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

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.