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Pablo C. Avila
Dr. Elizabeth Clark
ENG101.2651
Dr. Lorraine Cohen
SSS102.2654
27 November, 2007
Immigration And Struggle:
Two Important Issues From the Past to the Present
When thinking about immigration in the United States, we are bringing the topic into a
field of debate because of the situation many immigrants faced in the past and even nowadays.
Perhaps it was possible to believe a century ago that America could shut out the rest of the world.
Today the rest of the world is here (Wucker 89). However, how is the immigration issue being
handled? Many people, especially activists in the immigration movement today, believe that
immigration, as a social conflict, has been caused due to mistaken policies applied by
governments of the United States throughout the last century. A clear example is the
farmworkers’ struggle that caused the creation of the Union Farm Workers in the 1960s with
Cesar Chavez as its most important leader fighting for better working conditions and higher
wages. Another example is the political issues from American governments toward Latin
American countries in the last fifty years which has caused and motivated an unstable social
situation and the migration of many people to this country, once here, they are struggling to fight
for better treatment when facing the law looking for Immigration Reform that has birthed many
immigrant movements that seek their rights as foreigners.
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The Struggle of Farmworkers
When eating vegetables while having lunch or fresh fruit while having dessert, it is not
very common to think about how those crops are grown. This job has been the principal
responsibility of U.S. farmworkers. They pick the crops, collect fruits and grow vegetables.
Native Americans were the first to work the land. As the growers’ business expanded, they
needed large numbers of cheap workers. They lobbied for and manipulated immigration laws to
import immigrant workers—Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, and Mexicans—whom they hired for
miserably low wages (Cantarow 97). This group of farmworkers was primarily integrated by
people from different countries—especially Latin American countries—but also by native-born
people, called Mexican American Chicanos1 from southern cities in the United States like
California and Texas. They are divided into two main groups Migrant and Seasonal workers.
Migrant workers are farmworkers who look for work from place to place; they move from one
region to another one. Migrants are generally based in the southern border areas of the United
States. They winter in the Imperial Valley of California, the lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas,
and central and southern Florida (Barger 20). Seasonal workers, differently, work in one place
only. They are focus in a continuous care such as citrus and grapes, in contrast to migrant
workers, seasonal workers have, at some way, a secure job for at least ten months within a year
(21).
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, farmworkers have faced difficult times
because they didn’t have money, due to low wages and jobs under poor working conditions in
both migrant and seasonal workers. Some of these poor and difficult conditions are mirrored in
the experiences Jessie Lopez—a leader in the Union Farm Worker—faced written in Ellen
Cantarow’s book Moving the Mountain. Women Working for Social Change. “De La Cruz did
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not begin political work until the age of forty-two. But from childhood on, she was aware of the
exploitative relations between big growers and the workers who toiled in their fields.” (98) In
this excerpt, Jessie De La Cruz realizes as a child about the difficulty of the situation and began
to face the struggle farmworkers had in those years. Besides, Jessie Lopez experienced poverty
in a extreme way and recalls it when she didn’t have anything to eat while the break at the school
as she says:
In ’33, we came up north to follow the crops because my brothers couldn’t find any work
in Los Angeles during the depression. I remember going hungry to school. I didn’t have a
sweater. I had nothing. I’d come to school and they’d want to know, “What did you have
for breakfast?” They gave us paper, to write down what we had! I invented things! We
had eggs and milk, I’d say, and the same things the other kids would write, I’d write.
(106)
In this excerpt, Jessie’s extreme poverty is evident due to the low wages farmworkers had.
She realized from childhood about this bad experience and prepared herself by facing it to later
fight back those injustices in the farmworkers movement.
During the 1930s, President Herbert Hoover,
2
a millionaire, took office but his
administration seemed unable to face one of the worst crises in American History. In 1929, the
Great Depression began. Between 1930 and 1933, the number of unemployed in the United
States rose from four million to more than thirteen million (Cantarow 102).
This situation, of course, didn’t benefit farmworkers at all. Until the United Farmworkers
union helped to better conditions of life and labor for these workers, they were desperately poor;
their pay during the growing season was often not enough to live on through the winter
(Cantarow 98). Some decades after that period, during the 1960s, almost at the end of the
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administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the beginning of the President Kennedy’s
administration,
3
farmworkers faced their complicated situation with the rise of some leaders—
like Cesar Chavez and Jessie Lopez De La Cruz—that began the organization to fight for their
rights and look for improvements within the fields. This union joined both groups to fight
primarily for better working conditions and higher wages. Farmworkers had tried to organize in
the past, but until Cesar Chavez founded the National Farmworkers’ Association in 1962, they
hadn’t been able to form a lasting union (123).
One of the poorest occupations in the United States is that of the landless, migrant farm
worker. During the twentieth century, most seasonal workers labored on the enormous farms and
ranches in California (Ness 822). It is important to consider that California was part of the
Mexican territory up until the war between the United States and Mexico changed their
relationships forever. In 1845, President James K. Polk thought that territories like California and
New Mexico in the south, and under the administration of the Mexican government until then,
should be gained by the American administration. At first, he attempted to buy those lands, but
his offer was turned down and, after a border battle in the new state of Texas that caused the war
between the two nations, those territories became part of the United States. Once the war was
over, with California under the control of the American administration, agriculture in the United
States was done by independent family farmers who consumed what they cultivated (822).
However, California was an exception. Shortly after statehood was achieved in 1850, the
California government, in hopes of encouraging economic development, sold much of the
territory’s unclaimed public lands (822). Since then, the selling of lands caused a tremendous
lack of security among farmworkers.
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It wasn’t until the 1960s when, during the difficult situation with the farmworkers, Cesar
Chavez became in one of a few leaders who dared to bring and make a change about the
farmworkers. He was a simple farmworker who had experienced the struggle since precedent
years and perfectly knew their needs. He was born near Yuma, Arizona in 1927 and became a
farmworker to help his family after having reached eighth grade at school. His leadership began
when he worked near Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the Community Service Organization
(CSO) In 1962, he left the CSO to join the grape pickers due to their critical situation to later
found the Union Farm Workers in 1964. Using strikes, fasts, picketing, and marches, Chavez
was able to obtain contracts from a number of major growers (Ness 831). His leadership was
crucial when organizing farmworkers to claim for better rights in terms of working conditions as
Jessie Lopez de La Cruz, another important leader, 4 describes in an interview by Anamaria De
La Cruz; “Cesar Chavez, a great leader, gave his life for us, and he will always be in our hearts
and in our memory. His whole family too” (De La Cruz) This opinion from Jessie De La Cruz
shows Chavez’s importance in the union of farmworkers, the change he caused and how he
motivated others to get involved in the union to fight the injustices they were all facing.
Jessie Lopez De La Cruz’s experience in the fields had motivated her to support the
organization as well, but it wasn’t until Cesar Chavez went to visit her and her husband, Arnold,
at their house that she decided to join the group and become the first woman in the leadership of
the farmworkers organization, as she points out in her interview:
Well, Arnold, my husband, had been attending meetings in Fresno. But the first time I got
involved was when Cesar Chavez came to our house in Parlier to talk about forming a
union for farmworkers. I was in the kitchen, making coffee for our guests. I remember
one of them was Cresencio Mendoza, who was the general organizer in Fresno.
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I stayed in the kitchen door, listening to what they were saying, and then Cesar said,
“Arnold, your wife should be here, she’s a farmworker and she has to know about the
union.” So I sat down and got involved with the union. (De La Cruz)
In this excerpt, Jessie Lopez describes the way she got involved, but most importantly she
lets us know the ways Cesar Chavez motivated other people to join the union; he visited people
in their homes to encourage them to fight for their rights, because he had a big commitment to
changing the situation farmworkers were facing. Jessie Lopez became the first woman be
organizer; her background in the fields indentified her as a great and real leader because she
knew exactly what farmworkers lived and needed. She was born in 1919, from a family who had
migrated to the United States many years ago. She married to Arnold De La Cruz, who also
participated in the Union Farmworker, in California in 1938 (Cantarow 96). One important point
and experience we may recall about Jessie Lopez De La Cruz is when she became an English
teacher. Teaching English to farmworkers through a government program helped her to get
involved in the union and get more in touch with people (Cantarow 129). Moreover, Jessie
Lopez De La Cruz was a great leader, married woman, and a mother as well. Her experience was
marked by the poverty her used to live in, but one of the things that marked her life was the
culture she used to live in, in terms of womanhood. Mexican American women of Jessie De La
Cruz’s generation grew up as her grandmother had. From childhood, they learned that women
were not free to come and go as men were, and that women had three jobs—housework,
childbearing and rearing, and fieldwork (Cantarow 108). The fact of being oppressed by society
because of her position as woman, Jessie Lopez felt herself tied to one place only, with no
freedom at all, as she describes in Cantarow’s book; “When I was a girl, boys were allowed to go
out and have friends and visit there in the camp, and even go to town. But the girls—the mother
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was always watching them.” (109) In this fragment, Jessie feels the huge difference society does
between girls and boys, their different conditions and how those conditions affect her life. This
issue was a tremendous challenge for Jessie Lopez, but what it is important is that it didn’t defeat
her because she fought for the cause she thought was right, overcoming the situation and making
a difference among the farmworkers joining and supporting the union as a leader.
An important strategy farmworkers used in their struggle was boycotts. As Jessie Lopez
explains in the interview made by Anamaria De La Cruz; “We boycotted mainly supermarkets.
We picketed. I remember picketing a Safeway store in Fresno. We were boycotting grapes, and
asking everyone not to shop there because they were selling grapes.” In this extract, Jessie Lopez
recalls how farmworkers used to go out in the streets to let people know what they were going
through in their jobs and to ask them not to buy grapes at the supermarket. In this way, many of
the customers who used to have fresh vegetables and fruits in lunch realized, some of them for
the first time, that farmworkers ironically didn’t have anything to eat because they didn’t have
enough money to have, at least, a decent way of living. They didn’t have a contract at first which
didn’t allow them to assure a job for a certain period of time; their low wages were not enough to
feed their families. Jessie Lopez’s experience was a repeated experience among farmworkers, as
she explains in Cantarow’s book:
I had a little girl who died in ’43. She was so tiny…only five months. The cause was the
way we were living, under the tree, with only chicken wire to separate us from the cows
and horses. There were thousands of flies. I didn’t have a refrigerator, no place to
refrigerate the milk. She got sick. I couldn’t stop the diarrhea. They told she had a brain
infection. And so I had to leave her, and my little girl died. We were so poor and I felt so
helpless—there was nothing I could do. (118)
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Jessie Lopez’s experience mirrors the misery in which farmworkers lived; poverty was so
extreme that could even caused a child’s death. All these conditions were critical and marked
farmworkers’ lives. It is evident that the poor conditions were not only at work, but also at home.
As boycotts and some other strategies were applied, farmworkers began to get some
results in their struggle. Some of these were achieved while the Farm Labor Organizing
Committee—FLOC—continued the struggle. On an immediate level, FLOC workers now enjoy
considerably improved conditions. Since the 1978 strike, their wages rates have almost doubled
(Barger 175). Some other results were the personal growth in people who got involved in the
organization, they all motivated one another to speak out. Besides, there was a sense of more
security and stability in terms of work among the farmworkers. One example is the case where a
grower demanded that everyone load their own cucumbers, instead of hiring a loading crew.
When the workers filed a complaint, the grower raised pay rates to cover the additional work.
“Before,” one worker says, “we wouldn’t have been able to say anything at all” (178). Moreover,
some changes in terms of housing were implemented; some camps had new housing and sanitary
facilities, and the new stability of a job for farmworkers because they assure a job for at least one
year. However, these implements didn’t fit in farmworkers’ needs at all. Throughout the
twentieth century, members the rural proletariat—regardless of national—tried to improve their
material circumstances through individual and group actions (Ness 823). What it is clear at the
end is that this critical situation, represented in the farmworkers’ struggle, came after the war
between the United States and Mexico that, as the facts in history state, had consequences and
the only affected were farmworkers even though they were not all from Mexico, but from some
other countries like China, Japan, Filipino, and some others from Middle Eastern countries.
These strategies that, represented by the way farmworkers used to work, the American
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government followed in the post-war were not beneficial especially for this sector of laborers
that had to use methods like strikes and boycotts to get what they deserved.
Another important organization to mention is the Farm Labor Organizing Committee,
FLOC. This organization has been important within the struggle of farmworkers. The most
important change, from FLOC’s point of view, is that midwestern farmworkers now have a more
equal role in the agricultural system. They have a direct voice in determining those conditions
that affect their lives and well-being (Barger 175). The FLOC organized and supported important
events to call people’s attention and motivate people to speak out, one of those events was the
strike done in 1978, after that, the FLOC worker for eight years to achieve basic rights for
farmworkers. As W. K. Barger describes it in chapter six from the book The Farm Labor
Movement in the Midwest: Social Change and Adaptation Among Migrant Farm Workers, there
are four main changes that midwestern farmworkers had; improved working conditions,
organization into a larger social structure, new feelings of security, and personal growth.
The first change mentioned refers to some improvements that midwestern farmworkers
saw, for instance, in terms of housing and sanitary issues. In contrast to previous years when
farmworkers worked for low wages that were mirrored in their living conditions, as on Jessie
Lopez’s experience, they now have some changes that will raise their living conditions from
extremely poor to acceptable with more commodities. Besides, they are getting informed about
their legal and civil rights, something that before, they were not familiar with. Now, farmworkers
know the advantages of a contract and realize about the good impact it is having on their own
working conditions; that was something they didn’t have in the past. FLOC farmworkers are
seeing their occupation with a new perspective and now feel farm labor deserves greater regard
and rewards than they have experienced in the past (Barger 176).
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The second main change mentioned is in terms of organization into a larger social
structure, which means that farmworkers were able to fit into a broader society because little by
little they were motivating more people to get involved and realized that they could make a
change; besides, their strength as a group increased and now they were a more compact group.
As a result of the FLOC movement, midwestern farmworkers are now more organized as a social
group. Before FLOC, their social networks were limited primarily to individual families and
crews (Barger 177). This second change on farmworkers mean a huge and new impact in society
because they interact with other people with their same goals and realize about their own work,
share strategies and see thousands of thousands of people are joining their cause at the so called
FLOC conventions, for example (Barger 177).
A new feeling of security was another major change among farmworkers. They all felt
they could make a change by organizing and promoting their claims. This was an important
change in farmworkers’ attitude. Now they feel more self-confident at work to speak out when
things are not going well. As Jose Hinojosa says, “the bosses can’t treat us any way they want.
We now have the grievance” (Barger 178). They feel more confident not only to complain about
things, but also to talk to growers and get things better by improving working conditions that are
reflected in their living conditions as well. FLOC workers now receive a full disclosure of
conditions of employment, including the time period, place, pay rates, and work activities
(Barger 179). This major change affected their personality—a final change—especially and had
a positive impact in their constant struggle because they knew that by organizing and motivating
one another, they could make a difference.
A final change in farmworkers is a personal growth. People felt more self-confident
which was, obviously, beneficial for the organization, additionally, they encouraged other people
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to join them in the cause. This change, linked to the third one, is very important because
farmworkers motivated themselves to educated themselves about their situation and better
organized, whole families got involved in FLOC due to this personal growth. Most farmworkers
felt more secure to speak out and look for a new future (Barger 179). These four changes were
accomplished through a hard struggle farmworkers had especially throughout the last fifty years
due to different issues that caused their poor living conditions and lower wages. Even thought
they saw some changes, they are still struggling.
The Struggle of Immigrants Nowadays
Immigration, as we mentioned before, has been an important issue throughout the
American History. Some mistaken strategies from American governments were evident while the
struggle of farmworkers and will continue to be so as we analyze immigrants’ actual situation
and they way they are struggling for better treatment in terms of human rights. In order to better
understand the migration—group of people who go from one country or region to another one—
from other countries to the United States we have to divide it into two groups, the First Great
Migration and the Second Great Migration (Wagner 8). The First Migration to the United States
was at the beginning of the twentieth century, large numbers of people from Europe, primarily,
came to the United States because of the repression of critical social issues in their countries.
One of many examples is the Russian Revolution—from 1917 to 1918—that forced many people
to migrate to other countries because of the uncertainty there was in theirs. The First World War
shocked many with its brutality and unprecedented loss of life (Lenin 317). Because of this war,
many people came to the United States to begin the new generation. During the last twenty years,
and while many new-arrivals from the First Great Migration became in almost citizens with
American grandchildren, the Second Great Migration began to move. This time, a high
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percentage of people had their native lands in Latin American countries while Europe and other
continents had lower rates of immigrants (Wagner 8). The cause, socio-economic reasons that
forced this group to leave their lands, the lack of jobs, and sometimes running away from
dictatorships making these two Great Migrations different one from the other. One major
difference between the first Great Migration and the second is the higher fertility rates of
immigrants compared with natives, whose fertility rates declined throughout the twentieth
century (Wagner 8). Having these facts under our analysis, it is evident that immigration to the
United States, for many reasons, has been a huge issue within the American History. Nowadays,
however, many immigrants, especially from the Second Great Migration, form a major part of
the workforce as well as the population in the United States. Almost 12 percent of the U.S.
population today is made up of the foreign-born, over 33.5 million people (Dan La Botz). Over
half come from Latin America, a quarter from Asia, and most of the rest from Europe, with other
from the rest of the world (Dan La Botz). As years go by, immigrants are increasing in rates and
many native-born believe they are not having good impact in the society. Anxiety is rising
among many natives who fear that new-arrivals will take away jobs, strain welfare and other
public services, and—perhaps most vexing—fail to become “real” Americans by not learning
English (Wagner 8). Native’s anxiety is increasing when looking at the number of immigrants
who come to the United States every year because they think immigrants are overcrowding the
country and stealing jobs from native-born. The United States, with a population of 300 million
people in October 2006, accepts over one million legal immigrants every year, with the nations
of Mexico, China, India Philippines and Cuba providing 37 percent (Dan La Botz). However, in
addition, an estimated 500,000 immigrants also enter the United States illegally each year, most
coming from Latin America (Dan La Botz).
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It is evident that immigration rates are increasing even more, and many people are
coming even illegally through the Mexican border with the US. Why do people come, especially
from Latin America, risking their lives through the Mexican border with the US? The answer can
be easily understood as economic and employment reasons. Most Latin American countries are
going through difficult situations in terms of those two important issues, even though some of
them have shown a small increase at some point in the last decades. Besides, the United States
has supported, through international policies, many dictatorships within Latin American
countries like Chile, Honduras, Paraguay, Brazil, and Colombia causing a crisis in their societies
and forcing people from middle and lower class to migrate to another country to look for better
opportunities of life. The United States’ huge influence over Latin America has been an
important reason to cause this situation in those countries and immigration has become in an
effect; many people come to the United States because it is a developed country with a high and
stable economy. Nevertheless, immigration cannot be easily put away from the American history,
not even since the beginning of this country. To be sure, there were those who had misgivings
about the immigrants. George Washington wrote to John Adams in 1974, “My opinion with
respect to immigration is that except for useful mechanics and some particular descriptions of
men or professions, there is no need for encouragement.” Thomas Jefferson was even more
emphatic in expressing the wish that there might be “an ocean of fire between this country and
Europe, so that it would be impossible for any more immigrants to come hitcher” (Fjeldstad 118).
Throughout the American history, the United States has performed many strategies, in terms of
immigration, that haven’t been useful and brought consequences to this country many years later.
A good example that we have previously presented is the war between the United States and
Mexico.
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Due to the President Polk’s desire of conquering Mexican lands, and after a battle in the
new state of Texas, a war that could have been avoided began. This war, that represents the
typical dispute between two neighbor-countries fighting for territory issues, shows the beginning
of immigration, at first from Mexican citizens, because many people had to come here to keep on
working in their lands and most of them were farmworkers. A great migration began. Thousands
of men and women, their Indio heritage showing in the color of their skin, in the slight upward
tilt of their dark eyes, came north across the Mexican border to the United States (Cantarow 101).
Moreover, it demonstrates the beginning of a number of issues that didn’t benefit immigrants at
any way. The first Mexican in the United States were not immigrants—they were a conquered
people. The United States brought 100,000 Mexicans into the United States by force with the
absorption of half of that nation’s territory at the end of the U.S.- Mexico War in 1847 (Dan La
Botz). Since that moment, Mexican immigrants began to depend on the United States’ needs.
Later, during the Great Depression, many of these immigrants were forced to go back to their
country because of the unemployment crisis that the United States was going through. Then, in
the bracero era (1942-64), the U.S. wartime economy needed labor and some 4.2 million
Mexican guest workers were brought to labor in the United States, accompanied by a parallel
illegal immigration that also numbered into the millions (Dan La Botz). This program of guest
workers brought a big controversy within the society because, under that status, any immigrant
had the right to work legally in the country until his or her contract expires. Under the law, guest
workers were supposed to receive free housing, medical care, transportation, and the prevailing
wage. Some workers did not receive those minimum standards and others were abused; all were
subject to deportation if their employers complained (Dan La Botz). All this happened when the
governments of Mexico and the United States agreed, during the period from 1942 to 1964, to
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bring Mexican guest workers to cover the labor shortages caused by the Second World War and
the Korean War and under the law apply this program, that due to the facts, the United States
didn’t respect at all. By not respecting this agreement, the United States allowed this conflict of
immigration to grow because the government didn’t treat Mexican immigrants as the way they
legally deserved, applying a bad and mistaken strategy toward this issue. These issues, in the
immigration field, had apparently begun many years before when in 1882, the congress passed
the Chinese Exclusion Act that block future immigrants to the United States from that country
and, automatically, disqualified the Chinese residents already from naturalization and voting
(Jackson 31). While the administration of the President Chester A. Arthur, this Act prevented
those possible immigrants from coming to this country due a conflict between the Chinese and
the Irish communities in California that caused a street fighting in San Francisco. Because of this
performance about immigration, the United States could have avoided the massive wave of
migration to this country in these days by having applied different decisions and policies that
could have established a better environment for immigrants since the beginning of the American
history.
Nowadays, legal, as well as illegal, immigration rates are tremendously increasing
birthing a battle of opinions between documented and undocumented immigrants who claim for
equal rights. Throughout the last decades, many myths have faced facts about undocumented
immigrants. The National Council of la Raza is an organization throughout the United States that
seek to improve opportunities for Hispanic Americans and has defended the position of many
undocumented immigrants within the United States who are considered lazy by myth, for
example, but instead contribute to this country as any other documented citizen. As their Fact
Sheet about undocumented immigrants from their Web Site describes:
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Myth: Undocumented immigrants do not
Fact: Immigrants come to the U.S. for a
want to be legal residents.
variety of reasons — to reunite with family or
to find better employment opportunities — and
would prefer to do so through legal channels.
However, the U.S. immigration system is
extremely limited, and undocumented
immigrants in the U.S. cannot simply apply for
a visa and obtain legal status.
Myth: Undocumented immigrants are lazy.
Fact: Ninety-six percent of undocumented
men living in the U.S. are employed, which
exceeds the labor force participation rate of
legal immigrants and U.S. citizens by 15
percentage points. Many work two or more
jobs. It is clear that employment is a major
driving force behind undocumented migration;
many industries, such as restaurants, hotels,
and agriculture, report that they rely on these
hardworking migrants.
Myth: Undocumented immigrants take jobs
Fact: Immigrant labor is needed to fill jobs in
from Americans.
the U.S. that an older, more educated American
workforce is not willing to fill, especially at the
low wages and poor working conditions many
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unscrupulous employers offer. Currently, there
are approximately nine million undocumented
workers in the U.S. filling important gaps in
the labor market. There is substantial evidence
that their presence in the labor force creates
jobs and strengthens local economies.
Myth: Undocumented immigrants do not
Fact: Undocumented immigrants pay taxes in
pay taxes.
a number of ways, including income and sales
tax. The majority of undocumented immigrants
pay income taxes using Individual Taxpayer
Identification Numbers (ITINs) or false Social
Security numbers. All immigrants, regardless
of status, will pay on average $80,000 per
capita more in taxes than they use in
government services over their lifetime. The
Social Security system reaps the biggest
windfall from taxes paid by immigrants; the
Social Security Administration reports that it
holds approximately $420 billion from the
earnings of immigrants who are not in a
position to claim benefits.
Myth: Undocumented immigrants drain the
Fact: Undocumented immigrants are ineligible
welfare system.
for the vast majority of state and federal
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benefits and are only eligible for those that are
considered important to public health and
safety. In fact, many legal immigrants are also
ineligible for most federal benefits. As a result,
health care spending for immigrants is
approximately half that of citizens.
Myth: The best way to stop undocumented
Fact: Between 1986 and 2002 the number of
migration is by increasing enforcement.
border enforcement agents has tripled, the
number of hours they spent patrolling the
border grew by a factor of approximately eight,
and the Border Patrol’s budget has increased
tenfold. At the same time, the number of
undocumented immigrants in the U.S. has
continued to increase. Support is growing for a
more comprehensive approach to immigration
control which combines smart enforcement
with measures to create a legal path for those
who come to the U.S. to work, and those who
are already in the workforce.
Undocumented workers come to the United States through networks of family members
and friends in a process called chain migration. Many of the most recent immigrants from
Mexico and Guatemala are young men and women (some come alone at 14 years old) from rural,
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indigenous areas with low levels of education, perhaps third to sixth grade from Guatemala and
sixth to eighth grade from Mexico (Dan La Botz). Education is one of the weakest points in
Central America. The last edition of the Collegiate Atlas of the World from the National
Geographic Society reports on its Health and Literacy Section that most countries of South
America appear in a range from 86 to 95% which differs from the range 96 to 100% of the
United States, Canada, and Europe. Next to the education issue, we can find the economy,
another important point when analyzing the reasons of immigration. In the section about
Economy in the same Atlas from the National Geographic Society, we can find, a 2005 estimate,
that most Latin American countries have a lower middle Gross National Income per capita in
U.S. dollars ($826 – $3,255). Some other like Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay in South America
and Costa Rica and Mexico in Central America have upper middle GNI per capita in U.S. dollars
($3,256 - $10,665). Finally, Nicaragua and Haiti, both in Central America, highlight in the chart
for their low GNI per capita in U.S. dollars (less than $826). The United States, however, in
hopes of helping Latin American economy promoted the North American Free Trade
Agreement—NAFTA—that, for many people, didn’t have a good impact among the countries
that signed it. The dismantling of the old nationalist economy, NAFTA, and an economic
depression in 1994-96, had a devastating impact on the Mexican economy. Small business and
farms failed and farmers and workers headed north to the United States in search of jobs (Dan La
Botz). Even thought the statistics from the United States Department of Agriculture show a
tremendous improvement in the economies of the three countries, it doesn’t seem to record the
consequences that its bad impact had on Mexican citizens that forced them to come to the United
States because they had no other option in their country. Mexican workers couldn’t compete with
the American market because there was an evident inequality in terms of technology, for
Avila 20
example, many tools to develop and produce the goods were different in each country, that
caused that the amount of production in each market was different one from the other creating an
inequality that didn’t benefit the country that produced the less amount of goods. Another
important issue is the subsidize—economical help from the local government to the
agriculture—which is a huge advantage of the United States because that administration does
have money to support those programs, something that Latin American governments do not have,
making a huge difference and inequality in terms of the free trade and competition of markets.
Due to these facts, Mexico couldn’t compete with a higher level of market as the one of the
United States and Canada forcing Mexicans citizens to give up their jobs and leave their lands to
look for new and better possibilities, most of the times, overseas. Some similar experiences occur
with other countries in Latin America, where the market seems not to be ready to compete with
the one of the United States, a recent example is the Free Trade Agreement between the United
States and Peru, for many people, this will cause an unequal competition between the two
markets, the Peruvian market is not ready to produce as much as the United States does with the
same high technology to trade goods in the same amount so that both countries get the benefits,
if we compare a single apple that comes from the south of Peru and put it next to an apple that
comes from California, the differences are evident in terms of presentation and that is the effect
of the subsidizes that the government offers to improve the production and presentation of the
good to trade. Both governments assure the creation of new jobs for both countries, but the
Peruvian market will be defeated by the amount of production and distribution of the American
products in lower prices and better quality and there won’t be any way to overcome that. This
situation will cause unemployment and crisis among the society that, as the same way as the
Mexican workers, will have to leave their lands to look for better options in a new country that,
Avila 21
most of the times, is the United States. These policies applied by the US government toward
Latin American countries, especially, are causing unemployment and crisis within the society
leading to the migration of people to other places and countries.
While President Lyndon B. Johnson dreamed about America as a Great Society in the
1960s, today his dream seems to have lost sense among the confrontations of documented and
undocumented immigrants, the increase of rates about immigration, deportation of some
undocumented immigrants, and the complaints of some others about the unfairly treatment by
federal officers or about violent and unexpected raids in works and separated families due to
deportations of undocumented parents with children who are American citizens. We can find
many reasons that mirrors the struggle many immigrants are having right now. Due to an
inevitable social conflict, many movements to fight for the immigrants’ rights have been formed
and now are claiming for a change in laws to better treat them when facing it. The Immigration
Reform that looks to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants that contribute to this
country—as stated in the factsheet of myths and facts about the immigrants from the National
Council of la Raza—and look forward to becoming an American citizen has become in a dream
that some want to light and some others want to shut off.
An example of the struggle many immigrants, especially undocumented, are going
through is Elvira Arellano. A Mexican citizen who came to the United States crossing the border
from Mexico, and began to work with forfeit documents and was later warmed to be deported.
With a child—an eight-year-old named Saul—who is an American citizen, the only option she
had to avoid deportation was to stay in a Methodist church in Chicago, state where she used to
work as a cleaning woman in August 2006. Almost a year later, she went to California to make
some appearances as an activist in the immigrant movement and was arrested by the Immigration
Avila 22
and Customs Enforcement—ICE Agents—outside a church in California when she was with her
son. Later, she was deported to her country, Mexico. Many people raised their voices about
Elvira Arellano’s case, at the same time, many people question the treatment the ICE Agents
give immigrants under custody. Since 2004, at least 62 immigrants have dies in ICE custody.
Three have died since July. One of them, Victoria Arellano, a transgender woman and AIDS
patient, died at a hospital in San Pedro after not receiving her medication. The Washington Post
reported: “As she vomited blood, fellow inmates cared for her in vain” (Hernandez, Daniel).
Another major example of what immigrants face is the meatpackers’ situation at the
national’s largest meat processor, Tyson Foods Inc. where workers are not allowed to unionize to
claim for better options at work. Companies like Tyson, Smithfield Foods and Conagra have
profited from paying low wages, pushing production lines faster and hiring workers who are
much more willing to endure the hazardous conditions of a meat-processing plant, industry
experts say (Barboza, David). This example from the Tyson Food Inc. can be seen in thousands
of jobs in many cities all over the fifty one States. Some labor researchers have found that
employers would rather hire illegal immigrants, because they will accept lower wages in cash,
and have little power to redress abuses (Muwakkil, Salim). These are some cases that mirror the
struggle many immigrants are facing, and demonstrates that the immigration issue is not
something that began a couple of years ago. The immigration issue began more than a hundred
years ago, and the United States has performed programs—as the guest worker—that haven’t
been beneficial at any way for the immigrants who look for better possibilities that they cannot
find in their countries. Most of those countries have been connected to the American economy
and policies that have decreased their progress and have caused a negative perspective for their
citizens leading to a massive migration that at first was legal, but now, due to the critical
Avila 23
situations, has gone beyond the limits of the legality risking their lives crossing the border from
Mexico which has become in a bridge for immigrants from Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama,
Honduras, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Mexico itself.
Millions of immigrants took to the streets between March and May of 2006 in Los
Angeles, New York, Chicago and dozens of other U.S. cities in the largest social and political
demonstrations in American history (Dan La Botz). Today, immigrants are getting together to
claim for a better treatment at work, higher wages in some cases, end violent raids, and some
other things that have motivated them to go out to the streets. During the last decade the AFLCIO and Change-to-Win unions, particularly the Service Employees International Union (SIEU),
UNITE-HERE, and the Laborers (LAIUNA) have put much of their energy into the organization
of low-wage immigrant workers, documented or undocumented (Dan La Botz). Immigrant
unions are still organizing to get better conditions at work and become part of this country. Many
of them differ with other’s ideas but they are all immigrants at the end. Separated families like
the Arellano’s family, or injustices at work as the workers from Tyson Food Inc. are things they
want to stop. Today’s Immigrant’s struggle represents the farmworkers’ struggle in the past, not
with Cesar Chavez or Jessie Lopez De La Cruz to lead them, but other leaders who want to speak
out and emulate the commitment those leaders in the 60s had to fight back the injustices and
bring the equality, unity in a society where the difference between one another does not simply
exist.
Avila 24
Conclusion
1. When thinking about the farmworkers and recalling all the difficult experiences they
faced and lived mirrored in Cesar Chavez and Jessie Lopez’s recounts, we think about people
who worked hard and fought for their rights. Some of them foreign-born and some other nativeborn, there was no difference. In a situation when farmworkers didn’t have a contract, sometimes
they were hired for a certain period of time and when they ended their agreement with the
patrones, they had to start looking for something else to make more money and feed the family.
Wages were not good enough to buy food and living conditions were extremely poor. However,
leaders as Cesar Chavez and Jessie Lopez helped to bring the change and later—through the
FLOC—farmworkers began to experience better conditions, and most importantly, they realized
they could make a change by organizing and motivating people to join the cause. As a beginning
of immigration, migrant farmworkers began the first great struggle in this recount that states the
facts—as the way they occurred—that demonstrate there were strategies that didn’t benefit
immigrants from different countries in Latin America, and sometimes were abusive, causing a
massive migration to the United States throughout the last century and the struggle of workers
who decided to speak out facing these injustices.
2. Immigration—as stated before—has been an important issue throughout the American
history. And due to mistaken strategies from American government toward Latin American
countries especially, it has created unemployment and has caused a decrease in the economic
system that has forced people to migrate to other countries to look for better options. Many
people are shaping the history of this country and will continue to do it. So, the government
should pass a law to create equality among immigrants respecting the Human Rights of every
Avila 25
person—as described in the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights—and respecting the law
as well.
3. These two movements in struggle are examples of the consequences caused by the
same issue, immigration. Many people since the last century began come to the United States for
many reasons making this society a multicultural group of people where we all share the same
values and don’t want a difference between one and the other. Immigrants are making this land
theirs in a very special way. Some have decided to stay here forever while some other have
children and grandchildren already, leaving a new generation that will shape the future society.
When farmworkers struggled in the past, and when immigrants do now, they all see their
children growing up while they become in a motivation to speak out so that they don’t
experience what their parents have done already. When thinking about equality, only. When
thinking about agreement, when thinking about organization, and finally we achieved them, then
we will start to make President Lyndon B. Johnson’s dream come true. America, a Great Society.
Avila 26
Notes
Chicano: Term used for an American citizen of Mexican origin. Illustrate Oxford Dictionary.
DK Publishing, First American Edition, 1998: 147.
2
An important President who faced the greatest crisis ever lived in the American history. When
the great depression began, he gave banks federal loan to help them, but he refused to help
people who had lost their jobs because of the crisis. For further reading, read Presidents. United
States: DK Publishing Inc. Second Ed. 2003
3
After President John F. Kennedy was shot, President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn as new
President of The United States. President Lyndon B. Johnson was characterized by his dream of
America as a Great Society, during his administration, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 seemed to be the path to his dream. However, his administration saw
too many protests against the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War that he finally, discouraged,
decided not to seek reelection.
4
Jessie Lopez De La Cruz experienced her leadership teaching English to farmworkers. Many of
them were not English-speakers which was an inconvenience when dealing with employers. She
used to deal with representatives of the communities representing the farmworkers and gained
the respect of many of them as an organizer.
Avila 27
Migratory Mexican field worker’s home
on the edge of a frozen pea field. Imperial
Valley, California.
Cesar Chavez (1927-1993)
A woman holds a poster: “Solidarity with
immigrants, not deportations.”
Anti-war march, 27 October 2007. New
York.
Author’s Personal Archives.
“Stop criminalizing immigrants!
Legalization, no repression!”
Anti-war march, 27 October 2007. New
York.
Author’s Personal Archives.
Avila 28
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Avila 29
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