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February 28, 2020

The 1917 Bath Riots: An Untold Story Of The Border

Everyone has a hometown but not everyone can say they are proud of their hometown. Despite El Paso’s tumultuous history, the city is one community made of Mexicans, Americans, and Mexican-Americans that come together in times of need, because it is in adversity that the city that I am proud to call my home grows into a family.

103 years ago in El Paso, Texas, the border changed forever. Before 1917, people from El Paso and Juarez could cross the border freely without a passport. Mike Romo was a resident of El  Paso and in the book Ringside Seat To A Revolution, he recalls how easy it was to cross. “Coming from Juarez across the Stanton Bridge they never asked you for identification. They never asked you for anything.”1 Then everything changed.

The Immigration Law of 1917 required that immigrants at all points of entry had to have a passport, had to take a literacy test, and had to pay an $8 head tax. At the same time, the US public health services published a manual that outlined the “classes of aliens” that should be excluded from the US. The manual included a list of people that were to be excluded, including homosexual people, chronic alcoholics, polygamist, prostitutes, contract laborers, and most notably imbeciles, idiots, and feeble-minded persons.2 The border was never again the free gateway between two countries that was one community. During these times, delousing centers, built in 1916 on the border, were creating a humiliating process for many Mexicans simply trying to get to work. On January 28, 1917, a girl named Carmelita Torres started a riot that would cement her name in the history for years to come.

Due to deep rooted xenophobia after the Mexican Revolution and the anti-foreigner sentiment coming from the US entering into WWI, the Mexican people were treated horribly as they continued to live their lives crossing to work in the US. In 1916, the mayor of El Paso Tom Lea sent letters to Washington officials for months asking for the ability to quarantine all Mexicans at the border for 10 to 14 days, to make sure they were free of typhus before being allowed into the states. The mayor kept persisting even though he was told by Dr. B. J. Lloyd, the local public health official, that typhus was not a serious menace to the civilian population. Despite this, according to John Burnett, journalist for NPR, Dr. Lloyd echoed the mayor’s racist language and suggested the deployment of delousing centers, stating that he would “cheerfully bathe all the dirty lousy people coming from Mexico.”3 Thus in 1916, the delousing centers were born.3

Blueprints for the disinfection plant in 1916 | Courtesy of the USPHS National Archives

In these delousing centers, Mexicans were forced to go through a toxic and dehumanizing process. It began in a facility called “the gas room,” where they were forced to strip naked, and hand over their clothes, which were put in steam dryers that would melt their shoes. They had their clothes fumigated with Zyklon B gas, the same chemical used later in Germany to kill millions of people. According to Raquel Reichard, journalist for We are Mitu, the El Paso gas chambers were not just reminiscent of the gas chambers of WWII; they were the inspiration for them. In 1937, a German scientist pushed for Zyklon B to be used in the German gas chambers, citing El Paso’s use of the chemical with pictures as evidence.5

After this, they were inspected for lice even in their pubic hair. If any were found, they would be forced to bathe in a mixture of kerosene and vinegar. They would then be forced to shave their heads. For women such as Carmelita, American soldiers would take pictures of them naked and put them up in local bars in El Paso. After this process, they received a ticket that showed that they were “clean” for eight days; then they would be forced through the process all over again.6

A steam dryer used to sterilize Mexican workers clothes at the Santa Fe Bridge in 1917 | Courtesy of the USPHS National Archives

During these humiliating processes, there was also a looming fear of being killed. On March 5, 1916, prisoners in the El Paso City Jail were told to strip naked and douse their clothes in a mixture of gasoline, creosote, and formaldehyde. The prisoners themselves had to go inside a mixture of gasoline, coal oil, and vinegar. Around 3:30 pm, someone struck a match that set the entire jail ablaze. Fifty naked prisoners were caught in the fire, twenty-seven of whom died as a result. Nineteen of the twenty-seven were Mexican citizens, one was an African-American man, and the other seven were homeless Anglo people. This event became known as the Jail House Holocaust. The mayor of El Paso announced that the whole thing was an unavoidable accident, and after an investigation, no one was held liable for the death of twenty-seven people. The El Paso Herald put it nicely: “Apparently no one could be found to fix the blame on the city for the death of 19 Mexicans a few white transients and a negro.” After this incident, every Mexican that crossed the border now carried the fear of being burned to death.7

Finally, in January of 1917, Carmelita had had enough. On the morning of January 28, 1917, Carmelita crossed at the Santa Fe Bridge to El Paso just as she did everyday. The seventeen-year-old girl was a maid who cleaned houses for American families in El Paso. At 7:30 in the morning she was told to get off the trolley she was on to take a gasoline bath. She refused. Instead she got off the street car with thirty other women and protested the humiliating process. Within the hour, two-hundred women joined her and blocked the traffic in the street, and by noon, thousands of people were rioting in the streets. Many of them laid down in front of the tracks of the trolley cars. They yelled and threw rocks at the people who had been humiliating them and filling them with fear every eight days for over a year. Several people were killed. It took two days and many Mexican and American troops to quell the riot, and Carmelita was arrested.8

Mexican workers being fumigated with DDT | Courtesy of the National Museum of American History

Carmelita Torres was described by the El Paso Times as an “auburn haired Amazon” that started all this commotion just because a bunch of Mexicans didn’t want to take a bath.9 Other newspapers referred to her as the leader of an anti-American riot.10 Today she is seen as a Latina Rosa Parks. In reality, she was a young woman tired of the injustice she was treated with. Unfortunately, all trace of her was lost after the riot, and most likely she was killed with the others.

Despite her best efforts, the delousing process only got worse. In the next few years, agents added DDT to the fumigation process, spraying the now-banned chemical in the faces and genitals of many Mexicans.11 It wasn’t until the 1960s that the delousing process was recognized as dangerous by public health officials and the practice was ended.

Today there may not be a delousing center in my hometown anymore, but what has been put in its place is an area of separation, where families, migrant workers, and asylum seekers await to be inspected and declared suitable for entry. In a hearing before the subcommittee on border security, the honorable Kathleen M. Rice, a representative from New York, spoke about her trip to El Paso. In El Paso, she met with workers of ICE as well as representatives from The Annunciation House, which is a non profit that helps those seeking asylum. She talks about the hazardous treatment of thousands of asylum seekers in the El Paso Processing Center, which is remarkably similar to the delousing centers of the past.12 This makes me ask the question, are we as a nation simply finding new ways to deny passage to a country founded by immigrants, or are we one day finally going to understand each other and welcome each other as human beings?

  1. David Romo, Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juarez, 1893-1923 (Cinco Puntos Press, 2005), 228.
  2. David Romo, Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juarez, 1893-1923 (Cinco Puntos Press, 2005), 228-229.
  3. John Burnett, “1917 Paso-Juarez Bath Riots Recalled,” Weekend Edition Saturday (NPR), January 28, 2006.
  4. John Burnett, “1917 Paso-Juarez Bath Riots Recalled,” Weekend Edition Saturday (NPR), January 28, 2006.
  5. Raquel Reichard, “Remembering Carmelita Torres, The Teenage Mexicana Who Started a Riot at the Texas Border,” We are Mitu, August 7, 2019,  https://wearemitu.com/things-that-matter/remembering-carmelita-torres-the-teenage-mexicana-who-started-a-riot-at-the-texas-border/.
  6. Raquel Reichard, “Remembering Carmelita Torres, The Teenage Mexicana Who Started a Riot at the Texas Border,” We are Mitu, August 7, 2019,  https://wearemitu.com/things-that-matter/remembering-carmelita-torres-the-teenage-mexicana-who-started-a-riot-at-the-texas-border/.
  7. David Romo, Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juarez, 1893-1923 (Cinco Puntos Press, 2005), 226-227.
  8. David Romo, Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juarez, 1893-1923 (Cinco Puntos Press, 2005), 225.
  9. David Romo, Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juarez, 1893-1923 (Cinco Puntos Press, 2005), 225.
  10. Raquel Reichard, “Remembering Carmelita Torres, The Teenage Mexicana Who Started a Riot at the Texas Border,” We are Mitu, August 7, 2019,  https://wearemitu.com/things-that-matter/remembering-carmelita-torres-the-teenage-mexicana-who-started-a-riot-at-the-texas-border/.
  11. Raquel Reichard, “Remembering Carmelita Torres, The Teenage Mexicana Who Started a Riot at the Texas Border,” We are Mitu, August 7, 2019,  https://wearemitu.com/things-that-matter/remembering-carmelita-torres-the-teenage-mexicana-who-started-a-riot-at-the-texas-border/.
  12. The Impacts of Trump Policies on Border Communities : Hearing before the Subcommittee on Border Security, Facilitation, and Operations of the Committee on Homeland Security, House of Representatives, One Hundred Sixteenth Congress, First Session, April 30, 2019. 2019. U.S. Government Publishing Office.

Tags from the story

1917 Bath Riots

Carmelita Torres

El Paso

Recent Comments

Erin Vento

I can’t believe I have never heard of any of that. I really am speechless. Thank you for shedding light and providing information on such blatantly discriminatory and frankly dangerous actions. Sometimes it seems like there the border never existed without some sort of violence, but it is inspiring to see that Carmelita took a stand against these practices even if it wasn’t to much avail. I hope we can all do the same.

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30/08/2020

7:32 am

Manuel Rodriguez

I learned about the 1917 bath riots in my SMC: Civilizations course with Dr. Van Hoy, an amazing and passionate historian at StMU. It amazes me that I just began to learn about this topic and the injustices that occurred on the border way before the wall or immigration devoured the conversation. Especially considering that these horrific events took place in my hometown just over a century ago.

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30/08/2020

7:32 am

Genesis Vera

This article really took me by surprise. There is so much deep-rooted racism in Texas that many people nowadays do not notice or believe does not exist. I did not know about this at all and I’m glad I was able to learn about this. This article made me think about the racial division we have in San Antonio. We are so proud of our “Tex-Mex” culture yet fail to realize that there are still disparities between white people and minorities. The fact that low-income areas are mostly made up of minorities goes to show all the work that needs to be done.

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01/09/2020

7:32 am

Maria Obregon

I learned about this horrible part of history before, but I had not heard of Carmelita Torres until I read this article. She was such a brave young woman for refusing to do what they asked her to do, and for starting a protest! Another thing that I had not heard of until this article was that American soldiers would take naked photos of the women and put them up in local bars. Everything that was done was so cruel! This article was very informative and very well written. It shows exactly what people had to go through, and it is so disturbing.

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04/09/2020

7:32 am

Donte Joseph

I have never lived or even been to El Paso, but these incidents are not something that I had expected at all. It amazes me how people can be subjected to such poor treatment around the world because I believe people should treat others how they would like to be treated. I am glad that there are people like Carmelita who are willing to stand and fight for what they believe in because that is the first step to true change.

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05/09/2020

7:32 am

Angela Perez

Like some much of Mexican American history, this vital piece has been left out of history books for decades. The mistreatment of Mexicans and Mexican Americans was so obvious, yet no one knows about. The connections made between these gas centers in El Paso and the gas chambers used in Nazi Germany are alarming and eye opening. To think that about a hundred years ago the US was humiliating and placing so many people in mortal danger, yet they fought to end the oppression of a people across the ocean, speaks volumes over the true values of this country.

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06/09/2020

7:32 am

Aleea Costilla

I appreciate the awareness this story brings to the forefront for many Texan students and those who were born and raised in El Paso. I had heard of these events but never knew the specifics. The inspirational strength of Carmelita Torres was one I did not know and enjoyed the relation you made to her being the Latina Rosa Parks. We hardly hear about Latin American history and the heroes of our ethnic past. Lastly, I found it eye-opening to see the ways the events in El Paso inspired the German scientists of the Holocaust. Thank you for the attention you brought to this tragic event of our nation’s history.

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06/09/2020

7:32 am

Oscar Ortega

There’s a lot here, much of what’s written has a parallel that many of us can see today, from the dubious attitudes towards and practices surrounding immigration policy to the not-always pretty results and aftermaths of protestation and riots. Overall though this is an extremely informative piece about a period of Texas history it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say many Texans, myself included, had never even heard of, and that many more should be. As it’s put best in the conclusion, “are we simply finding another way to deny access to a nation founded by immigrants”? I’m sure many of us don’t know the answer, but hopefully the more that we learn about the past, such as from works like this, the clearer the proper path to the future will be.

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06/09/2020

7:32 am

Yamel Herrera

This article was very eye-opening. I find it quite disturbing that the delousing center’s gas rooms were the inspiration for the use of gas chambers by Germans. Coming from a border city myself, it’s upsetting because my hometown’s culture, as well as El Paso’s, is heavily rooted in the interconnectedness between both Mexican and American citizens. It’s unfortunate that much of Latin American history goes unlearned. I think the article can benefit from incorporating an anecdote of an American El Paso resident from the time in order to provide another take on the social norms from that time.

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10/09/2020

7:32 am

Victor Rodriguez

Wow! Being from El Paso, I did not know the story before immigration. I think it is horrifying to see what happened in my hometown. Looking at what El Paso is today, it would be nothing without those immigrants from Mexico. Both El Paso and Juarez depend on one another economically and socially. Therefore, it is so hard to believe this kind of torture, discrimination, and abuses were committed against so many people. I think it is an extremely sad period. This entire nation is founded by immigrants, yet we consistently reject them and discriminate against them time after time in history. We have learned nothing as a nation and we need to do a better job to welcome others instead of denying them entry and protection.

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14/09/2020

7:32 am

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