On paper the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo granted full citizenship to the residents of the formerly Mexican territories, but in practice the treaty citizens (i.e. people who became US citizens as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo) were racialized and treated as second-class citizens. They were subjected to segregated and inferior schools, housing and public facilities, and were often denied the right to vote (Gómez, 2007; Gross, 2008; Lozano, 2018; Olivas, 2006). In addition, under Mexican rule Indigenous groups such as the Pueblos had been citizens, but under US rule their rights were severely restricted. Further, promises to respect Spanish and Mexican land grants were often broken, and land was routinely appropriated by speculators or awarded to Anglo homesteaders arriving from the East (Acuña, 2015; Gonzalez, 2011).
In addition to the denial of rights and the seizing of property, Mexicans and Mexican Americans were also the target of mob violence, and thousands were lynched in the period from 1848 to 1928 (Carrigan & Webb, 2013). Lynchings were a tool of subjugation as well as a reflection of racism. They occurred throughout the Southwestern states as well as far from the border such as in Nebraska and Wyoming, but they were ‘greater in scope and longer in duration’ in Texas (Carrigan & Webb, 2013: 56). The early 20th century was a period of particularly brutal violence against Mexicans and Mexican Americans, some of it carried out by the Texas Rangers, an official law enforcement agency. (See the website Refusing to Forget at https://refusingtoforget.org, for more information on this racial violence, its lasting impact, and efforts to increase public awareness.) Some see parallels between the early 20th century anti-Mexican violence and recent anti-Latinx attacks, including the 2019 mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas in which the shooter is believed to be have been motivated by anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican and White supremacist racism (Beckett, 2019).
Phase 3: Puerto Rico
In the 19th century, and coinciding with independence movements throughout Latin America, Puerto Ricans seeking greater self-determination carried out a series of revolts against Spanish colonial power. At the end of the century, Spain did concede some autonomy and local control (but not full independence) to Puerto Rico, but the new status was short-lived. In 1898, the Spanish-American War broke out, with US troops battling the Spanish in Cuba and the Philippines. At the war’s end that same year, Spain was forced to cede Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, as well as temporary control of Cuba, to the US. At first, many Puerto Ricans celebrated, optimistic that US control would bring democratic values and improved labor conditions (Duany, 2017). However, that optimism didn’t last long; the US granted Puerto Ricans even less autonomy and political rights than they’d had under Spanish colonial rule.
As it did in westward expansion, Manifest Destiny and the treatment of the inhabitants of the Southwestern territories, racism also played a crucial role in decisions about Puerto Rico’s political status (Gelpí, 2011; Gonzalez, 2011; Rivera Ramos, 1996; Torruella, 2007). In particular, opposition to extending citizenship to Puerto Ricans centered on notions regarding their supposed unsuitability for representative democracy and self-government. For example, Senator Albert Beveridge of Indiana (who also opposed statehood for the Southwestern territories) argued that God had ‘been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years’ to be ‘the master organizers of the world’ and to ‘administer government among the savage and servile peoples’ (Gelpí, 2011: 22). So too, President Theodore Roosevelt described US democracy as ‘unsuitable’ for the people of Puerto Rico (Gelpí, 2011: 22).
In the midst of World War I, the Jones Act (1917) extended US citizenship to Puerto Ricans, which granted them some additional rights but also made them eligible for the military draft. Even with citizenship, however, Puerto Ricans were not granted full political representation or legal rights. For example, Congress retained the ultimate say over bills passed by Puerto Rico’s legislature, most appointed officials were from the continental US, and Puerto Ricans did not have the right to trial by jury (Ayala & Bernabe, 2009; Cruz, 2017; Duany, 2017). Further, in a series of early 20th century cases, the Supreme Court ruled that inhabitants of Puerto Rico were not entitled to the same constitutional protections as other citizens. The official decisions, which still stand, include references to ‘alien races’ presumed to be so different from (White) Americans in ‘religion, customs, laws, methods of taxation, and modes of thought’ that ‘Anglo-Saxon principles’ could not be applied (Cruz, 2017: 46).
Eventually, in the mid-20th century, Puerto Ricans did gain the right to elect their own governor and to draft their own constitution, but to this day residents of the island, despite being US citizens, do not have representation in Congress and are not allowed to vote in presidential elections. Puerto Rico’s status as a Commonwealth (Estado Libre Asociado) with limited rights in comparison to US states stands in stark contrast to the earlier pattern of US territorial expansion, in which annexed lands were incorporated and set on a path to eventual statehood. The ongoing status of Puerto Rico as an unincorporated territory, and of Puerto Ricans as second-class citizens, as well as the notion that Puerto Rico’s current economic crisis results from cultural or political inadequacies rather than structural issues or federal policies, are all rooted in this racist past.
In this section we have examined the three phases of the Spanish conquest of North American and Caribbean lands, as well as the subsequent annexation of these territories by the US. In the 16th century, Spanish arrived in what is now the US as a language of colonizers, but over the course of the 19th century it increasingly became a colonized language. As such, Spanish became subordinated to English in language ideologies (discussed in the next chapter) as well as language policies (discussed in Chapter 8). Of course, these ideologies and policies were not just about language per se; rather, they were part of a broader subordination of Spanish-speakers in which language was a tool for the exercise of power. Just as the racialization of African and Native peoples can be traced to colonial encounters and the slave trade, the Othering of Spanish-speakers and Latinxs is rooted in the period leading up to and following US territorial expansion (Vélez-Ibáñez, 2017).
Black and White Legends, Hispanophilia and Oñate’s Foot
At the outset of this chapter we noted that the historical presence of Spanish in the US is often overlooked. But while the periods of Spanish and Mexican rule are often omitted or downplayed in traditional accounts of US history, this does not mean that they are universally ignored. In this section we discuss the portrayal of the Spanish history of the Southwest, and of New Mexico in particular. History is never just a neutral description of the past, and historical accounts of the US’ Spanish colonial past are no exception. As we’ll show, these accounts are tied up with various political, economic and social interests, as well as with debates over the construction and representation of ethnoracial and national identities.
The 16th and 17th centuries were a period of intense competition among European imperial powers and religious institutions for dominion in the Americas and around the globe. In addition to military force, imperial rivals also used political and religious propaganda to convince their subjects of the righteousness of their efforts. One such effort is known as the Black Legend, the inaccurate portrayal of Spanish colonialism as more brutal than that of other European powers (Taylor, 2002). The Black Legend was popularized by the British, who sought to justify their own imperialism by claiming moral superiority over the Spanish (Nieto-Phillips, 2004). While there is no question that Spanish colonizers committed horrible atrocities, such atrocities were also carried out by the British in equal measure. Nonetheless, the Black Legend endured, and in the years following US independence many Americans held negative views of Spaniards, who they saw as authoritarian,