Clash of Cultures & the Discovery of Gold      123456

Economic Dependence Between the U.S. and Mexico.

Movement to the United States, or El Norte, has often provided desperately needed opportunity to impoverished Mexicans. Many employers in the U.S., eager to supply the public's demand for cheap produce and goods, hire the most inexpensive labor available. This means that corporate farmers and food processing plants often knowingly hire undocumented workers from Mexico and Central America and pay them less than the minimum wage. American consumers, who are used to cheap produce and goods, may criticize this situation but on the whole are slow to act. 

Wages paid to illegal immigrants are generally below the minimum wage, but they are higher than workers could earn in Mexico — if they could find employment. While U.S. consumers benefit from the cheap labor costs of undocumented workers, Mexican workers in the U.S. bring in much-needed income for families back in Mexico. In fact, the National Population Council in Mexico reports that as many as 10 percent of Mexican families are dependent on money sent from the U.S. Income from Mexican workers in the U.S. is the third most important source of income in Mexico. It runs behind only income from the oil and tourism industries in the country.

The end result is a highly interdependent economic and labor system between the United States and Mexico that would be difficult to separate even if there was the will to do so.

The Mexican Population in California

In 1970, about 760,000 Mexican-born people were residing legally in the United States. In 2000, that figure jumped to nearly 8 million. About half of these immigrants live in California. This means that more legal immigrants arrived from Mexico in the 1990s than from all European countries combined.