Despite their concentration in the Southwest, Mexican Americans have migrated to the Midwest throughout the 20th century. This paper provides a historical overview describing the movement of Mexican Americans between the Southwest and Midwest over the 20th century. Drawing on data from the 1990 Public Use Microdata Samples, this analysis seeks to assess the extent by which migration patterns are occurring across states. The results demonstrate a net flow of Mexican Americans in the expected direction (i.e., from the Southwest to the Midwest), with the Midwest experiencing a net gain of nearly 7,400 migrants who moved between the two regions from 1985-1990. While all states except Illinois and South Dakota experienced net gains of Mexican American migrants, Kansas, Minnesota, and Michigan were the only ones whose net gains were larger than 1,000. A variety of in-depth analyses are also reported in the paper.

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