Mexican Americans

Migration, Social History, and Key Events

The United States annexed much of the present-day southwest in 1848, following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which officially ended the Mexican-American War. These lands composed more than half of Mexico's territory, including the present-day states of New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah; parts of Wyoming and Colorado; and the Rio Grande boundary of Texas. Mexican nationals living in this region at the time of annexation thus became the first Mexican Americans.

Immigration from Mexico remained low over the next 50 years but began to increase sharply in the early decades of the 20th century as the result of a combination of factors, including the social and political upheaval stemming from the Mexican Revolution (1910–20); the construction of new rail lines connecting the two nations; the opportunity for Mexicans to earn higher wages north of the border; an ever-growing demand for migrant Mexican workers in the burgeoning southwest's mining, agricultural, and railroad industries; and an acute need for additional workers to alleviate labor shortages in the aftermath of the United States’ entry into World War I in 1917.

Immigration from Mexico remained virtually unrestricted until the early 1930s. Even the stringent Immigration Act of 1924, which severely limited the influx of immigrants from Asia and southern and eastern Europe by implementing national origins quotas on immigrant-sending societies, did not establish a quota for Mexican immigrants. Conditions changed dramatically during the Great Depression, however, when Mexican migrants and Mexican Americans alike found themselves as undesired competitors with whites/Anglos for scarce jobs and public relief programs. An estimated 300,000 to 500,000 [Page 1450]ethnic Mexicans (including undocumented aliens, legal immigrants, and U.S. citizens) were repatriated to Mexico during the 1930s.

However, the United States once again began actively recruiting migrant Mexican workers under the Bracero program, a guest worker program enacted in 1941 to meet wartime production demands in agriculture and manufacturing. Most braceros found employment in the southwestern border states. Historians note that the Bracero program ultimately gave rise to the high rate of illegal immigration from Mexico in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, as employers often found it more profitable to hire unauthorized migrants, for whom they did not feel compelled to pay minimum wages or ensure standard labor practices, than legal guest workers. By the official termination of the Bracero program in 1964, the social and economic dynamics of illegal immigration had been well established.

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