From the article:
As more people came into the U.S. to find work, Mexicans became a larger percentage of the workforce.
"Mexican immigration is something from our grandparents' era," says Michael Clemens, an economist at the Center for Global Development. "The fraction of the labor force in Kansas that was Mexican in 1929 was higher than it was in 1990. The same is true of Arizona. The same is true of New Mexico."
...
By 1980, the number of people in the U.S. without authorization had grown to 1.5 million. That decade witnessed what Clemens calls a demographic and economic perfect storm.
A Mexican economic crisis sent many young Mexicans looking for work, while a booming U.S. economy meant fewer young Americans were entering the workforce. By 1986, there were 3.2 million unauthorized people in the U.S., prompting action from Congress.
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