This week’s reading focused largely on the history of people of Mexican origin in America and how they came to be perceived in by white Americans. The book Chicano! by F. Arturo Rosales illustrates this through the borderland history of the southwest. He mentions how after the Spanish-American war, the new border towns gained reputations as being “sinful” places because they offered gambling, alcohol, and prostitution. White Americans built their image of Mexicans based on these towns without acknowledging the main patrons of the casinos and brothels were American men. Mexicans were painted as immoral and contrary to Anglo values because they were considered inferior to white Americans. For example, he quotes a man who said that they were somewhere
