“From Immigrant to Neighbor”: Our Legacy/Nuestro Legado Series

Beginning around the 1890s, new industries in the U.S. Southwest—especially mining and agriculture—attracted Mexican migrant laborers. The Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) then increased the flow: war refugees and political exiles fled to the United States to escape the revolution. Mexicans also left rural areas in search of stability and employment. As a result, Mexican migration to the United States rose sharply. The number of legal migrants grew from around 20,000 migrants per year during the 1910s to about 50,000–100,000 migrants per year during the 1920s.
By 1920, nearly 900,000 Mexicans had emigrated to the United States. Many came to the Kansas City region on both sides of the Missouri and Kansas state lines to live and work in agriculture, railroad operations, meat packing companies, and the hospitality industry.
“La Colonia Mexicana”, stretched from Turner, Kansas, across the Argentine and Armourdale districts to Kansas City Missouri’s “Westside”. Paul G. Rojas’ parents came from Mexico and eventually settled in the Westside Mexican immigrant community. It is there where he grew up that he resides today.
Former Missouri State Representative from Kansas City Missouri’s Westside Mexican American community shares his experiences growing up in the barrio in this two-part program. He will also talk about his time served in the U.S. Armed Services as a “boy sailor” during the Korean War.
Hosted by Gene T. Chavez, Kansas City Museum’s Historian in Residence.
For more information, please contact Glenn North, Director of Inclusive Learning & Creative Impact, at [email protected].