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AP U.S. History Diagnostic 20 173 Views
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Description:
AP U.S. History Diagnostic 20. Why were Mexican immigrants able to freely enter the United States despite the restrictions mentioned in the excerpt?
Transcript
- 00:00
And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the emergency quota,
- 00:04
the number of emergencies allowed per day.
- 00:06
Yeah. It's mandated by Obama.
- 00:08
That's it. Only so many a day.
- 00:10
All right, check out this excerpt.
Full Transcript
- 00:11
[ mumbles ]
- 00:14
[ mumbling continues ]
- 00:17
Hmm. And the question:
- 00:18
Why were Mexican immigrants able to
- 00:20
freely enter the United States despite
- 00:23
the restrictions mentioned in the excerpt?
- 00:25
And here are your potential answers.
- 00:26
[ mumbles ]
- 00:28
[ mumbling continues ]
- 00:32
All right. Well, following World War I, the United States
- 00:35
decided to hang a
- 00:37
"sorry, we're closed" sign on Ellis Island,
- 00:40
restricting immigration through a series of caps and quotas.
- 00:43
Mexican immigrants, however, weren't subject to these new rules.
- 00:47
Let's see which answer can explain
- 00:49
their gold star status.
- 00:51
Were Mexican immigrants allowed to freely enter the U.S.
- 00:54
A - to hold up the philosophies of the Monroe Doctrine?
- 00:59
Well, it'd be grand to think
- 01:00
the American government wanted to uphold previous
- 01:02
positions by playing nice with its friends down south, but
- 01:06
there's something else at work here.
- 01:07
And that knocks at A and D.
- 01:09
We weren't just being, like, nice.
- 01:11
Sort of.
- 01:12
Would the U.S. have allowed Mexican immigrants to
- 01:14
freely enter the U.S. C -
- 01:16
to allow for separated families to be reunited?
- 01:19
Nice again. A noble cause,
- 01:22
but this kind of preferential treatment towards
- 01:24
family members didn't come into play
- 01:26
until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
- 01:29
All right, so it's not C, either.
- 01:31
Which means that Mexican immigrants were able to enter the U.S.
- 01:34
despite restrictions on immigration
- 01:36
B - to ensure the availability of inexpensive farm labor.
- 01:41
Isolationist policies may have been
- 01:43
the hot topic following World War I,
- 01:46
but the desire for cheap labor was a close second.
- 01:49
So the U.S. made a deal with Mexico to keep a regular stream of
- 01:52
laborers flowing in,
- 01:54
regardless of quotas put in place.
- 01:56
That makes B the right answer.
- 01:58
Though this inexpensive labor was integral to the growth of agricultural profits,
- 02:03
many Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were
- 02:05
deported once the Great Depression hit and jobs became
- 02:08
scarce, thank you very much.
- 02:10
So much for good neighbor policy.
- 02:12
[ all operators are busy at this time ]
- 02:14
[ please hold ]
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