Mexican American Culture

The United States was founded by immigrants; its whole culture consists of immigrant’s contribution to it along with their hard work and sacrifice. If it weren’t for Mexican immigrants the Mexican Americans, who were behind some of the major social movements of the 20th century, would not have been able to accomplish all that they did. Mexican American culture and politics was shaped by the three waves of migration after and during World War I, World War II, and the Cold War which created new identities, social movements, and migration laws.
The Mexican Revolution of 1910 forced many Mexican families and individuals to move north to the Unites States to escape the war and chaos. They looked at the United States as a new start and filled with

opportunities and the U.S. welcomed them with open arms due to their involvement in World War I. As shown, “Both American officials and entering aliens understood that it was the labor needs of the American Southwest that defined Mexican migration to the United States and not laws drawn up by Washington.” The U.S. welcomed the new, cheap, labor that was coming in from the south only because their men were being sent to war in Europe. It began first with single men, then married men who sent money to their families, and finally men with their families. The children of these first-generation Mexican Immigrants, were assimilate into the American culture by learning English and abandoning their ‘pantalones’ for blue jeans. Mexican mothers were targeted by different American organizations whose main purpose was to integrate American culture into Mexican household. Although, not all Mexican households welcomed Americanization, Mexican nationalism gained ground in families wanting their children to learn Spanish. Even though Mexican nationalist tore themselves from their Aztec ancestry and claimed to be direct descendants of the Spanish. The term Chicano was coined by Mexican Americans to differentiate themselves from Americans who wanted them to learn their ways and forget their ancestry. They became involved in civil rights movement organizations, the most prevalent being LULAC (the League of United Latin American Citizens). LULAC promoted the rights of Mexican Americans as American citizens. They deemed themselves as, “the best, purest, and more perfect type of true and loyal citizen of the United States of America.” They, in a way, were trying to prove themselves to the American society and government, that they were not like the illegal immigrants crossing the border, they were real Americans, who were born in U.S. soil. Due to the constant crossing of the boarder by Mexican immigrants, as temporary or seasonal workers, adjustments were made to the immigration policy in the enlargement of boarder control, literacy tests, and expensive visa fees. Making it more logical for immigrants to stay long term in the United States instead of crossing many times and paying a lot of money. The establishment of the Immigration act of 1924 led to the increase in illegal immigration due to the fees that had been implemented. Mexican American politics were led by the children of migrants and, at times, migrants themselves. They were “men and women who had invested in small homes and sought education for their children— they led the way in shaping a Mexican American activism within their neighborhoods and larger community.” Women were the most vigorous activist, which can best be shown by the Dressmaker’s Strike in 1933. It lasted a month and included 2,000 female workers from 80 factories, and ended with a 35-hour work week and improved wages. It demonstrated Chicana involvement in labor politics and it was the beginning to their steadfast involvement in the civil rights movement for Mexican Americans. Mexican American men and women also organized the very first national civil rights conference for Spanish-speaking peoples in 1939 which promoted the unification of racial minorities in the opposition of racial and class oppression, it called to educate non-Latinos on the contributions made by Latinos to the United States.
World war II caused the Unites States government to encourage Mexicans to migrate to the United States, to work as farmworkers while their ‘boys in blue’ fought the war.

The children of these immigrants, Mexican Americans, wanted to form their own unique sense of identity. They wanted to break away from the American social norms and the old traditional Mexican ways of their ancestors, thus the zoot suits were created. The zoot suiters were young working-class men who were Mexican or African American. They symbolized, “a refusal: a subcultural gesture that refused to concede to the manners of subservience.” These suits created tension with American’s who felt angry that these young Mexican Americans were wasting cloth that could be used for their soldiers overseas. As shown, “As a large group of Anglo American bystanders looked on in amusement, the sailors ripped off his clothes, kicked and beat him, and left him bleeding an unconscious”. These ‘Zoot Suit Riots’ of 1943 showed the unfair treatment of Mexican Americans who just wanted to express themselves. Whereas young Mexican American women created the Pachuca, the female version of a Zoot suiter, which became popularized with the story of Mrs. Venegas defending a Zoot suiter who was being attacked. The Pachuca was a rebel, she challenged social norms in both American and Mexican cultures, “The Pachuca became at once the symbol and the reality of Mexican women’s new assertiveness, her unwillingness to stay in her traditionally assigned place in Mexican and Anglo society.” Where once young Mexican American women were in inner turmoil to follow their family’s social roles or the social role set by the society surrounding them, they broke off from the chain of submissiveness and became their own person with their new self-identity. But tensions were brewing within the household, with Mexican parents not understanding their child’s new identity and feeling like they were removing themselves from the Mexican culture.

During president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s term, there was an increase in requests for naturalization papers, mainly from Mexicans who were brought by their parents when they were little. In the local level, increasing numbers of Mexican Americans got involved in local elections.
The start of the Cold War marked the beginning of the Bracero program, which aimed to send Mexican men to the United States to work on the fields and acquire skills and money to then go back to Mexico and put those newly acquired skills to use. These Braceros introduced American culture to their small ‘pueblos’ when they returned home from the harvesting season. For instance, “As men entered the United States in sandals and returned to Mexico with shoes and boots, they embodied modernization.” To them the boots represented the hard work they did and the opportunities the U.S. could offer. Yet, there was some paranoia from the U.S. government, due to the fast-increasing number of illegal immigrants entering, they speculated that communism might also come in. Therefore, congress, in 1952, passed the McCarran-Walter Act which made it easier to deport aliens and made it possible to denaturalize immigrants turned Americans. There was also strong opposition to the program from LULAC, the forum, the CSO (Civil Society Organization), and most Mexican American unionist, who argued that braceros were not paid fairly and they took jobs away from U.S. citizens. Even the farmworkers were angry at the unfair pay they were receiving and decided to unionize. The foundation of the National Farm Workers Association in 1962 was among the first Mexican farmworkers unions formed. In 1965 Cesar Chavez, the president of the NFWA, declared a boycott on California grapes in San Joaquin Valley. These workers considered themselves Americans, they contributed to the American economy, their hard work brought goods to supermarkets, and they had raised their children in the U.S. soil. And yet they were being paid little and sometimes their wages were withheld from them. The Chicano Movement also flourished in a more humanitarian way than it did in the beginning of its creation. They fought for the wants and needs of Chicanos, it “advocated the development of a new positive sense of ethnic and cultural identity.” The most momentous of their initiatives was their incentive to allow Mexican American students have access to higher education, this allowed Chicanos to reshape their history and the misconceptions made about them.
Time and time again the United States has gone from pro-migration when they needed labor to forcing migrants on to trains and buses back to Mexico. During the Great Depression, the United States government and the Mexican consulate collaborated to deport Mexican immigrants back to Mexico with false promises. They funded the train rides to Mexico since the welfare officials believed it was cheaper to buy a train ticket than to put them on welfare. The repartimiento/deportation programs were created in the 1930s with the goal to deport or ‘relocate’ people of Mexican ancestry, due to President Hoover and the government needing a scapegoat for the economic chaos. For instance, “in 1930 Hoover denounced Mexicans as one of the leading causes of the economic depression- ‘they took jobs away from American citizens’ - and he initiated plans to deport them.” Many of the families being sent back did not even remember their mother countries, since they left when they were young, and when they went back to the small towns it was a major culture shock. For example, “Older children also had difficulty adapting to their new surroundings, having grown up accustomed to amenities in the United States”. Some of the children who were going to Mexico were U.S. citizens who had never in their lives set foot in Mexico.
Furthermore, the Mexican Revolution, World War II, and the Cold War marked the major waves of migration from Mexico to the United States. In times of crisis the United States opened its arms to Mexican immigrants, but once they were no longer vital to their cause the were pushed out and discriminated against. The children of these immigrants established the Mexican American culture in creating the Chicano and Pachuca who reinvented the way American society and their parents thought about them. They broke social norms and created a new unique Mexican American culture. Immigrants fought against the injustices bestowed upon them and unionized against the California grape monopoly. Migrants were also the cause for many political reforms to regulate the growing incoming wave of illegal immigrants in the instalment of the Immigration Acts of 1917, 1921, and 1924. Along with the McCarran-Walter Act which tried to put American minds at ease with the threat of communism. The Mexican American movement sought to redefine how Latinos were though about in American history and society.