A BRIEF HISTORY OF MEXICAN IMMIGRATION IN CALIFORNIA
During the 18th century, the Californios– Mexicans in California at the time– numbered around 10,000. After the Mexican American War, Mexican landowners were promised full protection of their land and status as if they were citizens of the US, but this was only awarded to some. The population of Mexicans in California increased rapidly with the influx of around 25,000 Mexican miners during the Gold Rush. The years leading up to 1930 were filled with rampant growth of the Mexican population in California. In addition to employment opportunities, wars in Mexico, such as the Cristiada War between 1926 and 1930, led to major external migration to CA In 1930, at the start of the Great Depression, it is estimated that the number of Mexican nationals in California increased to at least 639,000—when combined with the naturalized Mexican population, the total Mexican-origin population of the US was probably at least 1.5 million, with the largest concentrations in TX, CA, and AZ. Additionally, restrictions imposed on Asian immigration, created a growth in demand for cheap labor on the west coast, which Mexicans met. It was around this time that local Latino leaders in borderland towns such as San Diego and Los Angeles wanted to restrict the influx of immigrants because newcomers directly competed with resident Latinos for jobs and housing.
In August of 1943, the United States initiated the Bracero Program for the importation of temporary contracted laborers from Mexico. By the time the program concluded, more than 4 million Mexican farm-workers had arrived to the US, most destined for the cotton fields and orchards of California’s central valley and the Pacific Northwest. During World War II, many Mexican immigrants also moved to the Bay area during WWI, lured by job prospects in the steel and automobile manufacturing industries. Starting in the 1970s, Mexican immigrants moved to the industrial low income communities in the industrial suburbs of LA in ethnic neighborhoods known as barrios, and to the agricultural sector of the Imperial Valley. Beginning as early as 1910, Mexicans moved in high numbers to the US as agricultural laborers in farming valleys of southern California, especially the Imperial Valley. Anglo-Americans hired Mexicans and U.S. born Mexicans to work in the region’s year-round agricultural economy, including tomato, carrot, lettuce, grape, strawberry, and citrus fruit harvests. Mexican farm laborers were instrumental to California’s success as one of the nation’s leading agricultural states in the 20th century.
CHARACTERIZING IMMIGRATION IN CALIFORNIA
Population
Estimates 2009-2013 indicate that there are a total of 4,266,000 Mexican immigrants in California. The top counties, as noted in the figure below, are Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, and Riverside. According to 2000 census data on birthplace, there were a total of 1,525,156 Mexican born residents, constituting 44.21% of all foreign-born residents in the county. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported that an estimated 2.83 million unlawful immigrants resided in California in 2011, a majority (about 605) of who are from Mexico. More recently, in 2013 the Public Policy Institute of California estimated that 2.67 million unlawful immigrants resided in California, 79% of who are from Latin America with a declining majority from Mexico (52%). Currently, it appears as if the number of immigrants without legal status arriving from Mexico has been declining in California. Between 2009 and 2012, California’s unauthorized immigration population—which includes all foreign-born individuals—dropped by approximately 90,000 people between 2009 and 2012.
Labor
As of 2014, general immigrants who are in California—a majority of who are from Mexico—illegally constituted 38% of the agriculture industry and 14% of the construction industry. Californian agriculture was and continues to be highly dependent on Mexican farmworkers—the Bracero program of the 1940s did much to foster the image of Mexican labor being primarily linked to agriculture. But the number of Mexican-born immigrants working in agriculture has been declining. In addition to agriculture and construction, Mexican born workers have increasingly engaged in the manufacturing sector; dependence on Mexican labor is highest in Los Angeles County. Due to the concentration of Mexican immigrants in lower-skilled jobs, the group as a whole commands lower wages, and have higher unemployment rates than other immigrants and those who are native-born.
LINKS TO CULTURE