History of Mexican Americans in Texas

Indigenous peoples lived in the area now known as Texas long before Spanish explorers arrived in the area. However, once Spaniards arrived and claimed the area for Spain, a process known as mestizaje occurred, in which Spaniards and Native Americans had mestizo children who had both Spanish and indigenous blood. Texas was ruled by Spain as part of its New Spain territory from 1520, when Spaniards first arrived in Mexico in 1520, until Texas won independence from Mexico in 1836, which led to the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (1848). In 1830, the Mexican population fell to 20 percent and in 1840 down to 10 percent. When Spanish rule in Texas ended, Mexicans in Texas numbered 5,000. In 1850 over 14,000 Texas residents had Mexican origin.^[1] ^[2]

In 1911 an extremely bloody decade-long civil war broke out in Mexico. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled to Texas, raising the Hispanic population from 72,000 in 1900 to 250,000 in 1920. Most job opportunities for them involved working on a ranch or a farm starting from South Texas and moving north and northeast. The number reached 700,000 in 1930, 1,400,000 in 1960, and 4 million in 1990.^[3]

In the 2020 Census, 33.3% of Texans identified as "Mexican, Mexican Am., or Chicano".^[4]^[5]

Media

La Prensa was a daily Spanish language newspaper published in San Antonio. It was started in 1913 by Ignacio E. Lozano and covered the Mexican Revolution and other stories from Mexico. It was closed in 1963.^[6] El Bejarano (San Antonio) was a Spanish language newspaper published in San Antonio. It was started in 1855 and became a platform for Mexican and Mexican American activism.

Notable persons

Geography

Hispanics of Mexican descent dominate southern, south-central, and western Texas and form a significant portion of the residents in the cities of Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. The Hispanic population contributes to Texas having a younger population than the American average, because Hispanic births have outnumbered non-Hispanic white births since the early 1990s. In 2007, for the first time since the early nineteenth century, Hispanics accounted for more than half of all births (50.2%), while non-Hispanic whites accounted for just (34%).

Lynching of Mexican-Americans in Texas

From 1848 to 1928 there were hundreds of lynchings of Mexican-Americans across the American West.^[7] Many of these lynchings occurred in Texas against people of Mexican descent. One such case was the case of Paulino Serda of Edinburg, a city in south Texas. Paulino Serda was killed by Texas Rangers on his ranch in 1915 during questioning.^[8] In September of that same year, Texas Rangers encountered Jesus Bazan and Antonio Longoria riding their horses near their ranch in Edinburg, Texas.^[9] Even though they had committed no crimes, the Texas Rangers shot and killed the two men on the assumption that were Mexican bandit sympathizers; they left their bodies where they were shot to be found by locals two days later.^[10] Many more Mexican nationals and Mexican-Americans living in the Texas-Mexico border were killed during this period, now designated as La Matanza.^[11]

References

^ "Mexican Americans." Handbook of Texas. Retrieved on December 11, 2011.
^ John E. Farley. 2010. Majority-Minority Relations. SixthEdition.New Jersey: Prentice Hall
^ Arnoldo De León, "Mexican Americans" Handbook of Texas (2023) online
^ "Hispanic or Latino Origin by Specific Origin". census.gov. Retrieved July 13, 2022.
^ Bureau, U.S. Census. "U.S. Census website". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved 2017-06-06.
^ McMillan, Nora E. Ríos. "LA PRENSA." Handbook of Texas. Retrieved on February 13, 2015.
^ Wills, Matthew (2019-03-26). "The Untold History of Lynching in the American West". JSTOR Daily. Retrieved 2019-04-30.
^ Benavides, Lucia (29 January 2016). "The Texas Rangers Killed Hundreds of Hispanic Americans During the Mexican Revolution". www.kut.org. Retrieved 2019-04-30.
^ "Violent chapter in Texas history known as "La Matanza" or "The Massacre" remembered | History News Network". historynewsnetwork.org. Retrieved 2019-04-30.
^ "Violent chapter in Texas history known as "La Matanza" or "The Massacre" remembered | History News Network". historynewsnetwork.org. Retrieved 2019-04-30.
^ "Refusing to Forget". Refusing to Forget. Retrieved 2019-04-30.

6. Kanellos, Nicolas and Helvetia Martell. 'Hispanic Periodicals in the United States Origins to 1960s: A Brief History and Comprehensive Bibliography'. Arte Publico Press, 1960.