The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 79, July 1975 - April, 1976 Page: 404
528 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
number of emigrants, legal and illegal, was probably well in excess of
500,000 at a time when Mexico's population was 14,334,ooo according to
the federal census of I92I.9
This massive emigration to the United States was a matter of serious
concern to Mexican government officials, employers, and nationalists, even
in the midst of many other revolutionary problems. On the one hand, many
observers believed that certain benefits accrued to Mexico and her people
as a result of contacts with the civilization and culture of the United States.
As early as May, 1913, Manuel Bonilla, Madero's secretary of development,
pointed out that former hacienda workers found good working conditions
across Mexico's northern border. In the United States one did not have to
face starvation or brutal treatment by employers. Bonilla concluded that the
experience of being in contact with an advanced culture aided emigrants
in improving their own life styles. Later writers elaborated on the cultural
benefits to which Bonilla had alluded. An editorialist of El Universal, one
of the leading dailies in Mexico City, believed that the peasantry learned
how to be temperate, to dress well, to eat properly, to speak English, and
to employ the latest agricultural techniques. When the migrants returned
to their homeland with their new skills, they would be cultured persons and
a progressive element for Mexico. Anthropologist Manuel Gamio, who
viewed the great labor exodus from the vantage point of 1931, echoed
similar sentiments when he compared the migrants' stay in the United States
to attendance in a "giant university."'o
On one occasion, even Carranza's government officially praised the
cultural benefits and progressive attitudes supposedly manifested by re-
turning nationals. Undoubtedly, this finding favor with labor expatriation
was, in part, a defensive attitude. The government was embarrassed by
the fact that Mexican citizens, especially those of the peasant class, were
forced to go abroad to seek their livelihood. It was an open admission to
the world that Mexico reborn could not yet take care of her own people.
9U.S., Department of Labor, Bureau of Immigration, Annual Report, Igz8, p. 319;
U.S., Department of Labor, Reports, 1918 (Washington, D.C., i919), 692-693; U.S.,
Department of Labor, Reports, I92o (Washington, D.C., 1921), 693; Paul S. Taylor,
Mexican Labor in the United States: Imperial Valley (Berkeley, 1928), 8; James J.
Davis to Cyrenus Cole, April 25, 1924, Congressional Record, 68th Cong., 2nd Sess.,
LXVI, Pt. 2, pp. 1366-1367; New York Times, June 20, 192o; Cumberland, Mexico,
367; Lawrence A. Cardoso, "Mexican Emigration to the United States, 19oo-1930: An
Analysis of Socio-Economic Causes" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Connecticut,
1974), 88-91.
10Manuel Bonilla, Apuntes para el estudio del programa agrario (Hermosillo, 1914),
26; El Universal (Mexico City), August 13, 192o; Manuel Gamio, "Migration and
Planning," Survey, LXVI (May z, 1931), 174 (quotation), 175.404
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 79, July 1975 - April, 1976, periodical, 1975/1976; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101203/m1/461/: accessed May 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.