MEXICAN AMERICANS STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS IN TEXAS
Introduction
Civil rights movements in Texas generally involved two of the state’s most prominent minorities the African Americans and the Mexican Americans. These two groups were not only separated from the whites but also from one another and to get back power from the whites these groups were forced to work against each other. The leaders of these two minorities were on the opposite sides but were both fighting to regain their power from one common enemy. The relationship between these two groups during the civil rights movement’s era can be regarded as tense. From the 1940s to the 1970s both of these two groups were forced to fight numerous battles in the schools, in the ballot boxes and in the streets in efforts to eradicate the state-imposed racism and prejudice. Despite the many calls for cooperation between these two minorities and the many examples of interethnic alliance they separately choose to fight their battles and as a result two separate civil rights struggles occurred simultaneously in the state, the African American struggle for civil rights and the Mexican American struggle for civil rights. However, this paper examines the Mexican Americans struggle for civil rights in Texas and their organization as a group as they tackled obstacles that hindered their paths to political, social and economic uplift.
The early and mid-20th century was defined by the continuous struggle for civil rights by minority groups and among these groups the Mexican Americans of Texas (Kaplowitz, 2007). During the period between 1900 to 1930 these minorities continued to bring down racial barriers. It is 1911 that Mexican American civil rights leaders gathered at the Congreso Mexicanista in Laredo to address the common issues they were facing and among these issues were loss of land, lynching and ethnic subordination. Action was taken in 1919 when the Brownsville legislator J. T. Canales reduced the size of the Texas Ranger force as a result of the various atrocities the rangers had committed against the Mexican Americans and various minorities in the preceding decade (Behnken, 2011). In 1921 the La Agrupacion Protectora Mexicana was founded with the intentions of protecting farm renters and laborers that were facing expulsion by their landlords.
The Mexican Americans were fighting for their civil rights long before the existence of the civil rights movements. Just like their counterpart’s the Mexican American civil rights activists used military service and lawsuits to challenge the segregation Mexicans were facing (Behnken, 2011). The Mexican American served in great numbers in the World War II with great hopes that their services will help them win their rights at home but their hopes had been misplaced and segregation continued long after the world war II was over and as a result Mexican Americans begun pushing more hard and forcefully for their rights (Behnken, 2011). The first form of segregation that they had to fight against was the Jim Crow rule. They won several court battles against this rule including the Mendez v. Westminster in 1947 and Delgado V. Bastrop in 1949 and after this ruling the process of school integration begun. In 1954 Mexican Americans won the Pete Hernandez v. Texas which for a long time had prevented Mexican Americans from being members of the jury in the US. The next decade that followed brought with it changes in the Mexican American society. They were engaged in a great deal of political activities, ranging from creating the group Viva Kennedy and the political association of the Spanish Speaking people (PASO) (Behnken, 2011). This association was instrumental in assisting the Mexican Americans to be elected to local, state and national offices as seen later as the years proceed.
In addition to the Jim Crow Rule Americans regarded Mexican Americans as racially inferior and degenerate. This perception of white superiority and Mexican inferiority gave the whites a chance to foster racial segregation since they understood racial difference as genetic and natural. The whites had well distributed racial, social and moral beliefs about the inferiority of Mexican American (Martinez, 2015). In addition to fighting racial segregation brought about by the Jim Crow rules they were forced to confront these arrays of racial assumptions. The Mexicans tried to eradicate the Lone Star State’s entrenched system of racial segregation. Initially Mexican Americans wanted recognition as whites. The challenged the wide spread discrimination and insisted that the racial segregation should not apply to them since they were white compared to their minority counterparts the African Americans. It is in the late 1960s and during the era of the Chicano movement that Mexican Americas started to distance themselves from whiteness and acknowledged that they were brown not white (Yosso, 2013). With the realization that they were a distinct minority they could utilize the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US constitution.
Cesar Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association which in return increased the momentum of the labor movement. The association conducted strikes all over the nation and this pushed the Mexican American struggle into other states and territories. Much of the efforts of the Mexican Americans focused on pushing for legal and political recognition similar to that of the whites. The Mexican Struggle for civil rights gave rise to the Chicano Movement (Yosso, 2013). This term was used to mean the sons and daughter of Mexican Migrants. In the 1960s this movement was embraced and accepted as a symbol of self determination and ethnic pride. This movement was also used to address Mexican Americans discrimination in public and private places and also campaigned against discrimination and racism (Yosso, 2013). After the end of World War II, the movement gained momentum following the founding of groups such as the American G. I Forum (AGIF) founded by Mexican American veterans of WWII who had met in Corpus Christ, in Texas to protest the discrimination and the poor services that were being offered in the veteran’s administration hospitals in the city. This forum was under the leadership of Dr. Hector Perez Garcia who was a WWII combat surgeon (Behnken, 2011).
In the 1950s the LULAC forum became the foremost Mexican American group that was effectively and efficiently utilizing the legal system to remove racial segregation that had brought with it education inequalities and various discriminatory practices. In 1961 PASO joined forces with LULAC and the G.I forum with a focus on mobilizing the Texas-Mexican electorate in an effort to push politicians to heed to the needs of the Hispanics. During this same period the federal government pushed an agenda designed to achieve racial equality and the Texas Mexicans benefited from this agenda. The Twenty-Fourth Amendment that was ratified in 1964 barred the use of poll tax during federal elections, it is still in the same year that the congress outlawed the Jim Crow law (Behnken, 2015). Texas was next in following suit by eliminating the local restrictions to voting and instead instituted the federal Marshal to monitor the proceedings of elections and ten years later there was a request to eliminate at large elections in the state.
After 1960 various organizations that were pushing for equality joined forces with the LULAC and the G.I forum. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund that was founded in 1968 was the most successful organization campaigning for Mexican American civil rights by the late 20th century. This organization mainly focused on inequitable systems of financing schools and redistricting (Behnken, 2015). Also, in 1961 DR. Antonio in close liaison with the Puerto Rican educators and professionals founded ASPIRA to help push education reforms that would cater for the needs of the children of Mexican American decent. In 1961 Henry B Gonzales became the first Mexican American ever to be elected to the house of US representatives from Texas (Ortiz, 2012). During the late 1960s the Chicano student movement spread all through the southwest with the students holding demonstrations and rallies that demanded improved education for Mexican students and finally in 1968 after three years of lobbying efforts by NEA, the congress passed a bilingual education act that mandated all school districts with sizable populations of Spanish speaking students to offer special programs for those students education.
The struggle for civil rights by the Mexican Americas was at its peak during the 1960s, this period was responsible for shaping the social, political and economic landscape of Texas. The Mexican Americans took part in national movements that were intended to bring down racial barriers. They held demonstrations in the states to protest their endurance of segregated conditions and additionally boycotted racist merchants (MacLean, 2007). I963 the Mexican Americans were among the large crowd of 900 protestants that marched in the state capital. This large crowd also constituted of African Americans and a few Whites. The protesters complained of the slow desegregation in the state and attacked Governor John Connally for being on the opposition of the pending civil rights bill in Washington. This was also the era of the Chicano movement for the Mexicans as mentioned above (MacLean, 2007). The Raza Unida party led the movement during the 1970s as a political party and offered solutions to the inequalities that were addressed by reformist groups such as LULAC and the G. I Forum.
Conclusion
The Mexican American struggle for civil rights begun long before the 20th century and continued long after the end of WWII. The Mexican Americans and African Americans were the largest minority groups in Texas. However, each group struggles for civil rights separately. The Mexican Americans of Texas struggle for civil rights continued throughout the 20th century. This movement was defined by reformist groups such as the PASO, LULAC, the G.I forum and the Chicano movement. These groups were led by Mexican Americans that fought the racial segregation this minority were facing in the State and in America at large. The civil rights struggle of the Mexican Americans was one that shaped the political, economic and social landscape of the Texas.
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