I’d really love to see some kind of actual evidence that the US foreign relations with Mexico is based on skin color.
Cite or conjecture?
JThunder: Or perhaps it’s that poster’s wishful thinking, coupled with an ignorance of the racial makeup of the country–especially the racial makeup of the politically and economically powerful there.
I am ignorant of the racial makeup here? Probably no more so than you are ignorant of the racial profile of your country. But how does my assumed ignorance on the racial make up of Mexico have anything to do with how the USA has historically treated Mexico? Or for that matter, what does the racial make up of the rich and powerful in Mexico have to do with discrimination north of the border?
And I still await a cite that the US foreign policy regarding Mexico has been based on Mexicans’ “brownness.”
The independence (annexation by proxy) of Texas was based largely on slavery. The Mexican-American War and The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The Greaser laws. The whole European racial superiority that guided politics in 19th century America.
The history of US immigration law is loaded with anti-“non-white” legislation.
Been wandering in one of smartguysmile’s threads?
In other words: What?
When the US had conquered Mexico in 1948, there was debate in the US Congress and the press whether they should take the land north of the Rio Grande or annex the whole country.
So monty, can you explain why the US, which had total control over the situation and could have done anything they wished, decided not to annex the whole country? I mean at this time Manifest Destiny was a dominant theme in US politics.
Well, because Mexico was engulfed in one of its periodic attempts at self-immolation and we did not want to invite that mess into the Union? I recall W.T. Sherman’s comments (from thirty years later) of how Mexico was doomed to endless war. I suppose that was pretty well the common impression of the place.
More likely the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants didn’t want to give 8 million brown skinned Catholics US citizenship. Debates at the time concerned getting the most land while obtaining the least Mexicans. The Mexicans that lived in the annexed territory were supposedly “guaranteed” US citizenship and their property rights were to be honored. Those guarantees lasted until about the time the ink dried on the treaty papers.
This is your problem. You refuse to give backup, but rather more opinion. Why is your “brown-skinned Catholic” reason “more likely” than Paul’s “doomed to endless war” reason?
Actually if you read my post I mention the debate on annexing all of Mexico hinged on the Americans willing to accept Mexicans as their equals by law. They weren’t.
Examples of the Anglo opinion of Mexicans as inferior:
" During the years of the Texas Republic, some Texas Mexicans were able to purchase and hold onto their land by claiming whiteness through pure “Spanish blood.” Already, in the debates over the annexation of Texas in the 1840s, Anglo politicians referred often to the **inferiority of the “Mexican race,”**using metaphors of dirt, including the “greaser” epithet. Yet Anglo-Texans who married Mexican women “whitened” their spouses by calling them Spanish."
"Among the notable aspects of the treaty, it set the Texas border at the Rio Grande; it provided for the protection of the property and civil rights of Mexican nationals who would now be living on U.S. soil; the United States agreed to police its side of the border; and both countries agreed to compulsory arbitration of future disputes. However, when the United States Senate ratified the treaty, it erased Article 10, which guaranteed the protection of Mexican land grants; Article 9, which deals with citizenship rights, was also weakened. This in turn created an anti-Mexican atmosphere that spurred the violation of their civil rights. In Texas, Mexicans were restricted from voting.
In terms of property ownership, many property rights existing under Spanish and Mexican land grants were not recognized by the United States. **In California, approximately 27 percent of land grant claims were rejected; in the territory of New Mexico, some 76 percent of such claims were rejected. ** "
"At first, the principal thrust of the U.S. policy was to annex territory that was populated mainly by American pioneers and only thinly by “lesser breeds” (Oregon, California, Texas.) Mexicans were politically, socially and genetically substandard; hence unable to take on democratic institutions and habits. But when the war with Mexico became more of a struggle than we had anticipated, the thought of regenerating the country arose. The U.S. was, in theory, against imperialism. We saw it as a European vice that was inconsistent with our traditions. Mexico would be “the religious execution of our country’s glorious mission, under the direction of divine providence, to civilize and christianize, and raise up from degradation . . . a most unhappy people,” stated one newspaper. "
"Despite their differences, the pro-war (mostly Democrats) and anti-war (mostly Whigs) factions in Congress were united in their fears about incorporating New Mexico’s population of Mexicans and Indians, which both camps deemed racially inferior and unworthy of citizenship."
“noting Democratic and Whig anti-Mexican racism and anti-Catholic sentiment in the press and congressional debates about the war with Mexico and TGH. cites to some of most virulent racism; In terms of citizenship, immigration,
suffrage, and related legislation and judicial decisions, one scholar has called the 1829-1856 period the apex of “illiberal hierarchies” based on race and gender, noting that both the Democrats and the Whigs“agreed that white Christian male dominance must prevail.””
I forgot the whole anti-Catholic thing. A major consideration.
Still, American would be a very different (and perhaps better place) had it annexed Mexico in the 1850s. Harry Turtledove! Call your office!
Here’s another cite for you Monty. Do you require any more?
“Since the time of Jefferson, the United States had had its eye on
expanding to the Pacific Ocean and establishing trade with Asia. Others
in the ruling class came to want more slave states, for reasons of
political power, and this also required westward expansion. Both goals
pointed to taking over part of Mexico. The first step was Texas, which
was acquired for the United States by filling the territory with Anglos
who then declared a revolution from Mexico in 1836. After failing to
purchase more Mexican territory, President James Polk created a pretext
for starting a war with the declared goal of expansion. The notoriously
brutal, two-year war was justfied in the name of Manifest Destiny.
Manifest Destiny is a profoundly racist concept. For example, a
major force of opposition to gobbling up Mexico at the time came from
politicians saying “the degraded Mexican-Spanish” were unfit to become
part of the United States; they were “a wretched people . . . mongrels.””
Yeah Monty, they thought highly of their southern neighbors.
Here’s another interesting link with a timeline in the 20th century:
“In 1929, as the nation plunged into its worst economic crisis ever, anti-Mexican sentiment popped up everywhere. President Herbert Hoover blamed the Mexicans as one cause of the Depression, claiming they took jobs away from Americans. With the president’s backing, cities began a massive campaign to deport and repatriate Mexican immigrants, both legal and illegal, back to Mexico.
the L.A. Chamber of Commerce secretary wrote,“The slogan has gone out over the city and is being adhered to – employ no Mexican while a white man is unemployed; get the Mexican back into Mexico regardless by what means.””
I’d say it can’t get any more official than having the president advocate it!