Mexican American

Mexican American

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Total population
Mexican Americans 34,586,088 (2013) 10.94% of the US population.[1]
Regions with significant populations
Southwest, West Coast, Upper Midwest. There are also emerging populations in the South and Northeast.
Languages
Spanish, American English, Spanglish, and a minority of Indigenous Mexican languages.
Religion
Predominantly Roman Catholic; minorities of Protestants, Unaffiliated
Related ethnic groups
Spaniards, Arabs, Italian, French, Mestizo, Hispanics

Mexican Americans (Spanish: mexicano-americanos or estadounidenses de origen mexicano) are Americans of full or partial Mexican descent. As of July 2013, Mexican Americans make up 10.9% of the United States' population with 34.6 million Americans listed as being of full or partial Mexican ancestry.^[1] As of July 2013, Mexican Americans comprise 64.1% of all Hispanics and Latinos in the United States.^[1]

The United States is home to the second largest Mexican community in the world second only to Mexico itself comprising over 24% of the entire Mexican origin population of the world. Canada is a distant third with a small Mexican Canadian population of 96,055 (0.3% of the population) as of 2011.^[2]

In addition, as of 2008 there were approximately 7,000,000 undocumented Mexicans living in the United States. Upgrading their legal status became a major issue in 2013.^[3] Over 60% of all Mexican Americans reside in the states of California and Texas.^[4]

History of Mexican Americans

Mexican American history spans more than 400 years and varies from region to region within the United States. In 1900, there were slightly more than 500,000 Hispanics living in New Mexico, California and Texas.^[5] Most were Mexican Americans of Spanish and other hispanicized European settlers who arrived in the Southwest during Spanish colonial times as well as indigenous Mexican Indian. Approximately ten percent of the current Mexican American population can trace their lineage back to these early white colonial settlers.^[6]

As early as 1813, some of the Tejanos who colonized Texas in the Spanish Colonial Period established a government in Texas that looked forward to independence from Mexico. In those days, there was no concept of what a Mexican was. Many Mexicans were more loyal to their states/provinces than to their country as a whole. This was particularly true in frontier regions such as Zacatecas, Texas, Yucatán, Oaxaca, New Mexico, etc.^[7]

As revealed by the writings of colonial Tejano Texians such as Antonio Menchaca, the Texas Revolution was initially a colonial Tejano cause. By 1831, Anglo settlers outnumbered Tejanos ten to one in Texas.^[8] The Mexican government became concerned by their increasing numbers and restricted the number of new Anglo-American settlers allowed to enter Texas. The Mexican government also banned slavery within the state, which angered slave owners.^[9] The American settlers along with many of the Tejanos rebelled against the centralized authority of Mexico City and the Santa Anna regime, while others remained loyal to Mexico, and still others were neutral.^[10][11]

Author John P. Schmal wrote of the effect Texas independence had on the Tejano community:^[12]

A native of San Antonio, Juan Seguín is probably the most famous Tejano to be involved in the War of Texas Independence. His story is complex because he joined the Anglo rebels and helped defeat the Mexican forces of Santa Anna. But later on, as Mayor of San Antonio, he and other Tejanos felt the hostile encroachments of the growing Anglo power against them. After receiving a series of death threats, Seguín relocated his family in Mexico, where he was coerced into military service and fought against the US in 1846–1848 Mexican-American War. ...Although the events of 1836 led to independence for the people of Texas, the Hispanic population of the state was very quickly disenfranchised to the extent that their political representation in the Texas State Legislature disappeared entirely for several decades.

Californios were Spanish speaking residents of modern day California who were the original Hispanics (Mexicans (regardless of race) and local Hispanicized Indians) in the region (Alta California) before the United States acquired it as a territory. Relations between Californios and Anglo settlers were relatively good until military officer John C. Fremont arrived in Alta California with a force of 60 men on an exploratory expedition in 1846. Fremont made an agreement with Comandante Castro that he would only stay in the San Joaquin Valley for the winter, then move north to Oregon. However, Fremont remained in the Santa Clara Valley then headed towards Monterey.

When Castro demanded that Fremont leave Alta California, Fremont rode to Gavilan Peak, raised a US flag and vowed to fight to the last man to defend it. After three days of tension, Fremont retreated to Oregon without a shot being fired. With relations between Californios and Anglos quickly souring, Fremont rode back into Alta California and encouraged a group of American settlers to seize a group of Castro's soldiers and their horses. Another group, seized the Presidio of Sonoma and captured Mariano Vallejo.

William B. Ide was chosen Commander in Chief and on July 5, he proclaimed the creation of the Bear Flag Republic. On July 9, US forces reached Sonoma and lowered the Bear Flag Republic's flag then replaced it with a US flag. Californios organized an army to defend themselves from invading American forces after the Mexican army retreated from Alta California to defend other parts of the country.

The Californios defeated an American force in Los Angeles on September 30, 1846. In turn, they were defeated after the Americans reinforced their forces in what is now southern California. The arrival of tens of thousands of people during the California Gold Rush meant the end of the Californio's ranching lifestyle. Many Anglo 49ers turned to farming and moved, often illegally, onto land granted to Californios by the old Mexican government.^[13]

The United States first came into conflict with Mexico in the 1830s, as the westward spread of Anglo settlements and of slavery brought significant numbers of new settlers into the region known as Tejas (modern-day Texas), then part of Mexico. The Mexican-American War followed by the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848 and the Gadsden Purchase in 1853, extended US control over a wide range of territory once held by Mexico, including the present day borders of Texas and the states of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and California.

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.^[14] 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 Californio owners ruined by the cost of maintaining litigation over land titles for years.

20th Century

While Mexican Americans were once concentrated in the Southwest – California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Texas – they began creating communities in St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and other steel producing regions when they obtained employment during World War I. More recently, Mexican illegal 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 workers formed unions of their own and joined integrated unions. The most significant union struggle involving Mexican-Americans was the United Farm Workers' long strike and boycott aimed at grape growers in the San Joaquin and Coachella Valleys in the late 1960s. Its struggle propelled César Chávez and Dolores Huerta into national prominence changing from a workers' rights organization that helped workers get unemployment insurance to that of a union of farmworkers almost overnight.

Mexican American identity has also changed markedly throughout these years. Over the past hundred years, Mexican Americans have campaigned for voting rights, stood against educational and employment 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 Latino/Hispanic student groups flirted with Mexican nationalism, and differences over the proper name for members of the community. Discussion over self-identification as Chicano/Chicana, Latino/Latina, Mexican Americans, or Hispanics became tied up with deeper disagreements over whether to integrate into or remain separate from mainstream American 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.

During this time rights groups such as the National Mexican-American Anti-Defamation Committee were founded. The states with the largest percentages and populations of Mexican-Americans are California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah. There has also been very high increasing populations in Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Illinois.^[15]

Mexican Americans are primarily Roman Catholic with a large minority of Evangalical Protestants. Notably, according to a Pew Hispanic Center report in 2006^[16] and the Pew Religious Landscape Survey in 2008,^[17] Mexican Americans are significantly less likely to have abandoned Catholicism for Protestant churches than other Hispanic groups.

Race and ethnicity

In 2011 a large scale mitochondrial sequencing in Mexican Americans revealed 85 to 90% of mtDNA lineages of Native American origin, with the remainder having European (5-7%) or African ancestry (3-5%). Thus the observed frequency of Native American mtDNA in Mexican/Mexican Americans is higher than was expected on the basis of autosomal estimates of Native American admixture for these populations i.e. ~ 30-46%^[18]

Ethnically, Mexican Americans are a diverse population including Mexicans of Indigenous ancestry, Mexicans of European ancestry (mostly Spanish), and Mexicans of Middle Eastern stock (mainly Lebanese). However, the Mexican population is mainly conformed by Mestizos, individuals with a genetic background consisting of Amerindian and European contributions. A 2006 study conducted by Mexico's National Institute of Genomic Medicine (INMEGEN) that genotyped 104 samples reported that mestizo Mexicans are 58.96% European, 35.05% "Asian" (Amerindian mostly), and 5.03% African.^[19] According to a 2009 report by the Mexican Genome Project, which sampled 300 mestizos from six Mexican states and one indigenous group, the gene pool of the Mexican mestizo population was calculated to be 55.2% percent indigenous, 41.8% European, 1.8% African, and 1.2% Asian.^[20] A 2012 study published by the Journal of Human Genetics found the paternal ancestry of the Mexican mestizo population to be predominately European (64.9%) followed by Amerindian (30.8%) and African (4.2%).^[21] A 2013 study published by the American Journal of Physical Anthropology found that the maternal ancestry of the Mexican mestizo population to be predominately Amerindian (92.9%) followed by European (5.3%) and African (1.9%).^[22] According to the last Mexican census to record race (which was in 1921), 10 percent of the Mexican populace identified itself as white, 59 percent as Mestizo (Native American-European mixture), 29 percent as Native American, and 2 percent as "other", foreigner (regardless of race), or did not specify a race.^[23]

Per the 2010 US Census, the majority (52.8%) of Mexican Americans self identify as being of the White race.^[24] The remainder self identifying as "Some other race" (39.5%), "two or more races" (5.0%), Native American (1.4%), Black (0.9%), and Asian / Pacific Islander (0.4%).^[24] versus Mexico. A large but unknown number of White Mexican Americans have a non-Hispanic white parent, although the Census Bureau lacks information on partial ancestry for Hispanic origins.

US census bureau classifications

As the United States' borders expanded, the United States Census Bureau changed its racial classification methods for Mexican Americans under United States jurisdiction. The Bureau's classification system has evolved significantly from its inception:

• From 1790 to 1850, there was no distinct racial classification of Mexican Americans in the US census. The only racial categories recognized by the Census Bureau were White and Black. The Census Bureau estimates that during this period the number of persons that could not be categorized as white or black did not exceed 0.25% of the total population based on 1860 census data.^[25]

• From 1850 through 1920 the Census Bureau expanded its racial categories to include all different races including Mestizos, Mulattos, Amerindians and Asians, and classified Mexicans and Mexican Americans as "White".^[25]

• The 1930 US census revoked generic white status for Mexican Americans due to protest over a diluted definition of "whiteness". The new form asked for "color or race" and census workers were instructed to "write ‘W’ for White; ’Mex’ for Mexican."^[26]

• In the 1940 census, Mexican Americans were re-classified as White, due to widespread protests by the Mexican American community. Instructions for enumerators were "Mexicans – Report 'White' (W) for Mexicans unless they are definitely of indigenous or other non-white race." During the same census, however, the bureau began to track the White population of Spanish mother tongue. This practice continued through the 1960 census.^[25] The 1960 census also used the title "Spanish-surnamed American" in their reporting data of Mexican Americans, which included Cuban Americans, Puerto Ricans and others under the same category.

• From 1970 to 1980, there was a dramatic population increase of Other Race in the census, reflecting the addition of a question on Hispanic origin to the 100-percent questionnaire, an increased propensity for Hispanics to not identify themselves as White, and a change in editing procedures to accept reports of "Other race" for respondents who wrote in Hispanic entries such as Mexican, Cuban, or Puerto Rican. In 1970, such responses in the Other race category were reclassified and tabulated as White. During this census, the bureau attempted to identify all Hispanics by use of the following criteria in sampled sets:^[25]
  • Spanish speakers and persons belonging to a household where the head of household was a Spanish speaker
  • ersons with Spanish heritage by birth location or surname
  • Persons who self-identified Spanish origin or descent

• From 1980 on, the Census Bureau has collected data on Hispanic origin on a 100-percent basis. The bureau has noted an increasing number of respondents who mark themselves as Hispanic origin but not of the White race.^[25]

For certain purposes, respondents who wrote in "Chicano" or "Mexican" (or indeed, almost all Hispanic origin groups) in the "Some other race" category were automatically re-classified into the "White race" group.^[27]

Politics and debate of racial classification

There have been cases on which the legal designation of white racial status actually worked against Mexican American civil rights, such as the case Hernandez v. Texas, which civil rights lawyers for the appellant, named Pedro Hernandez were confronted with a paradox: because Mexican Americans were classified as white by the government and not as a separate race, lower courts held that they were not denied equal protection and there was no violation of the Fourteenth Amendment by not including people with Mexican ancestry among the juries. Attorneys for the state of Texas and judges in the state courts contended that the amendment referred only to racial, not "nationality," groups, since Mexican Americans were tried by juries composed of their racial group—whites—their constitutional rights were not violated. The Hernandez v. Texas case, which held that "nationality" groups could be protected under the Fourteenth Amendment became a landmark on the history of the United States.^[28]

While Mexicans were also allowed to serve in all-white units during World War II, many Mexican American war veterans were discriminated against and even denied medical services by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs when they arrived home. This would led to the creation of the G.I. Forum.^[29]

In times and places where Mexicans were allotted white status, they were permitted to intermarry with what today are termed "non-Hispanic whites", though social customs typically only approved of such marriages if the Mexican partner was not of any discernible indigenous heritage.^[30] Legally, Mexican Americans could vote and hold elected office, however, it was not until the creation of organizations such as the League of United Latin America Citizens and the G.I. Forum that Mexican Americans began to achieve political influence. Edward Roybal's election to the Los Angeles City Council in 1949 and then to Congress in 1962 also represented this rising Mexican American political power. In the late 1960s the founding of the Crusade for Justice in Denver in and the land grant movement in New Mexico in 1967 set the bases for what would become the Chicano (Mexican American) nationalism. The 1968 Los Angeles school walkouts expressed Mexican American demands to end segregation, increase graduation rates, and reinstate a teacher fired for supporting student organizing. A notable event in the Chicano movement was the 1972 Convention of La Raza Unida (United People) Party, which organized with the goal of creating a third party that would give Chicanos political power in the U.S.^[29]

In the past, Mexicans were legally considered "White" because either they were considered to be of full Spanish heritage, or because of early treaty obligations to Spaniards and Mexicans that conferred citizenship status to Mexican peoples at a time when whiteness was a prerequisite for US citizenship.^[31][32] Although Mexican Americans were legally classified as "White" in terms of official federal policy, many organizations, businesses, and homeowners associations and local legal systems had official policies to exclude Mexican Americans. Throughout the southwest discrimination in wages were institutionalized in "white wages" versus lower "Mexican wages" for the same job classifications. For Mexican Americans, opportunities for employment were largely limited to guest worker programs. The bracero program, which began in 1942 and officially ended in 1964, allowed them temporary entry into the U.S. as migrant workers in farms throughout California and the Southwest.^{[19][33][34][35]}

Mexican Americans legally classified as "White", following anti-miscegenation laws in most western states until the 1960s, could not legally marry African or Asian Americans (See Perez v. Sharp). However, most were not socially considered white, and therefore, according to Historian Neil Foley in the book The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans did marry non-whites typically without reprisal.

Despite the similarities between Mexican American and African American patterns of segregation, there were important differences. The racial demarcations between whites and blacks in a state like Texas were inviolable, whereas those between whites and Mexican Americans were not. It was possible for Mexican Americans to attend white schools and colleges, mix socially with whites and, on occasion, marry whites: all of these things were impossible for African Americans, largely due to the legalized nature of black-white segregation. Racial segregation was rarely as rigid for Mexican Americans as it was for African Americans, even in situations where African Americans enjoyed higher economic status than Mexican Americans.^[36]

Economic and social issues

Immigration issues

Since the 1960s, Mexican immigrants have met a significant portion of the demand for cheap labor in the United States.^[37] Fear of deportation makes them highly vulnerable to exploitation by employers. Many employers, however, have developed a "don't ask, don't tell" attitude toward hiring undocumented Mexican nationals. In May 2006, hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants, Mexicans and other nationalities, walked out of their jobs across the country in protest to support immigration reform (many in hopes of a path to citizenship similar to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, which granted citizenship to Mexican nationals living and working without documentation in the US).

Even legal immigrants to the United States, both from Mexico and elsewhere, have spoken out against illegal immigration. However, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in June 2007, 63% of Americans would support an immigration policy that would put illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship if they "pass background checks, pay fines and have jobs, learn English", while 30% would oppose such a plan. The survey also found that if this program was instead labeled "amnesty", 54% would support it, while 39% would oppose.^[38]

Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has said that the growth of the working-age population is a large factor in keeping the economy growing and that immigration can be used to grow that population. According to Greenspan, by 2030, the growth of the US workforce will slow from 1 percent to 1/2 percent, while the percentage of the population over 65 years will rise from 13 percent to perhaps 20 percent.^[39] Greenspan has also stated that the current immigration problem could be solved with a "stroke of the pen", referring to the 2007 immigration reform bill which would have strengthened border security, created a guest worker program, and put illegal immigrants currently residing in the US on a path to citizenship if they met certain conditions.^[40]

Discrimination and stereotypes

Throughout US history, Mexican Americans have and continue to endure various types of negative stereotypes which have long circulated in media and popular culture.^[41][42] Mexican Americans have also faced discrimination based on ethnicity, race, culture, poverty, and use of the Spanish language.^[43]

Since the majority of illegal immigrants in the US have traditionally been from Latin America, the Mexican American community has been the subject of widespread immigration raids. During The Great Depression, the United States government sponsored a Mexican Repatriation 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.^[44][45] In the post-war McCarthy era, the Justice Department launched Operation Wetback.^[45]

During World War II, more than 300,000 Mexican Americans served in the US armed forces.^[14] Mexican Americans were generally 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 Affairs when they arrived home.^[19] In 1948, war veteran Hector P. Garcia founded the American GI Forum to address the concerns of Mexican American veterans who were being discriminated against. The AGIF's first campaign was on the behalf of Felix Longoria, a Mexican American private who was killed in the Philippines while in the line of duty. Upon the return of his body to his hometown of Three Rivers, Texas, he was denied funeral services because of his nationality.

In the 1948 case of Perez v. Sharp, Andrea Perez—a Mexican-American woman listed as White—and Sylvester Davis—an African American man—the Supreme Court of California recognized that interracial bans on marriage violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution.

In 2006, Time magazine reported that the number of hate groups in the United States increased by 33% since 2000, with illegal immigration being used as a foundation for recruitment.^[46] According to the 2011 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Hate Crimes Statistics Report, 56.9% of the 939 victims of crimes motivated by a bias toward the victims’ ethnicity or national origin were directed at Hispanics.^[47] In California, the state with the largest Mexican American population, the number of hate crimes committed against Latinos has almost doubled from 2003 to 2007.^[48][49] In 2011, hate crimes against Hispanics declined 31% in the United States and 43% in California.^[50]

Social status and assimilation

^[51]

Barrow (2005) finds increases in average personal and household incomes for Mexican Americans in the 21st century. US-born Mexican Americans earn more and are represented more in the middle and upper-class segments more than most recently arriving Mexican immigrants.

Most immigrants from Mexico, as elsewhere, come from the lower classes and from families generationally employed in lower skilled jobs. They also are most likely from rural areas. Thus, many new Mexican immigrants are not skilled in white collar professions. Recently, some professionals from Mexico have been migrating, but to make the transition from one country to another involves re-training and re-adjusting to conform to US laws —i.e. professional licensing is required.

According to James P. Smith of the Research and Development Corporation, the children and grandchildren of Latino immigrants tend to lessen educational and income gaps with native whites. Immigrant Latino men make about half of what native whites do, while second generation US-born Latinos make about 78 percent of the salaries of their native white counterparts and by the third generation US-born Latinos make on average identical wages to their US-born white counterparts.^[52]

Huntington (2005) argues that the sheer number, concentration, linguistic homogeneity, and other characteristics of Latin American immigrants will erode the dominance of English as a nationally unifying language, weaken the country's dominant cultural values, and promote ethnic allegiances over a primary identification as an American. Testing these hypotheses with data from the US Census and national and Los Angeles opinion surveys, Citrin et al. (2007) show that Hispanics generally acquire English and lose Spanish rapidly beginning with the second generation, and appear to be no more or less religious or committed to the work ethic than native-born non-Mexican American whites. However, the children and grandchildren of Mexican immigrants were able to make close ties with their extended families in Mexico, since United States shares a 2,000 mile border with Mexico. Many had the opportunity to visit Mexico on a relatively frequent basis. As a result, many Mexicans were able to maintain a strong Mexican culture, language, and relationship with others.^[53]

South et al. (2005) examine Hispanic spatial assimilation and inter-neighborhood geographic mobility. Their longitudinal analysis of seven hundred Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban immigrants followed from 1990 to 1995 finds broad support for hypotheses derived from the classical account of assimilation into American society. High income, English-language use, and embeddedness in American social contexts increased Latin American immigrants' geographic mobility into multi-ethnic neighborhoods. US citizenship and years spent in the United States were positively associated with geographic mobility into different neighborhoods, and coethnic contact was inversely associated with this form of mobility, but these associations operated largely through other predictors. Prior experiences of ethnic discrimination increased and therefore decreased the likelihood that Latino immigrants would move from their original neighborhoods, while residing in metropolitan areas with large Latino populations led to geographic moves into "less Anglo" census tracts.^[54]

Intermarriage

Based on 2000 census data, US-born ethnic Mexicans have a high degree of intermarriage with non-Hispanic Whites:^[55]

• 50.6% of US-born Mexican men and 45.3% of US-born Mexican women married US-born Mexicans;^[55]
• 26.7% of US-born Mexican men and 28.1% of US-born Mexican women married non-Hispanic Whites; and^[55]
• 13.6% of US-born Mexican men and 17.4% of US-born Mexican women married Mexico-born Mexicans.^[55]

In addition, based on 2000 data, there is a significant amount of ethnic absorption of ethnic Mexicans into the mainstream population with 16% of the children of mixed marriages not being identified in the census as Mexican.^[56]

Segregation issues

Map of Los Angeles County showing percentage of population self-identified as Mexican in ancestry or national origin by census tracts. Heaviest concentrations are in East L.A, Echo Lake/Silver Lake, South Central, San Fernando and San Pedro/Wilmington.

Housing market practices

Studies have shown that the segregation among Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants seems to be declining. One study from 1984 found that Mexican American applicants were offered the same housing terms and conditions as Anglo Americans. They were asked to provide the same information (regarding employment, income, credit checks, etc.) and asked to meet the same general qualifications of their Anglo peers.^[57] In this same study, it was found that Mexican Americans were more likely than Anglo Americans to be asked to pay a security deposit or application fee^[57] and Mexican American applicants were also more likely to be placed onto a waiting list than the Anglo Americans applicants.^[57]

Latino segregation versus Black segregation

When comparing the contemporary segregation of Mexican Americans to that of Black Americans, some scholars claim that "Latino segregation is less severe and fundamentally different from Black residential segregation." suggesting that the segregation faced by Latinos is more likely to be due to factors such as lower socioeconomic status and immigration while the segregation of African Americans is more likely to be due to larger issues of the history of racism in the US.^[58]

Legally, Mexican Americans could vote and hold elected office, however, it was not until the creation of organizations such as the League of United Latin America Citizens and the G.I. Forum that Mexican Americans began to achieve political influence. Edward Roybal's election to the Los Angeles City Council in 1949 and then to Congress in 1962 also represented this rising Mexican American political power. In the late 1960s the founding of the Crusade for Justice in Denver in and the land grant movement in New Mexico in 1967 set the bases for what would become the Chicano (Mexican American) nationalism. The 1968 Los Angeles school walkouts expressed Mexican American demands to end segregation, increase graduation rates, and reinstate a teacher fired for supporting student organizing. A notable event in the Chicano movement was the 1972 Convention of La Raza Unida (United People) Party, which organized with the goal of creating a third party that would give Chicanos political power in the U.S.^[29]

In the past, Mexicans were legally considered "White" because either they were considered to be of full Spanish heritage, or because of early treaty obligations to Spaniards and Mexicans that conferred citizenship status to Mexican peoples at a time when whiteness was a prerequisite for US citizenship.^[31][32] Although Mexican Americans were legally classified as "White" in terms of official federal policy, many organizations, businesses, and homeowners associations and local legal systems had official policies to exclude Mexican Americans. Throughout the southwest discrimination in wages were institutionalized in "white wages" versus lower "Mexican wages" for the same job classifications. For Mexican Americans, opportunities for employment were largely limited to guest worker programs. The bracero program, which began in 1942 and officially ended in 1964, allowed them temporary entry into the U.S. as migrant workers in farms throughout California and the Southwest.^{[19][33][34][35]}

Mexican Americans legally classified as "White", following anti-miscegenation laws in most western states until the 1960s, could not legally marry African or Asian Americans (See Perez v. Sharp). However, most were not socially considered white, and therefore, according to Historian Neil Foley in the book The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans did marry non-whites typically without reprisal.

Despite the similarities between Mexican American and African American patterns of segregation, there were important differences. The racial demarcations between whites and blacks in a state like Texas were inviolable, whereas those between whites and Mexican Americans were not. It was possible for Mexican Americans to attend white schools and colleges, mix socially with whites and, on occasion, marry whites: all of these things were impossible for African Americans, largely due to the legalized nature of black-white segregation. Racial segregation was rarely as rigid for Mexican Americans as it was for African Americans, even in situations where African Americans enjoyed higher economic status than Mexican Americans.^[36]

Segregated schools

During certain periods, Mexican American children sometimes were forced to register at "Mexican schools", where classroom conditions were poor, the school year was shorter, and the quality of education was substandard.^[59]

Various reasons for the inferiority of the education given to Mexican American students have been listed by James A. Ferg-Cadima including: inadequate resources, poor equipment, unfit building construction. In 1923, the Texas Education Survey Commission found that the school year for some non-white groups was 1.6 months shorter than the average school year.^[59] Some have interpreted the shortened school year as a "means of social control" implementing policies to ensure that Mexican Americans would maintain the unskilled labor force required for a strong economy. A lesser education would serve to confine Mexican Americans to the bottom rung of the social ladder. By limiting the number of days that Mexican Americans could attend school and allotting time for these same students to work, in mainly agricultural and seasonal jobs, the prospects for higher education and upward mobility were slim.^[59]

Immigration and segregation

Immigration hubs are popular destinations for Latino immigrants. These segregated areas have historically served the purpose of allowing immigrants to become comfortable in the United States, accumulate wealth, and eventually leave.^[60]

This model of immigration and residential segregation, explained above, is the model which has historically been accurate in describing the experiences of Latino immigrants. However, the patterns of immigration seen today no longer follows this model. This old model is termed the standard spatial assimilation model. More contemporary models are the polarization model and the diffusion model: The spatial assimilation model posits that as immigrants would live within this country's borders, they would simultaneously become more comfortable in their new surroundings, their socioeconomic status would rise, and their ability to speak English would increase. The combination of these changes would allow for the immigrant to move out of the barrio and into the dominant society. This type of assimilation reflects the experiences of immigrants of the early twentieth century.^[58]

Polarization model suggests that the immigration of non-Black minorities into the United States further separates Blacks and Whites, as though the new immigrants are a buffer between them. This creates a hierarchy in which Blacks are at the bottom, Whites are at the top, and other groups fill the middle. In other words, the polarization model posits that Asians and Hispanics are less segregated than their African American peers because White American society would rather live closer to Asians or Hispanics than African Americans.^[60]

The diffusion model has also been suggested as a way of describing the immigrant's experience within the United States. This model is rooted in the belief that as time passes, more and more immigrants enter the country. This model suggests that as the United States becomes more populated with a more diverse set of peoples, stereotypes and discriminatory practices will decrease, as awareness and acceptness increase. The diffusion model predicts that new immigrants will break down old patterns of discrimination and prejudice, as one becomes more and more comfortable with the more diverse neighborhoods that are created through the influx of immigrants.^[60] Applying this model to the experiences of Mexican Americans forces one to see Mexican American immigrants as positive additions to the "American melting pot," in which as more additions are made to the pot, the more equal and accepting society will become.

The Chicano movement and the Chicano Moratorium

Chicanas/os march in Northern California's largest city, San Jose in 2006.

In the heady days of the late 1960s, when the student movement was active around the globe, the Chicano movement conducted actions such as the mass walkouts by high school students in Denver and East Los Angeles in 1968 and the revanchist ideals centered around "taking back" the American southwest for Mexicans.

The 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. The committee was led by activists from local colleges and members of the "Brown Berets", a group with roots in the high school student movement that staged walkouts in 1968, known as the East L.A. walkouts, also called "blowouts".

The best known historical fact of the Moratorium was the death of Rubén Salazar, known for his reporting on civil rights and police brutality. The official story is that Salazar was killed by a tear gas canister fired by a member of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department into the Silver Dollar Café at the conclusion of the August 29 rally.

Mexican American communities

Adaptation of Mexican food tailored for the mainstream American market usually is very different from Mexican food typically served in Mexico itself.

Large Mexican American populations by both size and per capita exist in the following American cities:

• Los Angeles, California – the city proper home to over 1.2 million of Mexican ancestry, another 2.3 million throughout Los Angeles County, and a total of about 6.3 million in the five-county Greater Los Angeles Area. Largest Mexican ancestry populated city in the United States. (according to the 2010 census, L.A. is now 31.9% of Mexican descent with numerous Central American national groups).
  • East Los Angeles, California – Unincorporated community totally (99%) Latino, about 66% are foreign-born with Mexican immigrants in the lead and 33% of Mexican descent.
  • Culver City, California – Also the site of the infamous Zoot Suit Riots in 1943.
  • Long Beach, California – Third largest city in Southern California, One of many cities in the region with a large Mexican/Hispanic population.
  • Pomona, California Pomona – over 70% of the city population is Mexican or Mexican American.
  • La Puente, California – about two-thirds are of Mexican ancestry or Hispanic, one of the largest Hispanic (in percentage, the most Mexican-American community) populations in California.
  • Inland Empire, California (Riverside/ San Bernardino Counties- and the cities of that namesake) – About a third of the population are of Mexican descent.
    • Riverside, California^[61] and San Bernardino, California^[61]
    • Indio, California^[61] and Coachella, California (primarily Mexican-American).^[62]
  • Southern California is the highest densely populated Mexican-American region, but by areas of percentage it is South Texas.

• Las Vegas, Nevada – 31% of the population of the city is Hispanic in which 25% of that is of Mexican descent.

• Chicago – Over 1.5 million of Mexican ancestry in the Chicago metropolitan area^[63] and the fourth largest Mexican community in the USA.

• Houston, Texas – third largest Mexican ancestry community in the United States.^[64]

• Phoenix, Arizona – fifth largest Mexican-American population.

• Tucson – 30% of the almost 1 million people in the metro area.^[65]

• Dallas/Fort Worth Area – fifth largest Mexican-American population and over 1.5 million Mexicans in the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex (3rd largest foreign born Mexican population in the US per MSA).

• San Antonio, Texas – over half of the population in the city proper (53.2%, 705,530) and second largest Mexican population of any city in the US.^[66]

• San Diego, California – slightly less than one-third of the city's population is Hispanic, primarily Mexican American; however, this percentage is the lowest of any significant border city.

• El Paso, Texas – largest Mexican-American community bordering a state of Mexico.

• South Texas – Heavily populated by Mexican-Americans, who are the ethnic majority, in a region spanning from Laredo to Corpus Christi to Brownsville.

• San Francisco Bay Area – also with over one million Hispanics, many of whom are Mexican Americans, both US-born and foreign-born (see also Oakland about 10–20% Hispanic and San Francisco – the Mission District section- the city is 10–20% Latino).
  • Oakland – California's third largest Mexican-American city by percentage (over 25%) after Long Beach (about 30%). Many live in the Fruitvale district.
  • San Jose, California – Nearly one-third of the city's population is Mexican-American or of Hispanic origin; San Jose has the largest Mexican-American population within the Bay Area.

• Central Valley of California both the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys have majority Mexican American communities.

• Denver, Colorado – Colorado has the eighth largest population of Hispanics, seventh high percentage of Hispanics, fourth largest population of Mexican-Americans, and sixth highest percentage of Mexican-Americans in the United States. According to the 2010 census, there are over 1 million Mexican-Americans in Colorado.^[67] Over one-third of the city's population is Mexican-American or Hispanic/Latino, as well as approximately one-fourth of the entire Denver Metropolitan area. About 17% of the cities population is foreign born, mostly from Latin America.

• Greeley, Colorado – Over one-third of the cities population is Latino, mostly Mexican-American.
  • Garden City is Latino majority, and Evans has a very large Latino population as well.
• Southern Colorado is home to many communities of Hispanics descended from Mexican settlers who arrived during Spanish colonial times. Roughly half of Pueblo's population is Latino, mostly Mexican-American. Many other towns in southern Colorado have high proportions of Mexican-Americans. La Junta, Rocky Ford, Las Animas, Lamar, Walsenburg, and Trinidad all have large Mexican American communities.
  • San Luis Valley – The San Luis Valley has many towns with large Mexican-American populations. Antonito, Blanca, Center, Del Norte, Fort Garland, Monte Vista, and Romeo are all Latino majority.^[68]

• The Yakima Valley and Tri-Cities, Washington – This region of Washington contains many communities of Mexican-American majority thanks to high demand for agricultural labor.

Major US destinations

In the 1990s and 2000s, the Midwestern United States became a major destination for Mexican immigrants. But Mexican-Americans were already present in the Midwest's industrial cities and urban areas. Especially Mexicans/Latinos came into states like Illinois (mostly in Chicago and close-in suburbs), Indiana especially the Northern section, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan (i.e. the Detroit metropolitan area), Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and Wisconsin due to needs of the region's industrial manufacturing base.

Another destination of Mexican and Latin American immigration was the Northeastern United States, in places such as the Monongahela Valley, Pennsylvania; Mahoning Valley, Ohio; throughout Massachusetts and the state of Rhode Island; New Haven, Connecticut along with other Latin American nationalities; Washington, D.C. with Maryland and Northern Virginia included; the Hudson Valley and Long Island of New York state; the Jersey Shore region and the Delaware Valley, New Jersey.

Communities that consist mostly of recent-arrived immigrants from Mexico, are also present in other parts of the rural Southeastern United States, in states such as Maryland, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas and Oklahoma. A growing Mexican-American population is also present in urban areas such as Orlando, Florida with the Central Florida region included; the Atlanta metro area; Charlotte, North Carolina- with a majority Hispanic enclave of Eastland; New Orleans which increased after Hurricane Katrina in Sep. 2005; the Hampton Roads, Virginia area; the states of Maine, New Hampshire and Delaware; and Pennsylvania esp. in the Philadelphia metropolitan area.

Map based on the 2000 Census showing predominant nationality group by county. Counties with a plurality of population are shown in pink, predominantly in the Southwest

List of states by Mexican American population

State/Territory	Mexican American Population (2010 Census)[64]	Percentage of State Population
Alabama	122,911	2.6
Alaska	21,642	3.0
Arizona	1,657,668	25.9
Arkansas	138,194	4.7
California	11,423,146	30.7
Colorado	757,181	15.1
Connecticut	50,658	1.4
Delaware	30,283	3.4
District of Columbia	8,507	1.4
Florida	629,718	3.3
Georgia	519,502	5.4
Hawaii	35,415	2.6
Idaho	148,923	9.5
Illinois	1,602,403	12.5
Indiana	295,373	4.6
Iowa	117,090	3.8
Kansas	247,297	8.7
Kentucky	82,110	1.9
Louisiana	78,643	1.7
Maine	5,134	0.4
Maryland	88,004	1.5
Massachusetts	38,379	0.6
Michigan	317,903	3.2
Minnesota	176,007	3.3
Mississippi	52,459	1.8
Missouri	147,254	2.5
Montana	20,048	2.0
Nebraska	128,060	7.0
Nevada	540,978	20.0
New Hampshire	7,822	0.6
New Jersey	217,715	2.5
New Mexico	590,890	28.7
New York	457,288	2.4
North Carolina	486,960	5.1
North Dakota	9,223	1.4
Ohio	172,029	1.5
Oklahoma	267,016	7.1
Oregon	369,817	9.7
Pennsylvania	129,568	1.0
Rhode Island	9,090	0.9
South Carolina	138,358	3.0
South Dakota	13,839	1.7
Tennessee	186,615	2.9
Texas	7,951,193	31.6
Utah	258,905	9.4
Vermont	2,534	0.4
Virginia	155,067	1.9
Washington	601,768	8.9
West Virginia	9,704	0.5
Wisconsin	244,248	4.3
Wyoming	37,719	6.7
Total US	31,798,258	10.3

US communities with largest population of Mexican Americans

The top 25 US communities with the highest populations of Mexicans (Source: Census 2010)^[64]

1. Los Angeles, CA - 1,209,573
2. San Antonio, TX - 705,530
3. Houston, TX - 673,093
4. Chicago, IL - 578,100
5. Phoenix, AZ - 519,635
6. El Paso, TX - 486,186
7. Dallas, TX - 439,460
8. San Diego, CA - 325,812
9. New York, NY - 319,263
10. San Jose, CA - 268,538
11. Austin, TX - 229,865
12. Fort Worth, TX - 219,653
13. Fresno, CA - 211,431
14. Tucson, AZ - 193,994
15. Long Beach, CA - 151,983
16. Brownsville, TX - 150,945
17. Denver, CO - 149,366
18. Corpus Christi, TX - 148,800
19. Albuquerque, NM - 146,035
20. Las Vegas, NV - 140,104
21. Bakersfield, CA - 137,102
22. Riverside, CA - 127,165
23. East Los Angeles, CA - 111,441
24. Sacramento, CA - 105,467
25. Mesa, AZ - 99,666

US communities with high percentages of Mexican ancestry

The top 25 US communities with various Mexican American populations are:^[69]

US communities with highest proportion of residents born in Mexico

The top 25 US communities with the highest proportion of residents born in Mexico are as follows:

See also

• List of Mexican Americans
• Mexico–United States relations
• Hyphenated American
• Mexicans abroad
• Mexican cuisine
• Mexican people
• Tex-Mex cuisine

Political:

• Reconquista (Mexico)

Cultural:

• Chicanismo
• Chicano poetry
• List of Mexican American writers

References

Bibliography/further reading

External links

• California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives – In the Chicano/Latino Collections - University of California Santa Barbara
• California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives – Digital Chicano Art - University of California Santa Barbara
• Calisphere > California Cultures > Hispanic Americans - University of California System
• ImaginArte – Interpreting and Re-imaging Chican@Art - University of California Santa Barbara
• Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race (book)
• Mexican-American.org – Network of the Mexican American Community
• Mexican Americans MSN Encarta (Archived 2009-11-01)
• Think Mexican – News, Culture, and Information on the Mexican Community

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