Review of The Mexican-americans of South Texas

Hidalgo County is situated in the Rio Grande Valley in southern west Texas (United States) and lies near the Mexican border. Rio Grande Valley was originally settled by Mexican and Spanish settlers and was colonized for protection from Indian raids and to prevent the enlargement of New France. Texas declared independence from Mexico in 1836 and then joined the United States in 1845. In the early sixties, seventy-five percent of Hidalgo County’s population was Mexican-American. Anglophone Americans sought to help Mexican-Americans live better lives by forcing them to follow American religious and cultural beliefs. However, and quite surprisingly to the Anglos, Mexican-Americans did not necessarily see this as an enriched way of life and valued their Mexican heritage.

Although there are no overt acts of discrimination, the tension between the two cultures, Anglophone-Americans and Mexican-Americans, is nonetheless detectable because of behavioural misunderstandings on the part of both parties. Although an air of friendliness and tolerance is now present throughout the Valley, discrimination was much worse in the early twentieth century, such as the Bloody Hour.

La Raza is a unifying term for all Latin-Americans who share in “cultural and spiritual bonds from God.” (p. 17) Newly immigrated Mexican-Americans generally make up the lower class, working as manual labourers, and feel a stronger bond towards La Raza. The middle class emerged after the Second World War and most lower-middle class members are now homeowners, and the upper-middle class own small businesses or small farms.

Mexican-Americans identify themselves first and foremost as members of their family and secondly as individuals because the family is a place where acceptance can be found in a world of conflict. Most Mexican-Americans are Catholic, however, depending on class they practice different kinds of Catholicism. One unifying characteristic of Mexican-American Catholicism is the veneration of Saints and the importance they are given.

Mexican-American beliefs on wellness and health combine the natural and supernatural and depend on harmony between the two. Belief in witchcraft is highest amongst the lower-class, however, bewitchment is believed to be the worst of all diseases in all classes even those who are sceptical about the existence of witches. Curanderos are people who truly believe they have a God given gift to help the sick with folk and natural diseases and barely make any profit from doing so. In traditional curing, the curandero would use their gift to guess the illness but it has now evolved whereby the curanderos now prescribe herb medicine prescriptions.