Elite Consensus

Mexican and American civic leaders met regularly and exchanged views on matters involving their towns. Many, like A. L. Peck, George Marsh, Edward Titicomb, Anton Proto, Ignacio Bonillas, Manuel Mascareñas, and Prospero Sandoval, belonged to the same social clubs. The Nogales chapter of the Masons, Lodge 9 of the Free and Associated Masons, promoted the rapport between both towns. Arizona's "pioneer lodge," the Aztlán chapter, received its charter in 1886.^[40] Since no Masonic organization existed on the Sonoran side, the American group sought and obtained special permission to accept Mexicans as members of their lodge.^[41] Mexicans such as Manuel Mascareñas, Ignacio Bonilla, and others became officers, achieving the highest ranks of the organization.

The growing rapport between Ambos Nogales extended to the government of both cities. Town leaders sought to resolve local matters on a personal basis without involving officials from their respective governments. A letter from the leaders of the Masonic lodge of Nogales, Arizona, to Mascareñas, then president of the Nogales, Sonora, city council recognized "that petty international questions are almost unavoidably owing to our peculiar international situation. We believe that such questions, not affecting the dignity of either nation can best be settled among ourselves without involving our respective governments in vexatious international controversies."^[42] This collaboration included practical matters, such as commerce, defense, the law, and even personal favors among leading residents of both communities.

Mexicans and Americans developed separate social and political organizations yet openly cooperated with each other. Here again, the elites who led these organizations played an important role in assuring cooperation. In 1890 a group of leading Mexican citizens of Nogales, Sonora, founded the Sociedad de Artesanos de Hidalgo and the Club Filarmonico. Mascareñas served as the first president of the society.

On the Arizona side the men's athletic club, which was established in 1898, sponsored fencing exhibitions and weekend dances attended by Nogalenses from both sides. Affluent youth also formed the Nogales Yacht Club, and when the rain-swollen Santa Cruz River permitted, they tried to sail flat bottom boats to Tucson.^[43] The Nogales Arizona Women's Beneficence Club, and later the Woman's Auxiliary, brought together elite women from both sides of the border. Its leaders included Adelaida and María Camou, Luisa Mascareñas, and other prominent Mexican women.^[44] The Nogales Women's Club sponsored programs on the culture on both countries, including offerings on "Mexican music" and on "American Negro folk songs."^[45] Mexicans and Americans could be found at activities sponsored by any of the area's social clubs. When the women's club staged a fund-raising dance, the Estado de Sonora reported that the hall was filled with "bankers, merchants, government employees and the cream of the youth of ambos Nogales."^[46]

Over time, relations between Ambos Nogales extended beyond economic self-interest to include family and a lifestyle which drew strength from both sides of the border. Since the Mexican municipio lacked funds, many Sonoran children attended school on the American side. According to Ada Jones, an early school teacher, the first school in Nogales, Arizona, started by gathering all the Mexican children in the towns, whether they were citizens or not.^[47] Teachers in Nogales, Sonora, regularly crossed the border to work in private American schools that paid higher wages. The American consul at Nogales boasted that family relations straddled the border and most residents had relatives on both sides.^[48] Marriage among Mexicans and Americans also occurred frequently, especially among American and Mexican notables. By marrying the sister-in-law of Ramón Corral, Captain James L. Mix, a building contractor and mayor of Nogales, Arizona, acquired important political and economic connections.^[49]

As social interaction increased, American practices became familiar on the Mexican side, and Arizonans gradually adopted traditional Sonoran customs and diet. Americans regularly patronized public events held in Nogales, Sonora.^[50] During Christmas, Americans frequented dances and posadas held on the other side or "el otro lado."^[51] One Christmas, Nogalenses from Sonora actually raised funds to buy an American Christmas tree and had it shipped from Oregon. The fully decorated tree was displayed in the city's central plaza.^[52] Mexican festivities commemorating the Battle of Puebla and Mexican independence on September 16th usually drew large numbers of North Ameri

cans.^[53] Processions for the festivities invariably crossed the border as both towns joined in the celebration.^[54]

On occasion, the cities cooperated and staged joint events. Efforts to promote commerce and tourism fueled much of these early cultural exchanges. Beginning in 1895, Ambos Nogales sponsored a "Latin American" carnival. Promoters on the American side compared the border celebration to the New Orleans' Mardi Gras and launched a campaign to attract tourists from nearby states. Accordingly, they announced that "the fiesta will be remarkably successfully and will draw a large concourse of people from all parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Sonora."^[55] The sight of Americans and Mexicans dressed in costumes, riding on carros alegoricos and "throwing flour on each other" even attracted the attention of the New York Times, which described the event as "an international episode of the most commendable sort."^[56] The next year both towns once again sponsored the event, which this time culminated in a masquerade ball in Nogales, Arizona.^[57]

Festivities provided the opportunity for the beginning of a new political tradition, the meeting of American and Mexican presidents, as well as governors, on the border. The first such formal meeting between the governors of Sonora and Arizona occurred on the occasion of carnival in Nogales in February 1895. Sonora's governor, Rafael Izábal, accompanied by Ramón Corral and Arizona's governor, L. C. Hughes, and several military officers exchanged views on trade and commerce in Nogales. Hughes's final public comments summarized the character of the exchange between the governors: "I believe the time is coming . . . when this Western hemisphere will be a sisterhood of republics, will be bound together by international bands of steel reaching from Hudson Bay to the uttermost ends of Tierra de Fuego. Then will the destiny of the Western Hemisphere be fulfilled."^[58] One hundred years later, this view still dominates public discourse between border officials.