The Racial Stereotypes of Mexicans That Underpinned Manifest Destiny - Essay Example

RACIAL STEREOTYPES OF MEXICANS THAT UNDERPINNED MANIFEST DESTINY Introduction In the 19th century, Manifest Destiny was the American belief that the United States was destined to expand extensively across the North American continent, from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. The ideology and practice of Manifest Destiny which included expansionism based on nationalism, “influenced United States Policy particularly in the last six decades of the nineteenth century” (Mountjoy: 13). This led to the U.S. conquest of California, and justified the war with Mexico in the 1840s. The term integrated the concepts of Anglo-Saxon superiority with capitalist expansion of territory, “ideas which had deep roots in American political culture” (Nevins, 2002: 17). The extensive American efforts at expansion included in addition to the Louisiana Purchase and the acquisition of the lands of the Mexican cession, internal expansion as American settlers moved westward during the California gold rush (Joy, 2003). The concept of Manifest Destiny was used in the 1840s by the government to justify war with Mexico. Thesis Statement: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the racial stereotypes of Mexicans that underpinned Manifest Destiny in the United States. Racial Superiority of the Anglos in America Anglos were the whites arriving in California from the eastern seaboard from the 14th century till as late as the early 1840s. Through close association and marriage allegiance with the California elite they acquired great wealth and political power. “Anglos relied on the racial ideology surrounding miscegenation” (Haney-Lopez, 2004: 59) or mixture of races, to denigrate Mexicans as a mixed and therefore inferior people. One of the main reasons for the Anglos’ aversion to Mexicans’ mixed race was based on a fear that Mexicans would cause racial mixing and consequent racial disaster in the United States. Further, Anglo racial ideology that fuelled Mexican racialization was founded on a belief in Anglo-Saxon superiority against Mexicans. In the Anglos’ viewpoint, according to the laws of nature, non-white races would cease to exist and give way before a stronger civilization. Through a scientific study of race, the “volatile ideology of white superiority supposedly rooted in nature and revealed through physical differences” resulted in Anglos conceptualizing Mexicans as a people doomed to defeat. In the mid-1800s as Anglos pushed westwards into California the three closely related racial ideologies they believed in were: the consequences of racial mixing, a conviction that race made people inferior, and a view of themselves as specifically great because of their race. The darker skinned, poorer Mexicans who were a hybrid of Anglo, Indian, Spanish and African blood suffered more on account of Anglo antipathy to their impure status, as compared to their lighter skinned and wealthier countrymen who were racialized as close to white (Haney-Lopez, 2004). Based on their racial attitudes, Anglos took ownership of land belonging to Mexicans by force or fraud. Moreover, “the new urban economy of the late nineteenth century afforded them few opportunities” (Carrigan, 2004: 419) due to which most had no recourse other than to take up poorly paid manual labour. This combination of economic discrimination and racial prejudice led to Mexicans living in their own ethnic neighbourhood or barrios amidst poverty, crime and disease. The spatial separation between Mexicans and Anglos created greater cultural and relational distances, with the groups speaking different languages and observing different religions. By imposing notions of their own superiority as a race Racial Stereotyping of Mexicans The segregation between the Anglos and the Mexicans with resultant mutual suspicion, fuelled racial stereotyping of Mexicans as a cruel and dangerous people prone to criminal behaviour. They were held in contempt, stigmatized as being ignorant, lazy, vicious and filthy, who should be exterminated or driven out of the country. These stereotypes emphasized their qualities in a detrimental manner, establishing Mexicans as a violent threat to the established social order. The conceptualizations provided Anglos with the required pretext for carrying out violent acts of repression including lynching and torturing, often with the support of the police (Carrigan, 2003). Further, Mexicans were categorized as a “feminine” race, in view of the dominant discourse of the nineteenth century which differentiated races in terms of gender. The effeminization of Mexican men encouraged the Anglos to accuse them of crimes related to cheating and cowardice. Besides inferring lack of traditional masculine virtue “they were denied the attributes of honour, honesty and loyalty; and were defined as unprincipled, conniving and treacherous” (Carrigan, 2003: 420). Racial stereotyping of Mexican women related to their class and race, with the higher classes spared from the practice, on account of their being considered more white than Mexican. While Anglo women were considered pious and chaste, Mexican women were seen as depraved. With the emergence of racist and nationalist ideas collectively known as Manifest Destiny in the early 1840s, the above stereotypes became even more malignant. Hence, the diverse and complex concepts that comprised Manifest Destiny in the early 1840s, arose from Americans’ conviction about the superiority of the United States’ “civilization, culture and political institutions”, states Gutierrez (1993: 522). Political Superiority of the Anglos in America Founded on notions of Anglo-Saxon racial superiority, the United States waged war on Mexico from 1846 to 1848. A study of this war clearly reveals that the United States of America is an ordinary country with national ambitions “and typically violent expansionist methods” (Rogdrigues, 2007: 1). However, most American historians of war do not express this interpretation, focusing on the war process itself and its aftermath. The specific and enormous contradictions are not revealed, which attests to the continued power of American exceptionalism. The U.S. built up its nationalist reasons for war based on self-defense and justified it by its moral obligations, and as a necessity in its role as a guiding light for freedom. The dubious war, an aggression that was inprovoked was in shown to be in compliance with the United States’ exceptionalist belief. The veneer could not hide the greed and violence, “perhaps not the redeeming enterprise of a republic dedicated to the advancement of democracy and freedom” (Rodrigues, 2007: 1). The Americanization of California resulted in the largest proportion of native-born Americans being the most adversely affected, leading to a decimation of their indigenous population due to a combination of starvation, diseases and military attacks. The Mexicans were integrated into American society in a subordinate position, to become increasingly alienized and steeped in poverty (Nevins, 2002). Conclusion This paper has highlighted the significance of racial stereotypes of Mexicans impacting Manifest Destiny in the United States. The Americans established notions of their own superiority through demeaning the Mexicans and imposing them with detrimental, stereotypical qualities. The Anglos or whites considered themselves to belong to a superior race, while they denigrated Mexicans as an impure race based on their mixed origins. In the U.S.War against Mexico (1846-1848) and the subsequent annexation of large areas of the region, the justification used by America was that of Mexicans’ inferior racial qualities which made them unsuccessful as soldiers in the war. However, their smaller numbers compared to the American forces was not publicized. The reasons for American political superiority due to which war on Mexico was justified pertained to its role as a mediator with moral obligations to help the people of Mexico maximize the potential of their land. Further, it was a guiding light for freedom in regions where its help was required, and that it had to operate in self-defense against Mexican mixed race which could adversely integrate with the pure race of the whites. “The historic practices of racism and exclusionism as applied to Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans” (Nevins, 2002: 111) help to understand contemporary social relations in the United States. The American society of today has greater inclusiveness of these groups previously marginalized and relegated to a peripheral existence. However, American society still continues its practise of exclusionism as exercised earlier in history, though a vast majority of people have universalistic views of equality. Bibliography Adams, M. (2000). Readings for diversity and social justice. London: Routledge. Carrigan, W.D. (2003). The lynching of persons of Mexican origin or descent in the United States, 1848-1928. Journal of Social History, 37 (2): pp.411-438. Gutierrez, D.G. (1993). Significant to whom?: Mexican Americans and the history of the American West. The Western Historical Quarterly, 24 (4): pp.519-539. Haney-Lopez, I. (2004). Racism on trial: The Chicano fight for justice. The United States of America: Harvard University Press. Joy, M.S. (2003). American expansionism, 1783-1860: A manifest destiny? London: Pearson/ Longman Publishers. Mountjoy, S. (2009). Manifest destiny: Westward expansion. The United Kingdom: Infobase Publishing. Nevins, J. (2002). Operation gatekeeper: The rise of the “Illegal Alien” and the making of the U.S.-Mexico boundary. New York: Routledge. Rodrigues, J.J. (2007). The U.S. Mexican war in James Lowell’s the Biglow Papers. The Arizona Quarterly, 63 (3): pp.1-33. Read More