They Called Them Greasers
Book description
Tension between Anglos and Tejanos has existed in the Lone Star State since the earliest settlements. Such antagonism has produced friction between the two peoples, and whites have expressed their hostility toward Mexican Americans unabashedly and at times violently.
This seminal work in the historical literature of race relations in…
Why read it?
1 author picked They Called Them Greasers as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
In 1881, a reporter described Texas as a “vast wilderness” that was “infested by roaming Mexicans, rattlesnakes, and braying jackasses.”
In other words, it was a land calling for white people to settle, civilize, and supplant the “indolent” Mexican. I was jolted by this and other visceral literary snippets, which De Leon drew from nineteenth-century travelogues, letters, and newspaper articles.
The book exposes the power of the printed word in forming and perpetuating early Euro-American stereotypes claiming Mexican Americans in Texas were unpatriotic, mixed blood, lazy, immoral, and cruel. Writing in 1983, De Leon concluded that these attitudes had shifted…
From Melita's list on how media makes and unmakes Mexican Americans.
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