Mexican Americans and Immigrants During the Great Depression Essay Example

The U.S. is known as a land of opportunity and has always attracted many peoples from different parts of the world. Many come with hope of improving their lives and seek a stable job that will be sufficient in supporting their families. Many people pursued the American Dream, and there are plenty who still do today, and achieved it. Despite the many success stories that have taken place, they were not as likely to transpire during the 1930s as they would have been during another time period. Due to the poor economy and lack of abundant jobs, the U.S. had to go through drastic measures to ensure that Americans, specifically white Americans, had a better chance of finding employment. This included discouraging immigration immensely. When the Great Depression was at its lowest point in the U.S., Americans scrambled in search of jobs and despised the Mexican Americans and immigrants that were taking jobs that supposedly rightfully belonged to the traditional white Americans. The white Americans at the time never put forth an effort to distinguish between Mexican immigrants and native Mexican Americans, meshing the two different peoples into one group. When economic times were strong, the U.S. would encourage immigration so those immigrants could take the jobs that Americans did not want to do. When the economy hit rock bottom, immigrants were no longer welcome in the U.S. Attitudes towards immigrants tended to depend on how the country as a whole was doing. As the economy got worse and worse during the Great Depression (early 1930s), the government legalized and enforced acts that stopped the influx of immigrants and promoted the leaving of Mexican Americans and immigrants in the U.S., but when the government provided more jobs for Americans through the New Deal programs and the economy started moving again, Mexican Americans and immigrants still experienced discrimination but were not as unwanted as they had been before. The government's New Deal programs led to