History - Hispanic Americans

Hispanic Americans (more specifically Spanish Americans) have had a large impact on America's culture and history long before the United States was even a nation.  In 1902 The Reclamation Act is passed, dispossessing many Hispanic Americans of their land. Brutality against Mexican Americans in the Southwest territories is commonplace. Lynching’s and murders of Mexican Americans in California and Texas result in a formal protest in 1912 by the Mexican ambassador of the mistreatment. Limits on the number of immigrants allowed to enter the United States during a single year are imposed for the first time in the country's history in 1921. As the first of two national origin quota acts designed to curtail immigration from eastern and southern Europe and Asia is passed, Mexico and Puerto Rico become major sources of workers. Congress created the Border Patrol in 1925.  During the 1940’s and 1950’s, unionization among Hispanic workers increases rapidly, as Hispanic workers and union sympathizers struggle for reform.  From 1954 to 1958 Operation Wetback, a government effort to locate and deport undocumented workers, results in the deportation of 3.8 million persons of Mexican descent. Only a small fraction of that amount are allowed deportation hearings. Thousands of U.S. citizens of Mexican descent are also arrested and detained.

The 1960’s saw segregation abolished in Texas, Arizona, and other regions, largely through the efforts of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the Alianza Hispano Americana. Meanwhile, immigration from Mexico doubles from 5.9 percent to 11.9 percent, bringing the total percentage of immigrants to the United States to 13.3. Congress passes the Equal Educational Opportunity Act to create equality in public schools by making bilingual education available to Hispanic youth in 1974. By 1978, the median income of Hispanic families below the poverty level falls from $7,238 in 1978 to $6,557 in 1987, controlling for inflation.  In the 1980’s the Reagan administration maintains that affirmative action programs entail quotas, constituting a form of reverse discrimination. By 1996, Proposition 209, introduced as a ballot initiative, is passed by the California voters. The initiative bars preferential treatment based on race or gender, virtually eliminating affirmative action in state hiring, public contracts, and education. By the 2000’s Hispanics are pronounced the nation's largest minority group — surpassing African Americans — after new Census figures are released showing the U.S. Hispanic population at 37.1 million as of July 2001.