Mexican Americans

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Eva Longoria (2012)

As Mexican Americans (Mexican Americans) in the are US citizens referred to, which themselves or their ancestors in Mexico were born. They make up about 63% of Hispanics . According to the US Department of Statistics , there were 36.2 million Americans in 2016 whose ancestors were Mexican. Colloquially they are called Chicanos , in Texas they are also called Tejanos .

The United States is a country of immigrants , but it has not treated all groups of immigrants equally, as the history of Irish-Americans , Italian-Americans , Swedish- Americans , German-Americans, or Sino-Americans shows.

history

The history of Mexican Americans spans more than 400 years and varies from region to region within the United States. Mexican Americans were originally concentrated in the states that formerly belonged to Mexico, primarily California , Arizona , New Mexico , Colorado, and Texas . When they found jobs in the steel industry during World War I , they began settling in San Diego , Los Angeles , Chicago, and other steel-producing regions. More recently, Mexican immigrants have provided a large portion of the workforce in the meat industry in the Midwest , agriculture in the southeastern United States and across the country in construction, landscaping, restaurants and hotels, and other service industries.

The identity of Mexican Americans has changed profoundly over the years. For the past 100 years they have fought for their right to vote and against discrimination in education and the labor market, and have been committed to their social and economic progress. At the same time, many of them have tried to define and maintain the identity of their community. In the 1960s and 1970s, Latino and Hispanic students, respectively , turned to nationalism , and disagreements over the appropriate name for members of the community - Chicano, Latino, Mexican Americans, Hispanics, or simply La Raza - were compounded by deeper differences as to whether one should integrate into, or remain separate from, Anglo-American society. There were also differences between Mexican Americans, whose families had lived in the United States for one or more generations, and newly immigrated migrants from Mexico.

definition

Mexican Americans are a subset of Hispanics. They can be immigrants or descendants of Mexicans who immigrated to the United States decades ago, or the settlers who came to what is now the Southwestern United States when the country was under Spanish or Mexican rule. Some are monolingual, others bilingual or polyglot.

Before the founding of the United States

Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, California, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming were part of New Spain and later became part of the newly formed Mexican Republic. The Spaniards came to this region in the 16th century and began to settle in what is now New Mexico. These communities lived in the neighborhood of indigenous groups and, to some extent, intermingled with them.

In California, the Franciscans formed the vanguard of Spanish colonization and established a number of mission stations in the coastal regions of California. These missions were both economic and religious institutions, imposing some form of bondage (including forced labor ) on indigenous people . Together with the system of forts and land grants for the king's favorites, they enabled the Spanish colonization of western California.

In other parts of what is now the Southwest, the missions were less successful. Spanish-speaking settlements established themselves in what is now Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Texas.

Integration of the Spanish-speaking population

The new United States came into conflict with Mexico from the 1830s. New Anglo-American settlements and slavery spread in the area called “Tejas”, which was part of Mexico. After the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848 and the Gadsden purchase of 1853, about half of the former territory of Mexico belonged to the United States. The vast majority of the Spanish-speaking population remained and some became citizens of the United States. At first she generally supported the new government. The Mexican government had become despotic under General Antonio López de Santa Anna and the US government granted protection against Indian raids that Mexico had not prevented. Moreover, the new situation for the region means the end of the civil wars that kept Mexico in suspense at the time and seemed to promise prosperity in the long term.

Although the treaty promised the landowners of the newly acquired territories that their property would be protected as if they were citizens of the United States, many former citizens of Mexico lost their land through trials in state and federal courts, and later laws. Even laws like the California Land Act of 1851, designed to protect the individuals who owned them at the time the United States expanded, resulted in the expropriation of the Californios (Spanish-speaking Californians) because of the cost of years of litigation were ruined over land titles.

The loss of property rights in New Mexico created a large landless population hostile to the forces that had taken their land from them. After the Santa Fe Ring succeeded in expropriating thousands of landowners in New Mexico, groups like Las Gorras Blancas tore down fences and burned the intruders' farm buildings. In western Texas, the battle became the San Elizario Salt War , in the course of which the Spanish-speaking majority forced the Texas Rangers to surrender , but in the end lost their influence, their offices and their economic power.

In other areas, particularly Texas and California, Hispanic residents were simply overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of Anglo-American settlers, first attracted to northern California by the California gold rush , for example, and decades later by the boom in southern California. Anglo-American prospectors expelled Hispanic competitors from their camps, forbade non-Anglo-American residents to testify in court, and enforced discriminatory practices similar to Jim Crow's laws against African Americans. Some Hispanics, among whom Joaquín Murrieta was a legendary and Tiburcio Vásquez a real life example, responded by turning into bandits. Mexican miners immigrated to California during the gold rush.

1850s

In the 1850s, over 20,000 Tejanos lived in South Texas. The historian Radolph Campbell analyzed the social structure as follows:

South Texans of Hispanic descent lived in a three-layer society before the Civil War. At the top was a landowning elite , the owners of large ranches, many of which had emerged from haciendas from the time of Spanish colonial rule. The elite based their economic life on the livestock industry. They sold some cattle in Mexico and Louisiana and exported skins and tallow, but access to large urban markets outside the region was so limited that South Texas ranchers did not do large-scale business in the pre-war years. This does not seem to have bothered most of them as they viewed their ranches as a lifestyle rather than an economic investment, focusing on preserving their property and making a profit ...

The small landowners ranked second in the South Texas economy and social hierarchy. These rancheros lived in one-room adobe houses and spent most of their time tending their small herds of horses and cattle. Although they made up a smaller portion of the population, they can be compared to the common Anglo-Americans in East Texas . They differed from the elite only in the size of their property, not in terms of their dependence on their land or in terms of the lifestyle they sought to achieve.

After all, there was the lower class in South Texas, made up of peons , vaqueros, and wagoners. Peóns had a status above that of slaves in pre-war Texas, but below that of truly free humans. They owned no property, could not travel or call a doctor without the landlord's permission, and required his consent to marry. When a Peón was charged with a wrongdoing, the landlord was both a jury and a judge. On the other hand, peóns were not owned and therefore could not be bought or sold or treated as personal livestock. Occupying a poorly defined place between the slaves and the free, they served the upper classes as 'loyal servants'.

They worked under the direction of the patrons - planting and harvesting, tending goats, digging wells, and doing any kind of manual work that arose. In return, they received wages or loans in the landlord's shop that were so low that they were always in debt. They lived in Jacales , small one- room huts made of mud or whatever material available at the time, and thatched roofs. One room served as a lounge and bedroom; Cooking and eating took place within a separate fence made of grass or stalks of grain.

The poor landless class also included the vaqueros who ran the herds and tended the cattle. The ranch owners and mission station priests generally saw it as beneath their dignity to do such work, and saw these first Texas cowboys simply as workers who rode horses. None of those involved could have imagined at the time that millions of Americans would one day see working with cattle as the ultimate romantic and heroic part of the Texan past. At least vaqueros , which suited their future image, were more independent than Peóns . They were not tied to the land and could even expect to buy land for themselves one day.

The carters lived in San Antonio or along the road from that town to Indianola and made a living moving food and other goods inland from the coast. They used ox carts and practically had a monopoly on this route, as they transported goods quickly and cheaply. Anglo-American competitors emerged in the 1850s but failed to compete with the Tejanos' tariffs. The ox-cart transport seems to have been the most lucrative business open to poor Tejanos at the time. In parts of southern Texas and southern Arizona, Mexican Americans were able to get positions in local government, and in New Mexico they made up the majority of the population until the late 19th century. The federal government delayed New Mexico's recognition as a state because its leadership was dominated by Mexican Americans.

Despite partial integration, many Mexican Americans retained their language and culture. They have been most successful where they have retained some degree of political and economic power, where segregation has imposed isolation on them, and where immigrants from Mexico made up a significant portion of the population.

Beginning of the 21st century

The prosperity gap between the US and Mexico remains large and the influx of illegal immigrants continues; the border between the United States and Mexico became more secure and controlled. The children of illegalized immigrants are also considered “illegals”, at the same time politicians are looking for ways to give them better opportunities. Between 2005 and 2013, over half a million young illegals returned to Mexico, often involuntarily. Legalization of a total of 11 million illegal immigrants was planned for 2014 and found a majority in the US Senate, but was not put to a vote in the House of Representatives.

Areas with high populations of Mexican Americans

Areas in which a particularly high proportion of Mexican Americans live are the US Southwest and the Midwest. There are large Mexican-American communities in southwest Texas, Chicago , Los Angeles , Detroit , Kansas City , St. Louis , Milwaukee, and Minneapolis, and St. Paul , Minnesota . Isolated communities in mostly rural areas can be found in Florida and North Carolina . A growing population is also found in southeastern US states such as Georgia , Oklahoma , Tennessee , Alabama, and Arkansas . The Mexican-American population is also growing in the east coast cities of Washington , New York , Miami, and Philadelphia .

Classified by the US Federal Statistical Office

Before the borders of the USA were shifted westwards, a complete system of castas was in place in the regions belonging to the Spanish colonial empire in the 16th century , which classified people based on their ethnic and geographical origin.

As the US expanded, the US Federal Statistical Office changed the traditional ethnic classification methods for Mexican Americans, which were governed by US law:

From 1790 to 1850 there was no specific classification for Mexican Americans, the only ethnic categories recognized by the Federal Statistical Office were white and black . The bureau estimates that during this period, based on the 1860 census, the proportion of people who could not be categorized as white or black did not exceed 0.25% of the total population.

From 1850 to 1920, the ethnic categories were expanded to include mulattos , American Indians , Chinese , Japanese , Filipinos , Hindus, and Koreans at various times , but continued to classify Mexicans and Mexican-Americans as whites .

The 1930 census form asked for "color or race". The evaluating staff received the following instructions: “write 'W' for white; 'Mex' for Mexicans. "

Classification according to language, place of birth, surname or self-declaration of origin

At the 1940 census , Mexican Americans were again considered whites . According to the instructions for the counters, Mexicans should be counted as whites unless they are definitely indigenous or otherwise non-whites ("Mexicans - Report 'White' (W) for Mexicans unless they are definitely of indigenous or other non-white race.") however, at the same census, the bureau began to record the “white people of Spanish mother tongue”. This practice continued into the 1960 census.

The 1960 census also included the heading “Spanish-surnamed American” to capture Mexican Americans, but also classified Cuban-Americans and Puerto Ricans under the same category.

In 1970 Mexican Americans classified themselves as whites . Hispanic individuals who consider themselves ethnically as "other" (Other) had classified, were from the Census Bureau as White reclassified. During this census, the Bureau attempted to count all Hispanics using the following criteria:

  • Spanish speakers and people belonging to a household whose head of household is Spanish speaking
  • People with Spanish heritage by place of birth or surname
  • Individuals who attribute themselves to a Hispanic origin or a Hispanic origin
  • Since 1980 the Bureau of Statistics has tried to collect data on all people of Hispanic origin. It found that a growing number of people surveyed attribute themselves to being of Spanish origin but not “white” as a 'race'.

Ethnic Classification Policy

Throughout US history, many Mexican Americans have been socially classified as non-white by Americans, even though census criteria and legal constructions classified them as 'white'. However, in the days when they were consistently granted 'white' status, Mexicans (unlike blacks or Asians) were allowed to marry what are now referred to as "non-Hispanic whites".

They were allowed to acquire US citizenship upon arrival; they served in white units during World War II ; they could vote and hold electoral offices in Texas, especially San Antonio ; they determined the politics of the state in New Mexico and made up the largest part of the elite in some areas since colonial times; they went to mixed schools in Central Texas and Los Angeles . Asians were prohibited from marrying Mexican Americans because they were considered white by the law.

All Mexicans were considered white by legal obligations arising from contracts entered into at a time when white was a requirement for US citizenship.

Economic and social issues

César Chávez , founder of the United Farm Workers' union and civil rights activist in the 1960s and 1970s, called for groups to be organized in support of workers and expanded political representation for Mexican Americans.

The economy has long needed workers in the service sector , in industry , in agriculture , and skilled craftsmen . Mexican workers have usually met this demand for cheap labor. Fear of being discovered and deported discourages many illegalized workers from taking advantage of welfare state programs or contacting the authorities, which leaves them exposed to increased exploitation by employers. Some employers over the past decade have developed a “don't ask, say nothing” attitude, which indicates a more relaxed attitude towards employing illegalized Mexicans.

Immigration is the subject of major political disputes in the United States. In May 2006, millions of illegal immigrants, Mexican and other nationalities, took to the streets to demonstrate for a change in immigration laws. They were hoping for an amnesty that would allow them to obtain US citizenship. There was a similar amnesty in 1986.

In US states like California or Texas, where Mexican Americans make up a large part of the population, illegalized immigrants and Mexican Americans take up almost all blue-collar jobs : They work in restaurants, as cleaners, truck drivers, gardeners, construction workers , Transport workers or other manual work. In many of these places with a large Latino population, workers are generally mistaken for Mexican Americans as this group is the dominant group in the area. Tension occasionally arises between Mexican Americans and other ethnic groups over concerns about the availability of working class jobs for non-Hispanic ethnic groups. Tensions have also arisen between American Hispanic workers and Mexican workers, as cheap Mexican labor has supplanted the former; African-American workers say, in part, that Mexican workers move faster than American-born black workers. This has created tension between blacks and Mexicans in the southwestern United States.

Discrimination and Stereotypes

In the USA, Chicanos were consistently exposed to negative stereotypes that also circulated in the mass media and, among other things, conveyed the image of Chicanos as street criminals, field workers and illegal immigrants. During the 1940s, Chicanos were often portrayed in newspapers and thrillers as disloyal "strangers" or as murderers attacking Anglo-White police officers.

This went hand in hand with discrimination , for example when looking for a job, entering good schools or lending. Private clubs often did not accept Chicanos, blacks, or Jews. In the southwestern states, the majority of Mexican Americans lived in segregated residential areas due to the law and the policies of real estate companies. These practices, known as redlining , lasted at least into the 1950s and were in line with official racial segregation . In addition, Chicanos were often the target of racially motivated attacks, for example by the Ku Klux Klan , which had a great influence in Texas in the 1920s. Neo-Nazis attacked some Latinos who they thought looked "Mexican" or like "illegal aliens" in the 1990s.

The Chicano Literature often also addressed discrimination and stereotypes.

Famous Chicanos like the folk musician Lalo Guerrero made, u. a. in musical comedies, with songs like "Yes, There are No Tortillas", "No Chicanos on TV" and "Pancho Sánchez" funny about stereotypes.

But there was and still is mutual discrimination within the Mexican population; For example, Chicanos who do not speak Spanish or speak insufficiently enough are pejoratively referred to by other Latinos as “pochos”. The self-proclaimed "Mexican Elvis" El Vez plays with stereotypes in his songs, which are often socially critical rewrites of Elvis classics, and reinterprets this swear word positively in his song "Soy un Pocho":

"To be a Chicano is more than a language / I'm not white bread but I am a sandwich."

"Being a Chicano goes beyond language / I'm not a white bread, I'm a sandwich"

- El Vez

Social status and assimilation

According to Barrow (2005), the per capita income and household income for Mexican Americans have increased in the 21st century. They were born in the United States, earn more, and are more likely to be in the middle and upper income brackets than recently arrived migrants. They are rarely represented in the professions that require academic training.

Samuel P. Huntington (2005) argues that the sheer number of Hispanic immigrants, their concentration, linguistic homogeneity and other characteristics weaken the dominance of English as a unifying bond, undermine prevailing cultural values ​​and lead to identification with the more weight is attached to one's own ethnic group than identification with the American nation.

By testing these hypotheses with data from official statistics and public opinion polls in Los Angeles , Citrin et al. (2007) that second generation Hispanics are primarily learning English and that their use of Spanish is decreasing; they are no more or less religious than native whites and are no less committed to work ethics. Furthermore, a majority of Hispanics reject purely ethnic identification, and US-related patriotism is increasing from generation to generation. The traditional pattern of political assimilation seems to prevail at present.

South et al. (2005) examined the spatial assimilation and geographic mobility of Hispanics. In a long-term study of 700 Mexican, Puerto Rican and Cuban immigrants from 1990 to 1995, they found the hypotheses that emerge from the classical theory of assimilation confirmed. A high income, the use of the English language and being embedded in Anglo-American social contexts made moving to an English-speaking neighborhood more likely. American citizenship and length of stay correlated positively with geographical mobility to English-speaking neighborhoods, while contact with one's own ethical group correlated negatively with this form of mobility.

The Austrian documentary The Five Cardinal Points from 2009 deals with Mexican guest workers in the USA.

literature

German

  • Andreas Kühler: Chicanos and Mexican migrant workers: “Third World” in the USA. Westphalian steam boat, Münster 1989.
  • Dieter Herms: The struggle of the United Farm Workers of America. In: Gulliver , No. 2, pp. 123-142.
  • Dieter Herms: The contemporary literature of the Chicanos (1959–1988). Vervuert, Frankfurt am Main 1990.
  • Karin Ikas: Contemporary Chicana Literature: An Intercultural Inquiry. Winter, Heidelberg 2000.

English

  • Mike Davis : Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the US City , New and Fully Updated Edition, Verso 2008, ISBN 1-84467-247-6 .
  • William A. Nericcio: Tex (t) -Mex: Seductive Hallucination of the 'Mexican' in America. University of Texas, 2007, publisher's advertisement .
  • Rodolfo Acuña: Occupied America: A History of Chicanos. 1972, 6th edition 2006, ISBN 0-321-42738-6 .
  • Arnoldo De León, Richard Griswold del Castillo: North to Aztlán: a history of Mexican Americans in the United States, Harlan Davidson, 2nd edition 2006, ISBN 0-88295-243-9 .
  • John-Michael Rivera: The Emergence of Mexican America: Recovering Stories of Mexican Peoplehood in US Culture. NYU Press, New York 2006, ISBN 978-0-8147-7558-5 .
  • Vicki Mayer: Producing Dreams, Consuming Youth: Mexican Americans and Mass Media. Rutgers University Press, 2003.
  • Matt S. Meier, Margo Gutiérrez (Eds.): The Mexican American Experience. To Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing, Santa Barbara, CA, New York, Oxford 2003, ISBN 0-313-31643-0 .
  • Martha Menchaca: Recovering History, Constructing Race: The Indian, Black, and White Roots of Mexican Americans. University of Texas Press, 2002, ISBN 0-292-75254-7 .
  • The Chicano Studies Reader: An Anthology of Aztlan, 1970-2000. Chicano Studies Research Center, 2001, ISBN 0-89551-097-9 .
  • Juan Gomez-Quinones: Roots of Chicano Politics, 1600-1940. University of New Mexico Press, 2001.
  • Erlinda Gonzales-Berry, David R. Maciel (Eds.): The Contested Homeland: A Chicano History of New Mexico. University of New Mexico Press 2000, ISBN 0-8263-2199-2 .
  • Marco Portales: Crowding Out Latinos: Mexican Americans in the Public Consciousness. Temple University Press, 2000.
  • Francisco A. Rosales: Chicano! The history of the Mexican American civil rights movement. Arte Público Press, Houston 1997, ISBN 1-55885-201-8 .
  • Juan Gomez-Quinones: Mexican American Labor, 1790-1990, University of New Mexico Press, 1994.
  • Juan Gomez-Quinones: Chicano Politics: Reality and Promise 1940–1990. University of New Mexico Press, 1990.

Web links

proof

  1. ↑ 2016 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates. In: American FactFinder. United States Census Bureau, accessed September 18, 2017 .
  2. ^ "Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State." Pp. 190-191
  3. ↑ Verena Klein: Fear lives with; illegal immigrants in the US. dw.de, November 24, 2012, accessed on July 21, 2014
  4. ^ Sonja Peteranderl: Deported and ascended. spiegel.de, July 21, 2014, accessed on July 21, 2014
  5. ↑ Sebastian Fischer: Failed US immigration reform: Obama's border experience. spiegel.de, July 1, 2014, accessed on July 21, 2014
  6. ^ Racial Classifications in Latin America. Retrieved January 27, 2018 .
  7. ^ A History of Mexican Americans in California: Introduction. Retrieved July 2, 2012 .
  8. ↑ a b c d e Gibson, Campbell: Historical Census Statistics on Population Totals By Race, 1790 to 1990, and By Hispanic Origin, 1970 to 1990, For The United States, Regions, Divisions, and States. In: Working Paper Series No. 56. 2002, archived from the original on March 26, 2010 ; Retrieved December 7, 2006 .
  9. ^ US Population in the 1930 Census by Race. 2002, accessed December 7, 2006 .
  10. ^ Gross, Ariela J .: Texas Mexicans and the Politics of Whiteness. Law and History Review, archived from the original on September 26, 2003 ; Retrieved July 2, 2012 .
  11. ^ Ian F. Haney-Lopez: White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race . New York University, 1996, pp. 61 .
  12. ↑ Flores Niemann Yolanda, et al. "Black-Brown Relations and Stereotypes" (2003); Charles Ramírez Berg, "Latino Images in Film: Stereotypes, Subversion, & Resistance" (2002); Chad Richardson, "Batos, Bolillos, Pochos, and Pelados: Class and Culture on the South Texas Border" (1999)
  13. ^ Jason Oakes: All the King's Elvii: identifying with Elvis through musical tribute . In: Shane Homan (Ed.): Access All Eras: Tribute Bands and Global Pop Culture . Open University Press, Berkshire, England 2006, ISBN 978-0-335-21691-8 , 2.10, pp. 177 f . (English, extract from Google Books [accessed October 7, 2017]).
  14. ↑ Jack Citrin, Amy Lerman, Michael Murakami & Kathryn Pearson: Testing Huntington: Is Hispanic Immigration a Threat to American Identity? In: Perspectives on Politics . Volume 5, Issue 01, February 2007, pp. 31-48
  15. ^ Scott J. South, Kyle Crowder & Erick Chavez: Geographic Mobility and Spatial Assimilation among US Latino Immigrants. In: International Migration Review. 39 (3), 2005, pp. 577-607, DOI: 10.1111 / j.1747-7379.2005.tb00281.x