America came to Hispanics, not the other way around, by Julio Noboa

Just came across this January 20, 2019 piece by Dr. Julio Noboa that notes the importance of history. What we know today as "Texas," "America" or the "United States" and so on is actually the shortest part of our history from an Indigenous perspective as conveyed by the descendants of the original peoples to this continent, myself included.  This dreadful history of forceful incorporation to the modern nation state was not only on the basis of violent armed struggle, genocide, and colonization, but continues to be so as the anguishing humanitarian crisis along the U.S,.-Mexico border attests.

Let's stop as a country fighting the Indigenous peoples of this continent.  Let's honor through our policies and practices the quest for respect and dignity within and across our many struggles.  Let's make things just and right and let's heal the Earth, beginning by disavowing extractive, violent ways of relating to her and to each other.

Sí se puede!  Yes we can!

-Angela Valenzuela

America came to Hispanics, not the other way around

By Julio Noboa | San Antonio Express-News

 Published 12:00 am CST, Sunday, January 20, 2019

The Hispanic presence in the United States is inextricably linked to pivotal events in our nation’s history. Last year, 2018, marked two important events that forever changed the destiny of Mexico and Puerto Rico, the homelands of the two largest Hispanic groups in our nation. These events resulted in millions of Latinx people being absorbed into this territorial and cultural expanse we call America.

For Mexican-Americans, Feb. 2, 2018, marked 170 years since the signing in 1848 of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo at the end of the Mexican American War. The U.S. expanded to include almost half of Mexico’s territory, bringing into the nation vast regions of the West, including California, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.

Another important but unrecognized result was the birth of the Mexican-American people, many of whom still identify as Chicanos — constituting a whole new ethnic identity within the American cultural and political landscape. However, in violation of the treaty’s promises and assurances, Chicanos’ rights to their language and culture were soon threatened and abrogated, and much of their properties and lands were lost through duplicity, intimidation and outright violence. Mexican-Americans are still struggling to gain their legitimate claim to a host of human rights, and classroom history books continue to exclude their cultural, economic and military contributions to this nation.

For Puerto Ricans, particularly most of us who identify as Boricuas, July 25 marked 120 years since Gen. Nelson Miles’ troops landed on the southern shores of our island, in the final chapter of the Spanish American War.

Claiming to bring the blessings of American civilization, Miles disbanded a democratically elected council of Puerto Rican deputies and replaced them with a military government. Nearly two decades later, the Jones Act of 1917 granted Puerto Ricans U.S. citizenship. Boricuas were not permitted to vote on this most crucial decision.

Following a period of imperial neglect, U.S. corporations came, conquered and gained control of most of the arable land, turning it into a sugar cane cash crop. While our labor was being exploited and our resources extracted, the colonial government instituted an English-only policy in public education, decimating our native language and culture. For decades it was only the U.S. president — for whom Boricuas could not vote — who appointed the governor of the island.

Last year marked 70 years since Puerto Ricans were finally permitted in 1948 to elect their own governor, Luis Muñoz Marin. However, the empire obligated him to suppress the legitimate movement for Puerto Rican independence to the point that during the repression, it was a crime to sing the national anthem or simply fly the Puerto Rican flag. Still, mounting economic pressures forced millions of Boricuas, beginning in the 1950s, to leave their homeland in search of employment in the cold industrialized cities of the North.

Both the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo and Miles’ landing in Puerto Rico were culminating events of two wars: the Mexican American War and the Spanish American War. The concept of Manifest Destiny — so often invoked during the 19th century to justify conquest, genocide and domination — made these wars seem inevitable.

The Manifest Destiny of this nation was in the past two centuries — and even as conceived today — to be one of expansion, domination and hemispheric hegemony. Yet, for many Hispanic Americans, our cultural destiny revolves around affirmation of our culture and language, preservation of our identity and hemispheric cooperation.

Among the most essential, pivotal issues for Boricuas and Chicanos are those that were initiated and defined by those two wars of conquest. Mexican-Americans are more concerned about immigration and citizenship issues and Puerto Ricans are more focused on the complex conundrum of their island’s political status. Yet in both cases they can legitimately proclaim that “before we came to America, America came to us!”

It is not enough to simply know history, we should become aware of the relationship historical events have to the problems of today. As a multicultural nation of immigrants and natives, we need to understand well the lessons of history and commit to utilizing peaceful cooperation, rather than violent domination, for resolving the problems of diversity that await.

Julio Noboa is a recently retired assistant professor of social studies at the University of Texas at El Paso and, in the past, a frequent contributor to the Express-News opinion pages.

A Floundering DACA Program with Echoes of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

February marks the 170th anniversary of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signed on February 2, 1848.  This was a peace agreement that officially ended the Mexican War (1846-1848).  A pertinent quote from this piece:

    Fast-forward 170 years. The same racial animosity toward Mexican immigrants is demonstrated in a floundering DACA program and preposterous notions of a Trumpian wall, echoing the broken promises of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

This is a sad, tragic story surrounding the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that yes, echoes in alt-right policies and approaches today.


-Angela

A sad history of land grabs, ignoring civil rights

Alfredo Torres Jr., For the Express-News | January 30, 2018

Photo: Allen Holder /TNS

The U.S.-Mexico border, demarcated by the Rio Grande, has proved to be an emotional and actual battlefront for centuries.

“Are you a U.S. citizen?” is a frequent question asked by the U.S. Border Patrol at checkpoints to and from Laredo — the border town where I was born and raised.

Located on the banks of the Rio Grande, Laredo has expanded into an international hub for a globalized U.S. economy dependent on Mexican trade and tourism. Dubbed the “Gateway to Mexico,” downtown Laredo offers a view of a nation a few feet away.

Yet few know that these two countries once had a long, dark and bloody history.

February marks the 170th anniversary of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, a peace agreement officially ending the brutal Mexican War (1846-1848).

One of the most shameful, controversial wars in U.S. history, it was an egregious land grab paraded under the façade of a defensive front toward an “oppressive” Mexican nation. The war was an offensive strategy driven by Anglo-American aggression, disguised and perpetuated under the religious fervor of Manifest Destiny — an arrogant, misconstrued notion that God chose the U.S. to conquer virgin territory west of the Mississippi River.

After the Texas Revolution — and the annexation of the Texas Republic a decade later — U.S.-Mexico disputes over the location of the border erupted into violence. Mexico recognized the Nueces River as the boundary, while the U.S. viewed the Rio Grande as the line of demarcation. A vociferous expansionist, President James Polk ordered Gen. Zachary Taylor to lead troops into the disputed area, along the banks of the Rio Grande, and into Mexican territory, according to historian Richard Griswold de Castillo.

The American invasion of the disputed territory led to encounters between Mexican and U.S. troops, and Polk saw this as an opportunity to declare war on Mexico.

On Feb. 2, 1848, after two years of bloodshed and grief, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, ceding all territory west of Texas. Within two years, Mexicans became foreigners in their native land, and the hyphenated “Mexican-American” was born.

Mexico sought to secure the fate of Mexican nationals inhabiting the lost northern Mexican territories, which expanded into seven states — Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California. An estimated 72 million acres were lost after the Mexican War, according to documentarian John J. Valadez.

The lost territory crippled the Mexican economy but bolstered the U.S. Federal Reserve as vast amounts of gold were found along the California foothills immediately following the war. Later, the Texas oil boom catapulted the U.S. into a hulking superpower.

Articles VIII and IX of the treaty focused on protecting property rights of Mexicans already living in the ceded territories, including their civil liberties, should they choose to stay in the U.S. But the practice of respecting those rights by Anglo-Americans was another matter, impeded through years of warring aggression and stereotypical assumptions. Anglo-Americans viewed Mexicans negatively; they were now a “vanquished enemy.”

Innocent Mexican-American civilians living along these vast stretches of land were victims of fraud, deceit, violent intimidation and a legal system that favored Anglo immigrant squatters encroaching on their property. It was a demoralizing period for Mexican-Americans on the Western frontier.

Fast-forward 170 years. The same racial animosity toward Mexican immigrants is demonstrated in a floundering DACA program and preposterous notions of a Trumpian wall, echoing the broken promises of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

History repeats itself in strange ways.

Alfredo Torres Jr,. is a copy editor for “CTN: A Journal of Pedagogy and Ideas” and an independent historian working at Palo Alto College.

Mexico could recover territory if it claims the wrong border line (español)

This interview by Carmen Aristegui el Senador Patricio Martinez is fascinating. "México podría recuperar territorio si reclama la línea fronteriza equivocada (Mexico could recover territory if it claims the wrong border line [transcript on Youtube])."

Senator Patricio Martinez of Chihuahua—a very large state that borders with Texas and New Mexico—is challenging the U.S.-Mexico borderline such that were a wall to get built, it would have to follow different lines of demarcation so as to not build the wall in Mexico which would be a violation of national sovereignty, as well perpetuate the violation of boundaries under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signed in Villa de Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico in 1847, effectively ending the Mexican-American War that took place between 1846-48.

He says that the current border has has been wrong since the times of Mexico's President Porfirio Díaz who served from 1876 to 1911.

He says that if the U.S. president were to refuse to desist in building the wall on national territory, Mexico could take its case to the United Nations (UN) or to the International Court of Justice at the Hague in The Netherlands, the judicial branch of UN. 

Mexico in fact did this very thing, he says, during the presidency of Benito Juarez during the 1800s. And Mexico prevailed with The Hague deciding on behalf of Mexico with Mexico subsequently recovering its lands from that border dispute along the Rio Grande (called "Rio Bravo," in Spanish).

The amount of land in question is 8,000 hectares that would go back to Chihuauhua and 75,000 hectares that would go back to Sonora.  So substantial.

One can't help but imagine that Trump wanting to dismantle the United Nations is for reasons like these that make countries like the U.S. accountable to the actions of the past, including contracts of its own making.

We've always said, "We didn't cross the border.  It crossed us."  From the standpoint of the people of this continent, there is nowhere to go back to.  We have always been here.  I am one third Native American.  And people like me are the majority within our national-origin group.  Our ancestors never left the continent.  Like a good friend and elder, Modesta Treviño, always says, 

"Aquí estamos y no nos vamos." ("We are here and we are not going anywhere.")

This is not just a rhetorical statement, but a fact of our existence as mestiz@s, Mexican Americans, mixed-bloods, living in the U.S. despite profound levels of colonization among so many that are ignorant, ashamed, or reticent about this ignominious past and history to which Senator Martinez speaks.  

So important this history as it follows us profoundly into the present, evidenced with ideas of a border wall matched with vitriolic, dehumanizing, anti-Mexican hatred inscribed in the policies of an ever-emergent police state. Note: Mexicans have always already had their own dedicated police force against them. It has gone by different names, including the "border patrol" and the "INS," the " Immigration and Naturalization Service."  Today, it's called "ICE," the "Immigration and Customs Enforcement."

I found the maps from his presentation to be fascinating and happy to share some of these below.

If nothing else, el Senador Patricio Martinez de Chihuahua shows just how empowering and potentially transformative knowledge of one's history can be. 

He underscores that this isn't simply a battle that's reducible to geopolitical boundaries and the recovery of lost lands, but something deeper that is of great value, namely, a long history of a shared, regional identity and history of constructive relationships that the building of a wall—especially on Mexican territory—violates.  

Excelente!


Angela Valenzuela
c/s

Long Live the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo by Armando Rendon

This is an important piece regarding the history of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo by Armando Rendon who is the editor of Somos en escrito The Latino Literary Online Magazine. 
I really respect and appreciate Armando who develops the argument herein that
the harm inflicted upon Chicanos or Mexican Americans historically does rise to the international level with implications for human rights violations and all that is implied therein.  Great read!

-Angela

Que Viva el Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo (Long Live the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo)

First page of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

The Meaning to Chicanos Today 

of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

 

In Memory of Reies Lopez Tijerina: Que en paz descanse

 

By Armando B. Rendón

Much has been written and said recently about the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, especially with the death this past January 19th of Reies Tijerina, the foremost proponent of land grant rights under the Treaty’s banner. He gathered up the anger and frustration of hundreds of Hispano grantees in New Mexico into a nationally recognized protest. “Tierra o muerte” became its rallying cry.

But the Treaty was enacted in 1848—today is its 167th anniversary! It’s a dead letter.

No, not at all. In fact, this document, drafted to affirm peace and friendship between two neighboring countries—after the United States invaded Mexico and grabbed over half its territory—gave birth to a unique “person” in the Americas: the Mexican American. Because of the Treaty’s singular nature as an international document, it is, in spite of its years, a living document. I offer this commentary to encourage further study, debate, and action.

What is radically different today from 167 years ago is the existence of a human rights system enabled by the American Convention on Human Rights under the Organization of American States. With the Convention in place, Americans (North, Central and South) have a place to seek redress for violations of their human rights. Unfortunately, the Treaty has been resorted to mostly to redress land grant violations; Chicanos have yet to use the Treaty to seek redress of human rights violations in domestic and international tribunals.

From the earliest cases which ensued almost from the moment the Treaty was signed until the more recent cases (most of which derive from American Indian claims), the right to “property” has been the dominant focus in challenging or citing to the Treaty. The ownership of land, for a number of reasons, was uppermost in the minds of the inhabitants in the lands taken from Mexico by the United States. Land meant a livelihood, if not wealth, prestige, a patrimony, certainly the means to sustain life itself.

The Mexican Americans robbed, cheated, taxed, beaten, murdered and lynched, or otherwise driven off their lands (See Appendix A), went into the U.S. courts only to find either that they had no protected titles where Texas was concerned or that the Treaty, instead of vali­dating previous land claims had only given claimants the right to seek validation or clarification in U.S. tribunals. As one court saw it, Mexicans in the ceded territories got merely the status of citizenship under the Treaty; they gained no special guarantees under it.

Article IX of the Treaty specifically cites the right to “liberty and property”. At the time, the right to challenge land claims or validate titles was an important and perhaps the crucial issue, often a life-and-death matter, to the early Mexican Americans. However, the Treaty conveyed—under the rubric of the right to “liberty” and by virtue of other documents specifically incorporated into the Treaty—a whole range of values and individual guarantees which apparently were not then considered assertable theories in litigation but which have since become both national and international standards of law.

U.S. citizenship was afforded all Mexicans within the territories who did not elect to retain Mexican citizenship by the end of one year. The right to liberty, in other words, adhered to all Mexicans who remained on the U.S. side of the new border: in effect, these guarantees were extended not only to individuals but to the group clearly identifiable by their national origin as Mexican Americans. This factor becomes crucially significant as we look more closely at what the Treaty means for Chicanos today.

Because land constituted the very sustenance of life in the society of the 1800s, it is understandable that claims to property depended on evidence of title, adverse possession, riparian rights, community ownership, and the like. In time, the significance of land has given way to the right to life and liberty as the primary values in affecting redress for wrongs against civil and human rights. For example, where denial of one’s civil rights results in death at the hands of another, code law supplants the direct murder charge, which would otherwise not be applicable. See 18 U.S.C.A. §242.

Chicano claims for justice are basically at an impasse. Claims related to property rights obviously have faltered not only in the courts but also in the public conscience. The efforts of Reies Tijerina and the Alianza Federal de Mercedes Libres in the 1960s’ land claims movement in New Mexico sought redress in the courts and in public opinion, even in the halls of the United Nations, fell on deaf ears.

A review of key U.S. documents, the evolution of the principles of human rights, and the development of international systems for the protection of those rights, will explain why I believe that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is a living human rights document.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 9 Stat. 922; T.S. 207; 9 Bevans 791, signed February 2, 1848, went into force, May 30, 1848. For Spanish text, Algunos Documentos sobre el Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo, Archivo Histórico Diplomático Mexicano, No. 31, ed. Antonio de la Peña y Reyes. Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores, México, D.F. 1930. p. 115.

The Right to Life as a Protected Human Right

What I argue is that the principles which undergird present civil rights and human rights laws are embodied in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The term, “liberty”, entails the notion found in basic constitutional and treaty law of “life and liberty,” each a part of the other, and thus bridging the rights found in Guadalupe Hidalgo with the modern doctrine on human rights.

America’s commitment to basic individual rights is clearly embodied in the Declaration of Independence, which preceded the Treaty by 72 years (although these principles also appeared two years earlier in the “Declaration and Resolves of the First Continen­tal Congress” which specifically cites to “life, liberty and property.”) The second paragraph of the Declaration of Indepen­dence asserts that,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Not till 1868, however, did the United States constitutionally bestow upon the concept of “life, liberty and property” the status of protected individual rights, interdependent facets of the fundamental equality and worth of the human person. The 14th Amendment reads,

§1. All persons born or nationalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State ... shall...deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. (Emphasis added.)

These two tenets, taken together with Article 11 §2 (2) which places treaty making authority in the President and Article VI (2) which asserts that the Constitution of the United States and its laws and Treaties shall be “the supreme law of the land…” show that pre-1848 in the United States, “life, liberty and property” were understood as a whole, each element complementing and encompassing the other.

One way to commemorate El Segundo de Febrero is to listen to a live radio broadcast starting at 3 p.m. EST, today, Monday, February 2, 2015, on the life of Reies Tijerina. Go to www.radiobilingue.org on your laptop or hand-held device, and click on “Listen”. My thanks to Dr. Margarito J. Garcia, of Michigan, for providing this information and who, along with other Lansing Chicanos, persuaded the Michigan Governor officially to declare Feb. 2-8, Chicano History Week.

Mexican Perceptions of Basic Rights

Mexican views on the right to life and liberty are well-rooted in official documents of the Republic both prior and subsequent to 1848. Citing the seminal nature of the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citi­zen by the National French Assembly in 1789 to Mexican constitutional thought, Alfonso C. Noriega in a study titled, La naturaleza de las garantías individuales en la Constitución de 1917, traces the sources of individual rights in the Mexican Constitution of 1917 back to the 1847 Actas de Reformes, citing Article 5 which asserts, “...the declaration that a single law would insure the guarantees of liberty, security, and equality in favor of all citizens of the Republic... (Emphasis added.)

Even earlier, Noriega tells us, Article 24 in the Constitution of 1824, stated, “The happiness of a people and of each individual consists in the mutual enjoyment of equality, security, property, and liberty. The preservation as a whole of these rights is the goal of government and the only objective of political bodies. (Emphasis added.)

So clearly, the Mexican authorities involved in the drafting of the Treaty had a clear notion of the principles involved in assuring the rights of the Mexicans who might become, in fact, U.S. citizens by virtue of the boundary crossing over them. They knew that what they were signing assumed protections of those involved by virtue of their human nature, not where they were born.  

The Right to Life in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

In the early drafts of the Treaty, the inalienable rights of those already on the northern side of the new border were to be fully recognized. However, the U.S. Congress when it reviewed the Treaty for ratification, cut Article X, which was critical to establishing clear rights to land grants then existing, and grudgingly bestowed on the new Mexican/Americans the most minimal protec­tions.

Article VIII, in para. 1, identifies as a group, “Mexicans now established in territories previously belonging to Mexico...” and adds in para. 2, “...who have remained in the said territories (beyond the year from the date ratifications were exchanged) without having declared their intention to retain the character of (citizens of Mexico) shall be considered citizens of the United States.”

The grant of citizenship, therefore, is not made with regard to propertied status or place of residence: that group of persons of Mex­ican origin who simply decided to stay behind the new boundary line became citizens by operation of Treaty law.

However, Article IX declares that,

(These) Mexicans...shall be incorporated into the Union of the United States and be admitted, at the proper time (to be judged by the Congress of the United States) to the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens of the United States according to the principles of the Constitution; and in the meantime shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property, and secured in the free exercise of their religion without restriction. (Emphasis added.)

Both conditions, the tacit election to assume U.S. citizenship after one year and the admission of the territory into statehood, are since fully complied with by operation of law, although in the case of New Mexico, it took more than half a century before it was finally admitted as a state. Congress, in effect, withheld full citizenship from the Mexican/Americans by setting a vague point in the future (“at the proper time”) for grant of citizenship; that event took place when the white Anglo population became the majority in the state.

The Right to Life in International Human Rights Documents

The United Nations Charter does not specifically assert a “right to life”, rather it characterizes its States Party (member countries) to the Charter as, “Determined ... to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights and in the dignity and worth of the human person.” More to the point is the Uni­versal Declaration of Human Rights, a derivative document of the UN Charter. Several articles specify that life is a protected value and elaborate its many ramifications into society.

Article 3 cites the right to “life, liberty and the security of person”; 4, denounces slavery and any form of forced servitude; 5, con­demns “...torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punish­ment”; 7, entitles the person “to equal protection of the law”; 8, 9, and 10, assert rights to effective remedies before competent tribunals, fair and public hearings by impartial tribunals, and freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention or exile; 25, promotes the right to a decent standard of living, and 27, seeks progress for all by participa­tion in or benefiting from cultural, artistic and scientific progress.

The Declaration of Rights and Duties of Man, adopted by the Organization of American States in Bogota in 1948, is also quite explicit. The introductory paragraphs assert basic assumptions about “the dignity of the individual” and the generic nature of “life in human society...” The Preamble adds substance and depth to the “life” value, promoting culture as the highest social and historical expression of... spiritual development, ...it is the duty of man to preserve, practice and foster culture by every means within his power.”

In the Statute of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights which was approved in 1960, Article 2 assumes by reference the listing of rights as set forth in the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. But anyone wishing to petition the Commission to review an alleged violation of human rights has a number of hurdles to overcome before receiving full Commission attention. A petitioner must first exhaust (Article 46) whatever remedies are available within his/her country and submit the petition within six months of the date after those remedies are used up (“a final judgment”).

If a petitioner can show that country has no such remedies, nor due process or has been denied access to those remedies, or has been met by delaying tactics, he or she can seek to have the Commission set aside the exhaustion requirement. But that just gets a petitioner in the door, so to speak.

A person’s case may be heard by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights or the Commission may make recommendations to the country or publish a report about the case.

It gets more complex. Because only a State Party or the Commission may approach the inter-American Court, who that complainant would be becomes the para­mount—and extremely political—question. In regard to Chicano concerns, only two entities have clear standing to sue: the states parties, either the United States or Mexico, and the Commision. Any chance of the U.S. or Mexico intervening? Most likely, only the Commission would approach the Court.

Another way to approach a case would be for the Commission to seek an advisory opinion of the Court regarding the interpretation of the Convention or of other treaties concerning the protection of human rights in the American States. (Emphasis added.) Such advisory jurisdiction may be invoked with regard to any state whether or not it recognizes the Court’s com­petence. Thomas Buergenthal, a former member of the Court, asserts that, though not binding, states may find it as difficult to disregard an advisory opinion as they would a judicial decision.

In the realm of inter­national affairs, the publicity such an event can generate might prove an effective means of seeking redress.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, I believe, must also be considered an inter-American document which falls clearly within the purview of American documents establishing obligations among nations, “...concerning the protection of human rights” and thus within the jurisdiction of the Commission and the Court. My notion raises a number of other questions: what the nature and extent of the Treaty’s human rights protections might be, whether Chicanos in fact have standing as claimants, and where remedies might lie, within the jurisdic­tion of the Commission, the Court or the OAS General Assembly, to cite a few concerns.

Another famous case dealing with citizenship issues throws a spotlight on the nature of  the Chicano person. In Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 586 (1856), the Treaty was cited to show that the Constitution had not excluded “colored aliens from citizenship”, i.e., color of a certain kind was not a necessary quality to obtain citizenship. The grant or withholding of citizenship is the prerogative of Congress. In the case of the Mexican American, he obtained citizenship by virtue of Treaty powers, without regard to color or race, but certainly with regard to his identification with a national origin. Cases which have since sought to establish the character of the Mexican American as an iden­tifiable ethnic group took no cognizance or had no knowledge of this fact, e.g., Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475, 74 S.Ct. 667, L.Ed. 866 (1945); U.S. v. Texas, (E.D.Texas) 342 F.Supp. 24 (1971).

What I’m suggesting is that the Chicano may have special standing in international forums dedicated to the protection of human rights because he has been granted citizen status by Treaty law. This might be a crucial question for the inter-American Court to ponder. My theory has not been tested yet in any domestic or international forum.

What I’m trying to fashion is the notion that harm inflicted upon Chicanos thereby rises to an international level—recall that along with the Constitution, treaty law is the supreme law of the land—and would constitute the basis for submitting proposals directly to the Commission for study as well as petitioning the Commission for redress of alleged violations. Besides, while the United States is technically not bound by the Convention—it is only a signatory and has yet to ratify the Convention—it is not free of public scrutiny. The Convention having gone into effect July 18, 1978, the United States cannot simply ignore the findings of a body duly established by the Convention. The inter-American system is designed as a forum for bringing world scru­tiny and opinion to bear in as many ways as possible on the preser­vation and extension of human rights to all persons in the Americas.

If, in fact, Chicanos are victims of conduct proscribed by the Treaty, they should have full recourse to its protections. Unfortunately, despite efforts to gather the legal and financial resources to launch what would be a complex and expensive effort, my theories have yet to be tested.

Still, I ask, why not? The inter-American system of human rights is the recourse Mexican Americans have yet to seek in our pursuit of the right to life and liberty. It’s high time, I believe, after 167 years.

Final Page of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 9 Stat. 922; T.S. 207; 9 Bevans 791, signed Feb. 2, 1848, went into force, May 30, 1848.

     

Armando B. Rendón is Editor of Somos en escrito Magazine. This essay is condensed from a thesis paper, “The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and Its Modern Implications for the Protection of the Human Rights of Mexican Americans,” Armando B. Rendón, Copyright 1982, which concluded coursework toward a Juris Doctor at The American University Law School, Washington, D.C. The full text can be accessed at academia.edu, or as an addendum in the 1996 edition of Chicano Manifesto, available as a Kindle book at amazon.com.

 

Posted 4 days ago by Armando Rendón

Labels: Editorial Event Historia Human Rights Law