Mexican American Rights

Hispanic Americans in the Southwest In the mid to late 1800s full U.S. citizenship has been denied to Hispanics, full citizenship rights include the right to vote, own property, and holding political office. In the 1890s Mexican working-class children in urban areas were admitted to city schools but into segregated classes in the elementary grades, however; secondary or postsecondary education was not available to Hispanic Americans. Ranching, agriculture, factories and railways and the wages these jobs offered were so low that Hispanic families could barely make ends meet. Hispanic Americans have been discriminated against throughout history and this discrimination greatly has limited their participation in citizenship, education,
The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American war in 1848 and under this treaty the United States gained about 900,000 square miles of land and additional 30,000 square miles purchased for 10 million dollars. Today, this makes up southwestern states of Arizona, California, Nevada, Texas, Utah, parts of Colorado. Close to 80,000 Mexicans chose to stay with the land and the U.S. promised to give rights to the Mexicans who remained in the new territories of New Mexico, Texas and California after two years. These Mexicans were supposed to become full U.S. citizens and be given the privileges of the citizenship. Most of the promises were not kept or honored by the United States. Instead, individual states decided which Hispanic Americans were given the right to vote and participate in other benefits of citizenship. In some states, the Hispanic Americans that were given rights were the ones who were of Anglo heritage with descendants from white countries. Hispanics from black or Indian heritage were not given the full right of
history, American laws declared most people in the world legally ineligible to become full U.S. citizens solely because of their race, original nationality, or gender. For at least two-thirds of American history, the majority of the domestic adult population was also ineligible for full citizenship for the same reasons. Those racial, ethnic, and gender restrictions were blatant, not “latent” (qtd.in Smith 203-205). During this period, Hispanic Americans are left in a state of uncertainty. With voter eligibility laws, most Hispanic Americans did not have the right to vote and dispute legal issues regarding land issues thus; causing them to risk losing something that they worked so hard for. “What we mean by “citizenship,” moreover, is not self-evident. Smith notes that the Constitution “did not define or describe citizenship, discuss criteria for inclusion or exclusion, or address the sensitive relationship between state and national citizenship.” One of the central tensions was how broadly we conceive of “citizenship.” In a narrow sense, American citizenship refers to national identity and the right to carry an American passport (for example, every American, native-born or naturalized, adult or child, retains this right). At the other end of the spectrum, we can think of “citizenship” as entailing full political rights,