HispanicVista Columnists

By Raoul Lowery Contreras

The Spanish who came to Mexico to live and prosper overseeing millions of Indians and mestizos preferred to live in the cities and to manage their huge estates from afar. In view of this region-wide absentee owner and lord of the land, someone had to take care of the haciendas and ranchos.

These haciendas in and around the Valley of Mexico grew corn, sugar cane, cotton and other basic products. As Mexico grew northward, however, agriculture diminished because of water availability and ranching became the industry de jour.

Ranches were huge, as much land was necessary to raise cattle (vacas). Water and forage being scarce, ranches grew to hundreds of thousands of acres in size. Many people were required to maintain and run these huge ranches and, (one) there weren’t enough willing Spaniards to accomplish these tasks, nor (two) were there many Spaniards who wanted to perform the hard work necessary to raise and herd thousands of cattle. Someone had to handle the cattle, the VACAS.

Observation: The same conditions exist in the USA today—There aren’t enough Americans willing to do the jobs that need to be done. Agriculture, ranching, construction, service industries of all sorts including restaurants, tire shops, clothing manufacturers all depend on Mexican mestizos to fill out their job rolls.

Someone had to do the ranching, that someone was the half-breed, the mestizo. The mestizo snapped up his destiny and created the greatest Western Hemispheric cultural invention of the millenium, the VAQUERO, AKA (also known as) the cowboy.

The cowboy is the very foundation America culture, as we know it. We owe the cowboy to Mexico, not Hollywood -- we owe it to Mexican mestizos not English dandies, or Daniel Boone, or Davy Crocket.

Perhaps more importantly, the mestizo provided the manpower for colonization of northern Mexico; he developed ranching and mining techniques so necessary to the building of America.

It was mestizo Mexican miners who taught inexperienced Americans how to mine for gold in the fabled California Gold Rush. For their efforts, laws were passed by the new American government of California barring Mexican gold miners from mining gold unless they were in the employ of Americans.

Mexican ranchers had their land grant ranches stolen from them by Americans who flooded in after the Mexican and American War (1846-48) and passed myriad laws that confused long time land owners with new, foreign laws and requirements designed to take the ranchos away from Mexicans.

Requirements were so convoluted that after California became a state Mexicans who appealed the loss of their ranchos were totally unsuccessful in appealing to special federal tribunals set up to handle California land cases. Not one Mexican won an appeal in the 50 years after the tribunals were organized.

Laws were passed by the California legislature that prohibited Mexicans from testifying against “white men.” Legal discrimination was built into laws and regulations of the state and local governments that took decades to eliminate. California was not a pleasant place to be if one was of Mexican descent.

Everything changed when the American Civil War broke out in April of 1861. California, which had been admitted to the United States as a Free State – no slavery – came out strongly for President Abraham Lincoln’s fight against seceding slave-holding states.

California organized the “Native California Cavalry” and appointed elected State Senator Romauldo Pacheco as the Brigadier General in command. The Cavalry’s first military task after organizing was the search and disarmament of Confederate sympathizers in Los Angeles. Los Angeles was the flash point of Confederate secession support in California.

Needless to say, the immigrant new Californians were uncomfortable with their houses being searched by Mexican Americans; they were furious when Mexican American soldiers of the militia cavalry took their weapons away from them.

Adding insult to injury, Brigadier General Pacheco (Republican) was elected Lt. Governor of California and inherited the Governor’s office when the Governor was elected to the United States Senate by the legislature.

While numerous, from Governor Pacheco on down, Mexican Americans served in many public and private occupations; they owned land and businesses, served in the American Army and Navy and otherwise comported themselves like Governor Pacheco, solid, progressive and perfect Americans.

The same was not true in Texas. Despite service by Mexican Americans on both sides of the Civil War, the State of Texas refused to acknowledge that Mexicans could be United States citizens as mandated by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican war in 1848. In the United States Supreme Court, Texas claimed that Mexicans could not be citizens because in 1848 federal law required that to become a citizen one had to be “white and free.” Texas claimed (Texas v. White) that Mexicans were not white, thus they couldn’t be citizens and thus Texas refused to observe claimed citizenship by former Mexicans.

The Court ruled against Texas. It was not until 1954, however, that Mexicans were legally defined as a “discreet class” by the court when it ruled that Texas had officially discriminated against Mexicans because of race.

While Texas was officially discriminating against Mexicans, White California objected to Mexican Americans and elected the Workingman’s Party into power. That Party defined Mexicans (and Mexican Americans) as “the issue of Spaniards and Indians” and passed laws restricting all business and professional activities of anyone defined as “the issue of Spaniards and Indians.”

The Workingman’s Party quickly degenerated into a corrupt organization and government run by the railroads. Interestingly, if one looks at a demographic map of the United States one easily sees how Mexican immigration into the United States followed rail lines. They were the best railroad workers and were highly desired by railroads as employees.

They came north for jobs in the 19th Century and still do. They became the farm hands of the West and they still are. They came north as cowboys and still do. In recent years the State of Wyoming has actively recruited Mexican cowboys to work in Wyoming as cowboys because, of all things – THERE AREN’T ENOUGH AMERICANS WILLING TO WORK AS WYOMING COWBOYS.

Little has changed, in 2006 Mexicans are necessary for the United States to function, as it has since Mexican soldiers defeated British soldiers at what is now St. Louis (Missouri), Mobile (Alabama) and Pensacola (Florida) in the American Revolutionary War.