The Ethnicity of Mexians in the United States

The Ethnicity of Mexians in the United States

For centuries, Mexican Americans have dealt with an enormous amount of hardships that date back to their early Aztec roots. The source of many problems in Mexican American history can be traced in the pre-colonial period, before the United States of America was even conceived. Major problems of this era in history not only affected the Aztecs, but also the following generations of Aztec and Mexican descent, and continue to have an impact on their descendents in contemporary American society.

Beginning in the fifteenth century with the arrival of Columbus, natives of the Americas were infected with European diseases that proved to be deadly to the Indians. The population in northern Mexico suffered an immense decimation of 2,500,000 peoples to less than 320,000 by the end of the sixteenth century (Vargas, 30). The Spaniards’ cruel treatment of the natives aided this vast reduction in the Aztec and Mexican population, enabling the Spaniards to conquer the lands of the Aztecs and other native tribes. By the end of the sixteenth century, the Spaniards had expanded their conquests into the southwest region of what is now known as the United States of America.

In the years following the Spanish conquests, the southwest region of the United States developed into Spanish colonial territory. Indians, Spaniards, and blacks occupied this territory in which the shortage of Spanish women led to the miscegenation of these cultures. The result of mixing these races was a homogenization of the people of various cultures that came to be called mestizos and mulattos who, like present day Mexican Americans, inherited two distinct cultures that would make their culture rich, yet somewhat confusi...

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...n, Gonzalez states his identity; "I am Aztec Prince and Christian Christ." This combination of culture is the basis of his poem, which can be found at http://www.pbs.org/chicano/joaquin.html, and is representative of the heritage of Mexican Americans. The concept of Aztlan is explained in Chicano!, and the mural ‘Corazon de Aztlan,’ found in Chicano Park (http://chicanopark.org/murals/north/n8.html ), reinforces the importance of this image in the lives of Chicanos. The myth of Aztlan symbolizes centuries of culture and struggles of Mexican Americans who went through incredibly difficult times throughout history, but never lost hope and always stayed strong, determined to one day be treated equally as citizens of the United States of America.

WORKS CITED

Vargas, Zaragosa. Major Problems in Mexican American History. (Boston, MA:Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999).