Anti-Mexican sentiment
Encyclopedia
Anti-Mexican sentiment is a fear
, distrust
, stereotype
, hostility
and aversion
of people of Mexican
descent, Mexican culture and/or the Spanish language
. It is mostly associated with Mexican Americans in the United States
.
In general it is closely associated with Hispanophobia
, racism
(the historic American prejudices on Mexicans as a "people of color" ) and anti-Catholic sentiment because some of the stereotypes between them are very similar.
.
. This treaty required Mexico to cede over half its land to the United States in exchange for 15 million dollars. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo also guaranteed that Mexican citizens living in ceded lands would retain property rights and would be given United States citizenship if they remained in ceded lands for at least one year. However, the property rights of Mexicans were ignored by the United States government and local officials. Mexicans were systematically forced from lands which their families had held for generations in many cases. Thereby reneging on the very terms promised in the treaty (by the USA to Mexico) which ended the war.
The lynching of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the Southwest has long been overlooked in American history. This may be because most historical records categorized Mexican, Chinese, and Native American lynching victims as white. Statistics of reported lynching in the United States indicate that, between 1882 and 1951, 4,730 persons were lynched, of whom 1,293 were white and 3,437 were black. The actual known amount of Mexicans lynched is unknown.
It is estimated that at least 597 Mexicans were lynched between 1848 and 1928 (this is a conservative estimate due to lack of records in many reported lynchings). Mexicans were lynched at a rate of 27.4 per 100,000 of population between 1880 and 1930. This statistic is second only to that of the African American community during that period, which suffered an average of 37.1 per 100,000 population. Between 1848 to 1879, Mexicans were lynched at an unprecedented rate of 473 per 100,000 of population. These lynchings cannot be excused as merely "frontier justice"--of the 597 total victims, only 64 were lynched in areas which lacked a formal judicial system.
During the California
Gold Rush
, as many as 25,000 Mexicans arrived in California. Many of these Mexicans were experienced miners and had great success mining gold in California. Some Anglos perceived their success as a threat and intimidated Mexican miners with violence. Between 1848 and 1860, at least 163 Mexicans were lynched in California alone. One particularly infamous lynching occurred on July 5, 1851 when a Mexican woman named Josefa Segovia was lynched by a mob in Downieville, California
. She was accused of killing a white man who had attempted to assault her after breaking into her home.
The Texas Rangers
were also known to brutally repress the Mexican-American population in Texas. Historians estimate that hundreds, perhaps even thousands of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were killed by the Texas Rangers.
Anti-Mexican mob violence and intimidation resulted in Mexicans being displaced from their lands, denied access to natural resources, and becoming politically disenfranchised.
The Bisbee Deportation
was the illegal deportation of about 1,300 striking mine workers, their supporters, and citizen bystanders by 2,000 vigilantes on July 12, 1917. The workers and others were kidnapped in the U.S. town of Bisbee, Arizona
and held at a local baseball park. They were then loaded onto cattle cars and transported 200 miles (320 km) for 16 hours through the desert without food or water. The deportees were unloaded at Hermanas, New Mexico, without money or transportation, and warned not to return to Bisbee.
program which was intended to pressure people to move to Mexico, but many were deported against their will. More than 500,000 individuals were deported, one source estimates that approximately 60 percent of which were United States citizens. In the post-war McCarthy era, the Justice Department launched Operation Wetback
.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/7083,news-comment,news-politics,how-mexican-immigration-inspired-the-nazis
, between 250,000 and 500,000 Hispanic Americans served in the Armed Forces during World War II. Thus, Hispanic Americans comprised 2.3% to 4.7% of the Army. The exact number, however is unknown as at the time Hispanics were classified as whites. Generally Mexican American World War II servicemen were integrated into regular military units. However, many Mexican American war veterans were discriminated against and even denied medical services by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs
when they arrived home. In 1948, war veteran Dr Hector P. Garcia
founded the American GI Forum
to address the concerns of Mexican American veterans who were being discriminated against. The AGIF's first campaign was on the behalf of Felix Longoria
, a Mexican American private who was killed in the Philippines
in the line of duty. Upon the return of his body to his hometown of Three Rivers, Texas
, he was denied funeral services because he was Mexican American.
In the 1940s, imagery in newspapers and crime novels portrayed Mexican American zoot suit
ers as disloyal foreigners or murderers attacking White-Anglo police officers and servicemen. Anti-zoot suiters sentiment sparked a series of attacks on young Mexican American males in Los Angeles which became known as the Zoot Suit Riots
. The worst of the rioting occurred on June 9, during which 5,000 servicemen and civilians gathered in downtown Los Angeles and attacked Mexican-American zoot suiters and non-zoot suiters alike. The rioting eventually spread to the predominantly African American
neighborhood of Watts
.
Mexican American school children were subject to racial segregation in the public school system. They were forced to attend "Mexican schools" in California. In 1947, the Mendez v. Westminster
ruling declared that racially segregating children of "Mexican and Latin descent" in state-operated public schools in Orange County
and the state of California
was unconstitutional. This ruling helped lay the foundation for the landmark Brown v Board of Education case which ended racial segregation in the public school system.
Supreme Court ruling declared that Mexican Americans and other cultural groups in the United States were entitled to equal protection under the 14th Amendment
of the U.S. Constitution
.
Many organizations, businesses, and homeowners associations had official policies to exclude Mexican Americans. In many areas across the Southwest, Mexican Americans lived in separate residential areas, due to laws and real estate company policies. This group of laws and policies, known as redlining
, lasted until the 1950s, and fall under the concept of official segregation. In many other instances, it was more of a general social understanding among Anglos that Mexicans should be excluded. For instance, signs with the phrase "No Dogs or Mexicans" were posted in small businesses and public pools throughout the Southwest well into the 60s.
on August 18, 1976, when three campesinos
were attacked crossing a ranch belonging to Douglas dairyman George Hanigan. The three were kidnapped, stripped, and hogtied; one had his feet burned. They were left for dead on the Sonoran desert
floor but managed to return to Agua Prieta, Sonora, where they lodged formal complaints against George Hanigan and his two sons. The father died of a heart attack, and after three trials one of the Hanigan sons was convicted in federal court, and the other was found not guilty.
, tolerance
and antiracism in the U.S., Mexican Americans continued to experience direct racism and some level of media stereotypes branded them as foreign (unassimilated), urban criminals, overmasculine, oversexed and even undesirable. Also, the politically charged issue of giving amnesty to undocumented immigrants was opposed by mainly conservative political circles.
In 1994, California state voters approved Proposition 187
by a wide majority, the initiative allowed state provided services from public education to private medical hospitals to examine any patient or client's citizenship status. Many Mexican-Americans opposed such measures as reminisicent of pre-civil rights era ethnic discrimination and even denounced these actions as illegal under state and federal laws, as well international law
when it involves the rights of foreign nationals in other countries. The proposition was brought to attention to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
in San Francisco, in which the Proposition was declared void for reasons that the state voter-approved law was unconstitutional.
organizations. In 2006, it was revealed that Laine Lawless, former Minuteman Project member and founder of Border Guardians (an anti-illegal immigration organization), sent e-mails to leaders of the National Socialist Movement (a neo-nazi organization) in which she encouraged violence against "illegals" and Spanish speaking
individuals.
According to FBI statistics, the number of anti-Mexico hate crimes increased by 35 percent since 2003.
In 2010, for instance, a Phoenix man named Gary Kelley shot (and killed) his neighbor, Juan Verela, after yelling, “Go back to Mexico or die!”"
Juan Verela was a 5th generation American citizen.
In July of 2008, Ramirez, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, was beaten to death by several young men in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania while walking home one evening. Witnesses reported that the assailants yelled racial epithets at Ramirez as they attacked him. Luis' (white) fiance & mother of his two children, Crystal Dillman was quoted as saying,“I think they might get off,” she said of the four teenagers, “because Luis was an illegal Mexican and these are ‘all-American boys’ on the football team who get good grades, or whatever they’re saying about them. They’ll find some way to let them go.”
Brandon Piekarsky, 17, and Derrick Donchak, 19, received 7- to 23-month sentences for their roles in the brutal murder of 25-year-old Mexican immigrant Luis Ramirez.
In California, the state with the largest Mexican and Mexican-American population, the number of hate crimes against Mexicans has almost doubled. The anti-Mexican feelings can also be found among other Latino American nationalities in the USA. This statistic has been challenged by the anti-immigration
Federation for American Immigration Reform
for selecting a base year (2003) in which anti-Latino hate crimes were reported at an unusually low level and for not indexing the increase with the corresponding increase in the Hispanic population.
There have been many criticisms toward ICE & various politicans on what has been perceived by some as anti-Mexican speech or actions.
In modern times, organizations such as neo-nazis, white supremacist groups, American nationalist, and nativist groups have all been known and continue to intimidate, harass and advocate the use of violence
towards Mexican Americans. Ethnic slurs such as "wetback
", "dogs" (as described by a member of the Houston Independent School District
's Board of Trustees), "spick" or "spic", "dirty Mexican", "beaner", "illegal", or "bandito" have been used.
Fear
Fear is a distressing negative sensation induced by a perceived threat. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of danger...
, distrust
Distrust
Distrust is a formal way of not trusting any one party too much in a situation of grave risk or deep doubt. It is commonly expressed in civics as a division or balance of powers, or in politics as means of validating treaty terms. Systems based on distrust simply divide the responsibility so that...
, stereotype
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
, hostility
Hostility
Hostility is a form of angry internal rejection or denial in psychology. It is a part of personal construct psychology, developed by George Kelly...
and aversion
Aversion
Aversion is a horror film about a private investigator who discovers too late that the woman he is hired to follow is often possessed by a demon. Alex Stokes is a self-destructive, down-on-his-luck investigator who takes cases wherever he can. When a mysterious man offers him a healthy sum to...
of people of Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
descent, Mexican culture and/or the Spanish language
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
. It is mostly associated with Mexican Americans in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
In general it is closely associated with Hispanophobia
Hispanophobia
Hispanophobia is a fear, distrust, aversion, or discrimination of Hispanic people, Hispanic culture and the Spanish language. Its opposite is Hispanophilia...
, racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
(the historic American prejudices on Mexicans as a "people of color" ) and anti-Catholic sentiment because some of the stereotypes between them are very similar.
Background
Throughout U.S. history, some Americans have circulated negative stereotypes regarding Mexican Americans. Such stereotypes have long circulated in film and other mediaMass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
.
1840s to 1920s
After the United States' victory over Mexico in the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), Mexico was forced to sign the Treaty of Guadalupe HidalgoTreaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is the peace treaty, largely dictated by the United States to the interim government of a militarily occupied Mexico City, that ended the Mexican-American War on February 2, 1848...
. This treaty required Mexico to cede over half its land to the United States in exchange for 15 million dollars. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo also guaranteed that Mexican citizens living in ceded lands would retain property rights and would be given United States citizenship if they remained in ceded lands for at least one year. However, the property rights of Mexicans were ignored by the United States government and local officials. Mexicans were systematically forced from lands which their families had held for generations in many cases. Thereby reneging on the very terms promised in the treaty (by the USA to Mexico) which ended the war.
The lynching of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the Southwest has long been overlooked in American history. This may be because most historical records categorized Mexican, Chinese, and Native American lynching victims as white. Statistics of reported lynching in the United States indicate that, between 1882 and 1951, 4,730 persons were lynched, of whom 1,293 were white and 3,437 were black. The actual known amount of Mexicans lynched is unknown.
It is estimated that at least 597 Mexicans were lynched between 1848 and 1928 (this is a conservative estimate due to lack of records in many reported lynchings). Mexicans were lynched at a rate of 27.4 per 100,000 of population between 1880 and 1930. This statistic is second only to that of the African American community during that period, which suffered an average of 37.1 per 100,000 population. Between 1848 to 1879, Mexicans were lynched at an unprecedented rate of 473 per 100,000 of population. These lynchings cannot be excused as merely "frontier justice"--of the 597 total victims, only 64 were lynched in areas which lacked a formal judicial system.
During the California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
Gold Rush
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
, as many as 25,000 Mexicans arrived in California. Many of these Mexicans were experienced miners and had great success mining gold in California. Some Anglos perceived their success as a threat and intimidated Mexican miners with violence. Between 1848 and 1860, at least 163 Mexicans were lynched in California alone. One particularly infamous lynching occurred on July 5, 1851 when a Mexican woman named Josefa Segovia was lynched by a mob in Downieville, California
Downieville, California
Downieville is a census-designated place in and the county seat of Sierra County, California, United States. Downieville sits at an elevation of...
. She was accused of killing a white man who had attempted to assault her after breaking into her home.
The Texas Rangers
Texas Ranger Division
The Texas Ranger Division, commonly called the Texas Rangers, is a law enforcement agency with statewide jurisdiction in Texas, and is based in Austin, Texas...
were also known to brutally repress the Mexican-American population in Texas. Historians estimate that hundreds, perhaps even thousands of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were killed by the Texas Rangers.
Anti-Mexican mob violence and intimidation resulted in Mexicans being displaced from their lands, denied access to natural resources, and becoming politically disenfranchised.
The Bisbee Deportation
Bisbee Deportation
The Bisbee Deportation was the illegal deportation of about 1,300 striking mine workers, their supporters, and citizen bystanders by 2,000 vigilantes on July 12, 1917. The workers and others were kidnapped in the U.S. town of Bisbee, Arizona and held at a local baseball park. They were then loaded...
was the illegal deportation of about 1,300 striking mine workers, their supporters, and citizen bystanders by 2,000 vigilantes on July 12, 1917. The workers and others were kidnapped in the U.S. town of Bisbee, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
and held at a local baseball park. They were then loaded onto cattle cars and transported 200 miles (320 km) for 16 hours through the desert without food or water. The deportees were unloaded at Hermanas, New Mexico, without money or transportation, and warned not to return to Bisbee.
1930s
The Mexican American community has been the subject of widespread immigration raids. During The Great Depression, the United States government sponsored a Mexican RepatriationMexican Repatriation
The Mexican Repatriation refers to a mass migration that took place between 1929 and 1939, when as many as 500,000 people of Mexican descent were forced or pressured to leave the US. The event, carried out by American authorities, took place without due process. Some 35,000 were deported, amongst...
program which was intended to pressure people to move to Mexico, but many were deported against their will. More than 500,000 individuals were deported, one source estimates that approximately 60 percent of which were United States citizens. In the post-war McCarthy era, the Justice Department launched Operation Wetback
Operation Wetback
Operation Wetback was a 1954 operation by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service to remove illegal immigrants, mostly Mexican nationals from the southwestern United States.-History:...
.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/7083,news-comment,news-politics,how-mexican-immigration-inspired-the-nazis
1940s
According to the National World War II MuseumNational World War II Museum
The National World War II Museum, formerly known as the National D-Day Museum, is a museum located in the Central Business District of New Orleans, Louisiana, at the corner of Andrew Higgins Boulevard and Magazine Street. It focuses on the contribution made by the United States to victory by the...
, between 250,000 and 500,000 Hispanic Americans served in the Armed Forces during World War II. Thus, Hispanic Americans comprised 2.3% to 4.7% of the Army. The exact number, however is unknown as at the time Hispanics were classified as whites. Generally Mexican American World War II servicemen were integrated into regular military units. However, many Mexican American war veterans were discriminated against and even denied medical services by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs
United States Department of Veterans Affairs
The United States Department of Veterans Affairs is a government-run military veteran benefit system with Cabinet-level status. It is the United States government’s second largest department, after the United States Department of Defense...
when they arrived home. In 1948, war veteran Dr Hector P. Garcia
Hector P. Garcia
Hector Perez Garcia was a Mexican-American physician, surgeon, World War II veteran, civil rights advocate, and founder of the American G.I. Forum. As a result of the national prominence he earned through his work on behalf of Hispanic Americans, he was instrumental in the appointment of Mexican...
founded the American GI Forum
American GI Forum
The American G.I. Forum is a Congressionally chartered Hispanic veterans and civil rights organization. Its motto is "Education is Our Freedom and Freedom should be Everybody's Business". AGIF currently operates chapters throughout the United States, with a focus on veteran's issues, education,...
to address the concerns of Mexican American veterans who were being discriminated against. The AGIF's first campaign was on the behalf of Felix Longoria
Felix Longoria
Pvt. Felix Z. Longoria , a soldier, who served in the United States Army during World War II and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.-Personal:In November 1944 Felix Z...
, a Mexican American private who was killed in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
in the line of duty. Upon the return of his body to his hometown of Three Rivers, Texas
Three Rivers, Texas
Three Rivers is a city in Live Oak County, Texas, United States. The population was 1,878 at the 2000 census.The city is named for its proximity to three rivers, the Atascosa River, the Frio River, and the Nueces River...
, he was denied funeral services because he was Mexican American.
In the 1940s, imagery in newspapers and crime novels portrayed Mexican American zoot suit
Zoot suit
A zoot suit is a suit with high-waisted, wide-legged, tight-cuffed, pegged trousers, and a long coat with wide lapels and wide padded shoulders. This style of clothing was popularized by African Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Italian Americans during the late 1930s and the 1940s...
ers as disloyal foreigners or murderers attacking White-Anglo police officers and servicemen. Anti-zoot suiters sentiment sparked a series of attacks on young Mexican American males in Los Angeles which became known as the Zoot Suit Riots
Zoot Suit Riots
The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots in 1943 during World War II that erupted in Los Angeles, California between white sailors and Marines stationed throughout thehi c mlc city and Latino youths, who were recognizable by the zoot suits they favored...
. The worst of the rioting occurred on June 9, during which 5,000 servicemen and civilians gathered in downtown Los Angeles and attacked Mexican-American zoot suiters and non-zoot suiters alike. The rioting eventually spread to the predominantly African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
neighborhood of Watts
Watts, Los Angeles, California
Watts is a mostly residential neighborhood in South Los Angeles, California.-History:The area now known as Watts is located on the Rancho La Tajauta Mexican land grant...
.
Mexican American school children were subject to racial segregation in the public school system. They were forced to attend "Mexican schools" in California. In 1947, the Mendez v. Westminster
Mendez v. Westminster
Mendez, et al v. Westminster School District, et al, 64 F.Supp. 544 , aff'd, 161 F.2d 774 , was a 1946 federal court case that challenged racial segregation in Orange County, California schools...
ruling declared that racially segregating children of "Mexican and Latin descent" in state-operated public schools in Orange County
Orange County, California
Orange County is a county in the U.S. state of California. Its county seat is Santa Ana. As of the 2010 census, its population was 3,010,232, up from 2,846,293 at the 2000 census, making it the third most populous county in California, behind Los Angeles County and San Diego County...
and the state of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
was unconstitutional. This ruling helped lay the foundation for the landmark Brown v Board of Education case which ended racial segregation in the public school system.
1950s-1960s
In many counties in the southwestern United States, Mexican Americans were not selected as jurors in court cases which involved a Mexican American defendant. In 1954, Pete Hernandez, an agricultural worker, was indicted of murder by an all-Anglo jury in Jackson County, Texas. Hernandez believed that the jury could not be impartial unless members of other races were allowed on the jury-selecting committees, seeing that a Mexican American had not been on a jury for more than 25 years in that particular county. Hernandez and his lawyers decided to take the case to the Supreme Court. The Hernandez v. TexasHernandez v. Texas
Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 , was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that decided that Mexican Americans and all other racial groups in the United States had equal protection under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution....
Supreme Court ruling declared that Mexican Americans and other cultural groups in the United States were entitled to equal protection under the 14th Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
of the U.S. Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
.
Many organizations, businesses, and homeowners associations had official policies to exclude Mexican Americans. In many areas across the Southwest, Mexican Americans lived in separate residential areas, due to laws and real estate company policies. This group of laws and policies, known as redlining
Redlining
Redlining is the practice of denying, or increasing the cost of services such as banking, insurance, access to jobs, access to health care, or even supermarkets to residents in certain, often racially determined, areas. The term "redlining" was coined in the late 1960s by John McKnight, a...
, lasted until the 1950s, and fall under the concept of official segregation. In many other instances, it was more of a general social understanding among Anglos that Mexicans should be excluded. For instance, signs with the phrase "No Dogs or Mexicans" were posted in small businesses and public pools throughout the Southwest well into the 60s.
1970s
One of the most vicious cases occurred at the U.S.-Mexico border west of Douglas, ArizonaDouglas, Arizona
Douglas is a city in Cochise County, Arizona, United States. Douglas has a border crossing with Mexico and a history of mining.The population was 14,312 at the 2000 census...
on August 18, 1976, when three campesinos
Farmworker
A farmworker is a person hired to work in the agricultural industry. This includes work on farms of all sizes, from small, family-run businesses to large industrial agriculture operations...
were attacked crossing a ranch belonging to Douglas dairyman George Hanigan. The three were kidnapped, stripped, and hogtied; one had his feet burned. They were left for dead on the Sonoran desert
Sonoran Desert
The Sonoran Desert is a North American desert which straddles part of the United States-Mexico border and covers large parts of the U.S. states of Arizona and California and the northwest Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur. It is one of the largest and hottest...
floor but managed to return to Agua Prieta, Sonora, where they lodged formal complaints against George Hanigan and his two sons. The father died of a heart attack, and after three trials one of the Hanigan sons was convicted in federal court, and the other was found not guilty.
1980s-1990s
Despite cultural emphasis on diversityMulticulturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
, tolerance
Toleration
Toleration is "the practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which one disapproves. One can meaningfully speak of tolerating, ie of allowing or permitting, only if one is in a position to disallow”. It has also been defined as "to bear or endure" or "to nourish, sustain or preserve"...
and antiracism in the U.S., Mexican Americans continued to experience direct racism and some level of media stereotypes branded them as foreign (unassimilated), urban criminals, overmasculine, oversexed and even undesirable. Also, the politically charged issue of giving amnesty to undocumented immigrants was opposed by mainly conservative political circles.
In 1994, California state voters approved Proposition 187
California Proposition 187 (1994)
California Proposition 187 was a 1994 ballot initiative to establish a state-run citizenship screening system and prohibit illegal aliens from using health care, public education, and other social services in the U.S. State of California...
by a wide majority, the initiative allowed state provided services from public education to private medical hospitals to examine any patient or client's citizenship status. Many Mexican-Americans opposed such measures as reminisicent of pre-civil rights era ethnic discrimination and even denounced these actions as illegal under state and federal laws, as well international law
International law
Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...
when it involves the rights of foreign nationals in other countries. The proposition was brought to attention to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is a U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* District of Alaska* District of Arizona...
in San Francisco, in which the Proposition was declared void for reasons that the state voter-approved law was unconstitutional.
Present
Other organizations seeking to apprehend immigrants that have crossed into the United States illegally have also been accused of discrimination. It has recently been reported that members of Neo-Nazi organizations have participated in demonstrations by the Minuteman Project and other anti-immigrationImmigration reduction
Immigration reduction refers to a movement in the United States that advocates a reduction in the amount of immigration allowed into the country. Steps advocated for reducing the numbers of immigrants include advocating stronger action to prevent illegal entry and illegal immigration, and...
organizations. In 2006, it was revealed that Laine Lawless, former Minuteman Project member and founder of Border Guardians (an anti-illegal immigration organization), sent e-mails to leaders of the National Socialist Movement (a neo-nazi organization) in which she encouraged violence against "illegals" and Spanish speaking
individuals.
According to FBI statistics, the number of anti-Mexico hate crimes increased by 35 percent since 2003.
In 2010, for instance, a Phoenix man named Gary Kelley shot (and killed) his neighbor, Juan Verela, after yelling, “Go back to Mexico or die!”"
Juan Verela was a 5th generation American citizen.
In July of 2008, Ramirez, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, was beaten to death by several young men in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania while walking home one evening. Witnesses reported that the assailants yelled racial epithets at Ramirez as they attacked him. Luis' (white) fiance & mother of his two children, Crystal Dillman was quoted as saying,“I think they might get off,” she said of the four teenagers, “because Luis was an illegal Mexican and these are ‘all-American boys’ on the football team who get good grades, or whatever they’re saying about them. They’ll find some way to let them go.”
Brandon Piekarsky, 17, and Derrick Donchak, 19, received 7- to 23-month sentences for their roles in the brutal murder of 25-year-old Mexican immigrant Luis Ramirez.
In California, the state with the largest Mexican and Mexican-American population, the number of hate crimes against Mexicans has almost doubled. The anti-Mexican feelings can also be found among other Latino American nationalities in the USA. This statistic has been challenged by the anti-immigration
Immigration reduction
Immigration reduction refers to a movement in the United States that advocates a reduction in the amount of immigration allowed into the country. Steps advocated for reducing the numbers of immigrants include advocating stronger action to prevent illegal entry and illegal immigration, and...
Federation for American Immigration Reform
Federation for American Immigration Reform
The Federation for American Immigration Reform is a non-profit tax exempt educational organization in the United States that advocates changes in U.S. immigration policy that would result in significant reductions in immigration, both legal and illegal...
for selecting a base year (2003) in which anti-Latino hate crimes were reported at an unusually low level and for not indexing the increase with the corresponding increase in the Hispanic population.
There have been many criticisms toward ICE & various politicans on what has been perceived by some as anti-Mexican speech or actions.
In modern times, organizations such as neo-nazis, white supremacist groups, American nationalist, and nativist groups have all been known and continue to intimidate, harass and advocate the use of violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
towards Mexican Americans. Ethnic slurs such as "wetback
Wetback (slur)
"Wetback" is a person of any foreign nationality, the usual being a Mexican who are illegal immigrants in the United States. Generally used as an ethnic slur, the term was originally coined and applied only to Mexicans who entered Texas by crossing the Rio Grande river, which is the Mexican...
", "dogs" (as described by a member of the Houston Independent School District
Houston Independent School District
The Houston Independent School District is the largest public school system in Texas and the seventh-largest in the United States. Houston ISD serves as a community school district for most of the city of Houston and several nearby and insular municipalities...
's Board of Trustees), "spick" or "spic", "dirty Mexican", "beaner", "illegal", or "bandito" have been used.