Mexican Migration

1
Mexican Migration

• Lecture 5

2
Mexico City

• How has Mexico City become the largest city in
  the world?
• The population began increasing in the 1930s when
  the mortality began declining and constant high
  fertility.
• Mexico city has grown as a result of being the
  center of the countrys road and rail network.
• In 1960s, it manufactured over 40 percent of
  Mexicos services.
• The countrys media (television and radio) are
  concentrated in Mexico city influencing
  perception about city life with soap operas and
  t.v. shows.
• Source (Blouet and Blouet, 2005, p. 260)
  pg. 248-249

3
Mexico City

• How has Mexico City become the largest city in
  the world?
• 1940s instead of supporting subsistence
  agriculture the government promoted commercial
  agriculture.
• Ex. Instead of growing maize and beans devoted
  their lands for strawberries and tomatoes.
• This created unemployment at high rates both in
  the agriculture and mining. Ex. Zacatecas,
  Mexico
• Since WWII, there has been massive migration from
  the rural areas to the Mexico City, border towns,
  industrial towns (Monterrey), and United States.
• Government policies such as industrial investment
  and by controlling food prices for the urban poor
  and by concentrating such services as education
  and electricity in the cities.
• In addition, the government also promoted the
  concentration of economic services in the city.

4
Mexico City

• How has Mexico City become the largest city in
  the world?
• In 1977, the city was booming from the oil
  profits. Migrants were coming at a rate of a
  thousand a day.
• The Mexican government compounded the problem by
  abandoning any serious to regulate migration and
  environmental policies.
• Resulting in Mexico City becoming the most
  polluted city in the world. For example in 1992
  the air quality was so bad that officials were
  forced to close factories and eliminate cars.
• The boom of the 1970s came to an end in the
  global recession of the 1980s leaving Mexico
  with one of the highest foreign debts in the
  world.
• Without the financial resources to maintain its
  urban infrastructures or extend social services
  to new arrivals.
• One of the outcome of the 1980 in the cities in
  Latin America was the rise of urban crime.

5
Mexico City

• What is the current state of Mexico City?
• 30 million inhabitants and contains 1/5 of the
  countrys population.
• Population density is higher than Tokyo, and four
  times those of London.
• Is considered the largest city in the world.

6
Border Towns

• Why is the most rapid urban growth in Latin
  America is taken place along the US-Mexico
  border?
• The border towns of Tijuana, Mexicali, Nogales,
  Ciudad Juarez, Nueva Laredo, and Matamarros had a
  population of 30,000 in 1990 and 3 million by
  2000.
• Why are the border towns so interlinked with the
  U.S.?
• - Depend on U.S. markets
• - Tourism
• - Employment- Bracero program in 1942-1964
• - Culturally
• - Physically

7
Border Towns

• What where their origin of the border towns? (pg.
  195, 228)
• Ciudad Juarez as a mission.
• Matamarros a mission that became a refugee for
  blacks escaping slavery.
• Nueva Laredo was founded by Mexican Nationals
  that move south after the 1848 treaty.
• Nogales evolved as a railroad and market town.
• Mexicali founded by the U.S. interest as a
  consequence of an irrigation system.
• Tijuana as a ranch settlement.

8
Border Towns

• What are the maquiladoras?
• In 1965, duty free maquiladora zones were
  established to attract foreign industries to
  Mexico after the Bracero program ended.
• Maquilas were only allowed to be established 20
  km from the border.
• But by 1972, they could be located anywhere in
  Mexico except in Mexico City.
• Most maquilas are electronic firms, clothing
  manufacturers, and furniture making industries.

9
Border Towns

• What are the problems facing border towns?
• - environmental degradation
• - inadequate infrastructure
• - housing crisis
• - over population
• - illegal migration to the U.S.
• - crime
• - drug activity
• - low paying jobs
• - taking advantage of a women workers.

10
Migration Pattern

• What are the migration settlement patterns of
  Mexicans since the 1950s to present?
• Mexico City
• Border Towns
• Growth Poles
• United States

11
United States Migration

• What are the migration patterns to the USA?
• Treaty of Guadalupe (1848)
• 1880-1909
• Mexican Revolution and WWI (1910-1930)
• WWII and Bracero Program (1942-1964)
• Post-1965

12
United States Migration

• 1. Treaty of Guadalupe (1848)
• ceded the Southwest territories,
• between 80,000-100,000 inhabitants of Mexican and
  Spanish origin,
• Nearly ¾ of them lived in New Mexico.
• 2. Industrial Development (1880-1909)
• A regional political economy took shape in what
  became the American Southwest.
• Mining, railroads, ranching, and agricultural
  sector relied on Mexican migrants labors.
• In addition, the exclusion of Japanese and
  Chinese migrants to the U.S. in 1882.
• The capitalist development of Porfirio Diaz
  created a landless peasantry.
• Railroad infrastructure extension allowed the
  recruitment of Mexican labor in the interior to
  the United States.
• Mexican worked in copper and coal mines of
  Arizona and Colorado steel mills and
  slaughterhouses of Chicago, Detroit, and
  Pittsburg.

13
United States Migration

• 3. Mexican Revolution and WWI (1910-1930)
• As many as 1 million Mexican (1/10 of the Mexican
  Population) crossed the U.S. border.
• The U.S. Census counted 220,000 Mexicans the
  number more than doubled by 1920, and tripled to
  more than 600,000 by 1930.
• Immigrants settled in growing barrios such as Los
  Angeles, El Paso, and San Antonio.
• Men accounted for 65-70 percent on the migration.
• American growers lobbied for the Immigration laws
  in 1921 and 1924 which placed no limits on
  Western Hemisphere countries.
• In 1924, the Border Patrol helped to create a
  revolving policy with mass deportation and
  immigration.
• During the Great Depression 415,000 Mexicans were
  repatriated to Mexico and 85,000 were voluntary
  repatriation (including many U.S. citizens).

14
United States Migration

• WWII and Bracero Program (1942-1964)
• In the face of renewed labor shortages caused by
  U.S. involvement in WWII created the Bracero
  Program.
• Brought roughly 50,000 a year between 1942-1964
  as agricultural laborers.
• The large increase in the Mexican-Origin
  population in California dates to the WWII
  period.
• An illegal Mexican migration developed alongside
  this legal migration.
• The Mexican immigrants that came through this
  program became a captive workforce under the
  jurisdiction of the state.
• Some estimated that for one legal worker four
  illegal workers entered.
• Employers came to prefer the undocumented workers
  because they could evade the strict laws impose
  by the government.
• This open door policy ended when Operation
  Wetback deported 2.9 million illegal
  Mexican/migrant workers between 1954-1955.

15
United States Migration

• Post-1965

16
Migration Network

• Kinship
• Friendship
• Paisanaje
• Voluntary Organization

17
Characteristics of Migration Networks

• Memory
• Acquired new meaning
• Develop over time
• Materialized and defined migration network

18
Kinship

• Important bases for migration social organization
  and family connections.
• Provides a safe environment for new and future
  immigrants.
• Family relationships relation- provides
  assistance, information, and services.
• Father-son, brothers, uncle-nephews, cousins,
  etc.
• Kinship connection are reinforced through
  frequent interaction on important occasions. Ex.
  Wedding, baptism, quinceaneras, death, and births.

19
Friendship

• Are networks created between individual that grew
  up together, roughly the same age, and shared a
  formative experience (church or sports).
• In this network the assistances finding housing,
  jobs, pooling resources, and borrowing or loaning
  money.
• This type of network grows as new friends from
  different communities are formed through work,
  housing, and leisure activities.
• Regional alliances within Mexico also favor the
  formation of friendships such from Jalisco or
  Zacatecas.

20
Paisanaje

• Origin from the same place is not a meaningful
  basis of social organization for people while
  they are in their home country.
• It becomes meaningful when they encounter each
  other outside their home country.
• Then the strength of the paisanaje tie depends on
  the strangeness of the envt and the nature of
  the prior relationship.
• An example of this network is manifested through
  fiestas that celebrate a patron saint form their
  home country. Ex. Dia de los muertos.

21
Voluntary Organizations

• This network provides a mechanisms that
  facilitate the formation and maintenance of
  social ties.
• Voluntary associations created by migrants in the
  United States promote
• regular interpersonal contact,
• greatly facilitating the process of adaptation
  and mutual assistance.
• Soccer is an example of this type of voluntary
  organization.
• Create a space.
• Focal point for social activities.
• Establish new friendships with people from other
  places in Mexico.
• Help immigrants to establish or sometime
  reintegrate into a community.
• Social interaction

22
Development of Networks

• Migration networks are valuable adaptive
  resources in a strange envt.
• Through the interaction of people, goods, and
  information circulating help create linkages
  between the Mexico and the U.S.
• Connectivity increases as the quantity and
  quality of networks increases.
• Social Capital is created by migrant
  experiences and knowledge. Ex. where to cross
  and how to obtain jobs.
• As networks grow and mature peoples
  participation in voluntary organizations
  increases.

23
Formation of Daughter Communities

• Channelization of immigrants occurs as social
  networks focus increasingly on specific
  communities.
• Migrants move to a particular place because that
  is where networks leads them and provides the
  greatest opportunity to success.
• Daughter Communities are permanent settlements
  communities in the United States with specific
  linkages to communities in Mexico.
• Allow circular migration
• Provides a permanent settlement.
• Provides extensive links between the parent and
  daughter communities.
• Changes the Paisanaje networks as immigrants
  began marrying American or second generations
  immigrants.

24
Sources

• Genova, Nicholas de and Ramos-Zayas, Ana Y.
  (2003). Latino Crossings Mexicans, Puerto
  Ricans, and the Politics of Race and Citizenship.
  London Routledge.
• Gutmann, Mathew G. (2003). Perspectives on Las
  Americas A Reader in Culture, History, an
  Representation. Malder, MA Blackwell.