History of Mexican Americans in Los Angeles
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Chicanos and Mexican Americans |
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History
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The city's original
Early 20th Century
1900-WWI
Job contracts, sponsored by the US government in partnership with the Mexican government, initially motivated Mexican immigrants to migrate to Los Angeles.[4]
Post-WWI Era (1920s-30s)
Post-World War I fear of communism manifested itself in Los Angeles through an increased nationalistic, anti-immigrant sentiment. While prominent politicians such as former governor Hiram Johnson and activist Simon Lubin advocated for progressive policies, such as women's rights and labor rights, local politics of Los Angeles county and California at large leaned conservative, with governor Friend W. Richardson reallocating the Americanization programs to the California Department of Education in 1923. The goal of these Americanization programs was to assimilate immigrants into "the American way of life"[5] and particularly targeted Mexican immigrants because of their perceived ethnic proximity to Europeans relative to other immigrant groups, such as the Chinese and Japanese; the main way this was achieved was through the instruction of the English language. At first, these programs prioritized Mexican men, registering them through their workplaces, but because of the seasonal nature of farm work, teaching English successfully was not possible.[5]
Aligning with the American ideal of Republican motherhood, assimilation efforts were eventually redirected toward Mexican women, who were usually in charge of the home and more involved in community institutions like schools than Mexican men. The new goal of Americanization programs then became training Mexican women for domestic work, to help "alleviate the shortage of housemaids, seamstresses, laundresses, and service workers."[5] By making Mexican women, the homemakers, more American, Americanists hoped that Mexican culture would slowly phase out of immigrants' lives; for example, replacing tortillas with bread during meals. These efforts to push Mexican women into newly-profitable, domestic work outside of the home was met with resistance, which Americanists attributed to machismo in Mexican culture. When naturalization rates of Mexican immigrants did not improve, Americanization programs shifted focus yet again to the implementation of Americanization curriculum in schools, in an effort to teach American values to American-born children of Mexican immigrants. Despite these programs promising full integration into American society, they only provided "idealized versions of American values"[5] and second-class citizenship, as Mexican immigrants continued to face economic disenfranchisement and their children received an unequal education to their white counterparts.[5]
WWII Era (1940s)
Agricultural labor shortages associated with World War II brought on another wave of Mexican immigration to Los Angeles. The
Today
As of 2010, about 2.5 million residents of the Greater Los Angeles area are of Mexican American origin/heritage.[7]
As of 1996 Mexican-Americans make up about 80% of the Latino population in the Los Angeles area.[8] As of 1996 the Los Angeles region had around 3,736,000 people of Mexican origins.[9]
There's a shift of second and third generation Mexican-Americans out of Los Angeles into nearby suburbs, such as
Suburban cities in Los Angeles County like Azusa, Baldwin Park, City of Industry, Duarte, El Monte, Irwindale, La Puente, Montebello, Rosemead, San Gabriel, South Gate, South El Monte, West Covina, Whittier and especially Pomona have large a Mexican population.[12][13]
Culture
Mexican Americans from Los Angeles have celebrated the
Zoot suits were a staple of Mexican-American attire in the 1940s. The wearing of soot suits represented rebellion against the injustices of society.[15]
In the 1990s the quebradita dancing style was popular among Mexican-Americans in Greater Los Angeles.[16]
The El Centro Cultural de Mexico is located in Santa Ana.
Plaza Mexico is located in Lynwood.[17]
Two films, Tortilla Soup and Real Women Have Curves, portray Mexican-American families in the Los Angeles area.
Another film that portrays the life of a Mexican-American in Los Angeles is Stand and Deliver, which demonstrates the life of Mexican-American high school students and how they get through their academic struggles, with the help of their teacher, Jaime Escalante (Edward James Olmos).
Notable Mexican Americans from Los Angeles
- Notable Mexican Americans from Los Angeles
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See also
- East Los Angeles
- Los Angeles Plaza
- Olvera Street
- El Mercado de Los Angeles
- Whittier Boulevard
- Siege of Los Angeles
- Botiller v. Dominguez
- Battle of Chavez Ravine
- Sleepy Lagoon murder
- Zoot Suit Riots
- East L.A. walkouts
- Chicano Moratorium
- Fernandomania
- Chicano
- Zoot Suit (play)
- Lowrider
- Asco (art collective)
- Self Help Graphics & Art community center
- East Los Streetscapers Public Art Studios
- Social and Public Art Resource Center
- Los Four artist collective
- Brown Berets
References
- ^ "The San Bernardino Asistencias by R. Bruce Harley". California Mission Studies Association. Archived from the original on June 13, 2006. Retrieved November 21, 2006.
- ^ "Sounds in Oaxacalifornia: Gala Porras-Kim Investigates Indigenous Tones, 18th Street Arts Center". Artbound – KCET – Los Angeles. July 31, 2012. Retrieved August 7, 2012.
- ISBN 9780520938496.
- ^ Sanchez, George (1993). Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 39.
- ^ a b c d e Sanchez, George (1993). Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 87–107.
- ^ Cohen, Deborah (2001). Caught in the Middle: The Mexican State's Relationship with the United States and Its Own Citizen-Workers, 1942-1954. Journal of American Ethnic History. pp. 110–126.
- ISBN 9780738580067.
- ISBN 9780871549013.
- ^ Central Americans: At the Bottom: Struggling to Get Ahead, p. 281.
- ^ Carcamo, Cindy (August 5, 2015). "Latinos' rising fortunes are epitomized in Downey". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Stringfellow, Kim (December 12, 2017). "The Shifting Demographics of Antelope Valley — And Development's Consequences". KCET.
- ISBN 9781439642443.
- ISBN 9780813583181.
- ^ Kim, Ann L. (January 6, 2000). "Armenians Won't Rush Christmas". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 2, 2014.
Meantime, children in Mexico and many Latin American countries today celebrate El Dia De Los Tres Reyes Magos, or the Day of the Three Wise Kings. Families distribute gifts to commemorate the day that the three wise men brought gifts to the newborn Christ child. Christmas Eve is usually reserved for the religious celebration of the birth of Christ
- ISBN 978-1-4696-2209-5.
- ISBN 9780819564306.
- ^ "plaza mexico".
- ^ "Alexa Demie named Top 100 Latina Powerhouse 2022".
Further reading
- Acuña, Rodolfo (1996). Anything But Mexican: Chicanos in Contemporary Los Angeles. ISBN 1859840310.
- Alarcon, Rafael; Escala, Luis; Odgers, Olga, eds. (2016). Making Los Angeles Home: The Integration of Mexican Immigrants in the United States. University of California Press.
ethnographic and statistical perspectives in a study of Mexican immigrants' strategies for economic, political, social, and cultural integration
- Balderrama, Francisco E.; Santillan, Richard A., eds. (2011). Mexican American Baseball in Los Angeles. ISBN 9780738581804.
- Lewthwaite, Stephanie (2009). Race, Place, and Reform in Mexican Los Angeles: A Transnational Perspective, 1890-1940. ISBN 9780816526338.
- Monroy, Douglas (1999). Rebirth: Mexican Los Angeles from the Great Migration to the Great Depression. ISBN 9780520920774.
- Lopez, Eduardo F. (2016). "Catholic Education for Mexican Americans in Los Angeles: A Brief Historical Overview" (PDF). Journal of Catholic Education. 19 (2). .
- McConnell, Eileen Díaz (2015). "Hurdles or walls? Nativity, citizenship, legal status and Latino homeownership in Los Angeles". Social Science Research. 53: 19–33. PMID 26188435.
- McConnell, Eileen Díaz (2015). Restricted Movement: Nativity, Citizenship, Legal Status, and the Residential Crowding of Latinos in Los Angeles. Vol. 62. pp. 141–162.
- Melero Malpica, Daniel (2008). Indigenous Mexican Migrants in the City of Los Angeles: Social Networks and Social Capital Among Zapotec Workers (PhD). UCLA. ISBN 9780549484936.
- Rendón, Maria G. (2015). "The urban question and identity formation: The case of second-generation Mexican males in Los Angeles". Ethnicities. 15 (2): 165–189. S2CID 147031256.
External links
- "Los Angeles County Chicano Employees Association".
- "Chicano Studies Research Center". University of California Los Angeles.
- "Chicano Rock!". PBS.
- Wick, Julia (May 2, 2021). "L.A.'s history is often whitewashed, romanticized and censored. A new push to tell the truth". LA Times.