Yet, as a Mexican American, I’m not blind to history. For more than 150 years, my tribe has lived in “occupied” territory. Mexican Americans were never enslaved or sold as property. But we have been subjected — like our Native American cousins — to the indignity of being treated like second-class citizens in our ancestral homeland.
For Mexican Americans, that homeland isn’t Mexico. It’s the Southwest, which the United States stole from Mexico in 1848 and repurposed as eight U.S. states.
The mistreatment of Mexican Americans who were left behind began almost immediately.
In 1855, the California Legislature enacted what became known as the “Greaser Law,” which allowed for the arrest of anyone thought to be a vagrant. The law used the word “Greaser” to refer to those with “Spanish and Indian blood.”
In the 1940s, in rural California towns, signs in restaurants blared: “No Dogs or Mexicans Allowed.” Mexican Americans had to sit in the balconies of theaters, couldn’t get haircuts in some barbershops and could use public swimming pools only on the day before they were scheduled to be
For Mexican Americans, that homeland isn’t Mexico. It’s the Southwest, which the United States stole from Mexico in 1848 and repurposed as eight U.S. states.
The mistreatment of Mexican Americans who were left behind began almost immediately.
In 1855, the California Legislature enacted what became known as the “Greaser Law,” which allowed for the arrest of anyone thought to be a vagrant. The law used the word “Greaser” to refer to those with “Spanish and Indian blood.”
In the 1940s, in rural California towns, signs in restaurants blared: “No Dogs or Mexicans Allowed.” Mexican Americans had to sit in the balconies of theaters, couldn’t get haircuts in some barbershops and could use public swimming pools only on the day before they were scheduled to be
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