Speaking Spanish in the US. Janet M. Fuller
racializing discourse that portrays migrants as inherently unwelcome and detrimental to the country. We opt to use the more neutral term unauthorized to describe the migration status of people in the US (or any other country) without official permission.
As we discussed above, the overwhelming majority of Latinxs are either US citizens or immigrants who are authorized to be in the country. Nonetheless, like the false notions that all Latinxs are immigrants and all Latinxs speak Spanish, the myth that most immigrants are unauthorized endures, despite its inaccuracy. These three interrelated tropes, together with the discursive criminalization of unauthorized immigration discussed above, contribute both to the portrayal of Latinxs as ‘perpetual foreigners’ who are in the US illegally and to the representation of Spanish as an ‘illegal’ language (Leeman, 2012a, 2013).
National origin groups and (im)migration
In the previous chapter, we presented quantitative data on the national origins of the Latinx population, including the specific percentage comprised by each group (see Table 2.1). Based on the same data, we show the relative size of different Latinx national origin groups in Figure 3.5. In the following sections we look at the migration history of the five largest national origin groups: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Salvadorans and Dominicans (due to space limitations, we cannot cover all groups). Our discussion focuses on the time periods in which members of these groups migrated to the US and where they settled, as well as the push and pull factors that promoted migration.
Figure 3.5 National origin groups (ACS 2017 One-year estimates)
Mexicans
Mexicans are the largest Latinx national origin group by far, comprising roughly 62% of the Latinx population in the US (see Figure 3.5). People born in Mexico also make up the largest share (approximately 25%) of all immigrants currently in the US (Migration Policy Institute, n.d.). However, as we have discussed, in addition to immigrants and their children, Mexicans and Mexican Americans also include the descendants of treaty citizens (people living in Mexican lands that were annexed by the US) as well as the descendants of immigrants from long ago. In fact, less than one-third of people of Mexican origin are immigrants; more than two-thirds were born in the US.
Mexicans and Mexican Americans are most densely concentrated in the Southwest, where they have the longest history, which is closest to Mexico, and where they form a clear majority of the Latinx population (and in some places of the entire population). However, there are also longstanding Mexican and Mexican American communities in the Midwest (especially Chicago) and the Northwest, as well as newer communities in the Southeast. Indeed, there are Mexican communities all across the country, including the Northeast as well. It’s also worth noting that there are thousands of people living in Mexico who cross back and forth across the border every day, either to study or to work.
Immigration from Mexico has ebbed and flowed depending on political and labor conditions in the two countries. One significant period of migration occurred in the early 20th century, spurred in part by the repression and violence leading up to and during the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), as well as the devastation that followed. However, another key factor was recruitment by US employers after the prohibition on Japanese immigration resulted in labor shortages (Lozano, 2018; Massey, 2016). Immigrants arriving in the early 20th century far outnumbered the treaty citizens living in Mexican lands annexed by the US (Lozano, 2018).
Mexican immigration continued to increase in the 1920s but in 1929 the start of the Great Depression brought it largely to a halt. Together with the unemployment crisis, nativism and racism ‘pushed anti-Mexican sentiment to a fever pitch’ throughout the country (Lozano, 2018: 145). Not only were Mexicans stopped from crossing the border, but somewhere between 600,000 and a million US citizens of Mexican descent were deported to Mexico, together with almost as many Mexican citizens, most of whom had authorization to be in the US (Balderrama & Rodriguez, 2006; Hoffman, 1974). These so-called repatriations sought to, in the words of President Hoover, keep ‘American jobs for real Americans’ (Gonzalez, 2011; Malavé & Giordani, 2015), a discursive framing that has reappeared in subsequent calls for immigration restrictions and/or deportations. Such calls are more frequent during economic downturns and periods of high unemployment, but they can also occur in times of economic growth and near full employment, such as the present.
The US entry into World War II in 1940 precipitated a labor shortage which again led to the recruitment of Mexican workers, this time through the Bracero Program, a federal guest worker program that brought laborers from Mexico to the US for temporary jobs, primarily in agriculture. Originally envisioned as a wartime measure, the Bracero Program was expanded and renewed as the post-war boom created growing demand for labor among US employers. Even when the economic slowdown of the 1950s brought another round of deportations, this time under the derogatory official name ‘Operation Wetback,’ the Bracero Program was simultaneously expanded. This ensured a continued source of cheap labor from guest workers who were not allowed to settle in the US permanently, since Braceros were required to return to Mexico at the end of each 12-month contract. The specifics of the program, including the temporary nature of the visas, left participants vulnerable to abuse, and they were often subjected to harsh and inhumane conditions. Moreover, the failure of employers and government agencies to keep contractual promises regarding wages and retirement benefits has been well documented (Mize & Swords, 2010). As a result of activism by Mexicans and Mexican Americans, especially in the context of the Civil Rights movement, the Bracero Program was increasingly recognized as exploitative, leading Congress to end it in 1965 (Massey, 2016).
Another Civil Rights Era policy change was also hugely significant for immigrants from Mexico as well as other places. Specifically, in 1965 Congress carried out a major overhaul of immigration policy by eliminating race-based exclusions and national origin quotas, and instead established preferences for migrants with family members in the US or with needed skills. However, caps were put on the number of immigrants per country (including Latin American countries), as well as the overall number (see the American Immigration Council’s website for overviews of the immigration system at https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/topics/immigration-101). As a result of the changes, Mexicans went from having access to half a million permanent and temporary visas before the law to just 20,000 (permanent) visas in 1976, yet the push and pull factors of labor supply and labor demand continued as before (Massey, 2016). Thus, Mexicans continued to migrate to the US, but far more of them did so without authorization, leading to anxiety about border security and ultimately resulting in the US’ militarization of the border (Massey, 2016). In turn, this led to more and more apprehensions of migrants, a trend which both fed and was fed by increased anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican sentiment as well as the discourse of criminality and danger that increasingly surrounded immigration and especially Mexican immigration (Dick, 2011; Massey, 2016; Ngai, 2004). This discourse has become a driving force in US politics, reflected for example in President Trump’s racist portrayals of Mexicans as rapists and murderers, despite statistics that consistently show that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than are US-born citizens.
Since 2010, immigration from Mexico has been declining due to improvements in the Mexican economy and dropping birth rates (Zong & Batalova, 2018). In fact, more Mexicans return to Mexico than migrate to the US, the overall number of unauthorized Mexican immigrants has declined since 2007, and border apprehensions of Mexicans reached a 40-year low in 2017 (Gonzalez-Barrera & Krogstad, 2018; Zong & Batalova, 2018). There has also been a change in the demographic characteristics of Mexican immigrants: they are now more likely to be college graduates and they have greater English proficiency than was the case in the past. Most Mexican immigrants have been in the country for a long time: 60% arrived before 2000; another 29% between 2000 and 2009; and only 11% in 2010 or later (Zong & Batalova, 2018). Mexicans also make up the largest share of DACA participants – approximately 80% (US Citizenship and Immigration Services, 2018).