The relief agencies have carefully scrutinized the residence of every St. Paul Mexican family who is on relief. Every person was sent away for whom legal residence could be found in any place willing to accept them except a few families who for special reasons indicated by careful case work were allowed to remain until the spring work opened. These, we are told, have been warned by the relief agencies not to return.

Many of the schedules were not received until the middle of May. It was then too late to make a recheck for arrival on these schedules where the tabulators found no statistics. It would be worth while to pull out this group of schedules and again attempt to get this information for all of the families who are in the city the coming winter. We feel, however, that the range will not be substantially changed by additional data and that the arrival charts indicate clearly the migration first to the United States, then to Minnesota and last to St. Paul. (Should this bring out additional data of significance it will be covered in an addenda to this report).

AGE AND SEX DISTRIBUTION

Mexican Nationality Community, St. Paul, Minnesota
February 1936

The Age Distribution of Mexicans in St. Paul shows them to be a community of young people. Data on birth dates was ascertained for 1,368 individuals out of the 1,459 known to be in residence here in the winter of 1936. The age distribution in five year periods is shown by sexes and neighborhoods in the above table.

The Mexican Community is similar to other immigrant groups in that it is young, vigorous and prolific. The age distribution is extremely significant in social planning for this group. Out of the 1,354 on whom age data was secured, 856 individuals, 63% were under 21 years of age; of these, 755 (396 boys and 359 girls) or 55.6% are children less than 16 years old. If we assume the same age distribution for 105 residents for whom age data was not obtainable as was discovered for the 1,354 given in the table, it is fairly accurate to say that there are about 300 children of pre-school age; over 500 who are more than 6 and less than 16 years of age who should be in school from September to June. There are about 300 Mexican young people between 11 and 21, the age for whom the youth programs of the various social agencies are designed. There are only 563 adults. The schedules show definitely 262 men of the working years between 21 and 55 and 252 women of the reproductive years between 16 and 50.

The Old Age Pension Bureau should not receive many inquiries from Mexicans for a number of years as only 19 individuals were found who were over 60 years of age and only 49 out of the 1,368 tabulated for age were over 50 years.

Sex Distribution

There were 116 more males than females. This excess of males appears in every age range except three. In the 26 to 30 year group there

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are 5 more men than women; in the 16 and 20 year range there is 1 more female than male; in the 21 to 25 period there are 3 more women than men. Among the 49 Mexicans over 50 years of age there are twice as many men as women which probably indicates a greater migration of males but might also indicatt greater morality among women than men. Out of the 290 in the lowest age group, however, there are 16 more males than females under 5 years of age.

Size Of Families

Records for all the family groups, including children, show that 233 families had a total of 934 children, an average of 4 children per family. There were 114 families who had from 4 to 11 children, a total of 700 children, or an average of 6+ children per family. There were 32 families with no children, a number of these being older people whose families are not here and for whom no record of children living elsewhere was made.

Citizenship

Citizenship data was secured on 1,297 individuals of whom 827 were citizens; 470 were not citizens of whom 11 had first papers and 10 had applied for second papers. There was no information on 162.

There appears to be an actually smaller number of Mexicans who believe themselves to be American citizens than the number who claim to have been born here. This may be accounted for in part by some American born Mexican women who married foreign-born Mexican men before September 22, 1922, and who lost their citizenship through their marriage to an alien.

The question of citizenship in the Mexican community seriously affects their assimilation. Psychologically it is important that both adults and children should feel that they are citizens of the United States. The alienage of their parents greatly affects the attitude of the children, many of whom, though citizens by birth, do not feel that they "belong." Practically, since American citizenship has now almost become a form of social insurance, it is important that Mexicans become citizens in order to avoid discriminations in employment, loss of social benefits such as Mother's Aid and Old Age pensions and the threat of deportation which is becoming increasingly a terror to every alien. Even though he is not technically deportable, (and few of them are) the alien is not sur that he is not deportable, and every day brings fresh evidence of the rising tide of feeling against the foreign-born adding to his insecurity.

There are many reasons why Mexicans do not become naturalized. (1) Their migrations in search of employment condition them against feeling a permanent part of the country and make it almost impossible to produce as witnesses the required two citizens who have known them continuously five years. (2) Many, even those who entered legally, have no proof of their entry and therefore cannot obtain the Certificate of Arrival necessary for a citizenship application. An increasingly large number of young people now reaching 21 who were carried here as babes in arms cannot find anyone who knows where or whom or how they en