Chapter 12

The first immigrants that settled down in the America’s came from Africa 200,00 years ago.  Immigration Periods include: 200,00 years ago ( Paleolithic period) when Asia (Siberia) Bering, walked from the center of the continent outward. 12,000 years ago (Neolithic) using the Kelp highway, through boat, west coast. 3500 BC (ancient) and 500 BC (Classical) when Polynesians used the Pacific Ocean by boat to immigrate through the west coast. 500 AD (modern) when Europeans used the Atlantic Ocean, boat to the east coast and then westward. Initial settlement patterns displacement due to the mixing of conquest  due to different groups annexation and borders of immigration Nation began to fill up and the nation developed an attitude of nativism, which says although their ancestors were immigrants they don’t want more immigrants to come to the united states to change things, led to the federal level creating emergency acts. In the 1920s, the mass movement of people to the United States is over and an emergency act got passed: Emergency Quota Act and the 1924 Act – Limiting immigration. In the west, the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (1848) Ended the war, gave those living in the territory taken from Mexico the right to stay or go to Mexico. Three thousand chose the latter course, the regions of Mexico, got incorporated into the United States and the citizens there were suppose to be able to decide if they wanted to go to Mexico or be American citizens. The Bracero Program (1940-1950) took workers from Mexico and brought them to the US and they could come during legal circumstances and do labor work then leave back to Mexico.  The Mexican government- critiqued that they were being used the American government didn’t provide all of the utilities were not being provided very consistently. This chapter really hit home for me, since I am Mexican and my grandfather actually participated in the Bracero program and worked legally in the US doing cotton irrigation. In addition, it makes me wonder what would happen to both the United States and Mexico if the treaty had never passed? Where would we be today?