America's back door : indirect international immigration via Mexico to the United States from 1875 to 1940

Abstract

Mexico provided many opportunities for indirect international immigration to the United States between the years 1876 and 1940. The immigrants traveled from their countries of birth, for example China, Japan, Eastern Europe, Syria, and the like to the intermediary country, Mexico. Then, they traveled from Mexico to their prime focus receiving country, the United States. This study employs the term "Mexican conduit" to indicate indirect international immigration, both legal and illegal, via Mexico to the United States. Some immigrants passed through Mexico to the United States whereas others initially settled in Mexico. The study involves four special groups of indirect immigrants-- the Chinese, the Japanese, the Jews, and the Syrians afflicted with trachoma. The social, economic, and political conditions in Mexico and the United States encouraged episodes of heavy traffic on the Mexican conduit. The relationship of indirect international immigration to restrictive immigration laws in Mexico and the United States is of special significance in this study. Although Mexico has never been a major recipient nation for immigrants, several important themes emerge from an analysis of the Mexican conduit: the diversity of motives for immigration, the immigrants' determination to get to the United States, the historical permeability of the southern border, the use of "political" diseases such as trachoma to restrict "undesirable" nationalities, and the precedents for modern indirect international immigration.