A report dated June 3. 1944. from the Presidents Committee on Fair Employment Practice incorporates an extract from a communication received from the Nonferrous Metals Commission. Having to do with the wage differentials in common labor rates paid to Mexicans and AngloAmericans for the same work performed. this report states: So that it will be thoroughly understood that the problem of discrimination encountered in the instant case is not peculiar to the subject companies or the mining Industry. it is well that we consider the problem generally. Carey McWilliams. an outstanding authority in the field. has written. "It has been pointed out. ad nauseam. that the Mexican migrant is illhoused. illclothed. and illfed. His children are retarded in the schools and in many areas they did not even attend schools. From every point of view. Mexican migratory workers (most. of whom are fairly recent immigrants) constitute a definite disadvantaged. submerged class of our society. "They are the victims of a well organized caste system which dooms them to restricted types of employment. visits upon them a complex and comprehensive system of social discrimination. and makes for chronic maladjustment. This system. moreover. tends by its very nature to be selfperpetuating." Reports are constantly coming to me of social and economic discrimination against Mexicans and Latin Americans. and almost every Western and Southwestern State is the stage: upon which these unAmerican dramas are being acted. They all point to the unfair treatment of these groups through the application of discriminatory wage scales by every type of private enterprise.
Identified stereotypes
Mexican migrants are described as ill-housed, ill-clothed, ill-fed, and a disadvantaged, submerged class.