Mexican American Identity
There are 38 million Mexican Americans, comprising over 11% of the U.S. population. At the dawn of the 20th century., there were nearly 500,000 Mexican Americans concentrated in the former Mexican territory of the American Southwest. The demand for labor in various American industries would recruit millions of Mexican immigrants to help transform the less populated resource-rich Western United States. These immigrants and their descendants would contribute greatly to the United States both economically and culturally in several ways.
Despite these accomplishments and essential labor, Mexican Americans are briefly mentioned in American history. Their history has also been a conflicted one resulting in a complex identity as individuals have found themselves stuck between two cultures. Today Mexican Americans, along with people of Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula, are grouped under the ethnicity terms of Hispanic, Latinos/Latinas, or LatinX. Mexican Americans represent 61% of this population.
How the U.S. Census Views Mexican Americans
Yet this was certainly not always the case, the U.S. census has gone through a series of changes and additions to document the nation's demographics. American history also reveals that American views on race, ethnicity, nationality, and even skin color has changed definitions and, at times, can be interchangeable. Mexican Americans are a perfect example of how some Americans have gone through a series of different labels that have tested their citizenship, social class, and heritage in the United States. By briefly reviewing the evolution of the U.S. census, historical views, and events on the Mexican American experience, this article will not only reveal how Mexican American identity has changed over time but also how modern terms such as Hispanic and Latino have a paradox and should be challenged.
Figure 1. Mexican American Population by U.S. State. Created by Jonathan Rodriguez, Data Source: 2020 U.S. Census.
Who are Mexicans?
Like the United States, Mexico is a rich, diverse melting pot of different cultures from around the world; however, where the two countries differ in their melting pot is understanding what cultures had a higher influence than the other. Before European contact, the modern area of Mexico is believed to have had a population of between 11 to 35 million people. This was due to the large-scale civilizations that were well established over the course of 3,000 years, notably the Olmecs, Maya, Zapotec, Teotihuacan, Cholula, Toltec, Mixtec, Purépecha, and Mexica/Aztecs. In parts of Northern Mexico, Indigenous people had established communities based on agriculture and they interacted and traded with the people of the modern-day American Southwest.
Figure 2. Representation of the Mexica/Aztec Capital of Tenochtitlan from the Codex Mendoza. Public Domain.
The Many Elements of the Mexican Identity
The Indigenous populations of Mexico would be devastated by the Spanish conquest when an estimated 80-90% of the native population would decline from war and from epidemic diseases (brought across the Atlantic from Europe). In addition to receiving new passenger arrivals from Europe, Mexico would import African slaves and Asian newcomers during the Spanish colonial period. These new arrivals, however, would never become the majority of the population. The Indigenous population did bounce back eventually as fewer Europeans were coming to Mexico compared to the U.S. New Spain was a society of different cultures and intermarriages were common between the castas or races resulting in various mixed people that would create new races. One race, the Mestizos (European and Indigenous ancestry) would become most of the modern-day Mexican identity population. Reviewing this history shows that in the past 500 years, Mexico has transformed into a mixed country with a large Indigenous influence.
The American Southwest and the First Mexican Americans
When the Conquistadors came to the American Southwest, they brought with them people from Mexico such as Native Mexicans, Mestizos, Afro-Mexicans, and Criollos. They would establish various pueblos, including Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Tucson, San Antonio, San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. New Spain society would incorporate native peoples of the Southwest into their society through missionization and reduction. These native cultures lived in different societies, some lived in Pueblo structures, and others were hunter-gatherers or raiders. Because of all these different lifestyles, the Spanish were never successful in conquering all these people.
Once Mexico gained its independence in 1821, Mexico established that Natives would be citizens of the new nation. However, they faced the same dilemmas of incorporating the independent native groups. By the 1830’s there were an estimated 50,000-80,000 people who were part of Mexican society in the modern American Southwest. When Anglo-Americans first interacted with Mexicans, they saw them very differently than today. Unlike today, there was no practice of grouping them into the Hispanic or Latino terms; these terms did not exist yet in the U.S. census. There was no need to recognize them before the 1830’s as there were no Mexican residents east of the Mississippi River. The Anglo-Americans were the first to cross into Mexico when they were invited by the government to help settle sparsely populated Texas. This invitation would be a regrettable one for Mexico as the new settlers would spark a rebellion which would lead to the U.S.A. getting involved resulting in the Mexican American war in 1846.
Figure 3. Mission San Xavier del Bac dates to 1692 in Tucson, Arizona. Photo by Jonathan Rodriguez.
Mexico and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)
The two-year Mexican-American War (1846-1848) was extremely devastating for Mexico. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 established that the territories of Alta California, Nuevo Mexico, and Texas became part of the U.S.A. in exchange for 15 million dollars. The Mexicans that were in these territories found themselves in a new nation, that under the treaty promised them rights such as their traditions, property, social status, and new citizenship to be protected. These promises would be ignored on multiple occasions throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Due to the low and scattered Mexican American population, their voice was ignored or they weren't even seen as citizens. In fact, many Mexicans were often seen as Indians or mixed people. Some were even known by the obsolete term “Mongoloid,” a term that was part of the 19th-century race categories of the time that associated Native Americans and Asians separate from the Caucasian race (Europeans). Mexican Americans were often left out and had little say as they were seen as a group of people that would eventually disappear like the Native Americans had.
The Rise of the Mexican American population (1850-1900)
Contrary to the belief that Mexican Americans would eventually disappear, Mexican immigrants poured into the American Southwest because the United States needed labor to establish infrastructure and industry. Between the period of 1850-1900, the Mexican Immigrant population rose from 13,000 to 103,000. Many of these new arrivals would fill the positions of undesirable jobs such as mining, railroads, agriculture, logging, and ranching. Mexican immigrants found themselves adapting to American society as they established families, having American-born children in both traditional and new communities.
By 1900, the Mexican American population would be around 500,000. Despite their long-established history and their many contributions to the United States, Mexican Americans were often segregated and left out of Anglo Society; they were seen as foreigners. Many Anglo communities encouraged segregation in schools, theaters, restaurants, and communities. Mexican schools were established to encourage children to only speak English. While on the other side of the border Mexicans saw Mexican Americans as Americans and at times referred to them as “Chicanos” or “Pochos” people who had forgotten or discounted roots. Discrimination pressured many young Mexican Americans with an identity crisis which ultimately led many of them to ditch the culture of their parents to become “Americanized” as a way to avoid these prejudices. This was perhaps the reason why many Mexican Americans started to avoid their Indigenous ancestry by identifying as White in order to be accepted in the dominant Anglo society. Inspite of this attempt, there was still not much improvement as Mexicans were still segregated from Anglo Society.
The Mexican Repatriation (1929-1936)
The growth and demand for Mexican immigrants continued into the 20th century. Between 1910 and 1930 the Mexican immigrant population skyrocketed from 222,000 to 641,000. By 1930, the Mexican American population had now reached 1.4 million. This would be the first time that Mexicans were finally recognized on the U.S. Census as a race. In the past, Mexicans were categorized as White despite their native ancestry. The reason behind this sudden change was due to the significant Mexican population and the 1929 U.S. stock market crash. The Herbert Hoover Administration looked towards scapegoating Mexicans as the reason for the lack of jobs for American citizens. This resulted in the creation of the Mexican Repatriation, a forced repatriation to deport hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Mexicans to Mexico. Estimates of those deported range from 300,000 to 2 million of which the majority were American-born citizens, but because they had Mexican ancestry it made no difference. The number of Mexican immigrants in the U.S. would drop to 358,000 in 1940.
Figure 4. Los Angeles, August 20, 1931. Family members say goodbye to their relatives sent to Mexico. Source: Getty Images, N.Y. Daily News Archive, Public Domain.
Mexican Americans And World War II
As Mexicans were being singled out in the decade of 1930, many Mexican Americans pushed to be identified as part of the white race to avoid discrimination. As a result, Mexican was removed as a racial term in the 1940 U.S. census. Once again, Mexican Americans were considered white. Although Mexicans were White on the U.S. census, discrimination was still evident in U.S. society in light of such events as the Zoot Suit Riots (1943), Mendez v. Westminster (1947), and the Longoria Affair (1949). Despite the discrimination of the decade, many Mexican Americans showed their patriotism as an estimated 500,000 Mexican Americans joined the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II. Aid also came from Mexico as the two countries established the Bracero Program. 155,000 Mexican Immigrants “Braceros” came to the U.S. to help with the wartime labor shortages, most notably in the agriculture and railroad industries. The program was so successful it continued to 1964, adding to over 4 million braceros coming to the U.S.
The Persons of Spanish Surname Report (1950)
After the World War II, the Mexican American population increased, especially with the incoming braceros who continued coming after the war. The 1950 U.S. census introduced the Persons of Spanish Surname Report, a new method to count Mexican Americans. This new addition only focused on collecting numbers in five states: California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Colorado. The definitions and explanations section of this report reveals the brief history of the American Southwest and mentions how Mexicans do have both Spanish and Indian “Mestizo” ancestry. Although the U.S. census now tried to recognize its Mexican American population, there were conflicts in the report. One of these issues would be that the report ignored any family with a Mexican maternal side from a racial intermarriage. In other words, the report ignored any family that did not have a Spanish last name. The report also ignored those Mexican Americans who were in other states with considerable Mexican populations (such as Illinois). Despite these conflicts, this method would continue to be used in both the 1960 and 1970 censuses. As a result, the real Mexican American population of these decades leaves out thousands of Americans who could be considered Mexican by ancestry.
Figure 5. Mexican agricultural workers pose for a photo in the Stockton, California area, 1943. Source: Library of Congress.
The Chicano Movement
During the 1960s as the civil rights movement was in full swing, Mexican Americans also took part in their movement which would become known as the Chicano Movement. During this time, many Mexican Americans wanted to embrace this once derogatory term to gain a political voice in the United States. The term Chicano has multiple origin stories, one story suggesting that it was a combination of two words Chico “Boy” and Mexican, thus making it seem Chicano was something smaller or less than Mexican. However, a more acceptable origin is that Chicano was a shorter version of the word Mexican (Xicano). The word Mexican itself comes from the Náhuatl word Mexica.
Many Mexican Americans took this opportunity to embrace the term Chicano fueled by its indigenous origin. Chicanos began to embrace their native heritage. Protests occurred among many Chicanos/Mexican Americans to gain civil rights, notably the United Farm Worker boycotts (1960’s-1970s), the East L.A. Walkouts (1968), and the Chicano Moratorium (1970). Although the Chicano movement gained a lot of exposure to who the Mexican American people were, Chicanos were not recognized as an identity on the 1970 census. Chicano was an option on the 1980 census but under a subcategory of Spanish/Hispanic origin or descent. The label Chicano was not unanimously agreed upon in the Mexican American community, nor was it used by Anglo-Americans. Chicano identity is still used in many Mexican American communities. However, today Chicano is certainly suppressed by the labels of Hispanic and Latino.
Figure 6. "We are not a minority" Chicano Mural Art. The original artists were Mario Torero, Rocky, El Lion, and Zade 1978. located at 3217 E. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90023. Photo by Jonathan Rodriguez.
The Term “Hispanic”
As the number of Spanish speakers continued to rise in the late 1960s, the United States needed a label to group these people as one. It also became clear that not all the people of Latin America would identify as white. So, the term Hispanic was implemented as a mutual label to define any person who has ancestry from a Spanish-speaking country. In 1968 President Lyndon B. Johnson established Hispanic Heritage Week which was later extended into a full month under the Reagan administration in 1988. The term Hispanic was never implemented as a race but as an ethnicity. Any Hispanic could still identify as any race, but a Hispanic checkmark would ensure that this person had a Spanish-speaking country of origin separate from Anglo-Americans.
The Term “Latino”
By the 1980’s, the label Latino gained popularity and became interchangeable with Hispanic. Latino became more appropriate for people with its connection to the geographic region of Latin America. By now, the U.S. Census started to include Hispanic or Latino as an ethnicity and ask which Spanish origin the person had. In today’s time, some activists question the term Latino due to Spanish being a masculine language. Latinx has been proposed to include both Latino and Latina as a gender-neutral term. However, Latinx is still very much a controversial term as a large portion of the Latino population does not embrace the term.
The Complexity of These Labels
Briefly, these labels appear to be simple to understand; however, when looking into the origin of these words, it certainly creates a paradox for Mexican identity. The word Hispanic dates to Roman times; Hispanic comes from the Latin word Hispanics referring to the inhabitants of Hispania the modern-day Iberian Peninsula. The word Latino is also not a simple solution and is far more complex. Latino can be traced back to Roman times as well, as a region of Italy was once called Latium. The Ancient Romans spoke Latin, and their language would go on to influence other European languages as a result of their conquests. Thus, the original Latinos were Italians.
Languages such as Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Romanian were heavily influenced by Latin. In this perspective, these speakers would also be Latinos, and some Europeans believe this way as well. In the United States, this perspective gets ignored as the U.S. sees only the people of Latin America as Latinos. Ironically, the Portuguese are considered Latino in the U.S. as Brazilians are also considered Latinos, but there was indeed French colonization in the Americas as well. Canada is not considered Latin America. Even previously occupied Spanish countries like Belize, and Jamaica are not part of Latin America. In addition, the American Southwest and Florida are not considered Latin America. One can even make the argument that the people of the Philippines would also qualify as Latinos due to the Spanish colonization. Yet the modern-day U.S. parameters only consider Latinos to be in Latin America.
The Identity Dilemma
One can see how confusing and selective these definitions can be. In fact, these defintions are a dilemma not only for Mexico's ancestry, but for other people of Latin America. Some Hispanics or Latinos do not see this as a dilemma because Spanish is spoken by most of the people of Latin America. This belief, however, is an oversimplification of the various cultures of Latin America, proving that one language cannot just overshadow the hundreds of indigenous languages in the Americas. Mexico has over 7 million indigenous speakers and has an estimated 25 million people who identify as Indigenous. But this does not even include the over 80-90 million Mestizos who certainly do have varying amounts of Indigenous ancestry. There are also significant numbers of Indigenous people in other countries, especially Guatemala, Peru, and Bolivia. Continuing the labels of Hispanic and Latino would undermine their Indigenous languages.
In addition, Mexico does not use the term Hispanic or Latino to categorize their people. Although Spanish is spoken by most of the population, 68 Indigenous languages are recognized as national languages. Of course, Mexico is just not indigenous, there are Mexicans of European, African, and Asian descent as well to include in Mexico’s identity. Labeling Mexicans as Mestizos may be a simple solution; however, this would also ignore the other cultures. Latin Americans do call themselves Americanos, although when looking at this deeper there may be an issue with America being named after the Italian sailor, Amerigo Vespucci. Yet other names of continents, such as Asia and Africa, are also not native to these areas. There is no simple solution and no one solution that everyone is going to agree on. Hispanic and Latino will continue to be used for years to come as it is expected to even officially be recognized as a race for the first time in the 2030 Census.
It will be up to the Latino community if they choose to come up with a better solution, Hispanic and Latino have now been institutionalized for decades, to the point of acceptance. However, it is extremely important to realize that the Indigenous cultures are the original people of Latin America and need to be honored. We are witnessing how these labels are surpassing Indigenous ancestry to the point where Americans do not realize that most Mexicans and Latinos do have native ancestry. It has even got to the point where Hispanic and Latino are also suppressing the nationalities of Latin America. Americans are using these terms as umbrella terms to the point of thinking all Latinos are the same when the fact is they are not. Each country has its own story and culture to share with the world and must be honored as such. The younger generations must honor their ancestry from a country of Latin America but also honor otheir Indigenous ancestry as well.
The Mexican American population will continue to increase and will play a major role in the history, the culture, and the economy of the United States. It has been estimated that the Latino population in the U.S. will contribute a GDP of $3.7 trillion in 2022, and much of this will be contributed by Mexican Americans. Perhaps as Mexican Americans continue to contribute and become more aware of their indigenous ancestry and culture, they will reevaluate their labels in the U.S.A.
Works Cited
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