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Mexican Americans

Just like the African Americans, both Mexican Americans and Mexicans working in the united states faced discrimination during the war, even when they joined the armed forces. By 1944, about 17,000 Mexican American citizens and Mexicans working in the United States held jobs in ship yards, air craft factories and some other production centers in New York, Detroit, Chicago, and Kansas city.

The Bracero Program

In agriculture, a shortage of farm workers led the United States to resort to Mexico (OBVIOUSLY) for Mexicans. In 1942, there was an agreement between the US and Mexico that transportation, food, shelter, and medical care were to be provided for thousands of Braceros, Mexican farm workers that were brought in the United States. Because of this program, over 200,000 braceros worked on farms and sometimes in industries. The Latino population rose in Los Angeles and in other cities in California. Many lived in barrios. (Spanish speaking neighborhoods)

Zoot Suit RiotsIn the 1940s, I Los Angeles, some young Mexican Americans started to wear “Zoot Suits” which was usually a long draped jacket and baggy pants with tight cuffs.

This Look offended people, mostly white people, especially sailors who came to los Angeles from nearby military bases. Groups of sailors would roam around the streets just to look for Mexicans that are wearing zoot suits whom they would beat up and humiliate for looking “un American”. Some of the Mexicans would get back at the sailors anytime they had the chance.

http://youtu.be/7S3LTMTcTow

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•25,000 Native Americans joined the armed forces•23,000 Native Americans worked in war industries•life in military cities was vastly different than life on reservations and many lost their heritage.

Navajo code talkers

•they were young Navajo men who transmitted secret communications on the battlefields of WWII• It originated as approximately 200 terms—growing to over 600 by war's end—and could communicate in 20 seconds what took coding machines of the time 30 minutes to do•It is the only unbroken code in modern military history

•Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor•Roosevelt's order affected 117,000 people of Japanese descent, two-thirds of whom were native-born citizens of the United States.•Inaccurate reports mislead Americans to hate and fear Japanese Americans•Life in the camps was hard. Internees had only been allowed to bring with then a few possessions. In many cases they had been given just 48 hours to evacuate their homes. Consequently they were easy prey for fortune hunters who offered them far less than the market prices for the goods they could not take with them.

With some ten million men at war and the rest of the male population at work, it was clear the only way America would be able to win the war was if it enlisted large numbers of women for employment. America desired its women to go to work to build the planes, tanks, and ships needed to fight.

There was a lot of propaganda and slogans that were used to get the women in the workforce.

By the mid-1940s, the percentage of women in the American work force had expanded from 25 percent to 36 percent.

When America won the war in August, 1945, millions celebrated. The war was finally over and millions of men would finally be able to return to their homes. When the fighting stopped, the war machine, which had employed millions of women, ceased. There was no need for women to leave their families to work eight hours in a factory; they could again stay at home and take care of their families. But for some women that wasn't enough anymore.

Wartime economy had given women more freedom than they had ever had before. Though they did face some discrimination in the workforce, it was minimal compared to that of pre-world war II times.

For the first time, women were experiencing social and economic mobility. Suddenly they were faced with choices, and by exercising these choices they were able to explore their own individuality and independence. With the war over and the break up of the war machine, women who were urged to go to work to support their country were now in jeopardy of losing their jobs.

For the first time, women were experiencing social and economic mobility. Suddenly they were faced with choices, and by exercising these choices they were able to explore their own individuality and independence. With the war over and the break up of the war machine, women who were urged to go to work to support their country were now in jeopardy of losing their jobs.

. Many people assumed that American women would return to their homes voluntarily. Most figured that the American homemaker turned "production soldier" would understand that her position was a temporal as a soldier’s.

Millions of men were asked to leave their job to become soldiers, and when the war was over they were expected to return home to work.

Some women were glad when the war ended because they could go back home where they felt they belonged. Others returned home not because they wanted to, but because their husband and society believed they should. Some left their jobs, because they could resume their pre-war plans. (I.e. marriage or pregnancy.)

Most definitely, the effects of World War II could not be reversed. Women had experienced new opportunities, independence, and were experiencing their own individuality. Many women who continued to work after the war received wage cuts and demotions. The war allowed women to make decisions, and it gave them a chance to fight for their rights. And there is no doubt that the consequences of the World War II (the discrimination, job cuts, and wage inequalities) led to the development of many of the civil rights movements of the 1950's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVtgEgw15mQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player