Mexican Migrants in the United States
Alejandro Morales is the author of the Brick People, which was the story of the Mexican Migrants that came to work in Simon’s Backyard number three town company in Los Angeles between the days it was commenced in nineteen hundred and five to the day of its demise in nineteen fifty-two. At a given point in time, the town company was regarded as one of the largest brickyards in the world, shipping over one million bricks daily, part of which went to the building of South Carolina. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the community of Simon’s Brickyard and the struggle that this company town had to endure.
In nineteen hundred and five, Robey Simons founded the third of eight brick factories, which was based in Southern California (Nieto). Before its demise in nineteen fifty-two, it produced building materials for several buildings that are considered landmarks in Southern California. One of these buildings is Walt Disney Studios (Nieto). Been one of the largest brickyards in the world at the time, its contribution to the societal history of urbanization of Southern California exceeds the provision of bricks and tiles utilized in the construction of downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena (Morales).
The company played a significant part in the community in that there was the construction of a store, post office, and schools in which the migrants from Mexico lived and worked with their families through a system of segregation and paternalism. This turned the plant into a miniature of the divisive order that dominated Southern California in the early twentieth century influential years. Several communities that amalgamated into cities such as Montebello and Commerce share the history of Simons in that some of the areas that were formed by the town company were carved into the boundaries of the City of Commerce during the nineteen sixties.
With the brickyard extending to over three hundred and fifty acres, there was a need for a large workforce, most of them who came by train, leaving the uncertainties and tumult that was associated with the Mexican Revolution to find work. The town company had a population of three thousand residents during the nineteen nineties. This was a period of peak performance among the community where many thrived because of the town company. The company provides the population with its economy, which continued to adjust with fluctuations here and there associated with criminality such as cases of violence.
These Mexican Migrants played a crucial role in twentieth-century architectural history in Southern California through the manufacturing of quality red bricks that were used in building. Together with the business acumen of Mr. Simons, the community began to rise. The excerpt by Alejandro Morales is relayed through an omniscient narrator who presents the sequential and rectilinear synthesis that describes the local and personal history of individuals through the characters that are drawn from the realities of life. The novel describes in detail the violent scenes that many Mexican migrants had to undergo to survive, including murder or massacres.
The development of the town company is related to several episodes that range from retelling of the Chinese Massacre in downtown Los Angeles during the early nineteen hundreds to the power struggle that existed between Joseph and Walter Simons. The story of Octavio and Nana Revueltas is also another area of struggle where survival was vital in relation to the benevolent paternalism of the town company. There are several areas where Simon Bricks are located in the area including; Santa Ana Theater, the walkways of Olvera Street, the first portion of the Natural History Museum in 1913, and the 1927 Fine Arts Building in downtown Los Angeles among many other construction projects around Southern California including prosperous residences.
The Mexican Migrants come to realize that they have fled from one feudal system of tyranny in Mexico to another one that is supported and implemented by the Simon brothers. The brothers express their material comfort and discontent for the Mexican workers in the town company. This is where the Mexican migrants begin to relate the feudalism in the town with that in Mexico, naming it the Simon Paternalism. Thus begins the struggles of these migrants as they try to find acceptance in a community that views them as inferiors. They also find it hard to claim the adopted land as their own due to several factors such as massacres and murders that are related to the land.
In conclusion, even though the Mexican Migrants escaped the clutches of adversity in Mexico to find new and better lives in the United States, they faced similar challenges when they were trying to settle. There were issues with associated with societal supremacy that sparked the Simon Paternalism. This was the beginning of the end of the community and the town company.