The migration of Mexicans to the United States did not occur until the beginning of the Twentieth Century. It was no accident that the beginning of the Mexican migration occurred at the same time that Europeans were migrating to the United States in enormous waves. The United States was undergoing a period of industrialization and jobs were being created by the millions. There were not enough American citizens to fill these jobs, so employers encouraged immigration from Europe. The Mexicans saw the same opportunities for a better life that the Europeans did. At the same time, lines of transportation were being developed between Mexico and the southwestern United States, enabling Mexicans to make the journey to the United States much more easily than before. (Taylor, 1933, p. 35).
Unlike most of the European immigrants, who found work in the factories of the eastern United States, the Mexican immigrants migrated to the Southwest to work on the expanding railroads. The wages offered by the railroads were many times that available in Mexico and Mexican men saw an opportunity to make better lives for themselves and their families. This immigration from Mexico was steady through the end of the First World War. Some of it can also be attributed to the unsettled conditions in Mexico, which underwent a revolution in the early years of the Twentieth Cen
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