Mexican Immigrant Life and Americanization in the 1920’s

In his book, Major Problems in Mexican American History, Zaragosa Vargas describes the Mexican Immigrant experience from 1917-1928. He begins by assessing the Protestant sacred experience for a Mexican in the aboriginal 1920s, and then describes Mexican life in both Colorado in 1924 and clams in 1928. subsequently defending Mexican Immigrants in 1929, he includes an summary of an Americanization program, followed by an anecdote of a Mexican immigrant in the 1920s.Vargas uses these documents to show the evolvement of Americanization of Mexicans from a confederation goal to a societal demand. Vargas begins with the Mexican Immigrant experience in the early 1920s, and describes it mostly as a confederacy project spearheaded by the perform and called for the aid of volunteers. The children learned and studied English in school, so the programs focussed mostly on courses in English for the wives and mothers of the community. These English courses consisted mostly of dictionary fo r familiar and most frequently seen objects.Sunday schools resulted from this process, and in turn do way for the development of night schools, clinics, an employment bureau, and a boys and girls club. In Colorado in 1924, Mexicans played a respectable determination in society as not only a respectable subdivision of the population, but also the childbed force. Spanish-Americans took a notable part in politics, and were involved in many occupations that included mostly agriculture, mining, and brand works. The recreation was also important to Spanish-American life in Colorado the evenhandedly newly developed buildings were a source of community for many.Mexicans in Chicago in 1928, Vargas argues, lived a very contrary lifestyle and endured different hardships than the Mexicans in the Southwest. They were a much small part of the community, consisting of small, well-defined neighborhoods and several smaller less defined colonies. These Mexicans lived in the poorest houses in these neighborhoods, and most buildings guaranteed poor musical accompaniment conditions for these families. Employment only came certain times during the year when demand for labor was high, and it was the Mexicans who suffered most when certain industries reduced labor.In the words of Anita Edgar Jones, They are the stand to arrive and the first to be laid off (Vargas). Mexican smell in Chicago during this time period served as a terminable solution for many families as they moved from recent arrivals to a more than desirable place with better opportunity as they became more complete and stabilized. Some neighborhoods were poorly organized for recreation, and even lacked Spanish-speaking employees at their community or recreation centers.Communities also lacked a Spanish-speaking priest, which is evidently different from early Americanization programs implemented in the Southwest in the early 1920s. After addressing and defending most of the problems of Mexican Immigration in 1929, Vargas moves on to an outline of a typical Americanization program in 1931, where the Mexican Immigrant experience evolved from a community project that supported and encouraged Mexican socialization, to a bring up of demands and requirements for Mexican and Spanish Americans to be acceptable members of society.Vargas uses these documents to show the progression of assimilation of Spanish Americans and Mexican immigrants into American society in the 1920s. The life of a Mexican Immigrant during this time was very taxing, and these Americanization programs were used as a cock to attempt to create a society that operated under certain ideologies and values. As a result, this created an even stronger division between cultures, and prevented assimilation of the two groups.