In last chapter, I talked about Mexico and the US being part of a common North American region. In this chapter, I want to discuss one of the first things that comes to our mind when we think about this region, tension over immigration issues. Mexicans are by far the largest immigrant group in the United States. According to Pew Research, in 2012 Hispanics of Mexican origin were a third of the total Hispanic population in the US. Also, 11.2 million Mexican immigrants live in the United States and about half of these immigrants were undocumented. Tension often occurs because Mexico wants to guarantee that its undocumented workers in the United States are not exploited and treated as criminals. The US wants to stop illegal immigration of Mexicans. But was immigration always a problem? The answer is no. Immigration was not a great issue in US-Mexican relations until the last two decades of the 20th century. When the borders were first defined after the 1848 War, the issue at stake was to define the property and citizenship status of those Mexicans who lived in the newly acquired territory. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo stipulated that Mexicans living within the new limits of the United States could remain where they were or sell their property without having to pay taxes or contributions. They also had a year to declare if they would remain citizens of Mexico or decide to acquire U.S. citizenship. During the second half of the 19th century, the economies of the southwest United States and northern Mexico developed. As a result, there were job opportunities and people moved to this region. Mexicans would work in the U.S. in mines or in railroad construction, but not necessarily as immigrants. Oftentimes they were seasonal workers. The border was a region, a very long region, where people came back and forth as needed. During World War II, once again, the US government needed Mexican workers to fill the positions left empty by American military recruits. Mexicans living in the U.S. were offered citizenship if they joined the U.S. army. In 1942, the governments of the U.S and Mexico agreed to establish the bracero program to bring Mexican workers to the US. Between 1942 and 1947, the bracero program brought 219,000 agricultural workers into the United States from Mexico. This program ended in 1964. Since the 1970s the number of Mexicans coming to work in the United States has been on the rise. This is a result of the economic crisis Mexico has suffered in the past 40 years. It is also the result of endemic inequality. Mexican immigrants are both documented and undocumented workers. The US immigration policies are becoming more restrictive over time. There is more surveillance of the border and more violent repression for those who attempt to cross without a visa. For undocumented workers, border passage has become expensive and dangerous. Seasonal work is becoming less of a possibility for Mexicans working in the United States. This means that once they make it to the US, they will be less likely to return to Mexico unless they are deported. Interestingly, in 1993, the US, Canada, and Mexico signed a free-trade agreement. The US opposed including labor as part of the agreement. The Mexican government did not have the leverage to oppose this opposition. Mexican travelers to the United States in the 19th century viewed the U.S. as a nation built by immigrants, as a melting pot of cultures. Justo Sierra, a politician and public intellectual, commented on the multicultural facets of immigration during his visit to New York. The Irish immigrants in St. Patrick's Cathedral, the German immigrants in the Bowery, and the Chinese theater. Frederico Gamboa, a novelist and diplomat traveled to Washington D.C. in 1904. And he went to a low income, Italian neighborhood. He commented on the good looks of Italians, and how they were part of the making of the United States. He admired how the inflow of different races invigorated the US nation. The immigration of people from distant countries so foreign to Mexicans, such as Germans, Italians, or Chinese make these Mexican travelers view the US as the land of immigrants. These travelers also commented on the presence of their own Mexican compatriots. They recognized them as part of the package that came with the land acquisition of 1848, not as part of the waves of immigration. Mexican travelers in the United States, such as famous novelists Carlos Fuentes and Jorge Ibarg�engoitia both commented that by the 1980s, Mexicans were reconquering the southwest of the United States. This was a humorous way of asserting that Mexico may have lost the territory in 1848. But at the end of the 20th century, the territory was being Mexicanized.
