The Other America

For many Americans, the 1950s were a time of unprecedented prosperity. But not everyone experienced this financial well-bring. In the "other" America, about forty million people lived in poverty, untouched by the economic boom. Many of these poor were elderly people, single women and their children, or members of minority groups, including African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. In the 1950s, millions of middle-class white Americans left the cities for the suburbs, taking with them precious economic resources and isolating themselves from other races and classes. At the same time, the rural poor migrated to the inner cities. Between the end of World War II and 1960, nearly five million African Americans moved from the rural South to urban areas. The urban crisis prompted by the "white flight" had a direct impact on poor whites and nonwhites. The cities lost not only people and businesses but also the property they owned and income taxes they had paid. City governments could no longer afford to properly maintain or improve schools, public transportation, and police and fire departments and the urban poor suffered.
Poverty grew rapidly in the decaying inner cities, many suburban Americans remained unaware of it. Some even refused to believe that poverty could exist in the richest, most powerful nation on earth. Each year, the federal government calculates the minimum amount of income needed to survive the poverty line. In 1959, the poverty line for a family of four was $2,973. In 2000, it was $17,601. Most African Americans, and Latinos in the cities had to live in dirty, crowded slums. One proposed solution to the housing problem in inner cities was urban renewal. The national Housing Act of 1949 was passed to provide "a decent home and a suitable living environmental for every American family." This act called for tearing down rundown neighborhoods and constructing low-income housing. Later, the nation's leader would create a new cabinet position, Housing and Urban Development (HUD), to aid in improving conditions in the inner city.
Although dilapidated areas were razed, parking lots, shopping centers, highways, parks, and factories were constructed on some of the cleared land, and there was seldom enough new housing built to accommodate all the displaced people. For example, a barrio in Los Angeles was torn down to make way for Dodger Stadium, and poor people were displaced from their homes simply moved from one ghetto to another. Some critics of urban renewal claimed that it had merely become urban removal.
Despite ongoing poverty, during the 1950s, African Americans began to make significant strides toward the reduction of racial discrimination and segregation. Inspired by the African-American civil rights movement, other minorities also began to develop a deeper political awarness and a voice. Mexican-American activism gathered steam after veterans returned from World War II, and a major change in government policy under Eisenhower's administration fueled Native American protest.
Many Mexicans had become U.S. citizens during the 19th century, when the United States had annexed the Southwest after the War with Mexico. Large numbers of Mexicans had also crossed the border to work in the United States during and after World War I. When the United States entered World War II, the shortage of agricultural loborers spurred the federal government to initaited, in 1942, a program in which Mexican braceros, or hired hands, were allowed into the United States to harvest crops. Hundreds of thousands of braceros entered the United States on a short-term basis between 1942 and 1947. When their empolyment was ended, the braceros were expected to return to Mexico. However, many remained in the United States illegally. In addition, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans entered the country illegally to escape poor economic conditions in Mexico.

Written by Arline