We Have Always Resisted: Mexican Americans and the Ongoing Struggle for Justice in the United States by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

We Have Always Resisted: Mexican Americans and the Ongoing Struggle for Justice in the United States

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

October 11, 2025

We have always resisted oppression. Across generations, Mexican Americans have stood up against conquest, segregation, exploitation, and erasure, insisting on our dignity and rightful place within American democracy. Yet the very need to assert this truth—to affirm both our humanity and our history—reveals how deeply our invisibility and marginalization persists. 

Despite being one of the largest and most influential communities in Texas and the nation, Mexican Americans remain underrepresented in public life and largely absent from the historical record, mainstream education, and public discourse. 

The truth is that oppression persists, rooted in a long and painful history of colonization, racial hierarchy, and cultural suppression. But so too does an enduring legacy of resistance—one defined by resilience, creativity, and an unwavering commitment to justice and human dignity. Ours is an ongoing struggle to be seen, heard, and valued in the very democracy our ancestors helped forge.

Understanding this history is not about blame; it is about facing the truth necessary to craft policies that strengthen our democratic institutions. While I write with deep respect for the many allies who have long stood alongside the Mexican American community—particularly our Black brothers and sisters (see Krochmal & Moye, 2021)—my purpose here is to outline the major historical and contemporary forms of oppression and to conclude with reflections on resistance as a living, ongoing tradition among our people.

Forms of Oppression

Conquest and Dispossession. The U.S.–Mexico War (1846–1848) ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which promised citizenship and property rights to Mexicans in the newly annexed territories. Those promises were quickly broken. Land theft, vigilante violence, and systemic discrimination stripped Mexican-origin communities of rights and resources (Acuña, 2021; Gonzales, 2009; Montejano, 1987). Much like today’s ICE agents, the Texas Rangers became infamous for their state-sanctioned brutality against Mexican Americans (Martínez, 2018).

Segregation and Racial Hierarchies. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Mexican Americans lived under a system of segregation that mirrored Jim Crow—what many call Juan Crow. Across Texas and the Southwest, schools, neighborhoods, swimming pools, and even cemeteries were divided by race, with signs declaring, “No Dogs, No Negroes, No

Mexicans” (Acuña, 2021). Children were assigned to “Mexican schools,” which provided inferior instruction and were designed to funnel them into low-wage labor rather than higher education (San Miguel, 1987). My parents grew up under this system and felt its cruelty firsthand—experiencing not only exclusion from opportunity but also the daily indignities of a social order built to deny their worth and potential.

Economic Exploitation. Mexican Americans have long been the laboring backbone of the U.S. economy while enduring deep exploitation. During the Bracero Program (1942–1964), millions of Mexican workers were imported under harsh conditions with little pay or protection—what the late Gómez-Quiñones (1994) described as a system that extracted labor while denying dignity. Even beyond that era, Mexican-origin workers were excluded from unions and labor protections, institutionalizing inequality that persisted across generations (Zamora, 1993).

Cultural Suppression and Education. Schools have long functioned as instruments of oppression for Mexican American children. They were punished for speaking Spanish, stripped of cultural expression, and denied affirmation of identity. I have described this as subtractive schooling—an educational practice that systematically devalues students’ identities and erodes their sense of belonging (Valenzuela, 1999).

Building on this concept, Chilean colleagues have developed the idea of educación extractiva (“extractive education”), which describes schooling as a profit-driven enterprise rather than a humanizing one. In this model, students become data points for testing companies and profit streams for private contractors. Like extractive industries, this form of education depletes communities of cultural and intellectual resources while enriching those who control educational policy and technology. Both subtractive and extractive schooling reveal how inequity hides behind the language of reform, privileging efficiency and profit over justice, care, and collective flourishing.

Bilingualism as Resistance. In recent years, bilingual education and cultural pride continue to be seen as threats to assimilationist goals. Even high-achieving Mexican American students face suspicion as they “learn” that monolingualism is preferable to bilingualism and multiculturalism—forms of knowledge that expand our ways of knowing, being, and doing in the world. Rather than being celebrated as assets, these gifts are treated as liabilities that mark students as “foreign.”

This climate of mistrust has deepened since the Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo (2025) ruling, which legitimized racial profiling by allowing ICE to use ethnicity as a proxy for suspicion. The decision underscores how the logic of exclusion persists in U.S. institutions, including schools. When bilingualism and cultural pride are framed as social control—one that polices not only language but also belonging itself.

Legal and Political Marginalization. Mexican Americans have long been squeezed out of civic life via exclusion from juries, barriers to voting, and holding office—tactics ranging from poll taxes and literacy tests to white primaries and outright intimidation. In Hernández v. Texas (1954), the Supreme Court definitively recognized that Mexican Americans constituted a distinct class deserving protection under the Fourteenth Amendment, condemning the systemic exclusion of Mexican-Americans from juries.. 

Yet meaningful political power remained elusive: gerrymandering, voter suppression, and disfranchisement persisted especially in border and minority regions. Today, that disdainful legacy of voter dilution is being renewed: earlier this year, former President Trump called for Texas to redraw five congressional districts mid-decade—a move that critics warn will further erode Hispanic and Black voting strength in the state (Cappalletti & Riccardi , 2025). This modern push for redistricting without the usual census restraint is a stark reminder that the legal victories of the past often coexist with enduring and evolving forms of political marginalization. 

Contemporary Oppression

Oppression persists in new forms. Anti-immigrant laws like Arizona’s SB 1070 normalized racial profiling of Latinos (Menjívar & Tinoco, 2023). Though parts of the law were struck down in Arizona v. United States (2012), its spirit endures in contemporary border enforcement and “papers please” policing. Such policies illustrate how even “defeated” legislation can evolve and reappear in new guises, preserving structures of exclusion under different names.

In education, Ethnic Studies and Mexican American Studies programs have faced censorship and elimination in states like Arizona, reflecting ongoing efforts to silence cultural pride and historical truth (Cammarota & Romero, 2014). Beyond education, Mexican Americans continue to experience disproportionate policing, incarceration, and economic inequality (Rios, 2011, 2017).

Resistance and Resilience. Despite centuries of systemic oppression, Mexican Americans have continually resisted. Early organizations like the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), founded in 1929, fought segregation and voter disenfranchisement. 

The Chicano Movement of the 1960s and 1970s mobilized students, farmworkers, and communities to demand educational equity, labor rights, and cultural recognition (Muñoz, 1989). That spirit of resistance endures today. Movements to support the financing of public education, defend bilingual education and advance Ethnic Studies all reflect the same struggle for dignity and self-determination (Cammarota & Romero, 2014; San Miguel, 2020).

I have written about this contemporary resistance throughout this blog and in published essays chronicling the recent State Board of Education battles—where teachers, parents, and students continue to resist erasure and fight for culturally relevant and inclusive curriculum and the importance and vitality of democratic participation (Valenzuela, 2019, 2021). Our community’s story is not solely one of oppression but of persistence—of people who refuse invisibility and insist on belonging. Mexican Americans have always fought for justice, transforming pain into power and resistance into renewal.

Conclusion

The dominant group has nothing to fear from knowing our history—and much to gain. For further reading, see Chavez (2022). What is inexcusable is the refusal to learn from or acknowledge Mexican American experiences. What remains constant is the vital role the Mexican American community plays in the ongoing struggle for equity, democracy, and human dignity—a role rooted in our collective memory, cultural pride, and ever-expanding understanding of who we are as a people. Our diversity—Indigenous, Afro-Latinx, Afro-Indigenous, and multiracial—is not a source of division but a deep well of wisdom and strength, even if race within some families and communities has long been a source of tension, silence, or misunderstanding. 

Acknowledging these complexities with honesty and care allows us to heal and to recognize how all our intersecting identities enrich the fabric of who we are as a community and nation. Embracing this fullness strengthens our unity and deepens our commitment to one another. With each generation, we carry forward this consciousness and resolve, knowing that justice is not only possible but attainable—and that’s a good thing, for our liberation and for the flourishing of this nation we continue to help build.

References

Acuña, R. (2021). Occupied America: A history of Chicanos (9th ed.). Pearson.

Cappelletti, J. & Riccardi, N. (2025, July 15).Trump tells Texas Republicans to redraw the state congressional map to help keep House majority, AP News. https://apnews.com/article/trump-congress-house-republicans-texas-redistricting-d18e8280a32872d9eefcbb26f66a0331

Cammarota, J., & Romero, A. (2014). Raza studies: The public option for educational revolution. University of Arizona Press.

Chavez, J. R. (2022). A Select List of Books in Mexican-American History (2022 Update). History Faculty Publications. 18. https://scholar.smu.edu/hum_sci_history_research/18/

Gonzales, M. G. (2009). Mexicanos: A history of Mexicans in the United States (2nd ed.). Indiana University Press.

Gómez-Quiñones, J. (1994). Roots of Chicano politics, 1600–1940. University of New Mexico Press.

Kristi Noem, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security, et al. v. Pedro Vasquez Perdomo, et al., 25A169 (S. Ct., 2025). https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/25a169_5h25.pdf

Krochmal, M. & Moye, T. (2021). Civil Rights in Black and Brown: Histories of Resistance and Struggle in Texas. University of Texas Press.

Martínez, M. M. (2018). The injustice never leaves you: Anti-Mexican violence in Texas. Harvard University Press.

Menjívar, C., & Tinoco, N. (2023). The Long Arm of Arizona's SB 1070: Antecedents and Far-reaching Spillover Effects. Oxford University Press.

Montejano, D. (1987). Anglos and Mexicans in the making of Texas, 1836–1986. University of Texas Press.

Muñoz, C. (1989). Youth, identity, power: The Chicano movement. Verso.

Rios, V. M. (2011). Punished: Policing the lives of Black and Latino boys, New York University Press.

Rios, V. M. (2017). Human targets: Schools, police, and the criminalization of Latino youth. University of Chicago Press.

Rosales, F. A. (1997). Chicano! The history of the Mexican American civil rights movement. Arte Público Press.

San Miguel, G. (1987). 'Let all of them take heed': Mexican Americans and the campaign for educational equality in Texas, 1910–1981. University of Texas Press.

San Miguel, G. (2005). Brown, not white: School integration and the Chicano movement in Houston. Texas A&M University Press.

Valenzuela, A. (1999). Subtractive schooling: U.S.-Mexican youth and the politics of caring. SUNY Press.

Valenzuela, A. (2019). The Struggle to Decolonize official knowledge in Texas’ State Curriculum: Sidestepping the colonial matrix of power, Equity & Excellence in Education. [pdf]

Valenzuela, A. (2021). Decolonizing citizenship: Trumpism, Mexican America, and the struggle for Latinx citizenship. In F. González, M. Pratt, & R. Rosaldo (Eds.), Decolonizing citizenship: Reforming the politics of education. Santa Fe, NM: University of New Mexico Press.

Vértiz Galván, M. Á. (2024, October 24). Instituciones extractivas y educación: Lo que debemos aprender de los aportes de los premios Nobel. Revista Educarnos. https://revistaeducarnos.com/instituciones-extractivas-y-educacion-lo-que-debemos-aprender-de-los-aportes-de-los-premios-nobel/

Zamora, E. (1993). The world of the Mexican worker in Texas. Texas A&M University Press.

Zamora, E. (2009). Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs: Mexican Workers and Job Politics during World War II. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.