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1 Becoming Mexican has been a long process marked by two phenomenons—three hundred years of Spanish colonialism and the creation of a 2,000-mile border—the result of which has been an identity crisis. At the time of the Spanish conquest a population of 25 million indigenous people lived in what is today Mexico—within eighty years it was reduced to about a million Indians. The imprint of European colonialism and imperialism produced a genetic makeup unique to those who would become Mexicans.1 The Spanish constructed social categories based on race in order to control its subjects. At the top of the hierarchy were those of Spanish ancestry, or those who at least appeared to be; at the bottom were the Indians and Africans. On the eve of the Mexican War of Independence in 1810, Mexico was home to just over 6.0 million people: 1.1 million claimed to be Spaniards; 3.7 million, Indians; and 1.3 million, castas or mixed races. Since race was based on self-designation, many demographers today question the number of Spaniards, putting their number closer to 15,000.2 According to Ellen Yvonne Simms, “although not exclusive in colonial New Spain, one’s skin color governed what one’s status would be in society, and served as the basis of society in colonial New Spain.”3 At the bottom were the full-blooded Indians and Africans. In the nineteenth century, Mexican officials sought to establish a new Mexican identity, which resulted in civil wars.4 The indigenous natives’ share of the nation’s population fell dramatically, from 60 percent in 1810 to 29 percent in 1920, while mestizos climbed from 29 to 60 percent. Meanwhile, the American filibuster of 1836 and invasion of 1846 took over half of Mexico’s territory, further impacting Mexican identity.5 Becoming a Mexican changed in 1848. The American invasion of Mexico produced another identity crisis. Most Mexicans lived in separate communities along the 2,000-mile border separating the United States and Mexico. Regional differences affected how they identified themselves. They were not Americans because of the color of their skin and their accents. They were not yet Mexicans, because the Becoming Chicana/o Studies c h a p t e r 1  Mexican nationality took time to become. Mostly they identified with place and the community they lived in.6 They were a minority within a majority. Historian Trinidad Gonzales describes the process of identity building in the United States through the collective use of the labels “México Texano,” “Mexicano,” and “México Americano” that occurred from 1900 through the 1920s. According to Gonzales, “A Mexicano identity relates to an immigrant transnational identity as temporary residents living on what they perceived as occupied Mexican land during the early 1900s and by the 1920s as American territory.” A México Americano was a México Texano who constructed his identity to call attention to his U.S. citizenship. Over time, identity was further changed by how people constructed space and meaningful locations.7 The Mexican border differs from the Canadian-U.S. border. Mexico has always had a larger and more racially diverse population than Canada. As of 2009, 111.2 million people live in Mexico, while 33.5 million people live in Canada. Racially, Mexico is 60 percent mestizo, 30 percent Indian, and 10 percent white and other. Pure Europeans form two-thirds of Canada, with Native Americans making up 2 percent of that nation. In 2008, in GDP per capita and in purchasing power parity (PPP) income, the United States ranked tenth in the world at $47,000 annually; Canada ranked twentieth, earning $39,300; and Mexico ranked eighty-second, earning $14,200. Canadians, like Americans, speak English (with some speaking French), while Mexicans speak Spanish and dozens of indigenous languages.8 Mexico is where the Third World begins.9 The long border and location distinguish Mexicans from other Latin Americans, who are often poorer than Mexicans but have more difficulty migrating to the United States because of distance. Further, most Latin American countries in North America are much smaller than Mexico, and this has affected the number and class of people migrating north.10 Newspapers are an excellent source of mapping the changing Mexican American identity. According to Edward Lee Walraven, 165 Spanish-language newspapers were published in the Mexican-Texas borderlands between 1830 and 1910, which promoted “cultural identity and education, morality and political...

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