CCS 320 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Mexican Repatriation, Oscar Handlin, Mexican Americans
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Becoming Mexican American
Reading Guide
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Chapter 1: Farewell Homeland
1. In the late 19th and early 20th century, what were the economic attractions of the U.S. for
Mexican immigrants?
● They were able to Leave their dictator Porfirio Diaz
● Mexicans were given a place to stay
● Stable paying job
2. What immigration laws passed in the late 19th and early 20th century contributed to a
demand for Mexican labor in the U.S.?
●The passage of the Immigration Act of 1917 or the Alien Contract Labor law of 1885
●Chinese exclusion act
●Japanese gentlemen’s agreement
3. What were the push factors that led Mexicans north?
● Porfirio Diaz-confiscated ejidos
● Mexican Civil War
● Poverty
4. How did railroads facilitate the migration of Mexicans?
● There was a huge demand for workers
5. Describe the development and effects of the railroads in Mexico.
● A hope to unify the nations and modernize its economy
6. Why has Mexico (under P. Diaz) been described as a “nation of villages”?
●Riot and rebellion amongst other villages in Porfirio Diaz
7. What were some of the social/cultural characteristics of Mexican villages?
● It was a communal village
8. How was village “culture” changing under P. Diaz?
● Hacendados (landowners) were losing their property, because the railroad drove up land
prices
Chapter 2: Across the Dividing Line
1. How did immigrants leave their hometowns and arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border?
(Describe the complex process, which includes internal migration).
● On a train
● Enganchadores (recruiters) would come and persuade Mexicans to come work for the
railroads and mines.
● Employees saw Mexicans as a desirable labor force
2. What were the effects of Mexican migration on border towns?
● Circular Migration was taking effect on border towns
● Instead of migrating and just staying there, families would cross the border to work and
then go back home
3. What were the three patterns of male migration?
● Young single men who hoped to relieve their family’s dire economic situation in Mexico
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● Married men formed a second group of migrants who desperately needed to help their
families by working in the U.S. and sending money home
● Some males arrived in family groups, as children/head of households who brought their
family with them
4. What is the difference between European chain migration and Mexican circular
migration?
● European chain migration: One comes to stay, then other people follow to stay
● Mexican circular migration: Came to the U.S. to work and went back home to Mexico
5. How did migrants pay for the costs of the trip?
●
6. Describe border crossings before and after 1917 (include head tax, literacy exam,
Border Patrol, and “arbitrariness.”)
Becoming Mexican American by George Sanchez
● What happens culturally to immigrants who form part of the Great Mexican migration to
the U.S. in the early 20th century?
● Theoretical lecture?
● Oscar Handlin, The Uprooted (1951). Writing about European immigrants in the 19th and
early 20th century, he argues that there is a painful process in which immigrants lose
their culture and become absorbed into the U.S. society
● Thesis extended: all immigrants lose their culture
● Culture is a “liability” (it’s a bad thing)
○ Liability: the state of being responsible for something, especially by law
Revisionist historians
● John Bodnar, The Transplanted (1985). Immigrants retain their cultural roots even when
transplanted in new ground
● Ethnicity/culture as asset rather than liability
● Early Chicano historians and retention of “culture”
○ Identity in opposition to dominant culture
○ “Cultural resistance”
“To acculturate is not merely to exercise a cultural preference but to go to the other side.”
JUan-Gomez Quinones
“Mexican” and “american” cultures “static” and impermeable.
Critique
● This classic concept of culture seeks out the ‘Mexican’ or Anglo American,’ grants little
space to the mundane disturbances that so often erupt during border crossings- Renalto
Rosaldo
Fluid identities?
● Can people have “multiple or fluid identities”/
○ Contemporary theorists say “Yes.”
○ Moreover cultural influences not just Anglo American and Mexican
● Why does Sanchez title his book Becoming Mexican American?
○ George Sanchez fits into what theoretical…
■ Challenging Uprooted
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○ Big/historical events that lead to Mex-Amer identity
■ Depression: caused repatriation
■ Demographic shift: Immigrants having children in U.S.
■ Mex-Amer civil rights organizations
■
LECTURE NOTES
Pull Factors in the U.S.
● Capitalist farming
-Requires irrigated land (year-round)
● Railroads, requires large number of workers
● Mines
● 10% of Mexico’s population came to
Great Depression
● General COntext
● 1930 6 million people unemployed; by 1932 11 million people unemployed
● A lot of White people out of work
● Started practicing scarcity
● Mexican families suffered too
● State, local, and federal laws restricting employment to citizens (Alien Labor Law)
● Survival gre harder
Expulsing Mexican
● Repatriation
-350,000-1 million
-Local, state govt plus priv. Businesses worked to do 3 things: 1. Get Mexicans to
“voluntarily” leave(create laws, Harassment, segregation, direct violence, vigilante violence)
2. Save Welfare $ 3. Create Jobs for “real” Americans: agriculture jobs
● “Tar and feather”: Would put hot tar and feathers on someone’s body
● “Caravans of Sorrow”
● Creating climate of fear through intimidation
○ INS: Public notices/door to door/raids
○ U.S. government subcommittee calls actions “tyrannical”
● Violence/threats of violence
Mexican Government Role During “Repatriation?”
● Trains for transportation
● Mexican Consulate $
● Agricultural colonies: Big bust
● Deportation
○ Entering country w/out legal documents
○ Committing crime
Repatriation and rural areas
● Initially growers not in agreement --lower wages (2 workers for every job)
● 1933: Massive strikes
○ Up until 1933, growers didn’t want Mexicans to leave