Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:42:23.529Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Mexican Immigration Debate

The View from History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Michael B. Katz ,
Mark J. Stern  and
Jamie J. Fader
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article uses census microdata to address key issues in the Mexican immigration debate. First, we find striking parallels in the experiences of older and newer immigrant groups with substantial progress among second- and subsequent-generation immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and Mexican Americans. Second, we contradict a view of immigrant history that contends that early–twentieth–century immigrants from southern and eastern Europe found well–paying jobs in manufacturing that facilitated their ascent into the middle class. Both first and second generations remained predominantly working class until after World War II. Third, the erosion of the institutions that advanced earlier immigrant generations is harming the prospects of Mexican Americans. Fourth, the mobility experience of earlier immigrants and of Mexicans and Mexican Americans differed by gender, with a gender gap opening among Mexican Americans as women pioneered the path to white–collar and professional work. Fifth, public–sector and publicly funded employment has proved crucial to upward mobility, especially among women. The reliance on public employment, as contrasted to entrepreneurship, has been one factor setting the Mexican and African American experience apart from the economic history of most southern and eastern European groups as well as from the experiences of some other immigrant groups today.

Type
Articles
Information
Social Science History , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , Summer 2007 , pp. 157 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2007 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alba, Richard, and Nee, Victor (2003) Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bean, Franklin D. (forthcoming) “Unauthorized migration,” inWaters, M. and Ueda, R. (eds.) The New Americans. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bean, Franklin D., and Stevens, Gillian (2003) America’s Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Bernhardt, Annette, Morris, Martina, Handcock, Mark S., and Scott, Marc. A. (2001) Divergent Paths: Economic Mobility in the New American Labor Market. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Borjas, George J. (1985) “Assimilation, changes in cohort quality, and the earnings of immigrants.” Journal of Labor Economics 3: 463–89.Google Scholar
Borjas, George J. (1999) Heaven's Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Brody, David (1993) Workers in Industrial America: Essays on the Twentieth Century Struggle. 2nd ed. New York:Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Citrin, Jack, Reingold, Beth, Walters, Evelyn, and Green, Donald P. (1990) “The ‘official English’ movement and the symbolic politics of language in the United States.” Western Political Quarterly 43: 535–59.Google Scholar
Cohen, Lizabeth (1990) Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Miriam (1992) Workshop to Office: Two Generations of Italian Women in New York City, 1900-1950. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Cornelius, Wayne A. (1998) “The structural embeddedness of demand for Mexican immigrant labor: New evidence from California,” in Suarez-Orozco, M. (ed.) Crossings: Mexican Immigration in Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press: 113–56.Google Scholar
Donato, Katherine M. (1994) “U.S. policy and Mexican migration to the United States, 1942-1992.” Social Science Quarterly 75: 705–29.Google Scholar
Donato, Katherine M., Durand, Jorge, and Massey, Douglas S. (1992) “Stemming the tide? Assessing the deterrent effects of the Immigration Reform and Control Act.” Demography 29: 139–57.Google Scholar
Durand, Jorge, Massey, Douglas S., and Capoferro, Chiara (2005) “The new geography of Mexican immigration,” in Zúñiga, Victor and Hernández-León, Rubén (eds.) New Destinations: Mexican Immigration in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation: 1–20.Google Scholar
Espenshade, Thomas, and Huber, Gregory A. (1999) “Fiscal impacts of immigrants and the shrinking welfare state,” in Hirschman, C., Kasinitz, P., and DeWind, J. (eds.) The Handbook of International Migration: The American Experience. New York: Russell Sage Foundation: 360–70.Google Scholar
Farley, Reynolds, and Alba, Richard D. (2002) “The new second generation in the United States.” International Migration Review 36: 669–701.Google Scholar
Golab, Caroline (1977) Immigrant Destinations. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Gonzales Baker, Susan, Baker, Frank, Latapi, Augustin Escobar, and Weinbraub, Sidney (1998) “U.S. immigration policies and trends: The growing importance of migration from Mexico,” in Suarez-Orozco, M. (ed.) Crossings: Mexican Immigration in Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press: 82–105.Google Scholar
Gouveia, Lourdes, Carranza, Miguel A., and Cogua, Jasney (2005) “The Great Plains migration: Mexicanos and Latinos in Nebraska,” in Zúñiga, Victor and Hernández-León, Rubén (eds.) New Destinations: Mexican Immigration in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation: 23–49.Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel (2004) Who Are We? Challenges to America’s National Identity. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Hutchinson, Edward Prince (1956) Immigrants and Their Children, 1850-1950. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Jencks, Christopher (2001a) “Who should get in?” New York Review of Books, November 29.Google Scholar
Jencks, Christopher (2001b) “Who should get in? Part II.” New York Review of Books, December 20.Google Scholar
Katz, Michael B., and Stern, Mark J. (2006) One Nation Divisible: What America Was and What It Is Becoming. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Katz, Michael B., Stern, Mark J., and Fader, Jamie L. (2005a) “The new African American inequality.” Journal of American History 92: 75–108.Google Scholar
Katz, Michael B., Stern, Mark J., and Fader, Jamie L. (2005b) “Women and the paradox of inequality in twentieth-century America.” Journal of Social History 39: 65–88.Google Scholar
Katznelson, Ira (2005) When Affirmative Action Was White. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
King, Miriam, Ruggles, Steven, and Sobek, Matthew (2003) Integrated Public Use Micro-data Series, Current Population Survey: Preliminary Version 0.1 [machine-readable dataset]. Minneapolis: Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota.Google Scholar
Lewis, H. G. (1963) Unionism and Relative Wages in the United States: An Empirical Inquiry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lim, Nelson (2001) “On the back of blacks? Immigrants and the fortunes of African Americans,” in Waldinger, Roger (ed.) Strangers at the Gates: New Immigrants in Urban America. Berkeley: University of California Press: 186–227.Google Scholar
Lopez, David E., and Stanton-Salazar, Ricardo D. (2001) “Mexican Americans: A second generation at risk,” in Rumbaut, Ruben G. and Portes, Alejandro (eds.) Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America. Berkeley: University of California Press; New York: Russell Sage Foundation: 57–90.Google Scholar
Lowell, Lindsay B., and Suro, Robert (2002) “How many undocumented? The numbers behind the U.S.–Mexican immigration talks.” Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center, www.pewhispanic.org/files/reports/6.pdf.Google Scholar
Lozano-Ascencio, Fernando, Roberts, Bryan R., and Bean, Frank D. (1999) “Interconnections of internal and international migration: The case of the United States and Mexico,” in Preis, L. (ed.) Migration and Transnational Social Spaces. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate: 163–78.Google Scholar
Marcelli, Enrico, and Cornelius, Wayne (2001) “The changing profile of Mexican migrants to the United States: New evidence from California and Mexico.” Latin American Research Review 36: 105–31.Google Scholar
Massey, Douglas S., Durand, Jorge, and Malone, Nolan J. (2002) Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Morawska, Ewa (2001) “Immigrants, transnationalism, and ethnicization: A comparison of this great wave and the last,” in Gerstle, G. and Mollenkpopf, J. (eds.) E Pluribus Unum? Contemporary and Historical Perspectives on Immigrants’ Political Incorporation. New York: Russell Sage Foundation: 175–211.Google Scholar
Myers, Dowell (1998) “Dimensions of economic adaptation by Mexican-origin men,” in Suarez-Orozco, M. (ed.) Crossings: Mexican Immigration in Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press: 157–200.Google Scholar
Myers, Dowell, and Cranford, Cynthia (1998) “Temporal differences in the occupational mobility of immigrant and native-born Latina workers.” American Sociological Review 63: 68–93.Google Scholar
Myers, Dowell, and Lee, Seong Woo (1998) “Immigrant trajectories into homeownership: A temporal analysis of residential assimilation.” International Migration Review 32: 593–625.Google Scholar
Passel, Jeffrey S. (2005) “Estimates of the size and characteristics of the undocumented population.” Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center, www.pewhispanic.org/files/reports/44.pdf.Google Scholar
Perlmann, Joel (2005) Italians Then, Mexicans Now: Immigrant Origins and Second-Generation Progress, 1890-2000. New York and Annandale-on-Hudson, NY: Russell Sage Foundation/Levy Economics Institute of Bard College.Google Scholar
Perlmann, Joel, and Waldinger, Roger (1999) “Immigrants, past and present: A reconsideration,” in Hirschman, C., Kasinitz, P., and DeWind, J. (eds.) The Handbook of International Migration: The American Experience. New York: Russell Sage Foundation: 223–38.Google Scholar
Peters, Enrique Dussel (1998) “Recent structural changes in Mexico’s economy: A preliminary analysis of some sources of Mexican migration to the United States,” in Suarez-Orozco, M. (ed.) Crossings: Mexican Immigration in Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press: 55–74.Google Scholar
Portes, Alejandro, and Rumbaut, Ruben G. (2001) Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation. Berkeley: University of California Press; New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Portes, Alejandro, and Zhou, Min (1999) “Entrepreneurship and economic progress in the 1990s: A comparative analysis of immigrants and African Americans,” in Bean, F. D. and Bell-Rose, S. (eds.) Immigration and Opportunity: Race, Ethnicity, and Employment in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation: 143–71.Google Scholar
Raijman, Rebeca, and Tienda, Marta (2000) “Immigrants' pathways to business ownership: A comparative ethnic perspective.” International Migration Review 34: 682–706.Google Scholar
Rosenfeld, Michael J., and Tienda, Marta (1999) “Mexican immigration, occupational niches, and labor market competition: Evidence from Los Angeles, Chicago, and Atlanta, 1970 to 1990,” in Bean, F. D. and Bell-Rose, S. (eds.) Immigration and Opportunity: Race, Ethnicity, and Employment in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation: 64–105.Google Scholar
Ruggles, Steven, Sobek, Matthew, Alexander, Trent, Fitch, Catherine A., Goeken, Ronald, Hall, Patricia Kell, King, Miriam, and Ronnander, Chad (2004) Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 3.0 [machine-readable database]. Minneapolis: Minnesota Population Center.Google Scholar
Rumbaut, Ruben G. (1999) “Assimilation and its discontents: Ironies and paradoxes,” in Hirschman, C., Kasinitz, P., and DeWind, J. (eds.) The Handbook of International Migration: The American Experience. New York: Russell Sage Foundation: 172–95.Google Scholar
Rumbaut, Ruben G., and Portes, Alejandro, eds. (2001) Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America. Berkeley: University of California Press; New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Sanchez, George J. (1993) Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, James P., and Edmonston, Barry (1997) The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Robert C. (2001) “Mexicans: Social, educational, economic, and political problems and prospects in New York,” in Foner, N. (ed.) New Immigrants in New York. New York: Columbia University Press: 275–300.Google Scholar
Smith, Robert C. (2002) “Gender, ethnicity, and race in school and work outcomes of second-generation Mexican Americans,” in Suarez-Orozco, M. and Paez, M. (eds.) Latinos in the Twenty-first Century. Berkeley: University of California Press: 110–25.Google Scholar
Smith, Robert C. (forthcoming) Mexican New York: Transnational Lives of New Immigrants. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Spener, David, and Bean, Francis D. (1999) “Self-employment concentration and earnings among Mexican immigrants in the U.S.” Social Forces 77: 1021–47.Google Scholar
Stern, Mark J. (2004) “Comparing the socio-economic standing of early and late twentieth-century immigrants: Occupation, property ownership, and English ability among Italians, Poles, Russian Jews, Mexicans, other Latin Americans, and Koreans, 1900-2000,” December, www.sp2.upenn.edu/america2000/tabfig.htm.Google Scholar
Waldinger, Roger, ed. (2001) Strangers at the Gates: New Immigrants in Urban America. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Waldinger, Roger, and Bozorgmehr, Mehdi, eds. (1996) Ethnic Los Angeles. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Waldinger, Roger, and Lee, Jennifer (2001) “New immigrants in urban America,” in Waldinger, R. (ed.) Strangers at the Gates: New Immigrants in Urban America. Berkeley: University of California Press: 80–116.Google Scholar
Woolard, Kathryn A. (1989) “Sentences in the language prison: The rhetorical structuring of an American language policy debate.” American Ethnologist 16: 268–78.Google Scholar
Zúñiga, Victor, and Hernández-León, Rubén (2005) “Introduction,” in Zúñiga, Victor and Hernández-León, Rubén (eds.) New Destinations: Mexican Immigration in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation: xi–xxix.Google Scholar