Mexican-origin Indigenous Immigration to the United States: A Historical and Intersectional Perspective

Latin (“Indo”) American and Asian immigrants surpassed the number of European foreign-born migrants in 1990 for the first time in US history, and now represent respectively 53.1 and 27.7 percent of the total immigrant population of 38.5 million (Grieco & Trevelyan 2010: 2). This population change and growth produced much interest in the causes and implications of this migration, particularly from Mexico, which accounts for a third of the total migration (Massey et al. 2002; Portes & Rumbaut 2006). Much of the scholarly literature, however, misses the uniqueness and internal diversity of the continuous forced migration of Mexican (Indo-American) people (notable exceptions are Kearney 1996; Fox & Rivera-Salgado 2004; Stephen 2007; Cornelious et al. 2009). Mexican-origin migration is distinct from European migration in its causes and its form of incorporation into the United States. This essay shows that (1) the traditional theories fall short in explaining Mexican-origin migration, and (2) Indo-American migration is not a new phenomenon.