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 ... ... middle of paper ... ...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.
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.
The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers."The Great Depression." Teaching Eleanor Roosevelt, ed. by Allida Black, June Hopkins, et. al. (Hyde Park, New York: Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, 2003). 6 March 2010. .
Pindar, Ian. "The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes." The Guardian, August 9, 2009.
“Farm Labor in the 1930s – Rural Migration News | Migration Dialogue.” Farm Labor in the
Nelson, Sheila. Crisis at Home and Abroad: the Great Depression, World War II, and Beyond,
In 1942 Mexico signed a binational treaty the Bracero Program with the United States that allowed for large numbers of Mexican nationals to work in the United States on a temporary basis. The Bracero Program was considered a win-win proposition for both governments, as it fulfilled the labor needs of powerful agricultural growers in the United States and relieved the pressure of Mexico’s large wage-seeking population. As millions of Mexican workers became accustomed to employment practices, lifestyles, and consumption patterns in the United States, they established networks between jobs in the U.S. and friends and family members back home that allowed migratory flows to become self-sustaining in the decades to follow (Munoz, 2011). “Mexican workers have been invited in and forced out depending upon American economic desires and sociopolitical fears” (Salcido, 2004). “The Bracero Program, for example, reconfigured the Southwest borderlands when, in 1942, border controls were eased for Mexican men to offset wartime shortages” (Salcido, 2004). In 1954 the United States launched a high profile campaign, called “Operation Wetback,” that subjected ethnic Mexicans citizens and immigrants alike to heightened anti-Mexican sentiment and deportation. The U.S. government was condoning the use of Mexican labor “while simultaneously whipping up anti-immigration hysteria against wetbacks” (Munoz, 2011). Operation Wetback was one of the tactics used by the U.S. government to create pressure on the Mexican government to extend the Bracero Program while also giving appearance to the American public that the border was “under control” (Munoz, 2011).
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".
Although the 1930 census, which was carried out in Oklahoma, suggests that there was a decrease in population, there is no evidence of migration from the region. Some historians also suggest that the Dust Bowl crisis was not the only cause of migration into California; some people moved to the place to look for financial boost for their farms. Historians must always remain truthful to the historical records despite the difficulty in their reconstructions. Historians normally analyze the past in ways ...
Folsom, Burton. "Which Strategy Really Ended the Great Depression?" : The Freeman : Foundation for Economic Education. N.p., 24 Aug. 2011. Web. 12 May 2014.
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.
"Great Depression in the United States." Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2001. CD-ROM. 2001 ed. Microsoft Corporation. 2001
As gold discoveries slowed down and the Civil War gradually came to an end, the First Transcontinental Railroad was finally completed between Omaha and Sacramento. Over time, unemployment began rising across the country, especially in California, where a vast majority of Chinese immigrants resided in. The welcoming of Chinese immigrants slowly began to wear off as the white working class perceived a threat to their livelihood that these immigrants could potentially cause, leading to an increase in racial tensions. These growing tensions culminated in the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 and eventually closed U.S. borders to all Chinese laborers, with the exception of ethnic Chinese individuals. This paper highlights the significant impact of large-scale Chinese immigration to California during the Gold Rush, the lasting contributions made by the Chinese towards Western ...
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.
Christina D. Romer, “The Great Crash and the Onset of the Great Depression”, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Feb. 1999, 322