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Hi, everyone. This is Carmen and Christina and this is
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The Studas Unknown, a podcast where we talk about Latin
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American history. Sometimes it's horrible and it deals with heavy
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topics like racism, corruption, at genocide. But more than that,
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it's also by resistance, power and community. Christina, what are
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we talking about today today? Is depressing? It's very depressing. Wow,
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And there is no nothing uplifting about this episode. So really,
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I don't think so. After I finished my notes, I
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don't think so strength based. I'll try to find something. Okay,
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I'm probably gonna forget that I said that, but yeah,
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go on. So we didn't learn this in school, and
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this is a line that we say a little too much.
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We should have put that in the Bengo card. Yeah,
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you're right, because yeah, it comes up a little too much.
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And I can speak to our experience in Modesto Modesta,
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California High school history class. Right, they didn't talk about
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what I'm going to talk about today when it pertains
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to Mexicans, but they did talk about it when it
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pertains to black people. Because there's just some things that
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cannot simply be ignored, Like they cannot not talk about
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the enslavement of black people in history. They can't skip
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Jim Crow even though they try, and we get like
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the MENI version of it, right, and then also like
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mom violence and lynchings of black people, right, it's not
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taught in detail, but we know it happened. Yeah, maybe
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some places is not taught anymore.
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I don't know.
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I don't know what the situation. I was gonna say.
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In some places they're teaching that enslaved people like being enslaved,
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so right, So if that's the case, they're probably skipping
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over lynchings. But we you and I, we did learn
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about lynchings, especially because you learn about it in the
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frame of fiction through To Kill a Mockingbird. Yeah, because
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that's a book everyone has to read. I think fiction
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is important though, because yeah, we do learn a lot
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of things about well historical fiction through do that. And
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just because it's fiction doesn't mean that it didn't happened
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or things like that didn't happen. I mean not In
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some places you only learn the fiction version of it
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without learning yeah, this really did happen to people. And
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also because the ticular Mockybird to me also is very
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like white savior point of view.
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From the Lawyer.
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That's true, but I think it's still important book to teach, right,
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we still need Yeah, that that part is true in
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English classes, especially like the way they frame it and
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the discussions you have when you read and the essays
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you write, Yeah about it. It's not just like reading it,
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you know. I think there's like a lot to learn
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from there. It'd be nice to also address it. And
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this is too asking too much, but to also address
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it in a history class at the same time. Yeah,
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that you're reading, but that's too much. That's too much.
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And that's really the extent of learning about lynching in
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the United States unless you go to higher education, write,
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or you seek it out yourself later. Yeah, right, like
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where we did for this episode. Yeah, the subject of
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lynching in the un is only discussed in the concept
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of black people, black Americans. But we don't need to
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say that. The amount of lyncians they face is obscene, like, right,
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it's insane and horrible and horrific. Almost everything relating to
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race is taught in a black and white like, right,
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and everyone else is it kind of ignored? That's very true, right, Yeah,
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And that applies to lynchings too, because in the United States.
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Indigenous people, Mexicans, Asians, and even Irish people until they
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were considered considered white were all lynched for different reasons.
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But the group most targeted after black people with lynchings
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were Mexicans or just people with Hispanic lassings because during
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this time period, even though it wasn't just Mexicans, everyone
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was considered to Mexican. Right, even now they still try
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to do that, so, right, they still do that. Yeah,
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And that's what today's topic is, the history of lynchings
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of Mexicans in the US. And over the next two
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or three episodes, well, the next one I want to
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go into specific cases of lynchings, and then the one
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after that, I want to focus on Texas specifically because
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that place was an insane Yeah, I mean even the
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whole creation of Texas a state in itself, right, like
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I think that it, yeah, lends itself to not lend
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itself it It makes sense that the most lynchings of
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Mexicans happened there to me, right, and so yeah, in
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this episode, I want to set up the context of
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how Mexicans the situation they were living in in California,
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and I guess not just California, but mostly California, and
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the context in which these lynchings were happening, Like what
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was going on in that lit up to this, the
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history of you know, this timeframe. I am skipping over though,
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the violence of the Spanish towards indigenous people. That's another
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topic right now, Like it's Mexicans facing this violence from
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Anglo settlers, but we know there was a lot of
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violence also from the Spanish toward indigenous people, but that
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were not you know, going over that today, focusing on that. Yeah, today,
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mostly California, though I'm talking a little bit about other places.
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Texas is going to have its own episode because I
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can't talk about lynchings in Texas without talking about a
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group responsible for hundreds of lynchings in Texas that were
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then considered legal lynchings and weren't counted as lynchings, the
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Texas Rangers. I was going to guess, and yeah, that's
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going to be its own episode. But the number of
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lynchings on Mexicans in the US is contested. One of
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the books I read for research Forgotten Dead mob violence
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against Mexicans in the United States offers the following numbers
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for the years eighteen forty eight to nineteen twenty eight,
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five hundred forty eight lynchings. Wow, eighteen forty eight to
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when eighteen forty eight to nineteen twenty eight eighty years. Yeah,
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When you expand the definition of vigilante justice to include
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like what would have been legal lynchings like those by
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the Texas Rangers Bush were considered legal, that number five
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hundred forty eight goes up to several thousands, because that's
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how many Mexicans the Texas Rangers were killing legally, and
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they're trying to bring that back, y'all. One could argue
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that police shootings are modern day lynchings of black people
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and Mexicans or Latino people, and one would be correct
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in saying that. So besides these modern day you know, lynchings,
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they're also trying to bring back like vigilante justice or whatever. Like, right,
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didn't they just some state passed like a thing where
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they're adding on like militia groups to act as border patrol. Yeah,
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I forgot which state, but yeah, pro Texes is probably
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Texas and Arizona probably both. Yeah, And when you lump
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in indigenous people with Mexicans, that number grows even more
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because that happened too, especially during the Yaqui Wars, which
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the Yaqui people face state violence by both the US
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government and the Mexican government. Man, and they're here today,
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and that is resistance. Yes, thank you. But the Yaki Wars,
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that's going to be a topic for another day. I
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already added it to our list and one of the
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books I use it. All of the sources are listed
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in the show notes. But one of the books I
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use does have a toll chapter on the Yankey Wars,
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and we did talk a little bit about them in
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the Terre Saura episode as well. Okay, but before talking
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about the mass lynchings of Mexicans in the US, I
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need to set up some context.
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First.
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Let's define lynching by using the Tuskegee Institute's definition, because
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it's the most accepted one. So there must be legal
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evidence that a person was killed. That person must have
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met death illegally. A group of three or more persons
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must have participated in the killing. The group must have
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acted under the pretext of service to justice, race, or tradition.
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That part is the most like essential partner. There So,
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the first documented use of the term lynching in the
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US was known as Lynch's Law, which happened in seventeen
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eighty in Virginia. General Charles Lynch and his commanders used
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Lynch Law to put an end to the Tory conspiracy,
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which I didn't know this was the thing. Tories were
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British sympathizers during the American Revolution. Oh you knew that. Yeah,
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I don't remember how, but yeah, they rolled through Chestnut
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Hill Gathering imprisoning the British sympathizers, the Tories, and one
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of the more outspoken British sympathizers, John Griffith. John wentn'
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shut up about Britain and loving them. He wasn't lynched
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in the sense of like being hung up to die,
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but in the sense of a public lashing where people
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came out to watch. And that's what a Lynch Law was, like,
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punishing someone in public like that. Okay, but then this
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was expanded to me just the use of military law
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by non military personnel, so regular ass people taking justice
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into their own hands. And when we think of lynching,
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because of the US education system, the South is the
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thing that comes to mind for people because yeah, it
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was absolutely brutal for black people. There's no denying that.
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From eighteen eighty two to nineteen sixty eight. They do,
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documented number of lynchings towards black people in the US
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is four seven hundred forty three wow, according to the
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n double ACP, while the Equal Justice Initiative reports four
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eighty four and just twelve Southern states from eighteen seventy
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seven to nineteen fifty. Well, that's already more. But historians
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all agree, will like credible historians all agree that this
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number is like low balling it, yeah, because that's what's documented, right,
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and the real number is probably way higher. Those are
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all lynchings, all lynchings in the US. And then seventy
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five percent of that number is all black victims of lynching. Wow, lynchings.
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And when it came to trying to find the number
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of Mexican victims of lynching, that's a little trickier because
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in some places they only documented black and white people. Again,
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like that black and white thing where they don't know
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nobody else mattered in between. In these years, other times
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Mexicans were counted as white because legally, by law, Mexicans
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were white. This was since the age and forty a
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Treaty of Guago, the Mexicans who were supposed to count
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as white, they were supposed to receive citizenship, but that
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didn't matter to the Anglos killing them because they were Mexican, right, Like,
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that didn't matter. So that was a little difficult, you know,
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keeping track of the Mexicans who were lynched, because sometimes
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they weren't counted as Mexican. Some people were just listed
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as other. The people who were most well documented after
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black people were probably Chinese people because they were the
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easiest to identify for the people doing the lynchings. Just
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because the treaty said, you know, Mexicans in these states
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are US citizens that are considered white, it didn't mean
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anything to the Anglos, the Anglo settlers, which is insane
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to me because like I don't I feel like I
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don't need to say this, but I'm going to any way.
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Like they were the people moving to these places where
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people were already living California, Texas, to Mexico, Arizona, and
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they they arrived at these places and like just talked
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matt shit about everyone who was already there. You know,
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they got to places like Texas immediately were like, eh,
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who are these dirty greasers who were here? They don't
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deserve with the same rights we do. It's like, bitch,
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who are you?
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Exactly?
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And then like in Texas they created a version of
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Jim Crow informally known as Huan Crow. Wow, I didn't
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know that me neither. From eighteen ninety three to nineteen
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oh five, Texas passed English only laws that segregated Mexicans
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from public places like school, stores and pools, which I
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did know that well that yeah, I didn't know. They
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informally called it quan kuan pro. I had no idiculous
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How long have they been using a kuan as a
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dumb ass fucking little like insul for everything since they
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fucking got to you know what? This shows how unfunny
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they are. They've been using the same fucking joke since
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what eighteen hundred, We'll see, yeah they late eighteen hundreds. Dumb, unoriginal, bitch,
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unoriginal and unfunny. And yeah, this wasn't only in Texas.
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Everywhere they were arriving as manifestors of destiny or whatever
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the fun They brought this system of beliefs with them
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And yeah, manifest destiny and the gold Rush is what
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was bringing white people west. They like truly truly believed
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it was a god given right, Yeah, they go west.
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And the insane part is that we, like again, in
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the US school system, we learn about manifest destiny and
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how amazing it was supposedly. Dude, I was just gonna say,
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we spent so much fucking time learning about fucking manifest destiny,
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as if it didn't destroy the environment, as if it
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wasn't the enacting or I don't know how you would say,
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but as if it wasn't the primary leading cause of genocide,
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like this is ridiculous, like and they didn't at all,
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as if manifest destiny wasn't what killed all of the buffalos, right,
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destroying nature, destroying everything in its path for what gold capitalism, yeap, domination, yeah, colonialism. Yeah,
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they brought themselves to these lands that were already someone else's,
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and they brought their views with them, also their views
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of justice, which was very different than everyone else's, very uh, punitive,
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backwards ass bullshit and violent violent h and yeah, I
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mean it's the tradition of violence that they've always had,
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that they from the inception of this fucking country, the
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right to conquer blah blah blah, so on and on.
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So they headed west, and yeah, for some reason, They
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thought by them heading west, that Natives and Mexicans would
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vanish once they arrived. They thought that the world was
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theirs and nobody was there, and if they were, they
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were akin to animals, you know, in their view, Yes, exactly,
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because that brings me to my next literally my next