Immigration debates and discussions, as well as often painful dislocations happen almost every day on the U.S./Mexico border between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. The epicenter of harsh state government interventions, like concertina wire and floating buoys (see last week’s Border Stories regarding SB 4), is here in our own backyard.
It’s Women’s History Month, March 2024 - but let’s take a step back in time to El Paso/Juárez in the late 1800s to post 1917 Mexican Revolution era, where you will find another heated U.S./Mexico immigration debate and also a person who was ahead of her time in championing the rights of immigrants to live in the U.S.
Meet Herlinda Wong Chew. (far right in photo)
Born in 1894 in Guadalajara, Chew (nee Wong), was a Mexican immigrant of Chinese ancestry, a businesswoman and entrepreneur, and one of the first to advocate for Chinese and Mexican immigrants in El Paso. By 1914, she had married a Chinese immigrant to Mexico named Antonio Chew, who had together begun a grocery business in Juárez. The Mexican Revolution brought intense persecution against the Chinese in Mexico, including a brutal slaughter of Chinese in Torreón in 1911. Learning of threats of violence in Juárez, the Chews sought temporary asylum in El Paso. Remarkably, they then assisted about 200 Chinese families in this exodus.
Though they soon were returned to Juárez, Herlinda (with only a sixth-grade education) began studying U.S. immigration law. Despite restrictions imposed by the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), she found a little-known exception to the law, which allowed merchants who were Chinese the right to immigrate. That became the key to the Chews permanently living in El Paso and, by 1930, owning four grocery stores.
Chew used her knowledge of immigration law—and also they pain that denials can bring--to help others facing immigration crises. At one point, she helped Mexican women who had been deported from Mexico with their Chinese husbands to live in China, where their marriages were not recognized by the Chinese government. She made multiple trips to China to help women return to Mexico. She also helped Chinese people living in Mexico who wanted to return to China.
Chew became a well-known education advocate in El Paso. A lifetime (and mostly self-educated) learner, she spoke Spanish, English, French, and the Chinese dialects of Cantonese and Mandarin. One can only imagine the mountains of prejudice and racism that she overcame—not through anger—but through learning laws and using knowledge to wield power.
For that, she is a worthwhile person to study and to emulate, as immigration battles continue to this day. She can give all of us the courage to intelligently and furtively fight for immigrant rights in El Paso, Ciudad Juárez, and across the world.
Written by Lyn McKinley, Grants & Development, Abara
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