Mexican Americans: Difference between revisions

| religions = '''Majority'''<br>[[Catholic Church in the United States|Catholicism]]<ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/08/on-religion-mexicans-are-more-catholic-and-often-more-traditional-than-mexican-americans/|title=On religion, Mexicans are more Catholic and often more traditional than Mexican Americans|first=Juan Carlos|last=Donoso}}</ref><br>'''Minority'''<br> [[Protestantism]], [[Evangelical Christianity]], [[Jehovah's Witnesses]], [[Irreligion]]<ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/04/13/among-u-s-latinos-catholicism-continues-to-decline-but-is-still-the-largest-faith/#:~:text=As%20of%202022%2C%2043%25%20of,down%20from%2067%25%20in%202010 | title=Among U.S. Latinos, Catholicism Continues to Decline but is Still the Largest Faith | date=13 April 2023 }}

</ref>

| image = File:Americans with Mexican Ancestry by state.svg

| image_caption = Percent of population of Mexican descent in 2010<ref name="Multicultural America">{{cite book |doi=10.4135/9781452276274.n570 |chapter=Mexican Americans |title=Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia |year=2013 |last1=García |first1=Justin |isbn=9781452216836 |s2cid=153137775 }}</ref>

==History of Mexican Americans==

{{main|History of Mexican Americans}}

In 1900, there were slightly more than 500,000 [[Hispanic and Latino Americans|Hispanics]] of Mexican descent living in New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, California and Texas.<ref>{{cite web |author=Population Reference Bureau |url=http://www.prb.org/Articles/2004/LatinosandtheChangingFaceofAmerica.aspx |title=Latinos and the Changing Face of America – Population Reference Bureau |publisher=Prb.org |date=2013-11-13 |access-date=2014-01-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120519161150/http://www.prb.org/Articles/2004/LatinosandtheChangingFaceofAmerica.aspx |archive-date=2012-05-19 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Most were [[Mestizo]] Mexican Americans of Spanish and Indigenous descent, Spanish settlers, other Hispanicized European settlers who settled in the Southwest during Spanish colonial times, as well as local and Mexican Amerindians.

 

Although the events of 1836 led to independence for the people of Texas, the Latino 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.</blockquote>

 

As a Spanish colony, the territory of California also had an established population of colonial settlers. [[Californios]] is the term for the Spanish-speaking residents of modern-day California; they were the original Mexicans (regardless of race) and local Hispanicized Amerindians in the region ([[Alta California]]) before the United States acquired it as a territory. In the mid-19th century, more settlers from the United States began to enter the territory.

 

 

=== Late 20th century to early 21st century ===

 

While Mexican Americans are concentrated in the [[Southwestern United States|Southwest]]: California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, during [[World War I]] many moved to industrial communities such as [[St. Louis, Missouri|St. Louis]], Chicago, Detroit, [[Cleveland]], [[Pittsburgh]], and other steel-producing regions, where they gained industrial jobs. Like European immigrants, they were attracted to work that did not require proficiency in English. Industrial restructuring in the second half of the century put many Mexican Americans out of work in addition to people of other ethnic groups. Their industrial skills were not as useful in the changing economies of these areas.<ref>[https://repository.arizona.edu/bitstream/handle/10150/624803/pmas_02.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Mexicans in the Midwest – University of Arizona]</ref>

==Race and ethnicity==

{{main|Mexicans}}

 

Ethnically, Mexican Americans are a diverse population made up primarily of [[White Mexicans|European]] ancestry and [[Indigenous peoples in Mexico|Indigenous]] ancestry, along with [[Afro-Mexicans|African]]. Also on a smaller scale East Asian, Middle Eastern descent (mainly Lebanese). The majority of the Mexican population identifies as mestizo. In colonial times, Mestizo was meant to be a person of mixed heritage, particularly European and Native American. Nonetheless, the meaning of the word has changed through time, currently being used to refer to the segment of the Mexican population who is of at least partial Indigenous ancestry, but does not speak [[Languages of Mexico|Indigenous languages]].<ref name="EL MESTIZAJE Y LAS CULTURAS REGIONALES">{{cite web |last1=Navarrete |first1=Federico |title=El Mestizaje Y Las Culturas Regionales |url=http://www.nacionmulticultural.unam.mx/Portal/Izquierdo/BANCO/Mxmulticultural/Elmestizajeylasculturas-elmestizaje.html |publisher=Programa Universitario México Nacion |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130823015618/http://www.nacionmulticultural.unam.mx/Portal/Izquierdo/BANCO/Mxmulticultural/Elmestizajeylasculturas-elmestizaje.html |archive-date=August 23, 2013 |language=es |date=2004 |url-status=dead|quote= en el censo de 1930 el gobierno mexicano dejó de clasificar a la población del país en tres categorías raciales, blanco, mestizo e indígena, y adoptó una nueva clasificación étnica que distinguía a los hablantes de lenguas indígenas del resto de la población, es decir de los hablantes de español}}</ref> Thus in Mexico, the term "Mestizo", while still mostly applying to people who are of mixed European and Indigenous descent, to various degrees, the term has become more of a cultural label rather than a racial one. It is vaguely defined and includes people who do not have Indigenous ancestry, people who do not have European ancestry as well as people of mixed descent.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lizcano Fernandez |first1=Francisco |title=Composición étnica de las tres áreas culturales del continente americano al comienzo del siglo XXI |journal=Convergencia |volume=12 |issue=38 |date=August 2005 |hdl=20.500.11799/38330 }}</ref>

 

===Politics and debate of racial classification===

 

In some cases, legal classification of White racial status has made it difficult for Mexican-American rights activists to prove minority discrimination. In the case ''[[Hernandez v. Texas]]'' (1954), civil rights lawyers for the appellant, named Pedro Hernandez, were confronted with a paradox: because Mexican Americans were classified as White by the federal government and not as a separate race in the census, lower courts held that they were not being denied equal protection by being tried by juries that excluded Mexican Americans by practice. The lower court ruled there was no violation of the Fourteenth Amendment by excluding 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. Thus, since Mexican Americans were tried by juries composed of their racial group—whites—their constitutional rights were not violated. The US Supreme Court ruling in ''Hernandez v. Texas'' case held that "nationality" groups could be protected under the Fourteenth Amendment, and it became a landmark in the civil rights history of the United States.<ref name="Another White Race:">{{cite web|url=https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&doctype=cite&docid=21+Law+&+Hist.+Rev.+109&key=9eb15db6c4cb5ea99766572941111225|title=LexisNexis® Litigation Essentials – Error|website=litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com|access-date=7 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171007170227/https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&doctype=cite&docid=21+Law+&+Hist.+Rev.+109&key=9eb15db6c4cb5ea99766572941111225|archive-date=7 October 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/347us475|title=Hernandez ''v.'' Texas|website=[[Oyez Project|Oyez]] |publisher=[[Chicago-Kent College of Law]] |access-date=2019-10-05}}</ref>

 

While Mexican Americans served in all-White units during World War II, many Mexican–American veterans continued to face discrimination when they arrived home; they created the G.I. Forum to work for equal treatment.<ref name="Mexican American voters">{{cite web|url=http://www1.cuny.edu/portal_ur/content/voting_cal/mexican_american.html/|title=Mexican American Voters / Voting Rights and Citizenship|work=cuny.edu|access-date=2014-04-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140411152220/http://www1.cuny.edu/portal_ur/content/voting_cal/mexican_american.html|archive-date=2014-04-11|url-status=dead}}</ref>

 

| chapter = 3 Prerequisite cases| page = 61}}</ref><ref name="Haney-Lopez1">{{cite book| author = Haney-Lopez, Ian F.| title = White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race| publisher = New York University| year = 1996| chapter = Appendix "A"}}</ref>

 

 

Although Mexican Americans were legally classified as "white" in terms of official federal policy, socially they were seen as "too Indian" to be treated as such.<ref name=ManifestDestinies>{{cite book|author=Gomez, Laura E.|title=Manifest Destinies|publisher=NYU Press|date=Feb 6, 2018}}</ref> Many organizations, businesses, and homeowners associations and local legal systems had official policies in the early 20th century to exclude Mexican Americans in a racially discriminatory way.<ref name="autogenerated2"/> Throughout the Southwest, discrimination in wages was institutionalized in "White wages" versus lower "Mexican wages" for the same job classifications.<ref name="autogenerated2"/> For Mexican Americans, opportunities for employment were largely limited to guest worker programs.<ref name="autogenerated2">{{cite web |url=http://www.understandingrace.org/history/society/post_war_economic_boom.html |title=RACE – History – Post-War Economic Boom and Racial Discrimination |publisher=Understandingrace.org |date=1956-12-21 |access-date=2014-01-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130818185124/http://www.understandingrace.org/history/society/post_war_economic_boom.html |archive-date=2013-08-18 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

 

The ''bracero'' program, begun in 1942 during World War II, when many United States men were drafted for war, allowed Mexicans temporary entry into the United States as migrant workers at farms throughout California and the Southwest. This program continued until 1964.<ref name="autogenerated1"/><ref name="autogenerated11">{{Cite web|url=http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=173707|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929122851/http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=173707|url-status=dead|title=JS Online: Filmmaker explores practice of redlining in documentary|archivedate=29 September 2007}}</ref><ref name="Pulido 53">{{cite book|last=Pulido|first=Laura|title=Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left: Radical Activism in Los Angeles|page=53|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-24520-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CzarnBhJiZUC&pg=PA53 |year=2006}}</ref>

 

While both Mexican American and African American minorities were subject to segregation and racial discrimination, they were treated differently. Segregation is the physical separation of peoples on the basis of ethnicity and social custom historically applied to separate African Americans and Mexican Americans from Whites in Texas. Racial attitudes that supported segregation of African Americans probably arrived in Texas during the 1820s in company with the "peculiar institution," slavery. Anglo-Americans began extending segregation to Mexican Americans after the Texas Revolution as a social custom. Tejanos formed a suspect class during and after the revolution, and that fact led to a general aversion of them. After the Civil War, segregation developed as a method of group control. For both minority groups, segregation existed in schools, churches, residential districts, and most public places such as restaurants, theaters, and barber shops. By the latter years of the nineteenth century, institutionalized segregation flourished legally in places with a visible Black population and was extended informally to Tejanos. Most Texas towns and cities had a "Negro quarter" and a "Mexican quarter."

==Social status and assimilation==

{{See also|Tex-Mex|Mexican cuisine in the United States}}

There have been increases in average personal and household incomes for Mexican Americans in the 21st century. US-born Americans of Mexican heritage 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.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Salgado|first1=Casandra D.|last2=Ortiz|first2=Vilma|date=2019-05-03|title=Mexican Americans and wealth: economic status, family and place|journal=Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies|volume=46|issue=18|pages=3855–3873|doi=10.1080/1369183X.2019.1592878|s2cid=155153400|issn=1369-183X}}</ref> Millions crossed into the United States to find work that would help them survive as well as sustain their families in Mexico.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Minian |first=Ana Raquel |title=Undocumented Lives |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2018 |pages=76 |language=English}}</ref> However now, Mexican Americans, primarily those who are bilingual are being used by firms to attract immigrant clientele. More value is being placed on Mexican Americans because they possess the ability to communicate with Spanish-speaking clients, thus expanding the customer range of companies.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jiménez |first=Tomás R. |date=September 2007 |title=Weighing the Costs and Benefits of Mexican Immigration: The Mexican-American Perspective |url=https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2007.00474.x |journal=Social Science Quarterly |volume=88 |issue=3 |pages=599–618 |doi=10.1111/j.1540-6237.2007.00474.x |s2cid=8854023 |via=Business Source Complete}}</ref>