Plitical sciencePeriod effects - Essay Example

Period effects also include main political or economic transformation in the world such as the reunification of Germany, the collapse of the Soviet Union or the introduction of Social Security and Medicare in America. The Great Depression of 1930 and its effects as an example of periodic effect The Great depression in 1930 is a period marked by tremendous economic and social upheavals in America. The most affected populations were the Mexican Americans that constituted a majority of the Latinos in US.

The Great depression brought increasing anti-Mexicans, anti-immigration sentiments, rising unemployment, discrimination in the work place and lack of social welfare programs especially for Mexican Americans. The crises began on October 29, 1929 and soon spread throughout US and later to other countries. In 1930 as the crises worsened, 1.4 million Mexican Americans found themselves to vulnerable situations. The US citizens viewed Mexican Americans as foreigners, whether they were US citizen or not, and intensified xenophobic attacks on them.

Us government excluded Mexican Americans from its relief programs and employers exploited them while mobs attacked their enterprise (Szklo and Javier 9). The Great Depression on reaching its peak, a quarter of US workers became unemployed. Unemployment increased demands on underfunded local and state relief programs. US government and media blamed the Mexican Americans for the situation, although they received less than 10% of the relief. The counties, cities and states in US received increased pressure to provide social welfare programs and relief as the situation worsened.

The US government responded by giving priority to American nationals at the expense of Mexican nationals (Szklo and Javier 11). The cities passed laws that denied relief programs to immigrants. Other local governments denied Mexican Americans relief to force them work for low wages in domestic work and agriculture sector. Some states like Texas and Californian required Mexicans to show naturalization papers or prove that they were in the process of getting US citizenship before getting relief.

The federal government also denied New Deal work relief to Mexican nationals that failed to prove US citizenship (Szklo and Javier 13). The hard conditions made Mexican Americans find creative ways of surviving. The Mexican women sold food, made their own clothes and scavenged for scraps in order to feed and care for their families. Some left US voluntarily or because of pressure while others organized to fight for better conditions. Some Mexican women formed self help groups to provide services to its members.

A good example is the middle-class Mexican American women in San Antoni, who formed la Beneficencia Mexicana. The group started a health clinic to provide prenatal services to poor women. Other Mexican women in San Antonio came up with the Catholic Relief Association to help distribute food, clothing and shelter to unemployed people within the Mexican American community. Between the year 1931-1934, Mexican population residing in US faced deportation or repatriation and about one million Mexicans born and raised in America left US.

The federal government responded to a popular opinion that blamed Mexican for the national economic crises by coming up with deportation programs. US government officials carried out publicized deportation raids in both the rural