Caught in the Current : Mexico's Struggle to Regulate Emigration, 1940–1980

Migration between the United States and Mexico is often compared to the river that runs along the border: a "flow" of immigrants, a "flood" of documented and undocumented workers, a "dam" that has broken.Scholars, journalists, and novelists often tell this story from a south-to-north perspective, emphasizing Mexican migration to the United States, and the American response to the influx of people crossing its borders. In Caught in the Current, Irvin Ibargüen offers a Mexico-centered history of migration in the mid-twentieth century.Drawing on Mexican periodicals and archival sources, he explores how the Mexican state sought to manage US-bound migration.Ibargüen examines Mexico's efforts to blunt migration's impact on its economy, social order, and reputation, at times even aiming to restrict the flow of migrants.As a transnational history, the book highlights how Mexico's policies to moderate out-migration were contested by both the United States and migrants themselves, dooming them to fail.Ultimately, Caught in the Current reveals how both countries manipulated the border to impose control over a phenomenon that quickly escaped legal and political boundaries.