Racist attitudes are more noticeable after the Texas revolution: Historian

The Mexican state of Coahuila and the American state of Texas are about to celebrate 200 years of relationship.

From provinces of New Spain to forming the state of “Coahuila and Texas” or “Coahuiltexas” during the first years of independent Mexico, until its rebellion and subsequent annexation to the United States, its Hispanic and American populations have experienced marked contrasts.

Among them, and of which little is known, is the racist violence exercised by a white majority against Texans of Mexican origin, which after their independence and subsequent integration into the United States was deployed through state agents and citizens turned vigilantes with xenophobic campaigns that left thousands dead, according to researchers.

These episodes of violence have been documented thanks to work such as the Refusing to Forget project, which emerged from an initiative by academics in the United States in February 2014 and which has included the collaboration of Texan residents.

Refusing to Forget includes Latin American History Ph.D. Sonia Hernández from Texas A&M University, who specializes in the intersections of gender and labor on the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as the history of Texas and southwestern Mexico.

In addition to receiving funding from the Texas Council for the Humanities, the Summerfield G. Roberts Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Fulbright Foundation, her published books have received awards in the United States.

For her book Working Women into the Borderlands, which was translated into Spanish under the title Mujeres, trabajo y región frontiza, she won the Sara A. Whaley Book Prize and the Liz Carpenter Award, and was a finalist for the Weber-Clements Prize. Her most recent book, For a Just and Better World: Engendering Anarchism in the Mexican Borderlands, 1900-1938, was recognized with the Taft Labor History Book Prize.

Because of his specialty, he gave a written interview to El Siglo de Torreón which is divided into two parts, one covering independent Mexico and the arrival of the first Anglo-Saxon settlers to the territory of Texas and the second covering the period of racial violence against Texans of Mexican origin in the first decades of the 20th century.

What was the initial relationship between the American colonists and the inhabitants of New Spain and then independent Mexico?

The work that has been done on this period of colonization shows us that there were positive relations between American and Spanish colonists representing the crown and After 1821, Mexicans moved to the region following colonization projects promoted by the government of the Mexican Republic. We must keep in mind that slavery existed and there was exploitation of indigenous groups and both groups participated in that system that affected a large number of people who did not have the same rights and benefits as some settlers/colonists.

Is there a turning point that marks the beginning of racist attitudes on the part of American colonists?

Although it was not very marked, there were already some ideas based on certain concepts of racial or ethnic inferiority that also had something to do with differences in languages ​​and religious practices, but this became even more noticeable in the years after the Texas Revolution, also known as the Texas independence movement, and even more marked after the Guadalupe-Hidalgo Treaty of 1848.

When Texas gained independence, what policies and treatment did Anglo-Saxon Texans give to those of Mexican origin?

Treatment depended on the social class/status of the people since those who had land could maintain a semblance of power and in fact occupy positions of power at a local or regional level.

There were those like the Texan who fought for the independence of Texas, Juan Seguín, who despite his contributions to this historical moment was seen as a traitor, he was seen as a supporter of Mexico or the Mexican government, so he was seen as part and member of the losing camp, that is, Mexico, although he was one of the Texans who did not defend Mexico, but rather defended this idea of ​​Texan independence.

Although there were some Anglo-Saxons who supported the Texans and maintained friendly relations, such as citizen José Antonio Navarro or Stephen F Austin, there were others who did not see their fellow Texans of Spanish origin as their equals.

Seguín had served as mayor but it would be the last since Ideas based on the supposed inferiority of people of Mexican origin, especially because of their ties to the indigenous community, will exclude them from political and other positions of power.This gets worse after the Reconstruction period when the Civil War ends.

Jim Crow laws were introduced, which were enacted to restrict African Americans, but from 1901 and 1903 they began to more strongly affect the community of Mexican origin in Texas, regardless of their US citizenship status.