yeah, yeah.
A
great awakening of mexican americans a political awakening Which has led
Mexican Americans to participate both as citizens casting their votes at
the polls and as candidates for office. A social awakening in which
Mexican Americans have begun to demand the civil rights guaranteed them
since 1848 by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The civil rights guaranteed
them by the constitution of the United States. An awakening which has been
illustrated by the fight of new mexicans in the courts to regain lands
captured by anglo americans and by the organization of mexican american
farm workers. An awakening featuring men like Reyes, Lopez, tijerina,
cesar Chavez and Ernesto Galarza. It's given mexican americans a new
spirit of pride and awareness of their ability to create a better society.
How did it all begin? What were the events leading up to this great
awakening? Well, to understand the awakening, we must look first to a
great migration, a northward migration of mexicans to the United States
which has continued for more than half a century. It began during the
early years of the Mexican revolution, when thousands of people sought to
escape the chaos of civil war, bringing what few possessions they could
carry. They fled to the relative safety of the borderlands to the
Southwestern United States. Later, many mexicans immigrated to the United
States in search of economic opportunity for they saw the chance to earn
more money than they ever dreamed possible. For example, in steel
railroads, meatpacking industries and more and more. They have migrated
north because of increasing population pressure on Mexico's arable land
for they were unable to speak from the land of Mexico even bare
subsistence. They came across a border that really existed only on paper
for movement between the United States and Mexico was free almost as if a
border didn't exist even today. Well over 100 million visitors cross the
border between the two countries each year. And so the early immigrants
came to a land that was once part of Mexico to a land where they could
feel at home and whatever the cause mexicans continue to emigrate in
tremendous numbers. It's been estimated that over a million people moved
from Mexico to the United States between 1910 and 1930.
Ever since 1925, los Angeles California has been the largest Mexican
community in the world outside of Mexico City, but the immigrants have
concentrated in states other than texas, new Mexico colorado Arizona and
California. They moved into those areas originally owned and settled by
their ancestors. In the years following the revolution, the continuing
arrival of the immigrants touched off another migration, an internal
migration for they created new population pressures. Families who had
lived there for generations began to move out of the southwest to seek
homes in other parts of the United States.
Over the years, the number of Mexicans legally seeking permanent residence
in the United States continued to increase from 1940 to 1950, an average
of 6000 people a year immigrated. In 1955 alone, over 61,000 Mexicans
cross the border and between 1961 and 1966, Nearly
276,000 immigrated to the United States. A second group doesn't seek
residents in the United States. They are commuters Mexicans who carry a
green card which allows them to work in the United States while they live
in Mexico. Another group, illegal entries have counted for many times the
number of immigrants during and after the mexican revolution. They were
called *** because they crossed the rio grande into texas in the dark of
the night. These immigrants brought only the clothes they wore and they
sought jobs and anonymity in the southwest. Others were brought illegally
to the United States by labor smugglers. Unscrupulous men who sold mexican
labor to borderland employers for 50 cents to a dollar a head. The extent
of this illegal immigration is evidenced by the number of *** caught by
the U. S. Border Patrol. For instance, in one year alone, over one million
*** were deported to Mexico. Surely there are many thousands who weren't
apprehended
today. These immigrants, their Children and their grandchildren are an
important part of the Mexican american community. They've revitalized the
mexican character of the southwest, superimposing over the unique culture
of the region, 1/20 century mexican culture. They've brought new strength
to mexican american society and thus initiated the struggle of mexican
americans for first class status as U. S. Citizens a struggle against the
anti mexican prejudices which had developed among anglo americans and
against the resulting discrimination, a struggle to escape from poverty to
win civil rights. It's been a long hard struggle and it's far from
finished. Although progress is being made. Let's look first at the
background of the story which begins with the great migrations. It's a
story which in some ways begins with farm labor. Now only a small
percentage of the mexicans who immigrate to the United States become
farmworkers. But without these farm workers, the agricultural industry in
the United States could not have developed and thrived. These immigrants
came from an agricultural society from a subsistence farming economy. In
Mexico. Perhaps their only skill is their knowledge of farming and many of
them fall into farming jobs. In the United States, the low wages farm
workers are traditionally offered look enormous to the mexican immigrant
for in Mexico money had been scarce and thus began a vicious circle from
which the mexican american farm laborer found it difficult to escape.
As a farm laborer, his wages were low seldom enough to last throughout the
year. He worked long, hard hours and had few chances to learn non
agricultural skills. His job kept him separated from most of the society
around him and he seldom had the opportunity to learn the language of his
new country, His Children had to work if the family was to earn enough
money to survive. They too were trapped in a vicious circle following the
footsteps of their parents. Many of the Children became farm laborers and
such has been the story for more than half a century.
It was coincidence that the great migration began just as a tremendous
demand for labor was created for. In the early years of this century, the
Southwest emerged as an economic empire, an agricultural empire. This
economic development had its roots in the urbanization, the
industrialization which occurred in the United States. After the Civil war
, people moved to the cities, the kitchen gardens, which had fed each
household disappeared and a new demand for marketable foodstuffs was
created. In the early 1900s, technological advances paved the way for the
development of large scale commercial farming enterprises. Refrigerated
railroad cars enabled growers to transport their produce to distant cities
and an increased demand for agricultural products was created by new
canning process is a demand which could only be met by large scale farming
, but the early growers had spent so much money irrigating and reclaiming
the desert lands of the Southwest that they couldn't afford to pay the
wages that workers in the United States were beginning to demand. So they
hired the willing and jobless people who came north with the flood of
migration. Later the growers became immensely wealthy, but the wages they
paid did not increase.
One of the oldest, large scale commercial farming enterprises is the sugar
beet industry of colorado and it provides an excellent example of the net
in which the mexican american farm worker became trapped. Sugar beets
became important to colorado industry early in this century and are still
one of that state's primary crops, like commercial farmers elsewhere.
Colorado growers began to hire mexican immigrants, migratory farm workers
, but sugar beets require attention much of the year. The growers needed a
permanent workforce to obtain such a workforce. They had to convince the
mexican american laborers to remain throughout the year. In some cases,
the growers used coercion, for instance, some refused to pay the final
wages of their workers. Thus they acquired a captive labor force, a labor
force which lacked the funds to leave the area. It was a labor force which
had no choice but to work the sugar beets year after year at the same low
wages. Once the immigrant farmers, not only in colorado, but throughout
the southwest had begun to work for low pay, The growers were not inclined
to raise the wages. The farm laborer was bound by lack of money to a job
at the bottom of the socio economic ladder and it's upon this base of
poorly paid labor that a tremendously wealthy agricultural empire has been
built.
Now. The overriding characteristic of farm labor is, it's seasonal nature
and for many farmworkers, the winter is a time of unemployment of time of
trying to live on the money made during the summer. During the growing
season farm laborers may travel from crop to crop finding work where it's
available, working for several different employers. Some farm workers own
cars or trucks, their own transportation, and when the growing season
begins they leave their city homes for the fields. But most join a crew,
they may pay the crew leader of fee for joining, especially if he has a
good reputation for finding work and they pay for their transportation.
The crew leader is something like the patron of the colonial hacienda. He
is the boss and guardian of those who join his crew. He's also their
interpreter. For many farmworkers speak little or no english because they
work together and spend their leisure time together. The members of the
crew have little opportunity to learn english and little need to use it.
The crew leader makes the contracts with employers and he usually receives
the pay for the entire crew, doling it out to individual workers at times
, even keeping a portion of their wages for himself. Now, agriculture,
even in this age of mechanization requires the work of many human hands.
And unlike most other occupations, it provides work for every member of
the family, even if the head of the family is employed in some other
occupation, the women and Children may supplement the income by working in
the fields in some areas and experienced fast worker. If paid by the
amount he picks, can earn a good income during the season's peak, but it's
hard work with few rewards At the height of the season, a farm worker
spends 12 to 14 hours in the fields, perhaps with no nearby sanitary
facilities, with one cup for drinking water shared between all the workers.
If he's living in housing provided by the grower, he may return in the
evening to a shack without electricity, plumbing or cooking facilities
unbearably hot in the summer sun less frequently, farm workers may be
housed in more modern apartments or barracks. In either case, the grower
usually deduct a portion of the workers wages for rent. If the farm worker
lives in his own home, it's often located at some distance from the fields
and in the evening there are groceries to be bought meals to be prepared
and eaten after the evening meal. The family may watch television or
listen to a radio for a while and then at nine or 10 o'clock it's time for
bed for the workers must rise before dawn in the morning. By contrast,
there's often no work at all during the winter season, this is the time to
make needed automobile or house repairs to send the Children of the family
to school. It's also a time to visit with friends and relatives, but even
in the winter there's little time for fun. Instead the necessities of
survival, food, clothing, housing, medicine, our concerns which take up
much of a person's time the money earned during the crop season usually
doesn't last through the winter. When funds run out, the family must turn
to welfare or rely on credit and a large debt accumulates, which must be
paid back out of the following summer's wages. Friends and relatives are
willing to help one another, but often they share the same financial
problems and so they try to find supplementary work, a job in some field
other than agriculture. Those who can escape the vicious circle of farm
labor have drifted into other fields of work, and this escape marks the
beginning of the awakening of the mexican american.
Yeah. Mhm
mm.