A BRIEF HISTORY OF MEXICAN IMMIGRATION IN IDAHO
While Idaho has quickly become one of the nation’s most popular destinations for Mexican immigrants, Mexican immigration to the Snake River basin long predated Idaho Statehood. Mexicans who became Americans after the Mexican-American War of 1848 have lived in Idaho since the 1860s, when Idaho experienced its gold rush. These individuals were mainly miners, muleteers, ranchers, cowboys, and laborers and worked in places near Idaho City and the Salmon River mountains. The 1870 census estimated that 60 Latinos were living in Idaho Territory, most of who were of Mexican descent. During this decade, Mexican vaqueros were hired to work ranches in Owyhee County and elsewhere. Others worked in agriculture. Organizations such as the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company built rendering plants throughout the state and imported Mexican workers by sending Spanish-speaking representatives to the Mexican border.
Mexicans were also employed by the hundreds to lay railway track in Idaho in the 1880s and 1890s, finding stable employment in towns like Nampa and Pocatello. The Mexican Revolution and the economic boom in the southwest, west, and northwest regions of the U.S., combined with the eruption of WWI, spurred massive emigration from Mexico. The U.S. sought to ease the ensuing labor shortage by instituting the “first Bracero Program,” which Idaho sugar and railroad companies took advantage of during the early 20th century. According to some newspaper articles, it is likely that more than 2,000 Mexican workers were brought to Idaho under the program. When the program concluded in 1919, Mexican immigration to Idaho did not. Idaho’s growers and out-of-state agribusinesses continued to rely on these people who were willing to do the agricultural work. Their migration northward was facilitated by the railroads and also by granting exceptions to the immigration head tax; often, the taxes were waived as a gesture to the farm lobby.
Mexican immigrants were continuously brought to Idaho to thin fields and harvest crops. The Mexican immigrant population increased again during WWII when 15,600 Mexican men entered the state from 1942 to 1947 under the formal Bracero Program. As the U.S. moved from a peacetime to a war economy, the demand for farm labor accelerated in Idaho. By June 1942, the Idaho Sate Farm Bureau Federation took steps to bring in more than 1,000 Mexican workers. The need for agricultural labor continued after the war into the 1950s. Growers did not depend solely on braceros to do all the work though, and instead turned to Mexican nationals who arrived from Texas and other states to journey along the migration work circuit. For Idaho growers and the state’s political leaders, Mexican Americans proved the ideal farmworkers. Soon thereafter, many migrants of Mexican heritage began to find permanent work in Idaho and settled in the state.
Since 1970, economic opportunities for Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans have expanded. While 95 percent of farm workers are still Mexican nationals or Mexican Americans, many are working in other sectors as well. As of the mid-1980s, Idaho’s relatively steady economic growth has attracted many immigrants from Mexico. Of a total state population of 1,004,000 in 1990, Hispanics constituted 5.3 percent (while the term Hispanics refers to all people of Spanish/Latin American descent, about 80 percent of the state’s Hispanic population is Mexican or of Mexican descent). In the next decade, this number almost doubled again, by 48,763. In 2000, the Hispanic component of the population represented about 7.9 percent of the total state population. These numbers have revealed steady growth of both Idaho’s overall population and of the Mexican population.
CHARACTERIZING IMMIGRATION IN IDAHO
Population
The total Mexican immigrant population in Idaho was reported to be 50,000 between 2009 and 2013. The top counties for Mexican immigrants included Canyon (12,100), Ada (4,700), Bonneville (3,900), and Twin Falls (3,900). In 2010, Mexican immigrants accounted for more than half of all immigrants in Idaho (57.1 percent). It is estimated that Mexicans accounted for more than three-quarters of all unauthorized immigrants in Idaho. In 2013, the number of Mexican born immigrants was estimated to be 50,271.
Labor
While labor data pertains to all Hispanics in Idaho, as aforementioned, Mexican immigrants and people of Mexican descent constitute a majority of this group. In 2010, Idaho’s 63,000 Hispanic workers constituted 9 percent of the state’s civilian labor force, compared to 14 percent in the U.S. civilian labor force. Hispanic workers tend to have lower wages and jobs in lower-skilled sectors than other workers. In 2010, undocumented workers comprised a smaller share of Idaho’s labor force (3 percent) than in the U.S. as a whole (5 percent). In Idaho, four industries employed more than 10 percent of Idaho’s 63,000 Hispanic workers: 1.) manufacturing, 2.) education health, social assistance, 3.) agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting, mining, 4.) arts, entertainment, recreation, accommodation, food services. Agricultural businesses employed 13 percent of Idaho’s Hispanic workers and only 4 percent of non-Hispanics. Another important group of immigrant workers are migrant and seasonal farm workers. In 2006, there were an estimated 27,920 migrant and seasonal workers.
LINKS TO CULTURE