Essay Example on Migrant Stories: Hispanic Immigration to Texas 1900-1930

Introduction

Migration is one of the most potent forces in history. Whenever people travel in huge numbers, they reorganize not just their own lives but also the areas they depart and the areas they settle. American people have always moved, coming from other countries, going to new areas. Around 1900 to 1930, large numbers of people of Hispanic descent, most of whom were Mexican residents, began arriving in Texas. In proportion to the number of elderly Hispanic settlers in Texas, many of whom had been around since the Spanish colonial era. Many of these new immigrants were involved in cotton production by doing the physical labor of cannabis-cleaning cotton fields and collecting the matured harvest. Many Mexican-Americans are offspring of large numbers of immigrants who came to the U.S.A. after 1910. Many first began to arrive as farm workers in California's boundary states 'southern end lowlands, especially the Imperial Valley, New Mexico, Arizona, and Tecsons.

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Mexico's violent civil wars in 1911 led to close to one million people migrating across the largely stable border to the north. In 1915, a band of misfits in South Texas issued the Manifesto, calling on Hispanics to re-conquer the Southwest and destroy all Anglo citizens. A mass exodus from Mexico to the United States began in the 1920s. Mexico was removed from the points-based system established by the Immigration Act of 1924, with US legislators trying to deter the provisional government from nationalization the country's oil reserves declared in Mexico's 1917 constitutional reforms. In 1926, Plutarco Elias Calles 'anticlerical measures brought about a revolt in Jalisco and Michoacan by Catholic ranchers and peasants, known as the Cirster War. The uprising grew to thirteen countries throughout central Mexico, with more than 50000 people being given arms to protect the Catholic Church. In the end, this war took 80,000 lives, resulting in the internal movement of 200,000 people as well as more than 450,000 individuals emigrating from elsewhere between 1926 and 1930.

The Importance of the Great Migration to the History of Mexican Americans

The superb Mexican-American migration to the U.S. after 1910 led to the improvement of agricultural production in the southern sides of the California border farming valleys as most of them first came as agricultural workers. That helped turn California into the 20th century's leading farming state. A. Wide-ranging migration from Mexico to the U.S.A started in the 1920s when Mexicans encountered the growing demand for cheaper labor on the west coast after strict immigration policies on Asians were put in place throughout this time, Mexicans began traveling to places outside the Southwest; for the job they were produced into the Chicago steel mills during an attack in 1919, and again in 1923. Others will look for work at the manufacturing of car factories in Detroit and meat-processing plants in Chicago and Kansas City. While agriculture was a significant source of jobs for Mexican migrants, by the end of the 1930s, many of them had been developed in the American workplace, and their descendants were found in many other Southwestern industries, especially ranching and mining.

Causes of the Great Migration to the Mexican Americans

Large-scale new resettlement of Mexican Americans happened during the 1910s only as an elevated-casualty civil war broke Mexico down. Most of them stayed, until the 1960s, within a thousand kilometers of the border. Others, however, migrated from the Southwest to the Midwest along rail lines as they struggled for voting rights, resisted education, housing, racial discrimination, economic development. At the same time, many of them had been struggling to define and maintain their community identification. Mexican immigrants were particularly hard hit by the great depression of the 1930s, as well as employment turmoil and food shortages that affected all U.S. employees. Still, Mexican Americans were faced by deportation. As unemployment engulfed the U.S., aggression toward immigrant workers intensified, and a plan to repatriate immigrants to Mexico began by the Government. The remaining agricultural workers had to strive to work in uncertain conditions, forcing them to take on a migrant life and ride the highway in search of employment where most of them find temporary accommodation in the U.S. instituted migrant labor camps and administration of Farm Protection.

Effects of the Great Migration to the Mexican Americans

The massive influx of Mexican Americans into the U.S.A led to food shortages and employment insecurity, affecting both U.S. citizens and Mexican Americans who had an immediate deportation threat. As unemployment ravaged the U.S.A., animosity to migrant employees increased, and the Government started a program providing free train rides to repatriate immigrants to Mexico. The remaining laborers had to strive to work in unstable conditions, forcing them to take on a migratory life and ride the highways in quest of employment where most of them find temporary housing in the U.S. - established migrant labor camps th leadership of Farm Security (F.S.A.). The F.S.A. camps offered shelter, food, and medicine for migrant farm families and protection from criminal organizations that often exploited susceptible immigrants to take full advantage. The F.S.A. set up numerous camps, particularly for Mexican Americans, to establish safe zones from violent attacks. By bringing together many specific farm families, the fields also provided an unexpected benefit; relationships within the communal were increasing. Many people began coordinating their fellow workers around the permitted labor and paved the way for the ideologies of agricultural work that materialized later in the century.

Problems Faced By Immigrants on Their Journey

Mexican Americans suffered racial discrimination, impacting the entire population. The U.S. Congress passed legislation that sabotaged Mexican settlement attempts on American soil in the United States. Mexicans were prohibited from meeting their families, as they could not travel from one location to another. As workers, they were paid little, which could not support their lives while living in the Southern part of America. Most of them had no alternate ways to make a living; therefore, they were forced to undergo hardship to survive. The Mexicans were known as people with imaginative minds capable of changing the world. It could be useful if their efforts were recognized that sought to change the world. The U.S. Congress ruled it illegal to own any land in the American soil for the Mexican. These people were subjected to harsh living conditions, which affected these people's health and well-being. Such people's health was interfered with because the federal government of the United States was not taking care of their community where they lived. Like the Americans, the Mexican troops were subject to warring sides during World War II. Such setbacks made life miserable and cruel for this Mexican American.

The Comparison between Mexican Great Migration and the Migrations from Europe at the Time

There was concern that the U.S. public and legislators and the media, those "new" migrants from Eastern and Southern Europe, as well as Asia, were different from the past generation of Western European immigrants to the U.S. - and that their perceived inequalities posed a danger to U.S. culture. This theory was influenced by the so-called eugenics hypothesis - the idea that ethnic groups had innate characteristics (intellect, physical abilities, or a propensity to crime), and those other ethnicities had good qualities. Such sentences applied specifically to issues surrounding nationality and foreign reform.

Conclusion

Conclusively, Mexicans have specific positive features which have made immigrant workers "better" than other categories. They were considered docile, compliant, physically healthy and able to cope with dangerous, stressful circumstances of work. Perhaps more significantly, they were seen as transitional immigrants who are much more likely to come back to Mexico than to stay in the United States indefinitely.

References

Aguilar, S. (2019). Revolucion Sin Fronteras! Mexican Immigrants, Mexican-Americans, and Magonistas in Los Angeles, 1900-1930. The Toro Historical Review, 6(1).

Fouka, V., Mazumder, S., & Tabellini, M. (2020). From Immigrants to Americans: Race and Assimilation during the Great Migration.

Gonzales, M. G. (2019). Mexicanos: A history of Mexicans in the United States. Indiana University Press.

Mazumder, S. (2019). From Immigrants to Americans: Race and Assimilation during the Great Migration.