Atlas of Hispanic-American History

permitting growers to ship fresh produce

over long distances to cities with bur-

geoning populations. Under these cir-

cumstances, the region’s agricultural

capitalists needed masses of laborers to

pick the crops, preferably laborers who

would work for little money. They warm-

ly welcomed the Mexican refugees to fill

that role, particularly since many

Mexicans were seasonal migrant laborers

who would stay long enough to pick the

crops and get paid, then return to Mexico.

California’s Imperial Valley, where

the state’s first cotton was planted in

1910, became a favorite destination of

Mexican immigrants. By 1918 people of

Mexican descent were the largest group

of agricultural workers in the valley. In

Colorado, Mexican Americans picked

sugar beets; elsewhere, they picked citrus

fruits, grapes, melons, lettuce, spinach,

tomatoes, and carrots. They also worked

in other industries in the booming

region—on railroads, in copper and coal

mines, and in factories. As in the late

19th century, Mexican Americans were

aided by laws excluding Asian laborers,

including the 1902 Chinese Exclusion

Act and the 1907 Gentleman’s

Agreement with Japan. By 1909 Mexican

Americans constituted 98 percent of the

work crews employed by the Atchison,

Topeka, and Santa Fe Railways west of

Albuquerque. By 1928, 75 percent of

unskilled construction workers in Texas

were Mexican Americans.

Though big business welcomed the

labor supply, many Anglo-American and

Mexican-American residents of the

Southwest reacted with alarm. Some

prosperous Mexican-American families

that had been in the region since before

the U.S.-Mexican War regarded the new-

comers with disdain; after all, these

refugees were mostly poor and uneducat-

ed, without distinguished lineages. To

this day, the term hispano, which in its

broadest sense means simply “Hispanic or

Spanish person,” is used in New Mexico

in a restricted sense to mean people who

claim descent from the region’s original

Spanish settlers, as distinct from all those

138 ATLAS OF HISPANIC-AMERICAN HISTORY

The Mexican Railway