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Valery Dominguez
Professor Adler
English 100 STACC #3637
25 November 2014

Mexican Revolution and Immigration

We slipped into this country like thieves, onto the land that once was ours(Skyhorse 1).
This is one of the first sentences on the first page of the novel, The Madonnas Of Echo Park
written by Brando Skyhorse. These words, were spoken by an illegal Mexican day laborer in The
Madonnas of Echo Park which helps us better see the world of Los Angeles, by following the
men and women who cook the meals, clean the homes, and struggle to lose their ethnic identity
in the pursuit of the American dream and their stories. This is what the novel written by Brando
Skyhorse is mainly about. The Mexican Revolution, which began on November 20, 1910, and

continued for a decade, is recognized as the first major political, social, and cultural revolution of
the 20th century that helped shape outcomes such as dislocation and immigration as well as
emigration in Los Angeles for example.
The United States, was significantly affected by the human dislocation that resulted
during the time of the Mexican Revolution because if someone did not want to fight, the only
alternative was to leave the country and over 890,000 Mexicans did just that by legally
emigrating during the second decade of the 20th century. The choices were simple for Mexicans
who opposed the fighting which was to hide away or leave the country. Many of the Mexican
citizens chose to head north, immigrating to the United States. The turmoil of the war, the
danger, the economic disaster and social chaos surrounding the revolution pushed Mexican

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natives north. Some revolutionaries and federals fled to the United States in order to plot further
incursions into Mexico.
The Mexican Revolution happened due to the lack of political stability and the lack of
wealth in the working class. Mexico during this time was unstable because the middle class
was not able to own land. The political instability happened due to the reign of Porfirio Diaz
over Mexico and many people held resentment to Diazs administration. This made it hard
for new political leaders to emerge and hold power because people feared another Diaz
coming into power. Uprisings started happening in northern and southern Mexico because
the citizens who lived in the countryside did not appreciate Mexico City and how politics
were happening there. All of these factors made Mexico a very unstable country in the early
1900s.
The political instability during this time was also a major question in Mexico. Porfirio
Diaz had power for many years in Mexico and was very corrupt in the way he used his
power as President of Mexico. He would often jail his political opponents or assassinate
them in attempt to hold power over Mexico. This caused the citizens of Mexico to become
increasingly opposed to Porfirio Diaz and his regime. This is what led to the many uprisings
starting across the countryside of Mexico. Once Diaz was overthrown, there were even more
problems with Mexican politics because the two leaders of the revolution, Pancho Villa and
Emiliano Zapata, were assassinated during the revolution.
There were many causes of the Mexican Revolution whether it is political unrest and
turmoil or economic reasons. The middle class was unhappy with the Mexican policy at the
time, which was that they could not own land or property. These caused the rebels to revolt

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and overthrow numerous presidents, which led to political instability in Mexico. The Mexican
Revolution changed the way Mexico was governed even up to present times. More than
890,000 legal Mexican immigrants came to the United States for refuge between 1910 and
1920(Migrationpolicy). The Revolution had created a state of turmoil to the south, and
Mexicans sought the peace of the north. The railroads hired some of the Mexicans for
construction and maintenance. U.S. immigration officials noted that the poor and the sick
constituted most of the Mexicans fleeing north. In 1914, during the strongest flurry of fighting in
the revolution, the upper class of Mexico began to immigrate in big numbers as well.
The Mexican Revolution, ended dictatorship in Mexico and established a constitutional
republic. A number of groups, led by revolutionaries including Francisco Madero, Pascual
Orozco, Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, participated in the long and costly conflict. Though a
constitution drafted in 1917 formalized many of the reforms sought by rebel groups, periodic
violence continued into the 1930s.
The article labeled, Mexican Immigrants in the United States that I read discusses of
the impacting Mexican migration to the United States and how it began in the early 20th century.
It was motivated by labor demands in the United States as well as political unrest in Mexico. All
throughout the 20th century, major reforms to the U.S. immigration system greatly impacted the
Mexican immigration flows. Since 1980, Mexicans have been the largest immigrant group in the
United States. As of 2013, approximately 11.6 million Mexican immigrants resided in the United
States, up from 2.2 million in 1980 and Mexicans accounted for 28 percent of the countrys 41.3
million people who are born in foreign places. It also conveys how immigration from Mexico to
the United States has gone through four main periods.

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The first wave, occurring prior to World War II, consisted of agricultural workers
recruited by private labor contractors, with the number of Mexican immigrants rising from
105,200 in 1900 to 624,400 in 1930. The Bracero program, from 1942 to 1964, ushered in the
second wave, also consisting mostly of agricultural guest workers. The third, largely
unauthorized wave began after the Bracero program was terminated and after 1965 changes to
U.S. immigration law ended national-origin quotas and imposed the first numerical limits on
Mexico and other Latin American countries. The passage of the Immigration Reform and
Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) and investments in border security initiated the fourth wave of
Mexican migration.
Mexican Immigrants have played a big part in shaping the United States population. An
example of such a time when there were high rates of emigration as well as immigration were in
fact during the time of the Mexican Revolution. A bar graph presented in an article I came to
find portrays the Mexican Immigrant Population in the United States from 1980 to 2013. Also,
explained the reasons which led to so much migration to the United States during that period of
time. Reasons that include the 4 main periods or waves that Immigration from Mexico to the
United States. The information was given by the Data from U.S. Census Bureau 2006, 2010, and
2013 American Community Survey.
No specific source presents the full picture of migration flows between the the United
States and Mexico, but sources examined point to similar conclusions. Data from population
surveys taken in the U.S. and Mexico indicate that in recent years there has been a large flow of
migrants back to Mexico, but the size of the annual return flow appears to be stable since 2006.
Mexicos National Survey of Employment and Occupation estimates that 433,000 Mexican

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migrants returned home from February 2008 to February 2009. For the same period in 20072008, 440,000 did, compared with an estimated 479,000 from February 2006 to February 2007.
The inflow began to diminish in mid-decade, and has continued to do so through early
2009, according to an analysis of the latest available population surveys from both countries.
This finding is reinforced by data from the U.S. Border Patrol showing that apprehensions of
Mexicans attempting to cross illegally into the United States decreased by a third between 2006
and 2008. Immigration flows from Mexico, like those from other countries, surged in the late
1990s. What this proved was that it is nearly impossible to pinpoint and definately measure the
number of people that immigrate to the U.S. or emigrate from Mexico and the reason for such
irregular immigration as well as emigration.

The importance of the Mexican Revolution was how it was one of the great revolutionary
upheavals of the twentieth century, beginning in 1910, and still continues at least in the view of
the Mexican Government. Although the Mexican Revolution was an important historical as well
as ideological victory for Mexico, the revolution is far from over. The Mexican Revolution was
not only a significant example of simple peoples ability to fight a structure internally for a true
change, but it is also a reminder to all people that all people have the right to be free from
oppression of any kind.Thus the Revolution of 1910-1920 perhaps one of the most influential
and long remembered revolutions in history.

Works Cited
"Mexican Immigrants in the United States." Migrationpolicy.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.

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"Why Mexicans Are the Most Successful Immigrants in America - SPONSORED

CONTENT Presented by University of California." Slate Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov.
2014.
"Mexican Immigrants: How Many Come? How Many Leave?" Pew Research Centers
Hispanic Trends Project RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
"The Mexican Revolution." About. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2014.
"The Mexican Revolution, 1910 1940 by Alan Knight, Jaime Rodriguez." The
Mexican Revolution, 1910 1940. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2014.
"The Mexican Revolution." History Today. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2014.
Skyhorse, Brando. The Madonnas of Echo Park: A Novel. New York: Free, 2010. Print.
"The Madonnas of Echo Park." The Rumpusnet The Madonnas of Echo Park Comments.
N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Nov. 2014.