{"id":63767,"date":"2022-05-12T16:41:45","date_gmt":"2022-05-12T16:41:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=63767"},"modified":"2022-05-12T17:03:04","modified_gmt":"2022-05-12T17:03:04","slug":"latinx-files-when-mexicans-became-white-ish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=63767","title":{"rendered":"Latinx Files: When Mexicans became \u2018White’-ish"},"content":{"rendered":"

Latinx Files: When Mexicans became \u2018White’-ish<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Times<\/a>
\n2022-05-12<\/p>\n

Fidel Martinez<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
\u201cWe didn\u2019t receive the rights of white people, only the illusion.\u201d (Martina Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez-Baldor \/ Los Angeles Times; Getty Images)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hi folks, Fidel here. Every once in a while, I\u2019ll ask a guest writer to take over the main story. We\u2019ve experimented with formats here and there \u2014 we recently ran an illustration<\/a> \u2014 and this week it\u2019s no different. Below is an excerpt from Julissa Arce\u2019s<\/a> memoir, \u201cYou Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation<\/a>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The first colonizers to arrive in what is now the United States<\/a> were not the pilgrims<\/a> in 1620. It was the Spanish, who came to New Mexico<\/a> in 1598. The oldest capital in the country, Santa Fe<\/a>, was founded in 1610 by a Spaniard who was born in Mexico<\/a>. This is not a point of pride but a part of our complicated story. Along with Spanish colonizers looking for riches, priests looking for souls to save, many Indigenous people came as well \u2014 some as servants, others forcibly to quench the lust of men, some as wives, and many more for endless other reasons.<\/p>\n

After gaining its independence from Spain<\/a>, Mexican authorities attempted to increase the population in its northern territory \u2014 a land that stretched all the way up the west coast of California<\/a> and across to the Rocky Mountains<\/a> \u2014 and so welcomed Anglo immigrants. By 1834, more than 30,000 of them lived in Texas, heavily outnumbering the Mexican population of 7,800.*<\/p>\n

Mexico abolished African slavery in 1829, before the U.S. Emancipation Proclamation<\/a> in 1863, but those Anglo immigrants had brought with them more than 5,000 enslaved people in violation of Mexican law. This is where the story needs some revision. Texas<\/a>\u2019 independence from Mexico and eventual annexation into the United States is often told as a freedom fight. But Anglo Texans wanted to be \u201cfree\u201d in order to keep Black people enslaved. They became legends while stealing Black bodies, stealing Mexican land, and terrorizing native Tejanos<\/a>. The Mexicans who stayed in Texas were treated as second-class citizens, an attitude that still pollinates along with the bluebonnets<\/a>, their stories lost to white historians. The horrors that Mexicans suffered in Texas at the hands of Anglos have been buried in forgotten graves, in cemeteries that no longer exist. However, in Texas history classes, Davy Crockett<\/a>, William B. Travis<\/a>, and Jim Bowie<\/a> die heroes at the Alamo<\/a>, killed by the vicious Mexican army \u2014 a story still retold in museums and textbooks. They were visitors, undocumented immigrants even, and by proclaiming self-rule, they forced Mexico into war….<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Latinx Files: When Mexicans became \u2018White’-ish The Los Angeles Times 2022-05-12 Fidel Martinez \u201cWe didn\u2019t receive the rights of white people, only the illusion.\u201d (Martina Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez-Baldor \/ Los Angeles Times; Getty Images) Hi folks, Fidel here. Every once in a while, I\u2019ll ask a guest writer to take over the main story. We\u2019ve experimented with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,21,33,459,14646,8,103,6940,1249,20],"tags":[33473,32032,3909,13272],"class_list":["post-63767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-latincarib","category-census","category-history","category-latino","category-media-archive","category-mexico","category-slavery","category-texas","category-usa","tag-fidel-martinez","tag-julissa-arce","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-the-los-angeles-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63767"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63769,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63767\/revisions\/63769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}