Work and Restlessness: Occupational and Spatial Mobility among Mexicanos in Los Angeles, 1918-1928

Abstract

IN THE PERIOD 1915-1930 thousands of Mexican workers and their families settled in Los Angeles. Officially, the Mexican population of the city tripled from 31,173 in 1920 to 97,116 by 1930. Unofficially, the number of Mexicanos in the city may have grown from about 50,000 during World War I to some 250,000 by the end of the 1920s.' Mexicanos constituted between twelve and fourteen percent of the total population of Los Angeles, although they were highly concentrated in several enclaves in the central and eastern sections of the city. Most of them found employment in unskilled work, yet like other immigrant workers in other large metropolitan areas, Mexican workers have generally been ignored by historians. Little is known about the dynamics of occupational and geographic stratification of Mexicans in the United States. Recently, historians have applied quantitative techniques to the study of the urban worker class, but for the most part, these studies-which make use of city directories, birth, marriage, and death records,