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The Mexican American Epic:   
Historical Dislocation, Hybridized Identity, and Perpetuated 

Inequality 
 
 

Tatiana Sanchez 
Department of Sociology 

California State University, Los Angeles 
 

 
The author provides a detailed history of Mexican Americans and their 
experiences with American society.  Mexican Americans faced adversity in 
American society dating back to the Mexican American War and still 
encounter racial discrimination to this day.  Seen as second class citizens 
by many in the United States and labeled "white-washed" traitors by 
immigrant communities, Mexican Americans have difficulty integrating 
themselves into society without some form of backlash.  This article covers 
the Mexican American experience in an effort to spread awareness about 
their struggles and hopefully end the discrimination that they have faced 
for so long.   

 
 
1The history of Hispanic immigration 
into the United States contains within it 
the facets of an exceptionally well-
written epic:  intense drama and 
adventure, loss and success, as well as 
an ongoing struggle against immense 
odds.  Ironically, however, the gripping 
tale that traces the tumultuous creation 
of Mexican American’s uniquely 
hybridized identity and steady decline 
into their currently disadvantaged 
position within American society is an 
epic commonly unknown and largely 
understated amongst the general public.  
                                                           
Tatiana Sanchez is an undergraduate student in 
the Department of Sociology. Her paper was 
originally submitted to SOC. 348 Class, 
Race/Ethnicity, and Gender, taught by Dr. 
Hyojoung Kim in Winter 2011. 

Firstly, the Mexican American War’s 
influence on the  racial and social 
structure of America’s Southwest is 
conveniently ignored or manipulatively 
downplayed within American K-12 
classrooms.  Similarly, the problematic 
effect of the 20th century’s immigration 
waves and racial pressure upon Mexican 
American identity is largely unexplored.  
Finally, the bittersweet end to the 
Mexican American journey has been left 
primarily un-highlighted, if not 
unchallenged by the common American.  
Ultimately, it is this neglected social 
epic of America’s past that reveals the 
controversial testimony of Mexicans’ 
victimization at the hands of U.S. 
Manifest Destiny, explains the turbulent 
formation of a Mexican-American 
hybridized identity, and emphasizes their 



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disadvantageous position in current 
society amongst the low-paid, less-
educated, and impoverished citizens.  In 
order to better understand the unique 
singularity of the politically-
disadvantaged, socially-stigmatized, and 
economically-cornered Mexican 
American experience of second-class 
citizenship, the ordinary American must 
first peruse the neglected pages of the 
Mexican American epic.  

The historical beginnings of the 
people who came to identify themselves 
as “Mexican Americans” illustrate the 
unique birth of a new target of Anglo-
American social discrimination:  those 
Mexican natives who found themselves 
suddenly “within” the United States after 
1848.  The Mexican American War, the 
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the 
Anglo American assimilation of the 
Southwest territories consecutively 
collected swathes of previously-Mexican 
territory into the union, automatically 
allotted second-class citizenship to 
Mexican natives living on the coveted 
lands, and initialized the racial 
subjugation of Mexican culture as 
justification for both the former and 
latter.  Each historical event, therefore, 
in turn played a pivotal role in thrusting 
the Mexican people back several paces 
on their journey towards 1st class 
American citizenship.  Galloping across 
the U.S./Texas border upon the 
ideological horse of Manifest Destiny, 
the Mexican American War of 1846 
provided the United States of America 
with the convenient opportunity to 
expand its borders to the South and 
West, whilst simultaneously reinforcing 
Anglo-American racial identity. 
According to Gregory Rodriguez, author 
of the book Mongrels, Bastards, 

Orphans, and Vagabonds, despite the 
fact that “many expansionists simply 
assumed that the fast-growing Anglo-
American population would overwhelm 
all inhabitants of any new territories”, 
long before the war’s initiation there was 
“great concern over the prospect of so 
many Mexicans inhabiting American 
territory,” (Rodriguez 93-94).  The 
debate that arose over the Texas territory 
ultimately raised fears of a Mexican 
threat to “white privilege” and American 
political clout, which in turn popularized 
the concept of U.S. predestined 
expansionism and White Americans’ 
“racial purity”.  Anti-Mexican racism 
spread virally, leading American 
political officials such as Indiana 
congressman William Wick to declare 
their aversion to “any mixed races in 
[the] Union, nor men of any color except 
white, unless they be slaves”, and others 
such as New York Herald publisher 
James Gordon Bennett to proclaim that 
the future of the Mexican people would 
be “similar to that of the Indians of this 
country […they] will become extinct,” 
(93-94).  The birth of an Anglo-Saxon 
racial identity theoretically permitted 
white America to provoke war with 
“mongrel” Mexico without having to 
confront the problematic murkiness of a 
guilty national conscience.   Clinging to 
the increasingly popular idea of a 
preordained racial hierarchy that closely 
intertwined with America’s manifest 
destiny, the ordinary white American of 
the late1840’s took comfort in the 
reassurance of their identity as Anglo-
Americans.  Reginald Horsman further 
explains in his work Race and Manifest 
Destiny:  The Origins of American 
Racial Anglo-Saxonism,  that if the 
United States was to retain a public 



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image of a “nation divinely ordained for 
great deeds, then the fault for the 
suffering inflicted in the rise to power 
and prosperity had to lie elsewhere,” 
(Horsman 210).  This assignment of 
“fault” found ready victims across the 
territories claimed by the U.S. after the 
war, and would eventually prove to not 
only be the death knell for hopes of 
Mexican equality, but also a 
disadvantageous beginning for Mexican 
Americans’ long history within the 
United States.   

 In 1848, the Treaty of 
Guadalupe Hidalgo legally incorporated 
the Southwest Mexican territories of 
California, Texas, and New Mexico into 
the United States of America.  As a 
result, over 100,000 Mexicans found 
themselves suddenly within “American” 
territory (Rodriguez 93).  As Map 1 
illustrates, the massive territorial gains 
granted to the United States extended 
across 55% of Mexico’s pre-war 
territory to even include hefty portions 
of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and Nevada 
in exchange for a mere $15 million 
dollars (Yale Law Library-

http://blogs.law.yale.edu).  Despite the fact 
that the treaty legislatively provided 
resident Mexicans the option of 
remaining within the nation as ‘U.S. 
citizens’, and promised in Article IX that 
they would be “maintained and protected 
in the free enjoyment of their liberty and 
property” (The Avalon Project - 

http://avalon.law.yale.edu ) until their 
citizenship was officially finalized, the 
racialization of Anglo-Saxon identity 
continued to promote social strife. 
According to American Southwest 
historian David J. Weber, Mexican 
Americans became “at best – second-
class citizens”, and “at worst – victims 

of overt racial and ethnic prejudices” as 
a result of having “become politically 
impotent in lands they once governed,” 
(Weber 58).  Pressured by anti-Mexican 
discrimination and the lustful 
expansionist scramble to claim stakes in 
the new American Southwest, Mexican 
Americans’ hold upon the property 
allegedly ‘protected’ by the treaty 
quickly slackened.  Choosing to either 
defend their land claims through 
sluggish judiciary channels, capitulate to 
the pressure and force of American 
settlers, or abandon their properties 
altogether (64-66), Mexican Americans 
suddenly found themselves in a bizarrely 
foreign and biased world whose 
language and customs were not their 
own, and in which the fight for civil 
rights, property, and political 
participation was unabashedly rigged.  
Unsurprisingly, by 1860 the amount of 
Mexican heads of household who owned 
land worth over $100 had dropped 
dramatically from 61% to a dismal 29%, 
and fell to less than 25% a decade later 
(Mirande 30).  For the masses of 
Mexicans who chose to remain in the 
Southwest, the reality that descended 
upon the post-war era promised political 
disempowerment, economic instability, 
and social discrimination, rather than 
‘life, liberty, and property’.   

During the period from 1849 to 
1910, Americans began their 
“assimilation” of the Southwest, which 
included the political domination and 
racial stereotyping of resident Mexicans, 
who were portrayed as criminal 
scoundrels easily identifiable by their 
skin color and economic status.  This 
period, therefore, helped solidify the 
American Southwest’s racial hierarchy, 
as well as successfully marginalize 



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Mexicans at “varying rates of speed in 
different regions, depending largely on 
the size of the Anglo population and its 
ratio to that of the Hispanics,” 
(Rodriguez 106).   Across the newly 
acquired “American” territories, 
Mexicans struggled to adjust themselves 
to the new political, social, and 
economic order imposed by the 
thousands of Anglo migrants who 
stampeded across the West in search of 
gold and land stakes. Unfortunately for 
Mexican Americans, one’s degree of 
successful assimilation and security of 
legal rights varied across class and racial 
lines.  Darkness of skin, although not 
necessarily a life-altering social 
obstruction for a wealthy Mexican 
landowner, had the potential to further 
ruin a working-class laborer’s chances of 
upward mobility (108).    White 
Americans’ emerging condescension of 
being both “born Anglo-Saxon” and 
“bred American” (Horsman 226)  fueled 
the creation of an identity that would 
deftly weave the threads of racism into 
the fabric of national pride.  According 
to Alfredo Mirande in his book Gringo 
Justice, Southwest Anglo-vigilantism 
(which targeted Mexican “bandits” in 
the years following the war) perceived 
Mexicans as “foreigners” and “greasers” 
who consequentially “had no rights and 
[whose] property could be confiscated at 
will,” (Mirande 57).  Automatically 
classified as second-class citizens within 
a nation ruled by expansionist dogma 
and an Anglo racial creed, Mexican 
Americans seemingly began their first 
day as part of the United States on the 
historically ‘wrong foot’.  
Geographically ‘displaced’, politically 
disempowered, and socially degraded, 
Mexicans’ historical beginning as 

“Americans” commenced at a 
conspicuous disadvantage several paces 
behind that of their White counterparts.    
 Having theoretically “entered” 
America at the back of the line for 
economic stability and social equality 
(an aspiration later labeled ‘The 
American Dream’), our epic heroes now 
began the second leg of their tumultuous 
journey: assimilation and identity crisis.  
As Rodriguez further explains, the 
highly racialized social atmosphere that 
pervaded much of the late 19th century 
spurred numerous Mexican Americans 
to “distance themselves from Mexico 
and their mestizo heritage” in the hopes 
that “by emphasizing the white 
European aspect of their heritage they 
could better protect themselves from 
discrimination,” (Rodriguez 118).  For 
many upper and middle class Mexican 
American families, this conscious 
decision to enter into business and 
matrimonial unions with incoming 
Anglos set a generational precedent for 
assimilation into American culture 
despite the “racial antagonisms” that 
would continue to surround 
Mexican/Anglo contact.  With the arrival 
of thousands of Anglo settlers from the 
American South and East, Mexicans’ 
climb up the social mobility ladder grew 
“constricted on the grounds of race” 
rather than of skin color or economic 
status (123).  The Treaty of Guadalupe 
Hidalgo’s promises for Mexican political 
and territorial protection rang hollow in 
courts of law across the Southwest, with 
Congress eventually ceding the federal 
government’s power of defining 
Mexicans’ citizenship status to 
individual states.   As a result, what little 
social assimilation and economic 
progress upper and middle class 



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Mexican Americans had made was soon 
overshadowed not only by their 
paradoxical status as racial ‘foreigners’ 
(despite the fact that many families had 
resided in the Southwest for 
generations), but also the 
institutionalization of Mexican 
segregation and the spread of Anti-
Mexican stereotypes.   

Despite their hopes for an 
upwardly mobile future, Mexican 
Americans soon fell into a pincer-like 
vise between Anglo anti-
Mexican/immigrant racism and 
incoming Mexican immigrant 
disapproval.  Ethnocentric racial 
pressures inflicted by white Americans, 
however, may very well have been the 
most influential.  Racially segregated 
alongside their immigrant counterparts, 
Mexican Americans swiftly became 
aware of the social danger of public 
opinion stereotyping, which tended to 
culturally lump all individuals of 
Mexican/Hispanic descent under the 
banner “foreign-born”.  This 
categorization had become the popular 
symbol of racial ‘otherness’ and 
inferiority.  Roused by an influx of 
Mexican immigration during the early 
20th century, Anglo-American racial 
identity vigorously promoted a racial 
rancor that fed upon Mexican 
Americans’ depiction as a “monolithic, 
subordinate class” that was inherently 
“poor, ignorant, [and] degraded,” (127-
128).  Ironically, however, racial 
hostilities against Mexican immigrants 
beginning during this period extended 
onwards throughout the 20th century, 
discriminating all Mexicans regardless 
of color, class, generation, or citizenship 
status.  Between 1900 and 1930, over 
one million Mexicans immigrated into 

the United States (159), fueling 
xenophobic Anglo-American fears of 
economic competition, a challenging of 
the established racial hierarchy, and 
further obstructions to American 
manifest destiny. Such sentiments 
eventually developed into the political 
construction of the “Mexican Problem” 
or the “Brown Scare”, which would only 
further inflame with each new influx of 
immigrants.  Discriminatory 
immigration policies such as the 
Mexican repatriation campaigns and 
quota systems along with lingering 
remnants of institutionalized segregation 
confirmed that the “nineteenth-century 
preoccupation with the mongrel Mexican 
had survived into the twentieth”, 
Rodriguez asserts, and therefore the 
“case against Mexican immigration was 
overwhelmingly framed in terms of 
race,” (166).  The burden of Anglo 
xenophobic stereotypes and the 
instability of their social status heavily 
provoked Mexican Americans’ defense 
of their Americanized identity, which 
tended to grow pronouncedly patriotic 
with each new generation – especially 
during WWII.  The continual flow of 
unassimilated immigrants into nearby 
neighborhoods encouraged many 
Mexican Americans to not only adopt 
but also internalize popular anti-
immigrant prejudices.  One Mexican 
immigrant proclaimed in 1916 that 
Mexican Americans “[treated them] as 
the gringos [Whites] did – as ‘dirty 
Mexicans’,” (129). Often socially 
resented and even despised, new 
immigrants were derogatorily referred to 
as cholos, wetbacks, and/or mojados by 
native-born Mexican Americans who 
viewed their illegal, unassimilated, and 
‘foreign’ status as a cultural 



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embarrassment.  Migrant laborers’ mass 
entrance into Southwest border states 
like California and Texas (5 million 
workers having been employed across 
26 American states at the end of the 
Bracero Program in 1964(192)) had 
begun to severely diminish Mexican 
American chances of being fully 
accepted as 1st class American citizens.  
Effectively summarizing collective 
Mexican American social angst over the 
immigrant threat, one Mexican 
American activist protested:  “We’re 
trying to climb our way up the social 
ladder […] The braceros come along, 
and hang on to the tail of our shirts – 
their weight is dragging us down,” (196).  
Ultimately, widespread anti-
Mexican/immigrant discrimination and 
stereotyping imposed by white-
American society compelled many 
Mexican Americans to socially 
differentiate themselves from recent 
immigrants.  Wishing not only to avoid 
disadvantageous racial profiling but 
more importantly to emphasize their 
developing patriotism and cultural 
belonging within American culture, 
Mexican Americans chose to distance 
themselves from Mexicans and 
pronounce their allegiance to the only 
country they truly felt to be their own:  
the United States of America. 

In contrast, the second edge of 
the constricting “pincer” that held 
Mexican Americans’ identity captive 
was envenomed by racial discrimination 
and social resentment from the opposite 
side of the border:  incoming Mexican 
immigrants.  Popularly degraded as 
cultural sellouts and ‘white-washed’ 
traitors by immigrant communities and 
Spanish-language media alike, Mexican 
Americans during the 20th century were 

derogatorily classified as pochos or 
“watered-down” Mexicans.  Language, 
assimilation levels, adherence to cultural 
traditions, national loyalties, and social 
definitions of their identities in 
American society served as key dividing 
lines between 20th century Mexican 
American and immigrant groups – 
schisms that emboldened themselves 
with every new immigration wave that 
overtook the Southwestern states.   As 
early as 1897, outlets of Spanish-
language media joined ranks with 
Mexican immigrant communities in 
criticism and chastisement of Mexican 
Americans’ unabashed betrayal of 
‘Mother Mexico’.  One newspaper 
openly rebuked “Agringados” 
(Americanized Hispanics) in El Paso, 
Texas, who refused to observe a 
Mexican Independence Day celebration, 
stating, “To these – who negate that they 
are Mexicans because they were born in 
the United States, we ask:  what blood 
runs through their veins?” (121). 
Ironically, local Spanish media critiques 
of Mexican American assimilation, 
upward mobility, and cultural distancing 
from Mexico were equally, if not more 
blatantly, discriminatory than Anglo-
American social stigmatization.  In the 
Mexican immigrant perspective, culture 
and “blood” were the unifying tie 
between Mexicans of all social classes 
and status, regardless of birthplace.  
Mexican Americans’ deliberate 
acceptance of and allegiance to the 
United States gleamed “proud”, “stand-
offish” (129), and highly traitorous. 
Similar to Anglo-centric discrimination, 
communal conflict between Mexican 
Americans and incoming immigrants 
continue to cyclically resurface with 
each immigration influx into ‘ethnic’ 



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Hispanic neighborhoods, stoking the 
embers of Mexican American 
resentment and in turn fueling immigrant 
criticism of the generations of “pochos” 
with largely assimilated lifestyles.  The 
assertion of this added pressure from the 
other end of the cultural divide, more 
importantly, accentuated for Mexican 
Americans throughout the 20th century 
the unique complexities involved in 
forming an identity that genuinely 
defined them as a mix of both sides of 
the Southwest cultural border and a loyal 
citizen of only one.   

  Jerked ruthlessly in opposite 
directions by the “cultural riptides” of 
American society (which inspired a 
sense of cultural resentment and internal 
shame) and Mexican immigrant 
communities (which shunned their 
American-born/assimilated counterparts 
as cultural traitors), Mexican Americans 
began to culturally hybridize and forge a 
‘middle ground’ between the polarized 
ends of their identity and become a 
unique blend of two cultures that would 
later be categorized by many as being 
‘American with Mexican/Hispanic’ 
descent, rather than either/or. Rodriguez 
clarifies this cultural amalgamation 
further, explaining that Mexican 
Americans had “learned to distinguish 
between their singular patriotism to the 
United States and their increasingly 
mixed cultural identity as Mexican 
Americans,” (185).   In a stroke of keen 
social wisdom, therefore, our epic’s 
protagonists had proceeded to scrutinize 
their own national identity as people of 
color in Anglo-centric America, and 
embrace their mixed-culture status as an 
inherent part of their general identity. 
Their “Americanness” could not exist 
without the counterbalance of their 

experiences as specifically ‘Mexican-
Americans’:  cultural hybrids.   Mexican 
Americans’ hybridity, however, did not 
immediately meet widespread social 
approval or acknowledgement, nor did it 
ensure a psychologically painless 
experience for its adherents. Ironically 
struggling to distance themselves from 
embarrassingly “ethnic” elements of 
their heritage, and continue their 
assimilation into mainstream American 
culture during increasing influxes of 
Mexican immigration, 20th century 
Mexican Americans consequently 
experienced a personal identity crisis 
like no other. The Mexican American 
experience has continually illustrated a 
“mixture of conflict and cooperation 
between native- and foreign-born”, with 
Mexican Americans constantly living at 
different angles from the “immigrant 
experience” and within varying “levels 
of acculturation,” (128).  Indeed, with 
each new immigration wave the anti-
illegal immigration debate (accompanied 
by Hispanic racial stereotypes) begins 
anew, compelling modern Mexican 
Americans to once again review the 
debate from different vantage points 
over time, depending on their 
progressing assimilation level.  In 
essence, Mexican American identity 
finds itself within a constant state of 
cyclical flux: increasing numbers of 
‘foreigners’ renew dormant hostilities 
within the American population 
(regardless of race), social pressures 
inflame racial stereotypes which quickly 
target both native- and foreign-born 
ethnic groups, and finally Americanized 
ethnicities such as Mexican Americans 
must consequentially reorient 
themselves to combat the renewed threat 
to their social identity.  Interestingly, 



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Mexican Americans’ hybridized racial 
composition proved problematic for the 
United States Federal government as 
well.  From 1850 to 1920 Mexican 
Americans were categorized as “white” 
on national census polls until a 1920’s 
Nativist campaign successfully 
reclassified them as “nonwhites” and by 
so doing encouraged further racial 
injustices, segregation, and the crippling 
of Mexican American civil rights (167).  
Throughout the 20th century Mexican 
Americans quickly recognized and 
fought against the ironic possibility of 
their being accepted as neither “white” 
enough to merit 1st class citizenship, nor 
“Mexican” enough to find ready support 
amongst recent immigrants.  Ultimately, 
the social and political construct of 
“race” continues to effectively prevent 
Mexican Americans from securing an 
equal place within American society 
alongside that of their Anglo 
counterparts, a harsh commonly-ignored 
social truth that continues to confirm that 
historian Richard A. Garcia’s 
explanation of Mexican Americans’ 
historical disadvantages still applies to 
that of the modern day:   “If 
acculturation promise[s] relief, racism 
[does] not. […] The intellectual dilemma 
[is] clear:  [Mexican Americans are] not 
quite Americans, but neither [are] they 
quite Mexicans,” (137).    

Their identity having undergone 
a tumultuous evolution that continues to 
transform itself along the venues of anti-
immigrant racism, cultural/political 
activism, and even heartening instances 
of upward social and economic mobility, 
the majority of Mexican Americans 
presently find themselves inhabiting a 
place in American society that still lags 
behind the social and economic success 

of many who started the ‘race’ on the 
“right” side of the American Southwest 
border – that of White Americans/non-
Hispanics. The most current pages of the 
Mexican American epic brings our 
protagonists up to the modern day, 
where significantly low levels of 
Mexican American/Hispanic economic 
and educational success (despite notable 
progress over the years) illustrate 
history’s far-reaching damage of social 
injustice and racial inequality upon 
succeeding generations.  Ironically, the 
modern day disadvantages of 
Mexican/Hispanic American social 
status seem to be mere permutations of 
the social inequalities the group has 
continually experienced since their tale’s 
beginning, with one staunchly surviving 
commonality:  second class citizenship.  
As reported in the 2000 Census, the 
Hispanic population increased from 13.5 
million in 1990 to no less than 20.6 
million ten years later, with 58.5% of the 
Hispanic population consisting of 
Mexicans (Figure 1).  As visible in Table 
1, the foreign born population from 
Mexico accounted for 9.2 million people 
in 2000, with more than half living in 
such “gateway” immigration states 
including California, New York, and 
Texas (Map 2).  Despite their massive 
population (which significantly 
outnumbers even that of the large 
foreign-born population), Hispanic 
Americans notably crowd primarily into 
crowded urban areas.  Over 90% of 
Latino groups live in cities, with 
incoming immigrants largely 
congregated in predominately “ethnic 
neighborhoods” alongside heavy 
concentrations of native-born Hispanics 
(Healey 387, Graph 1, Map3).  As a 
result, half of the entire Hispanic 



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population lived in only two states:  
California and Texas, with Hispanics in 
East Los Angeles, CA constituting 
96.8% of the city’s entire population 
(Table 2).  Living predominately in 
lower-income urban concentrations that 
often feature such disadvantages as 
underfunded school systems, limited 
access to well-paid employment, poor 
neighborhoods, and higher crime levels, 
Hispanic Americans continue to live 
lives beginning and often remaining 
within urban poverty.  As reported in the 
2000 Census and illustrated in Table 3, 
no less than 22.6 % of the 
Hispanic/Latino population fell below 
the poverty level in 1999, whilst only a 
mere 9.1% of Whites did.   In 
accordance with these poverty levels, 
12.4% of Hispanics reported earning less 
than $10,000 for household income in 
1999, with the racial group’s median 
income placing at $33,676 (Table 5).  In 
the same vein, Hispanic/Latino 
educational attainment levels contrast 
drastically with that of Whites as well, 
with only 52.4% of Latinos and 83.6% 
of Whites graduating high school in 
2000 (Table 4).  In addition, native-born 
Hispanic Americans’ proximity to 
incoming populations of immigrants 
further escalates anti-immigrant tensions 
as well as fears of discriminatory racial 
profiling.  As historian Oscar J. Martinez 
elaborates further, incoming immigrants 
have “skewed the statistical 
socioeconomic profile of the entire 
Mexican-origin population in a 
downward direction”, and hindered 
Hispanic American progress with the 
“constant addition of – low levels of 
education, limited job skills, and little or 
no knowledge of the English language,” 
(Martinez 167).  Indeed, as other 

historians have concurred, social strife 
and discrimination against Americans of 
Hispanic descent seemingly spiral out of 
control with every fresh wave of 
immigrants that moves into Latino 
neighborhoods (as inconveniently 
pessimistic as such a reality might ring).  
Rather than bolstering communities’ 
social resources upon arrival with high 
educational levels, specialized 
skills/training, and a functional grasp of 
the local individual language, most 
Hispanic population centers contain 
millions of immigrants that collectively 
serve as unwitting sources of communal 
social vulnerability.  This is not to say, 
however, that Mexican/Hispanic 
Americans’ free choice, self-drive, 
utilization of opportunities, and personal 
responsibility has had no influence 
whatsoever on their collective levels of 
occupational success, educational 
attainment, social status, class, or 
income levels.  The influence of these 
factors, however, reign only on the most 
basic and personal level. Upon closely 
analyzing the collective history of 
Mexican Americans’ experiences within 
the United States as a whole, the keen 
eye is able to detect cyclical patterns of 
political disempowerment, racial 
stigmatizing, social inequalities, and 
economic stagnation within the Mexican 
American epic that reveal outside factors 
such as governmental legislation, Anglo-
ethnocentrism, and immigration policies 
to be the primary shapers of Hispanic 
American destiny.   

Today the turbulent epic of 
Mexican American history optimistically 
continues its search for a heroic finale – 
perhaps one in which our protagonists 
finally defeat their immortal foes of old 
(Inequality, Racism, and Stratification), 



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and stride victoriously into a new society 
as socially, politically, and racially equal 
as any other citizen. Ironically, however, 
such hopes can only be entertained upon 
the assumption that such an epic would 
actually be perused by those capable of 
affecting change:  the ordinary 
American.  This individual remains 
largely unaware of the severity, depth, 
and most importantly the singularity of 
the Mexican American historical 
experience.  Largely attributable to the 
perpetuation of Mexican Americans’ 
second-class status, the tale reviewed 
here is often not only unheard, but 
deliberately ignored.  Awareness and 
open-minded comprehension of the full 
Mexican American experience, which 
begins with their ancestors’ ironic 
“dislocation” upon lands that soon 
became Manifest Destiny’s ‘Old West’ 
playground, continuing onwards across 
the treacherous Southwest landscape of 
anti-Mexican racism, injustice, and 
social stratification, into the 20th 
century’s throes of warring allegiances 
and hybridized identity, and finally onto 
the 21st century’s traditional highway of 
silent desperation and stagnating 
progress, will ultimately empower the 
general public to detect the origins 
behind today’s crippling discrimination 
and social oppression of Hispanic 
Americans.   Hopefully, it is this 
educational empowerment of today’s 
society that will prompt the ordinary 
American, regardless of race, to write 
this epic’s triumphant final chapter at 
long last.  

 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



MEXICAN AMERICAN INEQUALITY by Tatiana Sanchez 163 
 

 

CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 153-168) 

REFERENCES 
 
Healey, Joseph F. Race, Ethnicity, 

Gender, and Class. USA:  Sage 
Publication, 2010.  Print. 

 
“Hispanic Americans.” http://history-

world.org/hispanics.htm History 
World International, n.d. Web. 13 
August 2010.   

 
Horsman, Reginald.   Race and Manifest 

Destiny:  The Origins of 
American Racial Anglo-
Saxonism.  Cambridge:  Harvard 
University Press, 1981. Print. 

 
Martinez, Oscar J. “Mixed Social 

Progress for Mexican 
Americans.” The Mexicans. Ed. 
C.J. Shane. USA:  Thomson 
Gale, 2005. 164-174. Print. 

 
Miguel, Teresa.  Yale Law Library – 

Foreign and International Blog - 
Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. 
http://blogs.law.yale.edu/blogs/fo
reign/archive/2010/02/02/treaty-
of-guadalupe-hidalgo.aspx. Yale 
Law School, Lillian Goldman 
Law Library. 2 February 2010. 
Web. 4 August 2010. 

 
Mirande, Alfredo.  Gringo Justice. Notre 

Dame:  University of Notre 
Dame Press, 1987. Print. 

 
Rodriguez, Gregory.  Mongrels, 

Bastards, Orphans, and 
Vagabonds:  Mexican 
Immigration and the Future of 
Race in America.  New York:  
Pantheon Books, 2007. Print.  

 

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; February 
2, 1848. 
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_c
entury/guadhida.asp#art1. Yale 
Law School, Lillian Goldman 
Law Library, The Avalon 
Project. n.d. Web.  4 August 
2010. 

 
U.S. Census:  U.S. Census Bureau. 

2000. Educational Attainment:  
2000. 
http://www.census.gov/prod/200
3pubs/c2kbr-24.pdf 

 
U.S. Census:  U.S. Census Bureau. 

2000. The Foreign Born 
Population. 
http://www.census.gov/prod/200
3pubs/c2kbr-34.pdf 

 
U.S. Census:  U.S. Census Bureau. 

2000. The Hispanic Population. 
http://www.census.gov/prod/200
1pubs/c2kbr01-3.pdf 

 
U.S. Census:  U.S. Census Bureau. 

2000. Household Income:  1999. 
http://www.census.gov/prod/200
5pubs/c2kbr-36.pdf 

 
U.S. Census:  U.S. Census Bureau. 

2000. Poverty:  1999. 
http://www.census.gov/prod/200
3pubs/c2kbr-19.pdf 

 
Weber, David J. “The Rights of 

Mexicans in the New American 
Southwest.” The Mexicans. Ed. 
C.J. Shane. USA:  Thomson 
Gale, 2005. 57-67. Print. 

 

http://history-world.org/hispanics.htm
http://history-world.org/hispanics.htm
http://blogs.law.yale.edu/blogs/foreign/archive/2010/02/02/treaty-of-guadalupe-hidalgo.aspx
http://blogs.law.yale.edu/blogs/foreign/archive/2010/02/02/treaty-of-guadalupe-hidalgo.aspx
http://blogs.law.yale.edu/blogs/foreign/archive/2010/02/02/treaty-of-guadalupe-hidalgo.aspx
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/guadhida.asp#art1
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/guadhida.asp#art1
http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-24.pdf
http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-24.pdf
http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-34.pdf
http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-34.pdf
http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-3.pdf
http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-3.pdf
http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/c2kbr-36.pdf
http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/c2kbr-36.pdf
http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-19.pdf
http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-19.pdf


MEXICAN AMERICAN INEQUALITY by Tatiana Sanchez 164 
 

 

CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 153-168) 

Statistical Data & Tables 
In Order of Reference 

 
Map 1:  The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) 

 
Source:  http://blogs.law.yale.edu/blogs/foreign/archive/2010/02/02/treaty-of-guadalupe-
hidalgo.aspx 
 
Figure 1:  2000 CENSUS – Percent Distribution of the Hispanic Population by Type 

 
Source:  U.S. Census Bureau, Census 200 Summary File 1 - 
http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-3.pdf 
 

http://blogs.law.yale.edu/blogs/foreign/archive/2010/02/02/treaty-of-guadalupe-hidalgo.aspx
http://blogs.law.yale.edu/blogs/foreign/archive/2010/02/02/treaty-of-guadalupe-hidalgo.aspx
http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-3.pdf


MEXICAN AMERICAN INEQUALITY by Tatiana Sanchez 165 
 

 

CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 153-168) 

Table 1:  2000 CENSUS – Top Ten Countries of Birth of the Foreign-Born 
Population 
 
Table 2. 
Top Ten Countries of Birth of the Foreign-Born 
Population: 2000 
(Data based on sample. For information on confidentiality protection, sampling error, 
nonsampling error, and definitions, see www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/doc/sf3.pdf) 
Country of birth                        Number        Percent of foreign-born                90-percent confidence interval on number 
                                                                     population 
Total foreign born . . . . .      31,107,889            100.0                                            31,080,801 - 31,134,977 
Top ten countries . . . . . . . . 18,157,587             58.4                                            18,143,429 - 18,171,745 
Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9,177,487              29.5                                              9,164,388 - 9,190,586 
China1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1,518,652              4.9                                                 1,512,463 - 1,524,841 
Philippines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1,369,070              4.4                                                 1,363,179 - 1,374,961 
India. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1,022,552              3.3                                                 1,017,431 - 1,027,673 
Vietnam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .988,174                3.2                                                    983,137 - 993,211 
Cuba2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .872,716                2.8                                                    867,973 - 877,459 
Korea3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 864,125               2.8                                                     859,405 - 868,845 
Canada4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820,771                2.6                                                     816,168 - 825,374 
El Salvador . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 817,336               2.6                                                      812,742 - 821,930 
Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 706,704               2.3                                                     702,424 - 710,984 
All other countries . . . . . . . . 12,950,302             41.6                                                12,936,144 - 12,964,460 
1 Includes those who responded China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Paracel Islands. 
2 The estimated foreign-born population from Cuba does not statistically differ from that of Korea. 
3 Includes those who responded Korea, North Korea, and South Korea. 
4 The estimated foreign-born population from Canada does not statistically differ from that of 
El Salvador. 
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000, Summary File 3. 

 
Source:  U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000, Summary File 3 - 
http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-34.pdf 

Map 2:  2000 CENSUS – The Foreign Born Population 

 

Source:  U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000 Summary File 3 - 
http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-34.pdf 

http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-34.pdf
http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-34.pdf


MEXICAN AMERICAN INEQUALITY by Tatiana Sanchez 166 
 

 

CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 153-168) 

Graph 1:  Joseph Healey – Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class – 2000 CENSUS – 
Urbanization for Non-Hispanic Whites and Six Hispanic American Groups by 
Nation or Territory of Origin (CONDENSED VERSION) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Source:  Healey, Joseph F. Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class. USA:  Sage Publication, 
2010.  (387) 

 
Map 3:  2000 CENSUS – Percent Hispanic  
Source:  U.S. Census Bureau 2000 Redistricting Data (P.L. 94-171) Summary File - 
http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-3.pdf 

 
 
 

0
20
40
60
80

100

White,
Non

H is panic

Mexico

A ll Urban A reas

L arger Urban
A reas
R ural

http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-3.pdf


MEXICAN AMERICAN INEQUALITY by Tatiana Sanchez 167 
 

 

CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 153-168) 

Table 2:  2000 CENSUS – Ten Places of 100,000 + with the Highest Percent 
Hispanic 
 
Ten Places of 100,000 or More Population With the Highest 
Percent Hispanic: 2000 
(For information on confidentiality protection, nonsampling error, and definitions, see 
www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/doc/sf1.pdf)  
 
Place and state                            Total population                Hispanic population          Percent Hispanic of total population 
East Los Angeles, CA*. . . . . .             124,283                              120,307                                          96.8 
Laredo, TX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .           176,576                              166,216                                          94.1 
Brownsville, TX . . . . . . . . . . . .            139,722                              127,535                                          91.3 
Hialeah, FL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .           226,419                             204,543                                          90.3 
McAllen, TX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .            106,414                              85,427                                           80.3 
El Paso, TX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .             563,662                             431,875                                         76.6 
Santa Ana, CA . . . . . . . . . . . . .            337,977                             257,097                                         76.1 
El Monte, CA . . . . . . . . . . . . . .            115,965                              83,945                                           72.4 
Oxnard, CA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .            10,358                             112,807                                         66.2 
Miami, FL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .            362,470                             238,351                                         65.8 
*East Los Angeles, California is a census designated place and is not legally incorporated. 

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000 Summary File 1 - 
http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-3.pdf 
 
 

Table 3:  2000 CENSUS  - Poverty of Individuals by Race and Hispanic Origin:  1999 
 
Table 6. 
Poverty of Individuals by Race and Hispanic Origin: 1999 
(For information on confidentiality protection, sampling error, nonsampling error, and definitions, 
see www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/doc/sf3.pdf) 
Characteristic                                                     Total*                     Below poverty level                         90-percent 
confidence interval 
                                                                                                          Number       Percent                               Lower                   
Upper 
All people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .         273,882,232             33,899,812        12.4                                 12.4                      
12.4 
Race 
White alone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .             206,259,768             18,847,674         9.1                                  9.1                         
9.1 
Black or African American alone. .                   32,714,224               8,146,146        24.9                                  24.9                      
24.9 
American Indian and Alaska 
Native alone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .               2,367,505                  607,734             25.7                                25.6                        
25.8 
Asian alone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .             9,979,963                  1,257,237          12.6                                12.5                        
12.7 
Native Hawaiian and Other 
Pacific Islander alone . . . . . . . . . .                364,909                       64,558              17.7                                17.4                        
18.0 
Some other race alone. . . . . . . . . .              15,100,625                   3,687,589         24.4                                24.3                        
24.5 
Two or more races . . . . . . . . . . . . .             7,095,238                     1,288,874          18.2                                18.1                        
18.3 
Hispanic or Latino (of any race) . . . .          34,450,868                    7,797,874          22.6                                22.6                         
22.6 
White alone, not Hispanic or Latino.           189,785,997                  15,414,119         8.1                                  8.1                            
8.1 
*Total refers to the number of people in the poverty universe (not the total population). For more 
details, see the text box on how poverty is measured. 

Source: Census 2000 Summary File 3 - http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-
19.pdf 

http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/doc/sf1.pdf
http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-3.pdf
http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-19.pdf
http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-19.pdf


MEXICAN AMERICAN INEQUALITY by Tatiana Sanchez 168 
 

 

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Table 4:  2000 Census – Educational Attainment of the Population 
 
Table 2. 
Educational Attainment of the Population 25 Years and Over by Age, Sex, Race, and 
Hispanic or Latino Origin: 2000 
(Data based on sample. For information on confidentiality protection, sampling error, nonsampling error, and definitions, see 
www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/doc/sf3.pdf) 
Characteristic                                       Population 25 and over   High school graduate   Some college         Bachelor’s        
Advanced  
Race and Hispanic  
or Latino Origin 
White alone... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .143,085,659                           83.6                         54.1                       26.1                   
9.5 
Black or African American alone . . . . . . .19,858,095                            72.3                        42.5                       14.3                    
4.8 
American Indian and  
Alaska Native alone . . . . . . . . .                1,350,998                              70.9                        41.7                       11.5                    
3.9 
Asian alone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,640,671                             80.4                        64.6                       44.1                   
17.4 
Native Hawaiian and  
Other Pacific Islander alone . .                206,675                                  78.3                          44.6                      13.8                     
4.1 
Some other race alone . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7,611,121                               46.8                           25.0                       7.3                      
2.3 
Two or more races. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,458,420                               73.3                          48.1                       19.6                     
7.0 
Hispanic or Latino (of any race).. . . . . . 18,270,377                              52.4                          30.3                        10.4                    
3.8 
White alone, not Hispanic or Latino.. . . 133,786,263                             85.5                          55.4                        27.0                    
9.8 

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000 Summary File 3 - 
http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-24.pdf 
  
Table 5:  2000 CENSUS – Household Income by Race and Hispanic Origin:  1999 
(CONDENSED VERSION) 
 
Table 1. 
Household Income by Race and Hispanic Origin of Householder: 1999 
(Data based on sample. For information on confidentiality protection, sampling error, nonsampling error, and definitions, 
see 
www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/doc/sf3.pdf 
Income                                         White                Black or                     Asian     Some Other Race   Two or More        Hispanic1                
White,  
                                                       African American                             alone                        Races                                      not 
Hispanic1 
 
Total households . . . . . . .   83,697,584          12,023,966                3,129,127 3,833,697               1,984,263             9,272,610      
78,983,497 
Less than $10,000 . . . . . . .          7.9                    19.1                         10.0            12.2                       13.5                    12.4                   7.6 
$200,000 or more. . . . . . . .          2.7                      0.9                          3.5              0.7                         1.4                      1.0                     2.7 
Median income (dollars). . .        44,687               29,423                      51,908       32,694                   35,587               33,676               45,367 
1Hispanics may be of any race. 

Source: Census 2000 Summary File 3 - http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/c2kbr-
36.pdf 
 
 

http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-24.pdf
http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/c2kbr-36.pdf
http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/c2kbr-36.pdf

