jan 4, 1910 - 1910 - CHICAGO'S 1ST MEXICAN COMMUNITY

Description:

The first major wave of Mexican migration to Chicago began in the mid to late 1910s, spurred on by the economic, social, and political displacements of the Mexican Revolutionary years and the rise in industrial and agricultural employment in the United States. Arriving through both direct and indirect routes, Mexicans worked as unskilled and semiskilled laborers in agriculture and heavy industry, including the Rock Island, Santa Fe, and Burlington railways; Inland Steel; U.S. Steel; Beetsugar Company; and the Armour and Swift packinghouses. The predominantly male Mexican workforce, and the “solos,” migrated into Chicago from agricultural fields throughout the Midwest and from towns and villages in Texas and the Central Mexican states of Guanajuato, Michoacán, and Jalisco. Those who came were more likely from the middle class than from among the poorest peasants. Like many of the African American workers of the Great Migration, some Mexicans were hired to break steel and packinghouse strikes in the late 1910s and early 1920s, thus placing them in conflict with European workers.

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