Mexico in the Midwest? Making the Borderlands Meaningful to Students

Borderlands: Regional Encounters and Forgotten Histories

Joint Conference of the Missouri and Oklahoma Council for History Education

24-25 September 2010, Springfield, Missouri

Overview Explore Mexican and Mexican-American

migration northward to the Midwest Explore tools to help students understand that

the Borderlands do impact them Classroom-ready handouts Online presentation slides

www.slideshare.net/kellyinkansas/

Migration Mexican migration

Major area of contention for US-bilateral relations since 1900s

Shared interests in promoting migratory flows Today, US immigration legislation has become

more restrictive Reflects concern for high level of Mexican immigration

Nevertheless, Mexico continues to be the leading country of origin for migrant workers Legal and Illegal

Migration (cont’d) Mexico cannot be ignored

Share the same 2,000 mile border Closer proximity=domestic events affect one

another NAFTA

Mexico is the second largest US trading partner

Migration – 19th century Hispanic Americans made up a significant

number of workers railroad mining industries

Especially in southwestern U.S. led to the growth of communities throughout region Added to existing Hispanic populations in SW

Migration – 19th century - Railroads Railroad industry

Employment needs brought more workers from remote parts of Mexico

New systems integrated the border regions of the United States and Mexico.

Migration – 20th century Railroad also led to the economic development

of SW US drawing Mexican immigrants in large numbers into

agriculture Early 20th century Established a pattern that continued thereafter

colonias Established by primarily male Mexican immigrants

Railroad employment took them further into the US early 20th century

Chicago Kansas City

Migration - Mexican Revolution 1910 - Mexican Revolution began

20th Century’s first modern social revolution, destined to change Mexico’s society and economy

flood of Mexican immigrants into the US Choices were simple for Mexicans who opposed the

fighting: hide away leave the country

Migration – Mexican Revolution (cont’d) Many of the Mexican citizens chose to head

north the turmoil of the war the danger the economic catastrophe social chaos surrounding the revolution

Migration – Mexican Revolution (cont’d) Some revolutionaries fled to the United States

to plot further incursions into Mexico Kansas City a prime example

Migration – Mexican Revolution (cont’d) Over 890,000 legal Mexican immigrants

(1910-1920) The Revolution had created a state of turmoil to

the south Mexicans sought the peace of the north

Railroads hired a bulk of the Mexicans construction Maintenance

1st mostly poor and sick came Then upper class

Migration – World War I Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigrants

also moved north in large numbers during WWI Denver San Francisco Bay area steel and auto industries

Others began migrating from South Texas to work in cotton fields elsewhere in Texas Oklahoma

Migration – Great Depression U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service

adopted a policy of repatriation deported more than 250,000 Mexicans

Texas used Rangers to forcibly evict Mexicans who refused to accept voluntary repatriation

Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan paid for special trains to take Mexicans to the border

Migration – World War II Bracero Program initiated in August 1942

allowed importation of temporary contract laborers from Mexico

Over the following two decades, more than 4 million Mexican farm-workers arrived in the U.S. under this guest worker program, most of them destined for the cotton-fields and

orchards of California and the Pacific Northwest and the ranches and sugar beet farms of the

Midwest.

Migration – World War II (cont’d) At its height, over 437,000 guest-workers

entered the U.S. annually discontinued in 1964

invention of a mechanical cotton harvester reduced labor needs

Scandals over “slave labor”

Migration – Post-World War II The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965

set strict quotas on the number of persons who could legally enter the U.S. from Latin American nations

most new Mexican migration to the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s was temporary and short-term.

Migration - 1970s - present Beginning in significant numbers in the 1970s,

Mexican immigrants have moved in large numbers to the Midwest U.S. attracted by jobs in the packinghouse industry

Migration – 1980s Since the 1980s, Mexican migration has

increased dramatically Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986

granted amnesty to illegal immigrants who had resided in the U.S. before 1982

while imposing penalties on employers who hired illegal immigrants.

Several factors led to an increase in Mexican immigration to the U.S. The Latin American Debt Crisis of the 1980s led to

high rates of unemployment in Mexico destroyed the savings of a large portion of the middle-

class

Migration – 1990s 1991 - Mexican president Salinas dismantled the

communally-owned ejidos one of the most important legacies of the Mexican

Revolution Distributed land ownership

1994 – NAFTA brought a flood of subsidized U.S. corn into the Mexican

market, drove down grain prices Forced hundreds of thousands of people from rural areas to

migrate in search of better economic opportunities.

Migration – 2000s The 2000 Census showed that the foreign-

born population of the U.S. increased by 11.3 million people in the 1990s and Mexican immigrants accounted for 43% of

that growth. The region which had the fastest-growing

immigrant population was the Southeast Construction, migrant agricultural laborers, textile

mills Chicken processing plants.

Latino populations of GA, NC, SC, and Arkansas increased between 300 and 400 per cent from 1990 to 2000.

Also impacted SW Missouri

Common Core State Standards Both Missouri and Oklahoma have adopted

(2010) Handout OK PASS Standards – audience query

Border – Mexico and the United States

Another View of the Border

US-Mexico Border 2012 (EPA)

Then and Now (1980 / 2010)

Census Quick Facts http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/index.html

Immigration Explorer (NYT) http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/1

0/us/20090310-immigration-explorer.html

Visualizations (Many Eyes) http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyey

es/visualizations/us-latino-hispanic-population

Students can create their own visualizations on this site Site data sets Upload data sets

Diversity in the Classroom http://projects.nytimes.com/immigration/enroll

ment

Remade in America (NYT) http://projects.nytimes.com/immigration/

Census Atlas: Race and Hispanic Origin http://www.census.gov/population/www/cen20

00/censusatlas/pdf/3_Race-and-Hispanic-Origin.pdf

Spanish’s Gifts to English http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommateria

ls/presentationsandactivities/presentations/immigration/mexican_voc.html

What Makes Us Americans: http://www.communityeducationcenter.org/pri

nt/education/what-makes-us-american-video-montage

Additional Information Kelly A. Woestman

Assistant Chair and Professor of History – Pittsburg (KS) State University

woestman@pittstate.edu http://www.slideshare.net/kellyinkansas

A copy of this presentation will be posted here