ALTO AP US History

A Brief Summary of Latino-American History

Latin America refers to the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking regions of the Caribbean, Central America, and
South America, and Latino/Latina are the terms used to refer to the people (male/female) who trace their ancestry
to those regions. Latino-American history focuses on the interactions among the governments and people of the US
and Latin America and on the role that Latinos have played in the development of the US.
The oldest European-founded cities in the US were St. Augustine, Florida (1565), and Santa Fe, New Mexico
(1598)before the English founded Jamestown in 1607. However, when these two places were annexed by the US
(Florida in 1820, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848), their populations were small compared to those of the
existing states, so these annexations did not dramatically transform demographics on a national level.
Places that did have a significant Latino majority, like New Mexico and Arizona, did not quickly become states.
Those two were only made states in the 1920s, partly because of racial fearsthe belief that Latinos could not
assimilate into the white Protestant mainstream in American life. Remember that Texas and California became
states more quickly because Anglo-Americans rushed into those territories quickly (the cotton frontier and the gold
rush), making Latinos a minority of the population in those states.
The 1910 Mexican Revolution brought large numbers of refugees into the US, and the immigration quotas that
began in 1921 made exceptions to allow Hispanic to continue entering the country. (Agribusiness owners persuaded
Congress to keep open immigration for Latinos to guarantee an abundant source of cheap labor). However, during
the Depression, the US government tried to make more jobs available for whites by deporting approximately 2
million Mexicans, even though at least 60% of these people were actually US citizens! This policy, called
Repatriation, has received far less historical attention than the internment of Japanese-Americans, even though
10 to 20 times more people were affected by these deportations.
Since the 1930s, immigration policy has fluctuated significantly. From the 1940s to the early 1960s, the US
government ran the Bracero Program, which allowed Mexican peasants to work legally in the US on a
temporary basis. (Bracero means one who works with his arms.) Exploitation of these Braceros was widespread
and a US Labor Department official criticized it as legalized slavery. Nevertheless, immigration through that
program and outside of it continued until mechanical cotton pickers replaced many human workers in the south.
Cold War conflicts also brought Hispanic immigrants into the US, such as during Cubas revolution, when many
wealthier Cubans fled the onset of communism. (Some of these exiles were used in the ill-fated 1961 Bay of Pigs
invasion.) At the same time, waves of deportation occurred, such as in the 1950s, when Operation Wetback
resulted in the deportation of 3.8 million people, some of whom were again US citizens.
Some presidents have granted amnesty to illegal Latino immigrants, such as a 1986 act that gave a path to
citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants while simultaneously strengthening punishments for
employers of illegal immigrants. Currently, more than 10 million (about 3% of the US population) people living in
the US are illegal immigrants and debate continues between conservative nativists who favor deportation and
stronger border security and liberals who favor amnesty and relatively open immigration.
Tensions between whites and Latinos have periodically erupted, starting along the frontier in the mid-1800s. For 10
nights in 1943, the Zoot Suit Riots occurred in Los Angeles. During this poorly-named event, sailors in the US
navy rampaged through Hispanic neighborhoods in LA, seeking out and attacking young Mexican boys wearing
the baggy zoot suits that had become fashionable at that time. (Tension had been growing between LAs large
Mexican population and the Marines stationed in that city, fueled by media that tended to sensationalize crimes
committed by Hispanics.)
Cesar Chavez was a young zoot-suiter who grew up to become an important labor leader. Founder of the United
Farm Workers, Chavez organized the Salad Bowl Strikethe largest-ever strike of farm workers in the 1970s
and the Boycott Grapes movement, which brought greater attention to the poor working conditions of farm
workers. His activism led to the recognition of the UFW by major agribusinesses and to policies that ended the use
of toxic pesticides on grapes and other crops handled by farm workers.
Since the 1970s, Latinos have been the fastest-growing part of the US population, and both legal and illegal
immigration from Latin America remains high (except during economic downturns). In the 1990s, the birthrate
among Latin Americans double that of non-Hispanic white, native-born Americans, a major reason why several
states already have minority majority populations (HI, TX, CA, NM) and the entire US will by perhaps 2030.