| Perceptions and Misconceptions
As the Mexican American community became larger,
it became increasingly prominent in American public life.
When former
Mexican territories became states, they began to affect the balance
of power in the U.S. government. National political figures began
to court voters in Mexican American regions of the country, even
though the candidates themselves were still overwhelmingly European
Americans. In this newsreel from 1916, Theodore Roosevelt campaigns
in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for Republican presidential nominee
Charles Evans Hughes. The man seated next to Roosevelt in the
car appears to be Albert B. Fall, one of the new state of New
Mexico's first U.S. senators.
The entertainment industry also showed some
awareness of the new importance of Mexican culture.
Publishers and songwriters turned out a steady stream of products
with "Mexican" or "Spanish" themes, from advertisements
to plays
to popular
songs. These works generally had little or nothing to do with
the realities of Mexican life, in the U.S. or anywhere else. At
best, they pandered to romanticized images of life south of the
border. The worst among them perpetuated gross ethnic stereotypes
and racist slurs.
Other groups
saw the growing Mexican immigrant population as a social problem
and worked to eliminate what they saw as the negative aspects
of Mexican American life. One school pamphlet, "Americanization
through Homemaking," suggested that putting Mexican girls
into sewing, cooking, and cleaning classes was the key to social
harmony. "If we assimilate the countless number of Mexicans that
cross our Southern border…we must begin at the basic structure
of their social order--the home." |
