American Experience

CARLOS GUERRA

After the Civil War, ever-larger numbers of Southern whites came into south Texas. All of a sudden, you start seeing allegations that are cloned from the attitudes that they had in the Deep South about black people and see these values being applied to Mexicans, to Mexican Americans. "They're shiftless. "They're lazy. "They're dumb. They don't like to work." And, you know, "They're tryin' to get your daughter."

NARRATOR

Of mixed Spanish and Indian ancestry, Mexican Americans did not fit neatly

into America's ironclad racial categories

black or white. By the early 20th Century, they were considered white by law, largely owing to the treaty's grant of American citizenship. but in everyday life, their status as citizens meant little.

BENNY MARTINEZ

A lot of Mexicans were killed for no reason at all! A lot of 'em were lynched, and a lot of 'em were just shot. Anybody with a cowboy hat then could be a ranger or a vigilante or a regulator.

NARRATOR

Segregation was widespread, enforced not by written laws, as was the case for African Americans, but by a rigid social code.

MICHAEL OLIVAS

It was very clear that the social isolation was a perfectly symmetrical system, one that hermetically sealed Mexicans and blacks away from whites in all the daily aspects of life.