Stereotypes And Mexican-Americans: Discrimination In The United States

Mexicans and Mexican-Americans have dealt with many different types of discrimination in the United States. The discrimination that Mexicans and Mexican-Americans have dealt with in the United States are politically, economically, and socially. Richard Griswold del Castillo mentions how the Mexicans and Mexican-American were being discriminated by losing their land and also being attacked with violence. Children that were Mexican and Mexican-American were also being discriminated and weren’t allowed to go to the same schools and those children who were white which Frederick P. Aguirre mentions. To begin with, Mexican and Mexican-Americans dealt with discrimination by losing their rights of their land. In the reading, “Manifest Destiny: The

Griswold mentions, “The discovery of gold in 1848 created a situation in which thousands of Yankee immigrants were competing with native-born Californio and Mexican miners in the gold fields. Xenophobia, nativism, residual of war-time patriotism, and racism soon resulted in violent confrontations between English-speaking immigrants and other residents” this shows that the Mexicans were being discriminated (4). The Americans wanted to get all the gold and they started being racist towards the Mexicans. There were many different types of violence that was occurring against the Mexicans in their old territories. “In Texas, shootings and killings of Mexicans passed almost without mention... In addition, there were several anti-Mexican race riots in Texas towns; specifically, in 1886 there were riots in Alpine and Laredo, in 1888 in Rio Grande City, and in 1894 in Beeville. Violence served to reinforce ethnic prejudice and discrimination” (Griswold 5). Mexicans were being killed just because they were a different race. The United Stated would also start riots that were against Mexicans. In the reading by Griswold we learned that the Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were discriminated by losing their land and also by violence. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was made as a peace but ended up not going in favor with the Mexicans it didn’t accomplish what it

In the reading, “Mendez v. Westminster School District: How It Affected Brown v. Board of Education” by Frederick P. Aguirre mentions that children were being discriminated just because they were Mexican. They were sent to other schools and weren’t allowed to go to the same schools as the white children. Aguirre mentions, “The judges found that the Westminster, Santa Ana, Garden Grove, and El Modena (Orange) School Districts systematically and intentionally segregated Mexican American children into separate schools solely because of their surname and/or the color of their skin” which means that children weren’t allowed to attend certain schools just because they had a “Mexican last name” and also because of their skin color (322). These children weren’t giving the same education that white children would get just because they are Mexican. Something that I found really interesting from this reading is how children were being sent to a Junior High School rather than a High School just because they weren’t white and only white children went to that High School. This just shows how badly Mexicans were being discriminated. This just unmotivated Mexicans students to even try to go and complete and graduate