In this dissertation I argue anti-colonial thought in Michigan’s Chicano Movement was a response to a domestic/migrant colonial discourse that operated on a local and state-wide level. Between 1962 and 1967 Mexican-Americans and other Latinos lobbied Michigan’s elected officials to gain the rights of industrial workers for seasonal agricultural workers. Their efforts were stymied by growers and the Michigan Farm Bureau. The MFB and its allies reinforced their opposition with a domestic/migrant colonial binary that defined all Mexican-Americans as foreigners and justifiably colonized. By 1968 Chicano anti-colonialism emerged in Michigan to counter this colonial discourse through organizing, literature and art. I contend that the development of anti-colonial thought amongst Chicanos in Michigan demonstrates that Mexican-Americans experienced colonialism not only in the immediate aftermath of the Mexican-American War or in former Mexican territory. This dissertation demonstrates the viability of a different history wherein colonialism was not contained in the Southwest as a short-lived exception to American liberalism. By situating Michigan Chicano Movement anti-colonialism as a response to a locally based colonial discourse I emphasize the ways in which a critique of American imperialism was central to the Chicano Movement nationwide. Furthermore Michigan Chicanos and Chicanas experienced multiple forms of colonial domination. They were not only workers excluded from the public sphere of benefits and rights but also lived as families whose private sphere was compromised. In addition to racializing Chicanos as foreigners the domestic/migrant colonial binary gendered Chicano families as dependent, needy and ultimately female. Chicano anti-colonialism also presented a gendered narrative whose history has often been seen as synonymous with patriarchy. Instead I argue that Chicana and Chicano uses of anti-colonial ideals, especially la familia de la raza, included more liberatory possibilities.
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