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 virtually all worked as unpaid slaves on southern plantations, a few were allowed to work for pay in order to purchase their freedom and that of their families, an effort that often took many years. In addition to 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 freed the slaves in the Confederate states) and the Thirteenth Amendment (which outlawed slavery in the United States), approximately three million African-Americans worked in the paid labor force. Between 1890 and 1930 this figure almost doubled to 5.5 million, a result not only of the growth in population, but also of the increase in the number of unskilled jobs that became available during and immediately following World War I (1914–18). Job prospects were best in the North, and hundreds of thousands of African-Americans left their rural southern homes, migrating north 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 and did much to influence recent American history.
Throughout the twentieth century, African-Americans slowly but steadily became a bigger part of the labor force. In 1900 nonwhite workers of all races made up 12 percent of the labor force. By 1999 African-Americans alone made up 12 percent of the workforce, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
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, mostly in the West. 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 Indo-Chinese refugees were admitted from Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos following the Vietnam War.
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 of 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. Prior to 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 the mines, on ranches, and on the railroad.
As the Southwest began to develop, however, and Asian immigration slowed, the demand for Mexican labor increased. According to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), fewer than 1,000 Mexicans legally immigrated to the United States between 1891 and 1900. The need for Mexican labor, however, was so great that during World War I the INS exempted many Mexicans from meeting most immigration conditions, such as head taxes (paying a small amount to enter the country) and literacy requirements. Between 1921 and 1930, approximately 460,000 Mexicans came, primarily in search of work. While legal immigration rose, a large amount of illegal immigration also occurred. Historians have estimated that during the 1920s there were at least 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. 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 since there were more workers who wanted to participate in the program than there were openings.
Immigration researchers have estimated 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, in order 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 Control and Reform 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.
While arrests of illegal aliens along the southwest border increased, enforcement in the workplace was rare. The U.S. economy, in fact, 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 Bush proposed a guest-worker program that would grant a three-year work permit to millions of undocumented workers, renewable for at least three more years, with a chance to apply for a green card in order to gain permanent residency. In addition, workers in other countries could apply for work permits to take jobs that no American citizen wanted. The administration's proposal 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.
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