Guanajuatense and Other Mexican Immigrants in the United States ...

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Guanajuatense and Other Mexican Immigrantsin the United States: New Communities inNon-Metropolitan and Agricultural RegionsTable of ContentsMexican Immigrants in the U.S. ........................................................................1Mexican Settlement and Concentration in the United States ..........................2Mexican Enclaves ..................................................................................................3Enclaves in Southern Chester County, Pennsylvania ......................................3Kennett Square and Toughkenamon ..................................................................3Other Enclaves in Southern Chester County ....................................................5Some Explanations for the Emergence of Enclaves ..........................................5Conclusion ............................................................................................................6References ..............................................................................................................7Endnotes ................................................................................................................9
Guanajuatense and Other Mexican Immigrants in the United States:New Communities in Non-Metropolitan and Agricultural RegionsOver the last two decades, as vegetable, fruit, andhorticultural industries restructure their operations andintensify their production, there has been an influx ofMexican farmworkers to non-metropolitan and agriculturalregions of the United States (García, Gouveia,Rivera, and Rochín, forthcoming; Griffith and Kassam,1995; Palerm, 1991). 1 With each passing year, many ofthese laborers are settling with their families in Pennsylvania,North Carolina, Florida, and other states that hadnot experienced heavy Mexican immigration in the past.In these states, the number of Mexican people is increasingin towns and cities found in agricultural regions; insome cases, the number is doubling in a couple of years.They are becoming the majority of the residents in neighborhoods,and in the process, introducing another culture,way-of-life, and language into the larger community.This paper addresses the growth of the Mexicandescentpopulation, foreign and U.S.-born, in non-metropolitanand agricultural areas. 2 It will begin with ageneral discussion of immigration from Mexico to theUnited States, particularly from the state of Guanajuato.In the second part, regional concentration of Mexicanoriginworkers and their families in the United States willbe briefly examined. Two relatively new Mexican settlementsin southeastern Pennsylvania, one in KennettSquare and another in nearby Toughkenamon where theauthors of this paper (García and González, 1995) haveconducted research, will be presented as examples ofemerging and rapidly growing Mexican enclaves in thethird section. Lastly, some explanations for the emergenceand growth of these and other enclaves in non-metropolitanand agricultural regions will be discussed.Argument that campesino [peasants] from Guanajuatoand other parts of Mexico not only immigrate to theseareas, but many migrate in order to continue practicingsubsistence farming back home. 3Mexican Immigrants in the U.S.According to U.S. census figures, there are nearly 30million Latinos, or Latin American residents, in theUnited States (U.S. Bureau of Census, 1997). 4 About16.9 million of them were born here, while 13.1 millionwere born abroad (U.S. Bureau of Census, 1997). That is,nearly 56% were native-born while 44% were foreignborn.Given the serious shortcomings of the CensusBureau to adequately enumerate Latinos, the overallLatino population may be significantly higher. Nonetheless,census figures reveal that Latinos are the fastestgrowing ethnic group in the U.S., six times faster than thegeneral U.S. population. Additionally, it is predicted thatin the next century they will surpass the African Americanpopulation and become the largest minority group inthe country (U.S. Bureau of Census, 1998). In manySouthwestern communities, this prediction has alreadycome true. Latinos, if not the largest minority, are now thenew majority in states such as California and Texas(Palerm, 1991; U.S. Bureau of Census, 1998).The majority of the Latinos residing in the UnitedStates are Mexicans and their Chicano, or Mexican A m e r-ican, descendants. 5 They account for 63% of this populaceand for the vast majority of the migrants working inagriculture and related industries (U.S. Bureau of Census,1997; Runyan, 1997). Historically, Mexicans and theirdescendants have always been the largest Latino populationin the United States. This should be of no surprisegiven that nearly one-third of the United States was onceMexican territory. When the U.S. annexed Mexico’snorthern territory, it also acquired a population that overtime has attracted others from the original homeland.The vast majority of the Mexican immigrants to theUnited States are campesinos and rural proletariats fromGuanajuato and other states of Mexico’s Central PlateauMap 1. Guanajuato and Selected Municipalities1
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