The people known today as Mexican Americans have ancestry in this country which traces back well before the United States was "discovered." Mexican Americans had settled the southern portion of the U.S. and western third of the country. Cities and towns were already established before the Mexican-American War and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. As Schaefer (2012) notes, in 1848, "With citizenship, the United States was to guarantee religious freedom, property rights, and cultural integrity--that is, the right to continue Mexican and Spanish cultural traditions and to use the Spanish language." Of course, these guarantees did not last and these rights were slowly taken away. In the 1930's, repatriation programs were in place to deport illegal Mexicans back to Mexico. This was followed by the use of braceros, beginning in 1942, which were contracted workers brought over the border to work in the U.S. because there was a labor shortage due to WWII. These braceros made up a significant portion of the labor force at that time.

Do you think the average American citizen is fully aware that Mexican Americans were some of the original indigenous people in this country? How has the treatment of Mexican Americans been similar to Native Americans?