The Mixteco are one of the large ethnic groups with distinctive language and history. The Mixteco population is spread throughout three states in Mexico: Oaxaca, where most Mixtecos live, Guerrero, and Puebla. The Mixteco in the State of Oaxaca have been historically recognized and divided into three areas, Baja (low) and Alta (high) Mixteca and the coast. It is believed that the Mixtecos began populating this area between 6000 BCE and 700 B.C.E. Throughout this period continued technological transformation gave rise to a civilization that is very much Mixtec in nature. Around 1458 C.E. the Mexica, or Aztec, began military incursions into the area. After intensive negotiations the area came under the economic and political umbrella of the Aztec confederacy.
Mexico is a rich, ethnically diverse nation. It has hundreds of ethnic groups that areclosely and distantly related by custom and language. There are even groups that do not seem to fit in any one category and are unique in language and custom. The government has attempted to assimilate these many groups into the national culture and, at times, has been aggressive by purposely displacing whole communities.
The origin of indigenous migration is tied to the industrialization process in Mexico since the decade of the 1940s and to the rapid transformation of an agriculturally based economy to an urban industrialized economy. This change lowered the level of agricultural production in the indigenous areas that become even more marginal. At the same time that Mixtecs were being forced to leave their land, the agricultural industry in the United States was searching for new cheap labor sources. The Bracero Program (started in 1942 to cover World War II labor shortages) brought the first significant number of indigenous Mexicans to the U.S. Their numbers expanded greatly in the 70’s and 80’s, when many indigenous families were able to regularize their status through the 1986 Immigration and Reform Act.
Info taken from: http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/3206/THESIS%20FINAL%20ELEC%20COPY%203.pdf?sequence=1
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