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A Demographic Profile of the Mexican Immigration to the United States, 1910-1950

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

José Hernández Álvarez
José Hernández Álvarez*
Affiliation:
International Population and Urban Research Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley
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Extract

During the first half of the present century, about one million Mexicans were involved in a singular instance of large scale entry into the United States. Arriving just before the influx of foreigners abated sharply, they provide an example of recent immigration. In contrast to the experience of other groups entering one or more generations before, Mexican settlement occurred during the drastic changes caused by rapid economic growth and depression, by two world wars and the nation's reorganization for modern living. Nor did the newcomers from the South follow the traditional pattern of residence and occupation. Instead of locating in the densely urban and industrial Northeast of the United States, they flowed into rural areas in the Southwest, working in agriculture, railroad construction and related activities. Except for Canadian immigrants, the Mexicans were the only major immigrant group having relatively easy access to the home country by an overland route. Lastly, their distinctively Latin American culture has added novelty to history of immigration to the United States.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , July 1966 , pp. 471 - 496
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1966

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References

1 The foregoing data were drawn from: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930. Reports on Population, II, Ch. 2, pp. 32–34, 41-45.Google Scholar According to the instructions given to census enumerators in 1930, “all persons born in Mexico, or having parents born in Mexico who are not definitely white, Negro, Indian, Chinese or Japanese, should be returned as “Mexican” (p. 27). In keeping with this definition, 94.6 per cent of the population of Mexican birth or descent were returned as “Mexican.” In the present essay only figures for the “Mexican” population were utilized, except where otherwise specified.

2 Fifteenth Census: 1930, V, Ch. 3, pp. 86-91.

3 McWilliams, Carey, North from Mexico. The Spanish-Speaking People of the United States (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1949), pp. 178–185, 215-217.Google Scholar Tuck, Ruth D., Not with the Fist. Mexican-Americans in a Southwest City (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1946), pp. 56–71.Google Scholar

4 Glick, Paul C., “The Life Cycle of the Family,” Marriage and Family Living, XVII, No. 1, (February 1955).Google Scholar Also Duvall, Evelyn M., Family Development (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 2nd Edition, 1962)Google Scholar, especially Chapter 1, and Reuben Hill, revision of Waller, Willard's The Family: A Dynamic Interpretation (New York: Dryden, 1951), Part Five.Google Scholar

5 Fifteenth Census: 1930, II, Ch. 3, pp. 25-27, 34.

6 Sources as indicated in Table III.

7 Fifteenth Census: 1930, II Ch. 9, pp. 498, 501-502.

8 Fifteenth Census: 1930, II, Ch. 10, p. 586. Sixteenth Census: 1940, Population Reports. Nativity and Parentage of the White Population, Country of Origin of the Foreign Stock, pp. 13-18. U.S. Census of Population: 1950, IV, Special Reports, Part 3, Ch. A, “Nativity and Parentage,” p. 89.

9 In 1930, persons with both parents foreign-born comprised 73.9 per cent of the native-born in urban places; the same measure in rural areas was 71.5. In 1940, those with both parents foreign-born were 65.4 per cent of the native-born in urban areas, 63.7 in rural places. Sixteenth Census: 1940, Country or Origin, pp. 13-18.

10 Source as indicated in footnote 9.

11 Sixteenth Census: 1940. Country of Origin, pp. 11; 53-70.

12 McWilliams, , North from Mexico, p. 221.Google Scholar

13 Fifteenth Census: 1930, II, Ch. 14, pp. 1353-1355; 1359-1372.

14 Source as indicated in footnote 13.

15 In his study, A Spanish-Mexican Peasant Community: Arandas in Jalisco, Mexico (Berkeley: University of California, 1933), Paul S. Taylor observes: “A conspicuous index of the lack of effective contact with American culture is the high proportion of returned migrants who could speak practically no English … instances of persons who had been to the United States from one to four times (without learning English) were common. Those laborers who spoke English best were almost invariably persons who had worked in the industries of the North and East, or in coal mines in Utah,” pp. 55-56.

16 Among persons classified as native-born of foreign or mixed foreign and native parentage, 7.0 per cent were reported as having been raised with English as a mother tongue. Among other nationality groups with at least 500,000 persons in the second generation substantially higher measures prevailed: 56.2 per cent (Swedish); 49.7 (German); 42.5 (Russian); 29.2 (Italian); 22.7 (Polish). Sixteenth Census: 1940. Population Reports, Nativity and Parentage of the White Population, Mother Tongue, pp. 51-58.

17 Sixteenth Census: 1940. Mother Tongue, pp. 1-51.

18 US. Census of Population: 1950, IV, Part 3, Ch. A, pp. 160-161; 227-254; 265-296.

19 McWilliams, , North from Mexico, p. 221.Google Scholar

20 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940. Housing, III, Characteristics by Monthly Rent or Value, Part 1: United States Summary, passim.

21 Source as indicated in Table VIII.