The dark history of "gasoline baths" at the border

Summary

The video script recounts the story of Carmelita Torres, a 17-year-old who led a revolt against dehumanizing disinfection practices at the US-Mexico border in 1917. It delves into the eugenics movement's influence on immigration policies, the tragic consequences of El Paso's obsession with cleanliness, and the broader implications of these actions, including their connection to Nazi Germany's use of Zyklon B. The narrative also touches on the Bracero program and the enduring legacy of fear, exclusion, and health concerns at the border.

Takeaways

• 📰 The story of Carmelita Torres is primarily known through 1917 newspaper accounts, which portrayed her as a young leader of anti-American riots at the US-Mexico border.
• 🌐 The US-Mexico border was once unrestricted, but after 1917, it became a site of tension and strict controls, influenced by World War I and the Mexican revolution.
• 🧬 The eugenics movement in the US led to discriminatory immigration policies, stereotyping Mexicans as inferior and unclean, which was reflected in border practices.
• 🛁 El Paso's Mayor Tom Lea's obsession with cleanliness extended to racial purity, leading to inhumane 'sanitary betterment work' in Mexican neighborhoods, including forced delousing and even deaths from a jail fire.
• 🚫 A disinfection plant was established at the border where immigrants were subjected to humiliating and degrading treatments, including toxic fumigations and IQ tests to prove their fitness for entry.
• 🔥 Carmelita Torres led a revolt against these practices, refusing to comply with the order to bathe and sparking a protest that shut down the border for three days.
• 🌪️ The Bath Riots, led by Torres, grew from 200 to 2,000 protesters, who used physical resistance and created blockades to express their outrage against the treatment at the border.
• 📉 Despite the riots, the US government continued its fumigation practices, and in 1917 alone, over 100,000 Mexicans were deloused, reflecting a lack of change in policy.
• 🔗 The US border practices, including the use of Zyklon B, influenced Nazi Germany's approach to disinfection, showing a dark historical connection between the two countries' treatment of certain groups.
• 🛂 Post-riots, the US implemented stricter immigration laws, including passport requirements and literacy tests, further tightening border controls.
• 🕊️ The script suggests a continuity of fear and exclusion politics at the border, with parallels drawn to modern concerns about health and immigration, despite the historical evidence of disease originating from within the US.

Q & A

Who was Carmelita Torres and what was her role in the 1917 events?

Carmelita Torres was a 17-year-old girl known as an 'auburn-haired Amazon' who led a protest against the humiliating disinfection practices at the US-Mexico border. She is compared to the Rosa Parks of the border for her defiance in refusing to submit to the degrading disinfection process and inspiring others to do the same.

What were the historical conditions that led to the changes at the US-Mexico border in 1917?

The ongoing Mexican revolution and the US entry into World War One created a climate of fear and paranoia. This, coupled with the eugenics movement and a desire for racial and physical purity, led to stricter immigration controls and the establishment of disinfection practices at the border.

What was the 'Bath Riots' and what triggered it?

The 'Bath Riots' was a protest led by Carmelita Torres and other women against the dehumanizing disinfection process at the border. It started as a spontaneous protest on January 28th, 1917, and grew to involve 2,000 people, effectively shutting down the border for three days.

What were the disinfection practices at the border and why were they implemented?

The disinfection practices included forcing immigrants to strip naked, fumigating their clothes with toxic pesticides, and making them bathe in kerosene and vinegar if lice were found. These practices were implemented under the guise of 'sanitary betterment work' to control the spread of diseases like typhus, but they were also a manifestation of the eugenics movement and racial discrimination.

How did El Paso's Mayor Tom Lea contribute to the situation at the border?

Mayor Tom Lea had an obsession with cleanliness, which extended to racial purity. He led campaigns to inspect houses in Mexican neighborhoods for lice, enforced the fumigation of clothes, and expanded these 'health measures' to include inmates in the El Paso jail, leading to a tragic fire where 27 prisoners died.

What was the outcome of the Bath Riots for Carmelita Torres and the protesters?

After the Bath Riots, the ringleaders, including Carmelita Torres, were arrested. While some men were publicly executed, Carmelita's ultimate fate remains unknown as she seemingly disappeared from historical records.

How did the US disinfection practices at the border influence Nazi Germany?

The US practices of disinfecting immigrants at the border, particularly the use of Zyklon B, were cited in a German pest science journal as an effective method for killing pests. This same scientist later advocated for the use of Zyklon B in Nazi disinfection chambers, which eventually led to its use in concentration camps.

What was the Bracero program and how did it continue the legacy of border disinfections?

The Bracero program was a labor agreement that brought Mexican men to work on US farms and railroads. During this program, border disinfections continued, with migrants being sprayed with insecticides like DDT, which was later banned for agricultural use due to its toxicity.

Why did the disinfection practices at the border finally end in the 1960s?

The disinfection practices ended in the 1960s when health authorities acknowledged the dangers of the chemicals used, such as DDT. The practices were discontinued as a result of this recognition.

What is the historical significance of the Spanish Flu epidemic mentioned in the script?

The Spanish Flu epidemic, which was the worst in the southern border region's history, is significant because it was likely brought to the border by American soldiers, not from Mexico as might have been suspected at the time. This challenges the narrative of disease spread and highlights the interconnectedness of health crises.

How does the script suggest that the legacy of the disinfection practices and border policies continues today?

The script suggests that the legacy continues through the language, strategy, and politics of fear and exclusion at the border. It draws parallels between past practices and current issues, such as the treatment of migrants in detention centers and the rhetoric around disease spread.

Outlines

00:00

🌎 The Turbulence of 1917 and the Birth of Border Paranoia

This paragraph delves into the historical context of 1917, highlighting the Mexican Revolution and the US entry into World War One. It introduces Carmelita Torres, a 17-year-old leader of anti-American riots, and the fear of German invasion that led to heightened tensions at the US-Mexico border. The paragraph also touches on the eugenics movement's influence on immigration policy, the racial and physical purity obsessions of El Paso's Mayor Tom Lea, and the extreme 'sanitary betterment work' that included forced delousing and tragic consequences such as the jail fire that killed 27 prisoners. The narrative sets the stage for a revolt against these dehumanizing practices.

05:00

🚫 The Revolt Against Dehumanizing Border Practices

This paragraph recounts the story of Carmelita Torres, who is likened to the Rosa Parks of the border for her role in leading a protest against the humiliating and degrading disinfection processes that immigrants were subjected to. The narrative describes the revolt that began with a trolley full of women refusing to comply with the delousing orders, leading to a spontaneous protest that grew to include 2,000 participants. It details the violent response from American officers and the subsequent Bath Riots that shut down the border for three days. The paragraph also reveals the tragic aftermath for the protesters, including public executions and the disappearance of Torres, and the continuation of the fumigations despite the riots.

10:09

🛂 The Lingering Effects of Border Policies and Practices

This final paragraph examines the long-term impact of the border policies and practices initiated in the early 20th century. It discusses the Bracero program, which continued the tradition of border disinfections with the use of DDT, a toxic pesticide. The narrative includes firsthand accounts from immigrants and employees, reflecting the lack of understanding and the humiliation experienced during these procedures. The paragraph also connects the US practices to the methods later adopted by Nazi Germany, including the use of Zyklon B, and highlights the persistence of fear and exclusion politics at the border. It concludes with a reflection on the current state of border issues, drawing parallels to past events and questioning the progress made in addressing these human rights concerns.

Keywords

💡Carmelita Torres

Carmelita Torres is a central figure in the video, described as a 17-year-old 'auburn-haired Amazon' who led a revolt against dehumanizing practices at the US-Mexico border in 1917. Her actions symbolize resistance against injustice and are likened to Rosa Parks' defiance, highlighting her significance in the theme of the video.

💡Anti-American Rioting

Anti-American Rioting refers to the protests and uprisings that Carmelita Torres led, which were a response to the oppressive and humiliating treatment of Mexicans at the US-Mexico border. This term is integral to the video's narrative, illustrating the tensions and conflicts stemming from the border's policies.

💡Eugenics Movement

The Eugenics Movement is depicted as a pseudoscientific ideology that influenced immigration policies, advocating for a 'genetically and morally superior population.' It is a key concept in the video, showing how discriminatory practices were rooted in harmful beliefs about racial and physical purity.

💡Sanitary Betterment Work

Sanitary Betterment Work is a term used in the video to describe the forced disinfection and dehumanizing health measures taken against Mexican immigrants under the guise of improving cleanliness. It reflects the video's theme of institutionalized racism and the misuse of public health as a pretext for discrimination.

💡Typhus

Typhus is a disease mentioned in the script as the supposed reason for the extreme disinfection measures. The fear of typhus was used to justify the invasive and humiliating treatments, such as forced baths in kerosene and vinegar, which are central to the video's exploration of the border's dark history.

💡Bath Riots

The Bath Riots were a series of protests against the forced disinfection practices at the border, which Carmelita Torres helped to incite. The term encapsulates the video's theme of resistance and the collective action taken by marginalized communities in the face of oppressive policies.

💡Zyklon B

Zyklon B is a poisonous gas used by the United States for disinfecting clothing at the border, which later became infamous for its use in Nazi Germany's concentration camps. The video uses this term to draw a chilling parallel between the US border practices and the atrocities committed during the Holocaust.

💡Bracero Program

The Bracero Program was a labor agreement that brought Mexican workers to the US for agricultural and railroad work. The video discusses how, under this program, border disinfections continued, including the use of the toxic pesticide DDT, illustrating the ongoing nature of dehumanizing practices.

💡DDT

DDT, or dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, is a toxic pesticide used in the Bracero Program to disinfect migrants, as mentioned in the video. The use of DDT exemplifies the video's theme of the enduring legacy of harmful and inhumane treatment of immigrants at the border.

💡Dehumanizing Politics

Dehumanizing Politics refers to the strategies and rhetoric used to devalue and marginalize certain groups, as seen in the video's discussion of border policies and practices. This term is crucial to understanding the video's overarching message about the historical and ongoing mistreatment of immigrants.

💡Concentration Camps

The term Concentration Camps is used in the video to describe the modern-day detention centers at the US-Mexico border, where migrants are held in overcrowded and inhumane conditions. It underscores the video's theme of the cyclical nature of oppressive policies and the need for societal awareness and change.

Highlights

Carmelita Torres, a 17-year-old, led anti-American riots at the US-Mexico border in 1917.

Torres and other women protested the humiliating delousing procedures at the border.

The border disinfections involved toxic pesticides and invasive inspections.

Mayor Tom Lea of El Paso spearheaded aggressive disinfection campaigns targeting Mexicans.

The disinfection process included vinegar and kerosene baths, head shaving, and burning of clothes.

A tragic fire in an El Paso jail, caused by disinfection procedures, killed 27 prisoners.

The US government funded a disinfection plant at the border in 1916.

Mexicans were required to undergo disinfection every eight days to re-enter the US.

The disinfection procedures at the border were linked to later Nazi practices.

Zyklon B, used at the US border, was later employed in Nazi concentration camps.

The Bracero program continued the use of toxic disinfections on Mexican laborers.

DDT, a harmful pesticide, was used on migrants in the Bracero program.

The disinfections and humiliations left a lasting impact on the Mexican community.

The Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918 was brought to the border by American soldiers, not Mexicans.

Modern parallels to historical border policies highlight ongoing issues of discrimination and dehumanization.

Transcripts

Everything we know about Carmelita Torres

is from a few newspaper accounts in 1917.

They called her an "an auburn haired Amazon."

Just 17 years old.

She led angry women in anti-American rioting and shut down the US-Mexico border.

But hidden within her story...is something much bigger than a single riot.

It’s a story about American paranoia at the border,

about a toxic campaign of disinfection and discrimination,

and a US practice, that would go on to inspire Nazi scientists.

At the border between El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, thousands of people cross

back and forth for work and school everyday.

They line up in Juarez and often wait for hours to get through the US checkpoint.

But the border, didn’t always look like this.

Crossing this border used to be free and unrestricted.

People would come and go without a passport.

But after 1917, Juarez and El Paso became two separate communities.”

It was a turbulent year at the border.

The Mexican revolution was ongoing. And the US was about to enter World War One.

All of a sudden you have the war hysteria created by World War I.

People here in El Paso that are deathly afraid that the Germans are going to attack from Ciudad Juarez.

The fear of invasion brought tensions to the border, while across the US, a different movement was gaining strength.

The eugenics movement, based on junk science, aimed to create a genetically and morally superior population.

That meant stricter controls on immigration… only allowing those deemed fit to enter.

On Ellis island, one of the busiest ports of entry at the time,

US health officials were tasked with weeding out immigrants they thought were unfit, or disease carriers.

And across the country, that process coincided with the stereotyping of Mexicans as inferior and unclean.

Dozens of film titles included the word “greaser,” a derogatory term used to describe Mexicans.

This racist sentiment was strong at the US-Mexico border.

El Paso’s Mayor Tom Lea had developed an obsession with cleanliness, and it defined his political platform.

This obsession with not only racial purity but physical purity.

He was going to literally clean up El Paso from all these ‘bad elements’

and by ‘bad elements’ he often meant racially bad elements.”

One of Mayor Lea's biggest fears was a disease called typhus, spread by lice.

So under the pretense of "sanitary betterment work"

he helped lead a campaign to inspect “every house” in a predominantly Mexican neighborhood.

If the inspectors found lice "occupants were forced to take vinegar and kerosene baths,

have their heads shaved and clothing burned."

Hundreds of homes were eventually destroyed.

Lea also expanded the supposed ‘health measures’ to include inmates in the El Paso jail.

They had to strip naked. Take a bath inside a tub full of kerosene.

And on one occasion, it seems somebody lit a match.

27 prisoners, majority Mexican or Mexican American, burned to death

in the fire that the newspapers called “the jail holocaust.”

But, despite the tragic fire, Mayor Lea pushed forward with even more aggressive plans.

He sends a telegram, a Western Union telegram, to Rupert Blue who is the surgeon general up in Washington D.C.

and basically — well let me just read it.

"Hundreds. Dirty. Lousey. Destitute. Mexicans arriving at El Paso daily.

Will undoubtedly bring and spread typhus unless a quarantine is placed at once."

The government didn’t agree to a full quarantine,

because evidence suggested that typhus wasn’t a major threat in the area.

But instead, they funded a new disinfection plant at the border in 1916.

In this facility — every immigrant considered a “second class citizen” had to strip naked.

Their clothes were sent to a large steam dryer,

and then fumigated with toxic pesticides inside “the gas room”.

An inspector would check each person’s body, including private parts, for lice.

If they found lice, immigrants would have to shave their head and body hair,

and bathe in a mix of kerosene and vinegar.

Some even had their eyelids checked for things like pink eye.

And many had to complete puzzles or simple IQ tests — to prove that they were fit for entry.

After this process, they’d receive a ticket, as proof that they were disinfected.

But they would need to go through this every eight days in order to re-enter the US.

So many people didn't speak about it.

They didn't talk about this humiliating process. They kind of internalized it.

It's that psychology of shame.

The toxic baths and dehumanizing inspections at the border set the stage for a revolt

led by the 17-year-old maid from Juarez who defied the order to bathe.

So Carmelita Torres was, I’ve compared to the Rosa Parks of the border.

In the morning of January 28th, 1917.

There's this electric trolley full of mostly women that are crossing every day.

She convinces the majority, if not all the women in that trolley, to just say no. And to refuse.

And they start a spontaneous protest.

There are accounts that in addition to the humiliating delousing procedures —

for women, there was also sexual humiliation.

There were rumors that you know when they entered the plant and then they were told to strip,

the officers were taking their photos and then posting them in bars.

So I can't even imagine the kind of feeling

like the feelings of violation and the feelings of, you know, outrage.

She was called an instigator, a ringleader.

But she was just a young woman that was just sick of the injustice, the humiliation that other women had gone through.

What started with just 200 protesters that morning, slowly grew to a crowd of 2,000.

Reporters said "the scene reminded one of bees swarming"…

"the hands of the feminine mob would claw at the tops of the passing cars."

When the American officers tried to disperse the crowd, they were met with bottles, rocks and insults.

Protesters even laid down on the tracks in front of the trolley cars to create a blockade.

They were joined by men — in what’s called the Bath Riots” —

and they shut down this border for three days.

And then all you hear is that,

the ringleaders are arrested and a few of the men are publicly executed.

As for Carmelita Torres —

It appears like she was thrown in prison.

And as historians we don't know what happened to her afterwards.

We've lost every trace.”

The fumigations didn’t stop after the riots.

In 1917 alone, over 100,000 Mexicans were deloused at the border.

That same year, an Immigration Law made border procedures even more rigid.

Immigrants at all points of entry needed to have a passport,

take a literacy test,

and many would pay an eight dollar head tax.

And later that year, the US Public Health Service laid down instructions

for border agents about who should be kept out of the country.

“‘Imbeciles, idiots, feeble minded persons, physical defectives,

persons afflicted with loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases.’"

The discriminatory policies at the border resembled horrific events elsewhere in the world.

In fact, while researching this — David stumbled upon a detail:

The fumigation of Mexican immigrants wasn’t just reminiscent of Nazi Germany — it was directly linked to it.

It's not so much that that The United States was copying Nazi Germany.

It's the opposite. Nazi Germany was copying the United States.

He found that in 1929, the US started using Zyklon B,

an extremely poisonous acid gas, to fumigate clothing at the border.

And In 1937, in a German pest science journal,

a scientist called for the use of Zyklon B in Nazi disinfection chambers.

He included two photos of El Paso’s delousing chambers,

as an example of how effective Zyklon B had been at the US border to kill unwanted pests.

The same scientist pushed to use it to disinfect concentration camps.

And eventually, it was used in concentrated doses to murder millions of people.

People, rightly so, say you can't compare what happened in Nazi Germany with other parts of the world.

And that's true. I mean and in terms of Zyklon B it was used on the border not to intentionally kill Mexican border crossings.

But the history of something like the Holocaust doesn't take place in a vacuum.

A few decades after the Bath Riots,

Mexico started sending men to work on US farms and railroads...

as part of a new labor agreement called the Bracero program.

And through the program, the border disinfections continued.

Here in this facility, some migrants were sprayed with insecticides.

This time, it was a substance called DDT.

A toxic pesticide, which, decades later,

would be banned for agricultural use by most developed countries.

Repeated contact must be avoided.

They were sprayed in the face. They were sprayed in their private parts.

And you know they were stripped naked and inspected

and sometimes they're inspected like you would inspect livestock.

Firsthand accounts from immigrants in the program reveal how little they knew about the fumigations.

So they talk about how humiliating it was.

About ‘why do they think we're so dirty.’

They all call it the “white powder." I don't know if they necessarily were told we’re

spraying you with DDT but they all call it "el polvo" the powder.

The miraculous white powder that is helping to win the war, against disease.

Many of the employees who worked in the facilities weren’t given many details either.

When I first started my role was a clerk, I got the job mainly because I spoke Spanish.

There was a hut in the area when they came in from the Mexican side that they would go in there.

And they had some sort of, it was for lice they said. To you know, disinfect for lice.

And we never gave it much thought but we did think, that’s sort of like

what the Nazi’s used to do, you know to the Jews.”

I had heard during lunch breaks that they would spray them.

And sometimes there were comments from the men themselves that they would

put a hose to them.

I don’t know if they knew what they were doing to them, I certainly didn’t know.

It was far-fetched from the world we lived in.

It wasn’t until the 1960s, when the Bracero program ended,

that health authorities acknowledged the chemicals were dangerous,

and the baths and fumigations were finally discontinued.

You want history to be about progress.

about, everybody realizes how horrible it is and then it stops.

Unfortunately you know that's how it works in movies.

But this was the border, right?

And in the border a lot of things never become resolved.

They just keep on repeating themselves.

Decades after the disinfection campaign ended,

the language, the strategy, and the dehumanizing politics of fear and exclusion still linger.

It’s a health issue too because we don’t know what people have coming in here.

They’re coming in with diseases such as smallpox, and leprosy and TB

that are going to infect our people in the United States.

It’s just a fact, you’re going to see disease outbreak.

Apprehensions in the El Paso area specifically have spiked more than 600 percent.

They are essentially being warehoused as many as 300 children in a cell.

Without adequate food, water and sanitation.

The United States is running concentration camps on our southern border.

I don’t like anything compared to the Holocaust.

Why can’t you compare it - his practices - to what led up to the Holocaust?

Do we have to wait for the actual Holocaust before we speak out?”

At the border between Juarez and El Paso,

the same space where the bath riots once happened,

hundreds of migrants have been huddled in makeshift, detention centers.

They’ve been waiting,

to find out if the US government,

deems them fit for entry.

As always, there’s so much information that we couldn't fit into this video.

But I wanted to leave you guys with one bit of information from David Romo’s book.

So in 1918, the southern border region was hit with its worst epidemic in history.

And it wasn't typhus, it was the Spanish Flu.

The best evidence we have suggests it was actually from Kansas, brought to the border by American soldiers.

Just wanted to leave you guys that tidbit.

Thanks for watching, and I can’t wait to share more episodes of Missing Chapter soon.