Chapter 12

When I would think about immigrants from the past I would think about Hispanic people right away. I did not know until just a few years ago that each minority group that first comes to the America is known as an immigrant. I found chapter 12 really interesting because it mentioned a lot about Mexican American community as the chapter goes on. What I thought was interesting was whether the Mexican American community was old or new, since the Census Bureau have been counting them as Caucasians. Most of the groups that are associated with this are Cubans, Puerto Ricans and groups that come on the same association of them. I would think they would have there own section in the census. At least have a column for Hispanics and Latino's of course this did not come into play until later on in the years. 

Just like the other groups that we have studied in the earlier chapters such as the Japanese, Chinese, and Philippine's the Mexican's had came to California for agriculture. Most of what happened in the valley's in California and the reading also mentioned they had sugar beet fields in Colorado. Living in California all my life I have been to many cities and I have noticed what city has the most highly dominated group that resides in the city. I have noticed Latino's are more in the ranches, farms, and cities where more of there people live in that is where most of them like to go to. Places that symbolize there hometowns from back home. For example, there are a lot of Hispanics that live in Redwood City more towards Middlefield Rd. The area reminds me of a mini Mexico at times. Everyone is in there own little worlds and when you go on this side of RWC you feel the atmosphere of mini Mexico at times. This is where most of the Mexicans have there hair salons, delicious Mexican food restaurants, schools are more dominated my latino children, markets, the men that sell snacks on bikes, more ice cream sellers in this area, 7 eleven that is owned by Hispanics, and many more resources that would remind a person of there own roots.

The chapter talked about interesting information and I really enjoyed the information it brought to my attention. We can't forget all the important and famous people: Rodolfo Gonzales, Rahul Castro, Caesar Chavez, Victoriano Huerta, Eva Longoria, Victor Ochoa, and Selena Gomez. Of course the list goes on... 

Interesting Fact's!

Oakland – California's third largest Mexican-American city by percentage (over 25%) after Long Beach (about 30%).San Francisco Bay Area – also with over one million Hispanics, many of whom are Mexican Americans, both U.S. born and foreign-born (see also Oakland about 10–20% Hispanic and San Francisco – the Mission District section- the city is 10–20% Latino).

San Jose, California – Nearly one-third of the city's population is Mexican-American or of Hispanic origin; San Jose has the largest Mexican-American population within the Bay Area.