CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 153-168) 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 MEXICAN AMERICAN INEQUALITY by Tatiana Sanchez 154 CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 153-168) 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 MEXICAN AMERICAN INEQUALITY by Tatiana Sanchez 155 CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 153-168) 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 MEXICAN AMERICAN INEQUALITY by Tatiana Sanchez 156 CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 153-168) 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 MEXICAN AMERICAN INEQUALITY by Tatiana Sanchez 157 CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 153-168) 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 MEXICAN AMERICAN INEQUALITY by Tatiana Sanchez 158 CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 153-168) 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’ MEXICAN AMERICAN INEQUALITY by Tatiana Sanchez 159 CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 153-168) 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, MEXICAN AMERICAN INEQUALITY by Tatiana Sanchez 160 CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 153-168) 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 MEXICAN AMERICAN INEQUALITY by Tatiana Sanchez 161 CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 153-168) 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), MEXICAN AMERICAN INEQUALITY by Tatiana Sanchez 162 CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 153-168) 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 CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 153-168) 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