In this class, I think a brief historical context is important. Given the time constraints, I apologize for not covering every social group, or not covering some groups in greater depth. If there's a topic you'd like me to include in the lecture, please feel free to send me a message to let me know. :)

For the Week 3 Lecture Quiz, have a general understanding of each of the topics below.

Native Americans
Mexican/Latino Americans

Native Americans

Excerpt from the textbook "Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Class" by Joseph F Healey & Eileen O'Brien

Before European's arrived to America, there were hundreds of tribes and nations, each with their own language, culture, home territory, and unique history.
1607 when Jamestown was established, there were 7-10 million Native Americans.
By 1890 at the end of the Indian Wars, there were fewer than 250,000 Native Americans (most were killed by disease).
The Native American population declined by 75-95%.

In the West, the grim story of competition for land accompanied by rising hostility and aggression repeated itself. Wars were fought, buffalo were killed, territory was expropriated, atrocities were committed on both sides, and the fate of the tribes became more and more certain. By 1890, the greater power and resources of white society had defeated the Indian nations. All the great warrior chiefs were dead or in prison, and almost all American Indians were living on reservations controlled by agencies of the federal government. The reservations consisted of land set aside for the tribes by the government during the treaty negotiations. Often, these lands were not the traditional homelands and were hundreds or even thousands of miles away from what the tribe considered to be “home.” It is not surprising that the reservations were usually on undesirable, often worthless land.

Tribes were to be considered “sovereign nations”, and were required to be compensated for their loss of land
Indian Removal Act 1830: The law required all eastern tribes to move to lands west of the Mississippi

Map of the Indian Removal Act of 1830

Map of the southern states. It shows that native american tribes that lived east of the Mississippi river were relocated to tracks of land west of the mississippi river

The 1890s mark a low point in the American Indian history, a time of great demoralization and sadness. The tribes had to find a way to adapt to reservation life and new forms of subordination to the federal government. Although elements of the tribal way of life have survived, the tribes were impoverished and without resources, and had little ability to pursue their own interests.

American Indians, in Blauner’s terms, were a colonized minority group who faced high levels of prejudice, racism, and discrimination. Like African Americans, they were controlled by paternalistic systems (the reservations) and, in a variety of ways, were coercively acculturated. Furthermore, the negative consequences of colonized minority-group status persist long after the contact situation had been resolved.

This is a map of Native American populations from the 2010 Census. Compare this map of the "Indian Removal Act". We can see the effects of population density from act, which was passed in 1830.

Map of the USA from the 2010 census that shows rates of Native Americans by region. There are regions in the Western USA that have rates of up to 8% of the population, but they are sparsely distributed. There are few native americans that live east of the mississippi river

Extra Material: If you'd like to learn more about the Native American experiences, please review this info on the Trail of Tears.

Mexican/Latino Americans

Excerpt from the textbook "Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Class" by Joseph F Healey & Eileen O'Brien. This is a very brief description of the fight for land and racist laws that were passed by European Americans to oppress native Mexicans.

European-Americans began to immigrate to Texas in the 1820’s and by 1835, they outnumbered Mexicans 6 to 1.
Competition between Anglo-Texans and Tejanos became increasingly intense. When the United States annexed Texas in the 1840’s, full-scale war broke out, and Mexico was defeated.

As the population of the United States increased and spread across the continent, contact with Mexicans inevitably occurred. Spanish explorers and settlers had lived in what is now the southwestern United States long before the wave of American settlers broke across the region. For example, Santa Fe, New Mexico, was founded in 1598, nearly a decade before Jamestown. As late as the 1820s, Mexicans and American Indians were almost the sole residents of the region.

By the early 1800s, four areas of Mexican settlement had developed, roughly corresponding with what would become Texas, California, New Mexico, and Arizona. These areas were sparsely settled, and most Mexicans lived in what was to become New Mexico. The economy of the regions was based on farming and herding. Most people lived in villages and small towns or on ranches and farms. Social and political life was organized around family and the Catholic Church, and tended to be dominated by an elite class of wealthy landowners.

…

Following the war, intergroup relations continued to sour, and the political and legal rights of the Tejano (Mexicans living in Texas) community were often ignored in the hunger for land. Increasingly impoverished and powerless, the Tejanos had few resources with which to resist the growth of European-American invasion. They were badly outnumbered and stigmatized by the recent Mexican military defeat. Land that had once been Mexican increasingly came under Anglo control, and widespread violence and lynching reinforced the growth of Anglo dominance.

In California, the Gold Rush of 1849 spurred a massive population movement from the East. Early relations between Anglos and Californios (native Mexicans in the state) had been relatively cordial, forming the basis for a multiethnic, bilingual state. The rapid growth of an Anglo majority after statehood in 1850 doomed these efforts, however, and the Californios, like the Tejanos, lost their land and political power. Anglo-Americans used violence, biased laws, discrimination, and other means to exploit and repress Californios, and the new wealth generated by gold mining flowed into Anglo hands.

Here is a map from Pew Research of Latinos rates of Latinos per county in 2011.

Cesar Chavez

Cesar Chavez was an incredible civil rights leader. Watch this video to learn about the ways that he organized Mexican Americans and appealed to America society at large in the fight to improve the working conditions of Mexican farm workers in California. Cesar was truly an enlightened man who understood deeply the need to respect the dignity of all humans. (4 min)

Extra Material: If you would like, you can learn more about Cesar Chavez here.

After viewing both tabs, click Next for Lecture Part 9: Chinese & Japanese American Experiences