Latino Americans

From Cuba a second wave of refugees to United States – the Mariel exodus – floods Miami . The same decade sees the sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands of Central Americans (Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Nicaraguans)

Until World War II, Latino immigration to the United States was overwhelmingly Mexican-American. Now three new waves bring large-scale immigration from Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic.

Service during the war allows Latinos to make unprecedented gains in civil rights but the journey is far from over.

In the 1960s and 1970s a generation of Mexican Americans, frustrated by persistent discrimination and poverty, find a new way forward, through social action and the building of a new “Chicano” identity.

Widespread immigration to the U.S. from Latin countries begins – first with a small group from Cuba, then a larger one from Mexico. The U.S. helps liberate Cuba, and seizes Puerto Rico, in the brief Spanish American War; With the onset of the Great Depression, Immigrants encouraged in the 20s are deported en masse in the 30s.

Manifest Destiny pushes the U.S west into the Mexican territories of the South West. Mariano Vallejo personifies the era of the Californio rancheros. Juan Seguín is a man caught between two worlds;Through the Mexican American War, the U.S. takes a full half of Mexico’s territory by 1848.