This is a reply from anonymous to me: Ignorance, they don't mean that, Sony sued and banned people who Jailbroke, or even only knew how to jailbreak the ps3. If you bought the ps3, you have every right to do what youwill with it. George Hotz shared how to jailbreak the ps3 and Sony collected the IP's of those who visited his site or watched his youtube videos, and were at risk of being banned, even if they did nothing with this KNOWLEDGE. Knowledge is free, our voices should never be censored.

Anonymous is Legion.

And, this is what I said in response. that's wonderful, well you violated our privacy, thus accessing knowledge that we don't want you to have. Ever stop and wonder about denying people a free service online, something that we invest time and money on (just the play station store) would aid your cause? Some knowledge is not meant to be known to the masses. I don't want everyone to know my social security number  or credit card numbers. power corrupts, right now you have the power to access any financial information that any one person has, are you going to tell me that not a single one of your anonymous friends ever thought of "hmm, I could use these numbers?" if you take 1 dollar from everyone, you'll have 70 million dollars potentially.

You're doing exactly what sony has done to you, except they reason they did it was because you gave them a reason to respond to your invasion to "protect us," granted I hate big business just as much  as the next person, but dear god, stop messing with things and causing change where there is no need for it. Youre fighting against something that you created out of misplaced opinions that whoever has power is corrupt the second they get it. Yes, power does do that, but the measure of a man is what he does with power, right now your power over us has corrupted your purpose, giving you a self-proclaimed prophecy that you are our deliverance, let us be our own deliverance.

You have compromised people's jobs and livelihoods so you could "be heard." Hear this...go hide and never touch a computer again. The FBI will find you, and we will ALL HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE of who you are. You target the people who are unfairly benefiting from other people's time and money, not the people who are using that system to provide themselves with entertainment and hobbies. You trouble yourselves on trifling matters. he's a thought, how about you do real things activists do about topics that are seriously important to people, BUT DON'T target the people you say you want to protect, that's still one of the dumbest thing Ive seen people do. Im happy the way things are, stop trying to force change, when that happens, the worst of us comes to the surface, we have enough to worry about in this day in age, stop adding to it and stop what you're doing until we call on you to do something about it, and it's called consent.

First of all, don't get the idea that I totally hate this site, because I don't. But a lot of the things I've seen on here does not reflect the Ebaum's World I was adored 3 or 4 years ago. Now, kids are uploading pornography to the degree where it actually pisses me off. Granted, I love porn lol, but I keep it separate from this site. This site was made for humor and not little prepubesant kids who think boobs are the most important thing on earth, I really don't care at all. To me, it's just another way people try to get easy Erep points. If you take a look at my submissions, only one of of pornstars and I made sure there was no nudity, I am not a child lol. 

But what really struck me as seriously disturbing was an upload that someone made that showed a lady dropping a huge load of shit (4 pictures), and I thought to myself: Have we really sunk this low? Just because it's gross doesn't mean it will be featured. I hope to god that never gets featured lol, first because it's seriously unecessary, and secondly it doesn't deserve it. This site use to be ALL about humor, pranks, accidents, etc, but now there are these little fuckheads that post shit (literally and figuratively) just to get points. Though I have been a member for 2 years, I have just started to upload things about 4 or 5 weeks ago, and when I saw the "shit" that was being posted by other people, I really saw how this site has changed.

This is just the way I feel, and frankly I don't care about anyone's opinions about my feelings on how some of these members are pure shitheads (no pun intended). I know I won't change any of those kids minds, and I don't care, I just want people to make sure people know what's going on here lol. 

dave

Well today I have had to redo a bunch of my uploads becasue the quality was so crappy that I felt bad for the people who had to watch it. This includes "chance," "Bangkok insurnace," and others. So, sorry if you keep getting upload messages from me, but I think everyone would appreciate better quality videos.

By the turn of the twentieth century, many Americans had began to view the immigration of Mexicans as an intrusion and a danger to their established ways of life. Many North Americans saw themselves as being to civilized and educated to perform the unskilled labor provided by the displaced Mexicans during the large-scale immigration. Many politicians and other men of the U.S. government as well in the twenty-first century accepted this notion. Some citizens of the United States recognize the issue of illegal immigration as an American problem. As demonstrated in this paper, that there is no single catalyst of immigration but there is the existence of numerous problems in both the country of origin and the receiving country. On one side it may seem to be an American problem but Mexico was experiencing a time of tumultuous economic movement and weakness when compared to the United States.[1] Nevertheless both governments must remember that it will be a long and hard process in order to attain a mutually beneficial immigration policy as illustrated vehemently by Alfredo Mirandé: THERE IS NO GOOD WAY to solve the problem of illegal immigrants from Mexico.[2] This signifies that both the United States and Mexico, as well as other Central and South American countries, need to create a program that has neutral, not necessarily negative or positive, economic consequences when dealing with the immigration and utilization of undocumented immigrants over national borders.[3]

There have been large waves of Latinos that immigrate into the United States at varying intervals. Between 1965-69 there had been 170,000 entering the U.S., which declined to 149,000 from 1970-74 and rose to 368,000 during 1980-85.[4] One of the most significant and arbitrary policies was Operation Wetback of 1954. This piece of legislation offered a variety of proposals that sought the massive deportation of undocumented immigrants in the United States. Much of the logistics that immigration policy is centered on are based off of common assumptions that were derived from the initial large-scale immigrations of the early twentieth century.[5] This would further debilitate the ability of both countries to create an accurate and practical immigration policy that is mutually beneficial. One of the proposed solutions was the construction of a 150-mile fence along the border. The Bureau of the Budget due to the immense amounts of money needed to construct and maintain a 150 mile-long fence disregarded this proposal because of the example of a six-mile long fence erected earlier, which cost on an annual basis about $10,000 to $20,000,[6] hence a 150-mile long fence was completely out of the question.

This program had negative impacts on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border that were first and foremost economic in nature. Politicians and other elites in Mexico had mistakenly believed under false pretenses that the undocumented immigrant laborers that were deported would return with money they had earned in the United States. Instead of welcoming an influx of foreign money there was little or no large amount of money entering in Mexico.[7] Also, with the mass deportation of undocumented immigrant laborers, the promises of a replacement labor force that was equal to that of the Latino laborers also came into question. The agricultural industry were led under the assumption that an equal-sized labor force would be given to them promptly[8] but since the laborers accounted for such a large portion of the cheap labor it became increasingly difficult to replace them with legal labor hindering production of goods.

The second and more economically damaging immigration policy was the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). A common theme in policy-making is that there is fundamental difficulty in satisfying both United States and Mexico. Because of the decrease in capable labor, one of the industries that suffered the most was the farming industry in the United States. The IRCA was one of the main reasons that agricultural yield had decreased due to lack of a substantial and maintainable labor force.[9] In fact it had the opposite intended effect on the influx of undocumented immigrants. Upon the inception of this control act the amount of Central Americans that illegally crossed into the United States increased drastically. Much of the land in Mexico is unable to produce adequate farmland during the first large-scale immigrations; this is due to the mountainous areas: obstacles that caused the deaths of at least hundreds of undocumented migrants trying to traverse the border. The United States government had underestimated the persistence of Latino immigrants as well as misjudged their will to cross. A statistical jump in Appendix Item 3b illustrates the correlation between the implementation of the IRCA and a spike in illegal immigration. Immigration to the United States by any group of people should not and will not be stopped unless there are verifiable threats to national security; the consequences of this would be disastrous to the American economical infrastructure, political institutions, and social framework.

[1] Gilbert G. González; Raúl Fernandez, Empire and the Origins of Twentieth-Century Migration from Mexico to the United States, The Pacific Historical Review, (Univerisity of California Press: California, 2002), 20.

[2] Alfredo Mirandé, The Chicano Experience: An Alternative Perspective (University of Notre Dame Press: Indiana, 1985), 63.

[3] Gutíerrez, 69.

[4] Saskia Sassen, Globalization and Its Discontents: Essays on the New Mobility of People and Money (New York: The New Press, 1998), 35.

[5] Sassen, 7.

[6] Juan Ramon Garcia, Operation Wetback: The Mass Deportation of Mexican Undocumented Workers in 1954 (Greenwood Press: Connecticut 1980), 171.

[7] Garcia, 176

[8] Garcia, 179.

[9] Jorge Durand and Douglas S. Massey, editors. Crossing the Border: Research from the Mexican Migration Project. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2004), 11.

The attempts of industrialization by President Porfirio Diaz commencing in 1876 and more importantly, the large demand for labor that was a result of the expansion of international railroads fueled by the post-Westward Expansion of the United States, were the catalysts of the large-scale immigration of Mexican rural farmers between 1890 and 1920. The economic conditions of the United States and Mexico complemented each otherthe former with a labor shortage, the latter with labor abundanceso that the governments of the two countries encouraged the large-scale immigration of Mexicans into the United States. The immigration dubbed the Welcomed Mexican Invasion acknowledged the size of and the acceptance shown the labor that Mexican immigrants provided.

The immigrations had an opposite as well as equal impact in Mexico. President Diaz had economic problems of his own as a result of losing 1.5 million of the total population and probably more due to his industrious policies. As a result of the rapid increase of millions of displaced rural Mexican laborers immigrating to the United States labor, was short in Mexico. The trend of solving problems and causing others is common among many aspects in the relationships between Mexico and the United States. Mexico turned to governmental relationships with the Japanese, as demonstrated in a 1916 New York Times article that stated Mexico needed all the labor we [they] can get.[1] Though this was exaggerated, it nevertheless displays the consequences and the desperateness that occurred in Mexico due to large-scale immigrations.

The industrialization of rural Mexico and the implementation and development of railroads were crucial in ultimately developing the inclination of the displaced rural Mexican farmers to immigrate over established national borders. The mechanism of haciendas, which displaced a large number of campesinos in Mexico, only exacerbated the discontent of the rural farmers. The Mexican Revolution of 1910 did not truly change previous Mexican policies, but resulted in stagnating an already motionless social hierarchy by providing the wealthier individuals in the social ladder with supplemental advantages as opposed to those of lower classes. Thus the labor force in Mexico was debilitated, large and impoverished. It was projected that around 1.5 million Mexican rural farmers immigrated to the United States over a period of nearly thirty years. Since immigration statistics at the turn of the twentieth century were not always accurate, it is probable that the immigration was not as large but given the population at the time, the immigration was definitely massive.

The development and extension of American railroads also physically linked Mexico to the Southwest and to other parts of the United States. Mexican railroad networks transformed a handful of Mexican railways to a more intricate network of interconnected rails and branches that ultimately provided transportation for the Mexican laborer, improved trade and increased industrialization. With the extension of the railroads after the inauguration of Porfirio Diaz in 1876, campesinos found they had an alternative to the hacienda in that they could leave their farming communities and travel to Northern Mexico and the United States to seek work with the railroads or other industries, cheaply and without the hardship and danger of traveling by foot or by animal. The Mexican immigrant answered the need for a significant source of cheap labor by American employers, especially the railroad industry, in the Southwest during the early twentieth century. Due to these large-scale immigrations the economy of the United States southwest grew irrevocably dependent on labor that has its origins over the border to our neighbors to the South. The United States took advantage of an opportunity that had the potential to guarantee a rock-hard foundation for the American economy for years to come.

Border towns in Texas developed rapidly due to the railroad connections both north and south of the border. The railroads brought Mexican laborers to work on the railroads and eventually the Mexicans settled near the railroad centers, thus their presence was key to the growth of the Southwest, especially in Texas. Later in the twentieth century when the economic situation called for a larger and/or more present labor force, the federal government did not hesitate to alleviate immigration restrictions, specifically for the Mexicans, in order to fulfill those demands. The expansion of railroads and large labor demands that were fulfilled by the Mexican immigrant laborers initiated a period of economic prosperity in the Southwest regions of North America. One can argue that without such rapid economical development, the United States may not have become a world power as rapidly as it did without the help from rural Mexicans immigrants.

[1] Mexico Welcomes Japanese, New York Times August 5, 1916.

The railroads had become an extremely essential commodity that allowed Mexican laborers to travel north cheaper and faster as well as the means to support new U.S. towns/cities and to expand trade to new markets. The developing towns along the border in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona utilized the railroad networks that were built cooperatively by Mexico and the United States. By the late 1920s Mexicans also constituted an estimated 75 percent of all unskilled construction workers in Texas.[1] The development of Mexican communities along the border was crucial to the development of the Southwest economy and the integration of Mexican and Chicanos[2] into mainstream American society. Without the construction of railroad networks that commenced in the 1870s and continued into the twentieth century the large-scale immigrations would have taken more time and may not have positively impacted or strengthened the southwestern economy. That the railroads were particularly instrumental in fanning Mexican immigration between 1876 and 1920 cannot be disputed.

Immigrant Labor Restrictions

When the United States government decided to expand its spheres of influence as well as trade routes, for example building railroads to Mexico, the government usually took a pragmatic initiative toward immigrant labor. The government did not want to frustrate the North American contractor in the exploration for a large and sustainable labor supply in big-industry in the southwest, which were the railroads, mining as well as the agricultural industries, soon after they had realized the benefits of Mexican labor and utilized such resources.[3] Upon the increased inflow of Mexican laborers in the early twentieth century, immigration restrictions were imposed to regulate them. Soon thereafter when there were labor shortages, the United States government had no problem altering legislation to obtain sufficient labor.

            As an example of the above in 1918 the United States government was forced to alleviate some immigration restrictions again in order to permit Mexican immigrant laborers to cross the border to solve a cheap labor shortage in the Southwest, To aid in meeting the present shortage in unskilled labor, Secretary of Labor Wilson has issued a departmental order temporarily removing restrictions on the importation of Mexican labor.[4] The ability of the government to alleviate such restrictions shows the importance of the labor contributions and more importantly is the underlying fact that railroads had aided Mexican immigrant laborers to Texas and other parts of the southwest. Though this bill had some restrictions in order to regulate the inflow of Mexican laborers, it nevertheless showed the need for Mexican migrant labor in the Southwest as well as the actions that the United States government would pursue to attain it. Many of the industries that had needed such labor were in agricultural pursuits, in railroad section maintenance, and in lignite coal mining.[5] These industries provided the basis of economic industry in Texas and the southwest in general that ultimately led to further economic expansion and progress in the southwest regions of North America.

[1] Gutierrez, 46.

[2] The Chicano is an individual of Mexican-American descent that is an American citizen.

[3] Navarro, 44.

[4] Mexican Aliens to Enter, The New York Times, June 20, 1918, 4.

[5] Mexican Aliens to Enter, June 1918, 4. 

The networks of railroads built both in Mexico and the United States at the beginning of the administration of Porfirio Diaz in 1876 to 1920 had lasting effects. Had the southwestern areas of the United States not been connected via the railroads to densely populated areas in Mexico where economic unrest abounded due to displaced campesinos and the implementation of haciendas, then it is possible that the economy of the southwest may not have grown at such rapid rates because the region would have lacked the large labor force filled by the displaced Mexican rural farmers.[1] Railroad distances in Mexico increased rapidly, In 1876 there had been only 691 kilometers [414 miles] built; by 1890 there were 8,948 [5368 miles], while in 1900 and 1911 there were 14,573 [8743 miles] and 24,717 kilometers respectfully [14830 miles].[2] Comparing a map of the Mexican Central Railway of May 1896 (Refer to Appendix Item 2c) to that of the Frisco Lines in 1912 and the connections of major railways from Mexico into Texas in such cities like Brownsville, El Paso, and Laredo (Appendix Item 2a), one can readily see the tangible connections of the Mexican economy to the United States, predominantly in Texas among other southern states. Over the next several decades the development of railroads in Texas, especially at and around Brownsville, was considered so important that in order to fulfill their labor demands, the Texas Chamber of Commerce with the support of Secretary of Labor Wilson lifted immigration restrictions that began to appear. According to the Brownsville Herald in 1919, The present restrictions in the law permitting immigration from Mexico to Texas are so stringent as practically to cut off entirely the bringing in of Mexican labor, even in the face of the great demand and attractive wages offered.[3] This article titled Texas Chamber of Commerce Takes Up the Immigration Problem gives the impression that Mexican immigration is the problem. On the contrary, the restriction of immigration prohibiting less Mexican immigrant laborers to enter was the big issue of the area at the time. The addictive nature of Mexican labor in the southwestern and Texan economies required a constant necessity of it; immigration restrictions were only seen as obstacles and not laws.

The Mexican labor force provided the U.S. railroads with the abundance of the cheap labor they desired, and in addition many were qualified to handle U.S. railroad work because they had gained earlier experience in building Mexican railroads. Further they seemed to be a controllable labor force since they accepted without complaint both low wages and poor working conditions.[4] By the 1890s the U.S. railroads, principally the Southern Pacific, Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroads, were hiring sizable numbers of Mexicans to work on their construction crews, digging roadbeds and laying tracks. Seasonal contracts were common at the time and the Mexican migrant labor was no exception. As an unexpected result many of the Mexican immigrant laborers remained after the initial construction of some of the railroads and remained as workers in track maintenance.[5] By 1908 it is estimated that 16,000 Mexicans were working on the western railroads with its peak occurring between 1910 and 1912.[6]

During the years from 1880 to 1930, total American immigration was increasing as evidenced by the immigration statistics following (see Appendix Item 3a). By 1910 two thousand Mexican rural farmers were able to cross the border on a monthly basis in order to obtain employment on and around the railroads.[7] While this graph shows only the number looking for work, the actual number of immigrants was much larger since families, relatives, friends accompanied the immigrant workers. In 1910 the U.S. Census counted 221,915 Mexican-born nationals but the total Mexican population in the United States was 367,510, which included citizens of Mexican parents born in the United States. Ten years later in 1920 legal Mexican immigration more than quadrupled to 890,371. Immigration peaked in 1924 by which time another 249,248 Mexicans came into the United States.[8] The Mexican immigrant population grew steadily replacing other populations of laborers in the southwest, especially Texas.

[1] Cardoso, 17.

[2] Osgood Hardy, The Revolution and the Railroads of Mexico, The Pacific Historical Review (California: University of California Press, 1934), 249.

[3] Texas Chamber of Commerce Takes Up the Immigration Problem; Labor Necessity, Brownsville Daily Herald, March 1919.

[4] John P. Schmal, Mexican Immigration in the Early Years: Helping to Build Americas Railroads, http://www.hispanicvista.com/HVC/Columnist/jschmal/02075.html, 2.

[5] PBS, Mexican Laboring on the Railroad, http://www.pbs.org/kpbs/theborder/history/timeline/12.html, 1.

[6] PBS, Mexican Laboring on the Railroad, 1.

[7] John P. Schmal, 2.

[8] Schmal, 2.

[9] Cardoso, 14.

[10] U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 2000 (U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, D.C., 2002); Will Franklin, Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 169 -- U.S. Immigration,

http://www.willisms.com/archives/2005/09/trivia_tidbit_o_168.html

economy grow at increasingly high rates. As a result of the number of Mexicans that used the railroads to enter and work in the United States, first on a seasonal then ultimately a permanent basis, the southwestern present-day cities developed with a profound Mexican/Latino influence.

The inclination of the United States to increase its economic influence, in this case through expanding railroads in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, would ultimately alter the cultural and economic characteristics of the United States. Railroads both in the United States and Mexico transported Mexican immigrant laborers to the southwest. The connection between the railroads and Mexican labor not only resulted in economic growth but also the cultural incorporation of Latino culture into the never-ending melting pot of America. The capitalistic influences and actions of the United States on Mexico would eventually lead to relations both negative and positive. But at the time there was a general consensus [t]hat Mexico and the United States are bound to each other by mutual responsibilities.[1]

[1] The Mexican Problem, The New York Times, March 23, 1870, 4.

Urbanization in the Southwest

Thus by taking advantage of the discontents of Mexican rural farmers the United States was able to ease its labor shortage with the use of Mexican immigrant labor. Railroads helped settle North Americans in Texas as well as Mexican immigrant laborers. The railroads that were created in the late nineteenth century in the United States further strengthened the growth of population and economic power in Texas, Eight hundred, families have settled on the public lands alone of West and Southwest Texas in the past eight monthsespecially Southwest Texas is growing by leaps and bounds.[1] The railroads that were created in the United States linked Texas to Mexico and vice versa and thus aided the vital deliverance of Mexican immigrant labor to the region that would ultimately enable the Texan economy to grow at surprising rates.

The fact that Mexican immigrant labor was invaluable to the development and evolution of the southwestern economy is evidenced by this statement in the Brownsville Daily Herald in 1907, The cry of the West for labor, which continues to fall as far short of demandsis one of the signs that prosperity remains at high pressure.[2] Economic prosperity in a developing society is derived from basic economic needs. Industries were suffering out of the necessity of a large and cheap labor force. Mexican immigrant labor would provide the foundation of the economic boom that occurred in the Texas in the early twentieth century. The excited buzzing in the government offices of American business promoters, long anxious to take part in the development of Mexican resources, finally obtained the terms which would make this development possible.[3] American contractors were drawn to the economic possibilities that the Mexican government had indirectly offered them in manual labor resources, especially railroads.

Railroads were consistently the primary industrial engines that delivered goods to the ever-developing border town/cities in the southwest. Urbanization in the southwest flourished after the construction of railroad systems in both the United States as well as in Mexico. The railroads also influenced the location of the cities that were developing along the border because railroads encouraged urbanization mainly due to the influx of goods and more importantly immigrant labor.[4]

Railroad contact with the outside world, including transcontinental routes operated by the Southern Pacific and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroads, provided links to the national economy and helped the towns to expand as trade and distribution centers for productive hinterlands. Their emergence as vital hubs facilitated the economic exploitation of the Southwest, and they played a large role in civilizing the region. They became the centers of business districts, military posts, and universities.[5]

The Mexican and American railroads physically linked the areas of southern Texas to Mexico at three railroads points as seen in a map from 1888 of the Mexican National Railroad. These became major ports of entry for the Mexican laborers and some later became major cities of the Southwest. Other cities grew and flourished at major points along the railway routes. Throughout the southwest in states such as Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Texas, urban centers that had developed in those areas have been key to the development of the southwest in general, and these cities continue the trend of rapid development both culturally and economically.[6] Texas was also a focal point of railroad activity in the southwest. Brownsville, located in the southern-most part of Texas and one of early ports of entry, connected directly with Mexico via the Grande Railroad, a railway built along the border of Texas and Mexico. In the mid 1890s this border town had a significant population of Mexican immigrants accounting for about 5250 out of the 7000 residents, which is about seventy-five percent of the total population.[7] A city in Mexico closely bordered Brownville, which was Matamoros, had a population of 10,000 and when it was connected to the railroad Mexican immigration and rail work aided in the further development of this city.[8] This was most likely due to the fact that it was connected to the Grande Railroad, a railway built along the border of Texas and Mexico. As the Mexican labor in the area increased due to the railroads it replaced that of the African American according to the Brownsville Daily Herald, In many localities in Texas they have almost entirely supplanted the Negro as farm laborers, proving more tractable and industrious. To the higher wages paid farm laborers in the United States is, in a great measure, the influx of Mexicans due.[9]

In addition to the growth of border towns, free trade zones also emerged. Called the Zona Libre, this literally translates as free zone but in an economic instance it is better described as a free trade zone the free zone being a strip of land along the U.S.-Mexico border where trade was cheap and plentiful. This trade often resulted in Mexicans crossing the border, which further perpetuated the importation of laborers in the developing southwest.  This zone of trade was of great commercial importance to people on both sides of the border.  However, there was some debate among officials in the United States as to the benefit of the Zona Libre.  Officials had been sent to Mexico City to conduct diplomatic relations with President Diaz in order to preserve the free trade zone, Señor Amado Gonzalezto intercede with President Diaz, to prevent the abolishment of the Zona Libre.[10]  Opponents of the Zona Libre like Senator Reagan supported a bill that was to prevent this type of trade because it was deemed an illegitimate business practice and allowed unexamined foreign goods [to enter]the United States.[11] It was soon realized that when Mexican immigrant labor came over the border it had a tendency to overstay its welcome, which led to negative social tensions decades later. The bill was not likely to be passed to the relief of various border towns located in southern Texas as seen in the Galveston Daily Newsin 1890, we have reason to fear that the former will be without result, while we are satisfied that the latter will not receive the approval of the senate.[12] The trade in goods augmented the relations between Americans and Mexicans along the border promoting more development of southern Texas and other areas along the border.

During the1890s many European settlers and American-born peoples as well were settling in the southwest and numerous businesses started to sprout up. Many of these businesses were agrarian based since a vast amount of land to be farmed was located in the southwest. This situation created an immense need in the agricultural labor systems that the Mexican laborers filled. Due to the co-mingling of Mexicans and Americans a diverse demographic southwest began to emerge. In just a few decades the population of Mexican-born people in the U.S. increased rapidly. By the end of the 1890s the Mexican-born population had increased moderately, to approximately 78,000and between 1900 and 1910 the Mexican-born population grew approximately 103,00 to almost 222,000.[13] Thus this population growth helped the southwe

Arrival of Railroads and Cheap Labor

American employers had used other immigrants for cheap labor, such as pools of Chinese and Japanese immigrant laborers as well as settlers from the East Coast, but failed to attain the labor stability that they had aimed for. Contractors did not arrive at the Mexican conclusion immediately. However, problems with existing labor sources increased, principally because the Asians did not blend into the American culture and Americans had gradually developed xenophobia in reaction to the incoming immigrants from Asia.[1] In addition crime was on the rise and was followed by an increase in drug smuggling from China. With the enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, the U.S. railroad construction and agricultural industries were barred from hiring Chinese and Japanese laborers. Later in 1895, $86,856 was levied in order to enforce this policy.[2] In addition to the growing chaotic process of finding sources of cheap labor conditions worsened further when Asian immigrant workers, especially Japanese, began to compile their resources and money to such an extent as to compete and potentially buy out their former American employers.[3] These events gave American contractors more incentive to search for a different, cheaper labor force. Contractors, growers, and employers realized they had to unearth a source of cheap labor that was also easily controllable. American contractors began to use Mexican laborers as a last resort, but soon realized the Mexicans had all the qualities of labor the Americans had desired. 

Many American employers and contractors in the southwest had viewed the Mexican as a people of inferior blood and whose only positive traits was their knowledge of manual labor and agriculture. As stated in a New York Times article in 1903 the Mexican laborer was seen as an agricultural resource because he or she had been stereotyped as skilled in such occupations as farming and manual labor because of their background in Mexico.[4] An example of the changing attitude toward use of Mexican labor came from the southwest in Texas located along the U.S.-Mexican border, Mexican labor, which is abundant down here, is coming to be appreciated and is found to be more reliable than Negro labor when properly handled.[5] These notions of reliability as well as controllability only reinforced incentives of using Mexican immigrant labor in Texas and other parts of the American southwest. Mexican laborers thus found their niche in American society because of their proclaimed economic value to employers.

Texas especially during the early twentieth century was in need of a labor force and a general consensus had been reached in that the use of the Mexican population only a few miles south of the southern-most part of Texas could be the answer to an important economic necessity, Their increasing demand for labor coincided with the serious deterioration of the position of workers, especially rural farmers, in Mexico during the Porfiriato.[6] The dependence on Mexican labor can be seen in a New York Times article/interview with a contractor named John B. Carrington who stated, We couldnt do it if we didnt have the labor. Yes, Sir, we are dependant on the Mexican farm labor supplyMexican farm labor is rapidly proving the making of this States [Texas].[7] The fact that the individual Mexican immigrant laborer at the time could earn much more while working on the railroads in the United States and Northern Mexico as opposed to Central Mexico also encouraged immigration along the railway networks. For example, A peon in the central states rarely received a wage of as much as $.15 a day. Yet the same man could go north and earn $.50 a day working railroad construction.[8] This incentive would be more than enough to create a movement of Mexicans to the northern regions of Mexico and eventually into the United States. Both attitudes in Mexico and the United States advanced large-scale immigrations of Mexicans. Concentrations of Mexicans became established across the border in the U.S. border towns. Two of these border towns eventually evolved into the Texan cities of Brownsville and El Paso.

Expansion of Railroads in the Southwest and Mexico

Before the massive immigrations the economy of the southwest was growing at a slower rate but after the labor force entered many of the newly acquired states in the southwest had rapidly expanding economies. The United States at the turn of the twentieth century was in the process of urbanizing and developing the southwest regions and states. Over the previous decades the North American government had developed an interest in Mexico and the economic potential that it offered. Railroads would be the primary economic units that would form the basis of trade between Mexico and the United States. Americans during this time period as well as contemporary scholars would strongly agree that railroads laid the foundations for one of the most explosive period of economic growth in American history.[9] The American railroads from the north that sent supplies were purposely connected to Mexico and helped Mexican immigrant laborers cross over to the United States without risking a more perilous journey by foot.

 Railroad networks in general can be given the credit of the expanding trade and industry in the United States over a period of two centuries. The cross continental railroad connected the East to the West Cost and everything in-between but southwestern railroads physically linked the United States with its neighboring nation Mexico. The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company [b]etter known as Katyhad more to do with the development of the southwest than almost any other factor.[10] The development of the Katy Railroad was recognized as the major railroad that aided in the development of the southwest in general. Goods were not the only economic entities that were shipped via railroad, but also laborers who worked on the railroads. Railroads that had been developed years before the Katy Railroad were not given such specific credit in the economic development of the southwest. The previously constructed railroads served as the first generations of economic conduits that supplied the southwest with labor.

Some of the railroad companies that were involved with the transnational railroad were primarily the Union Pacific, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, and the Southern Pacific, all American owned companies (See Appendix Item 2c for example of Santa Fe Route). These were the leading competitors in building railroads in the United States. Texas was a major port of entry via rail by the Mexicans because many of the railways in Texas, such as the Texas Pacific Railroad, were directly connected to Mexico. These railroads were greatly expanded during the administration of Porfirio Diaz in conjunction with efforts of the United States.

Mexico, as a real junction point of the intercontinental extensions with the railway systems which are already connected with the United States, is of peculiar interest in view of the certainty of completing the section [that] will join [to the] Republic of Central America, and, ultimately, to South Americait was of supreme importance to prolong the system toward the south.[11]

The railroads were eager to hire the Mexicans and to expedite this process, some of the companies created employment agencies in order to recruit Mexican workers. One place where these agencies existed was El Paso, Texas where Mexicans crossed the border

The Regime of Porfirio Diaz: Industrialization and Railroads

Before 1876 when Diaz had not yet come to power rural agricultural institutions relied on the individual family unit as an economic body for production. There were numerous consequences of earlier economical disturbances that produced a general distaste of rural farmers towards the government and the elite of Mexican society. One of these significant consequences felt by all campesinos in Mexico was forced labor on the haciendas.Due to this forced servitude the campesinos discontents manifested further into forms of immigration.

Before the introduction of large and numerous haciendas in Central Mexico the rural farmers were accustomed to primarily supporting their families as well as neighboring communities. When industrial policies were implemented, the campesinos were not aspiring to the standards put forth by the Mexican government and instead retained much of their indigenous heritage, habits, and ingrained customs that were in place well before Columbus arrived. This culture was a deterrent to the capitalist influences of the Mexican government. Although Mexicos economy progressed under President Porfirio Diaz, his policy to create a large number of haciendas that would yield a higher rate of production ultimately resulted in negative consequences among the rural farmers.  In contrast, economic growth benefited the elite of Mexican society. Hence progress only begets progress to those who would benefit from it and not to everyone. 

By the end of the nineteenth century, haciendas were the preferable agricultural institutions in the industrializing Mexican economy in contrast to the traditional family based forms of production. People called patrones were the elite that would benefit from the implementation of haciendas and were responsible for controlling the campesinos as well as the financial aspects of the haciendas. Debt became an encompassing factor used to financially control the campesinos by purposely placing them in a perpetual cycle of debt.[1] Their traditional forms of labor and production changed drastically:

There were two forms of this system of labor[the] medieros al rajar furnished their own agricultural implements and animals and received 50 percent of the harvest, the other half going to the landownermedieros al quinto furnished only their labor and gave the usual half of the crop to the hacienda owner plus one-fifth of the remaining harvest in return for the use of machinery and animals.[2]

The many impoverished rural farmers and communities that had contently depended on themselves were forced to compromise between the welfare of their families, debt to the haciendas, and the production of their labor. Though the Mexican economy had progressed in size and production, the campesinos were displaced within their own country and many could no longer support themselves while they remained in Mexico.

Compounding the plight of the rural farmers was a land law that was passed in 1883 in which the Mexican government gave more power to the richer parts of society by giving the intruding companies more rights to ejido land in the majority of the regions in Mexico where rural farmers lived and further displaced the rural farmers in their own country.[3] One of the only measures that could be taken to survive was to immigrate to a different region of Mexico or country searching for other forms of work. The Mexican government shortly thereafter, adding insult to injury, settled on another method to increase efficiency among the remaining haciendas. Haciendas were measured competitively and those that were not performing to expected standards were dismantled and the campesinos working on them ultimately lost their livelihoods. Soon the government had decided to purge the majority of the nonproductive haciendas that were in operation. For example, the Naranja village was not given sufficient land to support itself. Faced with starvation, the villagers were forced to work on haciendas in order to provide for themselves and their families. The central regions of Mexico were deeply impacted because it has been estimated that over five million campesinos living in their close-knit communities lost their right to their land due to the results of industrialization policies.[4] Much of the farmable land was taken away from the campesinos because it was not possible to pay land and production expenses. One of few alternatives open to the rural farmers in order to escape the rapidly transforming economy and violence from sporadic revolutions that were occurring was to move north to the United States.

During the late nineteenth century the Mexican economy underwent fundamental changes that spurred immigrations across the newly developed border between the United States and Mexico, a 2,000-mile border that was poorly controlled and acknowledged. People traveled north due to their desires to maximize economic choices and gain better pay in northern Mexico rather than in Central Mexico. In fact the recognized attempts to industrialize Mexico by President Porfirio Diaz only reinforced the working classes ideas of immigration. They abhorred the replacement of older, more traditional and customary systems of agriculture with the hacienda/plantation system. The initial large-scale industrialization occurred within Mexicos textile and agricultural industries forming the backbone of the country's initial industrialization.[5] Scholars such as Lawrence Cardoso argue that [m]any of the root causes of Mexican emigration to the United States resulted from rapid changes in the land and labor systems of rural Mexico in the 1890s.[6] As agriculture became more industrialized, the number of needed farmers began to decrease and eventually the displaced laborers started to immigrate to the United States.

When President Porfirio Diaz came to power in 1876, he envisioned railroad expansion as one of the key factors to improve his countrys economy by bringing products from the interior of his country to international markets faster and more productively. Although there had been funding for the extensions of Mexican railroads as early as 1837, these efforts had not been brought to fruition because of the political instability of the country. At the beginning of his first term in 1876, the Imperial Mexican Railway Company had only 416 miles of track in service from Vera Cruz to Mexico City in the interior of the country.[7] The Mexican railroad companies that had been put in place to create railroad networks in the interior of Mexico were called Ferrocarriles Nacionales de Mexico [Mexican National Railroads], Ferrocarriles de Sonora [The Sonora Railroad], and El Ferrocarrile Central Mexicano [The Central Mexican Railroad].[8] The expansion of Mexican railroads drastically increased due to the initiatives of Porfirio Diaz and his relations with the United States, In September, 1880the Mexican government granted generous concessions for the building of the Mexican Central and the Mexican National Railroads and, in so doing, opened the way for an inrush of American capital.[9] The United States expanded its sphere of economic influence in Mexico and by doing so, it aided in the large-scale immigration of Mexicans into the United States.

The increasing expansion of the railroads not only helped Diazs policies of implementing industrialization through practical means of shipping goods but also fostered notions of immigration of campesinos located in the interior of Mexico. Mexicans who worked on the railroads in their own country had a valuable set of skills to offer U

Historiography

            While historians in the United States tend to focus on the contemporary issue of immigration, the focus less frequently on the economic history between the United States and Mexico, which combined to form the underlying catalysts of immigration. Two noted scholars that researched underlying key aspects of immigration and are referenced in this paper are Lawrence Cardoso and David Gutíerrez. Cardosos argument states that the industrialization policies implemented by President Porfirio Diaz were the first initial catalysts of Mexican immigration. These policies brought about rapid change in land and labor systems, resulting in the massive immigration. In Gutíerrezs argument, he states that the growing southwestern economy, its call for labor, and the expansion of railroads attracted the displaced Mexican rural farmers, who struggled as a result of industrialization policies. This research paper discusses both catalysts, what occurred in the United States and Mexico, and what tied them together, arranged chronologically in order to gain a better perspective.

            In Cardosos Porfirian Mexico: The Background of Massive Emigration primarily concentrates on economic events that occurred in Mexico, starting at the levels of the Mexican elite and working down towards the rural and poorer farmers of central Mexico. He tends to emphasize the impoverished farmers by describing the difficulties that they endured and how those hardships had led to the initial immigration. This differs from Gutierrezs concentration in Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity. He states the labor demands, and more importantly railroads, greatly aided in the process of Mexican immigration and had increased the speed of development of the southwest economy. Though he writes that the economic shortcomings in the lives of Mexican rural farmers aided in immigration, without the incentives advertised by the United States, immigration would have been much slower. These two ideas form the basis of this research paper because when combined they offer a decisive and more concrete reason for the initial large-scale immigrations of Mexicans to the United States.

The Loss of Texas to the United States

Following the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848, the United States acquired about forty-five percent of Mexican territory under the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, adding considerable territory to what constitutes the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California today.[1] Between the Mexicans already in the United States as a result of land acquisition and numerous new communities established in close proximity to the border there was a Mexican presence well before North Americans began to become interested in their economic potential. At the end of the nineteenth century the dynamics of American interest in Mexican labor began to strengthen due to the rapidly growing need for railroad construction. The Mexicans presented a significant source of manual agricultural labor due to Mexicos locality to the United States and its economic vulnerability to the Porfiriato industrialization policies.

[1] The Farm Workers Website, The First Migrant Workers, http://www.farmworkers.org/immigrat.html, 1.

[2] PBS The Border, The Gadsden Purchase is Signed, http://www.pbs.org/kpbs/theborder/history/index.html. 

miles...Denison, in the north, to BrownsvilleThese two lines embrace a mileage of almost 2000 miles, which will give the readers of the tribune some Idea of the great expanse of territory Included in the state of Texas.[1]

Thus two major economic events, the industrialization policies promoted by President Porfirio Diaz in Mexico between 1876 and 1911 and the construction of extensive railroad networks connecting Mexico and the United States, dovetailed and gave rise to this intricate and massive movement of people. Being conduits of goods and transportation, railroads also provided for the transportation of many Mexican immigrant laborers to the southwest and their work experience and can best be seen in Texas due to its location along the U.S.-Mexican border. Of the two economic events, the expansion of the railroads is the dominant economic force behind large-scale Mexican immigration. But it cannot be fully appreciated without exploring the underlying economic characteristics and events in Mexico that encouraged campesinos to leave their homeland and venture north.

Word Choice[2]  Immigration vs. Migration

Before proceeding to explore more fully the catalysts of the large-scale immigrations of rural Mexicans to the United States, the very definitions of immigration and migration must be understood because these two terms have somewhat different implications in reference to the modern movement of people. In Aviva Chomskys book she argues that immigration differs from migration in that immigration refers to the movement of specifically humans over established boundaries of a nation or state, hence the immigration of people from a different country into another can only exist in modern circumstances.[3] The theme of national borders is depicted as a nineteenth century concept; hence immigration can only exist in the nineteenth century and later. Though other scholars use migration, which can be applied to the movement of people it is a general term that refers to any movement of humans (or animals) from one area to another.[4] Since the Mexican immigration discussed in this research paper occurred across the borders of nation states, the term immigration is more appropriate and will be used rather than the term migration except in direct quotations.

[1] The Lone Star State, The Galveston Daily News, January 8, 1890, 10.

[2] This section is modeled after Aviva Chomskys A Note on Terminology in They Take Our Jobs: And 20 Other Mythos About Immigration and serves the same purpose.

[3] Aviva Chomsky, They Take Our Jobs: And 20 Other Myths About Immigration  (Beacon Press: Massachusetts, 2007), vii.

[4] Chomsky, vii.