takaki ch 7

Takaki ch 7

In Takaki’s seventh chapter, “Foreigners in Their Native Land,” the beginning of Mexican-American racism is shown. Takaki claims that the main reason that Mexican racism began was that Mexico owned land that America wanted. This land was Texas as well as California. The Mexican-American War was fought to obtain these lands and through the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States was able to buy California, New Mexico, Nevada, and parts of Colorado, Arizona and Utah. The Mexicans who previously lived in those states were allowed to stay in them and become American citizens. Although they became American citizens, they were not treated the same as white Americans. They were paid less than white workers and also given suffrage that didn’t matter. Many Mexican landowners were stripped of their land by the courts. Only about 2,000,000 acres of land remained with the Mexican landowners while over 33,000,000 was taken away. These properties were taken away either by forcing them landowner into debt or simply denying them the property that was once theirs. Some Mexicans were forced to sell land because they could not get necessary bank loans to pay for irrigation systems like the whites were able to. After the land was stripped away from the farming Mexicans, they were forced to work in mines and on railroads. The railroad work was migratory while the mine work was very physical.

A question that I would like to propose would be, “Why did white America think that everything on the North American continent belonged to them at this time period?” I think that white America’s dream for manifest destiny was too strong of an influence on the way that they thought about other people. They fought too hard for a landmass that reached from ocean to ocean, and they did not care what they did to other people in order to get there.

Although background information is helpful in most circumstances, I felt that this chapter went into too much depth about the Mexican American War because I do not feel that that is the main cause behind the racism towards Mexican workers at that time period. I feel that racism towards the Mexicans at this time period was based more on white supremacy than on American supremacy. The Mexican American War was based on expanding America while the racism shown towards Mexicans and Mexican-Americans was based on creating privilege for the white male in society. I think that when the Mexicans joined with the Japanese they made a wise decision because they were able to show that they were not racist towards other people, like the white men were.