Mexican Americans in Houston:

Facing Adversity and Becoming American during the Great Depression, 1929 -1939

Historians have documented and interpreted the civil rights struggle in America for the

many different groups who, by the necessity of their condition, sought betterment of their lives.

The story of one such group, Mexican Americans, is a testament to the complications caused

when the worth of any one person or community is defined by subjective factors like skin color,

nationality, and class. Many people of Mexican descent, both citizens and non-citizens, were

subject to the same discriminatory practices that plagued black Americans in the late nineteenth

and early twentieth centuries. Across the nation, leaders of the growing colonias realized the

need to shield themselves from the ills of American society.[1] It is for this reason people of

Mexican descent, during the Great Depression, began to assert their identity as Americans to

prove their claim to citizenship and thereby resist the social, political, and economic oppression

that permeated their existence. The climate in Houston during this time, the years 1929 to 1939,

provides a useful context to explore the methods Mexican Americans used to alleviate the pains

of discrimination. To understand how the group settled on their course of action, one must first

examine the historical background of the diverse region.

The first account of a person with a Spanish surname in the Houston area is that of

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, the explorer that shipwrecked near Galveston in November

1528.[2] Spanish presence in the Gulf did not have a long-lasting impact on the region outside

of defending the conquest from Mexican rebellion in the early nineteenth century. The presence

of Mexican people in the Houston-Galveston area, however, emerges in what historian

Arnoldo DeLeon calls the "Mexican period of Texas history, 1821- 1836." During this time

the Mexican government granted Stephen F. Austin the rights to the first Anglo settlements

in the area, spanning the length of the Buffalo Bayou. The influx of approximately 300 Anglo

families solidified an American presence and caused significant strife between agents of the
Mexican government and the new settlers. By the spring of 1836 the rise of the Texas Republic

established a new era of Anglo dominance in the region.[3] Although people of Mexican descent

lived in what is now Houston before the Texas Revolution, as well as after, they could not claim

a significant role in the progress of the infant city.

The 1836 battle at San Jacinto, an event of legendary proportions in the minds of many

Texans, marked a time when the image of Mexican people was at its lowest. The use of captured

Mexican prisoners, as well as black slaves, to begin developing what is now Houston contributed

to the degenerative effect of the conquest on Anglo perceptions of Mexican Americans.[4]

In the period after Texas gained independence, the Mexican population in Houston remained

small because before the railroads arrived the dominant white population discouraged their

employment in positions other than the most menial type such as cooks, farmhands, and

laborers.[5] Thus the group essentially disappeared from significant historical record until the

end of the nineteenth century. Around that time the politics of Mexico began to spill into the

United States through the violence of the Mexican Revolution. Cities in northern Mexico and

border towns along the Rio Grande became deadly places for people who became caught up

in the fighting. The beginning of the twentieth century witnessed many middle class Mexicans

moving in large numbers from Mexican cities such as San Luis Potosi, Coahuila, and Nuevo

Laredo, to the United States. The many Texas Mexicans living in South Texas along the border

also felt the need to move further north to cities such as San Antonio and Houston to escape the

brutal fighting that occurred on a daily basis. The violence that drove families north well into

the second decade of the twentieth century had brutal effects on the perceptions Anglos had

of Mexicans and Mexican Americans, but it was not the only draw into the United States.[6]

The completion of the ship channel in 1914 created the perfect environment for an industrial

boom that capitalized on the recent discovery of oil and quick access to the cotton industry,

bringing many Mexican migrants to the city. The prime position of Houston as the interchange
for Texas products to the world created a labor market that, as historian F. Arturo Rosales

describes, “could not be met by the resident population of the state.”[7] The overwhelming

need for immigrant labor during World War I brought people from various parts of Mexico to

work in the rail yards, ship channel, and oil refineries in the Houston area. The type of work

and opportunities offered at the time were not enticing to the professional class of people who

ended up in established colonias of San Antonio and Los Angeles.[8] The transient attitudes of

the transplanted middle and upper classes maintained a desire to return home, fueled by a strong

Mexican nationalism that did not recognize the importance of citizenship and Americanism in

the United States. The leaders of the 1920s Mexican American community believed that they

could gain the favor of Americans by presenting the best of Mexico’s culture and showing

that they too could be proud of their heritage. Strong ethnocentrism characterized Mexican

Americans at the time and served as feeble attempts to find a place in their new, if only

temporary, home. The development of a bustling Mexican American economy in the Second

Ward and Magnolia neighborhoods of Houston spurred by the prosperity of the booming oil

economy, as well as the abundance of work in the rail yards and ship channel became a hallmark

achievement for the largely immigrant community.[9] Despite the success of the new community

in Houston during the “roaring 20s,” the problems of the Jim Crow South could not be escaped

and would prove in the next decade to be terribly difficult to overcome.

Houston's place in the Jim Crow South is as significant as any other major city in the

Deep South. De Leon describes the bigotry Mexican Americans faced at the time because “Jim

Crow codes applicable to black people extended to Mexicans.”[10] Barred from services and

establishments specified for Anglos, the Mexican American community suffered deplorable

conditions in their neighborhoods. Despite upward social mobility, many were forced to remain

there because unspoken agreements in white society kept real estate agents from selling to

the undesirable ethnic group.[11] Not allowing Mexican Americans to buy homes in districts
other than the established barrios was only one aspect of the troubles facing the developing

community. Terrible violence marked the first three decades of the 1900s in Houston for both

citizens and non-citizens because as an insignificant sector of the city to local Anglo leaders; the

barrios were not eligible for police protection. In fact the police perpetrated many of the most

devastating acts of savagery, such as the murder of Elepidio Cortez in 1936.[12] By that time

the leadership of the Houston colonia, along with others in the state, began to move to different

methods of resistance against the mounting oppression from the Anglo community, one that

focused on assimilation and ultimately on citizenship.

By the mid 1930s, with the economy in shambles, the large, proud, and self-assured

Mexican American population became the scapegoat for the financial troubles facing the nation.

The history of Mexican Americans in Houston, and their ability to prosper amidst direct

opposition became reasons for attack. Even though the local economy did not sink to the same

depths as other cities did, the need for public services spotlighted the ethnic group in the eyes of

Anglos. As more and more Anglos succumbed to the effects of the depression, Mexican

Americans, legal and not, were singled out as foreign drains on the economy. In Houston the anti-

minority sentiments had a chilling effect on those seeking help in the form of work relief and

social aid. By 1932 even established institutions such as the Rusk Settlement House felt the

crunch of the ballooning population of destitute individuals and famlies.[13] It is in this climate

that large-scale repatriations occurred across the country and by the end of the decade one half

million people of Mexican descent would either be forced or willingly return to Mexico.

Grasping how massive the number of people repatriated was can be explored when related to the

Houston population, which in 1930 hovered around 300,000, and of that, 14,000 were of

Mexican descent. Scholars Marilyn Rhinehart and Thomas Kreneck, in their article for the

Houston Review, describe from oral interviews how the repatriations affected the colonia

saying, “at least two thousand Mexican residents of Houston, or approximately fifteen percent of
the city’s Mexican community in 1930, left during the early Depression years.”[14] For many

people in the ethnic community being driven from their homes exposed a vile contradiction that

traumatized many born in the United States. The desperate times of the Great Depression caused

many of the colonia’s elites to re-examine their efforts for equality. The belief that economic

prosperity and a semblance of class equality would equal social equality faded from the minds of

Mexican Americans because the actions and ideology of Anglo Houstonians readily asserted that

being an American, and thus having all the rights of a citizen, meant being white.

In order to understand the dynamics of life for this particular ethnic group, one can

begin to decode the complications of their existence in relation to their whiteness by looking

at the presence of social clubs that thrived in the colonias. Mexican Americans and immigrants

in Houston exemplified a strong self help movement that began in the first settlements of the

twentieth century. The struggle to survive in an openly hostile environment made methods

such as founding the mutual aid societies, El Campo Laurel (1908) and La Sociedad Benito

Juarez (1919), critical to the formation of a group identity.[15] The acquisition of a group

consciousness worked to create a definitive Mexican American ideology in the 1930s.[16] These

groups strove to provide the nascent community with social and economic aid filling in where

Anglo organizations refused to help. By the 1930s these groups transitioned from promoting the

immigrant nationalism of the middle and upper classes because the “positive Mexican image

which they themselves held in high esteem,” would not be enough to gain acceptance in the

deteriorating economic climate.[17] The leaders of these groups eventually felt the pressure of

increasing malevolence from the dominant attitudes of Anglos in Houston because their status

as non-whites equaled non-American. To escape as Rosales called it the, “caste system based

on color” that existed in the United States, the goal of Mexican Americans became to gain

acceptance as white, and thus gain the status of American.[18]

The presence of social clubs such as Club Femenino Chapultepec in the colonia
were attempts by the up and coming middle class Mexican American community to present

themselves as individuals worthy of the respect as American citizens from the Anglo power

structure. A social club created by women in their teens and early twenties who were either

born in the United States or had arrived with their parents beginning in 1910, Club Femenino

Chapultepec existed as a means for women of the colonia to exert influence on the daily lives

of their people. A division of the Young Women’s Christian Association, the group acted as a

community outreach organization for the conservative Mexican American middle class. The

efforts of the group focused on educating Mexican Americans about the society in which they

lived, as well as presenting a view of Mexican culture suitable to the Anglo community.[19]

In response to the peculiar existence of “many who were born in Texas and are therefore

American citizens but are still called Mexicans,” the club wrote a letter to the National Business

& Professional Girls Council asking for advice on how to achieve “better understanding, respect

and opportunity.”[20] The letter detailed ten points of social ills that affected the Mexican

American population as well as non-citizen Mexicans living in Houston. The second point of the

communiqué stressed the bigotry being impressed upon Mexican American children in school

because “Texas cannot, due to Chamber of Commerce and patriotic society activities, forget

that Texas lost… at the [A]lamo in San Antonio and won a battle at San Jacinto.”[21] Club

members drew attention to the fact that by perpetuating the story of conquest and defeat in 1836,

the combative attitudes instilled hostility in the minds of Texas children against Mexicans and

Mexican Americans.

The women of Club Femenino Chapultepec in their letter expressed disdain against

the perceptions that all those with a Spanish surname, despite being native-born citizens, were

still labeled Mexican. Knowing full well by the middle of the Great Depression that the key

to acceptance and prosperity in America relied not only their citizenship, but also on being

perceived as citizens, the writers of the Chapultepec club letter expressed frustration at this
contradiction saying, “They do not take out citizenship papers because those who have are still

called Mexicans and treated as such.”[22] The young, politically minded women that formed the

Club Femenino Chapultepec were not an anomaly of community involvement. Even before the

founding of the group, there were several established organizations in Houston that formed long

before the devastation of the Great Depression hit Houston’s Mexican American population.

The League of United Latin American Citizens (L.U.L.A.C.), founded in February 1929, ratified

the first constitution at the meeting in May of that year.[23] The principle architects of the first

Mexican American political organization in the United States, Alonso Perales, Jóse Tomás,

and Eduardo Idar, all became influential voices in the battle for Mexican American civil rights.

The organization that maintained the motto “all for one and one for all” sought to promote the

Americanization of their people as a means to secure rights.[24] By focusing on specific ideals

that would appeal to the favorable attitudes of the Anglos in power, the mission of L.U.L.A.C

would promote among its members and community “the acquisition of the English language.” As

one of the most common avenues of criticism the ability to speak the language was “necessary

for enjoyment of our rights and privileges.”[25] The power of citizenship became a key feature

of the new ideology of the “Mexican American Generation” because the importance of political

power was not lost on the middle class Mexican Americans who by the 1930s were resigning

their claims to Mexico in increasing numbers. [26]

Another tenant of the L.U.L.A.C constitution confirms the importance of accepting and

actively promoting these new American attitudes through “absolute and unmistakable clearness

in our unquestionable loyalty to the ideals, principles, and citizenship of the United States of

America.”[27] Rosales describes the rationalization for such a dramatic change in tactics because

the “Mexican image, no matter how positive it might seem to Mexicans, would not be accepted

by Anglo society.”[28] The efforts of Mexicans and Mexican Americans prior to L.U.L.A.C.

were based on the naïve perceptions that class could trump not only racism, but nationalism
as well. The power of the organization would come from its ability to exert political strength

because with their “vote and influence we shall endeavor to place in public office men who show

by their deeds, to place in public office men who show by their deeds, respect and consideration

for our people.” The importance of the power of suffrage could not be overstated in the founding

document, and the men writing it knew that the voting rights of Mexican Americans, like those

of other minorities, were available in Texas at the time only if one could pay the poll tax. One of

L.U.L.A.C.’s most important missions became to “pay our poll tax as well as that of members of

our families.” [29] By exerting political power the middle class Mexican Americans that formed

the body and leadership of such organizations sought to solidify their grasp on one of the most

fundamental aspects of American citizenship, the right to vote.

In 1935 Manuel Crespo, Felix Tijerina, John J. Herrera, and others successfully gained

the charter for the Houston chapter of the statewide L.U.L.A.C organization. The efforts

of these local activists were not limited to ensuring the vote for poor citizens the leaders,

Tijerina and Crespo, continually pressed the Mexican American middle class to exert their

whiteness.[30] In his 2006 article “George I. Sánchez, Ideology, and Whiteness in the Making of

the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, 1930- 1960” historian Carlos Blanton describes

how the ability of Mexican Americans to present themselves and gain recognition as white

could effectively gain the favor of Anglos.[31] Prior to the 1930s the Mexico Lindo ideology,

typified by strong Mexican nationalism, dominated Mexican American political thought and it

manifested in the many organizations whose aims were to maintain a cultural connection to the

country of their lineage.

By the middle of the Great Depression, however, the need to be white, and more so the

need to be accepted as American, became for many of the now permanent residents a pressing

issue driving the new tactic of claiming whiteness. This became evident after the passage of

the Social Security Act in 1935 when the federal government issued forms to employers across
the United States classifying Mexican Americans as non-white, effectively labeling them as

other in a black and white world. The perceived insult fueled a large backlash that resulted in

an apology from the government and an affirmative statement from Houston Congressman Joe

Eagle, in a November 1936 telegram to executive director of the Social Security Board Frank

Bane, that “These people (Mexican Americans)…certainly are White [sic] since they are direct

descendents of the Caucasian race.”[32] The furor caused by the labeling of Mexican Americans

as non-white by the federal government, the protest against it, and the ultimate conciliation

confirmed for many that as Rosales says “the underlying prerequisite for acceptance as

Americans, … was a claim to whiteness.” [33] For the people in Houston’s Mexican American

community, the hard times that hit the nation in the 1930s became even more of a disastrous

problem.

The economic climate in Houston at the dawn of the Great Depression is unique to its

place in the burgeoning industrial South. While 60 percent of the some 15,000 Hispanics in

Houston proper held “low blue collar” jobs, only a 10th of that percentage were “white collar”

workers.[34] Houston’s economy initially drew only the lower classes of individuals because the

jobs and opportunities did not appeal to the elites of Mexican society. By the 1930s, however,

the upward mobility of many Mexican Americans in Houston presented new problems both

within the barrios and society in general. Even though Houston as a whole did not feel the full

brunt of the Depression, the Mexican population suffered greatly. The federal programs that

were designed to create economic recovery were denied to people of Mexican descent and only

those that could prove citizenship received New Deal aid. Houston continued to grow modestly

in spite of the poor national economy; unfortunately, for many in the Mexican American

community, the decade of 1930s was, as De Leon called it, an “intensification of poverty”

more than any other group at the time.[35] For others like the founders of Latin American Club

(L.A.C), the self-motivation and the hard work of entrepreneurship provided another means of
proving their worth as citizens.
As the economic power of the middle class grew, people such as Felix Tijerina

and Manuel Crespo sought to escape the poverty that characterized the barrios of the Second

Ward and Magnolia in Houston. This desire is evident in correspondence from the women of

Chapultepec who expressed anger because “Mexican people find it impossible to rent or buy in

any decent section of town and are forced to live in dirty crowded conditions in houses out of

which Americans have moved.”[36] Such conditions impressed upon Mexican Americans fueled

the assimilationist movement headed by groups such as L.U.L.A.C and Houston’s smaller L.A.C.

because despite economic progress being labeled as non-white and thus non-American barred the

ethnic group from housing opportunities. The clarity with which the dominant sector of Houston

society expressed their feelings toward Mexicans both citizen and not, matched that of other

Southern cities. As it was for African Americans across the region, it was for people of Mexican

descent because in many Anglo establishments signs forbade their presence saying, “No

Mexicans Hired.”[37] The hostile racial climate faced even the most established citizens of

Mexican descent. Mayor of Houston Oscar Holcombe, in May of 1935, represented the attitudes

of Houston’s white power structure in a speech to the L.U.L.A.C state conference he

emphatically states, “If inequalities and injustices are practiced towards you… it is your own

fault.”[38] Placing blame on people of Mexican descent, for the problems they faced, directly

denies the direct and institutionalized oppression imparted upon them by Anglo society.

Statements like that of Mayor Holcombe makes the choice of Mexicans in Houston to adopt and

actively display their Americanness, and so too their whiteness, all the more easy to understand.

To succeed in Houston one had to be white or at least accepted as white. The task proved difficult

for the colonia. It presented a necessary shift of emphasis in the politics of its leaders. Having

realized the prerequisites for prosperity, the solidly American-oriented faction of the Mexican

population actively shunned those with questionable status as citizens. Not only were immigrants

barred from participation, but so too were U.S born Hispanics that could not provide
documentation proving the claim to citizenship. The new tactic of promoting the community’s

citizenship and thereby gain access to social, political, and economic, improvements in the

standard of living took precedence in the actions of Mexican American leaders.

People of Mexican descent have had a peculiar existence in the United States

since the two countries first came in contact with each other. The migratory nature of the ethnic

labor group in the United States combined with a very nationalistic mentality was used in the first

methods of asserting their status and gain acceptance within Houston. As time progressed and the

dominance of Anglos pushed them into the fringes of acceptable society, the need to be

considered white was a direct reaction to the problems associated with their ethnic status. This

tactic can be debated as buying into racism or as blatant submission to assimilation, but such

characterization clouds the complicated story of a people mired in the contradictions of a

transition from an old world caste system to modern American racism. The need to assert

whiteness, and so too Americanness, arose out of the desire to compete on a level scale with

Anglo Americans becoming the premier course of action in the battle for civil and political

rights. Being white for the “Mexican American Generation” was not an acceptance and

promotion of the racism that created such a structure, but a way to capitalize on an

institutionalized oppression and prosper in the most dire circumstances.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Chapultepec, Club Femenino. Club Femenino Chapultepec to Leona B. Hendrix, 11 June 1937.

In Houston Review 3 (1981): 269 -270.

C.J. Hinojosa to Senators Tom Connally, Morris Shepard, and Congressman Joe H. Eagle,

November 25, 1936, Rodríguez Collection, Houston Metropolitan Research Center,

Houston Public Library.

Campo Laurel #2333, W.O.W, Marzo 2, 1908, typescript, Small Collection, Houston

Metropolitan Research Center, Houston Public Library.

La Gaceta Mexicana. Newspaper Microfilm Collection, Houston Metropolitan Research Center,

Houston Public Library.

“Reglamento de la Sociedad Mutualista Mexicana ‘Benito Juárez,’” Mexican American Small

Collection, Houston Metropolitan Research Center, Houston Public Library.

Secondary Sources

Balderrama, Francisco E. and Raymond Rodriguez. Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation

in the 1930s. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995.

Blanton, Carlos K. “George I. Sánchez, Ideology, and Whiteness in the Making of the Mexican

American Civil Rights Movement, 1930 -1960.” Journal of Southern History 72, no. 3

(2006): 569 -604.

Chipman, Donald E. “Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca.” Handbook of Texas Online. Austin: Texas

State Historical Association, 2008. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/

CC/fca6.html (accessed April 14, 2008).

De Leon, Arnoldo. Ethnicity in the Sunbelt: Mexican Americans in Houston. College Station:

Texas A&M University Press, 2001.

--. The Tejano Community, 1836 -1900. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982.

Garcia, María-Cristina. “Agents of Americanization: Rusk Settlement and the Houston Mexicano

Community, 1907 -1950.” In Mexican Americans in Texas History, edited by Emilio

Zamora, Cynthia Orozco, and Rodolfo Rocha, 121 -137. Austin: Texas State Historical

Association, 2000.

--. “Manuel Crespo,” Handbook of Texas Online. Austin: Texas State Historical Association,

2008. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/CC/fcr83.html (accessed 14

 April 2008).
Garcia, Mario T. Mexican Americans: Leadership, Ideology, & Identity, 1930 -1960. New Haven

and London: Yale University Press, 1989.

Kreneck, Thomas H. “The Letter From Chapultepec.” Houston Review 3 (1981): 267 -269.

Lamb, Ruth. Mexican Americans of the Southwest. Claremont, CA: Ocelot Press, 1970.

Orozco, Cynthia. “League of United Latin American Citizens.” Handbook of Texas Online

Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 2008. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/

online/articles/LL/wel1.html (accessed 14 April 2008).

Rhinehard, Marilyn and Thomas H. Kreneck. “‘In the Shadow of Uncertainty’: Texas Mexicans

and Repatriations in Houston During the Great Depression.” Houston Review 10 (1988):

21 -33.

Rosales, F. Arturo. “Mexicans in Houston: The Struggle to Survive, 1908-1975.” Houston

Review 3 (1981): 224 -248.

--. “Shifting Self Perceptions and Ethnic Consciousness Among Mexicans in Houston, 1908 -

1946.” Atzlan 16, nos. 1-2 (1987): 71 -94.

[1] Mexican American’s of the time used the term colonia to describe both the community’s

neighborhood and its people. Historian F. Arturo Rosales uses the term in his article for the

Houston Review in the same way.

[2] Donald E. Chipman, “Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca,” Handbook of Texas Online 17 January

2008, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/CC/fca6.html (accessed April 14,

2008).

[3] Arnoldo De León, Ethnicity in the Sunbelt: Mexican Americans in Houston (College Station:

Texas A&M University Press, 2001), quotation 4, 5-7.

[4] Ibid., 5.

[5] Arnoldo De Leon’s work The Tejano Community, 1836 -1900 (Albuquerque: University
of New Mexico Press, 1982) describes the experiences of people of Mexican descent in Texas

during this formative time in the history of the state.

[6] F. Arturo Rosales, “Mexicans in Houston: The Struggle to Survive, 1908-1975,” Houston

Review 3 (1981): 226.

[7] Ibid., 226.

[8] Rosales, “Mexicans in Houston,” 233.

[9] De Leon, 25.

[10] De Leon, 26.

[11] De Leon, 26.

[12] F. Arturo Rosales, “Shifting Self Perceptions and Ethnic Consciousness Among Mexicans

in Houston, 1908- 1946,” Atzlan 16, nos. 1-2 (1987): 87.

[13] The Rusk Settlement, founded in 1907, existed as part of a larger national society of

Settlement Houses usually operated by young, college educated white women. There were other

similar settlement houses in the Houston area that focused on other minority groups such as

poor European immigrants, and poor African Americans. For more history on the Settlement

movement in Houston’s Second Ward, one can refer to María Cristina Garcia’s “Agents

of Americanization: Rusk Settlement and the Houston Mexican Community, 1907-1950,”

in Mexican Americans in Texas History (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 2000)

[14] Marilyn Rhinehard and Thomas Kreneck, “‘In the Shadow of Uncertainty’: Texas Mexicans

and Repatriation in Houston During the Great Depression,” Houston Review 10 (1988): 21-33.

Another work focusing on the repatriations of Mexican people in the 1930s on a national scale is

Francisco E. Balderrama and Raymond Rodriguez’s Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation

in the 1930s. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995).

[15] Campo Laurel #2333, W.O.W, Marzo 2, 1908, typescript, Small Collection, held in Houston

Public Library, Houston Metropolitan Research Center (HRMC); “Reglamento de la Sociedad

Mutualista Mexicana ‘Benito Juárez,’” HRMC, Mexican American Small Collection; The

presence of these organizations in the Houston area can also be found in many Spanish language

newspapers such as La Gaceta Mexicana in the form of advertisements for social functions or

editorials promoting their work held in the Newspaper Microfilm Collection, hereafter HRMC.

[16] Rosales, “Shifting Self Perceptions,” 74.

[17] Ibid., 77.

[18] Ibid., 84.

[19] Thomas H. Kreneck, “The Letter From Chapultepec,” Houston Review 3 (1981): 268.

[20] Club Femenino Chapultepec to Leona Hendrix, Houston, 11 June 1937, in Houston Review

10 (1981): 270.

[21] Ibid., 270.

[22] Ibid., 271.

[23] L.U.L.A.C. began as a statewide organization to promote the ideals of Americanism to the

U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. The influence of its directives, ideology, and actions on the

Houston colonia can be seen in various newspaper articles in Spanish language newspapers in

Houston, personal correspondence, as well as recognition in the predominantly white focused

Houston Chronicle.

[24] Cynthia Orozco, “League of United Latin American Citizens,” Handbook of Texas Online

18 January 2008, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/LL/wel1.html (accessed 14

April 2008).

[25] Ruth Lamb, Mexican Americans of the Southwest (Claremont, CA: Ocelot Press, 1970):

116.

[26] Historian Mario T. Garcia defines the “Mexican American Generation” in Mexican

Americans: Leadership, Ideology, & Identity, 1930- 1960 as the era between 1930 and 1950.
[27] De Leon, 25.
[28] Rosales, “Shifting Self Perceptions,” 90.

[29] Both quotations: Lamb, 116.

[30] María-Cristina Garcia, “Manuel Crespo,” Handbook of Texas Online 18 January 2008,

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/CC/fcr83.html (accessed 14 April 2008);

Rosales, “Shifting Self Perception,” 80.

[31] Carlos K. Blanton, “George I. Sanchez, Ideology, and Whiteness in the Making of the

Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, 1930-1960,” Journal of Southern History 72, no. 3

(2006): 569- 604.

[32] Rosales, “Shifting Self Perceptions,” 81; C.J. Hinojosa to Senators Tom Connally, Morris

Shepard, and Congressman Joe H. Eagle, November 25, 1936, Rodríguez Collection, HMRC.

[33] Rosales, “Shifting Self Perceptions,” 82

[34] De Leon, 54.

[35] De Leon, 49; Quotation from De Leon, 51.

[36] Club Femenino Chapultepec to Hendrix, 117.

[37] De Leon, 47.

[38] Houston Chronicle, May 13, 1935, 17.