This document discusses several topics related to Mexican culture and the Mexican immigrant experience in the early 20th century United States. It notes that economic pressures caused many Mexican women to begin working, challenging traditional family structures. It also describes how Mexicans used entertainment like baseball, bullfighting and boxing to distract from hardships. Finally, it argues that recent laws targeting immigrants are actually attempts to detach Hispanics from their culture and that immigrants fill jobs complementing the native workforce, not competing with it.

1. Remote Assignment 3/17
ETHS 2100
Lizet Gonzalez

2. • “The economic necessity for Mexican women to find jobs likewise appears to have challenged
to a degree the traditional male-dominated Mexican family structure.”
• Mexican men were more accepting of their daughters working than their wives, so when
their wives began to work some started feeling resentful towards them.
Border Culture
“One man stated that women should not work because that was a man’s duty, whereas women’s
consisted of keeping house.”
Although many thought this way, living costs were getting higher so the pressure from this
caused many women to work.

3. Entertainment
• “Mexicans also spent their limited leisure time at
spectator sports that helped distract their minds
from homesickness, work, and harsh living
conditions.”
• Many attended events such as bullfights, boxing
matches, and baseball games.
• “The allure of American baseball for Mexicans
transcended the border and began to have a cultural
impact on Mexico.”
• Baseball became very popular to Mexicans due to
various reasons including the language influence it
had on many.

4. Border Challenges
• “HB 2281 is also a political interest disguised as an
educational reform, an ‘Americanization’ reform much like
the ones established by the Federal Government in the
beginning of the twentieth century for assimilating all
people of color.”
• HB 2281 is actually trying to detach Mexicans and
Hispanics from their cultural and ethnic roots.
• “Immigrants tend to be concentrated in high- and low-
skilled occupations that complement- rather than compete
with- jobs held by native workers.”
• Immigrants are often blamed for high unemployment, even
though the reason for such a high unemployment is that the
rest of the population is aging.