Mexican Immigration to the United States
This paper will discuss the immigration of Mexicans to the United States. The first part of the paper will describe the history of this immigration. This will cover the period from the Mexican-American War to the present. The second part of the paper will examine the problems the immigrants faced in assimilating into American culture. This will look at the problem of discrimination and the participation of Mexican-Americans in the political process.
There is little evidence of Mexican immigration to the United States on a massive scale prior to the Twentieth Century. On the contrary, Americans migrated to Mexican lands throughout the Nineteenth Century. The Spanish had created settlements throughout the Southwest during the Eighteenth Century and early part of the Nineteenth century. When Mexico attained its independent status in the 1820s, Mexicans had largely settled the territory of Texas and the southern part of California. These settlements were seized by Americans during the Texas revolt in the 1830s and the Mexican-American War in the 1840s. The conquest of the Southwest by the United States effectively made Mexicans foreigners in the land which they had occupied before the Americans arrived. (Billington & Ridge, 1982, pp. 426-50; Acu±a, 1978, pp. 302-27).
During the last half of the Nineteenth Century, the Mexican inhabitants of the Southwest continued to live and work in the region, much as their ancestors had. They worked alongside the new American settlers but did not enjoy the same economic benefits or political privileges. Few became official citizens of the United States and many traveled between their homes in the United States and the homes of their relatives in Mexico, without considering themselves migrants. They suffered discrimination at the hands of the American settlers, who enjoyed the protection of American law. (Acu±a, 1978, pp. 324-27).
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