Part 1.
Personally, I don’t agree with my contemporaries when it comes to Mexican workers. This is supposed to be the land of promise. My Great Grandfather came here from Italy and was a called WOP, or Italian “with out papers”. Mexicans – wetbacks.
Right now I’m starting of this post just giving you a background on how so many of them came to not only call the U.S. a home, but a home away from home.
The flow of Mexicans to the United States is characteristically different than any other national wave of foreign immigration, if for no other reason than Mexicans are indigenous to North American. The signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 awarded the U.S. the territory that now makes up the states of California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona, as well as part of New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming.
The first great influx of migrant farm workers from Mexico began in 1917, when the United States plunged into World War I. At that time the U.S. government cleared the way for about 125,000 Mexican workers to enter the United States to replace farm workers lost to the war effort.
Not unlike what some people are saying now, during the Great Depression Mexicans were viewed upon as a drain to the economy. In response, the U.S. and Mexican governments co-sponsored a repatriation program that returned immigrants to Mexico. Approximately one-sixth of all people of Mexican descent living in the United States in 1930 were repatriated by 1939. So we summarily tossed their asses back across the Rio Grande like a worn-out pair of shoes.
The U.S. quickly changed its mind when it was plunged into World War II in 1942 following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. We soon found our labor force being siphoned from all sectors of U.S. industry. The U.S. signed the Bracero Treaty, allowing approximately 5 million Mexicans into the U.S. with temporary contracts to work for American growers and ranchers. Working conditions were unforgiving and contracts were often written in English and often not understood by the worker. Nonetheless, Mexican immigration to the U.S., both legal and illegal, climbed steeply during the 1950′s.
The Bracero program survived the war and continued on for more than 20 years afterward. By the time it finally petered out in 1967, it was responsible for importing 3.5 million farm workers into the United States. Whether you like it or not, we invited them into our country.
More than 300,000 Mexican Americans served in the U.S. armed forces, earning them military honors as well as new-found skills. They formed a number of social, political, and service organizations, including the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA) and the American G.I. Forum. Such organizations helped Mexican Americans fight poverty, lack of education, and discrimination. Gross humanitarian violations of Bracero employers, brought the program to an end in 1964.
That same year, the first maquiladoras were established under the Border Industrialization Program (the mass employment of cheap labor along the Mexican border by U.S. companies. The largest increase of maquiladoras occurred in 1982 after devaluation of the Mexican currency.) We want cheap labor to do the jobs none of us Gringos want to do just like the coal mine owners did in the 20′s.
From Emma Lazarus’ Famous Poem [..and her name Mother of Exiles [..Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Well, that is of course unless your Mexican.
Part II tomorrow..
In my second post, I’ll tell you how I really feel. Hang on to your pen Mike, you won’t like it.
Sources:
The American Immigration Law Foundation
The News-Register
The Library of Congress
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