Textbook -Etextbook Ebook Library Search Download Read Study Free or Paid - Find it or Request here.One-Volume), 052 America's History, Volume Two: Since 1865, 921 America's New Democracy, Sixth Edition, 693 American.

Young Mexican-American women as farmhands collecting carrots in 1939 in Edinburg, Texas. Image courtesy of.

Image available on the Internet and included in accordance with. The rise of commercial agriculture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries summoned laborers for seasonal and farm work, and both recent arrivals from Mexico and native-born Tejanos answered the call by heading into South and Central Texas fields. During this period, they also made for Southeast Texas and North Texas, searching out cotton lands as well as opportunities in large cities such as Houston and Dallas. Between 1910 and 1929, migrant workers began what became a yearly migrant swing that started in the farms of South Texas and headed northward into the developing Northwest Texas and cottonlands.

They settled in smaller communities along the routes of migration, and by the 1930s the basic contours of modern-day Tejano demography had taken form. With the exception of Northeast Texas, most cities and towns in the state by the pre-World War II era had Tejano populations.

Tejanos relied on a wide spectrum of occupations in the nineteenth century, though most found themselves confined to jobs as day laborers and in other unspecialized tasks. They worked as maids, restaurant helpers, and laundry workers, but the great majority turned to range duties due to the orientation of the economy and their skills as ranchhands and shepherds (). A small percentage found a niche as entrepreneurs or ranchers. After the 1880s, Texas Mexicans turned to new avenues of livelihood, such as building and performing other arduous tasks. During the agricultural revolution of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, many worked grubbing brush and picking cotton, vegetables, and fruits, primarily in the fields of South Texas, but also migrated into the other regions of the state as farmhands. In the urban settlements, an entrepreneurial sector—comprising shopowners, labor agents, barbers, theater owners, restaurateurs, and the like—ministered to Mexican consumers in familiar terms. Even as Texas society experienced increased urban movements following, Tejanos remained preponderantly an agrarian people.

Artcam Pro 2008 Crack there. In towns, many faced labor segregation and took menial jobs in construction work, city projects, railroad lines, slaughterhouses, cotton compresses, and whatever else availed itself. After World War II, however, increased numbers of Tejanos left agricultural work and found opportunities in the industrializing cities.

Most found improvements in wages and working conditions in unskilled or semiskilled positions, though a growing number penetrated the professional, managerial, sales, clerical, and craft categories. Presently, the great majority of Tejanos hold urban-based occupations that range from high-paying professional positions to minimum-wage, unskilled jobs.

An unfortunate minority remains tied to farm work as migrating campesinos (farmworkers). Tejano monument, dedicated in 2012, at the Texas State Capitol. Image available on the and included in accordance with. Since the initial settlements of the early eighteenth century, a sense of community has given Tejanos a particular identity. On the frontier, common experiences and problems forced Texas Mexicans to adjust in ways different from those of their counterparts in the Mexican interior. Tejanos fashioned an ethic of self-reliance, wresting their living from a ranching culture, improvising ways to survive in the wilderness expanse, and devising specific political responses to local needs despite directives from the royal government.

In barrios (urban neighborhoods) and rural settlements in the era following the establishment of American rule, Tejanos combined tenets of Mexican tradition with those of American culture. The result was a Tejano community that practiced a familiar folklore, observed Catholic holy days and Mexican national holidays, spoke the Spanish language, yet sought participation in national life. But Tejanos faced, discrimination, segregation, political disfranchisement, and other injustices. This produced a community at once admiring and distrusting of United States republicanism. The arrival of thousands of Mexican immigrants in the early years of the twentieth century affected group consciousness as now a major portion of the population looked to the motherland for moral guidance and even allegiance. Recent arrivals reinforced a Mexican mentality, as they based familial and community behavior upon the traditions of the motherland. Many took a keener interest in the politics of Mexico than that of the United States. Wood Screw Cad Files here.

By the 1920s, however, birth in Texas or upbringing in the state produced newer levels of Americanization. Increasingly, community leaders sought the integration of Mexicans into mainstream affairs, placing emphasis on the learning of English, on acquaintance with the American political system, and acceptance of social norms of the United States. In modern times, a bicultural Hispanic community identifies primarily with United States institutions, while still upholding Mexican customs and acknowledging its debt to the country of its forefathers. The flag of Aztlan, which La Raza Unida adopted. Image available on the and included in accordance with. In the post-World War II years, Anglo political reformers solicited Mexican-American cooperation in efforts to establish improved business climates in the cities. Due to a more tolerant atmosphere and political resurgence in the barrios, Tejano politicians once more gained access to political posts; in 1956 became the first Mexican American to win election to the Texas Senate in modern times.

In the mid-1960s a liberal-reformist movement spread across Tejano communities, led by youths disgruntled with barriers in the way of Tejano aspirations and inspired by a farmworkers' march in 1966. Anglo society became the object of militant attacks. Out of this movement surfaced the with a plank that addressed discriminatory practices and advocated the need for newer directions in Texas politics.

For a variety of reasons, this political chapter in Tejano history ended by the mid-1970s and was succeeded by more moderate politics, led by leaders wanting to forge workable coalitions with liberal Democratic allies. The 1970s and 1980s saw a dramatic rise in the number of Tejano incumbents. Federal legislation and court decisions, a more open-minded Anglo society, and the impact of the Chicano movement brought successes.

Logo of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Image available on the and included in accordance with.

Clubs with political leanings existed throughout Texas in the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century, although no large successful organization appeared on the scene until 1929, when activist members of a small but growing Tejano middle class founded the. Though LULAC was nonpolitical, it sought to interest Texas Mexicans in politics (by sponsoring poll tax drives, for instance) and worked to change oppressive conditions by investigating cases of police brutality, complaining to civic officials and business proprietors about segregation, and working for a sound educational system. Along with the, which was founded in 1948, LULAC utilized the judicial process to effect changes favorable to Mexican Americans.

During the Chicano movement of the 1960s and 1970s, these two organizations turned to the federal government to get money for needy Mexican-American communities in the state. Both pursued a centrist political position after the Chicano period. In 1968, civil rights lawyers founded the to fight for legal solutions of problems afflicting Mexican Americans. By the 1970s, MALDEF had gained distinction by winning judicial victories in the areas of diluted political rights, employment discrimination, poor educational opportunities, and inequitable school finance. Religious percentages for Mexican Americans nationally.

Image courtesy of. Image available on the Internet and included in accordance with. As descendants of Spaniards who brought their religion to Mexico, the majority of Texas Mexicans belong to the Catholic faith.

Generally, Texas-Mexican Catholics have observed doctrine and received the sacraments by marrying in the church and having their children baptized and taught religion, though their adherence to Catholic teaching is far from complete. Recent surveys indicate that many Mexican-American Catholics view the church as a place for worship but not an institution readily responsive to personal and community needs. Close to 60 percent believe themselves to be 'good Catholics.' Protestants have proselytized among Texas Mexicans with general success. Many barrios in the larger towns featured Protestant places of worship by the 1870s, and newer enclaves in the twentieth century had several 'Mexican' Protestant churches. Protestant work among Mexican Americans has been constant in the twentieth century; Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Jehovah's Witnesses have made special efforts to convert Mexican-American Catholics. Approximately 20 percent of Mexican Americans in the United States belong to Protestant communions.

A bilingual classroom in Dallas, with a sign saying that the class was using English that day. Image courtesy of. Image available on the Internet and included in accordance with. Anglo-American society in the nineteenth century did not concern itself over the education of Texas-Mexican children, since farmers and ranchers had little need for a literate working class. Where public schooling might exist, however, Tejano families urged their children to attend.

Those who could afford it, on the other hand, enrolled their youngsters in private religious academies and even in colleges. Select communities established local institutions with a curriculum designed to preserve the values and heritage of Mexico. Not until the 1920s did government take a serious interest in upgrading education for Tejanitos, but even then, society provided inferior facilities for them. Texas-Mexican children ordinarily attended 'Mexican schools' and were discouraged from furthering their education past the sixth grade. Attendance in these schools, however, did have the effect of socializing and Americanizing an increased number of young folks whose parents were either foreign-born or unacculturated. Though Texas Mexicans had protested educational inequalities since the second decade of the century, it was not until the 1930s that they undertook systematic drives against them-namely as members of LULAC, but also through local organizations such as the Liga Pro-Defensa Escolar () in San Antonio.

Before World War II, however, the educational record for Tejanos proved dismal, as poverty and administrative indifference discouraged many from regular attendance. The children of migrant parents, for example, received their only exposure to education when the family returned to its hometown during the winter months.

After the war, the G.I. Forum joined in the struggle to improve the education of the Mexican community with the motto 'Education is Our Freedom.' With LULAC, the forum campaigned to encourage parents and students to make education a priority. Both organizations also worked through the legal system and successfully persuaded the courts to desegregate some districts.

During the 1950s, indeed, Tejanos witnessed slight improvement in their educational status, though this may have been partly due to the rural-to-urban transition of the time. City life meant better access to schools, better enforcement of truancy laws, and less migration if heads of families found more stable employment. The gap between Mexican-American and Anglo achievement remained wide, however, and after the 1960s, MALDEF leveled a legal assault on issues such as racial segregation and the inequitable system of dispersing public funds to school districts.

Concerned parents and legislators also strove for a better-educated community by supporting such programs as Head Start and. In more recent times, however, Mexican-American students still had the highest dropout rate of all ethnic groups. In part, this explained the fact that Mexican-American students average only ten years in school.

Description Authored by one of the most influential and highly-regarded voices of Chicano history and ethnic studies, Occupied America is the most definitive introduction to Chicano history. This comprehensive overview of Chicano history is passionately written and extensively researched. With a concise and engaged narrative, and timelines that give students a context for pivotal events in Chicano history, Occupied America illuminates the struggles and decisions that frame Chicano identity today.