Ronald Takaki in the Chapter 12, explores about the Mexican immigration in the early 1900s. The author starts by comparing the Mexican with the Japanese since they were both arriving at the same time and for the same reason: land opportunity. Besides the dream of having their own land, Mexicans were also leaving their homeland to run away from starvation and the violence, since the country was facing in the Mexican Revolution.
Most of these immigrants were accustomed to work in agriculture and continued to work in this field in U.S, however they also worked in other kinds of jobs. For example, in 1908 the Mexicans that were working in California and Texas were mostly doing excavation and building roads, which reinforce the point that these immigrants worked mostly in manual labors. Thus, Mexicans were being excluded from better wage jobs where the market did not allow them to advance in other positions, as the passage says: “Most workers were locked into low blue-collar occupations. Mexican heads of households living in Santa Barbara in 1900, for example, were still employed in the same jobs thirty years later.”(296) …show more content…
The most important Mexican strikes happened “in 1933 when twelve thousand laborers in the San Joaquin Valley resisted wage reduction” (299), they were fighting to raise their pay from 60 cents for every 100 pounds of cotton to one dollar. The outcome from the strike was not positive, which resulted in the agreement of 75 cents. Thus, it shows that even though the Mexicans had the strength to work and bring result to the companies, they never felt at home due to the “gringos”