ABSTRACT
During the 1920s and other periods, the Mexicans who immigrated to the United States did so to actively seek economic opportunities— and greater opportunities did await them in the United States than in Mexico. Mexican recruits suffered no less than northerners from the ovens’ intense temperatures. Manuel Gamio, the Mexican anthropologist, observed that most Mexicans in their homeland were truly sedentary, the period of revolution not excluded. Typically, Mexican immigrants who were not going directly to the Pacific or Rocky Mountain states passed through San Antonio, Texas, which served as a gigantic “magnet” and “funnel” for the migration of Mexicans because of its reputation as the primary center for recruitment of Mexican laborers. Many Mexicans who accepted work as contract laborers in the Southwest found that they were poorly paid and their lives were humiliating. From the name alone, Mexican immigrants might have anticipated a bad outcome from entering into labor contracts.
