Quotes Regarding Mexican Immigration
From UCSB English Department Knowledge Base
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These quotes offer some context for the book Crossing Over
[edit] From “Interests Not Passions: Mexican-American Attitude Towards Mexico” by de la Garza and DeSipio in the International Migration Review
“For most of their time in the United States, people of Mexican ancestry have been accused of being disloyal and not assimilable into American society. While this charge has been made of most immigrants in the first years after their arrival, the Mexican case is unique because new immigrants have always been part if the Mexican-origin and -ancestry population. Thus, unlike other immigrant populations there has never been a slowing of the immigrant flow that allows U.S.-born generations to fully integrate into U.S. Politics (402).”
“[T]he history of U.S. immigration and ethnicity demonstrates that the Italian-American pattern of minimal political interest in Italy combined with a maintenance of cultural identity is much more common among [Mexican] immigrants…since the end of the U.S.-Mexico war Mexican Americans have not asserted social or political identities that compete with their American patriotism. Instead, the history of Mexican-American politics in the United States over the last 150 years has been one of demanding inclusion as equals and taking advantage of opportunities for participation when offered (403).”
[edit] “Folklore, Machismo and Every Day Practice: Writing Mexican Worker Culture” by Manuel Peña. Western Folklore. Chico: Winter 2006.Vol. 65, Iss. 1/2
“[Notes from] 9-14-92 The workers' discourse is painfully sexist. Like working-class men (perhaps all men) everywhere, these proletarians are heirs to the longstanding discourse of male power over women. But at present the claim to power is being challenged on many fronts, not the least of which is the Mexican women's growing quest for empowerment. In a world where 'proving that we are men,' as one of them put it, is constantly threatened by economic uncertainty and the indignities they suffer as lowly proletarians, many of the workers balk at the prospect of equality between men and women. Over and over, they voice their objection to bringing wives and daughters to the United States, because here, as one of them complained, 'las mujeres son muy igualadas' -- women are too 'uppity' -- and they don't want their own to absorb such alien ways of thinking. One 'function' for the folklore of machismo, then, may be linked to this effort to keep feminism at bay, by symbolically confirming men's dominance over women on the one hand, and, on the other, by reinforcing the 'evil' nature of women, not so much because of their alleged treachery but because of their real quest for equality. The workers' fear of losing control over traditionally subordinate women torments them, and they circle rhetorically back to this point over and over again.”
[edit] Aisha Belone “How about a 900% raise? Mexican nurses head north to cure the ballooning U.S. health care labor shortage.” Latin Trade. July 2004.
“Registered nurse Carmen Lopez wants a raise--so she's leaving Mexico and moving to California to take a job at Desert Valley Medical, a hospital near Los Angeles, where her income will increase tenfold. ‘I was making US$500 a month in Mexico, and in the U.S. I will be making between $25 to $28 an hour’ Lopez says.
“Lopez, upon finishing her U.S. nursing exam, will be joining nine other Mexican nurses at Desert Valley Medical. As U.S. baby boomers--now in their early 60s--age, the number of registered nurses in the United States is not keeping up.”
