Bryan Winston: Mapping Mexican Migration Patterns through Mexico and the Midwest

I am Bryan Winston, a Ph.D. candidate in the history department at Saint Louis University. This fall I am co-teaching an upper-level undergraduate course, History of the American West. My dissertation, “Mexican Corridors: Policy and Migration Flows in the Central United States, 1910-1950,” examines Mexican migration to and community formation in the states of Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska. I highlight many sites of ethnic Mexican regional community formation, like Mexican consulates and community organizations while emphasizing themes of mobility, the construction of race, and transnationalism.

For the Six Shooters, I will explain the digital potential of my dissertation’s source base and showcase some of the datasets I have created. My presentation details the mapping capability of Mexican consulate passport registrations and U.S. naturalization records, which I examined while researching in Mexico City and Kansas City. Passport registrations and petitions for naturalization recorded places of birth, ports of entry, family history, and other locations along a migrant’s path through Mexico and the United States. I have geocoded many of these locations and use Carto to create maps that reveal migration patterns. I will also discuss where I hope to go with this project, such as layering migration patterns with maps of consulate jurisdictions, places of employment, and community institutions.