A Demographic Profile of the Mexican-Born Population in the United States
Alma M. García
Crossing a 2,000-mile border with the United States, Mexican immigrants have always found themselves in a situation unique to all other immigrant groups.1 Since this border is one of the most frequently crossed in the world, Mexicans have always shaped the fabric of the United States. For Mexican immigrants, life in “El Norte” represents both cultural change and cultural continuity.2 This interaction between immigrants and their host country has not been without social and cultural upheaval, one that has long challenged the national metaphor for cultural relations—the American melting pot. Since the arrival of first major wave of Mexican immigration in the early twentieth century, this immigrant population has settled in such cities as El Paso and San Antonio, Texas, and Los Angeles, San Diego, and San José, California.3 These cities and others maintain vibrant, flourishing communities of Mexican immigrants who live in close proximity, often as next-door neighbors. These communities are the site of both cultural replenishment as well as social, political, and economic discord between Mexican immigrants and the U.S.-native born.4 Still, a small but growing sector of foreign-born Mexicans and U.S.-born Mexican immigrants have surpassed major obstacles as they search for a better life for the children they brought with them during their precarious journey to El Norte. Oscar Handlin, the noted U.S. historian, provided an overview of immigrants. In his landmark book The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations That Made the American People, Handlin stated that “once I set out to write a history of the immigrants in American. Then I [Handlin] discovered that the immigrants were American history.”5 Borrowing Handlin’s assertion, Mexican immigrants were and will always be part of American history.
A demographic profile of Mexican immigrants residing in the United States is essential to understanding the twenty-first century’s political, economic, social, and cultural issues currently facing future generations of Mexican immigrants and later generations of U.S.-born Mexicans in the United States. Educators, politicians, and social-service providers cannot adequately design public policies for the problems facing Mexican immigrants, both authorized and unauthorized, without understanding key demographic features of this population.6
Beginning in the early 1960s, the foreign-born population living in the United States experienced marked changes in their countries of origin, settlement patterns, population size, age, and other demographic characteristics. As the European-origin immigrant population in the United States declined, the U.S. foreign-born population, documented or not documented from Latin America increased. Under the provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, a preferential system replaced the existing quota system for countries in Latin America and Asia, regions that each received significantly larger allotments than European countries. Although many hoped that this policy would curb undocumented immigration, it did not due to economic stagnation in Mexico, the difficult bureaucratic process required under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, and the pull from U.S. manufacturing and service industries for a pool of cheap labor.7
This “new wave” of immigrants transformed the fabric of society in the United States by contributing to racial and ethnic diversity in long-standing communities of immigrants and in new geographic areas. Latin American and Asian immigrant communities were replenished with recently arrived immigrants from their home country. New immigrant communities emerged as immigrants from new sending countries began to arrive in the United States. Both types of communities experienced cycles of acceptance and rejection, ones that have historically shaped all aspects of their lives and that of the U.S. population.
The impact of a growing foreign-born population raises the following questions. First, will the government recognize the specific needs of a growing population of both authorized and unauthorized immigrants? If so, what will be the nature and scope of the political debates surrounding the allocation of funds to meet these needs? How will the government reassess the efficacy of existing government agencies to adapt to communities of immigrants who are coming from different countries of origins in comparison to historically long-standing ones such as Mexican immigrants? What will be the outcome of restrictive immigrant legislation, such as those regarding the use of public services by immigrants and, more recently, the resident status of citizenship paths for young children brought to the United States by their unauthorized parents? What decisions will be made to address the educational needs of unauthorized children who accompanied their unauthorized parents or guardians? What rulings will be made on immigration cases by the different U.S. Courts of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court? What policies will be developed to address the specific needs of immigrant women? Lastly, what role will naturalized Mexican immigrants and second-generation and later-generation U.S.-born Mexicans play in politics at every level and every type, but perhaps most importantly, in presidential electoral politics? These critical questions, among others, and subsequent policy decisions will continue to fuel the political and public debate on Mexican immigration.
The Mexican-born population in the United States has increased exponentially over the past several decades, surpassing every other immigrant group living in the United States. Many factors contributed to the growing influx of Mexicans crossing the border into the United States. Mexico’s economic recessions in the 1980s and 1990s led the Mexican federal government to adopt vastly unpopular austerity measures that greatly diminished the standard of living for the middle class, the working class, and those in the informal labor sector, such as street vendors and domestic workers, most of whom were women. As a result of significant cuts in key social services used by those Mexicans most at risk, rising costs of all consumer items and food, and diminishing wages, Mexicans decide to make the journey to El Norte in their attempt to start a new and better life. From 1970 to 2000, immigrants from Mexico surpassed the combined total of immigrants from Central America. Many factors account for such a pattern beginning with the historical and contemporary ties between Mexico and the United States that pulled Mexicans to the United States. Long-standing communities of Mexican immigrants facilitated the migration of Mexicans to unite with family members, not only those from their nuclear families but also extended family, friends, and even friends of friends. In 2010, immigrants made up 25 percent of the total population of California, 11 percent of New York, 10 percent of Texas, and 9 percent of Florida. Together these four states accounted for 59 percent of the total foreign born. One in four residents in California were immigrants, primarily Mexican immigrants. In New York and New Jersey, one in five residents were foreign born. Except for Illinois, with 14 percent of its population being foreign born, other states in the Midwest had lower than 8 percent foreign born, including North and South Dakota with only 3 percent. Immigrants from Cuba and the Dominican Republic were concentrated in Florida, Latin and Central Americans in California, with Mexican immigrants forming the majority in this state.
Mexican immigrants have always been concentrated in a few regions and states in the United States. In 2011, 58 percent of all Mexican immigrants lived in California and Texas. Four million lived in California, representing 37 percent of all Mexican immigrants, and 2.5 million in Texas (21 percent of all Mexican immigrants). Illinois and Arizona rank the next highest. In 2010, about 25 percent of the Mexican born clustered in three cities: Los Angeles, Houston, and Chicago. In 2011, Los Angeles and its greater metropolitan area were home to 15 percent (2 million) of the Mexican-born in the United States. Chicago ranked second with 6 percent (684,000) and Dallas ranked third with 5 percent (610,000). Historically, Mexican immigrants have concentrated in several metropolitan areas. Between 2008 and 2012, the top five metropolitan areas with the largest percentage of Mexican immigrants were McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas (27 percent); Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, California (14 percent); Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, California (13 percent); San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, California (11 percent), and Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, Texas (10 percent).8
1. The Nexus of Education, Occupation, and Poverty
An overview of education, occupation, income, and poverty illustrates the structural inequalities confronted by Mexican immigrants. The United States has always prided itself on its public school system, one developed to be free and accessible. Nevertheless, equal access to quality education remains a pressing social problem, one that results in limited upward mobility. The educational attainment level of parents remains one of the most significant predictors of the educational attainment levels of their children. Education is a major avenue to upward mobility, a foundation for surpassing a parent’s level of socioeconomic standing. Too often, it represents a long-lasting roadblock in the lives of Mexican immigrants and their children. Studies have shown that children of immigrants who are first-generation college students begin their education at a disadvantage stemming from the social-structural inequalities and limited social capital that parents without a college education possess.9 Daughters of Mexican immigrants are at a greater risk due to long-standing cultural traditions that constrain a woman from breaking expected gender roles.10 Nevertheless, institutional structural inequalities, regardless of levels of a student’s social capital, continue to reinforce educational inequalities. Such inequalities include a lack of sufficient funding for schools in cities with large immigrant communities; a lack of successful mentoring for students at all levels, particularly those wanting to attend college; a lack of sustained mentoring programs; limited access to computers; and inadequate efforts to provide school counselors who can communicate effectively with immigrant parents many of whom lack the English skills needed to understand the educational system and the needs of their children as they progress through schools. Specific programs developed to facilitate the success of immigrant children and, in many cases, the U.S.-born children of immigrants have produced only limited results.11
Although educational attainment levels for some immigrants, such as some Asian immigrants, are just as high or, in some cases, even higher than those of the native born, Mexican immigrants continue to lag behind at precariously low levels of educational attainment.12 For decades, a high school diploma has no longer been a springboard to the middle class as measured by income and occupation. Based on the U.S. Census of 2010, 57 percent of all Mexican immigrants age 25 years and older had not graduated from high school or received a GED diploma in contrast to the total immigrant population (28 percent) and the total native-born population (7 percent). In 2013, only 6 percent of Mexican immigrants had a bachelor’s degree or higher, significantly lower than the rates for all immigrants (29 percent) and the total native-born population (33 percent).13
Educational attainment levels have a direct impact on the labor force experiences of Mexican immigrants. Of all Mexican immigrants in the paid labor force, 25 percent were employed in natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations in comparison with only 13 percent of all immigrants and only 8 percent of the native-born population.14 At the service section occupational level, Mexican immigrants formed the largest group (31 percent), followed by all immigrants (25 percent) and then the native born (17 percent). Mexican women were concentrated in service and personal care jobs. A comparison among Mexican immigrants, all immigrants, and the native born reveals even greater differences in the category of “management, business, science and arts. Percentage differences in this occupational category illustrate the disparity among the three groups. Thirty-eight percent of all native born and 30 percent of all immigrants cluster in this category. Only 9 percent of all Mexican immigrants cluster in this category. In addition, the socioeconomic conditions within the country of birth for foreign-born men and women are closely tied to the placement of foreigners in the U.S. labor markets. Immigrants from India, China, and Korea have arrived to the United States with better economic and educational backgrounds than Mexican immigrants who, with some exceptions, have come from lower economic backgrounds.15
Language barriers also contribute to limited occupational mobility and overall social mobility. Unlike Indian immigrants, who have high levels of English proficiency, less than one-third of all Mexican immigrants demonstrate strong English language skills. In 2013, 69 percent of Mexican immigrants (age 5 and older) had limited English proficiency, compared with 50 percent of the total foreign-born population. A difference of 12 percent exists between Mexican immigrants who spoke only English at home (4 percent) and all immigrants (16 percent). In, 2013, levels of English proficiency among Mexican immigrants increased but were still lower than that of the total foreign-population in the United States. As with other immigrant groups, children of immigrants demonstrate higher levels of English proficiency. About two-thirds of Mexicans born in the United States speak English proficiently. The greater a generation’s distance from their Mexican immigrant background, the higher the percentage of English proficiency. Without an understanding of the limited English skills of a significant sector of the Mexican immigrant population in the United States, particularly newly arrived ones, attempts by policy makers to develop social services to address their needs will remain stalled.16
At the political level, the history of presidential political campaigns reveals attempts by such candidates as John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush to use their often-limited Spanish language skills to “woo” potential voters. Obama’s campaign organizers provided television advertisements and social media outlets to reach naturalized Mexican immigrants and their U.S.-born children who were eligible to vote. In an effort to reach monolingual Spanish-speaking customers, businesses regularly run advertisements in Spanish-language newspapers and buy television time for Spanish-language commercials. In addition, some drugstore chains provide prescription guidelines in several languages, depending on their customers, and, more recently, have translators available on call. The classic example of a potentially disastrous problem with the labels on prescription bottles involves the direction to “take once a day.” The problem is that “once” is also Spanish for eleven (once). Perhaps this remains an urban myth, but it carries cautionary-tale warning of the dangers of language barriers.
An examination of the poverty rates for the Mexican immigrant population requires a brief historical grounding to bring this issue from out of the shadows of political discourse. In 1960, on Thanksgiving Day, CBS aired A Harvest of Shame, one of Edward R. Murrow’s finest documentaries in which he depicted the “shameful” plight of migrant workers whose poverty was far reaching, but mostly invisible to a white, middle-class society experiencing the post–World War II affluence. Two years later, in 1962, Michael Harrington published his now classic The Other America, a scathing indictment of a society mostly oblivious to the pernicious conditions of poverty experienced by the “other Americans,” like the migrant workers depicted in A Harvest of Shame. In 1964, in his State of the Union address, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a “War on Poverty” stating, “Our aim is not only to relieve the symptoms of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it.”17 The civil rights movement and, specifically, the NAACP and the Urban League, put mass pressure on the Johnson administration to implement policies to set a national agenda for combating poverty. Although critics and supporters of the War on Poverty continue to debate its efficacy, poverty, however defined by the government and related agencies, remains a key indicator to assess a group’s well being in any given society.
Beginning in the early 1970s, statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau showed some decreases in poverty levels, but the trend was not long lasting. Certain groups, such as single African-American women with children, Native American families, and the elderly from all backgrounds and immigrant statuses, continue to battle poverty and its consequences. Similarly, those coming “north from Mexico” experience poverty levels significantly higher than that of the total U.S. society. In 2011, Mexican immigrants were more likely than the native or foreign born to live in poverty. Based on the official poverty line, 30 percent of Mexican immigrants lived in poverty in comparison to the total native population (13 percent). In 2013, poverty levels for the total native-born families (10 percent) and the total foreign-born families (18 percent) were lower than that for Mexican immigrant families (28 percent). When poverty is redefined to include those “in or near poverty.” 63 percent of Mexican immigrants are considered to live in poverty.18
Additional demographic patterns of the foreign-born population in the United States provide further insights into the contemporary experiences of Mexican immigrants and their impact on U.S. society. Levels of poverty in the United States have shifted over the years for some groups, such as African-Americans. In 2012, while the poverty rate among African-Americans decreased, their poverty rate of 27 percent was more than double the rates for whites (13 percent). A larger percentage of immigrants (23 percent) lived in poverty compared with the native-born population (14 percent). Different rates of poverty exist across immigrant groups. Mexicans had the highest level of poverty (35 percent), followed by Hondurans (34 percent), and Guatemalans (31 percent). Whether they fall below the poverty level or not, accessibility of health insurance coverage represents another critical indicator of an immigrant group’s standard of living. In 2010, 54 percent of Mexican immigrants did not have health insurance, in stark contrast to rates for the total native-born population (14 percent). Many uninsured immigrants and others often used a hospital emergency department for routine care, particularly for their children’s medical care. Poverty and lack of medical insurance have a direct impact on an immigrant group’s use of the welfare system. Immigrants surpassed the native born in use of welfare programs by 13 percent. Educational attainment levels represent a major determinant in a person’s rise out of poverty, increased accessibility to health care and health insurance, and decreased need to use welfare services. For many immigrants, length of stay in the United States does not lead to upward mobility. Immigrants who have lived in the United States for a decade or more may still experience limited economic improvements. Economic gaps continue to exist between Mexican immigrants and the total U.S. population; immigrants have higher poverty rates, higher utilization of welfare services, and less access to health care.19
Mexican immigrants have specific demographic characteristics that distinguish them from other foreign-born and native-born people. For one, Mexican immigrants have lower educational attainment levels. For example, in 2013, only 6 percent had received a B.A. degree or higher, in contrast to rates for the total foreign-born population (28 percent) and the native-born population (30 percent). Mexican immigrants are also younger than the native-born population. They are less proficient in English but are more likely to speak English at home than the total foreign-born population. Mexican immigrants cluster in certain occupations, such as service, construction and maintenance, transportation, and farm work. Mexicans have lower incomes and higher poverty rates.
2. New Destination States: Emergent Mexican Immigrant Communities
Immigrants have traditionally settled in communities with immigrants from their own country. In the 1970s, California, New York, Florida, Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, and Massachusetts have become the home for about 60 percent of all immigrants and, in some years, 75 percent. Beginning in the early 1990s, immigrants moved to new-destination states with historically low numbers of immigrants from any part of the world. Between 1990 and 2000, the foreign-born population increased by 11 percent. The geographic settlement patterns for this increased population show that the number of immigrants doubled in states in the South and Midwest, two regions with historically low numbers of immigrants. South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Delaware, Arkansas, South Dakota, Nevada, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Wyoming, Idaho, Indiana, and Mississippi experienced a 50 percent increase in immigrant population. A dramatic change took place from traditional immigrant areas of settlement, such as California, Texas, and New York. About one in every eleven immigrants in the United States resided in a new-destination state, compared with one in twenty-five in 1990. While the growth in the foreign-born population in the traditional settlement areas grew 40 percent between 2000 and 2010, the unauthorized immigrant population in new-destination states grew by 80 percent. Between the years 2000 and 2010, the new-destination states of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee witnessed a large increase in their foreign-born population, particularly Mexican-born immigrants. Many of these immigrants migrated to these states after living in another one, such as California. Many left once they heard of new employment opportunities and as living costs increased in California. The immigrant population increased by 77 percent in South Carolina, and Alabama and Tennessee experienced a 67 percent growth. Of the total number of immigrants in new-destination states, 35 percent were from Mexico. Immigrants from other countries of origin in new-destination states included India, the Philippines, and China, but none of these countries had an immigrant population larger than 4 percent.
The unauthorized immigrant population in new-destination states grew by 80 percent between 2000 and 2010, while in traditional-destination states it increased by 40 percent. In both traditional and new-destination states, Mexicans make up the largest group within the unauthorized.20
Immigrants in new-destination states differ in some key demographic characteristics from those in traditional destinations. In contrast to immigrants in traditional-destination states, immigrants living in new-destination states are more likely to be men of working age who participate in the paid labor force; are less likely to have health insurance; live in poverty; and are less likely to hold management, business, and finance occupations. In traditional-destination states, more women (6 percent) had jobs in the health care system than those in new-destination states (3 percent). Immigrants in traditional and new-destination states showed similar patterns of lower educational attainment levels compared with the total native population.21 In addition to changes among immigrants in general, demographers predict continued shifts in the geographic distribution of the Mexican born.
Changing manufacturing, service, and agricultural food production industries will continue to require a cheap and steady source of low-skilled or unskilled workers. Mexican immigrants, specifically undocumented ones, fill such needs. For example, Vermont’s milk industry, the state’s major agricultural food production industry, is in constant need of workers. As increasing numbers of U.S. workers moved out of the state looking for better employment opportunities, the milk and milk by-products industry looked south to Mexico in search of a replacement labor force. Eventually, Mexican immigrants, usually undocumented, made the trip north from Mexico to Vermont in search of more lucrative jobs than those in the West and Southwest. In 2013, Mexicans represented about one-third of the dairy workers. Interestingly, unlike the growing opposition in Arizona, the National Milk Producers Federation expressed concern over the widespread deportation of unauthorized Mexican migrant workers without whom the dairy industry would face drastic economic declines. The increase in the Mexican immigrant population has not only changed the composition of Vermont’s labor force but has also affected the university curriculum. For example, at Middlebury College, students can take a new course on the U.S.-Mexico border. One year, as part of their coursework, students enrolled in this course decided to address the needs of migrant workers by creating a website containing resource materials for Vermont’s migrant workers.22 In addition, communities with a large Mexican immigrant labor force soon witnessed the establishment of new businesses, usually mom-and-pop business, that catered to the Mexican immigrant population. New issues will inevitably develop as Mexican immigrants have U.S.-born children who will enter public schools and be eligible for social services. Some communities in Vermont that have experienced an influx of Mexican immigrants have experienced incidents of ethnic violence. The town of Burlington’s Peace and Justice Center responded to the killing of Michael Brown—the unarmed black teenager shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri, by the police— by calling for the need to fight racism and racial violence outside the South, such as in the state of Vermont where incidents of violence against Mexican workers have increased.23
Just as in Vermont, Mexican immigrants in Tennessee serve as a source of cheap labor and represent a major factor in the state’s economic growth. Workers are overwhelmingly young Mexican men who have migrated to Tennessee from other states, such as California, Florida, and Texas, instead of directly from Mexico. Using informal networks, particularly immigrant family ones, Mexicans have been moving to Tennessee, one of several new-destination states, with hopes of more stable employment. Mexican-born workers cluster in the urban centers of Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, and Chattanooga, but trends show some movement into rural areas, where the demand for farm work is increasing. Other occupations include low-wage, low-skill, seasonal employment in construction and many year-round positions in services and manufacturing. Vermont, Tennessee, and other states without a history of Mexican immigrants, face social, political, and educational issues as immigrant workers arrive and stay in these areas of the United States. The legacy and ongoing struggles with anti-immigration prejudice, discrimination, and violence against Mexican workers in states such as California, Texas, and Arizona will no doubt face states like Vermont and Tennessee.24
3. Finding Religious Space in the New South
Beginning in the 1980s, as in Tennessee, Vermont, and other new-destination states, more opportunities unfolded in the South for Mexican immigrants, and they became a driving force for social transformation. Social, cultural, economic, and political adaptation and conflicts eventually developed. On the one hand, Mexican immigrants experienced the process of adjustment to the United States, specifically within new-destination states. Unlike the experiences of Mexican immigrants in traditional-destination states, those who came to new-destination states lacked preexisting social network. On the other hand, whites and African-Americans in new-destination states did not have sustained interactions with Latino immigrants, making it necessary for them to adjust to a rapidly diversifying society.25 Mexican and Central American immigrants journeyed to the South, specifically to the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, in hopes of improving their family’s lives.
Several international factors contributed to the arrival of Mexican immigrants to the South. Beginning in the 1980s, economic transformations in the South set the stage for this new migration of Mexican immigrants. As a result of an increasingly globalized economy, the South found itself facing the ill effects of U.S. companies moving offshore, which inevitably resulted in plant closings in various industries, such as steel and textiles. At the same time, some national and foreign companies recognized the profitability of moving their production to the South, where they could take advantage of cheap, primarily nonunion labor. Mercedes, Honda, and Hyundai set up factories in Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Poultry processing plants in Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, and North Carolina accounted for almost half of the entire industry in the United States. These developments created an expanding need for cheap labor that was filled by Mexican immigrants. Facing a shortage of cheap labor, food-processing, carpet, service, and construction industries adopted a variety of recruiting methods that eventually created a labor force of Mexican immigrants. Mexican and other immigrant workers built facilities for 1996 Olympic Games held in Atlanta. As a result, “the mass migration of Latin Americans [immigrants] to the U.S. South … triggered an unprecedented series of changes in the social, economic and cultural life of the region and inaugurated a new era in Southern history.”26
Mexican immigrants began arriving in Georgia during the 1970s when Gainesville became known as the “Poultry Capital of the World.” Mexicans also found employment in meat production and large-scale agribusiness. During the 1980s, growers preferred to hire Mexican immigrant workers, particularly newly arrived ones, many of whom were undocumented and accepted even lower wages. Mexicans made up at least 34 percent of workers in the construction industry, but there are many undocumented Mexicans in this industry, so this is a conservative estimate.27 The state also attracted Mexican immigrants to work in the carpets and rugs industry, both of which represented Georgia’s growing dominance in both the national and world economy. As early as the 1950s, textile and carpet manufacturers began to move to the South, an area with lower wages than the Northeast. Mexican workers moved into this industry, which was rapidly overtaking the poultry industry and other areas in the carpet industry. The 1990s witnessed the largest migration of Mexicans to Georgia. For example, in Dalton, Georgia, from 1990 to 2000, the Hispanic population, most of whom were Mexican immigrants, increased from 7 percent to 40 percent.28 Mexican immigrants, with their American-born children, became a visible part of society in northern Georgia, and Atlanta became the major hub for Mexican and Central American workers. The city of Atlanta witnessed more than mere economic growth. Social change and social conflict eventually developed between newly arrived Mexican immigrants and the long-established groups in Atlanta: Anglos and African Americans.29
Throughout the new-destination states, Mexican immigrants were changing the social fabric of communities. Many changes came smoothly, while others led to social conflict. The struggles of the Catholic Mexican and Central American immigrant community in Atlanta, Georgia, stands as a case study in this process. In the introduction of her study of Mexican and Central Americans in Atlanta, Mary Odem draws a vibrant picture of the community, one that struggled and won the battle to preserve its Latino Catholic roots:
On New Peachtree Road in a former industrial zone located on the northern outskirts of the city of Atlanta sits a small, pre-fabricated warehouse.…A tall slender white cross with the words “Misíon Católica de Nuestra Señora de Las Americas” (Catholic Mission of Our Lady of the Americas) hangs from the roof of the building next to a glass-enclosed space with a 3 foot high statue of the brown-skinned Virgin of Guadalupe (La Virgen Morena)…an unusual site in the predominantly Protestant region. On the weekend, more than 3,000 Mexican, Central American and South American immigrants gather at this site…to celebrate mass; pray to patron saints; attend English job-training and computer classes and take part in family and youth programs. They come by car, subway, and on foot from surrounding neighborhoods and from nearby towns and suburbs.30
This vivid description of the Misión depicts a sacred space created out of a struggle between Mexican immigrant Catholics and the Catholic diocese of Atlanta, Georgia, as well as its nonimmigrant white and African American residents. Indeed, La Misíon stands as a testament to the tenacity and courage of Atlanta’s “newcomers” who wanted to practice their Latino Catholic religion and carve out a secular space, or “brave new world,” in Atlanta.
Mexican immigrants who came to Atlanta brought with them their Catholic religion with its specific rituals and liturgy rooted in Mexican culture. The arrival of Mexican immigrant Catholics in Atlanta posed a challenge for the Catholic Church. How would Mexicans be integrated into a predominantly white, nonimmigrant congregation?31 Catholic Mexican immigrants in Atlanta hoped to “transplant” their Catholicism to their new community and churches. Mexicans wanted to preserve masses celebrated in Spanish, devotion to the Virgen de Guadalupe, religious festivals, and other events in the Catholic calendar, as well as Mexican rituals associated with their Mexican culture. Mexicans ultimately fought for the establishment of the Misión Católica de Nuestra Señora de Las Américas where they could preserve their Mexican Catholic traditions. The establishment of the Misión represented a “grassroots struggle by Latin American immigrants to find a religious space where they could practice their faith in a familiar, welcoming environment and find the material, social and spiritual resources to deal with hardship of migration and adaptations to life in the United States.”32 Their efforts eventually led to conflicts with Atlanta’s Catholic archdiocese, which found itself in a quandary. The Catholic Church wanted to serve and welcome newcomers, specifically immigrants but at the same time wanted to help Mexican and other Latino immigrants adjust to the practice of Catholicism in the United States, which that would replace rituals practiced by Mexican and other Latin American immigrants.33 The archdiocese even feared the possibility of these immigrants moving away from Catholicism to evangelical Protestantism as one possible outcome of its lack of sensitivity to the specific needs of Mexican immigrants, Mexican-Americans, and other immigrant groups.34 As a result, the archdiocese designed a concerted outreach to Mexican immigrant Catholics in hopes of “integrating” them into the mainstream Catholic Church.
Atlanta’s Mexican and Central American immigrant community always kept their eyes on the prize: a safe religious space where they could worship their Catholic faith as if they were still in their homeland, which they knew they would probably never see again but wanted to keep in their hearts and minds. They also sought to pass on this religious space to their U.S.-born children. As Atlanta’s immigrants moved closer and closer to building this space, albeit in a neighbor’s living room, then in a grocery store, later in a Protestant Church, and finally in the basement of a Catholic Church, a strong backlash developed from the Anglo community in general and specifically white Catholic parishioners whose immigrant roots were generations removed from the newly arrived immigrants. After a series of meetings, protests, confrontations, and ultimately negotiations, Latino immigrants succeeded in carving out a permanent religious space where they could worship using their own rituals and traditions. The Misíon Católica de Nuestra Señora de Las Americas became the heart of the Catholic immigrant community and truly ministered to the needs of the newcomers to Atlanta, both their spiritual needs and their needs as immigrants in the proverbial “strange land.” The Misíon could not eliminate the inequality and discrimination experienced by the Mexican immigrant community, but it could and did function as a safety net. Immigrants who worshiped at the Misíon eventually used this religious space as a base for civic participation. For example, immigrants learned how to write petitions, engage in petition-signing activities, and, in one case, write a letter of protest against the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Atlanta for arresting day workers without following the proper protocol. In sum, “immigrants used the Misíon as an alternative public space from which to engage in political debate over issues that affect their lives.”35
4. Unauthorized Immigrants Living in the United States
In 2013, the total number of immigrants in the United States equaled 41.3 million, representing 13 percent of the total population of the United States (316.1 million). Mexican immigrants represented 28 percent (11.6 million) of the total number of immigrants. In 2014, the total number of unauthorized stood at 11.3 million, making up about 3.5 percent of the total U.S. population. The total number of unauthorized Mexicans equaled 5.9 million, representing 52 percent of the total unauthorized population. Between 2008 and 2012, Mexico and other Central American countries accounted for 71 percent of the total unauthorized population. Half of the unauthorized came from Mexico followed by El Salvador, Guatemala, India, Honduras, China, and the Philippines. The majority of unauthorized lived in four states: California (28 percent), Texas (13 percent), New York (8 percent), and Florida (6 percent).36 Other key demographic patterns of the unauthorized include the following: (1) a decline in number from Mexico; (2) the growth in the South, particularly Georgia and North Carolina, the new-destination settlement region; and (3) the arrival after 1995 of over 50 percent. A significant number of unauthorized are younger that the general population. In addition, unauthorized immigrants are likely to have children who are U.S. citizens living with them. Taken together these demographic patterns will contribute to a change in the social fabric of the United States, a change that will challenge politicians, employers, educators, and others.
Approximately 20 percent of the unauthorized population reside in five counties in the United States: Los Angeles and Orange counties, California; Harris County, Texas; and Queens County, New York. Between 2009 and 2012, the total number of unauthorized immigrants increased in Florida, Idaho, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia but decreased in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Oregon.37
During the U.S. recession of 2007–2009, many Mexican immigrants reassessed the economic rationale for making the trip to El Norte. Because of the deterioration of the U.S. economy, Mexicans, at least temporarily, considered other options in their search for a better life. The recession led to other factors that contributed to the decline in the unauthorized immigration from Mexico. The collapse of the housing market in the United States led to a marked decline in the construction industry, a major employer of unskilled or semiskilled Mexican immigrants. The climate of antiterrorism inevitably led to a growing anti-immigration fervor, harsher penalties, and eventually increased deportations. The danger of border crossings also acted as a brake on the flow of Mexican immigration. Developments within Mexico also contributed to the decline. From 2010 to 2011, the Mexican economy showed signs of entering a recovery stage, one that led more Mexicans who would have decided to undertake a border crossing to remain in Mexico hoping for greater economic improvement in their lives. Between 1995 and 2000, about 3 million Mexicans came to the United States, but almost 700,000 returned to Mexico, including some U.S.-born family members. The U.S.-born Mexicans who return to Mexico with their parents face major problems such as language differences, because many are monolingual English-speaking. Mexicans still form the largest part of the unauthorized immigrant population, a trend that is likely to remain the same in the future.38
In 2012, 8.1 percent of the U.S. labor force consisted of unauthorized immigrants. Unauthorized Mexican immigrants clustered in certain low-paying occupations: private household work, landscaping, service, manufacturing, maintenance, and construction. Unauthorized immigrants seem to cluster in these subsets of more general occupations more so than other immigrants and the native-born population. In 2012, 62 percent held service, construction, and production jobs, twice the share of the total U.S. population. In general, unauthorized immigrants are more likely to work in low-skilled or unskilled jobs as farm laborers, drywall installers, roofers, domestic workers, painters, carpet and floor installers, in-home child care providers, and elderly caregivers.39
5. Looking Toward the Future
Although the Mexican immigrant population is not homogeneous, a review of several key demographic characteristics can function as signposts for the future of society, culture, and politics in the United States. Once again we return to Oscar Handlin’s assertion that “immigrants are American history.” Mexican immigrants coming to the United States continue to produce social changes that contribute to the fabric of diversity; however, their existence unfortunately also fuels a climate of anti-immigration hostility for others.
Additional issues to examine regarding the movement of Mexicans to the United States include the following: reasons for leaving Mexico, point of entry into the United States, the socioeconomic and political conditions in the United States upon their arrival, levels of anti-Mexican attitudes, behavior settlement patterns for women and men Mexican immigrants, occupational characteristics, levels of education, upward mobility, social structural impediments for immigrants, U.S.-born children and later generations, migration to traditional-destination and new-destination states, and the unintended consequences of all of these factors.
The influx of younger Mexican immigrants, such as women with higher fertility rates and who have larger families than the native population, will also reshape the nature, scope, and content of social institutions such as education, the legal system, and politics. For example, U.S.-born children of Mexican immigrants will face specific challenges as they advance in the educational system. Mexican immigrant parents with limited English skills will be at a disadvantage in their interaction with teachers and administrators unless school districts make efforts in predominantly Latino neighborhoods. Lastly, Mexican-born immigrants will continue to remain an immigrant group in a precarious economic standing as a result of low educational attainment levels, largely due to social structural inequities in the education system; other factors include their concentration in low-paying jobs with little or no possibility for advancement and little or no retirement and medical benefits, income stagnation, and, in general, life circumstances that impede the immigrants’ goal of making a better life for themselves and, in turn, their children. Similarly, unauthorized Mexican immigrants will continue to find themselves marginalized at all social and economic levels.
The country of origin of immigrants migrating to the United States represents one of the key population characteristics. Trends in the immigration rates of sending countries have the potential to redesign the fabric of American society. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act resulted in immigrants from such regions as Latin America and Asia, who had previously been outnumbered by European immigrants entering the United States. Although the rates of unauthorized Mexican immigrants did not significantly decrease, Mexicans took advantage of the requirements stipulated by the 1965 legislation and stayed in the United States. The influx of Mexican immigrants, most of whom stayed in the United States, remained steady, but increased until 2013, the year of a slight decline. Two issues emerge from post-1965 increases in Mexican immigration. First, as these immigrants qualify for voting through naturalization, they have the potential, albeit often untapped, ability to contribute to the shift in political power among Democrats and Republicans. Data show, however, that Mexican immigrants have the lowest rates of naturalization among other foreign born. Nevertheless, the size and permanent stay of Mexican immigrants and their children who are born in United States represent a potential source for a voting bloc. Indeed, in 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney underestimated the need to reach out to this group of voters. Romney received only 27 percent of the total Latino vote while Barack Obama won 71 percent. While Mexicans have a long historical tie to the Democratic Party, as evidenced in their participation in the Viva Kennedy clubs in 1960, emerging political winds can, under some circumstances, change. With the number of U.S.-born Mexican exceeding the number of Mexican-born immigrants living in the United States, the 2016 presidential race will inevitably consider this constituency.40
Due to the shared border between the United States and Mexico, a second question remains central to the discourse on unauthorized immigration: How many apprehensions of unauthorized immigrants are there per year? In 2013, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Office of Homeland Security’s agencies in charge of deportations, recorded 662,483 apprehensions and a total of 2 million deportations, not all of whom were Mexican born. The combined numbers of apprehended individuals came from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The majority, 64 percent, were Mexican nationals.41
Since President Obama took office in 2008, a total of 2 million have deportations occurred. In October 2014, Obama met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to discuss their growing dissatisfaction with his immigration policies. The Obama administration deported about as many immigrants in its first term as the George W. Bush administration deported over a period of eight years. Contrary to some assessments, the majority of deported immigrants did not, according to DHS and ICE records, have a criminal conviction in 2013. Another trend that has developed since 2014 is the number of unauthorized immigrants and unaccompanied children entering the United States, particularly in south Texas. The case of unaccompanied children, primarily from Central America, poses a particularly thorny legal and ethical issue that is yet to be adequately resolved. Interestingly, fewer unauthorized Mexicans have been stopped and detained at the border crossing; a decline from 1.1 million in 2005 to 425,000 in 2013.42
Unauthorized children who came to the United States when they are younger than eighteen years of age with their unauthorized parents find themselves living in the shadows with their parents for fear of deportation. Meanwhile, these children often have lived in the United States continuously, never in Mexico, for an extended time and, most importantly, have progressed through the American education system. Though these children face the problem of having lived almost all of their lives in the United States, they find themselves blocked from employment, applying for financial aid for higher education and, most troublesome, being at risk for deportation to Mexico, a country that they lived in for only a few years when they were young or, in many cases, had not return to in many, many years. Unauthorized children live in fear that their parents, siblings, and other relatives will be deported. In 2012, approximately 7 percent of children enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade had a least one parent who had entered the United States without authorization. This population of children lived in four states: Arizona (11.0 percent), California (13.2 percent), Nevada (17.7 percent) and Texas (13.1 percent). Interestingly, for public policy makers, large portions of these children were, in fact, born in the United States.43
The population of U.S.-born Mexicans is growing faster than the foreign-born Mexican population is decreasing. Such an increase brings with it major social and political consequences at various levels, including a larger pool of potential voters and the increase in the growth of both second-generation children of Mexican immigrant parents and children further removed from their family’s heritage of immigration. Anti-immigration sentiments, attitudes, and legislation will undoubtedly grow, but Mexicans will continue to come “north from Mexico”: El Norte. Their lives and those of their children will ultimately have a dramatic, transformative affect on themselves and, in turn, the total population in the United States.