Mexican Migration

Pemex and US-Mexico Relations

  • Lazaro Cardenas unified oil fields into Pemex under Mexican control, creating tension with the US.
  • Pearl Harbor led the US to join WWII and recognize shared interests with Mexico in combating expansionism.
  • Mexico compensated foreign companies for nationalized oil assets, leading to the "golden era" in the 1950s-60s.

Post-Revolutionary Mexico

  • Increased foreign investment (mostly from the US) after the Great Depression.
  • Mexican experts with US MBAs established a Republican democracy.
  • The state maintained tight control over national companies, workers, and the military, fomenting unrest.
  • This unrest pushed people from rural areas to cities and from Mexico to the US.

Mexican Migrations

  • Mobilities encompass various movements of people, not just across nation-state boundaries; can be rural-to-urban as well.
  • The 19th-century context is essential for understanding the Chicanx movement in the 1960s-70s.
Preexisting conditions
  • Many Mexicans preexisted the arrival of the United States.
  • The Mexico-US War and the significance of 1848 are crucial for understanding the fight for civil rights in the 20th century.

Ebb and Flow of Migrations

  • Mexican migrations to the US are characterized by an ebb and flow.
  • Factors impacting this ebb and flow:
    • War
    • Revolution
    • Seasonal labor demands
    • Economic recessions, such as the Great Depression
    • Deportation programs (e.g., 1930s), which deported over 50% of US citizens with Mexican descent
    • Nationalism and efforts to preserve "America for Americans"
    • Early deportations complicit with the Mexican government, which wanted Mexican nationals back in Mexico

Employer Needs and Political Climate

  • Employers had significant power with the federal government and legislators.
  • Favorable legislation or a blind eye was often turned to meet industry labor needs.

Factors Organizing Migrations: The Bracero Program

  • The Bracero Program (1942-1964) was a contract labor program to address wartime labor shortages in agriculture.
  • It was built upon earlier iterations of contract labor programs.
  • Men were recruited to fight in World War II creating agricultural labor shortages.
  • The program aimed to bring workers into the US temporarily and send them back when not needed.
  • Many Mexicans came to the US through the Bracero Program but left their contracted jobs due to
    • Horrible conditions
    • Underpayment or non-payment
    • Bad bosses.
  • These workers voted on the program with their feet.
    This program was the origins for the parents and grandparents of the Chicanos fighting for civil rights in the 1960s

Post-Korean War Recession and Operation Wetback

  • 1954: End of the Korean War and a big economic recession in the US.
  • The push to deport Mexicanos increased.
  • Emergence of Operation Wetback (a derogatory term).

Post-World War II Context

United States:
  • Refocusing on labor issues.
  • Ensuring the interests of the US, like United Fruit.
  • Rising protectionism.
  • Insularity and border protection during the Cold War leading to events like McCarthy hearings.
  • Fear of immigrants.
Mexico:
  • More stable federal government.
  • Investment in infrastructure, including the Border Investment Program (BIP).
  • Development of Maquilas/Maquiladoras on both sides of the US-Mexico border.
Investments
  • Mexico aimed to provide jobs, secure the border, and increase economic strength.
  • This created infrastructure for moving people and products.
  • The largest investment in infrastructure since the Porfiriato.
  • Changing patterns of employment; migration north to the borderlands.
  • Growth of partnerships between the Mexican federal government and private corporations to develop infrastructure like highways and railroads.

US Investments

  • Mirrored in the US through investments in the interstate system to secure the nation-state.
  • Emergence of insularity and fears around immigrants, fueled by the Cold War.
    President Truman began to address these fears that were occurring in both the executive and legislative branches.

Commission on Migratory Labor

  • The commission used offensive language to describe potential threats of migrants.
  • Perceived threats led to the creation of Operation Wetback in 1954.

Operation Wetback

  • 1953: Initially a public campaign to remove "illegals" from the US.
  • Hired New York advertising agencies to build support.
  • The first phase in California and Arizona.
  • Supported by the Mexican government and labor groups to bring skilled laborers back to Mexico (They were viewed as assets).

Consequences of Operation Wetback

  • Cemented notions of illegality tied to crossing the border.
  • Concretized the US-Mexico border.
  • Cemented anti-Mexican sentiments.
  • Strengthened the idea of the border as a place of exclusion with increased fencing and wire.
  • The Border Patrol, founded in 1924, gained national awareness and was valorized as defenders of America.
  • Cemented the notion of La Migra and raids targeting undocumented people.

Success of the Operation

  • Debatable success in terms of actual numbers deported.
  • Success in creating the idea of making illegality part of the American conscious and that
    • Anti-Mexican sentiments were rational
    • Border was a place of exclusion
    • The US needed protection against migrants.
  • Short-term impact on undocumented crossing, but did not discourage employers from hiring undocumented workers.

Media's Role

  • The media played a significant role in pushing particular perspectives and equating "illegals" with Mexicans.

Key Takeaways

  • US expansionism, economic domination, and military interventions in Latin America are linked with mass migrations of peoples into the United States.