ABSTRACT
During World War II, so many young American men were called into military service that the agricultural sector in the US began to suffer. In 1942, the US government agreed with Mexico to allow a few thousand Mexican agricultural laborers to enter the US to offset the continuing and growing labor shortages. In the early 1990s, construction of a barrier began in some places along the US–Mexican border. In California the “fence,” as it was called, separated Tijuana from San Diego. Cultural stereotypes of the past, including the idea that Latinos are more passive, more fatalistic, and more family-oriented have now given way to more cosmopolitan views of Latinos in the US, and important population shifts have shaped Latino culture into more regional and class-oriented formations than one single overarching Latino society within the borders of the United States.
