ABSTRACT
Mexico and the United States ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848, ceding extensive Mexican territory to its northern neighbor. To summarize, changing conditions in both Mexico and the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century and first few decades of the twentieth propelled Mexican migration to the US in a steady stream that gained strength during and after the Mexican Revolution. Porfirio Díaz’s long regime had already led to the displacement of many people in Mexico, thousands of whom had migrated to Mexico’s lost territories in the US Even from the time of Mexican independence, liberal elites in Mexico’s government called into question the pervasive power of the Mexican Catholic Church. Conditions in Mexico and the ongoing need for labor in the United States kept rates of Mexican immigration high throughout the 1920s, in spite of growing anti-immigrant sentiment and legislation.
