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Mexican labor in the United States
01 Jan 1970-
About: The article was published on 1970-01-01 and is currently open access. It has received 102 citations till now.
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13 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present new estimates of the outcomes of first-generation Mexicans and their descendants between 1880 and 1940, and find zero convergence of the economic gap between Mexicans and non-Mexican whites across three generations.
Abstract: We present new estimates of the outcomes of first-generation Mexicans and their descendants between 1880 and 1940. We find zero convergence of the economic gap between Mexicans and non-Mexican whites across three generations. The great-grandchildren of immigrants also had fewer years of education. Slow convergence is not simply due to an inheritance of poverty; rather, Mexican Americans had worse outcomes conditional on the father’s economic status. However, the gap between third-generation Mexican Americans and non-Mexican whites is about half the size today as it was in 1940, suggesting that barriers to Mexican American progress have significantly decreased over time.
13 citations
TL;DR: This paper provided an introduction to English-language materials on Chicanas and highlighted easily accessible Chicana/o sources with the hope that readers will pressure their libraries to increase their collections in this area.
Abstract: Rape and territorial conquest have often gone together in history. The Spanish men who took possession of what is now Mexico in the sixteenth century also freely took possession of native Indian women, and thus it is said that "La Raza,"[2] the mestizo race, was born of Spanish father and Indian mother. It is from Mexico's native peoples, their conquest and transformation by Spain and their reconquest in the Southwest by the United States in 1848, that Chicanas descend. America being their native land, it is not they but the descendants of European conquerors and immigrants who are the true "aliens" in the United States. Women historians have argued that knowledge of women's lives calls into question conventional views of history and of historical periods.[3] It seems clear to me that coming to grips with Chicana history would demand a fundamental altering of historical conceptions not yet even imagined by "herstory." It would require not just a feminist, but an anti-colonialist history of America. It is not only racism or ethnocentrism that prevents our constructing this new history; it is also that we hardly even know how to conceptualize a history of America that does not begin with Columbus.[4] This essay will unfortunately not be able to lead the way into such uncharted territory. Its aim is necessarily more modest: to provide an introduction to Englishlanguage materials on Chicanas. While I assume no prior familiarity with Chicana issues or literature, I do take for granted a certain acquaintance with the issues and literature of what is commonly referred to by Chicanas as Anglo feminism. A preliminary note is necessary on the problems the reader/researcher is likely to encounter in exploring literature on La Chicana. First of all, for those lacking Spanish, access to resources is significantly restricted. Secondly, locating existing English-language sources in our ethnocentric library collections and bookstores can present formidable obstacles, as I soon found out in the course of this project. These two barriers to the existing literature are extremely frustrating, but ultimately less disturbing than the general paucity of sources. Historical materials were suppressed or destroyed in the course of the Spanish and U.S. conquests.[5] Others lie buried in archives, invisible until the contours of Chicana history are better known. Studies by the Federal Government often deprive us of data on Chicanas by submerging it with data on Chicanos (the "minorities and women" approach), on Hispanics, or even whites. Finally, one finds Chicanas overlooked or tokenized in both the feminist and the Chicano literature of the last decade. I will emphasize easily accessible works wherever possible in this essay. However, failure to include the hard-to-locate Chicana/o sources would only contribute to their continued invisibility; I include many of these sources with the hope that readers will pressure their libraries to increase their collections in this area. Finally, I am emphasizing very recent works.
12 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: This article reviewed the circumstances behind the immigration of both populations to this Great Plains state and reviewed the extent of ethnic relations among and between "native** Mexican Americans and newcomer Latinos" and found that no such camaraderie exists in Garden City.
Abstract: The rise of ethnic awareness in the United States overturned the melting pot and altered beliefs in American assimilation. Garden City, Kansas is host to communities of resident Mexican Americans and newcomer Latinos. Both groups arrived during different historical periods in search of jobs under different economic and political conditions. Mexican Americans and Latinos are very different populations with diverse ethnic characteristics. This paper reviews the circumstances behind the immigration of both populations to this Great Plains state and reviews the extent of ethnic relations among and between "native** Mexican Americans and newcomer Latinos. What role has ethnicity played for each group, and what is their relation to the greater population of Garden City? The Mexican American community by nearly a century's residence has changed in the course of time and today faces internal conflict. The immigrant Latinos are a very mobile and young population who live on the periphery of community life. Changing market conditions and the high employment turnover rate keeps the immigrant Latinos highly mobile and powerless. Despite experiences elsewhere in the United States where different Hispanic populations formed a collective identity based on a common language, no such camaraderie exists in Garden City.
12 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the emergence of the trope of the "temporary Mexican," that is, the migrant farm laborer, to the 1920 congressional hearings on the "admission of illiterate Mexican laborers" is traced to the literature on the social construction of public policy.
Abstract: Drawing on the literature on the social construction of public policy, this arti- cle pinpoints the emergence of the trope of the "temporary Mexican," that is, the migrant farm laborer, to the 1920 congressional hearings on the "admission of illiterate Mexican laborers." I argue that this construction was the brainchild of southwestern agricul- ture and its congressional supporters who sought to conceive of the Mexican laborer in terms consistent with the eugenic, liberal, and socially conservative sensibilities of the time. What resulted from this strategic creative process was the temporary Mexican, a new breed of peon who had free will and was biologically destined to return to Mexico. This temporariness, which was what made this social construction most palatable in the 1920s, has stayed with Mexicans (and Latinos generally) to the modern day, turning them into an in-between group whose membership is always suspect.
12 citations