Marks Pictures On Meixican Americans

Marks Pictures On Meixican Americans

Marks Pictures On Meixican Americans

This is a picture of a Mexican migrant camp.

Marks Pictures On Meixican Americans

Marks Pictures On Meixican Americans

Marks Pictures On Meixican Americans

Mark's Quotes

"The authorities would only pay attention to [the farm owner]…. [T]hey told me that if I didn't pay they would take my wife and my children to work."
- Elias Garza, migrant farm worker

Mark's Quotes

"It was an injustice that shouldn't have happened," says Jose Lopez,

Mark's Quotes

"They came in with guns and told us to get out,"

Marks Reflective Essay

The Mexican Revolution and the series of Mexican civil wars that followed pushed many Mexicans to flee to the United States. Many U.S. farm owners recruited Mexicans and Mexican Americans because they believed that these desperate workers would tolerate living conditions that workers of other races would not. Mexican and Mexican Americans live in temporary seasonal work camps so they can move from farm to farm in search of work. Some camps had little tents and somewhere had shacks with the roofs and walls patched together with many different materials. Mexican American and Mexican farm workers lived in very poor conditions as they sought farm work in the United States earlier in the 1900’s. Mexican and Mexican American workers often earned more in the United States than they could in Mexico's civil war economy, although farmers paid Mexican and Mexican American workers significantly less than white American workers. By the 1920s, at least three quarters of California's 200,000 farm workers were Mexican or Mexican American.

As the rapid shift of Mexico’s working population started growing, the first labor agreement between Mexico and the United States formed that requires that all U.S. farm workers are being guaranteed the proper wages and work schedules. America in return asked that border of Mexico and the U.S. was enforced and that all immigrants had the proper work contracts.

Now in the one of the worst recessions in American history so far Mexican Americans are strong targets for discrimination and deportation. In California white government officials are claiming that Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans are the majority of their unemployment. White trade unions are also claiming that Mexican and Mexican Americans are taking jobs that belong to only white men. While this was going on wages were dropping due to the new white refugee labor, established Mexican and Mexican American farm workers had became a threat by banding together, often with other non-whites, and organizing strikes to protest lowered wages and worsening living conditions. Agriculture in the United States is being crippled due to the ongoing Dust Bowl. The farm owners have a chance to profit immensely from the supply of cheap labor, but not if these protests succeeded.

Local governments responded to white farm owner pressure and implemented "repatriation" plans to send Mexican immigrants back to Mexico in busloads. Many Mexican Americans were also sent out of the United States under these programs, there being no differentiation between Mexicans and Mexican American U.S. citizens. So far there has been an estimate of 500,000 legal Mexican’s that have been sent back into Mexico some just because they can not find they’re legal papers stating that they are U.S. citizens.

I think everything that is happening to these American citizens is an out rage. “Why are so many Mexican Americans being sent to Mexico?” This is a question that I feel the American government should ask them self’s but do they really even care?

Marks Field Notes

To keep their family together, Jose's mother took her six U.S.-born children to Mexico, where they often survived on one meal a day because they didn’t have much money to survive on since getting work was so hard.

Marks Field Notes

Mexican's and Mexican American's lived on very poor camps where they're work was most likely near by. They also slept in small tents that where located on the farm or some place near by so getting to work would be a faster process.

Marks Field Notes

Mexican immigration and Mexican American migration were actively encouraged not only by the railroads but by California agribusiness, which needed cheap labor to develop the Imperial and San Joaquin valleys and the citrus belt around Los Angeles. As a result, between 1920 and 1930, California's Mexican and Mexican American population tripled, making these people the state's largest minority group, a ranking they still maintain.

Marks Field Notes

Mexican American migrant farm workers were often prevented by white law enforcement from entering “white” businesses or even from entering “white towns”, sometimes actually forced to remain on a farm owner’s property until the harvest was complete.

Mark Field Notes

California state and local governments responded to white farm owner pressure and implemented plans to send Mexican immigrants back to Mexico. Many Mexican Americans were also sent out of the United States under these programs, there being no differentiation between Mexicans and Mexican American U.S. citizens.