Anglo-Latin Problems as Perceived by Public Service Personnel

Abstract

The above findings generally revealed that Mexicans had a dominantly positive attitude toward the United States. This attitude was associated with amount of contact with American life. Thus, migrants who had considerable contact had generally positive orientations. They seemed to constitute a middle group economically which had some influence on the attitudes of the economically deprived in the community. A cleavage between these two lower groups and the propertied seemed to be emerging. Thus the wealthy cotton growers and property owners in Sonoyta were bitterly critical of the buying practices of American companies in the state of Sonora. In their economic battle with Arizona agriculture they pressured the Mexican government to subsidize irrigation and provide them with other support. With the breakdown of the patron system they were finding it increasingly dificult to keep local workers from emigrating to other rural and urban areas in the United States and Mexico. Interviews with these workers seemed to show that they had little concern for the historic or contemporary quarrels of Mexico with the United States. Neither did they cherish the traditional values which the middle classes alluded to in their economic struggles. For many workers, migration to the United States was not only economically desirable, but the only escape from an economically impossible position. Many fervently believed that anyone in the United States could, with hard work, achieve economic success, while in Mexico eco. nomic success is linked to class position, friendship, family connections, or government privilege. The words of a border official may be prophetic, Our border patrol captured in May 1954 an unprecedented figure of 95,310 alambristas. It was obvious that we were faced by a full-scale invasion, which though peaceful in character, is rapidly changing the economic conditions and standards of living of thousands on both sides of the border.