria known for you. Bye Bye. Estoria's Unknown is produced by Carmen and Christina, researched by Carmen and Christina, edited by Christina. You can find sources for every episode atias unknown dot com and in our show notes. Creating the podcast has a lot of work, so if you want to help us out financially, you can do so by supporting us on Patreon at patreon dot com. Slash studio as an own podcast