Sociohistorical Background

Sociohistorical Report on Mexican Americans

Mexican Americans is the term used to assign Americans of Hispanic descent . The term is used loosely as there are a number of racial groups that are of Hispanic descent but come from different regions in South America aside from those from Mexico like Cuba , Brazil and the like . The influx of Mexicans into America started in the 1930 's when America offered work to the Mexicans because the country needed more people to work on the developments in the time of great progress in the country

The Mexicans who first came to the country were skilled workers and farmers who worked on the railroads and farms in the vast land (Garcna 2006 . Most of those were males and ranged from adolescence to adulthood , young men who were productive and had strength to endure the heavy work at that time . In this context , most of these young men married the local women and hence sprung the racial mix of Mexican Americans . On the other hand , some Mexicans also brought their families with them to the country and had children who were of Mexican parentage but were born and grew up in the country which made them Mexican Americans

Before the 1970 's the US census used the term Mexican Americans as a racial identifier but it was not used consistently hence making it difficult to really count how many Mexican Americans were in the country (Gonzales Gonzales , 2000 . This also meant that identifying other demographic information like birth , death , fertility , education and occupation was difficult to measure . According to the 1970 census there was 9 .07 million of Spanish descent in the country . Thirty years after according to the 2000 census , there was an estimated 36 million Mexican Americans in the country . It is also projected that this number will continue to increase over the next 50 years (Shrestha , 2006

References

Garcna , M . C (2006 . Seeking Refuge : Central American Migration to Mexico , The United States

and Canada . Berkeley : University of California Press

Gonzales , M Gonzales , C (2000 . Readings in Mexican American History . Bloomington

Indiana : Indiana University Press

Shrestha , L (2006 . The Changing Demographic Pro of the United States . Congressional

Research Service . The Library of Congress...