Transcript History 2328: Mexican American History

Immigration, Labor,
and Generational Change, 18801920
Presentation By: Melissa Saraos
Immigration, Labor, and Generational Change,
1880-1920
OUTLINE
I. MAIN ARGUMENT OF THIS CHAPTER
II. OVERVIEW
a. Ideas Cross Borders
b. Justice Knows No Borders
c. Industrial Bonanzas
d. Workers Find Their Voice
e. The Nurturing of Ideas
f. “Mexicans Are Nor Fit to Raise White Babies”
g. Early Mexican American Struggles to Control the Work Place
h. Forging a Community
i. The Mexican Revolution
j. Bullets Across the Border
Immigration, Labor, and Generational Change,
1880-1920
OUTLINE (continued)
k. Hysteria Across the Border
l. In Defense of the Community
m. A Changing Society
n. Mexican Workers Under Siege
o. The “Amazons” Protest: Story of Carmelita Torres
p. The Hysteria: The Plan de San Diego
III. WORLD WAR I: THE SHIFT
a. Shifts in Political Consciousness
b. Mexican Responses to Industrial Transformation
c. The Failure of American Brotherhood
IV. THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT OF KING COTTON
V. CONCLUSION
Main Argument of This Chapter
This chapter will explain the migration and
hardships of Mexican workers at the turn of
the twentieth century. It covers from the
year the railroads were introduced into the
United States to the boom of cotton pickers
of the 1920s. This chapter is a timeline of
events that marked the history of
immigrant workers in the United States.
Ideas Cross Borders
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Mexican migrants creating newspapers
and involvement in civic and labor
organizing
1879, Carmen Huerta
Porfiriato
White U.S workers had better privileges
and wages
First miner strike in Pinos Alto, Chihuahua
Strikes in mines, railroads, and textile
industries
Justice Knows No Borders
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Teresa Urrea “La Santa de Cabora”
Ricardo Flores Magon, newspaper Regeneracion
Magonistas
Invasions of Mexican territory
Sentenced 20 years
Mexican women critizing
La Siempreviva
Las Hijas de Anahuac
1904 La Mujer Mexicana
Juana Gutierrez de Mendoza, 3 months in jail for anti
Diaz activities
“La Santa de Cabora”
Ricardo Flores Magon
Juana Gutierrez de
Mendoza
Industrial Bonanazas

Bonanzas and the Northward movement
 Jumped from Bonanza to Bonanza
 Copper and Arizona
 Clifton, Globe, Bisbee, and Jerome in
1870s-1880s
 Arizona global leader in copper
Workers Find Their Voice
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January 19th, 1903- Arizona law not permitting
miners to work 8+ hours per day
June 3, miners walked off the job
“Bloodiest battle in the history of mining in
Arizona”
1,200-1,500 miners, 80-90% Mexican
Demands:
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Free hospitalization
Paid life insurance
Locker rooms
Fair prices at company store
Hiring only men that were member of society
Protection from being fired without cause
Workers Find Their Voice (cont..)
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Mine owners sent Arturo Elias
Abraham Salcido’s speech before 2,000
people
Mexican president Porfirio Diaz a “traitor”,
“tyrant”, and “thief”
Mutualistas
1906, Mexican workers in Cananea,
Sonora demand treatment like white
miners
Mexican workers burned lumberyard
The Nurturing of Ideas

A little more about Teresa Urrea
 Still remembered by residents of Clifton
and Morenci
 Contributed to Mexican Revolution of
1910
 She fled to the United States with her
father and Journalist Lauro Aguirre
 No evidence of direct involvement with
revolutionary cells
Clifton
1912
1910
“Mexican’s Are Not Fit to Raise
White Babies”

40 Irish orphans from New York City
 Going to Arizona catholic homes
 White men to “rescue” babies
 Took 16 to local church
 Forced to give to white foster families
 Mexican women = prostitutes
 Actually married with good reputation
 Law found Mexicans unfit parents to
white children
The Mexican Diaspora
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Mexican laborers migrating because of the
bonanzas
Before 1908, 60,000 immigrants annually
By 1900, 103,000 immigrants have entered
1910, 500,000
Tax on imported sugar, 1897
Sugar-beet companies needed migrant
workers
Agribusiness increased Mexican workers in
Arizona and California
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Early Mexican American
Struggles to Control the Work
Place
Strikes demanding democracy in
workplace
Formation of the Sugar Beet and Farm
Laborers Union of Oxnard
Denied affiliation by the American
Federation of Labor
To not include Japanese or Chinese
workers
La Union Federal Mexicana, 900 members
Forging a Community
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San Angelo community, 200 Mexican
children
Segregates schools, bad white teachers
1910, new schools for white children,
passed down old ones to Mexican children
Parent boycott, rejected by other schools
Continued until 1915
The Mexican Revolution brought even
more Mexicans
The Mexican Revolution

Lasted from 1910-1920
 Many important icons such as the
famous Pancho Villa
 Euro-American’s began violent acts of
racism
 The cases of Antonio Rodriguez,
Antonio Gomez and Leon Cardenas
Martinez
Bullets Across the Border

Most fighting in Chihuahua and Sonora
 Sonora and its copper mining
 Porifriato pushed people north to
Chihuahua
 Chihuahua more industrialized
Hysteria Across the Border
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After 1913, Francisco “Panch0” Villa, most popular
leader
United States violated Mexican sovereignty twice
1914, bombardment of Vera Cruz
1917, more than 14,000 troops to chase Pancho
Villa
Soldiers and their families taught to hate Mexicans
Increasing industrialism in Southwest called for
unskilled labor
Los Angeles County requests federal action to deport
cholos
In Defense of the Community
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September 11, 1911 El Primer Congreso
Mexicanista
La Liga Femenil Mexicanista, educational
issues
La Agrupacion Protectora Mexicana in
1911, police brutality and lynchings
The Alianza Hispano Americana
La Liga Protectora Latina
Usually sparked by not being allowed into
unions
A Changing Society

1900, most Mexicans worked in
agriculture
 Second-generation Mexicans took
middle-level jobs
 Racism more severe in Texas
 Mexican’s in politics in South Texas
 “White Man’s Primary”
Mexican Workers Under Siege
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IWW, included people of color
Wheatland Riot of August 3, 1913
The Arizona Alien Labor Law, require 80%
Euro-American miners
1914, Euro-Americans chased Peter Smith
Whites entered Mexican homes, killed
many
The WFM reconsidering excluding
Mexicans
The “Amazons” Protest: Story of
Carmelita Torres

Ages 17, was a maid, refused gasoline
bath
 Convinced 30 others to refuse
 “The Amazons”
 Lasted a few days, were eventually
driven back
The Hysteria: The Plan of San
Diego
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1915, Called for uprising of Mexicans
and other minorities
 The Southwest to become a Chicano
nation
 Murder of all white males 16 years+
 Euro-Americans, angry, killed hundreds
of Mexicans
WOLD WAR 1: THE SHIFT
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Shortage of labor, fearing Mexicans will
leave country
Literacy Law of the Immigration Act of 1917
Military turned their heads as thousands of
Mexicans crossed border
Intensification of industrialization and
urbanization in California
Americans blamed Mexicans for lost
“American Values”
Shifts in Political Consciousness

Mexicans to start feeling like Americans
 Many Tejanos and Mexicans were
illiterate
 Mexicans and poor people drafted
 Many brave Mexican soldiers
 Marcelino Serna and the 24 Germans
 El Paso veterans received no disability
benefits
Mexican Responses to Industrial
Transformation
Farm strikes to raise worker’s wages in
California
 European immigration slowed, more
Mexican workers
 Sugar beet companies hungry for
Mexican laborers
 Women workers increase
 Mexican women go on strike
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The Failure of American
Brotherhood
Arizona mining strikes proved Mexican’s
unity
 Locals were free to discriminate
 First Pan-American Conference of 1918
 1920s, deportation of Mexicans was
very high
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The Westward Movement of
King Cotton
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Cotton in Arizona to employ thousands
of Mexicans
 Los Angeles Times, “Flood of Mexican
Aliens a Problem”
 Texas, employing many Mexicans in
agriculture
 Mexican workers replacing
European immigrants
Conclusion
Everything that Mexican’s did was product of
cause and effect. Mexican’s came to the
United States because of the opportunity to
land an unskilled job. The railroads, mining,
and farming were what attracted them across
the border. Because of their increasing
number, this cause a lot of anger in the EuroAmericans. This led to many discriminations
and fights in order to be treated equally. Even
to this day, we are still on an ongoing fight for
equal worker rights.
Resources

Acuña, Rodolfo. “Immigration, Labor,
and Generational Change." Occupied
America: A History of Chicanos. New
York: Harper & Row, 1988.