Settling Out and Fitting In: Family and Migration in the Ethnic Mexican Midwest During the Twentieth Century

THE MICHIGAN HISTORICAL REVIEW 37:2 (Fall 2011): 29-51©2011 by Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved. Settling Out and Fitting In: Family and Migration in the Ethnic Mexican Midwest During the Twentieth Century by Eduardo Moralez Migrants from Texas and Mexico have a long history of settling permanently in Indiana and the Great Lakes region. In 1870 the U.S. Census listed 14 Spanish-surnamed individuals living in Indianapolis; of these, 7 were from Cuba, Mexico, and Spain, and the remaining 7 were from Central and South America. The 1910 census listed 12 persons from Mexico, who were most likely laborers associated with the railroad hub in what is now downtown Indianapolis. At the end of World War I, labor shortages prompted representatives from agricultural and industrial companies in the Great Lakes region to send recruiters to Texas towns and cities, where they promised to pay wages, room and board, and the cost of transportation for workers and their families. The 1920 census recorded 686 Mexicans living in northern Indiana. In 1924 the trickle of ethnic Mexican migrants in Indiana turned into a cascade when approximately 4,000 Mexicans from Michigan who had been working in agriculture arrived to take jobs in the steel mills of Gary and East Chicago. The 1930 census recorded a total of 8,769 people identified as “Mexicans” living in these two cities. During the early years of the Great Depression, massive deportations, both private and federal, removed thousands of ethnic Mexicans from the Great Lakes region. By the close of 1932 town and state officials, together with private businesses, had “repatriated” more than 32,000 ethnic Mexicans from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. Between 1929 and 1939, federal and state sweeps removed 500,000 to 600,000 ethnic Mexicans from the United States.1 1 Dennis Nodín Valdés, Al Norte: Agricultural Workers in the Great Lakes Region, 19171970 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991), 2-4, 8-10; Manuel Gamio, The Mexican Immigrant: His Life Story (New York: Arno Press, 1969), 55; idem, Mexican Immigration to the United States: A Study of Human Migration and Adjustment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930), 24, 27; Juan Ramon García, Mexicans in the Midwest, 1900-1932 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1996), 41-43, 46, 235-36, 239; Zaragosa Vargas, Proletarians of the North: A History of Mexican Industrial Workers in Detroit and the Midwest, 30 The Michigan Historical Review During World War II migrants began returning north to satisfy the renewed demand of the region’s industries for labor. Nearly six thousand Mexican nationals, known as braceros (derived from the Spanish word for arms), were hired by the U.S. government to work on railway lines connecting the western United States to the Great Lakes region. At the same time that thousands of Mexican nationals were being imported into the region by the railroads, thousands of other individuals who were mostly U.S. citizens were traveling north from Texas of their own accord to work both in agriculture and industry in the Great Lakes region. After several years spent traveling back and forth between Texas and various Great Lakes states (particularly Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio), many of these “Tejanos” left their migrant status behind when they settled out, that is took up permanent residence in the midwestern heartland and used a combination of job skills to maintain permanent residency.2 During the 1950s and 1960s several individuals and institutions affiliated with churches worked to provide basic amenities for migrants streaming into Indiana, Michigan, and the Great Lakes region. These individuals and migrant-advocacy groups confronted growers, farmers, and agricultural corporations, demanding that they provide sanitary living conditions, basic medical care, and adequate wages for migrants from Texas. On occasion their advocates succeeded, forcing state governments, in particular in Indiana, to pass ordinances in favor of migrants. Three Catholic priests helped the Migratory Workers Defense League stage demonstrations and organize strikes in Michigan during the 1950s. Many church groups sought to provide help to former migrants, teaching them about American culture and ideology in an effort to make them into better Americans. In addition, these groups gave these...