Have you ever been stripped of your heritage and treated like a foreigner in your own homeland? Hopefully not, but if you’re a Mexican American citizen then you may have an idea of what it’s like to be treated in such a manner. For many years, what is now considered to be the Southwest United States, was owned and inhabited my Mexican citizens. These people had lived on this land for generations, many making a living raising cattle and cultivating the land. However, due to Mexico’s loss in a in the Mexican American War, the country was forced to give approximately half of its land to the United States. According to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the inhabitants of the newly acquired land were to become citizens of the United States, and were …show more content…
Due to the fact that they had originally obtained the land through Mexican and Spanish laws United States courts did not recognize their ownership of the land, and many lost their homelands1. These Mexican Americans lost land, which had belonged to their families for generations, and where many of their ancestors had been left to rest in peace1. Essentially they were stripped of their birth right and were left with practically nothing1. The film, Chicano! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, episode 1: Quest for a Homeland, discusses how Mexican American citizens or Chicanos came together to fight for their homelands, the difficulties they faced doing so, and it argues that Chicanos deserve to have the land that was taken from them, and the right to be treated equal to other American …show more content…
It did not take much time after the US obtained this new land that thousands of Chicanos lost their homelands. These Native citizens had already gained the ownership of their property through Spanish or Mexican law, however, due to the fact that United States courts did not recognize these laws these natives were stripped of their land. According to a prominent Chicano activist, Reyes Lopez Tijerina, the United states had unlawfully taken away these citizens’ land. Tijerina debates that, after the Mexican American war the United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which promises these native free enjoyment of their property. However, by stripping the land from these natives the United States is going against the promise it made in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, of allowing natives to enjoy their land or property. By going against this treaty the United States is going against its own laws, because due to the United States Constitution, article twelve, section two, which states that all treaties created by the United States are the supreme law, the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is a law1.
Another example to demonstrate why some of the land was taken unlawfully was signing of the Tierra Maria Grant. This grant sold a large amount of land that belonged to many heirs, however, the grant
When the U.S. took over the land, they offered citizenship to the residents as part of the treaty ending the Mexican-American War. Things weren’t good for them; they didn’t have equal treatment. Many lost their lands due to unfamiliar American laws and when they lost their land, they lost their status as well. They were not treated as equals of Anglo citizens. They had separate restaurants and even separate schools.
The land of the Native Indians had been encroached upon by American settlers. By the
got their land from Mexico through war. The war with Mexico killed many people for the United States personal benefit of getting more land. At the beginning of the essay we had one question, was the United States justified in going to war with Mexico. The answer to this debatable question was that the United States did not have a good reason to go to war with Mexico, This was proven by the Manifest Destiny showed that “God’s” words told the U.S. to go out and take other people's land, which is totally wrong. Next border disputes occurred leading the U.S. to use it as an excuse to start the war with Mexico. And lastly the American viewpoint showed that the U.S. did not follow the laws of having Texas as a slave free place. These topics all show that the United States had to use something to make an excuse to start the war since they had no good reason to do
learn new laws, the official language which was English, and prove the land they lived on belonged to them. This is where the language barrier, lack of knowledge of their rights, and lack of representation played against them. According to American Law, the US did not recognize documentation written in Spanish. The Mexican Americans would have to convert their documents to English and find a lawyer to...
First of all, they would not agree with the ownership of land section, as Native Americans believed that land could not belong to individuals in the first place. The African Americans in the Declaration of Wrongs and Rights also say “as natives of American soil” when in reality, the true natives of the land were the Native Americans. Also, the document continues to talk about how African Americans claim the right to remain in said lands. Native Americans were moved from their native lands several times. The Homestead Act in 1862 could be seen as an example, new settlers were encouraged to take “free soil” but at the same time move over Native American settlers. Another example of this can be seen with the Osage who already lived on a reserve, they had already been removed and deported. Railroad companies wanted to use their land and were willing to pay for it. Then another railroad company saw the same opportunity and tried to convince them to move. The Osage refused to move and then the government intervened with the 1870’s removal law, which moved the Osage and sold their land for 1.25 dollars an acre. Eventually the situation got better for the Osage since there was oil in their new lands. Another example of this would be the concentration attempts of the Lakota. It nevertheless made sense to the authors since African
However, during the Mexican-American War the conquest of the Mexican lands that are now the southwest part of the U.S. was a trophy. The victory of the U.S armed forces allowed them to push down the border 100 miles that is now near El Rio Grande. The borderline is a constant reminder of the Mexicans loses in the war and of the land they lost Gloria describes the border as an open wound “herrida abierta.” Gradually Mexican citizens were driven of their lands back to the core of Mexico that is called Mexico City because of the invasion. Through the invasion white superiorities converted foreigners from natives. In addition to the Mexican American War, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed and executed and left 100,000 Mexicans with land but the land was hoodwinked from its owners therefore the treaty was not honored by the U.S. The fact that they didn’t honor a treaty they signed on is dishonest and devious of the United States there was definite white superiority behind that deception. The U.S believed that since they already have most of the land
The Chicano and Black Power movement’s call for self-determination emerged due to the broken promises made to them by the American Government. After the Mexican-American War, the Treaty of Guadalupe was supposed to provide Mexican Americans with protection of their land and certain rights such as education, citizenship and the freedom to practice religion. The government never owned up to these promises. Instead Mexican-Americans were forced to assimilate into the American culture, their land stripped away from them, and they were not recognized as citizens.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1948 would have lasting negative effects on Mexican Americans. The Treaty was signed after America had won the Mexican American war. America gained possession of the southwest states that had been part of Mexico for the price of around eighteen million dollars. In Article IX of the Treaty, it states that the Mexicans "shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property, and secured in the free exercise of their religion without restriction"(Vargas 139). And as Rachel Rivera points out Article VII promised the Mexicans the right to keep their land which previously belonged to Mexico. However, the Treaty would not grant the Mexicans the rights it offered. For the next hundred and twenty years the Mexicans would be oppressed and discriminated against because of the Treaty. The Treaty was the beginning of the hardships for the Mexicans. They would have to survive in the developing white society. The white society would grow and grow in the southwest, turning the Mexicans into a minority. In Zaragosa Vargas’s book Major Problems in Mexican American History, Vargas delves deeper into the problems of Mexican American History. In our Latinos in the U.S. class, we have discussed the fact that Mexicans in the United States have dealt with many problems which have gone ignored by mainstream society. The website Chicano Park illustrates how Mexican Americans have used art as a collective voice. The documentary Chicano! focuses on how the people found their voice. In the film we see that the social movements of the 1960’s allowed Mexican Americans to raise their voice against the discrimination they had lived with for over a centu...
In February 2, 1848, the final armistice treaty Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, through which the United States government got the access to entire area of California, Nevada, Utah plus some territory in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming. As a compensation, the United States government paid 18.25 million dollars to Mexico.( Pecquet, Gary M., and C. F. Thies. 2010) However, apart from the death of people, Mexico lost half of its territory in this war, which initiate Mexican’s hostile towards American. In addition, after the Mexican-American war, there was an absence of national sense in Mexican, which had a negative effect on the unity and development of the country.
When people began migrating from Europe to America many things began to change. There were people who already inhabited this land, but the “new” settlers only saw it as theirs and no one else’s. As the nation grew larger and larger the Natives were pushed further and further west. The Plains Indians were a large group that saw each and every step of this process. They were successful and self sufficient, then they endured the Trail of Tears, and finally they had to depend on the U.S. government for everything. Did these people deserve this? No, they deserved the same treatment everyone else got, but because they were different they were not seen that way.
The Mexican War of 1846-1848 was one of major importance to U.S. history, but has since fallen into annals of obscurity. It was the nation’s first war fought on foreign soil: a war that advocated the concept of “manifest destiny”, the United States God-given right to claim territory for the establishment of a free democratic society (Stevenson 2009). Even though many historians claim the war was forced on Mexico by slaveholders greedy for new territory, President John Polk viewed the war as an opportunity to defend the annexation of Texas, establish the Rio Grande as its border, and to acquire the Mexican territories of California and New Mexico (Stevenson 2009).
When viewing a map of the country of Mexico prior to the American westward expansion, it was actually larger than the United States had been at that time. Some lands that Mexico lost in the Mexican - American war under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, are Texas (the second largest state in the present US), California (the third largest state in the present US) and New Mexico (the fifth largest state in the present US). Due to this defeat Mexico lost half of its national territory. Half of Mexico’s lands were gone and half of Mexico’s people displaced making them Americans and no longer Mexicanos. This occurred without their approval or consent. In the book “My History Not Yours” written by Genaro M. Padilla are accounts of men and women living in the lands of Texas, California and New Mexico during the this unruly time of loss and the unknown. The pages of this book contain the actual written accounts of Mexicanos and their feeling of outrage sadness and anger against the insurgence of their mother lands. The feelings of accommodation and resistance are a present among the writers within Padilla’s book but some lean towards one side and some the other. All humans are different and the people of Mexico handled and felt differently about the loss of their lands. Some possessed the mindset that the overtaking of their lands by the Americans was unacceptable and they resisted and resented the presence of the Anglo-Saxons that now occupied their territory. While others possessed more of an accommodating view. That being, they saw the Americans as a potential asset to develop the lands and that the US was more powerful than they so it would be best to tr...
Since the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, Mexican Americans have been treated unfairly due to their ethnicity and background. Throughout the years Mexican Americans/Chicanos have dealt with so numerous amount of issues against the Anglo Americans and faced many injustices. It was not until the 1940’s with the Mexican American Civil rights movement and the Chicano movement in the 1960’s that Mexican Americans fought back against discriminations. I argue that the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement and The Chicano Movement equally fought for their people, because they fought for sufficient labor laws, equality within the education system and against overall Mexican American discrimination.
In today’s society, you can notice that many Native Americans cannot be seen in the United States of America, even though they lived in America for more than a thousand years. This is all started when whites conquered the American. Taking control over the lands left Natives Americans without much of freedom and rights. After Civil War, three Amendments for minority people in the United States passed on. These are 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. When the 14th Amendment passed, Indians did not gain the right that the 14th Amendment has as African Americans have. According to one article, “The Amendment was intended to give citizenship to the African-American former slaves and not to Indians… Government agencies (the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Department of the Interior), and the courts (state, federal, and, ultimately, the Supreme Court) consistently held that the Fourteenth Amendment did not confer citizenship on Indians.” This statement shows that even living in the same nation and getting involved in each other lives, natives were not considered as citizens of the United States. Moreover, natives are not as
Most people say that migration of Mexicans to America is a big problem in our country. They say that every immigrant is bad and all they bring to America is drugs. Well that is not true because immigrants actually help this great country. Today we are going to focus on Mexican immigrants. We will talk about different views that people have on it. We will talk about what an immigrant really is. Also define how people think immigration is a problem, causes of why people migrate from one country to another, consequences, and ways we can deal with immigration.