The Great Depression
What decade was the Great Depression?
1930s
When did the Mexican Repatriation take place?
During the Great Depression.
What was the Americanization project? What was the goal?
Assimilating Mexicans to be like the Anglo-Saxon Americans. Language instruction.
What is the labor movement?
Collective effort to improve workers' rights.
What caused the great Depression?
wages too low, people cannot buy things. economic crisis, stock market, overproduction
What was the main reason for the Mexican Repatriation during the Great Depression?
There was a widespread belief that Mexican immigrants were taking jobs away from native-born Americans, who were struggling with high unemployment
How did the Americanization project affect Mexicans/Mexican Americans?
They were pressured to abandon their traditions, languages, and customs/culture in favor of adopting what were seen as "American" ways of life.
According to our readings, tell me at least one population that Mexicans attempted to unionized with?
Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, white, and Sikh
How did the Great Depression affect Mexican Americans?
Increased discrimination, Mexican repatriation, Organizing and resistance, unemployment
According to MAS day 16 Source A, what did Hoovers Administration mean by "American jobs for real Americans"?
The phrase suggested that jobs should be reserved for native-born Americans (or Anglos) rather than immigrants or those seen as "foreign."
Why did Mexicans become the primary targets of Americanization programs in California?
Some "analysts" believed that Americanization of migrants was the only means to insure their cultural allegiance (loyalty) to the United States.
In the early 1900s, there was a significant influx of Mexican immigrants to the United States.
Racial and cultural prejudices.
Control and influence immigrant populations.
How long would people work before the labor movement?
100 hour weeks or 16 hours a day
What does labor have to do with the Great Depression?
there was mass unemployment, wage cuts, poor working conditions, labor strikes, unions
Why can we consider the Mexican Repatriation to be an illegal process?
It was a violation of U.S. federal due process, equal protection, and Fourth Amendment rights, it typically means it was illegal under the Constitution.
According to MAS day 13 Source 2, what happens if you completed the Americanization school?
Graduates were presented with government diplomas which entitle them to their final citizenship papers after giving proof of their loyalty to and sympathy with the institutions of the country
In MAS day 15 we read that "...when Mexican workers went on Strike at the Pacific Railway company in Los Angeles in 1903, they fought for an equalization of wages and solidarity with Anglos. How did the Anglos respond to this attempt at solidarity?
In an effort to preserve the race-based wage disparity, white workers responded by siding with employers--repudiating a broader class alliance.