Cybelle Fox
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691152233
- eISBN:
- 9781400842582
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691152233.003.0009
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
This chapter discusses the subsequent battle over citizenship and legal status restrictions in the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and the local implementation of those restrictions. When the ...
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This chapter discusses the subsequent battle over citizenship and legal status restrictions in the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and the local implementation of those restrictions. When the WPA was first authorized in 1935, there were no citizenship or legal status restrictions for access to the program. Just as with Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), New Deal officials expressly forbade local WPA administrators from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, or non-citizenship. Because of these non-discrimination provisions, blacks and Mexican Americans gained unprecedented access to WPA employment. Over time, however, Congress imposed successively harsher restrictions against aliens, barring the employment of illegal aliens on WPA projects in 1936 and imposing a full ban for legal non-citizens by 1939. While these citizenship restrictions constituted the greatest challenge to aliens' access to the welfare state during this period, its impact was short-lived and its effects fell disproportionately on Mexican non-citizens.Less
This chapter discusses the subsequent battle over citizenship and legal status restrictions in the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and the local implementation of those restrictions. When the WPA was first authorized in 1935, there were no citizenship or legal status restrictions for access to the program. Just as with Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), New Deal officials expressly forbade local WPA administrators from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, or non-citizenship. Because of these non-discrimination provisions, blacks and Mexican Americans gained unprecedented access to WPA employment. Over time, however, Congress imposed successively harsher restrictions against aliens, barring the employment of illegal aliens on WPA projects in 1936 and imposing a full ban for legal non-citizens by 1939. While these citizenship restrictions constituted the greatest challenge to aliens' access to the welfare state during this period, its impact was short-lived and its effects fell disproportionately on Mexican non-citizens.
Deborah Cohen
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807833599
- eISBN:
- 9781469603391
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807899670_cohen
- Subject:
- History, Economic History
At the beginning of World War II, the United States and Mexico launched the bracero program, a series of labor agreements that brought Mexican men to work temporarily in U.S. agricultural fields. ...
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At the beginning of World War II, the United States and Mexico launched the bracero program, a series of labor agreements that brought Mexican men to work temporarily in U.S. agricultural fields. This book asks why these temporary migrants provoked so much concern and anxiety in the United States and what the Mexican government expected to gain in participating in the program. It reveals the fashioning of a U.S.–Mexican transnational world, a world created through the interactions, negotiations, and struggles of the program's principal protagonists including Mexican and U.S. state actors, labor activists, growers, and bracero migrants. The book argues that braceros became racialized foreigners, Mexican citizens, workers, and transnational subjects as they moved between U.S. and Mexican national spaces. Drawing on oral histories, ethnographic fieldwork, and documentary evidence, it links the often unconnected themes of exploitation, development, the rise of consumer cultures, and gendered class and race formation to show why those with connections beyond the nation have historically provoked suspicion, anxiety, and retaliatory political policies.Less
At the beginning of World War II, the United States and Mexico launched the bracero program, a series of labor agreements that brought Mexican men to work temporarily in U.S. agricultural fields. This book asks why these temporary migrants provoked so much concern and anxiety in the United States and what the Mexican government expected to gain in participating in the program. It reveals the fashioning of a U.S.–Mexican transnational world, a world created through the interactions, negotiations, and struggles of the program's principal protagonists including Mexican and U.S. state actors, labor activists, growers, and bracero migrants. The book argues that braceros became racialized foreigners, Mexican citizens, workers, and transnational subjects as they moved between U.S. and Mexican national spaces. Drawing on oral histories, ethnographic fieldwork, and documentary evidence, it links the often unconnected themes of exploitation, development, the rise of consumer cultures, and gendered class and race formation to show why those with connections beyond the nation have historically provoked suspicion, anxiety, and retaliatory political policies.
Edward Telles and Christina A. Sue
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190221492
- eISBN:
- 9780190061401
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190221492.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
Mexican Americans are unique in the panoply of American ethnoracial groups in that they are the descendants of the largest and longest lasting immigration stream in U.S. history. Today, there are ...
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Mexican Americans are unique in the panoply of American ethnoracial groups in that they are the descendants of the largest and longest lasting immigration stream in U.S. history. Today, there are approximately 24 million U.S.-born Mexican Americans, many of whom are multiple generations removed from their immigrant ancestors. Contrary to traditional assimilation theories, which predict that ethnicity and ethnic distinctions will disappear by the third generation, Mexican Americans exhibit a persistent and durable ethnicity with regard to their ethnic identity, culture, and networks. However, there is much heterogeneity within the population which ranges on a continuum from symbolic ethnicity to consequential ethnicity. We argue that one of the reasons for the group-level durability and the within-group variation is due to the existence of a strong ethnic core, the importance of which has been overlooked in previous assimilation theories.Less
Mexican Americans are unique in the panoply of American ethnoracial groups in that they are the descendants of the largest and longest lasting immigration stream in U.S. history. Today, there are approximately 24 million U.S.-born Mexican Americans, many of whom are multiple generations removed from their immigrant ancestors. Contrary to traditional assimilation theories, which predict that ethnicity and ethnic distinctions will disappear by the third generation, Mexican Americans exhibit a persistent and durable ethnicity with regard to their ethnic identity, culture, and networks. However, there is much heterogeneity within the population which ranges on a continuum from symbolic ethnicity to consequential ethnicity. We argue that one of the reasons for the group-level durability and the within-group variation is due to the existence of a strong ethnic core, the importance of which has been overlooked in previous assimilation theories.
Stephanie J. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807832844
- eISBN:
- 9781469605753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807888650_smith.5
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This introductory chapter provides an overview of the main themes covered in the book. It sets out the book's purpose, which is to consider issues of women and gender during the Mexican Revolution in ...
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This introductory chapter provides an overview of the main themes covered in the book. It sets out the book's purpose, which is to consider issues of women and gender during the Mexican Revolution in order to analyze revolutionary patriarchy and its liberal precedents that thwarted women from becoming full Mexican citizens. The book explores the complicated process of women's involvement in nation-state formation by following two paths. First, in an effort to explore the social and legal traditions that structured the revolution's foundational principles, both on the federal and Yucatecan state levels, the various regulations introduced by Governors Alvarado and Carrillo Puerto are analyzed. The second direction utilizes court documents to explicate the changing roles of women and how they negotiated their places within society. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less
This introductory chapter provides an overview of the main themes covered in the book. It sets out the book's purpose, which is to consider issues of women and gender during the Mexican Revolution in order to analyze revolutionary patriarchy and its liberal precedents that thwarted women from becoming full Mexican citizens. The book explores the complicated process of women's involvement in nation-state formation by following two paths. First, in an effort to explore the social and legal traditions that structured the revolution's foundational principles, both on the federal and Yucatecan state levels, the various regulations introduced by Governors Alvarado and Carrillo Puerto are analyzed. The second direction utilizes court documents to explicate the changing roles of women and how they negotiated their places within society. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.
