Study Guide Week 1 - 4

Week 1-4

Personal Identity is composed of __ traits and dispositions that give us personal uniqueness.

psychological

Social Identity derives from knowledge of being a member of __ or groups with emotional significance attached.

categories

Chicano social identity emphasizes pride in __, history, and indigenous roots. Calling oneself Chicano: Implies consciousness; awareness that members of this group are unfairly treated in a discriminatory manner and furthermore that the discrimination is group based, rather than stemming from personality or individual characteristics.

Mexican culture

Calling oneself Chicano implies __ about unfair treatment in a discriminatory manner.

consciousness

Social comparison involves comparing oneself to __ in society.

other groups

Birthplace-Based Citizenship (Jus Soli): refers to the principle that citizenship is determined by the place of birth within a state, regardless of the parents' citizenship

Anyone born within the state’s territory is a citizen at birth regardless of the parents citizenship or immigration status. 

Ancestry-Based Citizenship (Jus Sanguinis): to the principle of acquiring citizenship through the nationality of one's parents

Anyone born to citizen parents is a citizen of the state at birth. Little to no restrictions apply on how many generations citizenship can be passed down.

The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons born in the United States not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”

US Birthright citizenship

Dred Scott Case

Dred Scott Decision: denied US citizenship to African Americans.
That provision(using) rightly repudiated (refuse to accept) the Supreme Court of the United States’ shameful decision in Dred Scott Vs Sanford, 60 US (19How.) 393 (1857), which misinterpreted the Constitution as permanently excluding people from AAs from eligibility for US citizenship solely based on their race.

ONE OF THE WORST DECISIONS EVER MADE, an attempt to expand slavery, overturned by the 14th amendment which abolished slavery and gave US citizenship to naturalized citizens.

Racial Projects are defined as efforts to organize and distribute resources along particular __ lines.

racial

Domination refers to the exercise of __ in the context of racial inequalities.

power and control

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended the __ War.

Mexican-American

n February of 1848 Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe-HIdalgo

• For 15 million dollars → half of the Mexican territory was given to the US

  • Included states like New Mexico, California, Nevada, parts of Colorado, Arizona, Utah, and even Oklahoma. Rio Grande designated as Texas Border

• In all, the US took over a half a million square miles from Mexico

• Nicholas Trist, sent by The US to Mexico as a peace commissioner and to negotiate the treaty

• Given option to Mexican Elites → choose to be Mexican or US citizen

Mexicans were seen as 'offwhite' and a __ group in racial hierarchies.

racial wedge

The Latino Threat Narrative portrays Mexicans as __ to the country’s cultural identity.

a direct threat

Media spectacles often involve powerful words that taint the public's __ of a community.

perception

Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship: Presidential Action. January 20, 2025.  What are its main provisions?

-redefining the what birthright citizenship means 

People born in the United States will not be granted citizenship if their mother is unlawfully present and their father is not a citizen/permanent resident or if their mother was lawfully present but their father is not a citizen/permanent resident 

Native Americans: Denied Citizenship Until 1924

• 14th Amendment denied citizenship to Native Americans

• Snyder Act, also known as the Indian Citizenship Act: June 2, 1924

• But, voting rights still denied by many states until 1965 Voting Rights Act, E.g., literacy tests

Wong Kim Ark Case, 169 US 649 (1898)

• In the 1898 case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the principle of birthright citizenship, meaning that individuals born within the United States are automatically citizens, regardless of their parents' nationality. This ruling established a landmark precedent, solidifying the idea that citizenship is granted by place of birth, a principle known as jus soli.

• Mother and father were of Chinese descent.The Wong Kim Ark Case established that a child born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents is granted citizenship under the 14th Amendment, highlighting issues of birthright citizenship.

Status of Trump executive action on birthright citizenship in the courts:

Blocked by the courts and not in effect

White By Law Book:  What were main points of book discussed in lecture? E.g., the legal construction of race, racial prerequisite cases, race as social construction, Bagat Singh Third case, 2 major rationales, colorblindness:

• Law constructs race at every level:

  • Changing the physical features borne by people in this country

  • Shaping the social meanings that define races

    Rendering concrete the privileges and disadvantages justified by racial ideology

• Formal legal construction of race: the way in which law as a formal matter, either through legislation and adjudication, directly engages racial definitions

  • E.g. physical features affects the law (in accessing certain areas, such as schools or stores) – racial categories

• Race is socially constructed: Plastic and malleable (can be changed)

• Race is highly contingent: specific to times, places, and situations.

• White prerequisite to naturalization

  • 1790-1952: Naturalization only open to those legally defined as “white.”

Racial Formation definition:

• The socio-historical process by which racial identities are created lived out, transformed and destroyed.

• Social nature of race, absence of essential racial characteristics, historical flexibility of racial meanings and categories, the conflictual character of race as both micro and macro social levels and the irreducible political aspect of racial dynamics

• Government and politics play key role in racial formation processes: concepts of race are always politically contested. Racial politics.

  • Red lining: way of reinforcing racial inequalities

  • Affirmative action: alleviation of racial inequalities

• RACE is formed over TIME

Redlining

• If racial inequalities are alleviated = Racial Project. 

  • Visually 1930-40s, redling, banks were not allowed to let people in the red borrow money to buy a home. Officially segregated

racial projects

• An effort to organize and distribute resources along particular racial lines. 

  • e.g  voting redistricting laws

• If racial inequalities are reinforced, enhanced or exacerbated = Racist Project

• If racial inequalities are alleviated = Racial Project. 

  • Visually 1930-40s, redling, banks were not allowed to let people in the red borrow money to buy a home. Officially segregated 

  • distribute resources based on category of race

  • Subset: Racist project — distributes resources based on race but exacerbates racial inequalities 

racial dictatorship:

a white collective despotism in which people of color were oppressed and excluded

domination

the exercise of power and control, particularly in the context of racial and ethnic inequalities. Direct rule by coercion and force.

hegemony

The dominance of one group over another, often supported by legitimizing norms and ideas. Rule by coercion and consent

Citizenship and Article IX

Article 9 of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gave them the choice to be US citizens or remain Mexicans. You can choose to become a US Citizen, but it won't be real until this undefined proper time congress says. (unclear future date)

Laura Gomez article: Mexicans as “offwhite” and racial wedge group

• Schemes: on Mexicans wanting to be white

• Still discriminate even though they are white, off-white status, (In between white and not) 

Main points of guest lecture, Jose Serrano

• Natural citizenship: birth, born in the US.

• It can be acquired or derived

  • Acquired citizenship: taking an exam of 100 questions

  • Derived: if the parent is a citizen, then you can also obtain citizen status through that process. 

• Citizenship is based on the process as how you entered the US and a test you take, written, oral and reading exam. No more than 10 minutes

  • Depending how long you have been a green card holder or lawful resident holder determines if you take this exam in Spanish or English. 

Latino Threat Narrative

• the way individuals who do not necessarily or solely identify as American are viewed and treated as outsiders who are unwilling to integrate into American society (Chavez, 2013)

• Mexicans are treated and seen as a direct threat to the country’s cultural identity, political structure, and demographics. 

• portrayed as a group of people who are not contributing members of society since they don’t want to ‘conform’.

• Latinos are not like previous immigrant groups, who ultimately became part of the nation. According to the assumptions and taken-for-granted "truths" Inherent in this narrative, Latinos are unwilling or incapable of integrating, of becoming part of the national community. Rather, they are part of an invading force from south of the border that is bent on reconquering land that was formerly theirs (the US Southwest) and destroying the American way of life.

Media spectacles

Latino Threat Narrative is expressed through media spectacles.

• Events or public performances that receive an Inordinate volume of media attention and public opinion. Productive acts that construct knowledge about subjects in our world

• Topics: border surveillance, reproduction, fertility levels, fears of immigrant invasions and reconquests, amnesty programs, economic impacts, alleged inability to assimilate.

• Trump speeches

  • Media plays stories that are anti-immigrant, when you combine these it creates a bias, 

• to taint the public's perception of a community or situation

• typically involving powerful words, repeated coverage, and language that makes the situation seem urgent or threatening (Chavez, 2013).

Ex. Trump calling Mexicans drug dealers, criminals, and rapists during his first presidential term (BBC News, 2016)

Pablo de la Guerra case: basic facts

Pablo de la Guerra running for judge in California → denied him because only US citizens can run for Judge → 1988 Tried to petition for citizenship and then congress decided that “nahh fuck you” → bring us ot state supreme court “treaty says that they can be citizens when congress says so”, when congress admitted California as a state, people that were born there were considered US citizens

Property and Article X Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, while intending to protect property rights, ultimately failed to do so for Mexican landowners in the ceded territories due to the removal of Article X during ratification. This article, which would have guaranteed the validity of Mexican land grants, was struck from the final version of the treaty, leading to legal battles and dispossession for many. 

CA Constitution of 1849 and Mexican voting rights

• As early as 1849, the citizenship rights of Mecians who “elected” to become US citizens became the subject of controversy

• Delegates to the state constitutional convention in CA in 1849 struggled with the issue of giving the right to vote for former Mexican citizens: Would the vote be given to all Mexicans regardless of racial background ? Would it be given only to “white” Mexicans? What about Mexicans who were mestizo, indigenous, or black?

• How could they make such a distinction without violating the Treaty of GH?

• 6 of the delegates were native Californios (former Mexican citizens). They were aware of the fact that Mexicans who look like Indians faced the prospect of racial discrimination. Many Californios were in fact darker complected.. How would they respond? They ended up supporting the protection of their elite class at the expense of former Mexican citizens of Indigenous and African ancestry.