Minorities in the Labor Force - A Historical Perspective

Minorities and ethnic groups have always been an important part of the U.S. labor force. In many instances groups were allowed, or even encouraged, to immigrate to the United States to fill specific labor needs. Perhaps the most obvious example is the involuntary immigration of Africans, who provided slave labor for southern plantations as early as the seventeenth century. Later, Asians and Hispanics were sought to mine resources, farm land, and build railroads.

African-Americans

Since 1619, with the arrival of the first slave ships to North American shores, African-Americans have been part of the labor force. While most worked as unpaid slaves on southern plantations, a few were allowed to work for pay to purchase their freedom and that of their families, an effort that often took many years. Besides farm and household labor, some developed talents in masonry, music, or other skills and were hired out by their owners.

In 1890, less than thirty years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation (which declared slaves living in Confederate states free) and states ratified the Thirteenth Amendment (which outlawed slavery in the United States), approximately three million African-Americans worked in the paid labor force. Because the best job prospects and the obstacles created by racial discrimination were the least burdensome in the urban areas of the North, hundreds of thousands of African-Americans left their rural southern homes and migrated north before and during World War I (1914–18) in search of unskilled work in factories and homes. During the 1940s arms production for World War II (1939–45) again attracted hundreds of thousands of African-Americans to the North, bringing about a moderate increase in the number of African-American workers. These migrations of African-Americans from the South to the North following both world wars were the largest movements of people within the United States in the country's history and did much to influence U.S. history.

Asian-Americans

Chinese immigrants came to the United States not only because of the gold rush in California but also to work on railroads, on farms, and in construction and manufacturing. During the first decade of the twentieth century, almost 130,000 Japanese came to the rapidly expanding sugarcane plantations of Hawaii and the fruit and vegetable farms of California. President Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese government, however, in the "Gentleman's Agreement" of 1907, agreed to stop the flow of Japanese workers to the United States by withholding passports, thus cutting the flow to a trickle. The most recent wave of Asians came to the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, when more than a million refugees were admitted from Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos following the Vietnam War (1965–73).

Hispanic Americans

Many Hispanic Americans can trace their roots to the time when the southwestern states were still a part of Mexico. The ancestors of most Hispanic Americans, however, arrived after Mexico surrendered much of its territory following its defeat in the Mexican-American War (1846–48). The U.S. policy toward Hispanic American workers (mainly from Mexico) has alternately encouraged and discouraged immigration, reflecting the nation's changing needs for labor. Before the start of the twentieth century, although there was little demand in the Southwest for Mexican labor, Mexicans moved back and forth across completely open borders to work in mines, on ranches, and on railroads.

As the Southwest began to develop, however, and Asian immigration slowed, the demand for Mexican labor increased. In "Mexican Immigrantion" (2005, http://rs6.loc.gov/learn/features/immig/alt/mexican4.html), the Library of Congress's Learning Page reports that between 1910 and 1930 the number of Mexican immigrants in the United States tripled, from two hundred thousand to six hundred thousand. The need for Mexican labor was so great that during World War I the Immigration and Naturalization Service exempted many Mexicans from meeting most immigration conditions, such as head taxes (paying a small amount to enter the country) and literacy requirements. While legal immigration rose, a large amount of illegal immigration also occurred. Historians estimate that during the 1920s there were as many illegal as legal Mexican immigrants in the country.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, when jobs became scarce, many Americans believed the nation's unemployment situation was significantly compounded by illegal aliens working in the United States. As a result, thousands of Mexicans, both legal immigrants and illegal aliens, were repatriated (sent home). During this time the Mexican population in the United States fell by almost one-half.

When World War II began in Europe in 1939, the United States needed workers to help in its role as supplier to the Allied countries, primarily Great Britain. When the lure of better-paying factory jobs brought many rural workers to the city, the nation looked to Mexico to fill the need for agricultural workers. The Bracero Program (1942–64) permitted entry of Mexican farm workers on a temporary contract basis with U.S. employers. While the program was considered an alternative to illegal immigration, it likely contributed to it because there were more workers who wanted to participate in the program than there were openings.

Marc Perry et al. in Evaluating Components of International Migration: Legal Migrants (December 2001, http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0059.html) estimate that more than one million undocumented Hispanics entered the United States in the early 1980s. A major downturn in the Mexican economy led to a surge in Mexican immigrants, and several hundred thousand other Hispanics arrived from Central America, most notably from El Salvador and Guatemala, to escape bloody civil wars and repressive regimes. Overall, Hispanics accounted for approximately one of every three legal immigrants to the United States during this period. In 1986 the Immigration Reform and Control Act (PL 99-603) gave more than two million Mexicans legal status in the United States. Since that time, Hispanics from Cuba, Central and South America, and Mexico have continued to enter the United States, legally and illegally.

"Get Tough" Policy

To stem the flow of undocumented workers, a "get tough" policy was initiated in 1994, but in the opinion of critics the money spent on installing infrared sensors, cameras, and stadium-level lighting along the Mexican border was essentially wasted. Instead of crossing at more populated and better-secured areas, illegal immigrants crossed into the United States through mountains and deserts, facing dangerous conditions, and many have died as a result.

While arrests of illegal aliens along the southwest border increased, enforcement in the workplace was rare. In fact, the U.S. economy became so dependent on a pool of low-wage workers that mass deportation of undocumented workers was not a realistic option. In January 2004 President George W. Bush proposed a guest-worker program that grants a three-year work permit to millions of undocumented workers. This permit is renewable for at least three more years, with a chance to apply for a green card to gain permanent residency. In addition, workers in other countries can apply for work permits to take jobs that no U.S. citizen wants. As of 2006 the administration's guest-worker program faced opposition from both the left and right of the political spectrum. Republican officeholders in states with small Hispanic populations were not supportive, and Democrats were quick to point out that the proposal offered no increased chance for permanent residency status, let alone citizenship. Undocumented workers were also split on the proposal. While they welcomed the chance to visit their home countries without fear of being unable to return to the United States, they were also wary of providing information about themselves to the government, fearful that they could more easily be deported once their permits expired.

The debate on immigration heated up in the first quarter of 2006. Lawmakers debated legislation that would make it easier for illegal immigrants to obtain legal status by not subjecting them to felony prosecution. Rallies made up of hundreds of thousands of people formed across the country to call attention to this divisive issue.