The decade of 1950s was mainly characterized by rapid economic growth and technological development in the United States. These economic developments occurred so rapidly that the labor resources in the country were quickly diminished. It created the need to import labor from other countries mainly developing countries within the American continent. This led to so many people moving into the country looking for employment opportunities. The Job opportunities appealed to most people and the U.S. would experience a huge number of immigrants in the years that followed. The majority of the people moving into the country were Mexicans due to the proximity of the U.S. to Mexico. According to the U.S. government statistics, immigration in the U.S rose from 44.3% in the year 1964 to over 61.4% in the year 1989. All these immigrations were from the Americas with Mexicans making over 37% of the total immigrations into the country (Centre of Immigration Studies, 2001).
These immigrations led to several effects on the economy as more and more people were moving into the country with the majority of them being unskilled. The immigrations led to an increase in the supply of unskilled labor while the supply of skilled labor was not largely affected by these immigrations. The results were that there was an increased population of native born unskilled workers in the whole country. The only advantage that came out of these immigrations was the low labor costs for industries. The low labor costs meant goods and services were produced cheaply and the customers would buy them cheap. It helped reduce the cost of living within the U.S. and the economy continued to grow at higher rates (Jorge, Massey, Charvet, 2000).
Immigrants trying to enter to the U.S. through the U.S.-Mexican border
The Chicano/Latino immigration to the U.S. was also advantageous to the natives as they were able to employ the unskilled workers cheaply and there was also no competition between these locals and the immigrants in terms of job opportunities. The country after witnessing a huge increase in immigrants within the country tried to amend the immigration laws to contain the situation. It led to the enactment of the Immigration Act of 1990 that called for the increase on the restrictions on legal immigration to the United States. The act also looked into the grounds for rejection and deportation of illegal immigrants within the country. This new act was meant to make it tougher for new immigrants to enter into the United States and also do ensure desirable characters were allowed into the country (Jorge, Massey, Parrado, 1990). However, the Chicano/Latino population that had already immigrated into the country was able to settle and in the process gain permanent U.S citizenship.
The issue of immigration of the Chicano/Latino population into the United States is a very important part in the history of these people. The period of 1985 to 1985 witnessed more Mexicans entering into the U.S and a majority of them were able to gain citizenship into the country. The increased number of documented immigrants meant that most of them were able to gain employment legally due to the laws that had been enacted to ensure no undocumented persons were allowed to work within the country. The Latino/Chicano people have continued to immigrate into the U.S. over the years but the period of 1989 was the most important period as most of them moved into the country at this time (Jorge, Massey, Charvet, 2000). Acquiring this artefact was not an easy task as it involved several searches in our libraries and online. The artefact is very much related to the history of immigration of the Latino/Chicano people into the country.it teaches us how most of the Chicano/Latino people entered into this country.
Work Cited
Centre of Immigration Studies “Immigration from Mexico: Assessing the Impact on the United States” by Steven A. Camarota Retrieved from http://cis.org/sites/cis.org/files/articles/2001/mexico/mexico.pdf Accessed on June, 13th 2014
Center for Immigration Studies
Durand, Jorge, Douglas S. Massey, and Fernando Charvet. "The Migrations - the Changing Geography of Mexican Immigration to the United States: 1910-1996." Social Science Quarterly. 81.1 (2000): 1. Print.
“The New Era of Mexican Migration to the United States” Jorge Durand, Douglas S. Massey, and Emilio A. Parrado Retrieved from http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/projects/mexico/jdurand.html Accessed on June, 13th 2014
