Mexican American Mistreatment

Hispanics have been immigrating to America since the beginning of the Spanish Colonial era. Up until the 1920’s Mexican Americans have boomed in rural places in america. The 1920’s was meeting the beginning of a renaissance, a better promised life for both native americans as well as immigrants. Businesses were booming, wages were higher, and the industry was creating a bright future for America. However, Mexican Americans continued to face hardships as well as few successes leading up to the 1920’s. Whether these were Native born Americans with a Hispanic background or newly immigrated Mexicans, Mexican Americans faced the hardship of poverty, discrimination, segregation, and struggles during the 1920’s.

David G Gutiérrez’s Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity discuss the deep and complex understudied relationship between Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants. This relationship was a natural consequence of the mass illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States that had constantly been increasing the population of “ethnic Mexicans” and along with it brought tensions between those who were Americans of Mexican descent and had been living here for generations and those who had freshly arrived to the United States and as such did whatever they had to do to make a living.

Despite Hispanics owning land dating back to the 1500s, hey are wrongfully snubbed by white settlers. Courts would refuse to recognize the Hispanics claims, and masses migrated to barrios, or Hispanic ghettos. They were created by lively communities who were determined to keep tradition strong. “The country was full of lawless and desperate men, who bore the name of Americans but failed to support the honor and dignity of that title.” (“The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta” page 233 American Studies.) The Americans were desperate to continue finding ways to earn money, and the article argues they do not deserve the title they have. For that reason, they’re wreaking havoc on other cultures and other properties and other people. The Hispanics were unfortunately crowded into barrios as they attempt to keep their tradition high. However, it is tragic how these people lost what was once theirs, because the Americans wanted to get their hands on anything that would help push the agenda of the American dream. Segwaying into individual stories of oppression is Joaquin Murieta. He was a rather interesting character from the province of Sonora in Mexico. What is rather odd is the difference from when he was growing up, and fast-forwarding to him residing in California, as he was known to be generous and mild, not “evil” and “barbaric.” Following the Mexican War was

Mexico’s problems originally began upon the arrival of the Spanish in 1492, as illustrated in Major Problems in Mexican American History by Zaragosa Vargas as well as in the video documentary, Chicano!. The sequence of events which date back to the precolonial Spanish days and take place in Mexico’s history eventually provoke the national movement that called for social justice and equality, especially after the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Then came the question of group and individual identity. Those of Mexican heritage were broken up into the groups "Chicanos," which were the ‘Americanized’ Mexicans or the Mexicans born in the United States, and the actual

Prior to the 1930s, there were no Mexican-American promotion associations hesitantly strategizing about the issue of Mexican American whiteness in court. In any case that does not imply that state authorities and even courts did not address the inquiry of whether Mexican Americans were white in the years going before. Rather, we can consider the time 1848-1930 in three stages: amid the nineteenth century, whether Mexican Americans were white or not was a matter of nearby practice; a Federal area court choice in 1898 proclaimed Mexican Americans to be white for the reasons of naturalization to citizenship; and in an arrangement of miscegenation cases chose in the first many years of the twentieth century, Mexican American personality was created

Native Americans were the first to be in The United States of America before it became the country it is today. Settlers came here to their land and took their land, food, and ways to survive. Settlers than began forcing them into small sections of land and forgot about them. Fast forward to present day U.S.A. Native Americans are still in the little areas given to them, but now they have been forgotten. Native Americans are taken advantage of and their cultures are constantly misrepresented. Natives deserve to not be misrepresented by mascots/sports teams, thought of by the government, and to be able to have happy youth that is proud of their culture.

Since the emergence of the Chicano Movement in the 1960s, scholars have explored the vast dimensions of this civil rights movement, often highlighting the intersection of politics, gender, education, labor, culture, and ethnicity. Among the new scholarship that further examines the intricacy of the Chicano Movement are Making Aztlán: Ideology and Culture of the Chicana and Chicano Movement, 1966–1977, co-authored by renowned historian Juan Gómez-Quiñones and Director of the University of New Mexico’s Chicana and Chicano Studies Irene Vásquez, and Aztlán Arizona: Mexican American Educational Empowerment, 1968–1978, by historian Darius V. Echeverría. The first offers a comprehensive examination of the movement, while the

As this process of a group in minority or immigrant leans the culture of another of the dominant group. For example, as the rebel succeeded in braking from Texas, “as more slaves came into the Republic of Texas, more escaped to Mexico”. Thus, cultural assimilation took part, the ex-slaves were given their freedom. The Mexican government, “encouraged the slave runaways, often with offers of land”. Therefore, the newcomers were to adapt to the new life within the language, food, how to eat, values, gender roles of Mexico. As slavery and Mexicans were both aren’t strangers to oppression, exploitation, domination and exclusion. Mexico continued to extend a helping hand to escaping Black slaves from the United

After witnessing widespread injustices such as those found in Hernandez, the Chicano Movement re-centered the focus from assimilation to defiance of US culture. Here, we see a deviation from LULAC’s desire to make a perfect American – instead activists began to insist “We are a Bronze People with a Bronze Culture.” Chicano Movement activists no longer believed there could be a seamless bridge built between Anglo and Mexican-American – instead, the means to equality would be found through embracing one’s heritage and rally against discrimination. The movement to return to traditional Mexican culture was embraced widely, and some, such as Reies Tijerina, invested in this philosophy to the point where they sought to separate themselves from the US entirely.

The interchangeable nature of the term “race” must be understood in order to accurately explore the process of race thinking in Colonial Latin America. The use of the concept “race” over the course of the sixteenth and seventeen centuries in Spanish America was restrictive and unreflective of the prevalent perspective of the twenty-first century. The underlying issues associated with race thinking were centralized around the belief that Spaniards were actively expressing racism towards Indians, Africans, and other groups of people. However, the individuals living during this time were unfamiliar with the diversity that existed within their world which is suggestive of mere attempts to make sense of the people they were encountering. The Spaniards

Despite popular belief that the category of whiteness grants many advantages, that was not the case with Mexican-Americans. There were several Mexican-Americans that had whiteness features, and passed as being white, but the Anglo’s were not fond of Mexican-Americans being labeled as white. This led to forms of racial supremacy through legal exclusions, George A. Martinez in Mexican-Americans and Whiteness writes that “Mexican-Americans were earmarked for exclusive employment in the lowest brackets of employment and paid less than Anglo-Americans for the same jobs.” (Martinez 33). Mexican-Americans were treated unequally just because they were Mexican-Americans and not real Americans, these forms of racial supremacy continued, and as a result they were excluded from receiving their full and equal rights.

This excerpt extensively covers and provides authentic history and experience pertaining to a very prevalent issue in not only Hispanic communities but black communities as well. While the situation contains differences which are expected due to the fact that Hispanic communities suffer this tragedy due to being a multilingual culture and having this culture essentially erased by the euro-centric habit of insisting upon assimilation by erasure and denial rather than assimilation by integration and acceptance. As a matter of fact another example, which is seemingly an even worse case than presented in the provided material, is the restriction and destruction of the Native American culture in nearly every aspect, while simultaneously spawning

In the article, “Blaxicans and Other Reinvented Americans” Richard Rodriguez illustrates, “...-black over white, for example. But this girl said that her mother was Mexican and her father was American. This girl said “‘Blaxicans.’” Richard Rodriguez demonstrates how the immigrants reinvent new races by combining two races making one races. The identity of these immigrants shapes American by having many races that are invented by immigrants

The United States retains a history of attempted racial cleansing. From indigenous tribes to the slavery, the country has repeatedly been polarized between white and everything that is not. Such tensions started the Civil War, and racism is naturally on the forefront of virtually all political discussion. A crucial portion of history, however, is often overlooked. Public schools exclude the mistreatment of Chinese immigrants from their curriculums. At best, they receive a small unit to summarize over a century’s worth of atrocities. An entire history is shrouded in darkness, leaving the majority of the population in blissful ignorance.

The citizens of the United States on the border of Mexico viewed the Mexicans as alien in their country (Bardacke, 167). This notion persisted even after the signing of the NAFTA. This is because, the mindset of the people originally viewed the Mexicans as aliens and it was difficult to treat them as equals with the American citizens. This is the same reason as to why Mexicans could only be absorbed in the lowly paying jobs and their pay would be less than what would be paid an American at the same level (Douglas & Pren, 6). The sufferings that the Mexican underwent at the hand of NAFTA and the struggle they underwent to get economic, political and social recognition can be compared to the struggles that Chicana women underwent to acquire recognition. These efforts culminated in the formation of the feminist movement spearheaded by the women of color (Garcia,