Mexican Americans

Mexican American
México-estadounidense

Notable Mexican Americans: Romualdo Pacheco, Octaviano Larrazolo, Ellen Ochoa, Eva Longoria, Carlos Santana, and General Richard Cavazos.
Total population
Mexican Americans 28,339,354 9% of the U.S. population.
Regions with significant populations
United States California, Texas, Illinois, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Florida. See also: List of Mexican American communities
Languages
American English, Spanish, Spanglish, and a minority of Indigenous Mexican Languages.
Religion
Christianity (predominantly Roman Catholic, with a minority of Protestants), Aztec religion, Maya religion, Islam, Atheism, and other religions.
Related ethnic groups
Other Mexican people, Mestizo, Indigenous people of the Americas, Spanish people, Latin, Hispanic, Latino, and Chicano.

Mexican Americans are Americans of Mexican ancestry. Mexican Americans account for 9% of the country's population: about 28.3 million Americans listed their ancestry as Mexican as of 2006. Mexican Americans form the largest Hispanic group in the United States and also the largest group of White Hispanics.

Mexican Americans trace their ancestry to Mexico, bounded on the north by the United States; and many different European countries, especially Spain, which was its colonial ruler for over three centuries. Most Mexican American settlement concentrations are found in metropolitan and rural areas across the United States, with the highest concentrations in the Southwest, Midwest and the Northwest.

Mexican American communities

The cities of Chicago, Tucson, Las Vegas, Nevada, Albuquerque, Las Cruces, San Jose, Phoenix, Houston, Sacramento, Fresno, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Indianapolis, Dallas, El Paso, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Austin, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Denver, and Portland, Oregon are cities with large Mexican American communities. Mexican Americans form the largest ancestral group in El Paso, where the population is more than four fifths Mexican American, and Mexican.

Cities and counties that are predominantly Mexican and Mexican American are: El Paso, Laredo, Texas, Santa Ana, California, Denver, Fresno, San Antonio, Los Angeles and Los Angeles County. While there is a significant Central American community within Los Angeles, and less so in Los Angeles County as a whole, Los Angeles is sometimes referred to as the world's largest Mexican city outside of Mexico. The combined proportion of Mexican Nationals, and Mexican Americans to all other Hispanic Nationalities in both Los Angeles, and Los Angeles County is more than 2.5 to 1. Therefore, Mexican Nationals, and Mexican Americans make people of Mexican descent the predominant ethnic background in both the city of Los Angeles (home to 2 million), and Los Angeles County (about 40 percent).

Other cities in the Upper Midwest with thriving Mexican American communities are Detroit, Kansas City, Missouri, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Sioux City, Iowa, and Minneapolis-St. Paul. There are also isolated concentrations of Mexican Americans in mostly rural areas in the Northwest: Idaho, Oregon, Utah (esp. Salt Lake City), Washington and Wyoming; the Plains: Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas; and the Southeast: Florida, Louisiana and North Carolina. In recent years, many other cities in the USA have seen the Mexican American population increase dramatically. An example of this is Charlotte, NC. Charlotte has a large Mexican American neighborhood known as Eastland.

Growing populations, that consist mostly of recently arrived immigrants from Mexico, are also present in other parts of the rural Southeastern United States, in states such as Georgia, Oklahoma, Maryland, Tennessee, Alabama and Arkansas. A growing population is also present in urban areas such as Washington, D.C., New York City perhaps home to 260,000 Mexicans (whether immigrants and American-born) and are the 4th largest Hispanic national group in the city , Florida (esp. Miami and Tampa) and Philadelphia.

History of Mexican Americans

Main article: History of Mexican-Americans

Mexican American history is wide-ranging, spanning more than four hundred years and varying from region to region within the United States. In 1900, there were slightly more than 500,000 Latinos living in New Mexico, California and Texas. Most were Mexican Americans who arrived in the Southwest in the mid 1800s while others were descendants of Mexican, Spanish, and other hispanicized European settlers who arrived in the Southwest during Spanish and Mexican colonial times. Approximately ten percent of the current Mexican American population can trace their lineage back to these early colonial settlers.

As early as 1813 the Tejanos who colonized Texas in the Spanish Colonial Period established a government in Texas that looked forward to independence from Mexico. 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. The Mexican government became concerned by their increasing numbers and restricted the number of new Anglo settlers allowed to enter Texas. The Mexican government also banned slavery within the state, which angered slave owners. The Anglos 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.

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

"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 either of Mexican or European descent and Native Americans who became integrated into the society before the California Gold Rush. Relations between Californios and Anglo settlers were relatively good until military officer John C. Fremont arrived in 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 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 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 5th, he proclaimed the creation of the Bear Flag Republic. On July 9th, 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 California. The Californios defeated an American force in Los Angeles on September 30, 1846, but were defeated after the Americans reinforced their forces in 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 the land granted to Californios by the old Mexican government.

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 U.S. 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. 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.

While Mexican Americans were once concentrated in the states that formerly belonged to Mexico — principally, 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 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. 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 and Hispanic student groups flirted with nationalism and differences over the proper name for members of the community — 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.

Racial and ethnic classification of Mexican Americans

Although the majority of Mexican Americans are mestizos, there are also those of full-blooded White ancestry and those of full-blooded Amerindian ancestry. There may also be Mexican Americans of mulatto, zambo, or full-blooded African ancestry as well as Mexican Americans of Asian descent. In the 2000 census, White Mexican Americans were the largest White Hispanic group . Before the United States' borders expanded westward, New World regions dominated by the Spanish Empire in the 16th century held to a complex caste system that classified persons by their fractional racial makeup and geographic origin. See Casta.

As the United States' border expanded, the Census Bureau changed the traditional 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 U.S. 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.

• From 1850 through 1920 the Census Bureau expanded its racial categories to include all different races including Mestizos, Mulattos, Amerindians and Asians, but continued to classify Mexicans and Mexican Americans as White.

• The 1930 U.S. census form asked for "color or race." The 1930 census calculators received these instructions: “write ‘W’ for White; ’Mex’ for Mexican.”

• In the 1940 census, Mexican Americans were re-classified as White, due to widespread protests by the Mexican American community and the World War II-era Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration's policies of promoting national, "patriotic" unity by reorganizing racial categories to make all ethnic groups "white" and or "Americans" if not white. 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. 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.

• In 1970, Mexican Americans classified themselves as White. Hispanic individuals who classified themselves racially as Other were re-classified as White by the bureau. During this census, the bureau attempted to identify all Hispanics by use of the following criteria in sampled sets:

• Spanish speakers and persons belonging to a household where the head of household was a Spanish speaker
• Persons 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. This is perhaps due to an increase of non-white Latino immigrants into the country.

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

Politics and debate of racial classification

Throughout U.S. history, Mexican Americans have been socially classified as "White" and "Amerindian" by United States people. Census criteria and legal constructions generally classify them as "White" or "Indigenous".

In times when Mexicans were uniformly allotted white status, they were permitted to intermarry with what today are termed "non-Hispanic whites",. Mexican Americans could vote and hold elected office in places such as Texas, especially San Antonio. They ran the state politics and constituted most of the elite of New Mexico since colonial times. However, property requirements and English literacy requirements were imposed in Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas in order to prevent Mexican Americans from voting. Some eligible voters were intimidated with the threat of violence if they attempted to exercise their right to vote.

They were also allowed to serve in all-white units during World War II. However, some Mexican American war veterans were discriminated against and even denied medical services by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs when they arrived home.

All Mexicans were legally considered "white" because of early treaty obligations to Spaniards and Mexicans for citizenship status at a time when white-ness was considered a prerequisite for U.S. citizenship.

Although Mexican Americans were legally classified as "White" or "Amerindian", many organizations, businesses, and homeowners associations had official policies to exclude Mexican Americans.

Mexican Americans in most western states had anti-miscegenation laws until the 1960s if the individual was classified "white", the person couldn't legally marry African Americans or Asian Americans. However, there's a documented trend of high intermarriage rates in the Mexican American community with Indian Americans from India or Pakistan, and Filipino Americans from the Philippines.

Today, Mexican Americans are divided. Many recently arrived Mexican Americans consider themselves mestizos, and many others either white or Amerindian.

See also: White Hispanic § Representation and debate

See also: White American

See also: Race (United States Census)

Economic and social issues

Illegal immigration issues

See also: 2006 United States immigration reform protests and Illegal immigration to the United States

Illegal Mexican immigrants have long met a significant portion of the demand for cheap labor in the United States.{{fact|date=May 2008)) Fear of deportation makes them highly vulnerable to exploitation by employers. Many employers, however, have developed a "don't ask, don't tell" attitude, indicating a greater comfort with or casual approach toward hiring illegal Mexican nationals. In May 2006, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, Mexicans and other nationalities, walked out of their jobs across the country in protest to proposed changes in immigration laws (also in hopes for amnesty to become naturalized citizens like similar the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which granted citizenship to Mexican nationals living and working illegally in the US).

In the United States, in states where Mexican Americans make up a large percentage of the population, such as California and Texas, illegal as well as legal immigrants from Mexico and Central America in addition to Mexican Americans combined often make up a large majority of workers in many blue-collar occupations: the majority of the employed men are restaurant workers, janitors, truck drivers, gardeners, construction laborers, material moving workers, or perform other types of manual or other blue collar labor (Source, U.S. Census Bureau, American community survey data.). Many women also work in low wage service and retail occupations. In many of these places with large Latino populations, many types of blue-collar workers are often assumed to be Mexican American or Mexican or other Latino immigrants (Although a large minority are actually not. -Source, U.S. Census Bureau, American community survey data.) because of their frequent dominance in those occupations and stereotyping. Occasionally, tensions have risen between Mexican immigrants and other ethnic groups because of increasing concerns over the availability of working-class jobs to Americans and immigrants from other ethnic groups. However, tensions have also risen among Hispanic American laborers who have been displaced because of both cheap Mexican labor and ethnic profiling, and African American workers claimed the Mexican laborers are advancing further than native-born blacks, which has caused some racial tensions between black and Mexicans in the Southwest 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", 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.

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. 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.

Discrimination and stereotypes

See also: Hispanophobia

See also: Racial segregation

Throughout U.S. history, Mexican Americans have and continue to endure various types of negative stereotypes which have long circulated in media and popular culture.Mexican Americans have also faced discrimination based on ethnicity, race, culture, and use of the Spanish language.

Mexican Americans have found themselves targeted by hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan It is estimated that at least 597 Mexicans and Mexican Americans were lynched between 1848 and 1928 in the Southwest. Mexican Americans 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 of population. Between 1848 to 1879, Mexicans were lynched at an unprecedented rate of 473 per 100,000 of population. More problematic still is the fact that, despite the recent flourishing of academic literature on lynching, scholars also persistently overlook anti-Mexican violence.

Since the majority of illegal immigrants in the U.S. 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. In the post-war McCarthy era, the Justice Department launched Operation Wetback.

In the 1940s, imagery in newspapers and crime novels portrayed Mexican American Zoot suiters as disloyal foreigners or murderers attacking White-Anglo police officers and servicemen. Anti-zoot suiter sentiment sparked a series of attacks on young Mexican American males in Los Angeles which became known as the Zoot Suit Riots. The worst of the rioting occurred on June 9, during which 5,000 servicemen and civilians gathered in downtown Los Angeles and attacked Mexican-American zoot suiters and non-zoot suiters alike. The rioting eventually spread to the predominantly African American neighborhood of Watts.

During World War II, more than 300,000 Mexican Americans served in the US armed forces. 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. In 1948, war veteran Dr 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 race.

Mexican American school children, especially those of mestizo and mulatto descent, were subject to racial segregation in the public school system. They were forced to attend "Mexican schools" throughout the Southwestern United States.. In 1947, the Mendez v. Westminster ruling declared that segregating children of "Mexican and Latin descent" in Orange County and the state of California 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.

Mexican Americans were not selected as jurors in court cases which involved a Mexican American defendant in many counties in the Southwestern United States. In 1954, Pete Hernandez, an agricultural worker, was indicted of murder by an all-Anglo jury in Jackson County, Texas. 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. Texas Supreme Court ruling declared that Mexican Americans and other racial groups in the United States were entitled to equal protection under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

In many areas across the Southwest, Mexican Americans lived in separate residential areas, due to laws and real estate company policies. This group of laws and policies, known as redlining, lasted until the 1950s, and fall under the concept of official segregation. In many other instances, it was more of a general social understanding among Anglos that Mexicans should be excluded. For instance, signs with the phrase "No Dogs or Mexicans" were posted in small businesses and public pools throughout the Southwest well into the 60's.

In modern times, organizations such as neo-Nazis, white supremacist groups, American nationalist and nativist groups have been known and continue to intimidate, harass and advocate the use of violence towards Mexican Americans and other ethnic Latinos in the population. Other organizations seeking to apprehend immigrants that have crossed into the United States illegally have also been accused of discrimination. It has recently been reported that members of Neo-Nazi organizations have indeed participated in demonstrations by the Minuteman Project and other anti-illegal-immigration organizations.In 2006, it was revealed that Laine Lawless, former Minuteman Project member and founder of Border Guardians (believed to be a nativist anti-immigration organization), sent emails to leaders of the National Socialist Movement (a neo nazi organization) in which she encouraged violence against "illegal immigrants" and Spanish speaking individuals.

In 2006, Time magazine reported that the number of hate groups in the United States increased by 33 percent since 2000, primarily due to anti-illegal immigrant and anti-Mexican sentiment.

According to FBI statistics, the number of anti-Latino hate crimes increased by 35 percent since 2003. In California, the state with the largest Mexican American population, the number of hate crimes committed against Latinos has almost doubled.

Social status and assimilation

Barrow (2005) finds increases in average personal and household incomes for Mexican Americans in the 21st century. U.S. born Mexican Americans earn more and are represented more in the middle- and upper-class segments more than recently arriving Mexican immigrants. It should be noted, however, that Mexican Americans are not well represented in the professions. Most of the immigrants from Mexico come from the lower classes with lineage of family employed in lower skilled jobs. Thus, the kind of Mexican that arrives in the United States doesn't have a history of being involved in professions. Recently, some professionals from Mexico have been migrating, but to make the transition from one country to another it involves a lot of re-training and re-adjusting to conform to US standards--i.e. professional licensing is required. According to James P. Smith of the Research and Development Corporation, the children and grandchildren of Latino immigrants come very close to closing 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.

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 U.S. Census and national and Los Angeles opinion surveys, Citrin et al. (2007) show that Hispanics (in general but not Mexicans specifically) 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.

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 residence in public housing 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.

However, Mexican and Hispanic communities are said to be more culturally separate than ever by an increase of "enclavism" in the late 20th century, a new form of self-segregation among non-Anglo groups, esp. in urban centers and older suburbs at the same time. It's been said that Anglo and Mexican American communities throughout the history of the Southwestern states were like "separate worlds" as the U.S. and Mexico are separate countries, especially before the 1960s since residential segregation and discrimination became illegal.

Segregation Issues

It is evident that the segregation of Mexican Americans from Anglos and also other minorities within the United States is increasing. In 2000, over nine million Latinos lived in areas considered highly segregated.

Although there are Hispanic populations found all over the United States, a large portion of Spanish speakers are located in the U.S. Southwest

Segregated Neighborhoods

Neighborhoods with a high percentage of individuals who claim Latino ancestry are commonly referred to as “barrios” or “colonias.” When translated from Spanish to English, barrio signifies “district” or “quarter” while colonia is the corresponding Mexican Spanish word.

A barrio has been defined as “a place where Latino immigrants can find cultural and linguistical comfort and refuge from the new and sometimes inhospitable majority Anglo culture." In other words, the barrio is a sort of escape for Spanish speakers who may not be fully adjusted and comfortable with the United States. In the barrio, they can speak their native language, allowing one to communicate, find a job, and seek help without the pressure of speaking a second language. It is a place where Latino culture thrives. It is a source of comfort to a recent immigrant, as it would offer him or her a place to work and live, without the knowledge of the English language.

However, some argue that the barrio also represents the inequality faced by many Mexican Americans in the United States. Because barrios offer a lower quality of education, provide poorer jobs than other neighborhoods, and generally receive less government attention than predominately while neighborhoods, the are considered to be representative of the structures that have been created to maintain the social and economic distance between White Americans and minorities.

Housing Market Practices

Hispanics encounter discrimination when attempting to rent or purchase apartments, condominiums, and houses. The real estate market uses a variety of tactics to ensure that Mexican Americans will remain segregated to the barrio. It is not uncommon for minorities, such as Mexican Americans, to face discrimination when it comes to the housing market.

However, studies have shown that the segregation among Mexican Americans and other Spanish speakers seems to be declining. One study 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.

However, in this same study, it was found that Hispanics were more likely to be asked to pay a security deposit or application fee. While White applicants were not asked to pay an extra sum either before moving into a unit or before having their application reviewed, Hispanic applicants were asked to provide this sum. This could have been a tactic to discourage Hispanic applicants from pursing the unit.

This strongly contrasted with the experience of African American applicants, who were treated unfairly in almost all areas of the renting.

One interesting aspect of this study is that the Mexican American applicants were more likely to be placed onto a waiting list than the Anglo Americans applicants. It has been suggested that real estate agents may utilize this tactic in order to discourage Hispanic applicants from further pursuit of the certain unit, or possibly, this tactic could also signify a willingness on the part of the real estate agent to allow the applicants to rent or own the unit in the event that is should become available.

Real estate agents may use a variety of tactics to “steer” Mexican Americans away from Anglo neighborhoods. Agents have used the steering tactic by making more positive comments about certain advertised units to White Americans than to Mexican Americans. On this same note, more negative comments may be made to Mexican Americans about the quality the public school found closest to the unit advertised or the neighborhood surrounding the unit. This would create a greater interest in Anglo Americans, while “steering” Mexican Americans away from these predominately white neighborhoods.

Latino Segregation versus Black Segregation

Historically, Blacks have faced much harsher treatment concerning segregation than their Hispanic peers. When comparing the segregation of Mexican Americans and the separation of Black Americans from Anglo society, there are two important facts that one must understand.

Firstly, “Latino segregation is less severe and fundamentally different than Black residential segregation.” Studies have shown that the separation of Latinos from Anglo society is due to factors such as lower socioeconomic status and immigration while the segregation of Black Americans is due to larger issues, such as racial discrimination or even hatred. While the segregation of Latinos can be explained by the fact that they are largely confined to blue-collar occupations and are therefore unable to accumulate enough wealth enabling a home outside of the barrio, Blacks face segregation regardless of socioeconomic status. The segregation of Mexican Americans is less severe and can be seen as a intermediary phenomenon that will slowly become less and less apparent. While Hispanics may find themselves less segregated as they move up the socioeconomic ladder, Blacks will continue to be spatially separated from Whites regardless of their socioeconomic status.

Secondly, the segregation for Black and Caribbean Latinos is much more severe than it is for others of Spanish-speaking heritage. In other words, the darker ones skin, the most likely his or her chances of being confined to the barrio. An Hispanic with lighter colored skin would have an easier job finding residence within a white neighborhood than others with darker skin. Thus, it may be concluded that the largest factor for the segregation of Latinos who migrate into the United States is race.

However, it is also important to note that Latino segregation patterns are moving closer to those of African Americans. The amount of Latinos confined to the barrio is increasing while the severity of Black segregation is decreasing.

Segregated Schools

Simply by living in segregated neighborhoods, Mexican Americans have been confined to schools that differ greatly from schools attended by predominately white students. Schools located in or near the barrio often provide a lower quality of education than schools attended by Anglo children.

Historically, Mexican American children have been forced, regardless of proximity to predominately white schools, to register at “Mexican schools”, where classroom conditions were poor, the school year was shorter, and the quality of education was substandard. Unlike their African American peers, who were at least partially desegregated during the Civil Rights era, this situation was permanent and remained a problem for much longer

Various reasons for the inferiority of Mexican American education has been listed by James A. Ferg-Cadima including: inadequate resources, poor equipment, unfit building construction, shortened school year (see below), failure to prevent drop out, limited access to high school, a watered down curriculum, poor instruction, disproportionate suspension, expulsion, harassment and non-enforced attendance rules.

Throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s, both the Mexican American and African American school years were shortened. In 1923, the Texas Education Survey Commission found that the school year for these minorities was1.6 months shorter than their Anglo peers . This may be connected to the fact that minority labor was needed during this time. As the agricultural field required the cheap labor provided by exploited minorities, it has been suggested that the minority school year was shortened to allow for these students to work instead of receive the extra 1.6 months of education.

Others have interpreted the shortened school year as a “means of social control.” In other words, policies were implemented to ensure that Mexican Americans would become maintain the unskilled labor force required for a health 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 are slim.

There is a definite connection between the quality of education received by one group of people and their respective occupational statuses. As Latinos graduate from high school and attend college in much lower numbers than other ethnic groups, they are restricted to white-collar and service occupations. Many people have pushed for the need for increased education to shrink the gap between by increasing enrollment of Latinos in every level of advancement, from the attainment of a high school degree all the way to a graduate degree.

In an effort to legitimize this segregation, various public officials have cited “language handicaps” as the reason for the necessity of separate schools. Classifying Mexican Americans according to the language they speak has allowed school districts to legitimize the segregation of Mexican American students from their white peers. As these children grow up speaking their native language, they are limited to schools in which Spanish is the language of instruction.

Immigration and Segregation

When an immigrant enters the United States, it is likely that he or she will seek shelter and occupation within an “immigration hub.”

Immigration hubs are popular destinations for Latino immigrants. They are increasing in size and continue to be highly segregated. The largest immigration hubs include Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. The highly segregated areas of these cities have historically served the purpose of allowing immigrants to become comfortable in the United States, accumulate wealth, and eventually leave. The historical view of immigration hubs sees these cities as temporary starting points for immigrants. They are not expected to live their entire lives within the United States inside segregated areas. Rather, they are expected to accumulate enough wealth to start a life within the larger society.

This model of immigration and residential segregation, explained above, is the model which has historically been accurate in describing the experiences of Latino immigrant. 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. Recent, more contemporary, models of residential segregation are the polarization model and the diffusion model are described below.

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 Hispanics are less segregated than their African American peers because Anglo society would rather live closer to Hispanics than Blacks. Applying this model to the experiences of Mexican Americans forces one to see Mexican Americans as more accepted than Black minorities, yet still not treated as equally as Whites. They are allowed to move into neighborhoods closer to Anglos, even if this only occurs to keep a larger distance between Whites and Blacks.

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. 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.

Overcrowding

The issue of overcrowding is closely related to the issue of segregation and immigration. As immigrants enter the country, they are likely to settle in areas where their friends, family, or simply other who share their culture, have settled. It is not uncommon for many members of families, extended families, or friends, to live in what is considered "overcrowded" conditions.

A large aspect of the segregation of Latinos within the United States is overcrowding. Rates of overcrowding among Latinos, especially in American suburbs, are high. The U.S. Census Bureau considers a residence to be overcrowded if there is more than one person per room.

There are various explanations for overcrowding. One widely held belief about overcrowding is based on a stereotype of living in close proximity simply to cultural preference. To expand on that point, it is widely believed that immigrant Latino families live in dense households because of their desire to remain in close proximity with extended family. However, this view does not paint the entire picture. Some families may live under one roof by choice and it is possible that Latinos may have different cultural standards than other population groups, thus allowing them to be more comfortable living with extended family underneath the same roof. However, one cannot reduce all problems of Latino overcrowding to cultural preference, as this offers an incomplete understanding of the issue at hand.

Latinos may live in overcrowded conditions out of economic necessity and simply because they choose to live differently than others. Lack of affordable housing and a poor selection of well-paying occupations may combine to create the necessity of many living close together. Because one certain family may find very few opportunities for sufficient housing or find themselves without adequate funds for a house of their own, they may be forced to live in crowded conditions.

References

• Barrow, Lisa and Rouse, Cecilia Elena. "Do Returns to Schooling Differ by Race and Ethnicity?" American Economic Review 2005 95(2): 83-87. Issn: 0002-8282 Fulltext: in Ingenta and Ebsco
• Jack Citrin, Amy Lerman, Michael Murakami and Kathryn Pearson, "Testing Huntington: Is Hispanic Immigration a Threat to American Identity?" Perspectives on Politics, Volume 5, Issue 01, February 2007, pp 31-48
• De La Garza, Rodolfo O., Martha Menchaca, Louis DeSipio. Barrio Ballots: Latino Politics in the 1990 Elections (1994)
• De la Garza, Rodolfo O. Awash in the Mainstream: Latino Politics in the 1996 Elections (1999) * De la Garza, Rodolfo O., and Louis Desipio. Ethnic Ironies: Latino Politics in the 1992 Elections (1996)
• De la Garza, Rodolfo O. Et al. Latino Voices: Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban Perspectives on American Politics (1992)
• Arnoldo De León, Mexican Americans in Texas: A Brief History, 2nd ed. (1999)
• Erlinda Gonzales-Berry, David R. Maciel, editors, The Contested Homeland: A Chicano History of New Mexico 2000, ISBN 0-8263-2199-
• Nancie L. González; The Spanish-Americans of New Mexico: A Heritage of Pride (1969)
• Hero, Rodney E. Latinos and the U.S. Political System: Two-Tiered Pluralism. (1992)
• Garcia, F. Chris. Latinos and the Political System. (1988)
• Samuel P. Huntington. Who Are We: The Challenges to America's National Identity (2005)
• Kenski, Kate and Tisinger, Russell. "Hispanic Voters in the 2000 and 2004 Presidential General Elections." Presidential Studies Quarterly 2006 36(2): 189-202. Issn: 0360-4918 Fulltext: in Swetswise and Ingenta
• David Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1986 (1987)
• Pachon, Harry and Louis Desipio. New Americans by Choice: Political Perspectives of Latino Immigrants. (1994)
• Rosales, Francisco A., Chicano!: The history of the Mexican American civil rights movement. (1997). ISBN 1-55885-201-8
• Smith, Robert Courtney. Mexican New York: Transnational Lives of New Immigrants (2005), links with old village, based on interviews
• South, Scott J.; Crowder, Kyle; and Chavez, Erick. "Geographic Mobility and Spatial Assimilation among U.S. Latino Immigrants." International Migration Review 2005 39(3): 577-607. Issn: 0197-9183
• Suárez-Orozco, Marcelo M. And Mariela M. Páez. Latinos: Remaking America. (2002)
• Villarreal, Roberto E., and Norma G. Hernandez. Latinos and Political Coalitions: Political Empowerment for the 1990s (1991)

Further reading

• Martha Menchaca (2002). Recovering History, Constructing Race: The Indian, Black, and White Roots of Mexican Americans. University of Texas Press. pp. 19–21. ISBN 0292752547.
• William A. Nericcio (2007). "Tex(t)-Mex: Seductive Hallucination of the 'Mexican' in America"; utpress book; book galleryblog
• John R. Chavez (1984). "The Lost Land: A Chicano Image of the American Southwest", New Mexico University Publications.

See also

• Hispanics in the United States
• History of Mexican-Americans
• List of Mexican Americans
• List of Mexican American writers
• List of Mexican American communities
• List of Hispanic and Latino Americans
• List of Hispanic Medal of Honor recipients

External links

• Mexican Americans MSN Encarta