Mexican Influence

Immigration to the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century is often associated with people arriving from Italy and Eastern Europe. However, members of another immigrant group, one much closer to home, also began arriving in the United States in large numbers during this time. Immigration from Mexico changed our culture early on in ways that you may not recognize, impacting American art, architecture, diet, and even the form of English we speak.

In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe and Hidalgo ended the war between the U.S. and Mexico. The treaty gave huge swathes of territory formerly owned by Mexico to the United States, including land that became the states of California, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. One immediate effect of the treaty was that people of Mexican descent actually left the United States to return to territory still under Mexican jurisdiction.

By the 1880s, though, railroads had been laid connecting the United States and Mexico, making the journey from one country to the other relatively cheap and easy.

Starting in the late 19th century, immigrants from Mexico began crossing the border to the United States at the rate of about 20,000 each year. Most were fleeing poverty and had heard that wages in the United States were often six times higher than those they could earn in Mexico. The agricultural and mining industries in the U.S. welcomed them as a cheap source of labor and actually sent Spanish speaking recruiters to help entice Mexican workers to come work for their companies. American companies justified the approach by insisting that Mexicans would take jobs that native-born Americans wouldn't accept.

From 1910 to 1920, a revolution raged in Mexico, and over 200,000 Mexicans fled their country to avoid the war's devastation. When they arrived in the United States, Mexicans often faced discrimination in the workplace—including exclusion from some labor unions. As the revolution spread throughout Mexico violence spilling over into the the United States. In March of 1916 a raid conducted by Poncho Villa's Division of the North attacked the border town of Columbus, New Mexico, resulting in razing by fire much of the town. These hostilities created a backlash in the United States against Mexicans living in the U.S.

Faced with such hostility, Mexican immigrants persevered by forming organizations like the Benito Juarez Mutual Aid Society, which helped immigrants with practical matters, like obtaining insurance, and also provided ways for them to preserve important aspects of their cultural identity. Mexican immigrants also joined the International Workers of the World, a labor union that tried to protect them from abuses by mining companies and farm owners.

Like other immigrant groups, Mexican immigrants changed American culture significantly. They brought with them a particular and unique form of Catholicism. The adobe style homes that were popular in Mexico became popular in the Southwestern United States and elsewhere. Even the English language, as used in the U.S., was changed by the addition of Spanish words and phrases. As you know if you live in an area that you share with Mexican immigrants, American culture continues to be shaped by the customs, beliefs, and attitudes of its neighbor to the South.