MAGAZINE
OCTOBER 06, 2008
CONTENTS
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* Candidates Shape Policies on Education
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tizacion that came to bloom among Mexican Americans in the 60's transforming them into Chicanos
helped to change American perceptions about Mexican Americans. While Mexican Americans knew much
about Anglo Americans, Anglo Americans knew little
about Mexican Americans. From 1848 to 1912the
period of transition for the conquest generation of
Mexicans who became Americans per the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848Mexican
Americans were regarded poorly by the American
public. So poorly, in fact, that the territories of New
Mexico and Arizona were delayed statehood until their
populations were predominantly Anglo American.
In Two Years before the Mast, Richard Henry
Dana described the Mexican Americans as an idle,
thriftless people who could make nothing for themselves (1959: 9). And in 1852, Colonel Monroe reported to Washington that the New Mexicans are
thoroughly debased and totally incapable of self-government, and there is no latent quality about them that
can ever make them respectable. They have more Indian blood than Spanish, and in some respects are below
the Pueblo Indians, for they are not as honest or as
industrious (Congressional Globe, 32nd Con-gress, 2nd
Session, January 10, 1853, Appendix, p. 104).
Four years later, W.W.H. Davis, United States
Attorney for the Territory of New Mexico, wrote a
propos his experiences with Mexican Americans that
they possess the cunning and deceit of the Indian, the
politeness and the spirit of revenge of the Spaniard, and
the imaginative temperament and fiery impulses of the
moor. He described them as smart and quick but
lacking the stability and character and soundness of
intellect that give such vast superiority to the AngloSaxon race over every other people (New Mexico and
her People, 1857, 85-86).
In 1874, General William Tecumseh Sherman qui-
pped before a committee of the House of Representatives that Mexico be prevailed upon to take back
the territory of New Mexico (Arnold L. Rodriguez,
New Mexico in Transition, New Mexico Historical
Review, XXIV, July 1949, 186). And in 1902, Senator
Albert Beveridge of Indiana objected to statehood for
the New Mexico Territory on the grounds that the
majority of people in New Mexico [could] speak only
[Spanish]. . . . Illiteracy was high and the arid
conditions of the southwest imposed serious limitations on agriculture (Robert W. Larson, New Mexicos Quest for Statehood 1846-1912, 1968: 215).
Even after 64 years as Americans, Mexican Americans were considered foreigners in their own land.
Little thought was given to the fact that Mexican
Americans were not immigrants to the United States,
that they were a territorial minority cum Americans
as a booty of war, that the border had crossed them,
and not the other way around. By the 20th century,
mainstream Americans had forgotten that as a consequence of the U.S.Mexico War of 1846-1848 Mexico
was dismembered, giving up more than half of its
territory to the United States: a territory now constituting the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona,
California, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado, as well as
parts of Wyoming, Kansas, and Oklahoma, a territory
larger than France, Spain, and Italy combined.
During the period of Americanization from 1912 to
1960, Mexican Americans fared little better despite
their efforts to become Americans. During this period,
from 1913 to 1930, more than a million and a half
Mexicans made their way north from Mexico to the
United States, owing to the destabilization of Mexico
during its civil war from 1913 to 1921. This influx of
Mexicans to the United States plus the population of
Mexicans who were part of the conquest generation
came to constitute the primary population of Mexican
Americans that has given rise to their present demographics in 21st century America.
We have no definitive count as to the numbers of
Mexicans who came with the dismembered territory.
Figures range from a low of 75,000 to 300,000. The
dismembered territory was certainly not void of population, considering the cities that were part of the
annexed territorySan Antonio, El Paso, Santa Fe and
the San Luis Valley of Colorado, Tucson, San Diego,
Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, San
Francisco, and Pueblo, Colorado, not counting the
hundreds of smaller communities dotting the landscape.
tioned a Chicano Caucus, as had the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese. It
appeared that the Chicano voice was gaining in
volume. It also appeared that conceptions of Chicanos
were changing. Helping that change along was establishment of La Luz magazine in Denver in 1972, the
first Hispanic public affairs magazine in English,
organized by Dan Valdes as Publisher and me as Associate Publisher. Over the ten years of my tenure with
La Luz we published dozens of pieces by Chicanos in
various genres. In 1973 Washington Square Press
brought out my anthology of We Are Chicanos which
included many of the early luminaries of the Chicano
Renaissance.
hile there was headway in making the Chicano presence in American society more
visible, Chicano venues began to shrink as
that visibility gave more prominence to Chicanos who
became more attractive to mainstream purveyors. By
the 1990's Chicano venues for literary production had
dwindled to a handful from what had been hundreds of
ephemeral garage presses intent on promoting the
jinetes of Chicano literature. By the 1990's there had
not been a dramatic integration of Chicano perspectives into the academic disciplines. The dozens of
Chicano Studies programs (including those that were
departments) dwindled as well to a few, although today
there are two doctoral programs in Chicano Studies.
Nevertheless, since the 1990's there has been a retreat
from using Chicano Studies as a disciplinary anchor for
promulgating the story of Chicanos in America.
Chicano Studies has become a subset of Hispanic
Studies and Latino Studies, seemingly more palatable
terms than Chicano Studies much the way the term
Latin American became a more palatable term than
Mexican American when the League of United Latin
American Citizens (LULAC) was organized in Corpus
Christi, Texas, in 1929. The term Chicano has been
lost in the lexicon of Hispanicity and Latinismo. More
attention seems to be paid now to members of Hispanic
groups in the United States with minimal population
numbers compared to the 30 million Mexican
Americans currently in the U.S. population (not counting the purported numbers of undocumented Mexicans
in the country). Of the 45 million American Hispanics
count-ed in the Census, two-thirds of them (66 percent)
are Mexican Americans.
The subalternization of Chicanos in Hispanic or
Latino Studies emphasizes the point: Why Chicano