Читать реферат по английскому: "Mexican Immigration Essay Research Paper Mexican Immigration" Страница 3

(Назад) (Cкачать работу)

Mexicans is “difficult to classify,” so that first- or second-generation Mexicans should be listed as “Mexican” if they were not “definitely white, Negro, Indian, Chinese, or Japanese.” The U.S. State Department in the 1920s also spoke against inclusion of the Western Hemisphere in the quota system, arguing that relations with Latin America were in a delicate state and would be damaged by inclusion in the quota scheme. The delicate state referred to, was largely the result of American armed interventions in Caribbean and Central American countries. The remedy for that scarcely lay along the border with Mexico, and presumably the connection asserted impressed few persons of intelligence. What did impress congressmen and others was the pressure by powerful economic groups to include the Western Hemisphere–meaning chiefly Mexico–in the quota system. Many jewels of reasoning have come down to the US on the indispensability of Mexican labor, especially in the Southwest, but none can have been more persuasive than the simple statement of the influential Congressman John Garner of Texas. In 1926 the conditions in that state did not permit profitable farming without Mexican laborers. The new legislation left the issue of Mexican movement across the border to U.S. consuls in Mexico, who could control the number of visas issued; to the thin ranks of U.S. immigration personnel at the border; and to whatever bilateral agreements the two countries might care to make. Either the first or the third devices could be frustrated if the border remained as porous as it always had been. Unexpectedly, that was declined in the 1930s but not because of restrictive legislation. The change came because the Great Depression dried up the need for labor, especially labor from Mexico. There were many Anglos out of work and willing to do anything because the economy was in agony, and men sold apples on street corners; and because drought and “dustbowls” in the Great Plains drove “Okies” from Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri to California. There were objections everywhere to giving jobs to aliens, even to Mexican-American citizens. In addition, public officials and taxpayers worried about the pressure of foreigners on public assistance agencies while the revenues of the latter were falling. Inevitably, such conditions stimulated the actions of natives and prejudice not only in the Southwest, but also in other parts of the United States. In the Southwest in the 1930s people of the Mexican community often were driven out of jobs. Visas were refused to new immigrants lest they become public charges. Then the movement went further, beginning in 1931, with deportation drives to locate and eject from the country “illegal” Mexicans. It became hysterical and vicious, making little effort at times to distinguish between illegals, on the one hand, and citizens and permanent resident aliens on the other. Trainloads of the repatriated carried some 13,000 from Los Angeles during the years 1931-1934. How many U.S. citizens were illegally deported or terrorized into leaving cannot be known, since the bureaucrats involved rarely bothered to count or classify the emigr s. Public officials boasted of the reduction of the Mexican population in the United States. Not surprisingly, few illegal migrants crossed the border in the 1930s and legal Mexican immigration fell to a mere 22,319 in the decade. It appeared that a combination of surveillance, abuse, deportation, and economic depression could sharply decrease the porousness of the long border. It was thought that under such conditions, the 1.5 million persons of Mexican ancestry in the United States at the end of the 1930s would possibly not be much augmented by new arrivals. The conditions, however, lasted only briefly. At the end of the 1930s the American economy revived as democratic governments abroad sent orders for arms and other wares, finally recognizing that militant fascism could not be appeased. Even Congress, early in 1938, agreed to more expenditure for defense. The beginning of World War II in 1939 raised demand of all sorts in the United States. It went higher in 1940 as the democracies battled to survive and the Roosevelt administration helped them. American rearmament continued, and Selective Service was adopted in September 1940. By the time of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, there was an economic boom in the United States, and many men and some women had left the labor force for the armed forces. Mexican immigrants became desirable again, so employers invited and welcomed them. They began pouring across the border, often illegally, and there was no machinery for stopping them, even if the will to do so had existed. Both governments, however, had some interest either in regulating the flow, or in showing their constituents that they wanted to do so. Mexico declined to agree to export of its citizens without guarantees that they could be protected from abuse. Increasing Mexican nationalism and past experience–deportations, prejudice, discrimination–made this a political issue in Mexico, which wanted, especially, to keep migrants out of Texas, where anti-Mexican views and acts had a virulent history. Although American employers welcomed illegal entrants, they wanted a more secure system, preferably unlimited Mexican immigration. In 1941 farmers contended that they needed legal regularized imports of Mexican workers for the next season or some crops would not be harvested. Railways and other employers also wanted Mexican workers. Since employers were unable to get unlimited immigration, a temporary system seemed better than nothing did. To get the agreement, Washington accepted the Mexican demand that the American federal government be the employer and handle all business and problems, including prevailing wages paid other workers and other protective measures. Mexico agreed to recruit workers and transport them to the border, where