Mexicans in Omaha are people living in Omaha, Nebraska, United States who have citizenship or ancestral connections to the country Mexico. They have contributed to the economic, social and cultural well-being of Omaha for more than a century. Mexicans, or Latino people identified incorrectly as being from Mexico, have been accounted for in the history of Omaha, Nebraska since 1900. The entire Latino population of Omaha increased ninety percent between 1990 and 1997.
Mexican-Americans in Omaha have been extensively studied since at least the late 1920s. In 1998 a Mexican immigrant family in Omaha was featured in a Washington Post article. The article noted reluctance by some immigrants to assimilate, in terms of their thinking they had to give up their language or culture. Studies since then have noted that Latino children, like many immigrant children, have adapted more readily to the United States, but also like many immigrant groups, are proud to maintain traditions.
History
The presence of Mexicans in Omaha was documented to the beginning of the city in 1854, and the first permanent residents arrived with the railroads in 1860.
1900 was the beginning of the first large wave of Mexicans immigrating to the U.S. According to the University of Nebraska at Omaha, around 1900, five Mexican-born residents lived in Omaha, and by 1910 there were twenty-nine. In 1920 there were 682 Mexicans in Omaha; in 1923 there were about 1,000. They lived in South Omaha, close to the three packing plants and the stockyards where many worked. In 1950 the population of Mexicans in Douglas County was 450. The loss of jobs in the Great Depression drove many Mexicans back to Mexico, but approximately 900 stayed in Omaha.
Struggles
In February 1915, Omaha Police Department Detective Tom Ring was killed while investigating a report of boxcar thieves at a rooming house at 15th and Chicago. Based on the idea the shooter was Mexican, the police department proceeded to round up and jail every Mexican they could find in Omaha. The main suspects were Jose Gonzalez and Juan Parral. Gonzalez escaped Omaha only to be shot dead under dubious circumstances outside Scribner, Nebraska. His companion Parral was captured, but was tried and sentenced under unrelated charges. After serving a few years in the Nebraska State Penitentiary, Parral was deported to Mexico. Neither man was ever convicted of the crimes they were accused of.
Communities
In the early decades of the 1900s, Mexican families established themselves in colonias next to the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad depot south of Little Italy and Little Bohemia. The depot was called Gibson Station, and was located at South First and Hascal Streets near the Missouri River. Near South 72nd and Q Streets there was another barrio where Mexican families lived in railroad cars next to the Union Pacific-Santa Fe station. More Mexican families lived among Italian, Polish, Hungarian, and Czech immigrants. Much of the community is said to have lived in the Brown Park neighborhood, as well.
Other Mexican communities were near the Burlington Train Station around South Sixth Street; in Carville, near Gibson in South Omaha along the Missouri River, "where most lived in railroad cars on Burlington Railroad property", and along Spring Street. J.B. Hernández, a railroad worker, was the acknowledged leader of Carville. His family was viewed as the "aristocrats of Carville".
There was also a large community east of the Missouri River in Council Bluffs. The largest concentration of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in Omaha lived near the packing houses and Union Stockyards of South Omaha.
Today the majority of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans live in South Omaha, also called South O. A strong Mexican-American presence thrives there, with numerous public murals and exhibitions of Mexican culture throughout the community. Along with a variety of businesses, churches and community organizations, the area features El Museo Latino. It hosts four visits per year of the Mobile Mexican Consultant of Denver. In 1998, the community was estimated to have 20,000 Latino families.
Workforce
According to one study about the period 1900–1930, "Early censuses report few Mexicans, and existing statistics are ambiguous. Mostly, Mexicans were accounted as 'floaters,' shifting jobs between meat packing plants, section hands on the railroads, and agricultural laborers..."