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What is Esperanza’s journey to the United States like?

Lesson

California
Facts
  • Fruit production and cattle ranches increased in California in the late 1800s.
  • Three-quarters of California’s 200,000 farmworkers were Mexican or Mexican American.
  • Farmworkers from Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri (“Okies”) arrived in California in the mid-1930s, looking for work.
  • “Repatriation” plans were made to send Mexican immigrants back to Mexico.
  • In fall 1931, 1,200 to 1,500 migrants arrived per day.
  • The 1933 cotton strike lasted four weeks and involved between 12,000 and 18,000 farmworkers.
  • The vagrancy laws of 1933 and 1937 allowed many migrants to be arrested.
  • In 1934, the Dust Bowl in the Midwest began sending migrants to California.
  • Mexicans in California were seen as competition for much-needed jobs.
  • Labor camps were built in the summer of 1935.

Mexican Immigration
Facts
  • The U.S.-Mexico border covers 2,000 miles.
  • The Mexican Revolution and Mexican civil wars caused many Mexicans to move to the
    United States.
  • In the late 1880s, 55,000 Mexican workers immigrated to the United States.
  • The Immigration Act of 1924 was established.
  • More than 89,000 Mexicans came into the United States in 1924. 
  • In 1924, the U.S. Border Patrol was created. 
  • By the late 1930s, the crop fields in Mexico were not producing many crops.
  • Mexican immigrants and their descendants now make up a significant portion of the U.S. population. 
  • The Mexican workers were seen as strong and fast. 
  • Mexican immigrants were willing to work for low wages in tough conditions. 
  • During the Depression, it was harder for all Mexicans to get jobs legally in the United States because of new immigration laws. 
  • Many Mexicans were deported back to Mexico during the Great Depression. 

The Great Depression
Facts
  • During the Depression, one out of four people were unemployed.
  • Without money, people could not pay for housing or buy food and clothes for the family.
  • About 250,000 young people were homeless.
  • Many people traveled the highways and railways to find work.
  • Some people traded for food, clothes, shelter, and services.
  • October 29, 1929, is known as “Black Tuesday,” the day that the stock market crashed, officially setting off the Great Depression. 
  • Congress created the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which offered work to thousands of people. 
  • The end to the Great Depression came in 1941, when the United States entered World War II. 
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