Transnational Immigration Politics in Mexico, 1850-1920 (original) (raw)

This academic adventure began for me in 1996, and along this long journey I have received tremendous support from many people, who encouraged me to not give up on my goal of earning a doctorate degree in history; despite coming across faculty that tried to dissuade me from going to graduate school, remarking that it would be too expensive and not worth it. Nonetheless, putting that negativity aside, from the University of California, San Diego, I thank Eric Van Young for believing in me and encouraging me not to listen to people who doubted my potential. At San Diego State University, the many letters of recommendation given to me by Paula De Vos and Elizabeth Colwill allowed me to continue to pursue a Ph.D. At the University of Arizona, I have to begin by first thanking my doctoral committee, Kevin Gosner and Martha Few for not only having to read a 260 page first draft version of this dissertation, but my advisor William H. Beezley, for promptly giving me back valuable feedback and suggestions throughout the summer to make the manuscript even better. During my graduate school experience at Arizona, I learned to have a more open mind and to not hesitate to share my ideas. Prior to going to Tucson, I had read an article in U.S. News and World Report's annual report on the best graduate schools in America, and it cautioned incoming graduate students not to openly discuss their research ideas, as dissertation topics had been known to be "stolen." Thus, while in my first research seminar at the university, which happened to be with professor Gosner in the fall of 2006, I explained my research topic to my classmate, Stephen Neufeld, and as a result, only a couple of days later, he informed me that he had come across a U.S. Congressional hearing on a black colonization scheme in Mexico from 1895, saying