ABSTRACT
Mexicanos constituted between twelve and fourteen percent of the total population of Los Angeles, although they were highly concentrated in several enclaves in the central and eastern sections of the city. Literature praising economic opportunities and the climate of Los Angeles had wide distribution in midwestern and eastern sections of the United States. Southern California businessmen conducted extensive advertising and publicity campaigns designed to lure newcomers to their region. Southern California boosterism, which officially began in the late 1880s with the founding of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, reached new proportions after the First World War. The phenomenal growth in the Mexican population began after the exclusion of Japanese immigration in 1908 when California agriculture and railroad industries began to recruit Mexican laborers. The outbreak of the Mexican Revolution spurred greater movement of Mexicans north into the southwestern United States.
