Two white activists from Virginia traveled to Arizona to cross into Mexico and then back into the United States with no government issued documentation. The Border Crossing Action was designed to be in solidarity with immigrant-led struggles for justice in Virginia and to galvanize non-immigrant communities to join the movement. This audio follows Jeff Winder and Sue Frankel Streit as they prepare for their trek, and as they walk the first half of their 40 miles in the desert.
Reviewer: delsur2009 -
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April 25, 2008 Subject: TREATY RESPECTED? ARTICLE I
There shall be firm and universal peace between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic, and between their respective countries, territories, cities, towns, and people, without exception of places or persons.
TREATY WITH MEXICO (February 2, 1848)
* 1861, During the 1860s, Tiburcio Vásquez, Joaquín Murieta, and others are branded as bandits for resisting the seizure of American Hispanic lands in California.
* 1865: Under provisions of the 1862 Homestead Act, Land speculators acquire American Hispanic land by using squatters to claim the land illegally. This land was obtained illegally with the aid and might of the U.S. Government against their own American Hispanic citizens.
* The "Tejanos" (American Hispanics in Texas) suffered outright repression from the Texas Rangers, who were known as the "Hispanic's Ku Klu Klan".
* 1850 California: The new comers grew jealous of the experienced Mexican-Californio miners, and In 1850, the new legislature (with the might of the Federal U.S. Government) enacted a burdensome "Foreigner Miner's Tax" of $20.00 per month. This new tax was aimed at the American Hispanics and the Spanish speaking Californios, enforced by volunteer armed new comers. Many of our mining terms, like bonanza and placer are Spanish in origin by the way.
* Up to the at least the 1940s, Southwest Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and California: Birth certificates for American Hispanics did not indicate they were American born. A new born of American Hispanic origin (those who had been here for centuries included), was *born in Mexico* or *Mexican* instead of American.
. 1850, four thousand Hispanic miners gather in Sonora, California, to protest the Foreign Miners' Tax, which was enacted to drive them from gold fields. Many Hispanics could not afford the extra taxation and left.
* 1851 California counties with the highest Hispanic populations were taxed at a rate five times greater than any other region in the state. Many Hispanics could not afford another extra tax, and left.
* 1854, the takeover of American Hispanic lands: The Surveyor of General Claims Office is established in New Mexico (includes Arizona) but cannot process claims fast enough to prevent the takeover. Loss of over 75% of Hispanics lands from illegal or legal offical means. A violation of the TGH.
* 1855 Laws are enacted in California to prohibit many cultural pastimes of the American Hispanic population.
* 1855 California. Soon the Anglos dominated the state legislature, enacting the tax and laws like the 1855 Greaser Act, which defined vagrants as (quote) "all persons who [were] commonly known as 'Greasers' or the issue of Spanish or Indian blood." The "Greaser" Act. A anti-vagrancy act by the State Legislature Excludes "Diggers" (Indians) but includes persons of mixed Spanish and Indian blood or "Greasers".
This Law was intended to keep Hispanics from owning the mines, and provided another justification for expropriation of American Hispanic lands.This racist epithet is all too well known to date, which started with ordinary people, and made law in the California State Legislature 1855.
* 1855, California The anti-Catholic Know-Nothings organize and hold a state convention in Sacramento.
* 1855, California, The Legislature refuses to provide funds for translation of state laws into Spanish despite the fact that 1) The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidaldo provides for the protection and guarantee of the conquered Spanish speaking Americans, 2) the majority of the State's inhabitants are of Spanish speaking extraction.
* 1857, California: Former delegate to the State Constitutional Convention Manuel Dominguez is barred from testifying for the defense in The People vs. Elyea because he is a mestizo. (Note: using mestizo was a way to separate Hispanics and keep them from uniting, this was and still used today in the southwest. Many whites considered Hispanics from the acquired western states as "inferior to Indians and Africans because they were racially mixed, a hybrid race that represented the worst nightmare of what might become of the white race if they let down their racial guard".)
* 1855 Anglo businessmen attempt to run American (Hispanics) teamsters (wagon-drivers) out of south Texas, violating the guarantees offered by the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo.
* 1857, Anglo businessmen try to push American Hispanic teamsters out of south Texas, violating the guarantees of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
* 1858, Miners and settlers move into Colorado in search of silver, forcing more Hispanic Americans from their land.
* 1800s - 1900s the western U.S. lynchings of American Hispanics were common on a daily basis.
* 1862, The Supreme Court rules in favor of Daly City "squatters". The Homestead Act is passed in Congress, allowing squatters in the southwest to settle and claim American Hispanic lands. This was common in California and the southwest.
* 1863 Arizona: Anglo segment was becoming numerical dominant. Anglo Arizonans were, for the most part, preoccupied with controlling the large American Hispanic population politically.
#1889 Northern Arizona: The 1889 Taylor Grazing Act: this law enacted was responsible for the elimination of the sheep industry in Concho, Arizona whose owners were primarily Spanish speaking sheep herders and Native Americans.. Concho, once a thriving Spanish speaking community , with the loss of the sheep industry left Concho and vicinity, in an almost helpless condition, and started its decline and loss of population.
# Southwest, Arizona, New Mexico: 75% of American Hispanics lost their land in the late 1800s and beginning of the 1900s through illegal and "legal" methods. The "legal" methods land was lost is due to the language. The Character (language) of the Southwest was/is Spanish, however land owners were not permitted to argue their case in the Spanish language. All lawyers in the S.W. at that time were Spanish speaking. The U.S. Government brought in English speaking lawyers for the landowners and hence ended up with the land owned by the Spanish speaking landowners.
# 1848: Land had been the basis of the California socio-economic system. With the loss of land after the U.S. conquest undermined that system. The protections provided by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo were ignored by the U.S.
Holders of Spanish and Mexican land grants, most of whom were American Hispanics, were required to seek legal confirmation of their titles. The federal government placed the burden of proof on the landowners instead of automatically accepting all titles and then handling challenges on an individual basis. In direct contradication to the protection by the TGH.
# 1883 (May 12) Phoenix, Arizona: Phoenix merchants signed an agreement to receive Mexican currency only at the rates of: dollars, 80 cents; halves, 40 cents; quarters, 20 cents.
# Late 1800s, Northern Arizona (New Mexico at the time), Marcos Padilla Baca was the Justice of the Peace when the first English speakers entered the region. The American Hispanics helped the interlopers with shelter and food, and were soon repayed by enacting laws which would put American Hispanics and Native Americans out of business.
# 1884 Texas, there were daily lynchings of Hispanic Americans in the area around Fort Davis, Texas; many Anglos voiced the opinion that the lynchings should continue until no Hispanics remained in the area. Lynchings were a tool of racial oppression elsewhere in the Southwest as well; in California, lynching of Hispanics became so common that in the Hispanic community, American democracy became known as "linchocracia."
(From Vernellia R. Randall Professor of Law, and Luis Angel Toro).
# 1898 Morenci - Clifton, Arizona: There was a prospect of trouble between American Hispanics and Anglos at Clifton and Morenci. The outbreak of racial conflicts was based on the sympathy of the Hispanics towards Spain in her troubles abroad.
