The
history of Mexican-American people is wide-ranging, spanning more than four hundred years and varying from region to region within the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Mexican-Americans were once concentrated in the
statesA U.S. state is any one of 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government . Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile...
that formerly belonged to
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, including
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
,
ArizonaThe State of Arizona is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. The capital and largest city is Phoenix. The second largest city is Tucson, followed in size by the four Phoenix metropolitan area cities of Mesa, Glendale, Chandler, and Scottsdale.Arizona was the 48th and...
,
New MexicoNew Mexico is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. Inhabited by Native American populations for many centuries, it has also been part of the Imperial Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain, part of Mexico, and a U.S. territory. Among U.S...
,
ColoradoColorado is a U.S. state located in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States of America. It may also be considered to be part of the Western and Southwestern regions of the United States. Colorado entered statehood in 1876 and was nicknamed the “Centennial State”...
and
TexasTexas is the second-largest U.S. state in both area and population, and the largest state in the contiguous United States.The name had wide usage among native Americans, meaning "friends" or "allies"...
; they began creating communities in
Los AngelesLos Angeles is the largest city in the state of California and the second largest in the United States. Often abbreviated as L.A. and nicknamed The City of Angels, Los Angeles has an estimated population of 3.8 million and spans over in Southern California...
,
Santa Ana, CaliforniaSanta Ana is the county seat and most populous city in Orange County, California, and the 53rd-most populous city in the United States with a 2007 estimated population of 339,555...
, San Francisco,
DenverThe City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the state of Colorado, in the United States. Denver is a consolidated city-county located in the South Platte River Valley on the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
,
HoustonHouston is the fourth-largest city in the United States and the largest city within the state of Texas. As of the 2008 U.S. Census estimate, the city has a population of 2.2 million within an area of 600 square miles . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of...
,
San Antonio, TexasSan Antonio is the second-largest city in the state of Texas and the seventh-largest city in the United States. The city is characteristic of other Southwest urban centers in which there are sparsely populated areas and a low density rate outside of the city. It was the fourth-fastest growing...
and other steel producing regions when they obtained employment there during
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
. More recently, Mexican immigrants have increasingly become a large part of the workforce in industries such as meat packing throughout the Midwest, in agriculture in the southeastern United States, and in the construction, landscaping, restaurant, hotel and other service industries throughout the country.
Mexican-American identity has also changed markedly throughout these years. in past hundred years Mexican-Americans have campaigned for voting rights, stood against educational, employment, ethnic discrimination and stood for economic and social advancement. At the same time many Mexican-Americans have struggled with defining and maintaining their community's identity. In the 1960s and 1970s, some Hispanic student groups flirted with
nationalismNationalism is an ideology, a sentiment, a form of culture, or a social movement that focuses on the nation. It is a type of collectivism emphasizing the collective of a specific nation...
and differences over the proper name for members of the community of
Chicano/ChicanaThe terms Chicano and Chicana were originally used by, and in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement mainly amongst Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's peak in the late 1960's and early 1970's...
, Latino/Latina, Mexican-Americans, Hispanics or simply
La RazaLa Raza is a Spanish phrase that may be translated as "the race" or "the people." Its meaning varies amonngst various Spanish-speaking groups. In Spain, "Raza" may denote specifically Spanish, and often European Christian heritage. The Francoist film Raza, from 1944, which celebrates ideally...
became tied up with deeper disagreements over whether to integrate into or remain separate from
AngloThe term Anglo is used as a prefix to indicate a relation to the Angles, England or the English people, as in the terms Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-American, Anglo-Celtic, Anglo-African and Anglo-Indian. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to people of British Isles descent in The Americas,...
society, as well as divisions between those Mexican-Americans whose families had lived in the United States for two or more generations and more recent immigrants.
Defining "Mexican-Americans"
Mexican-Americans are a subset of the Hispanic, ethnic group. Mexican-Americans may be recent immigrants or the sons and daughters of immigrants, descendants of those who came to the United States decades ago or who settled there when the land was either an independent republic or under Spanish or Mexican rule. Mexican-Americans can either be bilingual or monolingual (or, indeed, multilingual), their primary languages being English and Spanish, harking back to the Spanish colonizing efforts starting in the 1570s.
Mexican-Americans have been called the first "hyphenated Americans" but their designation comes from real political events. After the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo ending the U.S. - Mexico war, more than half of Mexico's territory was ceded to the U.S. Estimates range from 70,000 to 200,000 Mexican citizens living in these territories who became Americans "overnight." The terms of the treaty gave these Mexicans one year to accept their American political status. The treaty granted them full rights of citizenship as well as protection of Mexican-Americans along with the Spanish language, Catholic religion, culture and land, although the articles dealing with land protections were later removed prior to ratification by Congress.
Before the founding of the United States
Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, California, parts of Colorado, and Wyoming were part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain and later formed part of the newly independent Mexican Republic. The Spaniards first entered the region in the late 16th century, starting small settlements in what is now New Mexico.
In
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
, Spanish
FranciscanThe term Franciscan is commonly used to refer to members of Catholic religious orders, also known as the Orders of Friars Minor, that follow a body of regulations known as "The rule of St. Francis", or a member of one of these orders. As well as Roman Catholic there are also small Old Catholic and...
friars formed a string of missions designed to convert the Indians to Christianity. Along with the system of forts and land grants to favored associates of the king, the missions enabled small-scale Spanish settlement of the coastal California by a few hundred Spanish immigrants. Very small Spanish-speaking settlements were established near missions and forts in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Texas by the mid 18th century.
Manifest Destiny and the incorporation of the Hispanic people
Beginning in the 1820s immigrants from the U.S. and Europe settled Texas (Tejas), then part of Mexico. Anglo and Hispanic texas joined to fight Mexico in 1836, defeating an invading army and declaring the independence of Texas. The Texas Republic included Tejanos as leading citizens, but Mexico refused to recognize its legal existence. The U.S. annexed Texas in 1845, leading to the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, followed by the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848. Together with the the
Gadsden PurchaseThe Gadsden Purchase is a region of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that was purchased by the United States in a treaty signed by President Franklin Pierce on June 24, 1853, and ratified by the U.S. Senate on April 25, 1854...
in 1853, the Treaty extended U.S. control over a wide range of territory once held by Mexico, including the present day states of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and California. The vast majority of Hispanic populations chose to stay and become full US citizens. By and large, the Hispanic populations of these areas supported the new government. The Mexican government had become despotic under the on and off again president General Santa Anna and the U.S. Government offered protection from Indian raids that Mexico had not prevented, it meant an end to civil wars of the sort that continuously wracked Mexico until 1920, and it promised much greater long-run prosperity.
Although the treaty promised that the landowners in this newly acquired territory would enjoy full enjoyment and protection of their property as if they were citizens of the United States, many former citizens of Mexico lost their land in lawsuits before state and federal courts or as a result of legislation passed after the treaty. Even those statutes intended to protect the owners of property at the time of the extension of the United States' borders, such as the 1851 California Land Act, had the effect of dispossessing
CalifornioCalifornio is a term used to identify a Californian of Hispanic—and in some rare cases, of Portuguese, Brazilian, or other non-Hispanic Latin American—descent, regardless of race, during the period that California was part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain and Mexico...
owners ruined by the cost of maintaining litigation over land titles for years.
The loss of property rights in New Mexico created a largely landless population that resented the powers that had taken their land. After the Santa Fe Ring succeeded in dispossessing thousands of landholders in New Mexico, groups such as
Las Gorras BlancasLas Gorras Blancas was a group active in the American Southwest in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Founded in April 1889 by brothers Juan Jose, Pablo, and Nicanor Herrera, with support from vecinos in the nearby communities of El Burro, El Salitre, Ojitos Frios, and San Geronimo...
tore down fences or burned down interlopers' farm buildings. In western Texas the political struggle sparked an
armed conflictThe San Elizario Salt War, also known as the Salinero Revolt or The El Paso Salt War, was an extended and complex political, social and military conflict over ownership and control of immense salt lakes at the base of the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas...
in which the Tejano majority forced the surrender of the
Texas RangersThe Texas Ranger Division, commonly called the Texas Rangers, is a law enforcement agency with statewide jurisdiction based in Austin, the capital of Texas, in the United States...
, but in the end lost their influence, offices, and economic opportunities.
In other areas, particularly California, the Hispanic residents were simply overwhelmed by the number of Anglo settlers who rushed in, first in Northern California as a result of the
California Gold RushThe California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was discovered by James Wilson Marshall at Sutter's Mill, in Coloma, California. News of the discovery soon spread, resulting in some 300,000 men, women, and children coming to California from the rest of the United States and...
, then decades later by the boom in Southern California. Anglo miners drove Hispanic miners out of their camps, barred non-Anglos from testifying in court and imposed exclusionary standards similar to what was called
Jim CrowThe Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans...
in the case of African-Americans. Some Hispanics, of whom Joaquín Murieta was a legendary example and
Tiburcio VásquezTiburcio Vásquez was a Californio bandit who was active in California from 1857 to 1874. The Vasquez Rocks, 40 miles north of Los Angeles, were one of his many hideouts and are named for him.-Early life:...
a real one, responded by resorting to banditry. During the Gold Rush, there was an immigration of Mexican miners to California.
About 20,000 Tejanos lived in South Texas in the 1850s. The social structure has been analyzed by historian Radolph Campbell ["Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State" 2003 p 190-1]
South Texans of Hispanic descent lived in a three-tiered society during the antebellum years. At the top stood the landed elite, the owners of huge ranches, many of which originated as haciendas in the Spanish colonial period. The elite based their economic lives on cattle raising. They sold some cattle in Mexico and Louisiana and exported hides and tallow, but access to major urban markets outside the region was so limited that South Texas ranchers did not develop highly commercial operations during the antebellum years. This apparently suited most very well anyhow in that they viewed their ranches primarily as a way of life rather than a business investment and therefore focused on keeping their property intact as well as turning a profit....
Small landowners occupied the second rung of the South Texas economic and social ladder. These rancheros, as they were called, lived in one-room adobe houses and spent most of their time caring for their small herds of horses and cattle. Although a smaller part of the population, they can be compared, it seems, to the plain folk Anglos of East Texas. That is, they differed from the elite only in the extent of their property, not in their dependence on the land or the way they tried to live.
Finally, South Texas had a lower class composed primarily of peóns, vaqueros, and cartmen. Peóns had a status above that of the slaves in antebellum Texas but below that of genuinely free men. They owned no property, could not travel or call in a doctor without the permission of the estate owner (the patrón), and needed his approval for marriages. When a peón was accused of an offense, the patrón acted as judge and jury. On the other hand, peóns were not property and therefore could not be bought and sold or treated as personal chattels in any way. Somewhere in an ill-defined place between that of slaves and free men, they served as “faithful servants” to the upper class.
Peóns worked at the direction of the patróns—planting and harvesting crops, herding goats, digging wells, and doing any sort of manual labor necessary. In return they received wages or credits at the estate's store in amounts so small that they were constantly in debt. They lived in tiny one-room jacales, huts with walls of mud or any other material available and thatched roofs. The one room served for both living and sleeping; cooking and eating took place in a separate enclosure made of grass or corn stalks.
The poor, landless class also included vaqueros, the men who herded and took care of cattle. Ranch owners and mission priests generally considered it beneath their dignity to do such work and thought of these first Texas cowboys simply as laborers riding horses. No one involved could have imagined that millions of Americans would one day see working cattle as an ultimately romantic and heroic part of Texas's past. At least vaqueros, as befitted their future image, had more independence than peóns. They were not bound to the land and could even expect to acquire property of their own someday.
Cartmen lived in San Antonio or along the route from that city to Indianola and earned their living by transporting food and merchandise from the coast to the interior. Using oxcarts, they virtually monopolized this particular freight route by moving goods quickly and cheaply. Anglo competitors appeared by the 1850s but were unable to match the rates charged by the Tejanos. Carting appears to have been the most lucrative business open to poorer Tejanos during these years
In parts of south Texas and southern Arizona, Hispanic Americans were able to obtain positions within local government while in New Mexico Hispanic Americans remained an absolute majority of the population until the end of the nineteenth century. The federal government delayed granting statehood to New Mexico because of its Hispanic American political leadership.
Despite integration, Hispanic Americans managed to retain their
Spanish languageSpanish or Castilian is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that originated in northern Spain and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile, evolving into the principal language of government and trade in the Iberian peninsula...
and culture. They were most successful in those areas where they had retained some measure of political or economic power, where Jim Crow laws imposed a forced isolation or where immigrants from Mexico made up a significant percentage of the community.
Anti-Mexican American violence (1840's to 1920's)
The lynching of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the Southwest has long been overlooked in American history. This may be due to the fact that most historical records categorized Mexican, Chinese, and Native American lynching victims as white. It is estimated that at least 597 Mexican Americans were lynched between 1848 and 1928. Mexicans were lynched at a rate of 27.4 per 100,000 of population between 1880 and 1930. This statistic is second only to that of the African American community during that period, which suffered an average of 37.1 per 100,000 populatin. Between 1848 to 1879, Mexicans were lynched at an unprecedented rate of 473 per 100,000 of population. Most of these lynchings were not instances of "frontier justice"--of the 597 total victims, only 64 were lynched in areas which lacked a formal judicial system. The majority of lynching victims were denied access to a trial while others were convicted in unfair trials.
During the
California Gold RushThe California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was discovered by James Wilson Marshall at Sutter's Mill, in Coloma, California. News of the discovery soon spread, resulting in some 300,000 men, women, and children coming to California from the rest of the United States and...
, as many as 25,000 Mexicans arrived in California. Many of these Mexicans were experienced miners and had great success mining gold in California. Some Anglos perceived their success as a threat and intimidated them with violence. Between 1848 and 1860, at least 163 Mexicans were lynched in California alone.One particularly infamous lynching occurred on July 5, 1851 when a Mexican woman named Josefa Segovia was lynched by a mob in Downieville, California. She was accused of killing a white man who had attempted to assault her after breaking into her home.
The
Texas RangersThe Texas Ranger Division, commonly called the Texas Rangers, is a law enforcement agency with statewide jurisdiction based in Austin, the capital of Texas, in the United States...
were also known to brutally repress the Mexican-American population in Texas. Historians estimate that hundreds, perhaps even thousands of Mexicans and Mexican Americans were killed by the Texas Rangers.
Anti-Mexican mob violence and intimidation resulted in Mexicans being displaced from their lands, denied access to natural resources, and becoming politically disenfranchised.
Immigration and diffusion of Mexican-American communities throughout the U.S.
Hispanic Americans made up a significant number of workers in a number of industries, particularly the railroad and mining industries in the southwestern U.S., that led to the growth of communities throughout the region. The employment needs of the railroad industry in the late nineteenth century brought Mexican immigrants from more remote regions of Mexico, while the new systems integrated the border regions of the United States and Mexico. The railroad also led to the economic development of those parts of the US, drawing Mexican immigrants in large numbers into agriculture in the early twentieth century, establishing a pattern that continued thereafter.
These largely male Mexican immigrants also established
colonias in the early twentieth century in places such as
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and with more than 2.8 million people, the 3rd largest city in the United States...
,
Kansas CityKansas City is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties. It is one of two county seats of Jackson County, the other being Independence, just to the city's east...
and
Salt Lake City, UtahSalt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. Salt Lake City has a population of 181,698 as of July 1, 2008, making it the 125th largest city in the United States...
as railroad employment took them further within the United States. Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigrants also moved in large numbers to
DenverThe City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the state of Colorado, in the United States. Denver is a consolidated city-county located in the South Platte River Valley on the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
, the
San FranciscoSan Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. It is the eighth most densely populated city in the U.S. and is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San...
Bay area, and to a lesser extent to
DetroitDetroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the seat of Wayne County. Detroit is a major port city on the Detroit River, in the Midwest region of the United States. Located north of Windsor, Ontario, Detroit is the only major U.S. city that looks south to Canada. It was founded...
,
MinneapolisMinneapolis is the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Hennepin County. The city lies on both banks of the Mississippi River, just north of the river's confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Saint Paul, the state's capital. Known as the Twin Cities,...
and the Monongahela Valley,
PennsylvaniaThe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania , often colloquially referred to as PA by natives and Northeasterners, is a state located in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States...
, during
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
to work in the steel and automobile manufacturing industry. Others began migrating from South Texas to work in cotton fields elsewhere in Texas and
OklahomaOklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,617,316 residents in 2007 and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
, and from Southern California went to work in summer harvests of groves and orchards in
OregonOregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
and the
Yakima ValleyYakima Valley may refer to:*Yakima River Valley in southeastern Washington*Yakima Valley AVA...
,
WashingtonWashington is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory which had been ceded by Britain in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty as settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute. It was admitted to the Union as the...
.
More recently, beginning in significant numbers in the 1970s, Mexican immigrants have moved in large numbers to the Midwest U.S., attracted by jobs in the packinghouse industry, and to the southeastern U.S., where they have displaced many African-Americans and contract workers from the Caribbean in agriculture and related industries. This large wave of Mexican immigration are attracted to low-paid labor jobs and an equally high number moved to low-income communities, such as industrial suburbs of
Los AngelesLos Angeles is the largest city in the state of California and the second largest in the United States. Often abbreviated as L.A. and nicknamed The City of Angels, Los Angeles has an estimated population of 3.8 million and spans over in Southern California...
in ethnic neighborhoods known as
barrios and the agricultural sector of Imperial Valley,
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
.
The Mexican Revolution
The
Mexican RevolutionThe Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910 with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements.Over time the Revolution...
affected Mexican-Americans in a number of ways. The turmoil in Mexico caused hundreds of thousands of refugees to flee to the U.S. (1910-1917), while some demographers placed the figure at one million at the time period. The revolution also fueled animosities between the United States and Mexican governments while threatening the interests of U.S. businesses operating in Mexico. Mexican revolutionaries, from
Venustiano CarranzaVenustiano Carranza de la Garza was one of the leaders of the Mexican Revolution. He ultimately became President of Mexico following the overthrow of the dictatorial Huerta regime in the summer of 1914 and during his administration the current constitution of Mexico was drafted...
to
Ricardo Flores MagonCipriano Ricardo Flores Magón was a noted Mexican anarchist and social reform activist. He was born on Mexican Independence Day, in San Antonio Eloxochitlán, Oaxaca. He died at Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas, USA...
, operated on both sides of the border during this era.
The
WilsonThomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States. A leading intellectual of the Progressive Era, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
administration actively intervened in Mexico in these years, sending troops to
Veracruz, VeracruzThe city of Veracruz is a major port city and municipality on the Gulf of Mexico in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The metropolitan area is Mexico's 2nd largest on the Gulf coast and an important east coast port...
. When
Pancho VillaJosé Doroteo Arango Arámbula , better known as Francisco “Pancho” Villa, was the first Mexican Revolutionary general along with Troyal Gonzales and Uriel Carrasco....
's troops killed seventeen U.S. mining engineers in Chihuahua, then crossed the border and killed a number of soldiers and civilians in a raid on
Columbus, New MexicoColumbus is a village in Luna County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 1,765 at the 2000 census. The town is named after famous 15th century explorer Christopher Columbus-History:...
, the federal government sent General
John J. PershingGeneral of the Armies John Joseph Pershing, Honorary GCB; September 13, 1860 – July 15, 1948, was a general officer in the United States Army. Pershing is the only person to be promoted in his own lifetime to the highest rank ever held in the United States Army—General of the Armies General of the...
on a
punitive expeditionA punitive expedition is a military journey undertaken to punish a state or any group of persons. It is usually undertaken in response to percieved disobedient or morally wrong behavior, but may be also be a covered revenge. provides the following definition:...
to capture or defeat Villa. A purported plan to liberate those regions formerly held by Mexico and to drive out all Anglo residents and persistent rumors that Mexico was receiving aid from
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
inflamed public sentiment in the United States even further.
Labor struggles
Mexican-American workers formed unions of their own and joined integrated unions throughout the twentieth century. The
Industrial Workers of the WorldThe Industrial Workers of the World is an international union currently headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. At its peak in 1923 the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a...
(IWW) was particularly active in organizing Mexican-American farm workers and hard rock miners the first three decades of that century, in Arizona and elsewhere. In 1917, many of them were expelled in the
Bisbee DeportationThe Bisbee Deportation was the illegal deportation of about 1,300 striking mine workers, their supporters, and innocent citizen bystanders by 2,000 vigilantes on July 12, 1917. The workers and others were kidnapped in the U.S. town of Bisbee, Arizona, and held at a local baseball park...
.
From about 1902 to 1914, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) attempted to organize coal miners in Colorado. In 1927, Mexican-American coal miners participated in a bloody
coal strike in ColoradoThe first Columbine Massacre, sometimes called the Columbine Mine massacre to distinguish it from the Columbine High School massacre, occurred in 1927, in the town of Serene, Colorado. A fight broke out between state police and a group of striking coal miners, during which the coal miners were...
, walking out under the banner of the IWW. Mexican-Americans in the southeastern part of the state, particularly from the
WalsenburgThe historic City of Walsenburg is a Statutory City that is the county seat and the most populous city of Huerfano County, Colorado, United States...
,
PuebloPueblo is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Pueblo County, Colorado, United States. The population was estimated to be 104,951 in 2008, making it the 245th most populous city in the United States....
, and
TrinidadThe historic City of Trinidad is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Las Animas County, Colorado, United States...
areas, took leadership roles in the 1927 strike.
Numerous workers from Mexico were in the mines. As many as 60 percent of all these wage earners had come to Colorado after further labor troubles at Colorado Fuel and IronThe Colorado Fuel and Iron Company was a large steel concern, founded in 1880 by John Osgood, and by 1903, largely owned by John D. Rockefeller and Jay Gould's financial heirs. While it came to control many plants throughout the country, its main plant was a steel mill on the south side of...
(CF&I) properties in 1919 and 1921. As the IWW agitation increased in 1926-27, mine owners refused to hire Mexicans, blaming them for the labor unrest.[Phil Goodstein, Slaughter in Serene: the Columbine Coal Strike Reader, 2005, page 110.]
The UMWA returned to northern Colorado in 1928, just weeks after a machine-gun massacre of strikers, when
Josephine RocheJosephine Aspinwell Roche was a Colorado humanitarian, industrialist, activist, and politician. She was born in Neligh, Nebraska, and raised in Omaha, attending private girls' schools there before matriculating at Vassar College in 1904. There she double-majored in economics and classics, and...
, president of the
Rocky Mountain Fuel CompanyThe Rocky Mountain Fuel Company was a coal mining company located in Colorado, operating mines in Louisville, Lafayette, and other locations north and west of Denver. The mine was founded by John J. Roche to supply coal to sugar beet factories. During the 1930s, the company was the...
, invited the
AFL-affiliatedThe American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio in 1886 by Samuel Gompers as a reorganization of its predecessor, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions...
organization to take the place of the more radical IWW.
The
Communist Party-affiliatedThe Communist Party of the United States of America is a Marxist-Leninist political party in the United States.During the first half of the 20th century it was the largest and most widely influential communist party in the country, and played a prominent role in the U.S...
Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial UnionThe United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America was a CIO-affiliated trade union during the late 1930s and 1940s.UCAPAWA was founded as the agricultural arm of Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1937...
led a massive strike of cotton pickers in California in 1933; that strike was defeated after mass arrests and the murder of several strikers. The movie
Salt of the EarthSalt of the Earth is an American drama film written by Michael Wilson, directed by Herbert J. Biberman , and produced by Paul Jarrico...
depicts another strike, waged by the mostly Mexican-American members of the
Mine Mill and Smelter WorkersThe Western Federation of Miners was a radical labor union that gained a reputation for militancy in the mines of the western United States and British Columbia. Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers brought it into sharp conflicts – and often pitched battles...
; the movie itself became an important document in the later Chicano movement.
The most significant union struggle involving Mexican-Americans was the
United Farm WorkersThe United Farm Workers of America is a labor union founded by Philip Vera Cruz, Dolores Huerta, and Cesar Chavez. This union changed from a workers' rights organization that helped workers get unemployment insurance to that of a union of farmworkers almost overnight, when the National Farm...
' long strike and boycott aimed at grape growers in the
San JoaquinThe San Joaquin Valley refers to the area of the Central Valley of California that lies south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in Stockton...
and
Coachella ValleyThe Coachella Valley is a large valley landform in Southern California. Populated by nearly one million people, the valley is part of the 14th largest metropolitan area in the United States, the Inland Empire, and includes the famed tourist destination, Palm Springs...
s in the late 1960s, followed by campaigns to organize lettuce workers in California and Arizona, farm workers in Texas, and orange grove workers in Florida. While the union suffered severe setbacks in California in 1973 and never established a strong union presence in other states, its struggle propelled
César ChávezCésar Estrada Chávez was a Mexican American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers . Supporters say his work led to numerous improvements for union laborers...
and
Dolores HuertaDolores C. Huerta is the co-founder and First Vice President Emeritus of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO , and a prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Early life:...
into national prominence, while providing the foot soldiers who helped increase the visibility of Mexican-Americans within the Democratic Party in California and elect a number of Mexican-American candidates in the 1970s and 1980s.
More recently, the
Service Employees International UnionService Employees International Union is a labor union representing about 1.8 million workers in over 100 occupations in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico...
has led a number of successful "
Justice for JanitorsJustice for Janitors is a social movement organization that fights for the rights of janitors across the US. It was started in 1985 in response to the low wages and minimal health-care coverage that janitors received. Justice for Janitors includes more than 225,000 janitors in at least 29 cities in...
" campaigns throughout the United States among predominantly immigrant workers, many of whom have come from Mexico and
Central AmericaManagua
Guatemala City
San Salvador
San Pedro Sula
Panama City
San José, Costa Rica
Santa Ana, El Salvador
León
San Miguel|-|}...
. Those campaigns do not stress cultural or ethnic identity in the way that the UFW did, but have linked immigrant workers' struggles with the political interests of Mexican-Americans in many communities, such as Los Angeles.
The IWW is also once again organizing, particularly among Troquero truck drivers and immigrant taxi drivers in the
Los Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles is the largest city in the state of California and the second largest in the United States. Often abbreviated as L.A. and nicknamed The City of Angels, Los Angeles has an estimated population of 3.8 million and spans over in Southern California...
area.
The civil rights movement
Tejanos — Texans of Spanish and/or Mexican descent — formed several organizations in the early twentieth century to protect themselves from official and private discrimination, but made only partial progress in addressing the worst forms of official ethnic discrimination. One of those organizations, the
League of United Latin American CitizensThe League of Latin American Citizens was created with the aim of combating the discrimination that Mexican Americans faced in the United States Southwest. Established February 17, 1929 in Corpus Christi, Texas, LULAC was consolidation of smaller, like-minded civil rights groups already in existence...
formed in 1929, remains active today.
The movement to overturn the many forms of state-sponsored discrimination directed at Hispanic Americans was strongest in Texas, where Tejanos formed organizations throughout the first fifty years of the twentieth century to advance their rights. The movement picked up steam after
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, however, when groups such as the American G.I. Forum, formed by returning veterans, joined in the efforts of organizations such as LULAC to demand an end to segregated schools and denial of the right to vote. Hispanic Americans brought several legal cases against school segregation in San Antonio and
Corpus Christi, TexasCorpus Christi is a coastal city in the South Texas region of the U.S. state of Texas. The county seat of Nueces County, it also extends into Aransas, Kleberg, and San Patricio counties.MSA population in 2008 is 416, 376. The population was 277,454 at the 2000 census; in 2006 the US Census...
, in the 1940s and similar battles in San Diego and
Orange County, CaliforniaOrange County is a county in Southern California, United States. Its county seat is Santa Ana. As of the 2000 census, its population was 2,846,293, though a July 2008 estimate placed the population at 3,010,759, making it the second most populous county in California, behind Los Angeles County and...
.
During The Great Depression, the United States government sponsored a
Mexican RepatriationThe Mexican Repatriation was an voluntary and involuntary migration mainly taking place between 1929 and 1937, when an estimated 400-500,000 Mexicans left the US due to high unemployment, fear of deportation, encouragement by welfare agencies and the Mexican government.During the Great Depression,...
program which was intended to encourage people to voluntarily move to Mexico, but thousands were deported against their will. More than 500,000 individuals were deported, approximately 60 percent of which were actually United States citizens. In the post-war McCarthy era, the Justice Department launched
Operation WetbackOperation Wetback was a 1954 operation by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service to remove about one million illegal immigrants from the southwestern United States. It focused on Mexican nationals.-History:...
.
Mexican-Americans, mestizos especially, also faced heightened
racismRacism is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. In the case of institutional racism, certain racial groups may be denied rights or benefits, or get preferential treatment...
during World War II, most famously during the
Zoot Suit RiotsThe Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots that erupted in Los Angeles, California during World War II, between white sailors and Marines stationed throughout the city and Latino youths, who were recognizable by the zoot suits they favored. While Mexican Americans were the primary targets of...
, when sailors in Los Angeles attacked Mexican-American youths in 1943, and in the Sleepy Lagoon Case, in which a number of young men were wrongly convicted in a case marked by sensationalized press coverage and overt racism from the prosecution and judge. That trial and verdict, overturned on appeal after a broad-based committee was created to support the defendants, is depicted in
Luis ValdezLuis Valdez is an American playwright, writer and film director.He is regarded as the father of Chicano theater in the United States.-Education:...
' play and film
Zoot Suit. At the same time, the United States was importing thousands of Mexican farm workers under the Bracero program that used them as temporary labor, without employment rights.
According to the
National World War II MuseumThe National World War II Museum, formerly known as the National D-Day Museum, is a museum located in the Central Business District of New Orleans, Louisiana, at the corner of Andrew Higgins and Magazine Street. It focuses on the United States contribution to victory in World War II, and the...
, between 250,000 and 500,000 Hispanic Americans served in the Armed Forces during WWII. Thus, Hispanic Americans comprised 2.3% to 4.7% of the Army. The exact number, however is unknown as at the time Hispanics were classified as whites. Generally Mexican American World War II servicemen were integrated into regular military units. However, many Mexican American war veterans were discriminated against and even denied medical services by the
United States Department of Veterans AffairsThe United States Department of Veterans Affairs is a government-run military veteran benefit system with Cabinet-level status. It is responsible for administering programs of veterans’ benefits for veterans, their families, and survivors....
when they arrived home. In 1948, war veteran Dr
Hector P. GarciaHector P. Garcia was a Mexican-American physician, surgeon, World War II veteran, civil rights advocate, and founder of the American G.I. Forum. As a result of the national prominence he earned through his work on behalf of Hispanic Americans, he was instrumental in the appointment of Mexican...
founded the
American GI ForumThe American G.I. Forum is a Congressionally-chartered Hispanic veterans and civil rights organization. Its motto is "Education is Our Freedom and Freedom should be Everybody's Business". AGIF currently operates chapters throughout the United States, with a focus on veteran's issues, education,...
to address the concerns of Mexican American veterans who were being discriminated against. The AGIF's first campaign was on the behalf of
Felix LongoriaPvt. Felix Z. Longoria, Jr. , a decorated soldier, served in the United States Army during World War II and was the first Mexican American to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.-Personal:In November 1944 Felix Z. Longoria, Jr...
, a Mexican American private who was killed in the
PhilippinesThe Philippines officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
in the line of duty. Upon the return of his body to his hometown of
Three Rivers, TexasThree Rivers is a city in Live Oak County, Texas, United States. The population was 1,878 at the 2000 census.The city is named for its proximity to three rivers, the Atascosa River, the Frio River, and the Nueces River...
, he was denied funeral services because he was Mexican American.
Mexican American school children were subject to racial segregation in the public school system. They were forced to attend "Mexican schools" in California. In 1947, the
Mendez v. WestminsterMendez v. Westminster School District, 64 F.Supp. 544 , aff'd, 161 F.2d 774 , was a 1946 federal court case that challenged racial segregation in Orange County, California schools...
ruling declared that segrating children of "Mexican and Latin descent" in
Orange CountyOrange County is a county in Southern California, United States. Its county seat is Santa Ana. As of the 2000 census, its population was 2,846,293, though a July 2008 estimate placed the population at 3,010,759, making it the second most populous county in California, behind Los Angeles County and...
and the state of
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
was unconstitutional. This ruling helped lay the foundation for the landmark Brown v Board of Education case which ended racial segregation in the public school system.
In many counties in the Southwestern United States, Mexican Americans were not selected as jurors in court cases which involved a Mexican American defendant. In 1954, Pete Hernandez, an agricultural worker, was indicted of murder by an all-Anglo jury in
Jackson County, TexasJackson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. In 2000 its population was 14,391. Its county seat is Edna. Jackson County is named for Andrew Jackson, President of the United States from 1829 to 1837.-Geography:According to the U.S...
. Hernandez believed that the jury could not be impartial unless members of other races were allowed on the jury-selecting committees, seeing that a Mexican American had not been on a jury for more than 25 years in that particular county. Hernandez and his lawyers decided to take the case to the Supreme Court. The
Hernandez v. TexasHernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 , was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that decided that Mexican Americans and all other racial groups in the United States had equal protection under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution....
Supreme Court ruling declared that Mexican Americans and other racial groups in the United States were entitled to equal protection under the
14th AmendmentThe Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, along with the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, was adopted after the Civil War as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. It was adopted on July 9, 1868....
of the
U.S. ConstitutionThe Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the United States. It is the foundation and source of the legal authority underlying the existence of the United States of America and the federal government of the United States...
.
The most prominent civil rights organization in the Mexican-American community is the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), founded in 1968. Although modeled after the
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational FundThe NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. is a leading United States civil rights organization based in New York City. The organization began as the legal wing of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People under the leadership of Charles Hamilton Houston...
, MALDEF has also taken on many of the functions of other organizations, including political advocacy and training of local leaders.
The Chicano movement
The
ChicanoThe terms Chicano and Chicana were originally used by, and in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement mainly amongst Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's peak in the late 1960's and early 1970's...
movement blossomed in the 1960s. The movement had roots in the civil rights struggles that had preceded it, adding to it the cultural and generational politics of the era.
The early proponents of the movement —
Rodolfo GonzalesRodolfo González was a Mexican American boxer, poet, and political activist. He convened the first-ever Chicano youth conference in March 1969, which was attended by many future Chicano activists and artists. The conference also promulgated the Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, a manifesto demanding...
in
Denver, ColoradoThe City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the state of Colorado, in the United States. Denver is a consolidated city-county located in the South Platte River Valley on the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
and
Reies TijerinaReies López Tijerina led a struggle in the 1960s and 1970s to restore New Mexican land grants to the descendants of their Spanish colonial and Mexican owners...
in New Mexico — adopted a historical account of the preceding hundred and twenty-five years that obscured much of Mexican-American history. Gonzales and Tijerina embraced a form of nationalism that was based on the failure of the United States government to live up to the promises that it had made in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
That version of the past did not, on the other hand, take into account the history of those Mexicans who had immigrated to the United States. It also gave little attention to the rights of illegal immigrants in the United States in the 1960s — not surprising, since immigration did not have the political significance it was to acquire in the years to come. It was only a decade later when activists embraced the rights of illegal immigrants and helped broaden the focus to include their rights.
Instead, when the movement dealt with practical problems most activists focused on the most immediate issues confronting Mexican-Americans: unequal educational and employment opportunities, political disenfranchisement, and police brutality. In the heady days of the late 1960s, when the student movement was active around the globe, the Chicano movement brought about more or less spontaneous actions, such as the mass walkouts by high school students in Denver and
East Los AngelesEast Los Angeles is an unincorporated area in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2000 census, the area had a total population of 124,283. The CDP area includes the separate community of City Terrace...
in 1968 and the
Chicano MoratoriumThe Chicano Moratorium, formally known as the National Chicano Moratorium Committee, was a movement of Chicano anti-war activists that built a broad-based but fragile coalition of Mexican-American groups to organize opposition to the Vietnam War...
in Los Angeles in 1970.
The movement was particularly strong at the college level, where activists formed
MEChAM.E.Ch.A. is an organization that seeks to promote Chicano unity and empowerment through education and political action. The acronym of the organization's name is the Spanish word mecha, which means "fuse"...
,
el Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, which promoted Chicano Studies programs and a generalized nationalist agenda. The student movement produced a generation of future political leaders, including
Richard AlatorreRichard Alatorre is an American politician from California. He served as a prominent member of the California State Assembly from 1973 to 1985, and as a noted member of the Los Angeles City Council from 1985 to 1999....
and
Cruz BustamanteCruz Miguel Bustamante is an American politician. He was the 45th Lieutenant Governor of California, a former Speaker of the State Assembly and a member of the Democratic Party...
in California.
Some women who worked within the Chicano movement felt that participants were more worried about other issues, such as immigration, than solving problems that affected women. This led Chicana women to form the
Comisión Femenil Mexicana NacionalThe Comisión Femenil Mexicana Nacional , is a Chicano organization geared towards the political and economic empowerment of Hispanic women, particularly Chicanas, in the United States....
.
Mexican-Americans and electoral politics
In 1963, in
Crystal City, TexasCrystal City is a city in and the county seat of Zavala County, Texas, United States. The population was 7,190 at the 2000 census. The mascot of Crystal City High School is the Javelina.-History:-Farming and ranching:...
the mainly Mexican-American
migrantMigrant may refer to:*Immigration and emigration, the migration of humans*Bird migration*Migrant worker*Migrant literature...
community together with the support of the Teamsters Union and the Political Association of Spanish Speaking Organizations (PASSO), an outgrowth of the Viva Kennedy clubs of 1960, encouraged Mexican-American men and women to pay their
poll taxA poll tax, head tax, or capitation tax is a tax of a portioned, fixed amount per individual in accordance with the census . When a corvée is commuted for cash payment, in effect it becomes a poll tax...
and choose their own candidates. Led by Teamsters business agent and cannery employee, Juan Cornejo, five Mexican-Americans, despite harassment from the infamous
Texas RangersThe Texas Ranger Division, commonly called the Texas Rangers, is a law enforcement agency with statewide jurisdiction based in Austin, the capital of Texas, in the United States...
, won the support of their community young and old alike who thanks to the protection provided by the Teamsters and PASSO mobilized for electoral victory. This "revolt" was covered nationwide and reported in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. This election led Americans outside of the Southwest to take note of America's other minority community as a political force.
As a result of the
Voting Rights ActThe National Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans in the United States. Echoing the language of the 15th Amendment, the Act prohibited states from imposing any "voting qualification...
, followed up by intensive political organizing, Mexican-Americans were able to achieve a new degree of political power and representation in Texas and elsewhere in the Southwest. The La Raza Unida Party, headed by
José Ángel GutiérrezJosé Angel Gutiérrez, is an attorney and professor at the University of Texas at Arlington in the United States. He was a founding member of the Mexican American Youth Organization in San Antonio in 1967, and a founding member and past president of the Raza Unida Party, a Mexican-American third...
of Crystal City, Texas made startling progress in the poorest regions in the
Rio Grande ValleyThe Rio Grande Valley aka, The Valley, is an area located in the southernmost tip of South Texas. It lies along the northern bank of the Rio Grande, which separates Mexico from the United States....
with its base of operations at Crystal City, Texas in the early 1970s, spreading for a while to Colorado, Wisconsin, California, Michigan, Oregon, Kansas, Illinois and several other states. The party faded in the mid 1970s and held on only in Crystal City, Texas before collapsing in the early 1980s. Veterans from the party, such as Willie Velasquez, became active in Democratic politics and in organizing projects such as the
Southwest Voter Registration Education Project{Infobox Non-profit| Non-profit_name = Southwest Voter Registration Education Project| Non-profit_logo = {Infobox Non-profit| Non-profit_name = Southwest Voter Registration Education Project| Non-profit_logo = {Infobox Non-profit...
, which boosted the electoral fortunes of Mexican-American candidates throughout the Southwest.
Results came more slowly in California, on the other hand: although Los Angeles had a significant Mexican-American population,
gerrymanderingGerrymandering is a form of boundary delimitation in which electoral district or constituency boundaries are deliberately modified for electoral purposes, thereby producing a contorted or unusual shape...
eliminated the seat held by
Edward R. RoybalEdward Ross "Ed" Roybal was an American politician. He served for thirty years as a Democratic representative of the 30th and later the 25th districts of California, and was a member of the Los Angeles City Council for thirteen years.-Early life:Roybal was born into a Hispanic family that traced...
, the only Mexican-American member of the Los Angeles City Council, in 1959. La Raza Unida Party campaigns in the early 1970s had the practical effect of defeating Mexican-American Democratic candidates, embittering many activists against the party and the form of nationalism it represented.
It would be more than twenty years before another Mexican-American was elected to the Los Angeles City Council and it would take litigation to permit a Mexican-American to win election to the
Los Angeles County Board of SupervisorsThe Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is the five member non-partisan governing board of Los Angeles County, California. Members of the board of supervisors are elected by district, the current members as of December 2, 2008 are:*District 1: Gloria Molina...
in the 1980s, the first Mexican-American to join that body in more than a century. In the 1990s, Mexican-American politicians held high offices throughout California. In 2005,
Antonio VillaraigosaAntonio Ramon Villaraigosa is the mayor of Los Angeles, California. He was elected on May 17, 2005, defeating incumbent mayor James Hahn, and then re-elected for a second term in 2009...
was elected mayor of
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the municipality of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123.445 inhabitants...
, the first Latino in 130 years to hold the seat.
Voters have elected a number of governors of Mexican-American descent in the Southwest, including Jerry Apodaca and Bill Richardson in New Mexico and
Raúl CastroBrigadier-General ' Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz is the President of the Cuban Council of State and the President of the Council of Ministers of Cuba...
in Arizona. Colorado voters recently elected
Ken SalazarKenneth Lee "Ken" Salazar is an American politician and rancher from Colorado, currently serving as United States Secretary of the Interior in the Obama administration. Salazar, a Democrat, served as Attorney General of Colorado before winning a U.S. Senate seat in the 2004 election...
as the first Mexican-American Senator from that state. Cruz Bustamente was the first lieutenant governor of California in 130 years from his election in 1999 to 2007, but Bustamente lost the gubernatorial election to Austrian-born actor Arnold Schwarzenegger who went on to be state governor.
Mexican-Americans have also achieved some degree of political recognition in Chicago, where they make up roughly 75% of a Hispanic community that also includes significant numbers of
Puerto RicansPuerto Ricans in the mainland Puerto Ricans in the mainland Puerto Ricans in the mainland (or "Puerto Rican Diaspora," "Nuyorican", "stateside or mainland Puerto Ricans" or, Puerto Rican American are Americans of Puerto Rican origin, including those who migrated to the United States mainland...
and immigrants from other Spanish-speaking countries. That predominantly Mexican-American community has elected
Luis GutierrezLuis Vicente Gutiérrez has served as a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1993, representing .-Personal:...
, whose ancestry is Puerto Rican, to represent it in Congress and a number of Mexican-American politicians at the state and local level.
Mexican-Americans tend to vote Democratic (in 1960, the
John F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
presidential campaign boosted the Mexican American vote to over 80% for Kennedy), although the Republican Party has made determined efforts in the years after 1980 to reverse that trend. Mexican-Americans in particular, despite being a large voting bloc, have a very poor voter turnout. This can be attributed to low income and education rates; an engendered mistrust for government in general passed down from parents or grandparents having fled Mexico's government might also play a role.
See also
- History of Mexico
Mexico is a country in North America and the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world. It also has the largest number of Native American language speakers on the continent . For thousands of years, what is now known as Mexico was a land of hunter-gatherers...
- History of United States
- Mexican American
Mexican Americans are Americans of Mexican descent. They account over 12.5% of the country's population: 28.3 million Americans listed their ancestry as Mexican as of 2006 forming about 64% of all Hispanics and Latinos in the United States. The United States is home to the second largest Mexican...
- Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
- Mexicans in Omaha, Nebraska
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...
- The Study of the Spanish-Speaking People of Texas University of Texas at Austin collection of more than 900 images taken by Russell Lee between April and July 1949 in Corpus Christi, San Angelo, San Antonio, and El Paso.