Mexican Americans and Presidential Elections
The United States has generally been a neutral country in its history. However, in 1914, the country was plunged into World War I after being provoked by many attacks. One of many small attacks included “accidentally” sinking a United States ship that was exporting goods to other England. After the sinking of the Lusitania, once the world’s largest ship, by German U-boats, the United States leaders knew it was time to join the war. Shortly afterwards, United States intervention helped the Allies, mainly France, the United Kingdom, and Russia, end the war, but the country ended up many lives, around one hundred-thousand. While casualties were low in the United States compared to other countries, the country still did not want to suffer more losses. Therefore, the United States went into a state of isolationism following World War I. After 25 years of peace, a second war, World War II, became another prominent issue for the United States. Like the first war, The United States was again provoked into war. On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, killing over two thousand civilians. Unlike the first war, the United States decided to quickly join its allies after the bombing rather than waiting to be attacked multiple times. The country again plunged into war, but this time, it was in the war for a much larger period of time compared to the first war. As World War II was a bigger war compared to its predecessor, more soldiers were needed to fight. With more soldiers needed to fight in the war, many people had to leave work to defend their country. This meant that jobs would have many open positions, and this wasn’t good for the economy. In order to fill the spots, the United States invited Mexican Americans to fill in the jobs that had been neglected due to war. The program that was then started was the Bracero Program, which was a program started in 1942 to hire temporary workers from Mexico until the war ended and the people returned home.