out the promises of the Mexican Revolu-
tion, which is generally regarded as having
ended when he left office. Long before
Cárdenas took office, however, many
Mexicans had already fled the country to
seek a better life in the United States.
Mexican Immigration to
the United StatesThe violence and chaos of the Mexican
Revolution drove Mexicans across the bor-
der into the United States in unprecedent-
ed numbers. In the decade of 1911–1920,
219,004 Mexicans were recorded as immi-
grating to the United States—more than
four times as many as in the previous
decade, when just 49,642 did so. In the fol-
lowing decade (1921–1930), the number of
Mexican immigrants to the United States
more than doubled, to 459,287. According
to the census, the Mexican-born popula-
tion grew more than 13-fold in 30 years,
from about 103,000 in 1900 to 1,400,000
in 1930.
Two distinct waves of Mexican immi-
gration from 1900 to 1930 can be distin-
guished. The first wave, which lasted
from 1900 to 1914, included the many
Mexicans who were abandoning Díaz’s
regime in its last years as well as those
leaving Mexico in the first years of the
Revolution. The second, much larger
wave, from 1914 to 1929, came as the
revolution intensified at home and as
World War I and its aftermath created
labor shortages and an economic boom in
the United States.
The newcomers included many poor
people but also well-to-do businessmen
and political refugees of various sorts:
politicians, army officers, intellectuals,
and journalists. Some of the better-edu-
cated and better-capitalized immigrants
started businesses, including Spanish-lan-
guage newspapers and bookstores to serve
a small but growing Mexican-American
middle class. The poorer, unskilled
refugees were fortunate to arrive just as
commercial agriculture was booming in
the West and Southwest.
Several factors fed the agricultural
boom. New dams were opening deserts to
irrigation and planting. Cattle ranches
and small family farms were losing ground
to large, mechanized plantations.
Refrigerated train cars had been invented,THE AGE OF WORLD WARS 137Mexican-American Population Distribution, 1900