I’m sure glad I didn’t learn this in an Ethnic Studies class!

by David Safier

I'm still reeling from the U.S.-hating article in yesterday's Star, Key parts of famed treaty with Mexico set for display. I'm sure it must have been written by one of them TUSD Ethnic Studies teachers or another of them give-the-Southwest-back-to-Mexico radicals.

I mean, give me a break. The article says, when the U.S. won the Mexican-American War (U.S.A.! U.S.A.!), we took out parts of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that promised to protect the land rights of Mexicans living in the areas we conquered and guaranteed they would be granted citizenship rights. That's just anti-American propaganda!

Wait. You mean it's true? Here's the passage from the Star article:

When the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty, it deleted Article X, guaranteeing the protection of Mexican land rights. It also modified Article IX, which guaranteed citizenship rights for Mexicans in the new land.

There were about 80,000 Mexicans living in the ceded territory – about 20 percent of Mexico's population. Most decided to stay and live in the southwestern U.S. By the end of the 19th century, most Mexicans had lost their lands and were forcibly removed.

Mexico had failed to set up a way to enforce the treaty, so there wasn't an international agency to monitor violations of the agreement.

Hmm. I just did some quick google research, which seems to back it up.

That's just wr . . .

I mean, how could we . . .?

I don't know what to say.

You know, I don't remember learning that in my high school American History class, and if it was mentioned, we certainly didn't discuss the injustice of promising people citizenship and land rights, then going back on our promises.

I have to admit, if I were Mexican-American, I would be enraged, and I would want my children to understand the truth, that our economic and social status in this country is partially the result of broken promises by the U.S. government. And if my kids weren't learning the truth about the part of American History which most affected them in the school's traditional American History class, I would demand they have another alternative. Maybe there could be a class, or a group of classes, called Ethnic Studies, or something like that.