Bandits Everywhere

Abstract This chapter focuses on the issue of banditry in the Southwest and White Americans' exaggerated sense that Mexicans were bandits, especially in the early twentieth century. While social bandits have always existed in frontier societies, people in the Southwest seemed to see them everywhere and actively attempted to rid the region of these so-called bandits. This fear of bandits drove law enforcement and vigilante groups to attack Mexican-origin people accused of being bandits as well as those who simply seemed suspicious. Oddly enough, law enforcement tasked with apprehending outlaws often created the very bandits they feared. Many of the Southwest's most notorious desperados only became bandits after an unfortunate encounter with White law enforcement.