The Mexican American Generation and the Restriction of Mexican Immigration

CHIC 110A 4.8 Final
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CHIC 110A 4.8 Final
Part 1 – Question 1
Rodolfo Alvarez refers to the first generation as the Creation Generation because it came immediately after the incorporation of the Southwest into the United States. The first generation experienced rapid and clear separation from the culture of Mexico, their parent country. This generation constituted indigenous peoples who had always conceived the land as their own. Therefore, their subsequent subjugation differed from other ethnic groups that migrated to America in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Mexican American Generation achieved a sense of "psychic security" from the slight developments in income, education, social acceptance, and political efficacy compared to previous generations who experienced worse marginalization (Alvarez, n.d.). This generation was economically better than their parents, and a few years of schooling had granted them better social and political lives, something their parents had failed to achieve. This sense of "psychic security" was a false sense of complacency since the Mexican American Generation was still as economically dependent and powerless to implement meaningful equity as the members of previous generations.
The Mexican American Generation experienced less marginalization, but that did not mean they could affect their progress. In fact, the generation lagged behind other ethnic groups (like the Blacks) in every measure of social progress, such as education levels, annual income per family, and political efficacy. The Chicano Generation challenged the assumptions of the Mexican American Generation by comparing their social progress with the dominant majority rather than previous generations (Alvarez, n.d.). This generation understood the freedoms bestowed by citizenship and actively claimed those rights and protections historically denied to Mexican Americans. For instance, the Chicano movement of the 1970s managed to seize political control in Texas by winning elections in the heavily Mexican American region of South Texas (Chavez, n.d.). The Chicano Generation believed in "self-definition," which refers to an individual's ability to determine progress. This generation believed that anyone could define their individual prominence in society through self-determination.
Part 2 – Question 2
Some U.S. interests favored the restriction of Mexican immigration because of land hunger and racism. When the Anglo-Americans settled into the U.S., they found themselves surrounded by an indigenous population that was culturally and socially dissimilar from themselves: "They saw dirty, ignorant, lazy natives dotting a vast land which, to Anglo-American eyes, was unclaimed and unused" (Rosenbaum, n.d.). The early settlers viewed the local inhabitants as backward savages who believed in superstitions and lacked the same sophisticated social values and relationship patterns. As the Anglo-American settler population grew, land hunger also grew. The Anglos needed more land to support their expanding population. On the other hand, the indigenous populations did not experience such land pressures because they believed that ...