The Mexican Migrant Farm Workers’ community formed in Southern California in the 20th century because of two factors that came together: farming emphasized by migrations like the Okie farmers from the East and Mexicans “imported” to the U.S. because of the need for cheap labor as a replacement of Americans during World War II. The migrant labor group formed after an already similar group in the U.S had been established in California, the American farm workers from the East, known as the Okies. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s caused the movement of the Okies to the West and was followed by the transition from American dominant farm labor to Mexican migrant labor. The Okies reinforced farming in California through the skills they took with them, significant to the time period that Mexicans arrived to California in greater numbers. However, the community was heightened by World War II from 1939 to 1945, which brought in immigrants to replace Americans that left to fight in the battlefields. Robin A. Fanslow, archivist at the Library of Congress, argues that because of World War II, “those who were left behind took advantage of the job opportunities that had become available in [the] West Coast” (Fanslow). Although some Mexican migrants already lived in the U.S prior to this event, a vast majority arrived at the fields of California specifically to work as farmers through the Bracero Program, created because of the Second World War. Why the Second World War and not the First World War? WWII urgently demanded labor and Mexico was the United States’ closest resource. Although WWI also caused the U.S. to have a shortage of labor; at the time, other minorities dominated, like the Chinese and Japanese.
The Dust Bowl contributed to one of the ...
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...ult Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994.
Bladerrama, Francisco E, Raymond Rodriguez. Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s. Alburquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1995.
Galarza, Ernesto. Merchants of Labor: The Mexican Bracero Story. Charlotte and Santa Barbara: McNalley & Loftin, 1964.
Watkins, T.H.. The Great Depression: America in the 1930s. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1993.
National Advisory Committee on Farm Labor. Farm Labor Organizing, 1905-1967. New York : NACLD, 1967.
Edid, Maralyn . Farm Labor Organizing: Trends and Prospects. Ithaca, NY: Industrial & Labor Relations Press Cornell University, 1994.
Gregory, James N. American exodus: the Dust Bowl migration and Okie culture in California . New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Immigrants during this time period came to America seeking wealth for their family they had brought with them, or to send back to their families in their homeland. Whichever case it was immigrants spent the majority of their time working in the factories in hope for a better life than the one they gave up in coming to America. However, upon arriving immigrants soon realized that the home they left behind was not all that different than their new one. Immigrants came seeking the types of jobs that would give them Liberty and independence, leaving them only to find themselves just a working part in a large factory dependent on machines, rather than their own skills.
Through visiting La Plaza De Culturas Y Artes, I have learned a lot more interesting, yet, surprising new information about the Chicano history in California. For example, in the 1910’s and on the high immigration of Mexicans and other Chicanos, into coal mines and farms by major corporations, made California one of the richest states in the US. I also learned that most of California 's economy was heavily reliant on immigrants. Immigrants were the preferred worker for major corporations because they didn 't have American rights and were given the harder jobs for less pay.
In the late nineteenth century, many European immigrants traveled to the United States in search of a better life and good fortune. The unskilled industries of the Eastern United States eagerly employed these men who were willing to work long hours for low wages just to earn their food and board. Among the most heavily recruiting industries were the railroads and the steel mills of Western Pennsylvania. Particularly in the steel mills, the working conditions for these immigrants were very dangerous. Many men lost their lives to these giant steel-making machines. The immigrants suffered the most and also worked the most hours for the least amount of money. Living conditions were also poor, and often these immigrants would barely have enough money and time to do anything but work, eat, and sleep. There was also a continuous struggle between the workers and the owners of the mills, the capitalists. The capitalists were a very small, elite group of rich men who held most of the wealth in their industries. Strikes broke out often, some ending in violence and death. Many workers had no political freedom or even a voice in the company that employed them. However, through all of these hardships, the immigrants continued their struggle for a better life.
The focus of analysis will consist of Southern Chicago Mexicans and the way by which they established themselves as important features of US civilization. Within the late 1910s and early 1920s the first major waves of Mexican immigrants ventured into the Southside of Chicago. Members of the community overcame the discrimination against them while organizing themselves in way that introduced Mexican pride and community building across their
Weber, David J. Foreigners in Their Native Land: The Historical Roots of Mexican Americans. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973.
One of America’s most beloved books is John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. The book portrays a family, the Joads, who leave Oklahoma and move to California in search of a more prosperous life. Steinbeck’s book garnered acclaim both from critics and from the American public. The story struck a chord with the American people because Steinbeck truly captured the angst and heartbreak of those directly impacted by the Dust Bowl disaster. To truly comprehend the havoc the Dust Bowl wreaked, one must first understand how and why the Dust Bowl took place and who it affected the most. The Dust Bowl was the result of a conglomeration of weather, falling crop prices, and government policies.
The Great Depression America 1929-1941 by Robert S. McElvaine covers many topics of American history during the "Great Depression" through 1941. The topic that I have selected to compare to the text of American, Past and Present, written by Robert A. Divine, T.H. Breen, George M. Frederickson and R. Hal Williams, is Herbert Hoover, the thirty-first president of the United States and America's president during the horrible "Great Depression".
"Mexican Labor Dearth Feared,” Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles), May 6, 1931, http:www.proquest.com, (Accessed December 7, 2013).
Monroy, Douglas. Thrown Among Strangers: The Making of Mexican Culture in Frontier California . 1990.
During the 1930’s, 1.3 million Americans from the Midwest and Southwest migrated to California, which had a population of 5.7 million. In 1937, there were between 200,000 and 350,000 migrant workers traveling yearly throughout the United States. Many migrant workers worked in California where some were displaced by impending Dust Bowl migrants ("Farm Labor in the 1930s - Rural Migration News | Migration Dialogue."). During the 1930’s the migrant workers lost their homes because of the Dust Bowl so they had to move. They became homeless.
After the end of World War I in 1919, a group of thirty Japanese settled in San Joaquin Valley, California making their ethnic community in Cortez. Despite the Alien Land Law of 1913, which prevented Asians from purchasing land or leasing it for more than three years, most of the families were able to establish fruit orchards in large land areas. It is this community that the author of the book conducted her research.
War creates all kinds of hardships on everyone involved whether it is overseas on the front line or right in our own backyard. During World War II one hardship faced in the United States was the lack of laborers to work the land and other taxing jobs here in the United States. The solution, bring migrant workers from Mexico to complete the work; otherwise known as the Bracero Program. What is the American and Mexican history leading up to the Bracero program? Were these workers paid fair, were they treated fair, and did they benefit in the long term?
Mexican immigration in the early 1900's was a huge issue that impacted the United States. States in areas such as urban population, employment and many other areas. The mass number of Mexican immigrants that migrated to the United States from Mexico were at nearly half million. between the years of 1920 and 1929. Mexicans left their native land and moved to the United States not only to achieve financial prosperity, but to get out of the chaotic environment that Mexico was in at the time due to the Mexican revolution which began in 1910.
Many economically important field crops in the United States depend on the labor of migrant and seasonal farmworkers. Over the past years the United States has had the largest population of immigrants and sometime they shift back and forth . Of course, many of these immigrants are from different places in the world; but the largest population is from Latin America. Over half of the immigrant population is from Latin America and almost 40% entered the US in the past decade (Pransky, 2002). Recently many of these immigrants live and work on the metropolitan area. The ages range from 18 to 64. Considering the number of immigrants thriving the health status and needs of immigrants is important.
1. Considering my mother’s family was always residents of the state of California, my father’s side was the only part of my family to migrate to the state, although not from a different country. This began when my father Anthony Velasco traveled from Chicago, Illinois, with my grandparents and his siblings. My father came from a family of 8 children, so my grandparents lived a very frugal lifestyle. They had exactly what they needed to get by, but struggled at times to make ends meet. Living expenses were through the roof, and they were unable to experience the finer things in life. At the time, my grandfather’s job could not simply afford the expenses that came along with their large family, so my grandfather decided to search for a better employment opportunity. Fortunately, he landed a job in downtown Los Angeles, working for a newspaper company. My father’s experience of traveling to the state of California greatly correlates with the immigration wave we read about during our course for the reason that his father came seeking the “California Dream” of obtaining land and wealth.