What Are Mexican-Americans The Land Of Opportunity?

Because of the belief of job creations and the ability to prosper, America was viewed as the land of opportunity. However, in regards to Mexican-Americans, it is seen that this is not entirely accurate. Mexican-Americans were deprived of opportunities due to the Anglo-Americans. Not only that, Mexican-Americans were also being treated unequally in day to day human interaction. The environment in which they were put in caused hardship in the lives of Mexican-Americans. America was not the land of opportunity that the Mexican population believed it to be.
Was there really opportunity to thrive in America when only a few are selected to progress? Anglo-Americans made it extremely difficult for minority groups such as the Mexican-Americans to
The life of Mexican-Americans were already strenuous before the time period of technological change. With industrialization, Mexicans were even more vulnerable. Industrialization induced monopolies- this was where large companies would take over an industry. For example, “...commercial farmers and ranchers drove out small farmers by diverting waterways and gaining a monopoly over the water resources”(Acuña 124). In other words, Anglo-Americans would take away the farms that Mexicans owned and they would make it their own. Instead of having individual pipelines that distributed water to each farm, they put one long pipeline in which the water was controlled. This put Mexicans out of possession of their own land, now they had to work for Anglo-Americans to even survive. The remaining Mexican-Americans that did not work in agriculture, but instead worked as a traquero (railroad worker), or even a minero ( mine worker), had to purchase tools from the company at “Mexican” prices. Not only did they get their land taken away and have to buy tools and supplies from the companies, but they were still getting paid less than an Anglo-American. “They will never pay a Mexican what he’s really worth compared with a white man” (Acuña 167). This is a valid point as the typical wage for a Mexican traquero was 30 dollars a month, while an Anglo-American would get paid about 60- 70 dollars (Lecture,
Everything they would do and contributed to society was not good enough for the Anglo-Americans. Mexicans were being pushed into “barrios” because of segregation. The separation of work areas, housing locations, schools were very common. Once again Mexican-Americans were being segregated from society because it was all they could afford and Anglo-Americans did not want to coexist. As a way to imprison Mexican-Americans and control their influence on American culture they were separated by invisible barriers. In part this was due to keeping Mexicans in “barrios.” Living in a “barrio” meant you lived in the Mexican “ghetto” area. This means that it would be more difficult to get out of the imprisonment that Anglo-Americans forced upon the Mexican community. It was a cycle that trapped Mexicans into being poor. The houses were broken down and destroyed. You lacked the basic needs like running water, electricity, collection of garbage, etc. “Twenty-eight percent of Mexicans lived in houses without sinks, 32 percent had no lavatories, and 79 percent had no baths” (Acuña 175). Anglo-Americans took advantage of the fact that Mexicans were poor. Mexican-Americans did not have a choice of moving to these segregated “barrios,” but instead were