Shelby County v. Holder Brief Amici Curiae

    No. 12-96

In The

#upmtt£ (Court o f ttir Itttteli States

Shelby County, Alabama,
Petitioner,

v.
Eric H. Holder, Jr. Attorney General, et al.,

Respondents.

On W rit o f  C ertiorari 
to  the United States Court o f  Appeals 
for  the D istrict o f  Colum bia C ircuit

BRIEF OF NATIONAL LATINO 
ORGANIZATIONS AS AM ICI CURIAE 

IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENTS

Carter G. Phillips Mark E. Haddad*
Sidley Austin llp Jose F. Sanchez
1501 K Street, N.W. Brent W. WlLNER
Washington, D.C. 20005 ALEXANDER J. DOHERTY 
(202) 736-8000 AMANDA V. LOPEZ

Lillian H. Park 
W illiam M. Rosenthal 
Sidley Austin llp 
555 W. Fifth Street 
40th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90013 
(213) 896-6000 
mhaddad@sidley.com

Counsel for Amici Curiae 
February 1, 2013 * Counsel of Record

(Additional Counsel Listed on Inside Cover)
WlLSON-EPES PRINTING CO., INC. -  (202)789-0096 -  WASHINGTON, D. C. 20002

mailto:mhaddad@sidley.com


Thomas A. Saenz 
Nina Perales 
Karolina J.Lyznik 
Mexican American 
Legal Defense & 
Education Fund, Inc. 

110 Broadway, Suite 300 
San Antonio, TX 78205 
(210) 224-5476

Juan Cartagena 
Jose L. Perez 
LatinoJustice PRLDEF 
99 Hudson Street 
14th Floor
New York, NY 10013 
(212) 219-3360



TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES..................................  iii
INTEREST OF THE AMICI CURIAE.................  1
INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF ARGU­

MENT..................................................................... 1
ARGUMENT............................................................  5

I. THE VRA HAS EVOLVED AND BEEN 
EXTENDED BY CONGRESS TO PRO­
TECT LATINO VOTERS...............................
A. Limited Protection For Latinos In The

Original VRA...............................................  5
B. Expansion Of Section 5 To Protect

Latinos in the Southwest........................... 10
II. THE 2006 REAUTHORIZATION WAS A 

LEGITIMATE RESPONSE TO CONTIN­
UED INTENTIONAL DISCRIMINATION 
AGAINST LATINO VOTERS IN THE 
COVERED JURISDICTIONS......................  16
A. Disparities In Voting And Elected

Officials........................................................ 16
B. Intentional Efforts To Exclude Latinos

From Voting................................................  18
C. Intentional Efforts To Dilute Latino Vot­

ing Strength................................................  21
D. Racially Polarized Voting By Non-

Latinos.......................................................... 24

Page

(i)



11

III. THE COVERAGE FORMULA RATION­
ALLY AND FLEXIBLY IDENTIFIES 
JURISDICTIONS WITH THE WORST 
RECORDS OF DISCRIMINATION

TABLE OF CONTENTS—continued
Page

AGAINST LATINO VOTERS........................ 25
IV. A CASE STUDY IN THE CONTINUED 

NEED FOR SECTION 5’s PROTECTIONS:
THE 2011 TEXAS REDISTRICTING.......... 32

CONCLUSION........................................................  37
ADDENDUM: Charts
APPENDIX: List of Amici Curiae
EXHIBIT ONE: Expert Report of Dr. Andres 

Tijerina
EXHIBIT TWO: Expert Report of Dr. F. Arturo 

Rosales



Ill
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES 

CASES Page
Alta Irrigation Dist. v. Holder, No. 1:11- 

CV-758-RJL-DAG-PLF (D.D.C. July 15,
2011)..............................................................  31

City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507
(1997)............................................................ 16, 35

City of Rome v. United States, 446 U.S. 156 
(1980), superceded on other grounds, 
Voting Rights Amendments of 1982, Pub.
L. No. 97-205, 96 Stat. 131, as recognized 
in Nw. Austin Mun. Util. Dist. No. One v.
Holder, 557 U.S. 193 (2009)........................ 15

Crawford v. Marion Cnty. Election Bd., 553
U.S. 181 (2008).............................................  20

Garza v. Smith, 320 F. Supp. 131 (W.D.
Tex. 1970), vacated on other grounds, 401
U.S. 1006 (1971) (mem.).............................  10

Gonzales v. Sheely, 96 F. Supp. 1004 (D.
Ariz. 1951)..................................................... 7

Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 (1954)...... 6
Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641

(1966).............................................................  2, 10
Klahr v. Goddard, 250 F. Supp. 537 (D.

Ariz. 1966)..................................................... 9
League of United Latin Am. Citizens v.

Perry, 548 U.S. 399 (2006).....................  passim
Lopez v. Monterey Cnty., 525 U.S. 266

(1999).............................................................  15
Mi Familia Vota Educ. Fund v. Detzner,

No. 8:12-CV-1294-T-27MAP, 2012 WL
4086509 (M.D. Fla. Sep. 18, 2012)............ 21

Nw. Austin Mun. Util. Dist. No. One v. 
Holder, 557 U.S. 193 (2009)...................... 26, 31



IV

Perez v. Perry, No. SA-ll-CV-360, 2012 
U.S. Dist. LEXIS 92479 (W.D. Tex. Mar.
19, 2012)...................................................... 32, 34

Perry v. Perez, 132 S. Ct. 934 (2012)............. 32
Perez v. Texas, No. ll-CV-360 (W.D. Tex.

filed May 9, 2011)......................................... 35
Perez v. Texas, No. ll-CV-360 (W.D. Tex.

Mar. 19, 2012)..........................................  34
South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S.

301 (1966)........................................  1, 16, 29, 36
Texas v. Holder, No. 12-CV-128, 2012 WL

3743676 (D.D.C. Aug. 30, 2012)............  20
Texas v. United States, No. ll-CV-1303

(D.D.C. filed July 19, 2011).................... 32
Texas v. United States, No. ll-CV-1303,

2012 WL 3671924 (D.D.C. Aug. 28,
2012).........................................................  passim

Torres v. Sachs, 381 F. Supp. 309 (S.D.N.Y.
1974).......................................................... 10

United States v. Vill. of Port Chester, No. 
1:06-CV-15173 (SCR) (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 22,
2009).......................................................... 30

White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755 (1973).... 2, 13, 22

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES— continued
Page

STATUTES
Voting Rights Act of 1965, Pub. Law No.

89-110, 79 Stat. 437....................................  9
42 U.S.C. § 1973a(c).......................................  4, 29

§ 1973b.................................. 2, 4, 15, 30
§ 1973c............................................ 1



V
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—continued 

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY Page
The Continuing Need for Section 5 Pre- 

Clearance: Hearing Before the S. Comm.
on the Judiciary, 109th Cong. (2006)........ 23

Extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: 
Hearings Before the Subcomm. on 
Constitutional Rights of the S. Comm, on
the Judiciary, 94th Cong. (1975)......  12, 13, 14

Modern Enforcement of the Voting Rights 
Act: Hearing Before the S. Comm, on the
Judiciary, 109th Cong. (2006)...................  21

Reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act’s 
Temporary Provisions: Policy Perspec­
tives and Views from the Field: Hearing 
Before the Subcomm. on the Constitution,
Civil Rights and Property Rights of the S. 
Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th Cong.
(2006)............................................................28, 31

Renewing the Temporary Provisions of the 
Voting Rights Act: Legislative Options 
After LULAC v. Perry: Hearing Before the 
Subcomm. on the Constitution, Civil 
Rights and Property Rights of the S. 
Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th Cong.
(2006)......................................................... passim

The State of the Right to Vote After the 
2012 Election: Hearing Before the S. 
Comm, on the Judiciary, 112th Cong. 
(2012), http://www.j udiciary. senate. gov/
pdfyi2-12-19PeralesTestimony.pdf......................  20

To Examine the Impact and Effectiveness of 
the Voting Rights Act: Hearing Before the 
Subcomm. on the Constitution of the H. 
Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th Cong. 
(2005)......................................................... passim

http://www.j


VI

Voting Rights Act: An Examination of the 
Scope and Criteria for Coverage Under 
the Special Provisions of the Act: Hearing 
Before the Subcomm. on the Constitution 
of the H. Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th
Cong. (2005).......................................... 22, 25, 28

Voting Rights Act: Evidence of Continued 
Need, Volume I: Hearing Before the 
Subcomm. on the Constitution of the H. 
Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th Cong.
(2006)........................................................  passim

Voting Rights Act: Evidence of Continued 
Need, Volume II: Hearing Before the 
Subcomm. on the Constitution of the H. 
Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th Cong.
(2006)....................................................  24, 25, 28

Voting Rights Act: Evidence of Continued 
Need, Volume III: Hearing Before the 
Subcomm. on the Constitution of the H. 
Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th Cong.
(2006)....................................................  18, 19, 30

Voting Rights Act: The Judicial Evolution 
of the Retrogression Standard: Hearing 
Before the Subcomm. on the Constitution 
of the H. Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th
Cong. (2005)..................................................  3

Voting Rights Act: Section 5 of the Act— 
History, Scope, and Purpose, Volume I: 
Hearing Before the Subcomm. on the 
Constitution of the H. Comm, on the 
Judiciary, 109th Cong. (2005).........  16, 24, 35

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES— continued
Page



Voting Rights Act: Section 5 of the Act— 
History, Scope, and Purpose, Volume II: 
Hearing Before the Subcomm. on the 
Constitution of the H. Comm, on the
Judiciary, 109th Cong. (2005)........... 17, 20, 23

Voting Rights Act: Section 5—Preclearance 
Standards: Hearing Before the Subcomm. 
on the Constitution of the H. Comm, on
the Judiciary, 109th Cong. (2005)............. 35

Voting Rights Act: Sections 6 and 8—The 
Federal Examiner and Observer Pro­
gram: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on 
the Constitution of the H. Comm, on the
Judiciary, 109th Cong. (2005)...................  19

Voting Rights Act: Section 203—Bilingual 
Election RequirementsfPart II): Hearing 
Before the Subcomm. on the Constitution 
of the H. Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th

vii
TABLE OF AU THORITIES— continued

Page

Cong. (2005)..................................................  17
H.R. Rep. No. 94-196 (1975)................ 14

No. 109-478 (2006)......................... 18
S. Rep. No. 109-295 (2006)........................3, 17, 29
121 Cong. Rec. 44 (1975)...............................  36

16241 (1975).................  12, 13, 14
16880 (1975).......................... 15
9110 (1975)..............11, 12, 13, 14

SCHOLARLY AUTHORITIES
Juan Cartagena, Latinos and Section 5 of 

the Voting Rights Act: Beyond Black and
White, 18 Nat’l Black L.J. 201 (2005).......  8, 10

Katherine Culliton-Gonzalez, Time to 
Revive Puerto Rican Voting Rights, 19 
Berkeley La Raza L.J. 27 (2008)...............  7, 11



V l l l

J. Gerald Hebert, The Future of the Voting 
Rights Act, 64 Rutgers L. Rev. 953
(2012).............................................................  30

Ellen Katz, Not Like the South? Regional 
Variation and Political Participation 
Through the Lens of Section 2, in Voting 
Rights Act Reauthorization of 2006: 
Perspectives on Democracy, Participation 
and Power 183 (Anna Henderson ed.,
2007)................................................ -......... . 27

David Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans in 
the Making of Texas, 1836-1986 (1987).... 5, 6, 8 

Nina Perales, Luis Figuero, & Criselda 
Rivas, Voting Rights in Texas, 1982-2006 
(2006), available at http://www.protect 
civilrights.org/pdf/voting/TexasVRA.pdf.passim 

James Thomas Tucker, The Battle Over 
Bilingual Ballots: Language Minorities 
and Political Access Under the Voting 
Rights Act (2009)..........................................  9

OTHER AUTHORITIES
Dep’t of Justice, Section 4 of the Voting 

Rights Act, http://www.justice.gov/crt/ 
about/vot/misc/see_4.php (last accessed

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES— continued
Page

Jan. 30, 2013)...............................................  31
Dep’t of Justice, Section 5 Covered Juris­

dictions, http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/ 
vot/sec_5/covered.php (last accessed Jan.
30, 2013)........................................................ 2, 10

Ellen Katz, VRI Database Master List 
(2006), http://sitemaker.umich.edu/voting 
rights/files/masterlist.xls............................  26

http://www.protect
http://www.justice.gov/crt/
http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/


IX

Page
U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates, 

h ttp ://w w w .cen su s.gov /p opest/data / 
historical/2000s/vintage_2004/state.html 
(last accessed Jan. 31, 2013)......................  26

TABLE OF AU TH ORITIES— continued

http://www.census.gov/popest/data/


INTEREST OF THE AM ICI CURIAE i
Amici are organizations committed to eliminating 

racial discrimination against Latinos in the areas of 
education, employment, immigrant rights, and 
political access. Amici promote equal rights for 
Latinos through advocacy, communications, commun­
ity education, and litigation. Amici include organi­
zations that advocated in the 1970s and 1980s to 
expand the Voting Rights Act to address racial 
discrimination against Latino voters, and supported 
the Act’s 2006 reauthorization given the persistence 
of this discrimination. A list and description of all 
amici appear in an Appendix, attached hereto.

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF 
ARGUMENT

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (the 
“VRA” or the “Act”)1 2 remains vital to protecting 
Latino citizens’ right to participate on an “equal basis 
in the government under which they live.” South 
Carolina v. Katzenhach, 383 U.S. 301, 337 (1966).

The journey for Latinos toward equal voting rights 
has been beset by persistent and intentional racial 
discrimination. This Court previously has recognized 
this history of discrimination against Latino voters. 
See League o f United Latin Am. Citizens v. Perry, 548 
U.S. 399, 439 (2006) (“LULAC’) (“‘Texas has a long, 
well-documented history of discrimination that has

1 Counsel for amici authored this brief in its entirety. No 
person or entity other than amici and their counsel made 
monetary contributions to the preparation of this brief. Letters 
of consent from all parties have been filed with the Clerk of the 
Court.

2 42 U.S.C. § 1973c.



2
touched upon the rights of African-Americans and 
Hispanics to register, to vote, or to participate 
otherwise in the electoral process’”); White v. 
Regester, 412 U.S. 755, 767-70 (1973) (“‘ [a] cultural 
incompatibility ... conjoined with the poll tax and the 
most restrictive voter registration procedures in the 
nation have operated to effectively deny Mexican- 
Americans access to the political processes in Texas’”) 
(omission in original); Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 
U.S. 641, 644 (1966) (due to English literacy tests, 
“many of the several hundred thousand New York 
City residents who have migrated from the 
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico had previously been 
denied the right to vote”).

Latino voters continued to suffer racial discrimin­
ation in voting even after the VRA’s passage, partic­
ularly in the Southwest and Northeast. Congress 
responded by gradually expanding Section 5’s pre­
clearance protections to areas with significant Latino 
populations subject to such discrimination. Congress 
did so by modifying the Section 4(b) coverage 
formula, most notably in 1975 when it expanded the 
list of proscribed “tests and devices” triggering 
Section 5 coverage to include English-only balloting 
in jurisdictions with over five percent Latino, Asian- 
American, Native American, or Native Alaskan 
voting-age populations.3 These modifications to the 
coverage formula extended preclearance protections 
to Latino voters in Texas, Arizona, and parts of 
California, Florida, and New York.4

Section 5’s preclearance requirements have blocked 
many changes that would have further impeded the

3 See 42 U.S.C. § 1973b(f)(3).
4 See Section 5 Covered Jurisdictions, http://www.justice.gov/ 

crt/about/vot/sec_5/covered.php (last accessed Jan. 30, 2013).

http://www.justice.gov/


3

ability of Latinos to exercise their right to vote and 
have contributed to incremental improvements in 
Latino political participation. When evaluating the 
need for re authorization of these protections in 2006, 
however, Congress received evidence showing, as this 
Court found in LULAC (also in 2006), that “ [i]t is 
exactly at the point at which Latino voters can 
exercise political power by electing their preferred 
candidate that many jurisdictions respond with 
discriminatory measures.” Voting Rights Act: The 
Judicial Evolution of the Retrogression Standard: 
Hearing Before the Suhcomm. on the Constitution of 
the H. Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th Cong. 133 
(2005) (letter from MALDEF, et al.);5 see LULAC, 548 
U.S. at 440 (“In essence the State took away [their] 
opportunity because [they] were about to exercise 
it.”). Accordingly, the detailed Congressional record 
is replete with examples of State and local govern­
ments deliberately precluding and diluting Latino 
voting.

Much of this discrimination occurred in the 
jurisdictions covered by Section 5 following the 1975 
amendments. In 1975, 1982, and 2006, the record in 
Texas of purposeful racial discrimination was among 
the worst of any jurisdiction. There, “the history of 
discrimination against Latino voters since the 1982 
extension has been a case history for the continued 
need for Section 5 protections.” S. Rep. No. 109-295, 
at 115 (2006). Indeed, just last year, a federal court 
rejected three of Texas’s statewide redistricting plans 
as variously retrogressive and “enacted with 
discriminatory purpose.” Texas v. United States, 
No. ll-CV-1303, 2012 WL 3671924, at *18 (D.D.C.

5 After the initial citation, legislative hearings are referred to 
by date and topic.



Aug. 28, 2012). This finding is all the more shocking 
given that it came merely six years after this Court 
found that Texas’s prior redistricting plan bore “the 
mark of intentional discrimination.” LULAC, 548 
U.S. at 440.

Given that voting discrimination continued to occur 
against Latino voters most prominently and 
perniciously in the covered jurisdictions, Congress’s 
decision to reauthorize the coverage formula in 2006 
was far from “throwing a dart backwards over [its] 
shoulder.” Pet. App. 70a (Williams, J., dissenting). 
Rather, it confirmed Congress’s adherence to a 
measured approach, respectful both of federalism 
principles and the need to enforce the Fourteenth and 
Fifteenth Amendments. Congress has limited 
burdens on federalism by adding and keeping covered 
those jurisdictions with the most egregious records of 
discrimination against Latino voters, while allowing 
the Act’s bail-in and bailout mechanisms to continue 
to serve their historic and important purpose of 
tailoring Section 5 coverage to jurisdictions where it 
is most needed.6

This measured approach is well within Congress’s 
power to implement the Fourteenth and Fifteenth 
Amendments. It provides Latino voters in the 
covered jurisdictions with critical protection against 
these jurisdictions’ continuing and intentional efforts 
to undo Latinos’ progress toward equal electoral 
participation.

4

e See 42 U.S.C. §§ 1973a(c), 1973b(a).



ARGUMENT
5

I. THE VRA HAS EVOLVED AND BEEN 
EXTENDED BY CONGRESS TO PROTECT 
LATINO VOTERS.
A. L im ited P rotection  For Latinos In The 

O riginal VRA.
Throughout the 20th Century, Latino citizens faced 

pernicious racial discrimination impinging on all 
aspects of their lives.

The discrimination against Mexican-Americans in 
the Southwest was particularly severe. In Texas, the 
period “around the turn of the century also saw an 
attack on the Tejano’s socio-economic status, as 
Anglo-American commercial farmers from Mid­
western states swept into South Texas.”7 There were 
numerous accounts of vigilante groups inflicting 
indiscriminate violence and murder on Mexican- 
Americans under the guise of law enforcement.8 
Economically, “state officials condoned minimal 
education of The lower element’ [Mexican Americans] 
specifically to control them in the labor force” under 
the view that “‘ [w]e don’t need skilled or white- 
collared Mexicans.’”9 In larger cities, Mexican- 
Americans were “ [segregated into barrios” and 
“commonly denied access to business, to neighbor­

7 See Expert Report of Dr. Andres Tijerina at 7, Texas v. 
United States, No. 11-CV-01303-RMC, (D.D.C. Aug. 8, 2011) 
(Dkt. No. 67-9) (“Tijerina Report”) (attached hereto as Exhibit 
1); David Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of 
Texas, 1836-1986, at 104 (1987).

8 See Tijerina Report at 7-8.

9 Id. at 14 (alteration in original).



6
hoods, to education, and to city services.”10 A mere 
decade before the VRA’s passage, this Court 
recognized the continued pervasiveness of intentional 
segregation in Texas:

Until very recent times, children of Mexican 
descent were required to attend a segregated 
school for the first four grades. At least one 
restaurant in town prominently displayed a sign 
announcing “No Mexicans Served.” On the 
courthouse grounds at the time of the hearing, 
there were two men’s toilets, one unmarked, and 
the other marked “Colored Men” and “Hombres 
Aqui” (“Men Here”).

Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475, 479-80 (1954) 
(footnote omitted).11

Likewise, in Arizona, racial discrimination against 
Mexican-Americans has persisted since before its 
statehood.12 There was an early record “of Mexicans 
hung by Anglo lynch mobs without the benefit of a 
trial or representation.”13 After Arizona attained 
statehood in 1912, “Anglos waged an anti-immigrant 
campaign which ‘was characterized by increasingly

10 Id. at 18; see also Montejano, supra, at 160 (“The modern 
order framed Mexican-Anglo relations in stark ‘Jim Crow’ 
segregation.”).

11 In Hernandez, the Court also made clear for the first time 
that the Equal Protection Clause protects Latinos from racial 
discrimination, emphasizing that “[t]he Fourteenth Amendment 
is not directed solely against discrimination due to a ‘two class 
theory’—that is, based upon differences between ‘white’ and 
Negro.” 347 U.S. at 478.

12 See Expert Report of Dr. F. Arturo Rosales at 32, Gonzalez 
v. Arizona, 06-CV-01268-ROS (D. Ariz. Dec. 5, 2007) (“Rosales 
Report”) (attached hereto as Exhibit 2).

13 Id. at 14.



7
racist rhetoric and a series of proposals that would 
restrict Mexican immigrants’ political rights and the 
right to work.’” 14 De jure employment discrimination 
against Latinos was common.15 Meanwhile, public 
schools and services remained segregated through 
much of the century. See Gonzales v. Sheely, 96 F. 
Supp. 1004, 1008 (D. Ariz. 1951) (finding Tolleson, 
Arizona’s “conduct of segregating public school 
children of Mexican descent or extraction is 
discriminatory and is illegal”).

Puerto Ricans in New York City also faced 
egregious racial discrimination following a wave of 
migration in the early- to mid-1900s:

“As the numbers grew in the 1950s, [Puerto 
Ricans] were increasingly portrayed as unwilling 
to work, welfare leeches, drug addicts and 
juvenile delinquents. As a consequence of this 
public view, business and government leaders 
were able to get away with policies and practices 
that exploited and demeaned Puerto Ricans in 
jobs, housing, and education.” 16

The racial discrimination against Latinos was not 
limited to such areas as employment, housing, edu­
cation, or public accommodations; it also manifested 
itself in deliberate efforts to exclude Latinos from 
political participation. In the early 1900s, Texas’s 
Democratic Party adopted a ‘“White Man’s Primary,”’ 
“which in a one-party state, pre-empted the general 
election,” and achieved the party leaders’ design of 
‘“absolutely eliminating] the Mexican vote as a factor

14 Id. at 9 (internal citation omitted).
15 Id.

16 Katherine Culliton-Gonzalez, Time to Revive Puerto Rican 
Voting Rights, 19 Berkeley La Raza L.J. 27, 32 (2008).



8
in nominating county candidates.’” 17 Officials also 
sanctioned intimidation to deter Latino voters from 
the ballot box. In 1928, during the “‘Hidalgo County 
[Texas] Rebellion,”’ several thousand Whites led by 
the “‘Good Government League’” assailed a polling 
place “shout[ing] ‘Don’t let those Mexicans in to vote. 
Throw them out’ while men with shotguns protected 
the crowd.” 18 In 1964, Arizona adopted “Operation 
‘Eagle Eye,”’ a program under which officials made 
citizenship challenges at polling sites to intimidate 
Latino voters.19

Some methods of voting discrimination employed by 
these jurisdictions exploited socio-economic disad­
vantages suffered by Latinos resulting from the racial 
discrimination in other aspects of society. “One of the 
main devices created specifically to disfranchise 
Mexican Americans in Texas was the poll tax,” which 
‘“curtailed] the voting of impoverished, illiterate 
blacks and Mexican Americans.’”20 After successful 
court actions, Texas immediately “replaced the poll 
tax with what was considered to be [the] most 
restrictive voter registration system in the country, 
requiring annual voter registration months in 
advance of Election Day.”21

17 Tijerina Report at 12.
18 Id. at 13; Montejano, supra, at 147.
19 Rosales Report at 12.
20 Tijerina Report at 12.
21 Juan Cartagena, Latinos and Section 5 of the Voting Rights 

Act: Beyond Black and White, 18 Nat’l Black L.J. 201, 213 (2005) 
(footnote omitted).



9
Similarly, jurisdictions relied on literacy tests to 

prevent Latinos from voting.22 Educational segre­
gation had resulted in high illiteracy rates and 
limited-English proficiency even among native-born 
Latino citizens, thus rendering the use of literacy 
tests against Latinos “one of America’s most 
successful disenfranchisement schemes.”23

Later in the 20th Century, “ [gerrymandering 
became a method used by Texas policy makers at the 
highest levels to segregate Mexican American voter 
groups.” Tijerina Report at 11; see also Klahr v. 
Goddard, 250 F. Supp. 537, 541 (D. Ariz. 1966) 
(redistricting plan “accomplishes an unconstitutional 
and invidious discrimination in the apportionment of 
the seats in the State Senate,” and “bears evidence of 
having been thrown together as a result of 
considerations wholly apart from those laid down as 
compulsory by the decisions of the Supreme Court”).

In 1965, Congress largely failed to address the 
widespread voting discrimination against Latinos. 
An exception was Section 4(e), which prohibited 
jurisdictions from denying the right to vote on the 
basis of English literacy tests for persons educated in 
American-flag schools where the predominant 
language was not English, and responded to the 
concerted and nationally visible racial discrimination 
against Puerto Rican voters in New York City.24 In

22 See, e.g., Rosales Report at 10 (describing 1909 Arizona law 
requiring ‘“every citizen of Mexico who shall have elected to 
become a citizen of the United States,’” to be “‘able to read the 
Constitution of the United States in the English language’”).

23 James Thomas Tucker, The Battle Over Bilingual Ballots: 
Language Minorities and Political Access Under the Voting 
Rights Act 4 (2009).

24 Pub. L. No. 89-110, 79 Stat. 437, 439 (1965); Tucker, supra, 
at 31 (1959 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that, due to



10
Morgan, 384 U.S. at 651-52, the Court held Section 
4(e) was a valid enforcement of the Fourteenth 
Amendment because “ [t]he practical effect of § 4(e) is 
to prohibit New York from denying the right to vote 
to large segments of its Puerto Rican community.” 
Id. at 652-53.

The original Section 5, however, did little to help 
Latino voters fight back against persistent racial 
discrimination because Congress did not extend 
preclearance requirements to the jurisdictions that 
otherwise discriminated against their large Latino 
populations.

B. Expansion O f Section  5 To P rotect 
Latinos in the Southwest.

By 1975, Congress recognized that Section 5, 
including modest incremental changes in the 
intervening years, had failed to address persistent 
voting discrimination against Latinos in the South­
west.25 In 1975, Congress fortified its efforts to 
redress racial discrimination against Latinos,26 
which was recognized as equivalent to the

literacy tests, ‘“Puerto Rican American citizens are being denied 
the right to vote, and that these denials exist in substantial 
numbers in the State of New York’”); Cartagena, supra, 
at 203-04.

25 The incremental steps included modifications to the 
coverage formula in 1970, which extended preclearance require­
ments to subdivisions of New York, California, and Arizona. See 
Section 5 Covered Jurisdictions, supra. Moreover, courts began 
declaring that English-only election requirements were 
prohibited “tests or devices.” See Garza v. Smith, 320 F. 
Supp. 131 (W.D. Tex. 1970); Torres v. Sachs, 381 F. Supp. 309, 
312-13 (S.D.N.Y. 1974).

26 Congress referred to Latinos and other racial minorities, 
including Asian-Americans, Native Americans, and Native 
Alaskans, as “language minorities.”



discrimination against African-Americans targeted 
by the original VRA:

Across the American Southwest in recent 
months a complaint has been made that is 
striking in familiarity. The complaint is that 
American citizens are being systematically 
denied the right to vote because of their ethnic 
background....

The reason all this has a familiar ring is that 
the complaints of the Mexican-Americans of the 
Southwest sound remarkably like the complaints 
of the black people of Alabama and Mississippi 
only 10 years ago, when after much national 
anguish, the remedy for the Deep South 
situation was found.27

Nationally, the statistical evidence in 1975 “clearly 
document [ed] the extent of the discrimination and the 
need for Federal standards.”28 In the 1972 general 
election “only 44 percent of eligible Spanish- 
surnamed citizens were registered to vote. That 
compared with 73 [percent] for Anglos.”29 And “ [o]f 
those registered, only 38 [percent] of the Spanish 
surnamed actually voted, compared with 68 [percent] 
for Anglos.”30 In 1974, “only 22.9 percent of the total

11

27 121 Cong. Rec. 9110, 9114 (1975) (emphasis added) (quoting 
Washington Post, Expanding the Right to Vote); see also 
Culliton-Gonzalez, supra, at 46.

28 121 Cong. Rec. at 9110 (statement of Sen. Bayh).
29 Id. at 9113 (quoting Washington Post, Mexican Americans 

Charge Subtle Vote Discrimination).

*>Zd.



12
voting age population of Americans of Spanish 
descent were registered.”31

The absence of Latino elected officials, particularly 
in the Southwest, further attested to the need for a 
remedy. In Texas, “Mexican Americans comprise[d] 
over 18% of the total population and over 16% of the 
voting age, but only [held] 2.5% of the elected 
offices.”32 Statewide, there were no Mexican-Ameri­
can mayors.33 In Arizona, “Mexican Americans still 
represented] only 4.4% of the elected officials, even 
though they comprise[d] 18% of the total population 
and 15% of the voting age.”34 In several rural 
California counties, “Mexican Americans had a 
combined total of 1.2% of the government officials 
although their population in these counties ranged 
from 16.7% to 44.9%.”35

The root cause of these starkly unequal rates of 
voter participation and representation was the 
continued use of tactics to discourage and impede 
Latinos from voting. The 1975 record made this 
clear, detailing reports of:

uncooperative registrars, inadequate or non­
existent bilingual materials relating to elections, 
fear of economic reprisal for political activity, 
inadequate and inconvenient polling facilities,

31 121 Cong. Rec. 16241, 16291 (1975) (statement of Rep. 
Anderson).

32 121 Cong. Rec. at 9115 (statement of Sen. Roybal).
33 Extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Hearings Before 

the Subcomm. on Constitutional Rights of the S. Comm, on the 
Judiciary, 94th Cong. 467 (1975) ( ‘1975 Hearings”) (testimony of 
George Korbel).

34 121 Cong. Rec. at 9115 (statement of Sen. Roybal).
35 Id. at 9114 (statement of Sen. Roybal).



13
location of polling places where Chicanos are not 
usually welcomed, the presence of police at the 
polls, the lack of adequate bilingual assistance, 
and the difficulty in obtaining lists of registered 
voters.36

The record showed that Latino voters in certain 
regions faced particularly egregious misconduct. In 
Texas, “law-enforcement officials patrol Mexican 
American, but not Anglo, precincts on election days: 
sheriffs reportedly walk around polling places 
brandishing guns and billy clubs.”37 The U.S. Civil 
Rights Commission “uncovered widespread economic 
threats and coercion directed at citizens who become 
involved with insurgent political forces” in that 
State.38 Likewise in California, “[o]f particular con­
cern is the rural experience” where there was evid­
ence of “voting obstacles, including intimidation.”39

Congress also relied on evidence of these 
jurisdictions’ intentional efforts to dilute Latino 
votes. Shortly before the 1975 reauthorization, this 
Court affirmed an order striking down Bexar County, 
Texas’s multimember districting plan as having 
“invidiously excluded Mexican-Americans from effec­
tive participation in political life.” White, 412 U.S. at 
769. The 1975 legislative record demonstrated that 
the problems identified in White were systemic. 
“Election law changes which dilute minority political 
power in Texas are widespread in the wake of recent 
emergence of minority attempts to exercise the right

36 See 1975 Hearings at 97 (statement of Arthur Fleming).
37 121 Cong. Rec. at 16243 (statement of Rep. Young).
38 121 Cong. Rec. at 9117 (testimony of Vilma Martinez).
39 Id. at 9114 (statement of Sen. Roybal).



14
to vote.”40 Such dilution schemes were identified in 
other heavily-Latino areas, such as rural California.41

Petitioner’s argument that Congress did not focus 
on “second generation” discrimination such as vote 
dilution until 2006 is therefore factually incorrect. 
By 1975, Congress already recognized that “ [t]he 
central problem documented is that of dilution of 
vote—arrangements by which the votes of minority 
electors are made to count less than the votes of the 
majority.”42

Equally important, Congress learned that it would 
be futile for Latinos to battle discrimination 
piecemeal through after-the-fact lawsuits under 
Section 2, rather than with Section 5’s prophylactic 
protection:

We have all of these cases, but we are in the 
same situation in Texas that we were in the 
other States prior to 1965.... [W]e cannot con­
tinue to rely on the case-by-case approach. We 
have to include the State of Texas fully within 
the coverage of the act so that the burden of 
proof shifts to the State of Texas when it tries to

40 H.R. Rep. No. 94-196, at 19 (1975); see also 1975 Hearings 
at 758 (testimony of Vilma Martinez) (“One of the most severe 
problems we have faced ... is the at-large election or the 
multimember district election.”); 121 Cong. Rec. at 9115 
(statement of Sen. Roybal) (“[s]ome of the worse [sic] practices 
affecting Chicano participation have been statewide gerry­
mandering schemes”); 121 Cong. Rec. at 16246 (statement of 
Rep. Edwards) (describing “annexations which add only white or 
Anglo voters to the city rolls”).

41 See 121 Cong. Rec. at 9114-15.

42121 Cong. Rec. at 16251 (statement of Rep. Edwards) 
(emphasis added).



15
carry out the kind of gerrymandering procedure 
that it has been carrying out ....43

Congress therefore revised the coverage formula to 
extend preclearance protection to Latino voters in 
Texas, Arizona, rural California and other juris­
dictions. Congress did so by following judicial opin­
ions protecting Mexican-American and Puerto Rican 
voters in Texas and New York,44 designating English- 
only balloting in jurisdictions with significant Latino, 
Asian-American, Native American, or Native Alaskan 
populations as a proscribed “test or device” triggering 
Section 5 coverage.45

Following the 1975 amendments, this Court found 
that Section 5 remained a valid exercise of Congress’s 
Fifteenth Amendment authority, City o f Rome v. 
United States, 446 U.S. 156, 182 (1980), and reached 
the same conclusion after the 1982 reauthorization, 
which continued Section 5’s protections for 25 years. 
Lopez v. Monterey Cnty., 525 U.S. 266, 283-84 
(1999).46

43 See 121 Cong. Rec. 16880, 16881 (1975) (statement of Rep. 
Badillo).

44 See, supra, Footnote 26.
«  See 42 U.S.C. § 1973b(f)(3).
46 In Lopez, in the context of a challenge hy Latino voters to 

at-large elections in Monterey County, the Court rejected the 
county’s claim that it need not submit changes for preclearance 
because it was within a non-covered State. The Court reaffirm­
ed that “Congress has the constitutional authority to designate 
covered jurisdictions and to guard against changes that give rise 
to a discriminatory effect in those jurisdictions.” Lopez, 525 U.S. 
at 283. Petitioner notably fails to cite Lopez.



16
II. THE 2006 REAUTHORIZATION WAS A 

LEGITIMATE RESPONSE TO CONTIN­
UED INTENTIONAL DISCRIMINATION 
AGAINST LATINO VOTERS IN THE 
COVERED JURISDICTIONS.

The voluminous 2006 Congressional record 
regarding reauthorization included detailed state-by- 
state analyses of the continued voting discrimination 
in the jurisdictions covered after the 1975 amend­
ments.47 These reports overwhelmingly demonstrat­
ed the persistence of such discrimination against 
Latinos, despite Section 5’s intended deterrent 
effects. This evidence, examples of which are dis­
cussed below, confirmed that the prophylactic remedy 
of Section 5 preclearance remained congruent and 
proportional to continued purposeful discrimination 
against Latino voters in the covered jurisdictions. Cf. 
City ofBoerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507, 533 (1997).

A. Disparities In V oting And E lected 
Officials.

In 2006, Congress heard that “Latino voters have 
not yet closed the gap in voter registration and 
turnout in the Southwest”48—concerns similar to 
those that justified the VRA’s initial passage and the 
subsequent 1975 amendments. See South Carol­
ina, 383 U.S. at 313. In the 2004 election, Latino 
voter turnout lagged behind White voter turnout by

47 See Voting Rights Act: Evidence of Continued Need, Volume 
I: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on the Constitution of the H. 
Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th Cong. 45 (2006) (“2006 
(Continued Need) Hearing’).

48 Voting Rights Act: Section 5 of the Act—History, Scope, and 
Purpose, Volume I: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on the 
Constitution of the H. Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th Cong. 87 
(2005) (“2005 (History) Hearing’) (testimony of Nina Perales).



17
30.3 percent in Arizona and 21.3 percent in Texas. 
See S. Rep. No. 109-295, at 11. Similar disparities 
were evident in the other heavily-Latino jurisdictions 
covered by Section 5. See Volume II 2005 (History) 
Hearing at 3113 (Florida Report) (“Florida Latinos 
vote at lower rates than do either African-Americans 
or Anglos,” with only 34 percent turnout in the 2004 
general election); Voting Rights Act: Section 203- 
Bilingual Election Requirements (Part II): Hearing 
Before the Suhcomm. on the Constitution of the H. 
Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th Cong. 146 (2005) 
(statement of Juan Cartagena) (“A million and a half 
voting age Latinos live in New York City, but only 
about 700,000 Latinos are registered to vote and only 
about 455,000 regularly participate in elections”) 
(internal citation omitted).

Congress heard similarly troubling data about how 
in Texas, “Latinos and African Americans continue to 
be vastly underrepresented at every level of federal, 
state, and local government.”49 In Arizona, no Latino 
served in any statewide office between 1985 and 
2005.50 Likewise, no Latino had ever served on Los 
Banos’s City Council in Merced County, California 
despite a 50.4% Latino population.51

49 Nina Perales, Luis Figuero, & Criselda Rivas, Voting Rights 
in Texas, 1982-2006, at 6 (2006) (“Texas Report”), available at 
http://www.protectcivilrights.org/pdf/voting/TexasVRA.pdf. The 
Texas Report was submitted into the 2006 Congressional record. 
See Renewing the Temporary Provisions of the Voting Rights Act: 
Legislative Options After LULAC v. Perry: Hearing Before the 
Subcomm. on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights 
of the S. Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th Cong. 446 (2006) ( ‘2006 
(LULAC) Hearing’).

50 Volume I  2006 (Continued Need) Hearing, at 1443 fig. 103 
(Arizona Report).

51 2006 (LULAC) Hearing at 113.

http://www.protectcivilrights.org/pdf/voting/TexasVRA.pdf


18
B. Intentional Efforts To Exclude Latinos 

From  Voting.
The 2006 record evidenced the myriad discrimin­

atory causes of these disparities. For one, the record 
reflected continued deliberate efforts to preclude 
Latinos from voting altogether in the covered 
jurisdictions.

Congress received evidence of continued intimi­
dation and harassment of Latino voters in the 
covered jurisdictions. Federal observers reported 
“instances in which language minority voters fell 
victim to the harassment and intimidation of polling 
officials” in covered jurisdictions including Texas, 
Georgia, and Alabama. See H.R. Rep. No. 109-478, 
at 45 (2006). In 2004, San Antonio used the historic­
ally prevalent intimidation tactic of stationing police 
officers outside polling sites in a largely Latino area 
of the city.52 There were also numerous examples of 
intimidation by non-governmental actors, which, 
although not within Section 5’s purview, nevertheless 
attest to the persistence of unchecked anti-Latino 
animus in the covered jurisdictions.53

Congress also heard of continued efforts to deprive 
Latinos equal access to polling places. For example, 
in 2003, MALDEF filed a successful Section 5 action 
to prevent Bexar County, Texas—the same county at 
issue in White—from shutting down all early voting

52 Texas Report at 30.
53 See, e.g., Volume III 2006 (Continued Need) Hearing at 3976 

(Arizona Report) (“in Pima County [Arizona], men wearing black 
t-shirts that said ‘U.S. Constitutional Enforcement’ and military 
or tool belts and carrying a variety of equipment harassed 
Latinos waiting in line to vote. These men would approach 
potential voters with video and photo cameras and harass them 
for proof of citizenship”) (footnote omitted).



19
polling places in Latino neighborhoods of San 
Antonio.54 Similarly, the record described obstacles 
Latinos in Texas confronted even if they found their 
polling places, including admonishments not to speak 
Spanish at the polling site,55 understaffing of poll 
workers in Latino precincts,56 and denying Latinos 
provisional ballots.57

The record also reflected that the covered 
jurisdictions increasingly relied on discriminatory 
citizenship inquiries to exclude or otherwise harass 
Latino voters. There were many accounts of officials 
imposing heightened identification burdens on Latino 
voters compared to White voters.58 Moreover, there 
were several incidents in Georgia where officials 
deterred validly-registered Latinos from voting

54 To Examine the Impact and Effectiveness of the Voting 
Rights Act: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on the Constitution of 
the H. Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th Cong. 245 (2005) (“2005 
(Impact) Hearing’); see also 2006 (LULAC) Hearing at 12 
(testimony of Professor Joaquin Avila) (describing DOJ objection 
to Monterey County, California’s planned reduction of polhng 
places, where all of the “newly consolidated voting precincts 
[were] in the non-minority area, where you had the least 
number of Latinos,” and a fraction of the total population).

55 See Voting Rights Act: Sections 6 and 8—The Federal 
Examiner and Observer Program: Hearing Before the Subcomm. 
on the Constitution of the H. Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th 
Cong. 34 (2005).

56 See Texas Report at 30.
See id.

58 See, e.g., Volume III 2006 (Continued Need) Hearing at 
3040-41 (Houston); id. at 3979 (Maricopa County, Arizona); 2005 
(Impact) Hearing at 331 (Brooklyn).



through discriminatory mass challenges of Spanish- 
surnamed voters.59

Such discriminatory requests for additional 
documentation appear to be a tactic of the future, not 
just the past.60 A court recently rejected Texas’s 2011 
photo identification law, SB 14, calling it “the most 
stringent in the country,” and concluding it would 
“likely” render many Latinos “unable to vote in the 
next election.” Texas v. Holder, No. 12-CV-128, 2012 
WL 3743676, at *29, 33 (D.D.C. Aug. 30, 2012). 
Contrary to amicus curiae Texas’s arguments, the 
D.D.C. found Texas contributed to a protracted 
preclearance process, and ruled that Crawford v. 
Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. 181, 194 
(2008) (plurality), did not save Texas’s law. Texas, 
2012 WL 3743676, at *6-7, 11-13. The court also 
rejected Texas’s “burden” argument, concluding 
“Texas’s lawyers have only their client to blame.” Id. 
at *33.

Discriminatory efforts to purge voter rolls have 
created yet further electoral obstacles for Latinos. In 
2000, Florida purged registration lists of thousands of 
voters based on a flawed list of alleged felons, with 
the errors disproportionately affecting minorities, 
including Latinos.61 More recently, a federal court 
permitted a Section 5 action to proceed based on 
allegations that Florida planned to implement a 
flawed “database-matching program to develop lists

20

59 See 2005 (Impact) Hearing at 200-01, 474-75 (Long County); 
see also id. at 476-77 (Atkinson County).

60 See, e.g., The State of the Right to Vote After the 2012 
Election: Hearing Before the S. Comm, on the Judiciary, 112th 
Cong. (2012), http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/pdf/12-12-19 
PeralesTestimoney.pdf (testimony of Nina Perales).

61 See Volume I I 2005 (History) Hearing at 3279.

http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/pdf/12-12-19


21
of registered voters that it classified as suspected 
non-citizens,” and potentially “remove them from the 
voter rolls.” Mi Familia Vota Educ. Fund v. Detzner, 
No. 8:12-CV-1294-T-27MAP, 2012 WL 4086509, at *2 
(M.D. Fla. Sep. 18, 2012). In another case brought on 
behalf of Latino and Haitian voters, Florida agreed to 
restore voters to the rolls if the sole reason for their 
purge was the presence of their names on a flawed 
database matching list. Stipulation at 3-4, Arcia v. 
Detzner, 12-CV-22282(WJZ) (S.D. Fla. Sep. 12, 2012) 
(Dkt. No. 83-1).

Finally, the covered jurisdictions continued to erect 
language-based barriers by targeting discrimination 
against Latino citizens who are limited-English 
proficient.62 Congress heard evidence of “strategic 
efforts” in Texas to exclude Spanish-speaking citizens 
from registering in 2004 by refusing to deputize 
Spanish-speaking registrars.63 Similarly, there was 
evidence that officials knowingly gave Latino voters 
flawed Spanish-language balloting materials.64

C. Intentional E fforts To Dilute Latino V ot­
ing Strength.

In addition to the substantial evidence of juris­
dictions implementing outright voting barriers, the 
2006 legislative record was replete with examples of 
jurisdictions purposefully diluting Latinos’ votes. As

62 Cf. Modern Enforcement of the Voting Rights Act: Hearing 
Before the S. Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th Cong. 16 (2006) 
(statement of Juan Cartagena) (among Latino citizens, “75 
percent, compared to 18 percent nationwide, speak a language 
other than English at home”).

63 2005 (Impact) Hearing at 181-82.
64 See id. at 244 (testimony of Nina Perales) (discussing 

Tarrant County, Texas’s unwillingness to correct “utterly 
incoherent” translated materials).



22

noted, since at least 1975, Section 5 has targeted vote 
dilution, evidence of which further supports the 
constitutionality of Section 5. See Pet. App. 28a 
(“Consideration of this evidence is especially import­
ant given that so-called ‘second generation’ tactics 
like intentional vote dilution are in fact decades-old 
forms of gamesmanship”); White, 412 U.S. at 769 
(describing how multimember-districting plan “invid­
iously excluded Mexican-Americans from effective 
participation in political life”).

Congress received significant evidence that the 
covered jurisdictions continued to manipulate redis­
tricting plans with “calculations that are actually 
made in ways that are intended to keep Latino voters 
from electing their preferred candidates.”65

In 2006, Texas had—and, as discussed in Section 
IV, infra, continues to build—an egregious record of 
purposefully discriminatory re districting, with many 
of the redistricting plans enacted by the State or its 
subdivisions barred by DOJ objections or litigation. 
See, e.g., Texas Report at 18, 20-21. Texas’s 
redistricting abuses were highlighted during a 
hearing regarding this Court’s LULAC opinion, which 
the Senate called “strong evidence in favor of 
reauthorization.” 2006 (LULAC) Hearing at 1 (state­
ment of Sen. Kennedy). The hearing underscored 
that the statewide 2003 congressional redistricting 
plan at issue in LULAC “shifted 100,000 Latino 
voters from a district where they were on the verge of 
electing a candidate of their choice to another district

65 Voting Rights Act: An Examination of the Scope and 
Criteria for Coverage Under the Special Provisions of the Act: 
Hearing Before the Subcomm. on the Constitution of the H. 
Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th Cong. 103 (2005) (“2005 (Scope 
and Criteria) Hearing’) (response of J. Gerald Hebert).



23
in which Latinos already controlled election out­
comes.” Id. at 2. As testimony explained, “Latinos 
were divided by the State, pulled out of this district, 
just at the point at which they were going to unseat 
the disfavored candidate.” Id. at 9 (testimony of Nina 
Perales); see also LULAC, 548 U.S. at 440 (“The State 
not only made fruitless the Latinos’ mobilization 
efforts but also acted against those Latinos who were 
becoming most politically active, dividing them with a 
district line through the middle of Laredo”).

Texas was not alone in its discriminatory use of 
redistricting plans. In 2002, DOJ objected to 
Arizona’s State House redistricting plan, because it 
would have “diminished the districts where Hispanics 
could elect their candidate of choice from eight 
districts to five districts,” and would have “made it so 
the Hispanic population, which constituted over 25 
percent of the state’s population, would only have 
been able to elect 16 percent of the state’s con­
gressional delegation.” The Continuing Need for 
Section 5 Pre-Clearance: Hearing Before the S. Comm, 
on the Judiciary, 109th Cong. 61 (2006) (response of 
Professor Anita Earls). Likewise, in 1992, DOJ 
objected to a New York State Assembly redistricting 
plan because it “knowingly fractured the Latino 
community with the intent and effect of reducing the 
community’s ability to elect candidates of choice.” 
Volume I  2006 (Continued Need) Hearing at 67 
(statement of Wade Henderson).

The covered jurisdictions continued to use a variety 
of other election changes to consciously dilute Latino 
votes. In 2000, DOJ rejected Monterey County, 
California’s plan to return an elementary-school 
district to an at-large election system, finding the 
county’s petition ‘“was motivated, at least in part, by 
a discriminatory animus.’” Volume II 2005 (History)



24
Hearing at 3326 (testimony of Robert Rubin). In 
2002, once “the growing Latino population in Seguin 
[Texas] comprised the majority of five of the eight city 
council seats,” the city “responded by dismantling the 
fifth Latino majority district in its new redistricting 
plan.” Volume I  2005 (History) Hearing at 86 (testi­
mony of Nina Perales). After DOJ expressed a likely 
objection, Seguin restored the fifth district, but 
“promptly closed the candidate filing period so no 
Latino could run.” Id. Only after MA.LDEF enjoined 
the election timetable under Section 5, and DOJ 
precleared the restored district plan, did Latinos 
“elect[ ] their candidate of choice to a majority of 
seats on the Seguin city council.” Id.66

D. Racially Polarized Voting By Non- 
Latinos.

Congress heard that the foregoing devices for pre­
cluding and diluting Latino voting were exacerbated 
by the persistence of “racially polarized voting” by 
non-Latinos. Volume I  2006 (Continued Need) 
Hearing at 209 (report by The National Commission 
on the Voting Rights Act (“NCVRA”)). “Latino elected 
representation may not keep pace with growth of 
Latino voters in the presence of racially polarized 
voting by non-Latinos.” Volume II 2005 (Continued 
Need) Hearing at 2416 (study by Professor Yishaiya 
Absoch).

Racially polarized voting was observed in the 
covered jurisdictions with large Latino populations.

66 There were also examples of purposefully discriminatory 
annexations and de-annexations in the record. See 2005 
(Impact) Hearing at 880 (testimony of Professor Rick Valelly) 
(describing “evidence of a discriminatory purpose” against 
Latinos associated with Lamesa, Texas’s planned de-annexation 
in the late 1990s).



25
See 2005 (Scope and Criteria) Hearing at 13 
(testimony of Jose Garza) (“Racial bloc voting ... is 
still alive and well in Texas.”); Volume II 2006 
(Continued Need) Hearing at 1489-90 (Florida 
Report) (in central Florida, ‘“ [rjacially polarized 
voting patterns prevail in elections for the Board of 
Commissioners, and white voters have voted 
sufficiently as a bloc to enable them usually to defeat 
the Hispanic voters’ preferred candidates’”); Volume 
II 2006 (Continued Need) Hearing at 1863 (New York 
Report) (New York City “has a long road ahead to 
overcome the episodic, but still critically important 
and debilitating, episodes of polarized voting today”); 
id. at 2416 (study by Professor Yishaiya Absoch) 
(describing racially polarized voting in rural 
California).

Indeed, “Anglo voters and Anglo elected officials 
acknowledged they were apprehensive about 
supporting a Latino candidate purely based upon 
their ethnicity or surname.” 2006 LULAC Hearing 
at 288 (report by National Association of Latino 
Elected and Appointed Officials).
III. THE COVERAGE FORMULA RATIONALLY 

AND FLEXIBLY IDENTIFIES JURIS­
DICTIONS WITH THE WORST RECORDS 
OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST LATINO 
VOTERS.

Even with Section 5’s prophylactic remedy in place, 
the foregoing evidence shows that in 2006, purposeful 
racial discrimination against Latino voters in the 
covered jurisdictions remained widespread and 
systematic. For Latino voters, the 2006 reauthori­
zation preserved a coverage map well-tailored to 
areas of persistent abuse—at a minimum, the 
“disparate geographic coverage is sufficiently related 
to the problem” of intentional abridgment of Latinos’



26
voting rights. Nw. Austin Mun. Util. Dist. No. One v. 
Holder, 557 U.S. 193, 203 (2009).

The comparative record of successful Section 2 
litigation involving Latino plaintiffs in the covered 
jurisdictions versus non-covered jurisdictions further 
illustrates why the coverage formula rationally 
identifies jurisdictions with the most egregious 
records of abuse against Latino voters. See 2005 
(Impact) Hearing at 986 (report by Professor Ellen 
Katz) (analyzing Section 2 data); Pet. App. 49a 
(describing Professor Katz’s data as “ [t]he most 
concrete evidence comparing covered and non-covered 
jurisdictions in the legislative record”). Most notably, 
Texas accounted for seven of 23 published decisions 
in successful Section 2 lawsuits involving Latino 
plaintiffs between 1982 and 2005.67 That total more 
than doubled the next highest number of successful 
Section 2 actions by Latino plaintiffs in any other 
jurisdiction—indeed, the State had 30% of all 
successful Section 2 litigation involving Latinos.68 
These percentages are significant because Texas had 
only 7.4% of the nation’s total voting-age population 
and 18.8% of the Latino population in 2004.69

67 See Ellen Katz, VRI Database Master List (2006),: 
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/votingrights/files/masterlist.xls 
(sorting by columns titled “Success” and “Minority Group”).

68 See id.] see also, infra, Addendum.
69 U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates, http://www. 

census.gov/popest/data/historical/2000s/vintage_2004/state.html 
(last accessed Jan. 30, 2013) (Annual Estimates of the 
Population by Race Alone and Hispanic or Latino Origin for the 
United States and States: July 1, 2004 and Estimates of the 
Resident Population by Selected Age Groups for the United 
States and States and for Puerto Rico: July 1, 2004)] see also, 
infra, Addendum. Amicus curiae Texas points to a “declin[e]” in 
its Section 2 losses, but overlooks that this Court made an 
adverse ruling in LULAC on the eve of Section 5’s

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/votingrights/files/masterlist.xls
http://www


27
As Professor Katz explained, the Section 2 findings 

bear on the effectiveness of Section 5 because the two 
provisions “are not wholly distinct, and a large 
number of electoral practices run afoul of both 
provisions. Where they do, preclearance should block 
such practices as retrogressive.”70 That is, there 
should be “fewer successful Section 2 cases in covered 
jurisdictions than in non-covered” since Section 5 
deters many discriminatory laws in the covered 
jurisdictions “before they can ever take effect and 
become the target of Section 2 litigation.” Pet. 
App. 55a. Accordingly, “[t]his comparison shows that 
distinct vestiges of discrimination persist in covered 
jurisdictions such that the elimination of Section 5 
would hardly be inconsequential,” or supported by the 
Congressional record. 71

Professor Katz’s study merely scratched the surface 
of actual discrimination, because it included only 
Section 2 cases resulting in published adverse 
decisions. Id. at 58a-59a. The record before Con­
gress, which included unpublished decisions, showed 
that since 1982, plaintiffs in Texas prevailed outright 
or successfully settled more than 200 Section 2 
cases—more than in any other state—altering 
discriminatory voting procedures in 274 of the State’s 
political subdivisions. See Volume I  2006 (Continued 
Need) Hearing at 251 tbl.5 (NCVRA Report). The

reauthorization. Amicus Br. of Texas at 23; LULAC, 548 U.S. 
at 440-41 (finding indicia of “intentional discrimination that 
could give rise to an equal protection violation”).

70 Ellen Katz, Not Like the South? Regional Variation and 
Political Participation Through the Lens of Section 2, in Voting 
Rights Act Reauthorization of 2006: Perspectives on Democracy, 
Participation and Power 183, 211 (Anna Henderson ed., 2007).

71 Id. at 210-11.



28
legislative record revealed similarly significant 
numbers of successful Section 2 lawsuits in other 
covered jurisdictions with large Latino populations. 
See Volume II 2006 (Continued Need) Hearing at 
1875, 1878 (New York Report) (describing successful 
Section 2 litigation involving Latino plaintiffs in New 
York City).

The covered jurisdictions with high Latino 
populations also had abysmal records of Section 5 
violations and compliance, confirming that even 
Section 5’s deterrent effect has not curtailed abuses 
against Latino voters in these jurisdictions. Texas 
had the “second highest number of Section 5 object­
ions interposed by the DOJ,” the majority of which 
were filed in counties “where 71.8 percent of the 
State’s non-white voting age population resides.”72 73 
The State’s “repeated Section 5 violations are not 
limited to local jurisdictions,” with ten post-1982 
objections involving statewide changes. Texas Report 
at 16. Forty percent of the 72 Texas counties cited by 
DOJ were “repeat offenders.” Id.73 Arizona and rural 
California had similarly poor records. See Volume I  
2006 (Continued Need) Hearing at 1416 (Arizona 
Report) (80% of objections to Arizona’s election 
changes occurred after 1982, and three of them 
concerned statewide redistricting plans after 1990 
where there were findings of purposeful discrimin­

'2 Reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act’s Temporary 
Provisions: Policy Perspectives and Views from the Field: 
Hearing Before the Subcomm. on the Constitution, Civil Rights 
and Property Rights of the S. Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th 
Cong. 149-50 (2006) (“2006 (Views From the Field) Hearing’) 
(testimony of Debo Adegbile).

73 See also 2005 (Scope and Criteria) Hearing at 15-78 
(statement of Jose Garza) (cataloguing 20 years of Section 5 
btigation and objections in Texas).



29
ation); 2005 (Impact) Hearing at 748 (testimony of 
Professor Joaquin Avila) (“In California we have 
documented many instances where covered juris­
dictions ... have not submitted voting changes for 
decades.”).

To be sure, discrimination against Latino voters 
exists in non-covered jurisdictions. See Amicus Br. of 
Arizona, at 8.74 But that has never been proof of the 
formula’s irrationality. See South Carolina, 383 U.S 
at 330-31 (“It is irrelevant that the coverage formula 
excludes certain localities which do not employ voting 
tests and devices but for which there is evidence of 
voting discrimination by other means.”). Partly on 
the basis of the bail-in mechanism, this Court has 
rejected claims that “underinclusiveness” renders the 
formula constitutionally infirm. Id. at 331 (noting 
bail-in as part of complementary efforts to “strength- 
en[ ] existing remedies for voting discrimination in 
other areas of the country”). Under the current bail- 
in provision, a court may require preclearance of a 
jurisdiction after a finding of constitutional violat­
ions.75 This allows for a dynamic coverage regime, 
extending the preclearance remedy to jurisdictions 
not covered by Section 5 but that “nonetheless have 
serious, recent records of voting discrimination.” Pet. 
App. 49a.

74 Indeed, as the Senate Report highlighted, nationally, “in 
the 2000 election, 45 percent of Hispanic voting age citizens ... 
participated, as compared to 62 percent of non-Hispanic white 
voting age citizens.” S. Rep. No. 109-295, at 96; see also id. at 
97. The statistics were similar in the 2004 election, when 
“nationwide, Latinos registered and tinned out at rates 
significantly lower than white voters ... roughly 30 percentage 
points lower.” Id. at 11.

75 42 U.S.C. § 1973a(c).



30
Recent use of the bail-in mechanism to target 

abuses against Latinos further undercuts amicus 
curiae Arizona’s underinclusiveness argument. In 
2009, a federal court imposed preclearance require­
ments on the Village of Port Chester, New York, after 
finding the village’s at-large method of election 
barred Latinos from equal participation in the 
electoral process.76 The bail-in mechanism thus 
works not just in theory, but in practice, to extend 
preclearance obligations to jurisdictions whose 
discriminatory conduct warrants federal supervision. 
The claim that Congress transgressed principles of 
federalism in reauthorizing Section 5 without 
altering its coverage formula is unfounded. American 
federalism is less offended when coverage expands 
incrementally and where deemed necessary, either by 
the courts as with Port Chester in 2009, or by 
Congress as with Arizona and Texas in 1975.

Likewise, the bailout provision has “always been 
the lynchpin of the Act’s tailoring.”77 A covered 
jurisdiction may terminate preclearance require­
ments upon a showing of non-discriminatory voting 
practices over the preceding ten years and “construct­
ive efforts” to prevent harassment and increase 
minority participation in the electoral process.78 
Congress heard that “ [f]or the vast majority of 
jurisdictions,” the bailout process is “relatively 
straightforward,” “easy” and “cost-effective.” Volume 
III 2006 (Continued Need) Hearing at 2684 (testi­
mony of J. Gerald Hebert).

76 See United States v. Vill. of Port Chester, No. 1:06-CV-15173 
(SCR), slip op. at 1, 3-6 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 22, 2009) (Consent 
Decree) (Dkt. No. 119).

77 J. Gerald Hebert, The Future of the Voting Rights Act, 64 
Rutgers L. Rev. 953, 965 (2012).

78 42 U.S.C. § 1973b(a)(l)(A-F).



31
“Obviously, many jurisdictions are not and should 

not be eligible for bailout based upon their track 
records in the last ten years.” 2006 (Views from the 
Field) Hearing at 115 (response of Don Wright). But 
where bailout is warranted, jurisdictions have 
successfully done so. Indeed, political subdivisions 
have bailed-out with increasing frequency since the 
Northwest Austin decision, including subdivisions 
with significant Latino populations. See Nw. Austin, 
557 U.S. at 211.79 DOJ recently consented to the 
bailout of Alta Irrigation District in California, parts 
of which fall within Kings County, a jurisdiction 
covered after the 1975 amendments.80 Alta had 
submitted most electoral changes for preclearance 
(those changes did not result in DOJ objection), and 
had a good-faith belief of non-coverage for several 
other changes. DOJ stipulated to the presence of 
efforts towards increasing minority participation, 
including Spanish-language outreach and registra­
tion drives in the Latino community. See also Amicus 
Br. of Merced County, California at 2-3, 34-35 
(describing successful bailout of county covered 
following 1975 amendments).81

79 See also Dep’t of Justice, Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, 
http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/misc/sec_4.php (last acces­
sed Jan. 30, 2013) (listing 20 bailouts since November 2009).

80 See Alta Irrigation Dist. v. Holder, 11-CV-758-RJL-DAG- 
PLF, sbp op. at 1, 8-9 (D.D.C. July 15, 2011) (Consent Decree) 
(Dkt. No. 9).

81 Merced County’s protracted process for bailout reflects the 
county’s previously flawed compbance record, not deficiencies in 
the mechanism. In June 2006, Merced was “[a] [mjodel of 
Section 5 [n]on-[c]omphance,” having failed to submit 226 voting 
changes for Section 5 review. See 2006 (LULAC) Hearing at 
123-25, 134 (report by Professor Joaquin Avila).

http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/misc/sec_4.php


32
Thus, the coverage formula, in tandem with the 

bail-in and bailout mechanisms, continues to focus on 
the jurisdictions with the worst records of purposeful 
discrimination against Latinos.
IV. A CASE STUDY IN THE CONTINUED 

NEED FOR SECTION 5’s PROTECTIONS: 
THE 2011 TEXAS REDISTRICTING.

“In the last four decades, Texas has found itself in 
court every re districting cycle, and each time it has 
lost.” Texas v. United States, 2012 WL 3671924, at 
*20. On the eve of the 2006 reauthorization, this 
Court found the State’s 2003 congressional redistrict­
ing plan bore “the mark of intentional discrimin­
ation.” LULAC, 548 U.S. at 440, 442. Despite this 
history, in 2011, Texas enacted yet another series of 
intentionally discriminatory redistricting plans. 
These actions underscore the critical importance that 
Section 5 continues to play today.

Between 2000 and 2010, the population of Texas 
increased by over four million people, 65% of whom 
were Latinos. See Perez v. Perry, No. SA-ll-CV-360, 
2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 92479, at *15, 16 n.2 (W.D. 
Tex. Mar. 19, 2012). This growth required Texas to 
redraw its electoral districts for the U.S. Congress, 
State Senate, and State House of Representatives. 
See Perry v. Perez, 132 S. Ct. 934, 939 (2012) (per 
curiam). On July 19, 2011, Texas filed suit in the 
D.D.C. to preclear its enacted plans pursuant to 
Section 5 of the VRA. See Texas v. United States, 
No. ll-CV-1303 (D.D.C.).

Following a trial in Texas’s preclearance action, 
the D.D.C. found overwhelming evidence of intention­
al race-based discrimination, a finding in keeping 
with “Texas’s history of failures to comply with the 
VRA.” Texas, 2012 WL 3671924, at *20. First,



33
discriminatory purpose lay behind irregularities in 
the plans’ drafting processes. With respect to the 
congressional plan, African-American and Latino 
members of Congress “were excluded completely from 
the process of drafting new maps, while the 
preferences of Anglo members were frequently 
solicited and honored.” Id. at *21. The plan was then 
hurriedly enacted after being made public, “severely 
circumscribing] the opportunity for meaningful 
public scrutiny and comment, including by minority 
citizens and their elected officials.” Id. at *53. 
Similarly, the drafts of the state senate plan were 
kept in a secretive “anteroom” off the Senate floor, to 
which senators representing minority-ability districts 
were refused entry. Id. at *24.

Second, the D.D.C. found overwhelming evidence 
of discriminatory intent in the plans’ details. Id. 
at *21 n.32. The court noted Texas’s numerous 
attempts in its congressional plan “to draw a district 
that would look Hispanic, but perform for Anglos.” 
Id. at *31. Perhaps most brazenly, emails to and 
from counsel for the Texas House Speaker showed 
how officials sought race-based demographic data 
from the Texas Legislative Council, including 
Spanish-surname voter registration data, for use as a 
“metric” in redrawing district boundaries. Id. at *16, 
59. The goal, according to the emails, was to “‘help 
pull the district’s Total Hispanic Population and 
Hispanic [Citizen Voting Age Population] up to 
majority status, but leave the Spanish Surname 
Registered Voter and turnout numbers the lowest.’”82

82 Texas, 2012 WL 3671924, at *16 (alterations in original 
omitted) (quoting Defendants’ Exh. 304). Texas’s race-based 
gerrymandering of Congressional District 23 in particular, see 
id., is appalling in light of this Court’s determination that



34
In this way, Texas “suppressed] the minority vote” 
by substituting “low-voting minorities” for 
“politically-active minorities” while retaining the 
same overall level of voting-age Latinos, thereby 
“maintaining] the semblance of Hispanic voting 
power in the district while decreasing its effective­
ness.” Id. at *16, 82; see also id. at *37 (expressing 
concern about State’s use of “a deliberate, race­
conscious method to manipulate not simply the 
Democratic vote but, more specifically, the Hispanic 
vote”).83

The D.D.C. found an invidious racial purpose 
behind other district boundary changes as well. 
Texas performed “substantial surgery” on minority 
districts in the congressional plan, excising economic 
generators like convention centers or stadiums, and 
even cutting out the district office of a Latino 
Representative. Id. at *19, 68 (revisions to Congres­
sional District 20 removed Congressman Gonzalez’s 
district office and a convention center named after his 
father). “No such surgery was performed on the 
districts of Anglo incumbents.” Id. at *20 (affirming 
that boundary revisions disparately impacted minor­
ity districts, a fact Texas did not even dispute). 
Indeed, “Anglo district boundaries were redrawn to 
include particular country clubs and, in one case, the

Texas’s 2003 changes to this same district bore “the mark of 
intentional discrimination.” LULAC, 548 U.S. at 439-40.

83 The Western District of Texas, in crafting interim maps for 
the 2012 elections while the D.D.C. litigation was pending, 
presaged the D.D.C.’s findings, concluding that Texas likely 
engaged in racial gerrymandering. See Perez, 2012 U.S. Dist. 
LEXIS 92479, at *65 (plan for U.S. House); Perez v. Texas, No. 
ll-CV-360, slip op. at 11 (W.D. Tex. Mar. 19, 2012) (Dkt. 690) 
(plan for Texas House).



school belonging to the incumbent’s grandchildren.” 
Id.

The D.D.C. refused to preclear Texas’s redistrict­
ing plans, and as a result those plans were never 
allowed to shape the 2012 election results. The 
elections proceeded instead using the Western 
District of Texas’s interim plans. This would not 
have been possible without Section 5. Absent pre­
clearance requirements, Texas’s discriminatory plans 
likely would have been used in the 2012 elections. 
That is true even though plaintiff groups also 
challenged the redistricting plans in separate 
litigation under Section 2 and the Constitution. See 
Perez v. Texas, No. ll-CV-360 (W.D. Tex. filed May 9, 
2011). Given the protracted nature of Section 2 
lawsuits and the scarce resources available to 
prosecute them, the Perez suit could not be counted 
upon to provide Latino voters with relief prior to 
the 2012 election. See Volume I  2005 (History) 
Hearing at 92 (testimony of Nina Perales) (“Section 2 
requires costly and time-consuming litigation. It also 
requires the bad change to go into effect and even be 
implemented for several election cycles before 
challengers can gather enough evidence to mount a 
successful court challenge, which is also incredibly 
costly ....”); Boerne, 521 U.S at 526 (noting “slow, 
costly character of case-by-case litigation” under 
Section 2). Had Section 5 not been available to block 
the implementation of Texas’s intentionally dis­
criminatory re districting, the discriminatory results 
of an election designed to disenfranchise Latino 
voters would have embedded incumbents and locked 
in that discrimination for years.84

35

84 See Voting Rights Act: Section 5—Preclearance Standards: 
Hearing Before the Subcomm. on the Constitution of the H. 
Comm, on the Judiciary, 109th Cong. 4 (2005) (statement of



36
In short, Texas’s most recent purposefully 

discriminatory redistricting plans provide a painful 
reminder of precisely the type of racial discrimination 
that Section 5 was designed to prevent—and of the 
continued need for Section 5 to “shift the advantage 
of time and inertia from the perpetrators of the evil to 
its victims.” South Carolina, 383 U.S. at 328.85

k k k

Even as the Nation elected its first African- 
American President, Latino voters continue to face 
intentional efforts to deny them equal electoral 
participation. In the covered jurisdictions in particu­
lar, as was the case in 1975, “a fair and accurate 
reading of the evidence leaves us no choice but to 
conclude that too much rejoicing at this juncture 
would be none other than premature.”86 Latino 
voters in the covered jurisdictions still require the 
protections of Section 5 to fulfill the Fifteenth 
Amendment’s directive that “ [t]he right of citizens of 
the United States to vote shall not be denied or 
abridged by the United States or by any State on 
account of race, color, or previous condition of 
servitude.”

Rep. Scott) (“incumbency is a huge and, more often than not, 
dispositive advantage in an election”).

85 Notably, amicus curiae Texas’s brief fails altogether to 
discuss the findings regarding these redistricting plans.

86 121 Cong. Rec. 44, 47 (1975) (statement of Rep. Rodino).



37
CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the court 
of appeals should be affirmed.

Respectfully submitted,

Carter G. Phillips 
Sidley Austin llp 
1501 K Street, N.W. 
Washington, D.C. 20005 
(202) 736-8000

Thomas A. Saenz 
Nina Perales 
Karolina J. Lyznik 
Mexican American 
Legal Defense & 
Education Fund, Inc. 

110 Broadway, Suite 300 
San Antonio, TX 78205 
(210) 224-5476

MarkE. Haddad*
Jose F. Sanchez 
Brent W. Wilner 
Alexander J. Doherty 
Amanda V. Lopez 
Lillian H. Park 
William M. Rosenthal 
Sidley Austin llp 
555 W. Fifth Street 
40th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90013 
(213) 896-6000 
mhaddad@sidley.com

Juan Cartagena 
Jose L. Perez 
LatinoJustice PRLDEF 
99 Hudson Street 
14th Floor
New York, NY 10013 
(212) 219-3360

Counsel for Amici Curiae 
February 1, 2013 * Counsel of Record

mailto:mhaddad@sidley.com


ADDENDUM

Total Voting Age Population o f the 
United States (2001 Census)

All other states 
(covered and 
tnm-eovered) 

92.6#»

Ellen Katz, VRI 
Database Master List 
(2006), http://sitemaker. 
umich.edu/votingrights/ 
files/m asterhst .xls

U.S. Census Bureau, 
Population Estimates, 
http://www.census.gov/ 
popest/data/historical/20 
0 0 s/vint age_2004/st ate. 
html
Estimates of the 
Resident Population by 
Selected Age Groups for 
the United States and 
States and for Puerto 
Rico: July 1, 2004

http://sitemaker
http://www.census.gov/


App.l
APPENDIX

LIST AND DESCRIPTION OF AMICI CURIAE 
ASPIRA

ASPIRA is the only national organization dedicated 
exclusively to the education of Latino youth. Its 
mission is to promote the development of the Latino 
community through advocacy and the education and 
leadership development of its youth. ASPIRA has 
ASPIRA Associates and Affiliates in eight states (DE, 
IL, FL, MA, NC, NJ, NY, PA) and Puerto Rico, as 
well as formal partnerships with over 30 regional and 
local organizations across the country.
Dominican American National Roundtable 
(DANR)/National Dominican American Council 
(NDAC)

The Dominican American National Roundtable 
(DANR) is a nonprofit, charitable, members organi­
zation which brings together the different voices of all 
people of Dominican origin in the United States. 
DANR is a national forum for analysis, planning, and 
action to advance the educational, economic, legal, 
social, cultural, and political interests of Dominican 
Americans. It aims to ensure for U.S. Dominicans 
the full exercise of the rights and freedoms 
guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States 
of America. The National Dominican American 
Council (NDAC) is the national civic-engagement- 
community relations organ of the Dominican 
American National Roundtable. It oversees 120 local 
councils in 85 cities across the United States with 
significant Dominican population. With a member­
ship, which includes local councils, grassroots com­
munity organizations, educational, legal, health and 
civic organizations, DANR has evolved into a



powerful research and advocacy organization on 
issues affecting the immigrant community.
Hispanic Federation

The Hispanic Federation provides grants to a broad 
network of Latino nonprofit agencies serving the 
most vulnerable members of the Hispanic community 
and advocates nationally with respect to the vital 
issues of education, health, immigration, economic 
empowerment, civic engagement, and the environ­
ment.
Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA)

The Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) is a 
nonprofit, nonpartisan, national professional associ­
ation that represents the interests of over 100,000 
attorneys, judges, law professors, and other legal 
professionals of Hispanic descent in the United 
States. The HNBA has thirty-eight affiliated bars in 
various states across the country. The continuing 
mission of the HNBA is to improve the study, 
practice, and administration of justice for all Ameri­
cans by ensuring the meaningful participation of 
Hispanics in the legal profession. Since its inception 
40 years ago, the HNBA has served as the national 
voice for Hispanics in the legal profession and has 
promoted justice, equity, and opportunity for 
Hispanics.
Labor Council for Latin American Advance­
ment (LCLAA)

The Labor Council for Latin American Advance­
ment (LCLAA) is a national organization represent­
ing the interests of approximately 2.2 million Latino 
trade unionists in the United States and Puerto Rico. 
Founded in 1973, LCLAA builds coalitions between 
the Latino community and Unions in order to

App.2



advance the civil, economic and human rights of all 
Latinos.
LatinoJustice PRLDEF

LatinoJustice PRLDEF (formerly known as the 
Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund) 
was founded in New York City in 1972. Its 
continuing mission is to protect the civil rights of all 
Latinos and to promote justice for the pan-Latino 
community especially across the Eastern United 
States. It has worked to secure the voting rights and 
political participation of Latino voters since 1972 
when it initiated a series of suits to create bilingual 
voting systems throughout the United States.
MANA

MANA, a National Latina Organization, is a 
nonprofit, advocacy organization established in 1974 
whose mission is to empower Latinas through leader­
ship development, community service, and advocacy. 
MANA fulfills its mission through programs designed 
to develop the leadership skills of Latinas, promote 
community service by Latinas, and provide Latinas 
with advocacy opportunities.
Mexican American Legal Defense and 
Educational Fund (MALDEF)

The Mexican American Legal Defense and 
Educational Fund (MALDEF) is a national civil 
rights organization established in 1968. Its principal 
objective is to secure the civil rights of Latinos living 
in the United States through litigation, advocacy, and 
education. MALDEF advocated in Congress for the 
1975 and 1982 expansions of section 5 of the Voting 
Rights Act and MALDEF supported the 2006 
reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, testifying to 
the continuing, persistent purposeful discrimination

App.3



against Latino voters before the U.S. Senate and 
House of Representatives. MALDEF has also 
successfully litigated landmark cases on behalf of 
Latino voters, including White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 
755 (1973), and LULAC v. Perry, 548 U.S. 399 
(2006).
National Association of Hispanic Federal 
Executives (NAHFE)

The National Association of Hispanic Federal 
Executives (NAHFE) helps to identify, encourage, 
prepare and promote the advancement of Hispanics 
into the SES (Career Senior Executive Service) ranks 
within the Federal Government.
National Association of Hispanic Publications 
(NAHP)

The National Association of Hispanic Publications, 
Inc. (NAHP) is a non-partisan trade advocacy organi­
zation, founded in 1982, representing the leading 
Spanish language publications serving 41 markets in 
39 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, 
with a combined circulation of over 23 million 
readers.
National Association of Latino Elected and 
Appointed Officials (NALEO) Education Fund

The National Association of Latino Elected and 
Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund is 
the leading nonprofit organization that facilitates full 
Latino participation in the American political 
process, from citizenship to public service. Our 
constituents include the more than 6,000 Latino 
elected and appointed officials nationwide who serve 
on bodies including local and state school boards, 
municipal councils, state legislatures, and the U.S. 
Congress. For several decades, the NALEO

App.4



Educational Fund has actively supported the 
reauthorization and strong enforcement of the Voting 
Rights Act as a whole, and Section 5 in particular. 
Section 5’s preclearance procedures have played a key 
role in safeguarding Latino voters’ ability to elect the 
candidates of their choice in jurisdictions in states 
including Arizona, Texas, California, Florida, and 
New York.
National Conference of Puerto Rican Women 
(NACOPRW)

NACOPRW was founded in Washington, D.C., in 
1972, as a nonprofit, non-partisan organization to 
promote the full participation of Puerto Rican and 
other Hispanic women in their economic, social and 
political life in the United States and Puerto Rico. 
NACOPRW provides training, mentorship and 
leadership development at the local and national 
level through workshops and institutes during the 
annual convention, and through chapter programs. 
We preserve our Puerto Rican and Latino heritage 
through cultural activities and events. We seek 
justice and give voice to the preservation of civil, 
health, educational and other rights through the 
dissemination of information, networking, collabor­
ation and advocacy with other national and local 
groups, and through education, celebration, 
community and civil involvement.
National Council of La Raza (NCLR)

The National Council of La Raza (NCLR)—the 
largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy 
organization in the United States—works to improve 
opportunities for Hispanic Americans. Through its 
network of nearly 300 affiliated community-based 
organizations (CBOs), NCLR reaches millions of 
Hispanics each year in 41 states, Puerto Rico, and the

App.5



District of Columbia. NCLR works through two 
primary, complementary approaches: (1) Capacity 
building assistance to support and strengthen 
Hispanic CBOs—especially those that serve low- 
income and disadvantaged Latinos; and (2) applied 
research, policy analysis, and advocacy to encourage 
adoption of programs and policies that equitably 
serve Hispanics.
National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC)

The National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) is 
a nonpartisan, nonprofit, media advocacy and civil 
rights organization established in 1986 in Los 
Angeles, California. NHMC educates and influences 
media corporations on the importance of including 
U.S. Latinos at all levels of employment. It augments 
the pool of Latino talent with its professional 
development programs. It challenges media that 
carelessly exploit negative Latino stereotypes. It 
scrutinizes and opines on media and telecommuni­
cations policy issues.
National Hispanic Medical Association (NHMA)

Established in 1994 in Washington, DC, the 
National Hispanic Medical Association is a nonprofit 
association representing the interests of 45,000 
licensed Hispanic physicians in the United States. 
NHMA is dedicated to empowering Hispanic 
physicians to be leaders who will help eliminate 
health disparities and improve the health of 
Hispanics. NHMA’s vision is to be the national 
leader to improve the health of Hispanic populations.
National Institute for Latino Policy

National Institute for Latino Policy is a 
nonpartisan policy center established in 1982 that 
focuses on Latino policy issues. Among our concerns

App.6



are the rights of immigrants in the United States and 
the promotion of full civic participation by the Latino 
community. The Voting Rights Act is essential in 
combating continuing obstacles being placed to deter 
Latinos ability to vote that results in the disen­
franchisement of a significant percentage of our 
community. We vehemently oppose any efforts to 
curtail or eliminate the protections provided by the 
VRA.
National Latina Institute for Reproductive 
Health (NLIRH)

The National Latina Institute for Reproductive 
Health (NLIRH) is a reproductive justice and human 
rights organization based in New York City, with a 
policy office in Washington, D.C. and grassroots 
Latina Advocacy Networks (LANs) in various states. 
NLIRH is the only national organization working to 
advance the reproductive health and justice of the 24 
million Latinas, their families, and communities in 
the United States through public education, commun­
ity mobilization, and policy advocacy. As an organi­
zation that encourages and fosters Latina leadership 
and civic engagement, the issue addressed in this 
case is a central concern to NLIRH.
National Organization for Mexican American 
Rights (NOMAR), Inc.

NOMAR, Inc., a national nonprofit organization 
with the mission to protect the civil rights of Hispanic 
Americans and to promote equal opportunity for 
Hispanic Americans in employment and education, 
supports the respondents in the above mentioned 
case before the Supreme Court of the United States. 
A critical mission of NOMAR, Inc. is to protect the 
civil rights of Hispanic Americans, which include the 
fundamental right of all United States citizens to

App.7



vote. We believe that this right extends to all citizens 
whether born in the United States, or naturalized 
after migrating to the United States.
National Puerto Rican Coalition, Inc. (NPRC)

NPRC is a national nonprofit organization 
representing the interests of over 8 million Puerto 
Rican U.S. citizens on the mainland and in Puerto 
Rico. NPRC’s mission is to systematically strengthen 
and enhance the social, political, and economic 
wellbeing of Puerto Ricans throughout the United 
States and in Puerto Rico, with a special focus on the 
most vulnerable.
Service, Employment, and Redevelopment 
(SER)

Service, Employment, and Redevelopment (SER) is 
a national network of Community Based Organi­
zations (CBOs) that formulates and advocates 
initiatives resulting in the increased development 
and utilization of America's human resources, with 
special emphasis on the needs of Hispanics, in the 
areas of education, training, employment, business 
and economic opportunity. SER National aims to 
develop the capacity of the SER network through the 
provision of technical assistance, research and 
planning, program and policy development, and 
fundraising.
United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce 
(USHCC)

The United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce 
(USHCC) advocates, promotes, and facilitates the 
success of Hispanic businesses throughout the United 
States and Puerto Rico.

App.8



United States Hispanic Leadership Institute 
(USHLI)

The United States Hispanic Leadership Institute 
(USHLI) is a national, nonprofit organization that 
promotes education, civic participation, and leader­
ship development for Latinos and other similarly 
disenfranchised groups. USHLI was honored at the 
White House by then-President Bill Clinton for “the 
performance of exemplary deeds of service for the 
nation in promoting leadership and civic partici­
pation.” ITSHLT’s mission is to fulfill the promises 
and principles of democracy by empowering minor­
ities and similarly disenfranchised groups and by 
maximizing civic awareness and participation in the 
electoral process.

App.9



EXHIBIT ONE
Expert Report of Dr. Andres Tijerina 

Texas v. United States,
No. ll-CV-01303 (D.C.C. Aug. 8, 2011)

[1] REPORT OF DR. ANDRES TIJERINA
(Aug. 8, 2011)
1. I submit this report on the history of the violation 
of civil rights of Latinos in Texas with emphasis on 
the electoral process and voting. In writing this 
report, I have relied on my extensive knowledge and 
readings of archives and bibliography. As a member 
and fellow of the Texas State Historical Association 
and a member of the American Historical 
Association, I regularly attend professional confer­
ences where I present formal papers for peer review 
and where I exchange the latest information on 
historical sources, methods, and data. I draw my 
conclusions in the present report based on my 
extensive knowledge of Texas History and Mexican 
American History from the readings and archival 
research that I have conducted for the better part of 
four decades. From my broad professional experience, 
I have been able to use accepted methods of analysis 
to compare the Mexican American experience in 
Texas with other groups in history. My conclusion is 
that they have a legacy of exploitation and abuse by 
Anglo-Americans who have used government, 
financial, and technological advantages to appropri­
ate Mexican American lands, labor, and resources, 
and that Mexican Americans in Texas today bear the 
effects of this discrimination which hinders their 
ability to participate effectively in the democratic 
process.
2. I have utilized my research and writing skills to 
produce new information and interpretations to

App.10



A pp.ll
critical areas of Texas history. My Ph.D. is in U.S. 
history. Indeed, I was the first Mexican American to 
receive a Ph.D. in U.S. History from the University of 
Texas at Austin in 1977. My specialty is Tejano or 
Latino history in Texas. I have written four books on 
Mexican American history, two of them published by 
a major university press. One of my books won the 
three most prestigious awards in Texas History, and 
two national awards. I am a Professor of history at 
Austin Community College, and I have taught at the 
University of Texas at Austin, the University of 
Texas at San Antonio, and Texas Tech University. I 
have edited and published four books by other writers 
in order to spread knowledge of Tejano history. My 
most widely read work is the publication of my 
combat memoirs as a USAF pilot with over 100 
combat missions in the Time/Life Books series on the 
Vietnam War. I have practical experience as a former 
military commander, a former corporate executive 
with Motorola, Inc., and as a former state agency 
executive director with the Texas state [2] 
government. As the only Mexican American state 
agency director at the time, the position gave me a 
rare glimpse into the workings of state agency 
administration.
3. I conduct research regularly at the archives of the 
University of Texas at Austin to support my 
publication schedule. There, I have conducted years 
of research in the Spanish and Mexican archives, as 
well as in newspaper collections, personal collections, 
and government depositories. I frequent the Briscoe 
American History Center and the Benson Latin 
American Collection, which also houses one of the 
most extensive Mexican-American collections in the 
United States. I have also conducted extensive 
research in numerous county land records across



Texas, as well as at the University of California at 
San Diego, the U.S. National Archives, the Library of 
Congress, the State Archives of Coahuila, and the 
National Archives of Mexico.
4. I have been a consultant to historical museums 
across Texas, writing the text, and reviewing the 
accuracy of their displays. I also once consulted a 
major federal archeological project in Texas. I am a 
regular speaker and curriculum consultant to civic 
groups, universities, and independent school districts. 
I have delivered keynote addresses to federal 
agencies in Washington, D.C. and in every major city 
in Texas, the largest of which was at Texas A&M 
University to over 3,000 in a special events center 
and a worldwide satellite TV audience.
5. My expertise as a U.S. historian is in the social, 
cultural, economic, and political interaction of various 
groups in Texas history. My specialty historical 
period is the nineteenth century and early 20th 
century. I have used traditional historical archival 
documents like period newspapers, court records, city 
council minutes, state legislative committee 
proceedings, government documents, 18«> century 
Spanish documents, 19th century Mexican archives, 
and personal collections. I have also been a 
trailblazer in developing new historical methods to 
access the unwritten historical transcripts of non­
literate societies by referring to inter-disciplinary 
methods in archeology and anthropology. Likewise, I 
have been named as Series Editor for the Spencer 
Series of Texas A&M University Press for their 
history books on Texas and the Southwest.
6. The summary of my findings of discrimination 
against Latinos in Texas is that discrimination has 
been a pervasive and constant phenomenon since 
1836, when Anglo-Americans took control of Texas

App.12



government. Anglo-American government control was 
expanded by the defeat of Mexico in [3] the U.S.- 
Mexico War of 1846-1848, which ended in the taking 
of present-day South Texas as well. The traumatic 
manner in which those Mexicans became U.S. 
citizens through defeat placed them at a great 
disadvantage in knowledge and access to the laws, 
economic power, and government. Another theme in 
my conclusion is that racist and discriminatory 
treatment has been a major characteristic and a 
consistent thread in the relationship between Latinos 
and Anglo-Americans especially in Texas. Another 
theme is that Anglo-Americans have consistently 
used Texas government agencies, police agencies, and 
laws to appropriate lands, labor, and cultural 
heritage from Latinos. This phenomenon of 
domination has manifested itself since 1836 after 
which the bulk of the Mexican American lands 
throughout Texas were taken along with government 
control. It was reinforced in South Texas when Anglo- 
Americans established large commercial farming 
estates which have used violence and labor controls 
to appropriate Mexican American labor until the mid- 
20th ceutury. During the period between 1900 and 
1920 the state government established Anglo- 
controlled legislative districts and a statewide 
subtractive school system as major obstacles to 
Latino education and equal access to the democratic 
process. Although Latinos have challenged the 
political, economic, and educational subordination, 
they have done so at tremendous disadvantage, 
which is manifested in the persistent racism and 
their current subordinate status.
Historical Background

The Spanish and Mexican pioneer ancestors of 
modern Mexican Americans were the founders of

App.13



Texas under a European type of government. These 
original Latino settlers are called Tejanos, which is 
simply the Spanish word for Texan. Tejanos had 
come initially under the flag of Spain, as Mexicans 
after Mexican independence, and they continued to 
settle in Texas under the Republic of Texas. They 
claimed lands under the various land grant programs 
of the succeessive governments of Texas, and they 
were citizens of the successive republics. They 
established large ranches, and several towns such as 
San Antonio, Victoria, Laredo, Nacogdoches, and 
Corpus Christi. Over 2,000 Tejanos claimed 
headrights or land grants in Texas along with Sam 
Houston and Mirabeau B. Lamar as a reward for 
defending Texas from the Mexican government of 
President Santa Anna. Even though thousands 
fought for Texas, incoming Anglo-Americans made no 
distinction between the Tejanos who were citizens of 
the Republic of Texas, and the Mexicans who fought 
against the Republic. As an example, Juan N. Seguin 
of San Antonio, had fought for Texas Independence. 
He is the only Texan who fought against Mexican 
General Santa Anna at the Alamo and at the Battle 
of San Jacinto. Seguin [4] was the victim of several 
assassination attempts in San Antonio by Anglo 
Americans because they made no distinction except 
their concept of the Mexican “race.” (Williams and 
Barker 1943, IV, pp. 63, 64; Friend 1969, pp. 66, 73) 
Tejanos had established the legitimate government of 
Texas under Spain and Mexico, but they quickly 
found themselves isolated by the Anglo-American 
wave of settlers who greatly outnumbered them. As 
Anglo-Americans entered Texas, they took a 
dominant position, isolating the Tejanos from any 
viable role in government and the economy.

App.14



As prominent Tejano leaders like Juan N. Seguin, 
Carlos de la Garza, and Vicente Cordova were 
eventually forced to defend themselves against raids 
and attacks by Anglo Texans,

Tejano families began an evacuation of Texas. 
Hundreds of Tejano families fled to Tamaulipas and 
Nuevo Leon, Mexico while others fled into Louisiana. 
During these years, the Texas government played a 
direct role in dispossessing Tejanos from their lands. 
In many cases, the Texas Army had actually ordered 
loyal Tejanos off their lands, ostensibly to preclude 
collusion with the enemy. In 1842, Col. Clark L. 
Owen declared martial law in the Goliad-Victoria 
area, and ordered “all Mexicans” to move south of the 
Nueces. Prominent and loyal Tejano families lost 
their ranches and lands as they left many of their 
settlements in what was called a “virtual state of 
abandonment.” (O’Connor 1966, pp. 10, 126, 253; 
Huson 1953, I, 471)

As the 1840s progressed, Anglo and European 
immigrants flooded in and took many of the ranches, 
the livestock, and indeed the livelihood of many of the 
old Tejanos around Bexar, Goliad, and Nacogdoches. 
By 1845, for example, 40 of the 45 Goliad Tejano 
ranches had passed into Anglo hands for a pittance of 
their value. Many of these emigree Tejanos returned 
years later to reclaim their lands after the 
revolution—some successfully, and some not. (Goliad 
County, Records) After the U.S.-Mexico War, the 
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 incorporated 
the land south of the Nueces into Texas, and 
guaranteed full citizenship to the Tejanos as Mexican 
Americans. Historians like David Montejano and 
Walter Prescott Webb have suggested that South 
Texas counties like Nueces, Kleberg, Cameron, and 
Hidalgo experienced an economically driven pattern

App.15



of Tejano land dispossession, which characterized the 
transfer of lands as one-way and irreversible. These 
basic books of Texas history state that Tejanos lost 
their lands through “ficticious suits,” sheriffs 
auctions, and dubious transfers of title. Anglo 
newcomers like Stephen Powers, Charles Stillman, 
Richard King, and Mifflin Kenedy remained after the 
U.S.-Mexico War, and, to use Webb’s expression, 
“bamboozled” or deceived the Mexicans in South 
Texas. Webb added that “The old landholding 
Mexican families [5] found their titles in jeopardy and 
if they did not lose in the courts they lost to their 
American lawyers.” (Montejano 1987, 72; Webb 1991)

Many historians have indicated the major role 
played by the racism of the incoming Anglo Texans 
during and after the Texas Revolution. Anglo-Texans 
often cited a distorted version of Texas history7 to 
rationalize their economic claims against Tejanos. 
For example, during the Texas Revolution, Edward 
Dwyer, an Irish merchant in San Antonio encouraged 
Texas Army Gen. Thomas Jefferson Green to 
expedite the army into Bexar. “. . .the people [of San 
Antonio de Bexar] . . . are not sufficiently scared to 
make an advantigius [sic] sale of their Lands. In case 
two or three hundred of our troops should he 
stationed there, I have no doubt but a man could 
make some good speculations with Gold and Silver. 
Bank notes will not do to purchase Land from 
Mexicans.” he added. And in Victoria , John Linn 
described a similar situation during that same period 
in which “Fernando de Leon was subsequently- 
persecuted by the presentation of unjust claims 
against him, and. owing to the prejudice then existing 
against the Mexicans, many illegal and unfair 
judgements were rendered against him ” De Leon, the 
largest landowner in Victoria County, lost about half

App.16



of his lands to those judgements. And during the 
U.S.-Mexico War, a U.S. Army officer, General 
William North boasted “our Anglo-Saxon race [have] 
been land stealers from time immemorial, and why 
shouldn’t they [be]?” (Crisp 1976, 343; Foley 1997, 21; 
Crimm 1998, 170) Thus racism was an openly avowed 
motive and a justification for land theft.

In the mid- to late-1840s, however, incoming Anglo 
squatters openly began to use brutal atrocities 
against many Tejano families. One specific case in 
1843, was recorded in Karnes County, where 
according to the The Kennedy Times, the Carlos 
Martinez ranches were raided by “companies of white 
people, who came to the rancho from the Guadalupe 
and Colorado rivers, and killed the people at the 
rancho and stole their stock.” The newspaper added 
that no arrests were made as the murderers moved 
into the ranches. Another murder on the nearby 
Becerra land grant also drove the Tejano families off 
their lands. The Tejano families fled to Goliad after 
their livestock were killed and their barns burned by 
mounted Anglo marauders. Tejanos lost many 
relatives in the killings, and they lost their legitimate 
claims to the lands. (Crimm 1998, 141; Kenedy, Texas 
1963, Sect. 1; Rubio 1986, 136)

To the north of Karnes County, Anglo city officials 
began a coordinated campaign to drive Mexican 
American citizen and Mexican immigrant settlers out 
of the cities between Austin and San Antonio. The 
campaign took the form of vigilante raids incited by 
newspaper rhetoric [6] and conducted by the town’s 
most “excellent citizens.” In 1850, the Austin City 
Council established “city watch” authorizing a 
Vigilante Committee “to inflict punishments without 
resorting to trials. . .” on Negro slaves for violating 
the curfew or for associating with Mexican

App.17



immigrants and Mexican American citizen residents. 
Blaming the Mexican Americans for inciting runaway 
slaves by associating on an equal basis with them, 
local newspapers developed a rationale for not only 
persecuting the recalcitrant slaves, but also for 
punishing the Mexican American citizens in Austin. 
The State Gazette referred to “the local Mexican 
residents who were permanent citizens” of Austin as 
“half-negro, half Indian greasers” and called for 
“exertion in clearing our country of rascally peons.” 
The newspaper rationalized that this “clearing” of the 
city was justified because Mexicans were peons 
“incapable of acquiring the rights of citizenship.” The 
City Council and the newspapers agreed that the 
Vigilante Committee should be comprised of Anglo- 
Saxon “excellent citizens” in order to legitimize the 
“clearing” campaign as had been done in Seguin 
County and eight other neighboring counties. As a 
result, the Austin committee included elected 
officials, Democratic Party officials, veterans of the 
Texas Revolution, and members of the nativist 
Knownothing Party. The Austin Vigilante Committee 
was led by the well-known Texas Ranger and Mayor 
of Austin, John S. “Rip” Ford, a Chief Justice, a city 
alderman, the city marshall, and the county sheriff. 
After a few years of persecution, Austin had burned 
out all settlements of Mexican immigrants and local 
Mexican American citizens. By the 1860 census, only 
20 Spanish-surnamed residents were left in Travis 
County, and State Gazette rationalized the raids 
because Mexicans were “a bad element of society . . . 
[that] sooner or later would be extinguished.” The 
newspaper boasted that Mexicans had also been 
driven out by vigilante raids in Uvalde, Bexar, 
Austin, Colorado, Matagorda, and Guadalupe 
Counties. (Lack 1981, pp. 2 -  19)

App.18



According to historian David Montejano, native 
Tejanos eventually established a “Peace Structure” 
with incoming Anglo-Texans in order to escape the 
violence. In the “Peace Structure,” Anglos were 
allowed to dominate the government and economy, 
while Tejanos collaborated with them in exchange for 
protection from land theft and violence. In many 
cases, these incoming Anglo-Texans nevertheless 
used their dominant position to acquire Tejano lands. 
Following the 1850s, in Hidalgo County, Judge 
Thaddeus Rhodes, Sheriff John Closner, and land 
lawyer Jim Wells began to press sheriffs auctions on 
Tejano land grants. The judge targeted the fertile 
lands of Spanish Porcion 69 land grant, owned by 
descendants of Juan Jose Hinojosa along the Rio 
Grande. In June of 1877, the sheriff sold over 7,000 
acres of the grant [7] for $17.75 to Anglo-Texans. Also 
in 1878, Judge Rhodes personally bought 30 acres of 
Porcion 69, and then held a sheriffs auction on an 
additional 668 acres of the land grant. (Hidalgo 
County, A:149; Crimml998, 175; Mexico 1874, h; 
Rubel 1966, 36)

The period after Reconstruction and around the 
turn of the century also saw an attack on the Tejano’s 
socio-economic status, as Anglo-American commercial 
farmers from Midwestern states swept into South 
Texas. The incoming Anglo-American squatters 
launched large-scale vigilante raids against 
legitimate and prominent Tejano land grantees 
during the Reconstruction period after the Civil War. 
One raid in 1874 swept from Victoria down to Refugio 
and another in the next year, the Penascal Raid, 
swept from Corpus Christi down to present-day 
Raymondville. The Victoria-Refugio region had also 
been the scene of racial and economic conflict 
between Anglo ranchers and Tejano landholders for

App.19



years. The conflict culminated in a vigilante raid in 
1874 after a heinous crime against an Anglo rancher 
and his wife. According to land lawyer and historian 
Hobart Huson, “Several hundred ranchmen and 
cowboys from Refugio and Goliad Counties met on 
Rosilla Prairie with the view of exterminating all 
Mexicans in the section, commencing at Goliad.” To 
begin with, they shot prominent Tejanos Marcelo and 
Antonio Moya, and slit the throat of their father, the 
Moya family patriarch. In the dispossession, Huson 
reported a mass exodus of the surviving Tejano 
widows and children to Mexico after the incident, 
saying “The roads were lined with ox-carts and 
wagons headed west.” Goliad County Sheriff Phil 
Fulcrod, judges, and other militia and government 
officials were directly involved in the above 
mentioned raids. The perpetrator of the initial 
murder was later identified and hanged, but the 
vigilantes admitted that they still “were desperate for 
revenge.” When they later heard another rumor that 
Mexicans had committed a murder a few miles south 
on the Nueces River, they rode overnight the sixty 
miles to Corpus Christi to enroll in that posse. (Dobie 
1929, pp. 73 -  80, 125; Huson 1953, I p. 471, II p. 214; 
U.S. Congress 1876, p. xviii)

In Corpus Christi a vigilante committee of about 
one hundred Anglos set out ostensibly to drive off the 
“Mexicans” on large land grants south of Corpus 
Christi. For several months prior to the raids, famous 
rancher Richard King had stirred passions against 
several large neighboring Tejano ranches around the 
Penascal Ranch, located about sixty miles south of 
Corpus Christi. These ranches were home to about 
five hundred Tejano men, women, and children 
described by Texas Ranger N.A. Jennings, as 
“peaceful Mexican farmers and stockmen who had

App.20



lived all their lives in Texas.” King instructed the 
vigilante posse to elect leaders—about twenty men— 
who should go first to Brownsville to be deputized. 
With their instructions, [8] and acting under color of 
law, the vigilantes then masked and painted 
themselves, and systematically killed all of the 
Tejano patriarchs and “every adult male that was 
present.” As the raiders burned one ranch after 
another, the women and children fled into the 
chaparral and hid throughout the night. Many of the 
men's bodies were never found, and were presumed to 
have been “dumped in the bay.” When Texas Ranger 
Captain L. H. McNelly arrived to investigate the 
raids, he wrote back to Austin, “The acts committed 
by Americans are horrible to relate; many ranches 
have been plundered and burned, and the people 
murdered or driven away; one of these parties 
confessed to me in Corpus Christi as having killed 
eleven men on their last raid.”

Many of the Tejano lands involved in the Penascal 
Raid were incorporated into the King and Kenedy 
ranch empires, as the women and children and other 
Tejano rancheros fled across the border to Mexico. 
According to one account: “They departed taking their 
money and personal possessions with them, and often 
they were found dead along the way with their money 
missing.” (Taylor 1934, 57; Cheeseman 1998, 88; 
Mexico 1874, pp. 18, 19, 68, 106; Hidalgo County, A, 
149; Dunn 1932, pp. 9, 63; Villareal 1972, pp. 16-19) 
In the Refugio raid and in the Corpus Christi raid, 
the Anglo vigilantes included law officers, and were 
acting under color of law. The marauders were 
deputized before conducting the Penascal raid, and 
some even claimed to be Texas Rangers. In neither 
case, however, were there any arrests of the 
perpetrators. (Cheeseman 1998, 88) In his book, The

App.21



Texas Rangers, Walter Prescott Webb stated that the 
“reign of terror” reached its peak at the turn of the 
century, when between 500 and 5,000 Tejanos died, 
“many of them innocent, at the hands of the local 
posses , peace officers, and Texas Rangers.” (Webb 
1991, 176n.)

After the Revolution and even after the U.S.-Mexico 
War, the state government continued to undermine 
Tejano land title claims. The legislature passed Texas 
Land Relinquishment Law of 1852, for example, 
requiring that all unarchived lands granted before 
1835 be surveyed and filed with the Texas General 
Land Office by 1853 or be declared null and void. 
Later, the Texas Constitutions of 1869 and 1876 
included the same requirements, placing the burden 
of proof on the Tejano title holders. The state 
legislature imposed restrictions on Tejano rights to 
testify. When Tejano appelants came to Austin to 
plead their land cases, they were told that a 
committee rule required that in order for Tejanos or 
other non-whites to testify, “their character for truth 
and veracity had to be established by the testimony of 
two white men.” (Rubio 1986, 114; Texas, State 
Gazette, Vol. II, No. 6.)

[9] One of the most questionable government 
actions in the administering of Tejano lands was 
known as the Bourland-Miller Commission of 1850. 
As Anglo-American capitalists and land speculators 
stimulated a growing demand for Tejano lands, the 
state legislature sent two commissioners across the 
Tejano ranching frontier to verify and record the 
titles to as many Tejano lands as possible. The state's 
interest was clearly to facilitate land transfers from 
the old Tejano land-holding fmailies into Anglo 
hands. After the commissioners collected the titles, 
and loaded them for sea transport from Brownsville

App.22



to Austin through the Gulf of Mexico, the Steamship 
Anson caught fire and sank off the coast of 
Matagorda, destroying all the Tejano land titles. 
(Greaser and de la Teja 1992, pp. 455, 457n.) The 
most questionable role of the state government was 
not so much in the coincidental fire, but in actively 
promoting the sale of the lands of a targeted class of 
citizens through legislation and a special commission.

The end of the 19th century would find the Tejanos 
inundated not only by continuing Anglo-American 
immigration from the United States, but by a wave of 
emigrant Mexicans fleeing the violence of the 
Mexican Revolution. Incoming Anglo-Americans 
continued to acquire Tejano lands in South Texas, 
which they called “The Rio Grande Valley.” As 
immigrants themselves, the Anglo Americans 
ironically made little distinction between the native 
Tejano citizens of Texas and the flood of immigrant 
Mexican nationals. By taking control of the county 
government, Midwestern Anglo-American commercial 
farmers re-structured the county taxes, budgets, road 
and bridge construction, and education to suit the 
farmer at the expense of ranchers and the Mexican- 
American population. Landless Tejanos and Mexican 
immigrants were all categorized by Anglo-Americans 
as “Mexicans” and seen as cheap labor with no 
distinction as to social status, education, or 
citizenship. Just as they re-structured the county 
government to suit themselves, Anglo Americans re­
structured Texas history and culture to rationalize 
their disfranchisement of the Mexican American as a 
laboring class with limited educational or political 
freedom. In the period of 1900 to 1920, the Anglo- 
American commercial farmers began to claim 
economic and political power from Anglo ranchers

App.23



and Mexican Americans alike. This period was called 
Progressivism.

20th Century
Throughout the 20th century, the racialization of 

politics and the economy had continued to the point 
that Texas had what amounted to a caste 
stratification with Anglo-Americans in dominant 
positions and Mexican Americans generally in 
subordinate positions. One 1965 study [10] of Texas 
racial relations stated that “Anglos have always been 
on top . . and the Mexican Americans isolated on the 
bottom.” (Civil Rts. Educ. Study, 11) A distorted 
historical transcript had been developed by 1900 that 
depicted the Anglo-American as the liberator of Texas 
from a heathen Mexican population. The historical 
transcript was articulated by policy leaders and the 
public in order to rationalize the political and 
economic subordination of Mexican Americans. As an 
example, in a 1911 state vote on prohibition, state 
leader Thomas Ball in Brownsville said he opposed 
“. . . the Mexican vote, which Texas in 1836 declared 
unfit to govern this country.” (Anders 1982,, 101) 
Even a poor Anglo cotton picker used history to 
elevate himself above Mexican Americans, saying 
“The study of the Alamo helps to make more hatred 
toward the Mexicans. . . if a man . . slaughters your 
kinsman. . . I am in favor of not letting Mexicans 
come over and take a white man’s labor.” (Montejano 
1987, 224)
The Progressive Era

During the 1900 and the 1920s Progressive Era, 
Anglo-Americans began to refine their political 
control over the Mexican Americans. In Texas, 
“Progressive” meant anti-Mexican. By the turn of the 
century, Mexican Americans had found refuge under

App.24



the protection of political bosses. The political bosses 
protected them from Texas Ranger violence and 
Anglo-American raids, and then controlled their 
voting for state and federal politicians, who gave tacit 
consent. The Progressives were middle-class Anglos. 
As one authority said, “Most came from the ranks of 
the Anglo, Protestant majority and looked with 
contempt upon the social standing, life-styles, 
religion, and moral values of the Hispanic 
population. . .” In order to strip the political bosses of 
their power, then, middle-class Anglo-American 
professionals blamed the Mexican American victims 
of the system, and made a concerted effort to 
disfranchise the Mexican Americans. One of the most 
powerful political bosses was Archie Parr. In 1908, 
Parr took a seat on Duval Co. Commissioner’s Court. 
He used the County Treasury as “slush fund” and 
gave his constituents short-term work on road and 
bridge projects. Then, he simply deducted their poll 
tax fees from their wages, and directed their voting. 
Parr and other bosses like Jim Wells used a device 
called “Corraling voters” to amass enough votes to 
elect state and federal officials. The political 
machines under Parr, Jim Wells, and Robert Kleberg 
worked in close cooperation with state and federal 
officials who benefited from their control of the 
South Texas votes such as Col. Edward M. House, 
Lyndon B. Johnson, and John Nance Garner. As 
presidential advisor to Woodrow Wilson, Col. House 
gave Jim Wells “a near monopoly over the 
distribution of state patronage” in [11] the Valley, 
according to one historian. (Anders 1982, pp. 13, 103, 
176) These slating and corralling devices were used 
by political bosses in many other cities of Texas as 
well. As an example, San Antonio had the Callaghan 
political machine which reportedly paid the poll tax 
for Mexican Americans, and instructed them on

App.25



voting. More blatantly, the Good Government League 
of post-World War II San Antonio regularly slated the 
city council candidates. Although it slated a middle- 
class Mexican American as a token, it limited the 
Mexican American representation to that one token 
position, which was far below their percentage of the 
electorate. (Garcia 1981, 157; Rosales, 2000, 5 & 13.)

Gerrymandering became a method used by Texas 
policy makers at the highest levels to segregate 
Mexican American voter groups. This method was 
later used to segregate Mexican-American laborers 
and public school students. In order to secure their 
Mexican American voting blocks, political bosses used 
gerrymandering of electoral districts and created 
whole counties. Indeed, 13 of South Texas counties 
were created by these bosses for that purpose. Some 
counties were created by Progressive politicians to 
counter the political bosses. As an example, Ed C. 
Lasater took Brooks County from “Mexican” Starr 
County in order to secure Brooks for his “thrifty and 
idustrious farmers from Iowa, Kansas, Texas, 
Nebraska, Indiana, . .” Likewise, D.W. Glasscock 
broke Jim Hogg County from Zapata County in order 
“to get out from under the domination of the Mexican 
vote.” Meanwhile, Parr and other bosses made other 
efforts to carve Duval, Nueces, Jim Wells, Kleberg 
counties to concentrate their Mexican American 
voting blocs. Within a few years, the South Texas 
counties doubled from 7 to 13. As an example, at the 
turn of the century, U.S. Congressman John N. 
Garner was a member of the House Committee on 
Congressional Districts and “the subcommittee that 
drafted the initial version of the reappointment 
bill. . . the House measure confirmed exactly to 
Garner's and Wells' specifications . . created a district 
that included Uvalde and the Trans-Nueces but

App.26



excluded San Antonio.” (Anders, Boss, 110; 
Montejano 1987, 131) By the end of the century, 
gerrymandering of Mexican Americans had proven to 
be an effective and accepted practice by Anglo 
American policy makers at all levels of Texas 
government.

Throughout the Progressive Era, Anglo idealogues 
and politicians explicitly articulated their rationale of 
disfranchising what University of Texas professor 
called the “dangerous” Mexican vote. And during the 
1914 gubernatorial race, the San Antonio Daily 
Express quoted prohibitionist candidate Thomas Ball 
as supporting reforms to disfranchise Mexican 
Americans. He said that “liquor and Mexicans” would 
both “rest together forever in death.” And in the [12] 
1918 general election for Texas Senator, candidate 
D.W. Glasscock stated that his campaign was “to get 
the Anglo Saxon on top.” (Anders, Boss, 241; 
Montejano 1987, pp.131, 145-7)

One of the main devices created specifically to 
disfranchise Mexican Americans in Texas was the 
poll tax. The 1903 Terrell Election Law required 
payment of the poll tax between October and 
February on the assumption that Mexican Americans 
were too poor or forgetful to comply. The state 
reformer, Terrell, himself said the law was intended 
to close “the flood gates for illegal voting as one 
person could buy up the Mexican and Negro votes.” 
His proponents said Mexican Americans could not 
afford the poll tax, would lose receipts, or not pay so 
far in advance. Using community organizations called 
the “Good Government League,” the Progressive 
reformers articulated their intent. In 1913, for 
example, State Rep. Joseph O. Boehmer of Eagle Pass 
established the Ballot Purification League, and 
submitted a bill admitting his intent was “to

App.27



disqualify the Mexicans of the Western and Lower 
Rio Grande Counties.” Historian Evan Anders has 
argued that “The practical effect of most of these 
proposals would be to curtail the voting of 
impoverished, illiterate blacks and Mexican 
Americans.” (Anders 1982,, 102 (Montejano, Anglos , 
143)

The Progressives also used restrictive laws, such as 
the 1918 state law to eliminate interpreters at the 
polls. They used the “White Man’s Primary” to 
exclude Mexican American voting in the Democratic 
Primary elections, which in a one-party state, pre­
empted the general election. In establishing the 
White Man’s Primary Association (WMPA) in 1904, 
the State Democratic Executive Committee required 
an oath, declaring “I am a white person and a 
Democrat.” The Dimmit Co. WMPA was so effective 
that Carrizo Springs Javelin in June 12, 1914 said it 
“absolutely eliminates the Mexican vote as a factor in 
nominating county candidates, though we graciously 
grant the Mexican the privilege of voting for them 
afterwards.” The newspaper added that it was for 
labor and “race control” to protect the “purity of Anglo 
women.” (Montejano, Anglos , 143-4)

In many cases, violence was used by Anglo- 
American mobs and state and local officials against 
Mexican American voters. The Texas Rangers had 
traditionally intimidated Mexican Americans, and 
were used specifically to discourage their voting after 
1900. As an example, Progressive Gov. Wm. Hobby in 
1918 created the “Loyalty Ranger Force” of 1,000 
special rangers, and 3 rangers in each county to 
supplement Texas Rangers. The Rangers gave 
“armed support” to Democrat machines in “partisan” 
conflicts. In the senatorial race that year, Texas 
Ranger William Hanson (former U.S. Marshall, and

App.28



organizer of Loyalty Rangers) and several [13] 
rangers discouraged Mexican American voters in 
Corpus Christi, telling them that they would “go to 
prison if they were illiterate and still tried to vote.” 
Hanson then sent several rangers to Duval County 
for “management of the primary election.” One 
official reported that “only about sixtyodd Mexicans” 
voted in Nueces County elections as a result. A South 
Texas lawyer, Marshall Hicks, testified in Glasscock 
v. Parr (1919) in the minutes of the Texas Senate 
Journal that his opponent, D.W. Glasscock had the 
Texas Rangers selectively “investigate” Mexican 
American voters, and spread “a spirit of terrorism 
among those Mexican people.” Or as Evan Anders 
said in his study, “the mere presence of armed 
Rangers at the polling stations had an intimidating 
effect on the Hispanic population” in Cameron, 
Duval, Nueces, Hidalgo, and Starr Counties. 
(Montejano 1987, 145-7; Anders, Boss, pp. 252, 257, 
263)

In 1916, during the turmoil of the Mexican 
Revolution immigration, Anglo political leaders in the 
Valley held meetings, and stirred Anglo fears of 
Mexican American uprisings. But, according to 
Anders, “the Anglos’ suffering and hardships paled 
beside the horrors that they inflicted upon the 
Hispanic population.” Anglos used vigilante action, 
and “a bloodbath that claimed from two hundred to 
three hundred Hispanic lives ensued.” In widespread 
lynchings, Anglo gangs burning Mexican American 
houses, ranches, and hanged 15 in San Benito. Local 
officials participated in lynchings. “The most blatant 
abusers of police power were the Texas Rangers, 
according to a legislative committee report in 1919. 
The Texas Rangers “confiscated the arms of Hispanic 
residents” in Cameron County, violating their Bill of

App.29



Rights, and leaving them defenseless. In one small 
town, the Rangers dragged 15 Mexican Americans 
from their homes, and executed them in front of their 
families. They reportedly killed 102 Mexican 
Americans in “cold-blooded murder.”

A few years later, a momentous incident occurred 
called the “Hidalgo County Rebellion.” In this 
incident, crowds of Anglo reformers demonstrated 
and rioted against Mexican American voters at 
elections to supplement the Texas Ranger brutality. 
In 1928, the Weslaco barrio election box was assailed 
by the Republican “Good Government League” which 
led the “Rebellion” cited in a U.S. Congressional 
investigation. According to the federal report, a crowd 
of 3,000 to 4,000 Anglos at the polling place shouted 
“Don’t let those Mexicans in to vote. Throw them out” 
while men with shotguns protected the crowd. An 
estimated 200 to 300 regular Mexican American 
voters “did not show up at all.” One former Texas 
Ranger, Hidalgo County Sheriff A.Y. Baker, became 
the Democrat boss of the county, and was reputed to 
have committed election fraud and large-scale graft. 
When State Rep. J.T. Canales protested [14] the 
violence and the use of Loyalty Rangers in the 1919 
legislature, he was given a death threat by Ranger 
Frank Hamer as he walked up to the capitol building 
in Austin. In the legislature, Rep. Canales pressed 
his demands, accusing the Rangers of covering up 
their atrocities. (Anders, Boss, pp. 224-6, 239, 269; 
Montejano 1987, 147)

Years later, scholars and organization leaders 
would blame these widespread events for a 
disaffected Mexican American electorate. Many years 
after the Progressive Era, Mexican Americans 
continued to live under the systematic discrimination 
established in Texas by the Progressive politicians.

App.30



The segregated schools, the poll tax and voting 
intimidation, and the job discrimination continued as 
the status quo in Texas from the 1920s through the 
1960s. The only major changes during the Depression 
Era were the federal programs of President Franklin 
D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Ironically, even though the 
New Deal provided for jobs, farm price 
restabilization, and old-age pensions, the New Deal 
programs tended to exclude the Mexican Americans. 
For example, the Civilian Conservation Corps often 
neglected Mexican American young men, the 
Agricultural Adjustment Act displaced the Mexican 
American sharecroppers by making it more profitable 
for land owners to leave their land fallow rather than 
employing sharecroppers, and the Social Security Act 
gave a guaranteed retirement to all Americans except 
agricultual labor and domestic workers, most of 
whom, in Texas, were Mexican Americans. Scholar 
Juan Gomez-Quinones has stated that the absence of 
Mexican Americans at all levels of appointed 
positions before 1970 is major indicator of their 
exclusion from the democratic process in Texas. And 
even though Mexican American voting had increased, 
Willie Velasquez of San Antonio, the founder of the 
Southwest Voter Registration Education Project 
(SVREP) stated that “Clearly, past discriminatory 
practices have hindered voting.” Velasquez began in 
1974 to register Mexican American voters. He found 
that he had to file several law suits in order to seek 
enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, and to re­
structure local voting districts which had been 
Gerrymandered. (Gomez-Quinones 1994, pp. 155, 
166, 172).

Labor Controls
Early in the 20th century, Texas state and local 

officials began to relate labor control over the

App.31



Mexican American population to social and political 
control. One South Texas superintendent explicitly 
stated that the state officials condoned minimal 
education of “the lower element” [Mexican 
Americans] specifically to control them in the labor 
force. “We don’t need skilled or white-collared 
Mexicans. . . There isn’t a concerted effort against 
them but the white- [15] collar man is not a common 
laborer.” Another school official said he complied with 
local growers to keep the Mexican American 
population out of school, saying “. . it is up to the 
white population to keep the Mexican on his knees. . . 
This does not mix very well with education.” 
(Montejano 1987, 192-3)

As Anglo-American businessmen and government 
officials sought to maximize their profits in using the 
Mexican Americans as a labor force, they developed a 
systematic web of formal and informal labor control 
devices. Recruitment of foreign nationals and 
domestic workers helped to build a labor surplus to 
drive wages downward and to displace the risk factor 
of production onto the labor force itself. As an 
example 6 major labor recruiting agencies working on 
the Texas-Mexico border in 1907-8 recruited 16,479 
Mexicans for railroad construction alone. Other 
agencies recruited Mexican and Mexican American 
workers for the cotton industry and mining in West 
Texas. The railroads and agribusinesses made no 
distinction between citizen and foreign national. Both 
classes of Mexican American were subjected to the 
same state and local labor controls. (Foley 1997, 44; 
Daniel, FEPC, 128)

Other labor controls included vagrancy laws, 
indebtedness, and county passes. By 1927, Willacy 
County was implementing Vagrancy Laws enforced 
by the county sheriff, the Justice of the Peace, and

App.32



the County Attorney. They systematically arrested 
Mexican American laborers traveling in search of 
higher wages for not having the approved “county 
passes” signed by an Anglo employer or county 
official. The Mexican American workers were 
convicted, and paroled as “convict labor” to Anglo- 
American growers. When asked about the legality of 
these controls, a U.S. Dept, of Justice agent 
rationalized it, saying it was necessary at harvest 
time. To support the growers, the state government 
co-ordinated the labor control devices with them and 
the South Texas chambers of commerce. In 1927, the 
state legislators pressed the Texas State Employment 
Division to assist the growers. The legislature passed 
the Emigrant Labor Agency Laws to keep the 
Mexican American labor force from being recruited by 
out-of-state recruiters. The state controls included 
requirements that out-of-state recruiters pay 
prohibitive bonds, fees, and taxes. And in 1934, the 
Texas Farm Placement Service began to maintain 
check points on highways in order to direct Mexican 
American labor to farmers. In so doing, the state 
government helped to create local labor surpluses to 
drive wages down, and ostensibly to prevent migrants 
from “aimless wandering” in search of higher wages. 
(Montejano 1987, pp. 205, 210- 12)

[16] South Texas agribusinessmen began to use 
Taylorism and professional management in their 
control of labor. In South Texas, Taylorism meant 
control of the Mexican American labor force. By 1930, 
Corpus Christi led the nation in cotton production 
and profits mainly through the complete control of 
the large Mexican American labor force. These 
commercial farmers established a system of controls 
that included racial stratification of labor, company 
towns and armed guards. In 1929, for example the

App.33



Chapman Ranch had 18,000 acres in Nueces County. 
It gave Anglo-American farmers 160-acre plots to be 
worked by Mexican American workers, who 
comprised 97% of the labor force, but received no land 
plots. Chapman divided his workers by race, 
providing one Anglo school and one “Mexican School” 
for his Mexican American workers, separate 
churches, a hardware store, a grocery store, and a dry 
goods store where workers were required to pay with 
his company scrip as a condition of the oral 
employment agreement. Mexican American laborers 
were issued coupons which they had to use in ranch 
store, ostensibly for “salary advance,” but in reality to 
keep them in debt as a further control device.

Even larger was the Taft Ranch near Corpus 
Christi. Around 1900, near Corpus, the 200,000-acre 
Taft Ranch comprised 39% of the San Patricio County 
population. Like the Chapman Ranch, owner Charles 
Phelps Taft kept his Mexican American laborers 
separate from Anglos, who were also given 160-acre 
farms. His workers were also kept in company towns, 
provided housing, grocery stores, dry good stores, 
separate schools, and separate churches. The Taft 
Ranch hired only Mexican Americans with a wife and 
children in order to maintain more stable workers. 
The Mexican American workers lived on the Taft 
Ranch under a shadow of armed intimidation. The 
Ranch sponsored “rifle clubs” consisting of its Anglo- 
American farmers and overseers. It also admittedly 
had a machine gun, and issued the Anglos .30-.30s 
and .38 caliber pistols. The Anglo overseers held 
target practice on the ranch ostensibly to preclude 
any possibility of an “an uprising of some sort” among 
Mexican American workers. Charles Phelps Taft, the 
owner, was Pres. William Howard Taft’s brother. He 
kept his Mexican American workers in debt. He

App.34



periodically “rounded up” his Mexican American and 
black workers and voted them for President Wm. 
Howard Taft, and other selected candidates. (Foley 
1997, pp. 81, 119, 121-7, 132-3) The Chapman Ranch 
and Taft Ranch developed models of labor control 
that were replicated in varying forms across the 
state. In 1916, for example, the Commission on 
Industrial Relations reported that Mexican American 
agricultural workers were chained and guarded by 
armed men with shotguns. One grower told the 
commission that Mexican Americans were better 
labor because “you can treat them in any manner and 
not be [17] bothered with lawsuits. . .” Other 
industries also implemented a dual wage system for 
its Anglo and Mexican American workers as late as 
1942 when the War Production Board reported that 
“the differentials between Mexican and American 
white workers is as high as $1 per shift.” (Foley 1997, 
49; Daniel, FEPC, 77)

In labor controls as in political control, the Texas 
Rangers played a prominent role by intimidating the 
Mexican American workers to preclude organization 
or protest. In 1913, for example, Texas Rangers broke 
a strike in El Paso where Mexican Americans made 
up 60% of the work force. The 650 smelter workers 
went on a strike, which was broken by Texas Rangers 
using violence and hired company henchmen. 
Likewise, in 1966, when national civil rights leader 
Cesar Chavez came to the Rio Grande Valley to 
support a Mexican American farmworker strike, the 
Texas Rangers used intimidation, arrests, and 
violence to harass the strikers. (Gomez-Quinonez 
1994, 79, 255; Daniel, FEPC, 128) Throughout this 
period, government investigations continually 
reported discriminatory practices against Mexican 
American workers. Even in World War II, the Fair

App.35



Employment Practices Commission found a dual 
wage system in the Texas oil industry. Some Texas 
companies, like Humble, Sinclair, and Shell refused 
to hire Mexican Americans. And unions like the CIO 
and other unions collaborated with the companies to 
establish the dual wage systems, segregated work 
areas, separate occupational categories, and 
restrictions of Mexican Americans in skilled work. 
The Dallas office Director, Dr. Carlos Castaneda, 
found that Texas mining and oil companies used 
token Mexican American workers “to avoid an open 
charge of discrimination.” His conclusion, however, 
was that “Discrimination against the Latin-American 
worker has not been eliminated.” (Zamora 1992, 327; 
Daniel, FEPC, 150)

Even after the war, as Mexican Americans took 
10,000 of the 35,000 jobs at Kelly A.F.B. in San 
Antonio, the U.S. Commission of Civil Rights 
reported that they “continued to be concentrated in 
the lower pay scales. . .” through a network of 
discriminatory devices. Typically, an Anglo manager 
would Pass-Over” a Mexican American worker for an 
Anglo on hiring and promotions. The personnel 
evaluation system was found to use a “Dummy 
Profile’ for promoting and hiring pre-selected Anglos. 
Many of the Mexican American workers were 
performing skilled jobs at lower rate of pay. (U.S. 
Com. Civ Rts, Employment, 3; Montejano 1987, 269) 
In agriculture, the farm ownership patterns had seen 
a replacement of the family farm by corporate 
agribusiness. Likewise the Mexican American 
agricultural force changed to a migrant force. The 
Mexican American farm labor force became an 
interstate migrant labor force [18] which increased 
“from 95,000 in 1963 to 129,000 in 1966.” One study 
of the migrant force of 350,000 in the Lubbock area in

App.36



1939 was 85% Mexican American. And according to a 
recent study, conditions for Mexcican American 
migrant workers have not improved significantly. 
The Texas Office of Rural Health reported recently 
that their work is still “the highest of all industries in 
work-related deaths, with a rate of 52 deaths per 
1,000,000 workers.” (Montejano 1987, 273; Tijerina 
1979, 38; Richardson 1999, 33)

Mexican Towns/ Barrios
Another device promoted by business and local 

governments to keep Mexican American workers 
separate was the formation of an exclusively Mexican 
American town or neighborhood. As Anglo-American 
farmers migrated into the Rio Grande Valley from 
midwestern states in the 1890s, they used race as a 
device to segregate not only their workers but whole 
towns. They were attracted by land promoters with 
promises of low labor wages and cheap agricultural 
lands, but they rejected the local Mexican American 
culture and population. According to a study of the 
Valley counties, “Racially segregated schools and 
residential patterns emerged” at the turn of the 
century. Many of these segregated or exclusively 
Mexican American towns were planned and 
developed by powerful growers specifically to isolate 
their labor force. In 1910, for example, the Taft 
Ranch built Taft and Sinton on ranch land 
specifically to separate its Mexican American workers 
from its Anglos. Likewise, other South Texas towns 
were developed by growers. Asherton was built as a 
“Mexican Town” by a banker named Richardson. 
Kingsville was segregated by the Kleberg Town & 
Improvement Company. Weslaco was built as a 
segregatd town in 1921 by municipal ordinance using 
the Missouri Pacific Railroad tracks. McAllen was 
segregated by the formal policies of the Real Estate

App.37



Board and the Delta Development Company. (Anders 
1982, 142; Montejano 1987, 167)

In the larger cities of the state, Mexican immigrnts 
and native Mexican American citizens alike were 
simply not allowed to settle within the city limits. 
Segregated into barrios, they were commonly denied 
access to business, to neighborhoods, to education, 
and to city services. As the new Texas cities grew, 
they took the shape of a segregated community. 
When Mexican Americans returned to Austin after 
the vigilante raids, for example, they were allowed to 
remain primarily as a disfranchised labor force living 
in the county dump. Those in Dallas, Lubbock, and 
Houston settled across the railroad tracks near the 
railroad depots or stockyards. In this racially and 
politically segregated barrio, the Mexican American 
citizenry of Texas developed an [19] unequal status 
which lingers to the present day as a result of the 
decades of denial. In general, the Texas barrios were 
described as deplorable, isolated from city services, 
and lacking political representation.

The Dallas barrio, for example, developed along 
Mill Creek across the Trinity River from downtown 
Dallas after the Civil War. Mexican immigrants were 
housed near the railroad depot and Mexican 
American citizens moved into the barrio called 
Cement City because of the cement works. It was 

described as having dilapidated houses with “No 
sewage no sanitation. . . worse conditions.” A 
newspaper report said in 1944 that “Every such 
congested, overcrowded, unhealthful center is like a 
canker or eating sore on our fair city.” It added that 
the substandard housing was “little improved” 
through the decades of the 20th century, and were 
‘‘hardly fit for housing livestock on a farm.” Indeed 
Little Mexico,” as the Dallas barrio was later called,

App.38



ranked first in tuberculosis deaths, pellagra deaths, 
and overall death rate for the city. As stated above, 
these conditions would leave a lingering effect on the 
Mexican American community. A report, U.S. Census 
Tract X of Dallas in 1970 showed that the barrio had 
the lowest education and income levels, and the 
highest infant mortality rate in Dallas as late as 
1970. (Achor 1978, pp. 34, 35, & 63)

Through the decades, Dallas continued to develop a 
“sharp division between the Anglo and non-White 
population,” the highest of thirty-five southwestern 
U.S. cities according to a report in 1960. After urban 
renewal and school desegregation in the 1970s, 
statistics revealed that “Dallas has still maintained 
separate patterns of settlement.” As a result of the 
economic and racial segregation, one study reported 
in 1972 that “Minority access to political power is 
severely limited—in fact, it was almost nonexistent 
for many years.” The study indicated that from 1931 
to the early 1970s, an informal council of Anglo 
political leaders called the Dallas Citizens Council 
used its political arm, the Citizens Charter 
Association (CCA) to influence local elections. In so 
doing, the CCA denied Mexican American access to 
equitable representation in local elections, and 
virtually prohibited broader representation in state 
and federal legislation. The CCA typically slated pro­
business Anglo candidates for all elections and never 
had a single Hispanic in any of the eighteen Texas 
legislative districts, three state senatorial districts, or 
six U.S. congressional districts in Dallas County.

The Mexican American community of Dallas began 
to organize for democratic activities, and was 
“radicalized” by a singularly revealing incident in 
1972. Barrio residents had long complained of police 
brutality, but little evidence could be found to verify

App.39



it until a Dallas [20] policeman shot a Mexican 
American child in an interrogation. The police officer, 
Darrel Cain, used his .357 magnum revolver to force 
a confession from 12-year-old Santos Rodriguez (later 
found to be innocent) in a deadly game of Russian 
roulette. The gruesome incident agitated Mexican 
Americans across the state, although it had no 
impact on the segregation or political representation 
for the Dallas barrio. (Ibid., pp. 50, 59. 60, 148) 
Indeed, Mexican American children were still 
attending segregated schools in Dallas in the 1950s. 
Not only were they restricted to four segregated 
elementary schools, their only high school until 1960 
was Crozier Tech, a vocational school. A turbulent 
desegregation of schools in the 1960s seemed to 
exacerbate matters by leading to a massive “White 
Flight” out of the inner city schools. The Dallas 
Planning Department reported thatl00,000 whites 
had fled Dallas to the suburbs between 1968 and 
1973, leaving Dallas Independent School District 
about 50% African American and 20% Mexican 
American. With the “White Flight” went the tax base 
as businesses followed the Anglos to Arlington, Plano, 
and Irving. Later developments have tended to 
transform the inner city area through gentrification, 
but none of the newer trends substantially increased 
Mexican American representation. (Phillips 2006, pp 
127 & 167)

Like Dallas, the first Mexican immigrants and 
Mexican American citizens in Houston moved in with 
the railroads in a segregated neighborhood called “El 
Crisol.’ By 1910 another barrio emerged near the 
railroad depot of the Southern Pacific called El 
Segundo Barrio. The Houston barrio, like other Texas 
barrios, was described as late as World War II as 
having “dismally poor housing conditions” with most

App.40



residents living in “two, three room houses, very 
cheaply constructed of unpainted lumber.” The barrio 
reportedly had little running water or heat, and 
many of its residents living in boxcars with no 
bedding. The Houston school district established 
Rusk Elementary School as the single segregated 
elementary school for Mexican Americans. Rusk was 
known as the “Mexican School.” By the late 1920s 
and 1930s, new barrios grew up in Houston’s Second 
Ward with the largest barrio, Magnolia, near the 
Houston ship channel. All of these barrios had 
segregated schools, that although lacking in physical 
and curriculum advantages, stressed American­
ization and corporeal punishment for speaking 
Spanish. (Rosales 1981, pp. 224 -  248)

By 1875 when the Mexican American population of 
Austin began to recover from the vigilante raids, they 
were allowed to settle only at the edge of town. The 
Aursin barrio was in the city dump where the city 
garbage was dumped over the bluff into the Colorado 
River, presently located at the Congress Avenue 
bridge downtown. As the Mexican American [21] 
population increased, only a few lived outside of the 
city dump grounds, some along the upper reaches of 
Waller Creek at present-day 25th Street. An analysis 
of segregation in Austin between 1875 and 1910 
indicated that although other ethnic groups—even 
the Irish—had integrated into the city, “Not so the 
Mexicans who continued to live . . in other physically 
and socially marginal pockets.” (Manaster 1986, 99) 
Nor were they allowed burial in the city cemetery, 
but outside the cemetery instead, in the pauper’s 
burial ground labeled as the “Strangers’ Ground.” 
(Austin Oakwood Cemetery, Book I) Conditions in the 
city dump were described in a complaint by former 
city Alderman A.J. Zilker in 1899. Zilker reported

App.41



that city dump had collected 10,000 loads of trash in 
the last 15 months alone, including dead animals and 
vegegable matter that created an “unbearable” stench 
for “a large number of people live near the dump. .
(Austin Daily Tribune 1899, p. 4) A university 
sociologist, William B. Hamilton, conducted a social 
survey of Austin in 1913, in which he described the 
Mexican-American neighborhood in the city dump as 
living “in the ‘Dark Ages’ of civic sanitation.” The 
Mexican-American residents lived in “small huts, one 
and two families in a one-room shanty, and little 
children are forced to play out in the dusty street on 
the filthy, dirty creek or river bank where their 
homes are located.” (Hamilton 1913, 9)

By the late 1920s, Austin policy makers had begun 
to realize that they had inadverdently forced the 
Mexican Americans to settle an area that became 
prime real estate on Congress Avenue at the river. 
Their response was to conduct a model of urban 
planning that not only created the first city-planned 
Texas barrio, but to invent the modern American 
model of a housing project. They hired a consulting 
agency which proposed to move the Mexican 
Americans and African Americans out of the city 
dump and out of the Clarksville neighborhood, both 
along the north bank of the river. Specifically, it 
proposed moving them out of the now “desireable” 
area for construction of a proposed Waller Creek 
Driveway and a broad new Congress Avenue. The 
report recognized that the property was “at present 
occupied by very unsightly and unsanitary shacks 
inhabited by negroes. With these buildings removed 
for the trafficway, most of the remaining property 
will be of substantial and more desireable type.” 
Stating that the property “will increase its value 
many times. . .” the report used coded language to

App.42



indicate that the Mexican-American “blighted 
district” was the reason for current low value, but “if 
the reason is removed, the value will increase.” The 
consultants advised the city planners to avoid 
“unconstitutional” attempts like the vigilante raids 
previously used. It suggested that they simply create 
“a negro district, as an incentive to draw the negro 
population to this area” in [22] East Austin to avoid 
duplication of segregated parks, schools, and 
facilities. It also included a suggested removal of the 
Mexican American neighborhood along with the 
Negro population. (Austin 1928, pp. 46 - 57)

The City of Austin adopted the consultant report as 
a “Master Plan” in 1929 “as official city policy the 
goal of concentrating Blacks in East Austin.” It 
segregated municipal services, and in coordination 
with the city planners, “the school system promoted 
the City policy by building all segregated schools.” To 
provide for tacit enforcement of the removal, property 
restrictions in the private sector “prohibited Blacks, 
and in some cases Mexican-Americans from buying or 
renting . . outside East Austin.” (Austin Human 
Relations Commission 1979) Meanwhile, in order to 
entice the minorities to move into the East Austin 
barrio, Honorable U.S. Congressman Lyndon B. 
Johnson introduced a bill authorizing the U.S. 
Housing Authority to fund housing projects “enhance 
the value not only of the surrounding property but of 
all property in Austin.” (U.S. Congress 1933) With 
the federal funds appropriated by Congressman 
Johnson, Austin boasted the “Nation’s First 
Completed [Housing] Project” with three sites 
selected for “separate projects for white families, 
Mexican families, and negro families.” By 1940 and 
1950, Austin had become the most segregated major 
city in Texas based on Index of Dissimilarity. (Austin

App.43



1979, pp. 1-15; Austin Housing Authority 1948, p. 12) 
As the 20* century progressed, Austin segregation 
became even more pronounced. Even after WWII, 
when the returning veterans, Mexican American 
veterans included, the city continued forced 
segregation. Texas Land Commissioner Bascom Giles 
developed two housing sub-divisions in north Austin 
which he promoted as the Duplex Nation and the 
Wilshire Historic District near the Austin Mueller 
Airport. Giles developed the sub-divisions specifically 
for the returning WWII veterans, but he included 
“restrictive covenant which prohibited non-whites 
from owning or residing in the neighborhood.” Thus, 
even returning Mexican American veterans were 
restricted to the same barrio and excluded from the 
modern housing provided for Anglo American 
residents of Austin. (Texas 2006, pp. 15 & 16)

Although segregated from the earliest days of the 
bamo, Austin’s Mexican Americans apparently 
always voted, though in significantly smaller 
percentages than Anglo Americans or even European 
immigrants. The 1867 voter registration records of 
Travis County indicate the 128 Mexican Americans 
registered among the total 4,838 other voters, mostly 
Anglo American, but many fisted as immigrants from 
Germany. Prussia. England. Bavaria. Africa. Ireland, 
some of these fisted as “Naturalized.'' Mexican 
Americans voted in small numbers, but perhaps the
[23] most deleterious effect was caused by the 
implementation of the poll tax. A case study of voting 
in 1933 Austin election illustrates the negative 
impact of the poll tax on Mexican American voting. 
Mexican Americans show significant decline in 
registration and even more decline in voting. Charts 
and tables in this study show less than 3% Mexican 
Americans voted after implementation of the poll tax.

App.44



Analysis also shows that at the same time, according 
to the report that “whites augment their strength . . 
solely at the expense of the Mexican element.” 
(Martin 1933, p. 929) After the poll tax was repealed, 
Austin eligible voter numbers went up from 42,300 to 
71,300. The 1967 election was first election since the 
repeal, and according to the newspaper reports, “The 
turnout was the biggest ever for a city election— 
32,892. . ,” although it still reflected a low percentage 
of eligible voters of only 46%. (Austin American- 
Statesman 1967, p. A-15) Mexican Americans had 
begun to actively campaign for only-Anglo candidates 
with a Mexican American advertising in the 
newspaper promoting their Anglo candidate, but after 
repeal of the poll tax they began to run their own 
candidates like S.J. “Buddy” Ruiz, the first local 
Mexican American candidate for an Austin elected 
post. (Austin American-Statesman 1969)

In order to achieve the residential segregation, 
many other Texas cities used restrictive covenants 
and deed restrictions, specifically directed at the 
Mexican American population. In 1977, one study 
reported that “real estate covenants along racial and 
ethnic fines continue to have substantial effect on 
housing patterns” in Corpus Christi and San Antonio. 
In 1947, later Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez 
organized the Pan American Progressive Association 
(PAPA) to document restrictive housing in San 
Antonio. He reported restrictive covenants in home 
mortgages which effectively prohibited Mexican 
American moving into the more affluent 
neighborhoods of the city. Many other cities created a 
segregated Mexican American section or “barrio” 
using subtle tactics like smaller lot sizes, lower home 
costs, and square footage covenants. These patterns 
quickly established a pattern that racist practices

App.45



would later enforce. In 1920, for example, the 
Lockhart school superintendent said “If a Mexican 
bought a lot among the whites they would burn him 
out.” Many towns openly posted signs that read “No 
lots sold to Mexicans” and “No Mexicans admitted.” 
The practice of segregation led to congestion and 
social problems such as infant mortality and disease. 
As an example, San Antonio, had the highest rate of 
tuberculosis in the U.S. in the 1930s. The denigration 
of the Mexican American as a second-class citizen in 
Texas eventually led to social practices and attitudes 
that were articulated and implemented socially. As 
an example, the distinguished lawyer and State Rep.
[24] J.T. Canales was publicly refered to as the 
“greaser from Brownsville” in 1910 legislative 
session. Across the state, Mexican Americans were 
denied service in restaurants, swimming pools, 
barber shops, and in public. Even after World War II 
in 1946 two Mexican American veterans were refused 
service in Helotes, near San Antonio. The Anglo 
merchant stated that their veteran status had no 
effect on the discriminatory practice. Contemporary 
newspapers indicated that such treatment against 
Mexican American was common “throughout the 
entire state.” (US Comsn. Civ. Rts., Unfinished, 185; 
San Miguel 1987, pp. 15, 68 115; Foley 1997, 42; 
Rosales 2000, 16)

Official Education Policy
Education is one of the most vulnerable areas of 

democratic life to racial discrimination not only 
because it is subject to local prejudices, but also 
because it tends to perpetuate the racial polarization. 
The political, economic, and social segregation in 
Texas during the 20th century had strong 
ramifications in education as well. Indeed, education 
was to a great extent the primary racial advantage in

App.46



those other spheres of life. The destructive 
restrictions against Mexican Americans in Texas 
began shortly after the government was taken over 
by Anglo-American power. In 1841, the Republic of 
Texas Legislature passed a Joint Resolution that 
suspended printing laws in Spanish. Ironically, only 
three years later, it chartered a foreign-language 
German university. In 1856, a law was passed 
allowing Spanish in the courts of Texas only if the 
J.P. and the primary party could not speak English.

In an 1858 amendment to an 1856 school law, the 
state legislature made English the “Principle 
language” of instruction. It strengthened this in 1870 
by requiring English for instruction in all public 
schools. In this racially divided social environment, 
Texas public education developed as an exclusive and 
segregated system at the state and local level. The 
principle of racial segregation was formally 
established in the Texas, Constitution of 1876, which 
stated in Article 7 § 7 that “Separate schools shall be 
provided . .” Many schools interpreted this to apply to 
the Mexican American as well as the Negro. 
Throughout the state, schools excluded Mexican 
Americans until the 1890s. (Taylor 1934, p. 192) 
When they did provide education for Mexican 
American students, many cities across Texas began 
to segregate their Mexican American students into 
separate schools called “Mexican Schools.” Houston, 
San Antonio, and El Paso had “Mexican Schools” by 
the turn of the century. Mexican American 
attendance at these segregated schools became 
mandatory. By 1921, the school board in Alice [25] 
ordered that “all Latin Americans attend Nayer . . 
Anglo Saxons attend Hobbs-Strickland School.” By 
the turn of century, Mexican American students were 
forced by school board policies to bypass neighboring

App.47



Anglo schools to attend Mexican American segregated 
schools. And many of these “Mexican Schools,” offered 
schooling only to the 6th grade. (Garcia 1981, 110; 
Rangel 1972, pp. 315, 367)

By the 1920s, state officials began to issue state­
ments of policy that singled out the Mexican Ameri­
can culture and students for special restrictions. One 
of these officials was Annie Webb Blanton, the state 
superintendent of public instruction. In the 1920s, 
she promoted a policy to make Texas schools teach 
“Americanization,” which was a euphemism for 
Angloconformity. In opposition to the Mexican 
American culture, she proclaimed “if you wish to 
preserve, in our state, the language and the custom of 
another land, you have no right to this.” In response 
to her policy, E.E. Davis and C.T. Gray conducted “A 
Study of Rural Schools in Karnes County,” which 
they published in the University of Texas Bulletin 
#2246 in December, 1922. In the report they stated 
“In general, it should be stated that separate schools 
are preferable for both the Mexican and the 
Americans.” Their reason was that Americans “do not 
like to go to school with the dirty ‘greaser’ type of 
Mexican child.” (Davis 1916, pp. 9, 10, 41-43 pp. 9, 10, 
41-43) This was followed by a report by George A. 
Works, Texas Education Survey Reports, under the 
auspices of the Texas Educational Survey 
Commission in 1925. In this statewide survey, Works 
stated that “it is time to segregate, if it is done on 
educational grounds. . .” (Works 1925, p. 213.) Thus 
segregation received endorsement not only from the 
Superintendent of Public Instruction and the state, 
but from University of Texas scholars as well.

School boards then began to follow a widespread 
practice of neglecting Mexican American student 
enrollment almost completely, condoned by

App.48



Superintendent Blanton. By 1920, 70% of Mexican 
American school-age children in Texas were not 
enrolled as opposed to only 22% of the Anglo non- 
enrolled students, although mandatory school 
attendance had been required by law since the 1880s 
in Texas. In a classic study of education in Texas, 
University of Texas Professor H.T. Manuel in 1928 
found that 40% of the Mexican American students 
were not enrolled at state level as compared to 9% of 
the Anglo students. Manuel found only 4% of the 
Mexican American students were attending junior 
high and high school as opposed to 60% of the Anglo 
students. During this time period, many South Texas 
school officials and principals in Nueces County and 
Dimmit County reported that they simply did not 
enforce Mexican American student enrollment or 
attendance. (San Miguel 1987, pp. 6-7; 24, 32, 49; 
Garcia 1981, [26] 110; Rangel 1972, 315) Much of the 
educational neglect was due to excluding the Mexican 
American students, but much was due to segregation 
in the school district boundaries.

Segregated Districts
The “Mexican School” became a widespread 

phenomenon in Texas education. The various school 
districts segregated their Mexican American 
students, but they provided significantly poorer 
facilities for them. The “Mexican School” segregation 
spread rapidly across the state. In 1930, for example 
over 40 school districts had Mexican schools. A 1942 
study by Wilson Little found 50% of the Mexican 
American students segregated through the 6th grade 
in 122 districts in “widely distributed and 
representative counties” of the state. Few Mexican 
American students went beyond the 6th grade. A 
typical example of the racial stratification in housing, 
labor, and education was seen in Cotulla, where

App.49



future President Lyndon B. Johnson taught at the 
“Mexican School.” In 1928, he taught in Welhausen 
Elementary School for Latin Americans. Across town, 
Amanda Burks Elementary was “limited to Anglo- 
Americans.” In a typical stratification, 80% of the 
population was Mexican American, and barrio 
segregated. LBJ wrote about the racial situation, 
noting that his girlfriend in the neighboring town was 
in the Ku Klux Klan. By the 1940s, whole sections of 
the state had segregated “Mexican School” belts of 
towns, many of these developed specifically by the 
growers to isolate the Mexican Americans. In the 
Lower Valley, Edinburg, Harlingen, and San Benito 
school systems were segregated, while on Hwy. 83, 
Mercedes, McAllen, Mission, Pharr, San Juan, 
Alamo, and Weslaco districts were completed 
segregated. On the Gulf Coast in South Texas, 
Raymondville, Kingsville, Robstown, Kenedy, and 
Taft schools districts were segregated, while in the 
V inter Garden, Crystal City, Carrizo Springs, 
Asherton. and Frio Town were segregated towns with 
segregated schools. (Montejano 1987, 168; Pycior 
1997, 14: San Miguel 1987, 56; Civil Rts. Study, 13)

In the larger cities, the school board policy was to 
segregate whole school districts, or to segregate the 
Mexican American students into predominantly 
Mexican American schools. In 1900 Rusk Elementary 
was established as Houston’s first Mexican school. 
Later, the Houston school board built Lorenzo de 
Zavala. Hawthorne, Dow. Elysian Street, Jones, and 
Lubbock exclusively for Mexican Americans. These 
students were rarely encouraged to go beyond the 6* 
grade. By 1940, however, Mexican Americans began 
to enter high schools, when about 3% of the high 
school students were Mexican American. (San Miguel 
2001, pp. 12, 32) A report for the school year 1942-43

App.50



reported that there were 260,759 “Latin” or Mexican 
American students [27] in Texas or 20% of the white. 
Much of the segregation was, of course, due to the 
initial segregation of the housing and “Mexican 
Towns,’ but much of it was due to outright 
gerrymandering of the district boundaries within a 
city. A survey of superintendents revealed that 
“While many claimed that there was no segregation 
in their schools, some admitted that the drawing-up 
of district boundary lines was deliberately made to 
enclose areas predominantly Latin.” (Kuhr 1971, 73) 
In the study by Wilson Little, he stated that many 
superintendents surveyed were asked why they 
segregated their Latin students. He reported that, “In 
laying out the attendance areas within a given school 
district, therefore, it is not at all uncommon to find 
that one school is attended only by Spanish-speaking 
children and that another school in the same district 
is attended only by Anglo-American students.” As a 
result, he found that “Separate housing for Spanish­
speaking children is a fixed practice in many school 
systems in Texas.” (Little 1994, 59)

After the 1920s, Mexican American students were 
put into “developmental” classes and vocational 
classes, ostensibly because they needed special 
attention. Unfortunately, students were mixed with a 
variety of other students who were blind, spoke 
Spanish-only, were delinquents, or were bright 
students who simply did not like school. The San 
Antonio schools were reported in 1934 to have similar 
segregation. In that year, Alonso Perales and 
Eleuterio Escobar founded the Liga Pro-Defensa 
Escolar or School Improvement League in San 
Antonio. In their study of Mexican American schools, 
they reported statistics comparing West Side Mexican 
schools to the Anglo schools. The Mexican American

App.51



schools had 12,334 students compared to 12,224 
Anglo students. But the Mexican American students 
were in only 11 schools compared to 28 Anglo schools. 
The Mexican American schools had 23 acres of space 
compared to 82 acres for the Anglo school grounds. 
The Mexican American schools had 48 students per 
room compared to 23 Anglo students per room. The 
school funding revealed similar contrast, as the 
school board spent $24.50 for each Mexican American 
student compared to $35.96 average spending per 
Anglo pupil. Similar discriminatory funding was 
revealed in Nueces and Dimmit Counties. In 1934, 
noted historian Paul S. Taylor interviewed a Nueces 
Co. superintendent, who openly admitted that 100% 
of the $18,000 property tax revenue “goes on the 
white school.” (San Miguel 2001, pp. 12, 32; San 
Miguel 1987, 54; Garcia 1989, 66)

Gerrymandering of attendance zones within a 
district became widespread by the late 1940s. Charles 
Ray Akin wrote his Master’s thesis at the University 
of Texas at Austin in 1955 on “A Study of School 
Boundaries in East Austin, Texas” under the 
distinguished education scholar George I. Sanchez. 
Aiken compared the “Mexican School” Zavala and the 
Anglo school [28] Metz in attendance. He stated that 
“there exists the possible basis for a charge of 
segregation, especially since Zavala is 100 per cent 
composed of Latins, although some Anglos live nearer 
here than to Metz where they attend; [and] 4) since 
Metz and Zavala are located within three blocks of 
each other. . .” (Aikin 1951, 28)

Later, in 1954, famed lawyer Gus Garcia led a 
group of Mexican American parents in a petition to 
Dr. J.W. Edgar, State Commissioner of Education on 
whether a “zone line” for the new Gillet Jr. High in 
Kingsville, Texas was legal. The line made the school

App.52



100% Mexican American in attendance. Although the 
Kingsville I.S.D. Supt. George W. Wier said “that the 
zoning boundaries were set up on the basis of student 
load and other factors” and that there was “no 
intention to segregate,” Garcia argued otherwise. In a 
newspaper article, he stated that the line was “more 
crooked than a sick snake.” [“esta mas chueca que 
una vivora enferma”] In another article to the Corpus 
Christi Caller, Garcia accused the school of making 
the school “predominantly ‘Mexican’ either by virtue 
of gerrymandering or geographical location.” (Garcia 
Papers, Mexican American Library, University of 
Texas at Austin)

One of the most salient characteristics in 
discrimination of Mexican Americans in Texas is the 
formal role played by government and school officials. 
There is ample evidence that the state “embraced” 
segregation as a formal concept in education of its 
Mexican American citizens. A Texas Education 
Agency survey in 1921 reported overcrowded Mexican 
American schools and half-day sessions for Mexican 
American students. The state agency made no 
comment or suggestion that the practice was 
inadequate. And throughout the first half of the 20th 
century, the state Attorney General systematically 
approved construction bonds submitted as required 
by the various independent school districts for his 
approval. The bond packages frequently called for 
construction of segregated “Mexican” Schools, but 
received customary approval with no mention or state 
sanctions for the segregated facilities. In 1920, Gov. 
Wm. P. Hobby called a special session to pass 
education laws, including a 1922 law to make English 
the “medium of instruction” in public schools. 
Following the lead of the governor and attorney 
general, the Texas State Teachers Association (TSTA)

App.53



at their 1922 convention, passed a resolution 
opposing any but the English language in school. The 
state’s teachers proclaimed that “Respect for our Flag 
should carry with respect for our Language and 
loyalty to it.” And in 1925, the legislature passed a 
law specifying that schools “shall use the English 
language exclusively” in public education. With the 
formal policy equating English with loyalty, Texas 
schools began exclusively to teach Mexican American 
students hygiene, English, drawing, and music with 
the [29] assumption that they needed to be clean and 
divest themselves of their Spanish accent and “all 
things Mexican.” (Rangel 1972, pp. 318-19; San 
Miguel, 1987 pp. 25, 35, 45)

Mexican American Challenge
As Mexican American parents and civic leaders 

began to pereive the official nature of discrimination 
in the mid-20th century, they initiated formal protests 
and legal challenges to the agencies and government. 
Limited in resources, the Mexican American 
challengers were also limited in their success to end 
discrimination, but they established a legal 
foundation for many advancements. The “first 
challenge” to segregated schools in Texas was in 1928 
in Charlotte, Atascosa County. The parents of 
Amanda Vela protested to the school superintendent 
that she did not live in the predominantly Mexican 
American district, and she did not speak any 
Spanish; therefore, they wanted her to attend the 
Anglo school. The school board trustees resisted it, 
but the superintendent conceded that the Mexican 
Americans should not be segregated. The State 
School Board upheld the superintendent’s decision to 
let her into the Anglo school, notwithstanding the 
trustee’s resistance. The case revealed early on the 
consistent pattern of recalcitrance that local school

App.54



officials would show toward integrated schools. This 
was evident in the school districts of Beeville, Sinton, 
Elgin, Bastrop, and Cotulla when attorney Gus 
Garcia told Atty. Gen. Price Daniel that Texas 
schools were using “a subterfuge to practice 
segregation” after the 1947 Mendez v. Westminster 
case. Gen. Daniel denied the subterfuge.

Then in 1948, Garcia filed a case against the 
Bastrop I.S.D., and the judge found that the district 
was illegally segregating the Mexican American 
students. In its decision, the court added a proviso, 
however, that segregation was acceptable in 1st 
grade “solely for instruction purposes.” The Delgado 
“proviso” led to evasive tactics by many other school 
districts to segregate Mexican American students 
who had dubious need of segregation for instructional 
purposes. In 1957, the League of United Latin 
American Citizens (LULAC) sued Driscoll I.S.D., 
which was using the Delgado proviso to evade the 
court’s ruling. In Driscoll, one little girl who was 
segregated for “instructional purposes” on the basis of 
language was found to be proficient only in English. 
Moreover, the school system had failed to provide any 
“instructional” programs for the segregated students. 
By the mid-1950s, other schools across the state used 
freedom of choice plans, selected student transfer and 
transportation plans, and classification systems 
based on language or scholastic ability to maintain 
segregation. These programs did not [30] enhance the 
education of Mexican Americans in any way, and 
served only to perpetuate and justify the segregation.

After the frustrating legal challenges met only with 
evasion and subterfuge, Mexican American civic 
leaders began a different approach to improving their 
schools. One classic example was the development of 
an early school program called the “Little School of

App.55



400.” This pre-school program was funded personally 
by a Houston restauranteur, and president of 
LULAC, Felix Tijerina in 1955. The Texas legislature 
later adopted Little School of 400 as Texas Pre-School 
Program, but by 1967, only 12% of eligible schools 
were offering it to their students. In 1967 through 
1970, Mexican American students took the initiative 
from their parents and civic leaders to conduct their 
own walk-outs and demonstrations to protest 
insensitive curriculum and discriminatory practices 
in high schools and colleges. Mexican American 
students conducted school boycotts in Crystal City, 
Kingsville, and Edcouch-Elsa. In Kingsville, the 
police arrested 110 Mexican American students, and 
the boycotts yielded minor concessions from the 
school boards, but the actions brought public 
attention to the segregation and discrimination. Also, 
the boycotts spurred the federal government’s 
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare 
(HEW) to take legal action against offending school 
districts. By 1972, HEW gained compliance in many 
South Texas towns like Bishop, Lyford, Los Fresnos, 
Beeville, and Weslaco, and it put Del Rio under court 
order for compliance. (San Miguel 1987, pp. 76, 120, 
123, 134; Rangel 1972, 369)

Legacy
The legacy of 150 years of multi-faceted govern­

ment-condoned discrimination against Mexican 
Americans in Texas is a state educational system 
that maintains a high drop out rate and is still 
characterized by widespread segregation. One of the 
vestiges of the years of “Mexican Schools” is the 
continued formation, construction, and maintenance 
of schools and school districts that are imbalanced 
compared to the number of Mexican American 
students in the community or district. Many Texas

App.56



cities now have whole segregated districts that have 
replaced the old “Mexican Schools.” In Nueces 
County, for example, a 1968 federal agency study 
found racially separated contiguous districts. The 
predominantly Mexican American school district in 
Robstown, which was established by Robert Kleberg 
as a segregated town for his Mexican American 
agricultural labor force, is adjoining the Callalen 
I.S.D., which is predominantly Anglo. In Val Verde 
County, the predominantly Mexican American San 
Felipe [31] I.S.D. adjoins the all-white Del Rio I.S.D., 
and in Bexar County, the predominantly Mexican 
American districts of Edgewood and Harlandale are 
adjoining Anglo districts in San Antonio. By the 
1960s, 50% or more of Mexican American students in 
Texas were segregated. Worse, not only students but 
even Mexican American teachers were also 
segregated or neglected. In 1968, the Anglo/Mexican 
American teacher ratio was reported to be 17:1. 
Mexican American teachers comprised only 4.9% of 
the teachers in Texas. And in the Rio Grande Valley, 
where Mexican Americans comprised 64% of the 
student enrollment, only 7% of the teachers were 
Mexican American. Likewise, Mexican American 
principals comprised only 3.4% of Texas principals. 
These low statistics were found to be similar for 
Mexican American school board members and school 
administrative staff, with Mexican Americans 
overrepresented in the custodial staff numbers. The 
latest studies reveal that even in the 1990s, the 
percentage of Mexican American high school 
administrators was only 65% for schools that were 
over 90% Mexican American in enrollment. (Civil Rts. 
Study, pp. 21, 23, 30, 42; Richardson 1999, 132)

The social and academic vestiges of systematic 
discrimination and segregation of Mexican Americans

App.57



also continue to yield statistics that place Texas in an 
unenviable position among other states. A 1977 
report issued by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights 
reported that 19% of the Mexican Americans over age 
25 in Texas were illiterate. Mexican Americans had 
twice the Anglo unemployment rate, and 15% of them 
still lived in overcrowded housing with inadequate 
plumbing as compared to the Anglo 1.7%. A clear 
holdover to the Texas “Mexican town” was the 70% of 
Mexican Americans in Texas who still lived in 
barrios. In San Antonio, for example, a 1980 study 
concluded that the limited residential access of 
middle-class Mexican Americans to the three affluent 
northern census tracts tended also to limit their 
educational access. (US Comsn. Civ. Rts., Unfinished, 
184; Rosales 2001, 12) In 1981, Judge William Wayne 
Justice found the state bilingual plan inadequate, 
and that measures had not been taken to fully 
“remove the disabling vestiges of past de jure 
discrimination.” He ordered corrections to train 
teachers, identify students in Limited English 
Proficiency (LEP), and to expand the program. And in 
1980, the Southwest Voter Registration and 
Education Project (SVREP) found that Mexican 
Americans were underrepresented on school boards 
in 92% of the 361 Texas school districts where 
Mexican Americans make up over 20% of the school 
population. In many other comparisons, Texas 
educational statistics show evidence of past 
discrimination. A nationally publicized report in 1984 
by the National Commission on Secondary Schooling 
reported that in Texas, the majority of Mexican 
American students are still in “inferior and [32] 
highly segregated schools.” They are “extremely 
overage” and “disproportionally enrolled in remedial 
English classes.” Texas Mexican American students 
still have an unacceptably “high dropout” rate, and

App.58



receive poor preparation for college. Reduced Mexican 
American voter participation has also reflected the 
past discriminatory devices in Texas. Until the 1980s, 
179 of the 214 large cities in Texas had at-large 
electoral systems, or 83%. In general, the at-large 
nonpartisan electoral system combined with the poll 
tax and other obstacles to hinder voter participation 
of Mexican Americans throughout most the twentieth 
century. (San Miguel 1987, pp. xv, 201; Montejano 
1987, 292; Rosales, 2000, 13; U.S. Commission on 
Civil Rights, Texas, 47)

As a result of the historical discrimination against 
Mexican Americans in Texas, they still bear the 
effects of this discrimination which hinders their 
ability to participate effectively in the political 
process. It is clear that the lower rates of voter 
registration, voting, [33] and running for elective 
office are directly related to this discrimination.

App.59



App.60

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The Paradox of Power. Austin: University of Texa, 
1997.

[36] Rangel, Jorge C. and Carlos M. Alcala. “Project 
Report: De Jure Segregation of Chicanos in Texas 
Schools” Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law 
Review 7:2 (March, 1972), pp. 307-91).

Richardson, Chad. Batos, Bolillos, Pochos, & Pelados: 
Class & Culture on the South Texas Border. 
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999.

Rosales, F. Arturo. “Mexicans in Houston: The 
Struggle to Survive, 1908-1975” The Houston 
Review: History and Culture of the Gulf Coast A 
Journal of the Houston Metropolitan Research 
Center, Vol. Ill, No. 2 (Summer, 1981), pp. 224— 
248.

Rosales, Rodolfo. The Illusion of Inclusion: The 
Untold Political Story of San Antonio. Austin: 
University of Texas Press, 2000.

App.64



Rubel, Arthur J. Across the Tracks: Mexican- 
Americans in a Texas City. Austin: University of 
Texas Press, 1966, 36.

Rubio, Abel G. Stolen Heritage: A Mexican-American’s 
Rediscovery of His Family’s Lost Land Grant. 
Austin: Eakin Press, 1986.

San Miguel, Guadalupe, Jr. Brown not White: School 
Integration and the Chicano Movement in 
Houston. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.

San Miguel, Guadalupe, Jr. Let All of them Take 
Heed: Mexican Americans and theCampaign for 
Educatinal Equality in Texas, 1910-1981. College 
Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1987.

Taylor, Paul Schuster. An American-Mexican 
Frontier: Nueces County, Texas. Chapel Hill: The 
University of North Carolina Press, 1934

Teja, Jesus F. de la. A Revolution Remembered: The 
Memoirs and Selected Correspondence of Juan N. 
Seguin. Austin: State House Press, 1991.

Texas Historical Commission. Duplex Nation Historic 
District. Application for National Register of 
Historic Places , Nov. 10, 2006.

Texas Historical Commission. Wilshire Historic 
District. Application for National Register of 
Historic Places , Nov. 10, 2006.

Texas, State Gazette Appendix, Vol. II (1854-55) in 
Camacho Papers, Box 2 “Mexican American 
History” folder. Austin History Center, Austin 
Public Library.

Texas. General Land Office. Abstract of all Original 
Texas Land Titles comprising Grants and 
Locations to August 31, 1942. 8 vols. Austin: State 
of Texas, 1942.

App.65



[37] Tijerina, Andres. History of Mexican Americans 
in Lubbock. Lubbock: Texas Tech University 
Press, 1979.

Travis County Voter Registration List, 1867, 1873, & 
1892. Austin History Center.

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. “Mexican American 
Education Study” Report 1: Ethnic Isolation of 
Mexican Americans in the Public Schools of the 
Southwest, 1971.

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. A Report of the 
Texas Advisory Committee to the U.S. 
Commission on Civil Rights. Employment 
Practices at Kelly Air Force Base, San Antonio, 
Texas. 1977.

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The Unfinished 
Business: Twenty Years Later. Washington, D.C., 
1977.

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Texas: The State of 
Civil Rights, Ten Years Later, 1968-1978. 
Washington, D.C., 1980.

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Representatives. Report No. 343, Texas Frontier 
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U.S. Congress. Hon. Lyndon B. Johnson, Radio 
Address. Congressional Record. 75 Cong., 3rd 
Sess., Jan. 23, 1933. 1-page reprint in HOUSING 
PROJECTS folder. Austin History Center.

Valenzuela, Angela. Subtractive Schooling: U.S.- 
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Villareal, Roberto M. “The Mexican-American 
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Master's thesis, Texas A&I University, 1972.

App.66



Webb, Walter Prescott. The Texas Rangers: A Century 
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Williams, Amelia W. and Eugene C. Barker, eds. 
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Works, George A. Texas Education Survey Reports, 
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Zamora, Emilio. “The Failed Promise of Wartime 
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(January, 1992), pp. 323-350.

App.67



App.68
EXHIBIT TWO

Expert Report of Dr. F. Arturo Rosales 
Gonzalez v. Arizona,

No. 06-CV-01268-ROS (D. Ariz. Dec. 5, 2007)
[1] Report of Dr. F. Arturo Rosales

This report outlines the history of Mexican origin 
people in the State of Arizona, one which has been 
characterized by racial and ethnic repression. My 
academic background provides me with the expertise 
to conduct the research for this project and to write 
the following report. I should add that while much of 
my experience which qualifies me to write this report 
has national and even international breadth, I have 
always included the experience of Mexican people in 
Arizona in my studies.

My present academic position is professor of history 
at Arizona State University (ASU). I received a Ph.D. 
from Indiana University in 1978, an M.A. from 
Stanford University in 1972 and in 1969, I earned a 
B.A. at Arizona State University. Before returning to 
ASU in 1980, I was an assistant professor at the 
University of Houston. My publications and research 
experience on the experience of Mexicans and 
Mexican Americans in the United States has been 
extensive ever since writing a dissertation in 1977 on 
Mexican immigration to the Chicago area and the 
emergence of Mexican colonias in that city. Since 
then I have published seven books. While at the 
University of Houston, I co-edited with Barry J. 
Kaplan Houston: A Twentieth Century Urban 
Frontier (Port Washington: Associated Faculty Press, 
1983), a book which contains a large section on the 
experience of the city's Mexican population. During 
1981-82, as executive director of the NEH funded 
Association of Southwestern Humanities Councils, I



co-edited with David Foster and contributed to 
Hispanics and the Humanities and the Southwest 
(Temper Center for Latin American Studies, Arizona 
State University, 1984) a directory of humanities 
resources dealing with Hispanics in the Southwest. 
In April of 1996, my book Chicanol The History of the 
Mexican American Civil Rights Movement (Houston: 
Arte Publico Press, 1996) a companion text to a 
Public Broadcasting System television series of the 
same name, was named in 1997 an Outstanding Book 
on Human Rights in North America by the Gustavus 
Myers Foundation. In addition, after seven years of 
researching Mexico City and Washington, D.C. 
archives and writing, I published “PobreJRaza!”: 
Violence, , Justice and Mobilization Among Mexico 
Lindo Immigrants, 1890-1936 (Austin, University of 
Texas Press, 1999) a book that analyzes the justice 
system and Mexican immigrants at the beginning of 
this century. Since then Arte Publico Press has 
published two more of my works; Testimonio: A 
Documentary History of the Mexican American 
Struggle for Civil Rights in 2000, and [2] in 2006, A 
Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History. I am now 
working on a new book, tentatively titled “Entering 
Mexico: Repatriates, Tourists, Unwanted Immigrants 
and Colonization Pipe Dreams, 1920-1940.” My 
publication record also includes 30 journal articles 
and essays, 20 book reviews, 5 book chapters and 
over 20 entries in history encyclopedias and 
dictionaries.

My extensive public and academic service also 
equips me to provide this report. I have been director 
of many public programs funded by the Arizona 
Humanities Council and served as a participant or 
organizer in numerous others. I have presented in 
public fora throughout Arizona for ten years as a

App.69



speaker for the Humanities on the Road project, a 
program funded by the Arizona Humanities Council. 
I have also worked as a consultant for numerous 
National Endowment for the Humanities funded 
projects through their Public Programs Division, 
which deal with historical exhibitions in museums, 
libraries, and public schools. Presently I am on the 
advisory committees for the “Reality Works” radio 
project, called “Race and Reconciliation,” and on the 
“American Lynching: A Documentary Feature”
project. My curriculum vita is attached as Exhibit 1 
to this report.
[3] THE REPORT

This report will view the discrimination history of 
United States residents of Mexican descent in 
Arizona. This includes native born citizens, 
naturalized citizens, legal resident immigrants and 
undocumented immigrants. The study delineates five 
areas of discrimination and violations of civil rights.
• LAND AND PROPERTY RIGHTS
• POLITICAL DISENFRANCHISEMENT
• THE JUSTICE SYSTEM AND POLICE 

RELATIONS
• CIVILIAN MISTREATMENT OF MEXICANS
• GENERAL SEGREGATION
• SCHOOL SEGREGATION
• DISCRIMINATION IN THE WORKPLACE

App.70

AGRICULTURE
MINING



HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Today approximately 1,600,000 Hispanics live in 

the state of Arizona out of a total population of six 
million-over 90 percent of this Hispanic grouping is of 
Mexican descent. The population grew to this 
proportion because of vegetative demographic growth 
and in-migration during the late 20th century. The 
dramatic increase in the Hispanic population simply 
reflects the overall growth trend of the state, which in 
the beginning of the 20th century consisted of 
population of only 150,000 persons; of that, 
approximately 12 percent were ethnically Mexican.87

Arizona was part of the vast area ceded to the 
United States by Mexico after that nation lost the 
Mexican American War. The Treaty of Guadalupe 
Hidalgo, signed at the end of the war, granted [4] 
Mexicans who remained in United States territory 
the constitutional rights of citizens and ostensibly 
protected their property, culture and religion, and 
gave them the • right to vote. The territorial 
acquisition delineated in the Treaty of Guadalupe 
HidaJgo did not include the area that is now 
southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, a 
region extending from present-day Yuma along the 
Gila River (25 miles south of Phoenix) all the way to 
the Mesilla Valley, where Las Cruces, New Mexico is 
situated. Under pressure from the Americans, 
General Antonio L6pez de Santa Anna sold this 
region to the United States during his return to 
power in 1853. The Gadsden Treaty perimeters gave 
Mexicans in the purchased territory the same rights

App.71

87 US Census Bureau, “State & County QuickFacts,” Available 
at http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/04000.htm l; 
“Population of Arizona,” New York Times, October 19, 1900, p. 5.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/04000.html


provided by Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.88 The 
majority (1,000) of Mexicans lived in the section of 
the agreement which pertains geographically to 
Arizona in region in the valleys carved out by the 
Santa Cruz and the San Pedro Rivers.

LAND AND PROPERTY RIGHTS
While the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo granted 

constitutional rights to Mexicans who remained in 
the new political jurisdiction of the United States, 
most of the guarantees were not upheld. As a result, 
the economic and political fortunes of Southwest 
Mexicans declined considerably during their 
experience with United States rule. Provisions in the 
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo regarding land holdings 
safeguarded Hispanic properties, but Southwest land 
values rose as the Anglo population increased and as 
the area became more economically developed. 
Inevitably, intense land competition followed and 
Mexican property was coveted by developers and 
Anglo farmers. Thus, divesting Mexicans of their 
property assumed wholesale proportions throughout 
the 19th century.89

Even though all Mexican properties in the Gadsden 
Purchase were purportedly protected by the same 
promises made regarding the protection of Mexican 
properties in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the 
Gadsden Treaty made it more difficult to confirm

App.72

88 James E. Officer, Hispanic Arizona, 1536-1858, (Tucson: 
University of Arizona Press, 1989), p. 133.

89 See Suzanne Forrest, The Preservation o/the Village: New 
Mexico's Hispanics and the New Deal (Albuquerque: University 
of New Mexico Press, 1989) and David J. Weber, Foreigners in 
Their Native Land; Historical Roots o/the Mexican Americans 
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973) for an 
excellent description of the this process.



titles by stipulating that they would be [5] valid only 
if confirming evidence was found in Mexican 
archives.90 M. Escalante, the Mexican consul in 
Tucson in 1878 wrote to the Mexican foreign minister 
accusing Arizona land speculators and squatters of 
defrauding Mexican landowners of their property in 
clear violation of land protection clauses of the Treaty 
of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Gadsden Purchase 
Treaty. According to Escalante, in 1854 the u.s. 
Congress gave the General Surveyor ofthe Territory 
of New Mexico and Arizona the power to resolve land 
disputes involving Mexican titles, but in the twenty 
four years of the existence of that policy Mexicans in 
Arizona lost thousands of acres because titles which 
had been granted during the eras of Spanish or 
Mexican rule were not honored.91

The federal government also became in involved in 
the usurpation of Mexicans' land. In 1869, 
preparations were made to expand the Gila Indian 
Reservation and the federal government surveyed the 
properties of homesteaders so they could be 
compensated if their claims to the land were valid. 
United States Army surveyors believed that 2,500 
acres belonging to twenty farmers and speculators 
were affected; seventeen of the claimants were 
Mexicans. The federal report described many of the 
Mexicans as interlopers whose bids were not

App.73

90 Ray H. Mattison, “Early Spanish and Mexican Settlements 
in Arizona,” New Mexico Historical Review 21, no. 4 (October 
1946): 290.

91M. Escalante, Mexican Consul in Tucson, Arizona, to 
Mexican Sectetary ofthe Foreign Ministry, August 6, 1878, 
Archivo Hist6rico de la Secteraria de Relaciones Exteriores 
(AHSRE) 11-2-106, in Angela Moyano Pahissa (ed.) Proteccion 
Consular a Mexicanos en los Estados Unidos (Mexico: Secretaria 
de Relaciones Exteriores, 1989), pp. 28-30.



legitimate because they were opportunistically 
claiming land for its compensation value. The Anglos 
and Europeans, however, were portrayed by the 
surveyors as more deserving.92 As a result most of the 
Mexican claimants were disqualified from 
compensation.

The declining status of Arizona Mexicans was also 
signaled by rapid land loss among Valley of the Sun 
(Phoenix area) Mexican farmers. This was especially 
true during the depression caused by the Panic of 
1873, a banking crisis which resulted in riots 
throughout the country and in which [6] Mexicans 
were forced to leave the Phoenix area after a rash of 
lynching of Mexicans took place.93 Between 1870 and 
1900 the number of Mexican farmers in Maricopa 
County declined from seventy-nine to about thirty, 
even though the Mexican population increased 
twelve-fold during the three decades.

The most dramatic example of Mexican land loss 
was the take-over of large tracts of irrigated 
properties in west Tempe by W. Wormser in the 
1890s. Wormser, a merchant, obtained a 7,000 acre 
farm south of the Salt River by foreclosing on a 
number of farmers after they could not pay for seed, 
tools, and other supplies that were advanced at an 
earlier date. Many of these usurped farmers were the 
Mexicans who built the San Francisco Canal, a major

App.74

92 United States. House of Representatives, 41 st Congress, 3d 
Session, Survey of Pima and Maricopa Reservation, pp 1-17.

93 Nancy Cohen, Reconstruction of American Liberalism, 1865- 
1914 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 
pp. 122-124; Bradford Buckingham, Minorities in Phoenix: A 
Profile of Mexican American, Chinese American, and African 
American Communities, 1860-1992 (Tucson: University of 
Arizona Press, 1994), p. 18.



infrastructure improvement along the Salt River.94 
According to Douglas Kupel, the City of Phoenix 
water historian, Wormser purposely foreclosed so 
that he could take the title to Mexican lands.95
POLITICAL DISENFRANCHISEMENT

In Arizona, which was part of the New Mexican 
territory until 1863, Mexicans experienced a dilution 
of political and economic power as more Anglos 
moved into an industrializing Arizona.96 This was 
especially true in the southern part of the territory, 
around Tucson, the area purchased with the Gadsden 
Treaty in 1853. Tucson became the territorial capital 
after Arizona separated from New Mexico in 1863, 
but Anglos soon moved it to Prescott because of the 
political power held by Mexicans in southern 
Arizona.97 According to the study by the sociologist 
Martha Mencheca, [7] Arizona legislators adopted for 
their new territorial constitution codes taken from 
California's state charter which restricted citizenship 
and electoral eligibility requirements allowing only 
white males and white Mexican males, a vast 
minority, to vote. This measure disqualified

App.75

94 Charles Goldman v. Pedro Sotelo, Arizona Reports, Vol. 8
(1901- 1904),114;

96 9Interview by Author with Douglas Kupel, History 
Consultant, 1992.

96 The effort for separation from the Mexico territory was 
itself motivated by the desire not to be dominated by New 
Mexico which had a very large Mexican population. See B. 
Sacks, “The Creation of Arizona Territory,” Arizona and the 
West 5, no. I (Spring 1963): 48-49.

97 Weber, David J. Foreigners in Their Native Land; Historical 
Roots of the Mexican Americans, (Albuquerque: University of 
New Mexico Press, 1973), p. 144.



American Indians, mestizos,98 and Mexican Indians 
from the electoral process. In 1877, legislators passed 
additional laws in which non-whites were disqualified 
from voting on the basis of race, from serving as 
justices of the peace and from practicing law; only 
white males were allowed to enter those 
professions.99

Beginning in the 1880s, the building of railroad 
transportation to the American Southwest and 
northern Mexico drastically reduced the need for 
Southwest pre-industrial crafts and beast-powered 
merchant transportation, activities where Mexicans 
predominated. In addition, irrigation projects 
financed through the N ewlands Reclamation Act of 
1903 expanded the acreage which could be put under 
cultivation. These innovations dramatically changed 
the economies of Arizona, greatly stimulating the 
immigration of Mexican laborers. At the same time, 
modernization brought in a new influx of Anglos, who 
did not need to cooperate with Mexicans.100 As a 
consequence of this demographic change, the 
antipathy Anglo Americans felt toward Mexicans was 
exacerbated, increasing the incidence of 
discrimination and the resistance to provide them 
political influence and opportunity.

Prescott in northern Arizona became the territory's 
new capital, purposely away from Mexicans, and as 
Phoenix became more important, that city became

App.76

98 mestizo (mixed Indian and Spaniard)
99 Martha Menchaca, “Chicano Indianism: A Historical 

Account of Racial Repression in the United States,” American 
Ethnologist, Vol. 20, No.3. (Aug., 1993), pp. 583-603.

100 Luckingham, The Urban Southwest: A Profile History of 
Albuquerque-El PasoPhoenix- Tucson (El Paso: Texas Western 
Press, 1982), p. 19.



the capital.101 The historian Manuel Servin points out 
that:

App.77

... between 1865 and 1909 the Mexican-American 
population of the territory was represented by 
Francisco Le6n (1865 and 1871), Esteban Ochoa 
(1868, 1871, and 1877), Jesus Elias (1868 and 
1875), Juan Elias (1871 and 1873), Ramon 
Romano (1871), Jose Maria Redondo (1873,1875, 
and 177), M. G. Samaniego (1877,1881,1891, and 
1895), N. Gonzalez (1899 and 1903), and Alfred 
Ruiz (1905). Thus it is patent that as far as pre­
state Arizona was [8] concerned Mexican- 
American representation and participation in the 
governmental administration of the territory 
greatly diminished after 1877.”102

According to Eric V. Meeks, a historian at Northern 
Arizona University, by the latter 1870s Mexican 
political influence began to wane. In the first 
Legislative Assembly of Arizona after it became an 
Independent territory from New Mexico, two out of 
the nine council members were Mexican Americans. 
By 1885, only one Mexican had been elected to the 
State Legislature.103

As Arizona modernized, territorial leaders felt that 
statehood was necessary for continued growth and 
prosperity. The question of statehood dragged on in 
both the Arizona and New Mexico territories

101 Weber, Foreigners in Their Native Land, p. 144.
102 Manuel Servin, “The Role of Mexican-Americans in the 

Development of Early Arizona,” in AnA wakened Minority: The 
Mexican-Americans, 2nd ed., Manuel Servin. Editor (Beverly 
Hills: Glencoe Press, 1974), p. 30.

103 Eric V. Meeks “Border Citizens: Race, Labor, and Identity 
in South-Central Arizona, 1910-1965,” (Ph.D. Dissertation: The 
University of Texas, 2001), pp. 52-53.



throughout much of the late 19th century. The U.S. 
Congress for a number of reasons remained cool to 
the idea but in the early 20th century it considered 
accepting a bid in which both territories would enter 
the Union as one state. Arizona politicians resisted 
such an overture primarily because of the extensive 
Hispanic influence in New Mexico. One congressman 
who opposed joint statehood with New Mexico stated: 
“Can Arizona as a single state control it better by 
itself, or shall we join the Mexican greasers [of New 
Mexico] to Arizona and let them control it?”104 
According to the Arizona historian H.A. Hubbard, a 
form of anti-Hispanic sentiment formed in the 
territory during this period as rumors spread that:

[9] .... jointure would mean that in Arizona no 
schools could be conducted in English. Groups of 
Anglo-Saxon school children in Arizona with 
appropriate placards paraded the streets in mute 
and pathetic appeal against the impending 
outrage. Then there were the courts. In New 
Mexico the courts were held in Spanish. To 
Arizonans jointure was interpreted to mean that, 
when their territory became a state joined with 
New Mexico, no case would be tried except before 
a Spanish-speaking judge.105

James H. McClintock, the journalist and high 
ranking Arizona government official, proudly 
proclaimed in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece in 
1906 that one of the assets possessed by Arizona 
making it deserving of separate recognition was the 
relatively small Hispanic population As he put it

App.78

104 Weber, Foreigners in Their Native Land, p. 145.
105 H. A. Hubbard, “Arizona's Struggle against Joint 

Statehood,” The Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 11, No.4. (Dec., 
1942), p. 421.



only 12 percent of Arizona's population is 
Mexican or Spanish in surname.”106

Dr. Eric Meeks notes that after Arizona attained 
statehood in 1912, Anglos waged an anti-immigrant 
campaign which “was characterized by increasingly 
racist rhetoric and a series of proposals that would 
restrict Mexican immigrants' political rights and the 
right to work in Arizona.”107 In 1912, the new state 
constitution restricted non-citizens from working on 
public projects. Then in 1914, the legislature enacted 
the “eighty per-cent law” in which eighty percent of 
the employees in businesses that had five or more 
employees had to be “native-born citizens of the 
United States.” After a U.S. District Court declared 
the law unconstitutional, the Arizona legislature 
passed the Claypool-Kinney bill, an act which 
prohibited the employment of non-English speakers 
in the state's mining industry. According to Professor 
Meeks, this was a deliberate attempt to circumvent 
the court decision which declared the “eighty per-cent 
law” unlawful.108

In addition, after Arizona became a state, access to 
the ballot box for Mexican Americans became even 
more limited as antipathy to all people of Mexican 
origin grew and immigration increased during the 
first two decades of the 20th century. A coalition of 
craft unions, small farmers and merchants led by the 
governor of the state, George Hunt, launched an anti­
immigrant [10] campaign characterized by a proposal 
that restricted Mexican Americans' political rights 
and the right to work in Arizona. Arizona voters

App.79

106 “Arizona, ” Los Angeles Times, August 19, 1906, VII6.
107 Meeks “Border Citizens: Race,” p. 52.
108 Ibid., p. 88.



passed a literacy law in 1909 that disqualified non- 
English speakers from voting in state elections.109 
The act specifically singled out Mexicans:

.... every citizen of the United States and every 
citizen of Mexico who shall have elected to 
become a citizen of the United States ... who, not 
being prevented by physical disability from so 
doing, is able to read the Constitution of the 
United States in the English language in such a 
manner as to show he is neither prompted nor 
reciting from memory, and to write his name, 
shall be deemed to be an elector ofthe state of 
Arizona.110

Mexican Americans in Arizona recognized very 
early in the 20th century that obstacles to full 
participation in the political process remained and 
subsequently started community organizations, such 
as the Latin American Clubs of Arizona, Inc., as a 
response.111

Their campaigns ran into many obstacles, however. 
The limitations of voter registration as a strategy for 
political empowerment, for example, can be seen in a 
South Tucson campaign in the mid-1980s. There, the 
majority of the residents were Mexican or Mexican 
American, yet local property-holders and 
entrepreneurs were mainly non-Mexicans. The latter 
group led a campaign to incorporate South Tucson as 
an independent municipality to avoid annexation by 
the City of Tucson, which would have meant higher 
property taxes and licensing fees. Once incorporated,

App.80

109 Ibid., p. 87.
110 Quoted in Luckingham, Minorities in Phoenix, pp. 48-49.
111 F. Arturo Rosales, A Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights 

History (Houston: Arte Publico Press, 2006), p. 179.



the Pima County Board of Supervisors appointed five 
white property-holders to serve as the new town's city 
council, but Mexican residents, with help from the 
Latin American Club, organized a voter registration 
campaign with the goal of electing a majority 
Mexican Americans city council in South Tucson's 
first election, held in April of 1937. Despite these 
efforts, only one Mexican American was elected to the 
council. As Eric Meeks points out, "... the literacy test 
requirement, combined with a local requirement of 
property ownership, excluded many Mexican 
Americans from voting in the [11] election.”112

Voting restrictions against Mexican Americans in 
Arizona continued throughout the 20th century. 
Literacy requirements and a sixth grade education 
were still preconditions to voter registration in 
Arizona as late as 1966 and remained on the books 
until 1972.113 Also in 1966, elaborate residency 
requirements for voter registration—such as having 
to live one year in the state, six months in the same 
city, and thirty days in the same precinct and 
county—confused many potential voters, including 
Mexican Americans.114 In addition, potential voters 
were required to register at the county recorder's 
office, which was only open during business hours, 
limiting access for many working people.115

App.81

112 Meeks “Border Citizens,” pp. 267-268
113 “Secretary of State,” Aizona Election Code, 1966,” 

Constitution of the State of Arizona, (Compiled and Issued By 
Secretary of Sate, 1977), p. 29.

114 United States Commission on Civil Rights, Rights Act, 
Unfulfilled Goal Washington, DC. September, 1981. Available at 
http: / / www .law .umary land .edulmarshall/usccri<iocu,mertislcr 12 
v944a. pdf

115 Susan Lennox, “Blame It on the Whether: Whether or Not 
Arizona Residents Registered and Voted in the 1960s, Arizona



Also, many Arizona voters were prevented from 
casting ballots to vote because they were purged from 
the rolls. This occurred when the voter failed to cast a 
ballot in a primary and a general election or if the 
voter did not vote in two consecutive elections. Voters 
were not subsequently informed of the purge or of the 
need to re-register. Research has shown these 
practices can have a disproportionate effect on 
Hispanics and Native Americans voters.116

In 1970, Arizona Congressman Morris K. Udall, 
writing in the publication Congressman’s Report, 
addressed discriminatory practices in the Arizona 
election system and acknowledged “the unfortunate 
emphasis on 'reading the constitution in English,' 
which has often been used to intimidate our Spanish­
speaking and Indian minorities.”117

[12] Intimidation of Mexican American voters can 
also be seen in Operation “Eagle Eye,” a project in 
1964 designed to challenge the legality of a voter's 
registration at the polling site. One method used by 
the operation was to mail letters to all registered 
voters in South Phoenix, a majority Hispanic and 
African American area, using the addresses from 
voter registration records. Returned letters were then 
taken to the corresponding polling place on the date 
of the election; as voters stood in line waiting to vote 
they were challenged on the grounds that they did 
not live at the address listed in the voter rolls,

App.82

and the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” paper given at the Arizona 
History Convention, Safford, Arizona, April 23, 2004.

116 Ibid.

117 Morris K. Udall, “Our Really Silent Majority,” 
Congressmans Report July 23, 1970 Vol. IX, No.2. Available at 
http://www.library.arizona.edulexhibits/udall/congrept/91stl700 
n3.html

http://www.library.arizona.edulexhibits/udall/congrept/91stl700


voiding their registration.118 The challengers would 
also approach Mexican Americans to determine if 
they could competently read the U.S. Constitution. 
One poll watcher remembers that these tactics 
caused lines at polling places to back up, prompting 
many waiting in line to leave.119

In a study on Arizona politics, the political 
historian David Berman indicates that “Anglos 
sometimes challenged minorities at the polls and 
asked them to read and explain “literacy” cards. 
Intimidators hoped to discourage minorities from 
standing in line to vote.”120 Many of these abuses 
were curtailed when the United States Congress 
extended the special remedies of the Voting Rights 
Act of 1965 to Arizona in 1975.121

Arizona's slow progress to accommodate Spanish 
speaking voters continued to create [13] problems for 
potential Mexican American voters in Arizona. The

App.83

118 Chandler Davidson, Tanya Dunlap, Gale Kenny, and 
Benjamin Wise, “Republican Ballot Security Programs: Vote 
Protection or Minority Vote Suppression-or Both? A Report to 
the Center for Voting Rights & Protection,” (September 2004), 
pp. 17, 21. Available at http://www.votelaw.comlblog/blogdocs/ 
GOP_Ballot_Security JPrograms. pdf

119 Brian Bork, “Perspective," Calvin College Chimes.
Available at http://www-
stu.calvin.edulchimesI2001.04.27Iperspectives/ story02.shtml; 
Dennis Rodd, “Just Our Bill,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette December 
2 , 2000.

120 David R. Berman, Arizona Politics & Government: The 
Quest for Autonomy, Democracy, and Development (Lincoln: 
University of Nebraska Press, 1998), pp. 48-49.

121 Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, A 
Voting Rights Act Handbook For Chicanos, (San Francisco: 
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, 1977) 
pp. 5, 8-9.

http://www.votelaw.comlblog/blogdocs/
http://www-


U.S. Commission on Civil Rights noted that in 
November 1974, south Phoenix polling sites revealed 
few, if any, bilingual workers at polls and only one 
bilingual election for eight heavily Mexican American 
precincts.122 In the same election year a poll worker 
refused a Tucson voter a ballot because he could not 
find her name on the rolls. Determined to cast her 
ballot, the rejected voter went to the court house to 
get proof of her registration. The Commission 
explained that the poll worker's inability to 
understand Spanish or even the ability to find 
Spanish surnames was not an uncommon in the 
Mexican American precincts.123 For example, many 
Mexican American women use the surname of both 
parents and then their married surname.124 Hispanic 
voters whose names could not be found on rolls were 
often not informed of how to remedy the situation to 
successfully cast their ballots.125

Arizona voting practices affecting Mexican 
Americans were not limited to registration and the 
polling place. For example, in the 1960's the State 
Legislature's reapportionment of districts worked to 
dilute the Mexican American vote. As discussed in

App.84

122 The Voting Rights Act Ten Years After, A Report to the 
United States Commission of Civil Rights (January 1975), 
pp.116-117, 110-111, 85, 93-94. Available at .http://www.law. 
umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/docuinents/crl2v943a.pdf.

123 Ibid. P 103.

124 Elaine Baca-Rodriquez, “The Impact of the National Voter 
Registration Act of 1993 in Arizona,” (Ph.D. Dissertation, 
Northern Arizona University, 2002), p. 126

125 The Voting Right Act: Unfilled Goals: A Report of the
United States Commission on Civil Rights (September 1981 ). 
Available at
http://www .law .umaryland.edu/marshalllusccr/documents/ 
crl2v944a.pdf

http://www.law
http://www


the federal court case Klahr vs Goddard and Bolin, 
rural districts had far more representatives and 
senators than the two major metropolitan areas of 
Tucson and Phoenix, which had 71 percent of the 
state's population. However, as new districts were 
created to correct this imbalance, the voting strength 
of Mexican American districts was curtailed, 
especially in the Phoenix area. Most Mexican 
Americans resided in south Phoenix, but through 
gerrymandering the strength of the community's 
votes was [14] weakened or diluted.126 An additional 
example of dilution is the 1970 Phoenix Union High 
School District Board election where Joe Eddie Lopez 
was a candidate from south Phoenix. He did not win 
a seat and felt the district's white majority made it 
impossible for a Mexican American to win in the at- 
large election.127
THE JUSTICE SYSTEM AND POLICE 
RELATIONS

Almost as soon as Mexicans encountered Anglos in 
Arizona during the 19th century their experience 
with the American justice system was marked by 
discrimination. Few Mexicans, for instance, served on 
juries but they were disproportionately sentenced to 
jail and given longer sentences than their Anglo 
counterparts. There is record of Mexicans hung by 
Anglo lynch mobs without the benefit of a trial or 
representation.128 A particularly vicious episode

App.85

126 J. L. Polinard, “Arizona,” in Leroy Hardy, Alan Heslop, 
Stuart Anderson, editors, Reapportionment Politics,' the History 
of Redistricting in the 50 States ( Beverly Hills, Calif. : Sage 
Publications, 1981), pp. 36-44.

127 Ibid.
128 See Menchaca, “Chicano Indianism” for a discussion of how 

Mestizo Mexicans in Arizona were classified as non-white and



occurred in 1859 when Santa Cruz Valley rancher 
John Ware was murdered and the constabulary 
arrested one of his Mexican “peons.” Local cowboy 
Sam Rogers and his gang, known for their cruel 
treatment Mexicans, kidnapped the imprisoned 
Mexican and hung him from a tree.129

One newspaper writer in 1872 declared, “The 
Indian is now a nuisance and the Sonoran130 a 
decided annoyance, but both of these are sure to 
disappear before civilization as sure as the noonday 
sun.” In the Phoenix area, the slightest hint of 
Mexican wrongdoing was met with [15] severe 
reprisals.131 At a mass meeting in Phoenix on April 
19, 1872, citizens organized for protection against 
“Sonorans” and elected County SheriffT.C. Warden as 
Captain of the Safety Committee. Members of the 
group decided that all suspicious Mexicans deemed 
not to have legitimate business in the Valley were to 
be run out of town.132 While on the surface it seemed

App.86

not allowed to participate in such public activities as voting or 
jury duty, pp. 588-589; Rosales, jPobre Raza!, p. 140; Antonio 
Rios Bustamante,. “Guilty as Hell, Copper Mines, Mexican 
Miners and Community, 1920-1950: The Spatial and Social 
Consequences of Mining Town Industry in Arizona.” (Chicano 
Collection, Hayden Library, Arizona State University, n.d.), 44- 
45.

129 Rosales Chicano! A History of the Mexican American Civil 
Rights Movement (Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1996), 11-12.

130 A Sonoran is the name given to Mexicans born in the 
Mexican state of Sonora which were the majority of immigrants 
in Arizona during the second half of the 19th century,

131 Cohen, Reconstruction of American Liberalism, 1865-1914 
pp. 122-124; Luckingham, Minorities in Phoenix, p. 18.

132 Arizona Weekly Miner, November 16, 1872; Arizona 
newspapers are replete with stories of this warfare which was 
interpreted as simple banditry by Mexicans from Sonora; See



that a distinction was made between “good” and “bad” 
Mexicans, according to Pedro Perez an immigrant 
interviewed in the the 1930s, the vigilantes were 
indiscriminate in deciding which ones were 
unwelcome strangers:

From 1875 to 1880 a lot of people were hanged 
for small steals [sic] of any kind and a lot of them 
were framed in horse stealing, cattle .... When 
this was happening most of the early Mexican 
families besides ours, that were residing here left 
town and for awhile [sic] it looked like the future 
of the town was done for, but after quite a while 
the people began to come back.133

If a Mexican American committed a crime against 
Anglo Americans in Arizona, the response was 
predicable. When, during a drunken melee in 
Phoenix, amid the Dia de San Juan festival on June 
24, 1900, Mexicans killed two Anglos, Governor 
Murphy condemned the Mexican celebration and the 
Arizona Republican announced that Sheriff D.L. 
Murray offered an eight hundred-dollar reward for 
the “Mexican greaser” killers. Publishers of the local 
Spanish language newspaper called for a meeting of 
all Mexicans in the area to protest the reaction of the 
government officials. Later that year, the state 
legislature banned future celebrations of the Mexican 
holiday.134

App.87

also Rosales, “Lost Land” Origins of Mexicans in the Salt River 
Valley Of Arizona, 1865-1910,” p.20.

133 “Related Story of Pedro Perez, 1933,” Federal Writers 
Project File, Arizona Department of Library, Archives and 
Public Records.

134 L. A. Navarro, Phoenix consul to Secretaria de Relacionies 
Exterriores (SRE), June 30, 1900, AHSRE, 12-7-238.



[16] Tensions between Mexicans and law enforce­
ment ran high when encounters with police resulted 
in death. In 1920 the Mexican Consul sent in a report 
of Mexicans killed in altercations with the police. 
According to this study between 1910 and 1920 at 
least twelve Mexicans were killed in arrest attempts 
and according to the Consul, most ofthese police 
homicides could have been averted.135 John Welch, a 
half Mexican, and longtime police chief in the 
archetypical mining town of Miami, had an especially 
fearsome reputation. In December 1931, Mexican 
Consul Luis Castro lamented that a Cochise County 
grand jury acquitted the officer after he shot to death 
Martin Lopez y de la Torre.

The disproportionate application of capital 
punishment to Mexicans was a great concern at the 
beginning of the 19th century. In the 1910s, every 
person executed at the new state prison at Florence 
was Hispanic, even though several Anglo Americans 
had received death sentences. During a two-year 
capital punishment respite, seventy-nine killings took 
place in contrast to forty-seven in 1915-16. Arizona 
voters, motivated by this dramatic rise in murders, 
reinstated capital punishment in November 1918. Of 
nineteen killers convicted during the grace period, 
only four were Mexicans. Nonetheless, with the 
reinstatement of the death penalty the first person 
executed was a Mexican.136

App.88

135 Report of Mexicans Killed Between 1911-1919, Compiled 
by the El Paso Consulate, Juan Jose Duarte, May 19, 1919, 
Archivo Historico de la Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores 
(AHSRE)l 1119/24, hereafter known as “Report” (with victim's 
name and date incident took place).

13(5 Thomas E. Sheridan, Los Tucsonenses: The Mexican 
Community in Tucson, 1854-1941. Tucson: University of Arizona 
Press, 1986), p. 174.



[17] Mexicans often complained about interrogation 
tactics employed by the police with Mexican 
detainees. Questionable interrogation tactics of 
Mexicans occurred in the mining town of
Greaterville, Arizona, during April 1915. Pima 
County Deputies Fenter and Moore visited the Leon 
family home to interrogate three brothers—Jose 
Maria, Francisco, and Hilario—whom they suspected 
had killed a Mrs. Loreta Yanez and stolen her cattle. 
The brothers vehemently denied the accusations so 
the deputies tried to coerce a confession-—by hanging 
them until the brothers passed out. Hilario died 
immediately. Jose Maria was left out in the desert for 
twenty-one hours and when found was taken to his 
Greaterville home until a doctor could be summoned. 
Francisco, not as incapacitated, managed to find his 
way home. Sheriff Thomas Forbes in Tucson assured 
incensed Mexican community leaders he would 
conduct a full investigation. The area newspaper 
reported that Jose Maria died a week later :from 
meningitis caused by oxygen starvation.137

Widespread publicity of the brutality resulted in a 
trial in which the deputies were found guilty of 
second degree murder and sentenced to prison. The 
swift action which at first pleased the Arizona 
Mexican community, ended in bitter disappointment. 
On February 13, 1917, the Arizona governor and the 
Board of Pardons and Paroles pardoned and released 
the former deputies.138

App.89

137 This story is detailed in a series of articles in El 
Tucsonense April 9, 28, 30,1915, May 1,1915. See also Los 
Angeles Times April 23, 1915.

138 Rosales, jPobre Raza!, Violence,: Justice and Mobilization 
Among Mexico Linda Immigrants, 1890-1936 (Austin, 
University of Texas Press, 1999), pp. 85-86.



CIVILIAN MISTREATMENT OF MEXICANS
Civilian mistreatment of Mexicans was a constant 

source of despair for Mexicans and their leaders. 
Sometimes it took place through mob violence as 
happened in May of 1912 when Anglo miners invaded 
a Cinco de Mayo festival in Twin Buttes, about 40 
miles :from Tucson, and attacked the Mexican 
workers. They then tore down and destroyed the 
Mexican flags on display for the holiday. In a similar 
episode during September of the same year a group of 
Phoenix, Arizona Anglos invaded a Mexican 
independence celebration, which [18] sparked a riot 
in which both ethnic groups suffered injuries. The 
following year, during the July 4th celebration, Anglo 
revelers tore down the Mexican flags at the 
consulates' offices in Tucson and Douglas, Arizona.139

In a Mexican government study of American 
civilian attacks on Mexicans during the 1910s, 
Arizona carne in a close second to Texas. Out of 150 
incidents documented by the Consul, 36 took place in 
Arizona. For example, W. H. Heltrip murdered Jesus 
Arias during January 1913 in Yuma, claimed self- 
defense, and authorities did not charge him A 
bartender of “Austrian descent” on November 12, 
1912, beat a drunken Tomas Soto when he created a 
disturbance at a bar in the mining town of Miami. 
The next morning Soto's body was found a few yards 
from the saloon, but the bartender fled and could not 
be found, according to local authorities.140

Common also was for Anglos not to be subjected to 
charges of negligence in spite of supporting evidence. 
According to the Mexican consul in Phoenix, Thomas

App.90

139 Ibid., pp. 110-111.
140 “Report,” Tomas Soto, November 12, 1912.



Walker, of the Arizona Cotton Growers Association 
ran over Juan Jose Duarte on May 19, 1919 with his 
automobile killing the Mexican pedestrian. He was 
not cited by Phoenix police. The Mexican community 
was incensed as witnesses stated Walker was 
speeding down the avenue Duarte was crossing and 
did not bother to slow down. The community believed 
it was Walker's influence that kept the police from 
investigating.141

Also, a military build-up along the border during 
the Mexican revolution led to many altercations 
between Mexicans and army personnel. In Arizona, 
American soldiers killed Jose Perez and M. Ortiz on 
November 21, 1913 during a Miami riot between 
Mexicans and Army personnel. The local Sheriff was 
informed but he arrested no one, according to a 
Mexican protest letter. Also in Miami, a U.S. army 
truck ran over David Herrera, killing him on October 
15th, 1917. The soldiers were stationed in the area to 
quell strikes in which hundreds of miners had been 
arrested. The Mexican community, skeptical of any 
[19] explanations offered by authorities, felt the 
driver deliberately hurled the vehicle at Herrera.142

Such violations of the civil rights of Mexicans have 
continued into recent years. In the late 1970's, two 
brothers and their father, all members of the wealthy 
Hannigan family were accused of robbing and 
torturing three Mexican farm workers who had 
entered the United States illegally. The Hannigans 
who owned extensive ranching land and a bevy of 
Dairy Queens were tried for intercepting three 
undocumented Mexicans crossing their property in

141 “Report,” Juan Jose Duarte on May 19, 1919
142 “Report,” Jose Perez and M. Ortiz, November 21, 1913 and 

David Herrera, Jr., October 15, 1917.

App.91



southern Arizona near the Mexican border. The 
Hannigans stripped and tortured the Mexicans with 
hot pokers, burning cigarettes, knives, and a shotgun 
filled with bird seed. Hours later, the immigrants 
were set free to return to Mexico naked and bleeding. 
An all-Anglo jury acquitted the two Hannigan 
brothers of charges of kidnapping, assault, and 
robbery; father George died before trial. Following 
strident protest, federal authorities ultimately 
charged the Hannigans with obstructing interstate 
commerce. Patrick Hannigan, but not his brother 
Thomas, was convicted and sentenced to three year’s 
imprisonment.143 Law Professor Steve Bender has 
documented similar cases along the border. Most 
have taken place in Arizona.144
GENERAL SEGREGATION

Racial segregation was prevalent in the railroad 
and mining towns of Arizona as railroads spurred 
modernization after the 1880s. At this time 
segregation in schools, public facilities, and housing 
increased for a number of reasons. The threat posed 
by Apaches ended in the late 19th century and the 
need for a cooperative self-defense no longer bound 
Mexicans and Anglo Americans. Secondly, the 
economic livelihood of the region's Mexican elite 
based in freighting and open-range ranching eroded 
with the influx of American capital and [20] 
technology. Concurrently, new industries imported 
their own skilled workers and management personnel 
while Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants 
were relegated to semi-skilled and unskilled positions

App.92

143 Steve Bender, Greasers and Gringos: Latinos, Law, and the 
American Imagination, (New York: New York University Press 
2003 ),p  131.

144 Ibid., p. 130.



in the new Anglo American owned mines and 
railroads. By 1910 Mexicans became imbedded in 
racially-ordered class system.145

The existence of segregation is widely discussed in 
studies of mining in Arizona. As the mining 
companies established labor camps and company 
towns they designed them along strict segregated 
parameters.146 For example, in 1916 the New 
Cornelia Copper Company resuscitated old copper 
mines in the mining town of Ajo and immediately laid 
out the plans to segregate its Native American, 
“Mexican,” and “American” (Anglo) residents by 
establishing the Mexican settlement in the 
northwestern portion of town. For recreational 
purposes the company built two dance halls and 
sponsored dances for the non-Mexicans on several 
week-nights while only Sunday was reserved for the 
Mexican event. In a 1977 interview with Alberto 
Sotelo, a former Ajo resident, he remembered 
segregation permeating life for Mexicans. As a child 
he and the other “Mexican children attended separate 
schools, could only swim in the town pool on limited 
days after the 'American' families had used it and

App.93

145 Meeks “Border Citizens,” p. 43; Joseph Park, “The History 
of Mexican Labor in Arizona during the Territorial Period,” 
(M.A. thesis, University of Arizona, 1961), pp. 219-220.

146 These studies are too numerous to put in this footnote but 
see for example, Linda Gordon, The Great Arizona Orphan 
Abduction, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999); James 
R. Kluger, The Clifton-Morenci Strike: Labor Difficulty in 
Arizona, 1915-16 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1970); 
Meeks “Border Citizens”; Philip J. Mellinger, Race and Labor in 
Western Copper: The Fightfor Equality, 1896-1918 (Tucson: 
University of Arizona Press, 1995); Joseph Park, “The History of 
Mexican Labor in Arizona during the Territorial Period.,” (M.A. 
thesis, University of Arizona, 1961).



before the pool was cleaned, and were restricted to a 
certain section of the local movie theatre.”147

A result of extensive modernization of the 
agriculture owing to railroads and federally financed 
irrigation projects was the massive immigration of 
Mexicans to the Salt River [21] Valley, where 
Phoenix is located. As a result of this influx Phoenix 
acquired the largest contiguous barrios in all of 
Arizona.148 In 1930 almost 8,000 Mexicans were 
concentrated and segregated in a small area in the 
south side bounded by 11th Street to the east, 16th 
avenue to the west, the edge of the Salt River to the 
south, and Washington street to the north. There, 
barrios emerged with such names as Milpitas (small 
fields) or Cuatro Milpas (four fields).149

According to a study by the Phoenix Housing 
Authority and the WP A, as late as 1941, most 
Mexicans in south Phoenix were living in dire 
poverty. The average income of Mexican families 
(1,200 in survey) was $589 a year. The study 
disclosed that 70 percent of the homes were 
considered uninhabitable and lacked inside

App.94

14' Meeks “Border Citizens,” p. 85. For a description of the 
similar conditions that existed in the Clifton-Morenci district, 
see Kluger, 20-23.

148 Barrio simply means a neighborhood in Spanish-speaking 
countries, but in the United States urban areas, it is applied to 
Mexican American or other Hispanic neighborhoods which are 
distinguishable from other parts of the city. See Daniel D. 
Arreola, “Urban Ethnic Landscape Identity,” Geographical 
Review, Vol. 85, No.4, (Oct., 1995), pp. 518-534.

149 63Pete Rey Dimas, “Progress And A Mexican American 
Community'S Struggle For Existence: Phoenix's Golden Gate 
Barrio (Ph.D. Dissertation, Arizona State University, 1991), 
passim.



plumbing, electricity, and adequate doors or 
windows.150

Perhaps the most infamous case of segregation 
occurred in Tempe. This involved the segregation of 
Mexicans at Tempe Beach, in reality a swimming 
complex which was built by the influential Hayden 
family and other local investors in the 1920s. The 
developers picked a site in Tempe along the wide Salt 
River which began to dry up by the end of the decade 
because of upstream damming and built what became 
known as Tempe Beach, the “brilliant star in Tempe's 
crown.” While city fathers and other boosters touted 
this achievement with pride they decided that its 
benefits would only be available to Mexicans on a 
separate and part-time basis; they could use the 
facility once a week. As a historian of Tempe, Scott 
[22] Solliday, said, “[t]he swimming pool was 
basically closed for Hispanics. There was one night a 
week, and it was the night before they drained the 
swimming pool and filled it with fresh water. And so 
obviously, aside from the fact that they were not 
allowed to use the swimming pool most of the time, 
just the implications that we have to drain the pool 
after you're done swimming was really such a vicious 
insult to the people here in Tempe.”151 In the 1940s, 
Mexican Americans in Tempe and Phoenix, along 
with the League of United Latin American Citizens

App.95

150 Dimas, “Progress And A Mexican American Community's 
Struggle For Existence,” pp. 37 and 52; Bradford Luckingham, 
Phoenix: The History of a Southwestern Metropolis (Tucson: 
University of Arizona Press, 1989), p. 122; Phoenix Gazette, May 
3, 1941.

151 Quote from “Tempe's Hispanic Heritage.” Available at 
EightiKAET broadcasts from the campus of Arizona State 
University http://www.azpbs.org/arizonastories/seasontwo/ 
hispanieheritage.htm .

http://www.azpbs.org/arizonastories/seasontwo/


(LULAC) Council 110, and the American Legion 
Thunderbird Post 41, a Mexican American veteran's 
group, along with Tempe Mexican veterans led a 
campaign to pressure the Tempe Chamber of 
Commerce, which leased the site from the city, to 
desegregate the swimming complex. In 1946, Tempe 
Beach was desegregated.152

Another example of segregation in Arizona took 
place in Phoenix and concerned housing for veterans. 
Soldiers after World War II returned to Phoenix and 
to a housing shortage that forced the city to construct 
emergency housing. Officials selected three separate 
sites in order to build 150 family units near the 
downtown area; one for Anglo Americans, another 
one for Mexican Americans, and the third for African 
American veterans. The site chosen for Mexican 
Americans was located on what had been an old city 
dump but Anglo American families would be in a 
cleaner, more attractive part of the city. American 
Legion Thunderbird Post 41 protested this separation 
and demanded before the •city council that housing for 
Mexican American veterans and their families be 
located in an integrated unit on the same ten acres of 
land where the Anglos' unit was planned. The Anglo 
veterans formed the Garfield Property Owners 
Protective Association in order to prevent integration. 
Such an arrangement, they protested, would lower 
property values and result in [23] an increase in the 
crime rate and incidents of rape would rise. A 
protracted debate ensued, and the Mexican 
Americans veterans ultimately took the matter to the 
Arizona Supreme Court. On December 11, 1946 the

App.96

152 Christine Marin, “LULAC and Veterans Organize for Civil 
Rights in Tempe and Phoenix, 1940-1947.” Available at http:// 
www.cervantesvirtual.comlservlet/SirveObras/680161859894783 
8675449 l/p0000001.htm

http://www.cervantesvirtual.comlservlet/SirveObras/680161859894783


Court ruled that the City of Phoenix must integrate 
the housing units.153

Segregation in Arizona was also facilitated through 
federal programs. In the 1930s young Mexican 
Americans were exposed to the larger Anglo society 
through such New Deal agencies as the Civilian 
Conservation Corps (CCC) and the National Youth 
Administration (NY A), both designed to enroll young 
people and keep them off the streets during this era 
of massive unemployment. Nonetheless, discrim­
ination in these new deal programs was prevalent in 
Arizona.154 CCC overseers only recruited a small 
portion of Mexican Americans to join the Corps and 
even though the program did not have an official 
segregation policy when it came to Mexicans, officials 
housed them in separate barracks because of 
complaints from white Arizonans.155
SCHOOL SEGREGATION

Segregation in Arizona public schools became more 
prevalent as immigration from Mexico increased in 
the early 20th century. For example, the Navajo 
County school superintendent purposefully 
segregated Mexican students from their Anglo peers 
from the turn of the century until the 1930s.156

Segregation was particularly pervasive in Arizona 
mining towns, not only in the public schools but in 
almost every aspect of community life as well. For the

App.97

163 Ibid; See also American Legion Post 41 Website, http://
www.azpbs.orglarizonastories/seasontwo/americanlegionpost.
htm

154 Rosales, Chicano!, p. 99.
155 Meeks “Border Citizens,” pp. 210-211.
156 Oordon, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction, p. 194.

http://www.azpbs.orglarizonastories/seasontwo/americanlegionpost


first decade of the 20th century, children in the 
mining community of Clifron-Morenci attended “four 
elementary schools segregated both internally and 
between schools: North Clifton, mixed but with 
separate classes for Mexicans and Anglos; South 
Clifton all Anglo; and two Chase Creek [24] schools, 
one Anglo and one Mexican,” according to the 
historian Linda Gordon. She adds that when low 
attendance dictated the two Chase Creek schools 
merge to economize, the district continued to spend 
extra money to segregate the Mexican and Anglo 
students.157 Similarly in another mining community, 
Ray-Sonora, Mexican and Anglo children attended 
separate schools- the Sonora School for the Mexicans 
and the Ray School for the Anglos—even though their 
parents worked for the same mining company.158

In a 1916 report that surveyed 427 rural school 
districts in Arizona, U.S. Bureau of Education 
researchers indicated “ [i]n practically all Cities in 
Arizona and in [rural] graded schools large enough to 
make adjustments, the non-English children are 
segregated for the first two, three, or four grades.” 
The Bureau study recommended that this practice 
continue because it would be in the best interest of 
both races and advocated a curriculum for the 
Mexican schools that featured English, practical 
problems in arithmetic and pre-vocational training.159

App.98

157 ibid., p. 194.
158 Laura K. Munoz, “Desert Dreams: Mexican American 

Education in Arizona” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Arizona State 
University, 2006), p. 103

159 Educational Conditions in Arizona, “State Study” ATHJ, 
no 1 (February 1917: 1IB, quoted in Munoz, “Desert Dreams,” p. 
105.



In the mining town of Douglas, Arizona, vocational 
training was emphasized in the Mexican schools, as 
Anglo housewives wanted Mexican girls to become 
better maids.160 In the spring of 1916, Helen Roberts, 
professor at Tempe Normal School (now Arizona 
State University) and Grace Gainsley of Pirtleville 
School in Douglas introduced “special vocational 
work” for Mexican children. When Roberts became 
principal of Tempe's Eighth Street school for 
Mexicans, which was run by the Tempe Normal 
School, she instituted these vocational courses. While 
many Mexican parents did not want their children to 
attend these segregated facilities, officials strictly 
enforced truancy laws and the parents were arrested,
[25] fined or threatened with jail.161 In Bisbee during 
1920, in order to segregate the Mexican from the 
Anglo students, a new school was built with 10 
classrooms; the designers slated five for industrial 
education.162

The first successful desegregation court case 
involving Mexican Americans in Arizona, Romo v. 
Laird, occurred in Tempe, Arizona, in 1925. The suit 
was brought by Adolfo Romo on behalf of his four 
children, who were attending Eighth Street 
Elementary School, a training laboratory for Tempe 
Normal School. Anglo children had attended the 
Eighth Street facility since Tempe was settled in the 
late 19th century because it was the only school in 
the town. However, in the early 20th century 
agricultural sectors in central Arizona modernized 
and the population of both non-Mexicans and 
Mexicans increased. Trustees of the Tempe School

App.99

160 Ibid., pp. 112-113.
161 Ibid.
162 Ibid., p. 122



District # 3 then built the Tenth Street School in 
1915 but did not allow Mexican children to attend, 
citing their lack of English proficiency. Romo, whose 
wife was half Anglo, felt that his English-speaking 
children did not belong in a segregated facility and 
attempted to enroll them in the new school, but was 
refused by school officials. He then sued the school 
district in Maricopa County Superior Court, and 
Judge Joseph S. Jenckes ordered that the Romo 
children be allowed to enroll and attend.163

Jenckes ruled against segregation because the 
district violated the 1913 Arizona Civil Code that 
required school districts to provide all school children 
in the state an equal education. Referencing the 
Eighth Street School's practice of having students 
serve as instructors, the judge found that “the 
defendants [had] failed in their duty to the plaintiff 
in not providing teachers of as high a standard of 
ability and qualifications to teach the children of the 
plaintiff in the said Eighth Street SchooL....” The 
Romo children and other Mexican Americans were 
allowed to enroll in the new school as a result, but 
Tempe school officials continued to segregate other 
Mexican American children whose parents did not 
complain.164 *

[26] In 1938 the Latin American Club became 
involved in an intensive campaigt;l to end segregation

163 Rosales, A Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History, pp. 
390-391.

164 In the Superior Court of the State of Arizona in and for the
County of Maricopa, Adolfo Romo, Plaintiff vs. William E. Laird, 
J .H. Daniel and LF. Waterhouse as members of and 
constituting the Board of Trustees of Tempe School District No.3 
and G.W. Persons, Superintendent of Tempe School District 
No.3, Defendents. No. 21617, Judgement and Findings of Fact 
and Order, October 5, 1925

App.100



in the twin mining towns of Globe-Miami. The 
Conquistadores, an Arizona State Teacher's College 
Mexican American organization, joined them in this 
effort. The leadership ofthe two organizations 
continued their desegregation efforts in the 1952 
Sheely v. Gonzalez case. In the Sheely v. Gonzalez 
decision, the court abolished segregation in Tolleson. 
Though the case served as a major legal victory and 
set a precedent for school desegregation throughout 
Arizona, most school districts failed to comply with 
similar court rulings. School officials resisted 
compliance with these judicial mandates, and the 
state neglected to enforce them, and Mexican 
American students continued to attend racially 
isolated schools.165

In 1978 Latino and black parents won a federal 
class-action lawsuit against Tucson Unified School 
District (TUSD). Their challenge was premised on the 
racial isolation that resulted from the migration of 
Anglos away from central Tucson to suburban areas 
ofthe city in the 1960s. The plaintiffs argued that the 
primarily minority inner city schools did not provide 
the same educational opportunities and were 
deteriorated compared to the newer, predominately 
Anglo schools. Thus, the plaintiffs argued TUSD had 
a duty to racially integrate its schools. In 1978 the 
plaintiffs prevailed and Judge William C. Frey issued 
a desegregation order in June of that year. As a 
remedy, the district chose to create magnet schools in 
the central city sites and to bus minority students to 166

App.101

166 Munoz, “Desert Dreams,” p. 266.



predominantly white schools.166 The District remains 
under court supervision today.166 167
[27] MODERN EDUCATION ISSUES

Language and pedagogical issues have also been a 
source of concern in the Mexican American 
community. Until 1972, Guadalupe, Arizona, special 
educators administered IQ tests written solely in 
English to Yaqui Indian and Mexican American 
children who spoke little or no English, even though a 
case challenging similar practices toward Mexican- 
American children terminated that practice in 
California. The Guadalupe Organization, Inc learned 
through extensive publicity about the California 
effort and initiated a suit against the local school 
district which ended the practice after a court review 
was sought by the plaintiffs who filed a suit against 
the Tempe Elementary School District.168

The civil rights of English Language Learners 
(ELL) were strengthened in 1974 when Congress 
passed the Equal Educational Opportunity Act 
(EEOA), which stated that:

no state shall deny equal educational 
opportunity to an individual on account of his or 
her race, color, sex, or national origin by ... the 
failure of an educational agency to take

App.102

166 [text of footnote missing in original]
167 Chris Limberis, “Desegration Dispute: Has TUSD's 

Desegregation Efforts Driven Students to Charter Schools?” 
April 21, 2005, Tucson Weekly. Available at http://www.tucson 
weekly.comlgbase/Currents/Content?oid=oid%3A67993

168 Richard A. Berk; William P. Bridges; Anthony Shih, 
“Segregation of Poor and Minority Children into Classes for the 
Mentally Retarded by the Use of IQ Tests,” Michigan Law 
Review, Vol. 71, No.6. (May, 1973), pp. 1212-1250.

http://www.tucson


appropriate action to overcome language barriers 
that impede equal participation by its students 
in its instructional programs.169

This measure requires educational institutions to 
provide the necessary resources to overcome 
linguistic and/or cultural barriers that prevent 
students from equal participation in instructional 
programs. Arizona established laws for ELL 
programs almost immediately but it was not until 
1986 that the Arizona State Legislature required 
school districts to provide special instruction for 
ELLs. It also established ELL teacher qualifications 
and reporting requirements for school districts. The 
increasing number of ELLs coupled with increased 
student accountability made it [28] difficult for school 
districts, specifically the Nogales School District, to 
comply with the requirements. Initially, school 
districts received approximately $50 dollars per ELL 
beginning in the 1989-1990 school year to comply 
with the teaching English requirement.

In 1992, Southern Arizona Legal Aid filed the 
Flores case, a class action lawsuit in federal court on 
behalf of parents of ELLs. Seeking to force the state 
to improve programs for ELLs, the plaintiffs 
contended in part that “the state is in violation of 
federal law by failing to provide Arizona school 
districts with the revenues necessary to instruct LEP 
students.” The plaintiffs also claimed that the 
Arizona Department of Education failed to ensure 
that schools were providing adequate programs for 
ELLs.170 Charges of inadequate funding stemmed

App.103

169 Quoted in Angela Marie Randolph, “Advocating English for 
English Learners: Flores v. Arizona, a Case Study” (Ph.D. 
Dissertation, Arizona State University, 2005), pp. 4-5.

170 Ibid., p. 9.



from the failure of the Arizona Department of 
Education to meet the level of funding necessary to 
maintain ELL programs, a cost per pupil which the 
Department had arrived at through its owns studies. 
Even though the complaint was filed in 1992 it was 
not until 1999 that it received a hearing. In January 
of 2000 the federal judge who presided over the case 
ruled that Arizona was in violation of the federal 
Equal Opportunity Act because its funding for ELL 
programs was “arbitrary and capricious.” As late as 
2006, the state had not yet complied with the 
mandate according to a number of federal court 
overviews.171
DISCRIMINATION IN THE WORKPLACE

Before the Second World War, mainstream unions 
did not accept many Mexican American workers 
because they had previously been successful in 
industries outside of Arizona where few Mexicans 
worked. They generally neglected Mexicans 
employees, and unions in the agricultural camps, 
which were often comprised of Mexican American and 
Mexican immigrant workers, were virtually non­
existent or too weak to be effective. By World War II 
Mexican Americans in Arizona began to participate 
more fully in unionization, although some industries, 
such as agriculture, have not unionized at the same 
pace.
AGRICULTURE

As early as 1908 Mexicans were recruited to corne 
to Arizona to work in agriculture. The [29] main 
reason was the railroad became an economic boom to 
the agricultural output of the Valley and by 1907 
Phoenix served as a rail hub with lines extending in

App.104

171 Ibid., pp. 63-70.



every direction. The Newlands Reclamation act of 
1902 and the completion of the Roosevelt Dam in 
1912 spurred agricultural production, creating an 
intense demand for Mexican labor.172

While employers fought strenuously for Mexican 
immigration, they and sympathetic politicians felt 
that Mexicans should only be tolerated for their 
physical labor and not afforded the rights of citizens. 
For example, u.s. Representative Carl Hayden 
testified on behalf of his cotton constituency and 
while supporting waiving the provisions of the 1917 
Literacy Act (immigrant literacy requirement) for 
Mexicans, he admitted that Mexicans could be a 
threat to the American way:

The proper thing to do in the United States is to 
populate our country with our own kind of 
people. Whenever there are permanently 
imported into this country, from any source a 
class of people who will not, after one or two 
generations, look the same, act the same, have 
the same ideals as good citizens as the native 
born American, that sort of people should be 
excluded from the United States.173

Mexicans tended to stay and work in Valley 
agriculture year- round by the end of the 1920s, since 
irrigated crops allowed for year-round work. Farmers 
in providing housing for Mexican seasonal workers 
gave preference to families that: “.. contained a

App.105

172 Dimas, “Progress And A Mexican American Community's 
Struggle For Existence,” pp. 39-45.

173 United States Congress, Temporary Admissions of 
Illiterate Mexican Laborers. Hearings Before the Committee on 
Immigration and Naturalization. House of Representatives, 
Sixty Sixth Congress, Second Session on H.J. Resolution 271. 
January 26,27,30 and February 2, p. 195.



reserve supply of seasonal workers in addition to the 
regular breadwinner. Children just beyond the school 
years furnished an ideal reserve supply from the 
farm operator's point of view, and they tipped the 
scale of economic advantage in favor of their home 
households.” 174

When W. H. Knox, president of the Arizona Cotton 
Growers Association and Congressman Carl Hayden 
testified to renew the immigration literacy waivers 
given to Mexicans at a 1920 congressional committee 
hearing they struck a delicate balance so as to 
convince committee [30] members that while Arizona 
employers wanted Mexicans, they were still 
interested in maintaining the dominant position of 
Anglos. He assured the committee that whites lived 
in Valley towns, while most Mexicans were confined 
to peripheral agricultural and mining camps and 
said, “The result of this industry [cotton] is building 
up a city .... Thousands and thousands of acres that 
have been desert, by pumping plants [have been] put 
under irrigation and are making homes for thousands 
of white people.”175

Mexican agricultural workers were often 
unsuccessful in their unionizing efforts. At times they 
defended their interests through informal means, 
such as traveling in groups or families and insisting 
on being hired as a unit.176 This provided some form 
of security, but as historian Pete Dimas has pointed

App.106

174 E. D. Tetreau, E. D. Tetreau, Arizona s Farm Laborers.
Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 163.Tucson:
University of Arizona, 1939. p.312.

175 United States Congress, Temporary Admissions of 
Illiterate Mexican Laborers. Hearings Before the Committee on 
Immigration and Naturalization, p. 195.

176 Rosales, jPobre Razal, p. 109.



out in his dissertation on Mexicans in Phoenix, the 
position of Mexicans in agriculture made abuses in 
the workplace harder to defend and often workers 
found themselves at the mercy of their employers.177 
For example, in Phoenix, Arizona on May 9, 1912, 
farm worker Jose Castro was beaten senseless by his 
boss, who knocked out most of his teeth. Justice of 
the Peace Parker, who heard the case ruled that no 
criminal charges could be filed.178 Similarly on 
October 7, 1919, cotton farmer, C.B. Kunce was 
accused of beating employee Crispin Ruvalcaba with 
a tree branch after he had been handcuffed by local 
constable. The scars from the beating were still 
visible days after. Maricopa County Attorney R.A. 
Jarrot and Judge C.D. Wheeler characterized the 
assault as a “Brutal Job” according to the Arizona 
Republican. Kunce pleaded guilty and was tried by a 
justice of the peace and fined. The constable, Charles 
Beckham pleaded not guilty and was freed.179
MINING

[31] According to several historians, mistreatment 
of Mexican Americans in Arizona was widespread. 
One of the biggest abuses was wage segmentation. 
Eric Meeks' dissertation provides insight as to why 
Arizona Mexican Americans were not paid the same 
as their Anglo counterparts.

App.107

177 Dimas, “Progress And A Mexican American Community's 
Struggle For Existence,” pp. 31-64.

178 “Report,” Jose Castro, May 9, 1912.
179 Ygnacio Bonillas, Mexican Ambassador to Robert Lansing 

United States Secretary of State, October 28, 1919; Ibid., 
Lansing to Bonilla, January 18, 1920, National Archives, Record 
Group 59, File 311.1221 R94.



By the turn of the century, there was a clear, multi­
tiered, racialized class structure in Arizona's mines. 
This racial hierarchy was readily apparent in the 
wage levels in the Clifton Morenci-Metcalf mining 
district of southeastern Arizona. In the Clifton mines 
in 1909, ninety-four percent of native-born workers 
who were identified as “white” earned three and a 
half dollars per hour or more. Immigrant groups 
identified by the Immigration Service as “white”— 
primarily from North America and Northern 
Europe—earned comparable amounts. In stark 
contrast, ninety three per cent of Mexican workers 
earned between one and a half and two and a half 
dollars, with less than one per cent earning more 
than three and half dollars.180

The Mexican consulate service often served as a 
broker for Mexicans and their employers. Consuls 
were supposed to maintain distance when labor 
conflicts involved compatriots, but they nonetheless 
monitored procedures to prevent legal violations. 
When Cochise County officials jailed four thousand 
Mexican participants in the 1917 Arizona copper 
mine strikes, the Mexican consul in Douglas, Ives 
Levelier, helped get hundreds of strikers released. 
Consuls also objected to dangerous and unhealthy 
working conditions. Miner's consumption, also known 
as “black lung,” affected Mexican miners so 
disproportionately that the Mexican consul in Globe, 
Arizona, Gustavo G. Hernandez, wrote in May of 
1918, to the Arizona State Federation of Labor and 
Governor George W. P. Hunt, asking that 
management be made to comply with state 
regulations requiring ventilation of mining shafts for 
an end to the conditions which caused this disease.

App.108

iso Meeks “Border Citizens,” p 83.



“It strikes me that the number of Mexicans who are 
sick [more] than any other nationality ... the consul 
wrote. Mexicans were more susceptible to black lung 
because they operated “pluggers” where most of the 
deadly dust was inhaled.181

The most intensive institutional union efforts 
involving Mexicans took place in Arizona mines, with 
workplace danger and dual wages as the main 
concerns of Mexican miners. Owing to [32] these 
conditions, in 1903, a number of strikes in the mining 
regions of Clifton-Morenci were repressed by local 
police, the Arizona militia, and Arizona Rangers at 
the behest of the mine owners and local politicians.182 183 
The same methods were employed against striking 
Mexican miners in Globe-Miami and Bisbee as 
well.188

During extensive labor organizing activity in 1914 
by the Western Federation of Miners, employers and 
local officials conducted harassment campaigns to 
intimidate workers. In August a posse of Americans 
fought a pitched battle with Mexican union 
organizers after they were accused of stealing a horse 
near Ray. In a battle that the Los Angeles Times 
called “Race War in Arizona,” four Americans and 
two Mexicans were killed after the Mexican “bandits” 
took refuge in a canyon cabin and the Americans 
assaulted the building. “After the first brush between 
horse thieves and posse, Ray citizens drove all the 
Mexicans out of town,” said the New York Times. The

App.109

181 Rosales, Testimonio: A Documentary History of the Mexican 
American Struggle for Civil Rights (Houston: Arte Publico Press, 
2000), pp. 230-231.

182 \yeber, Foreigners in Their Native Land, 219; Mellinger, 
Race and Labor in Western Copper, 42-48.

183 Rosales, jPobre Raza!, 174-175.



dead Americans were two law officers and two 
employees at the Ray Consolidated Company. The 
Arizona Republican identified the Mexicans as wood 
cutters and unionists who hauled wood for mining 
operations. Mining company officials considered 
Pedro Smith, one of the dead Mexicans, and Ramon 
Villalobos, the only survivor of the shootout, to be 
union agitators. The Mexican community suspected 
that the “horse stealing” charge was trumped-up in 
order to jail these alleged “troublemakers.” Villalobos, 
who was hanged two years later for his part in this 
killing, became a cause celebre as compatriots tried to 
save him from the gallows.

CONCLUSION
Discrimination against Mexican Americans in 

Arizona has existed since the Treaty of Guadalupe 
Hidalgo absorbed the area north of the Gila River in 
1848 and the Gadsden Treaty in 1853 acquired the 
rest of what is now Arizona from Mexico. After 
conducting this study I conclude that Mexican 
Americans in Arizona have experienced a history of 
discrimination in voting and registration. In addition 
persons of Mexican origin have had to endure 
discrimination in other areas such as property rights, 
employment and education. I believe that this 
discrimination has hindered and continues to hinder 
the ability of Mexican Americans to fully participate 
in the political process in Arizona.

[33] December 5, 2007
Is/ F. Arturo Rosales
F. Arturo Rosales

App.110



A pp .lll

WORKS CITED BIBLIOGRAPHY 
ARCHIVES
Archivo Hist6rico de la Secteraria de Relaciones 

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DOCUMENTS
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Constitution of the State of Arizona, (Compiled 
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United States Congress, Temporary Admissions of 
Illiterate Mexican Laborers. Hearings Before the 
Committee on Immigration and Naturalization. 
House of Representatives, Sixty Sixth Congress, 
Second Session on H.J. Resolution 271. January 
26,27,30 and February 2,

United States. House of Representatives, 41 st 
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COURT CASES
Charles Goldman v. Pedro Sotelo, Arizona Reports, 

Vol. 8 (1901- 1904)
Romo, Plaintiffvs. William E. Laird, J.H. Daniel and 

LF. Waterhouse as members of and constituting 
the Board of Trustees of Tempe School District 
No.3 and G.W. Persons, Superintendent of Tempe 
School District No.3, Defendents. No. 21617, 
Judgement and Findings of Fact and Order, 
October 5, 1925

INTERVIEWS
Interview by Author with Douglas Kupel, History 

Consultant, 1992.



App.112
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Luckingham, Bradford. Minorities in Phoenix: A 
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_____, The Urban Southwest: A Profile History of
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______, A Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History.
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______, jPobre Raza!, Violence,: Justice and
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______, Testimonio: A Documentary History of the
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Servin, Manuel. “The Role of Mexican-Americans in 
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Weber, David J. Foreigners in Their Native Land; 
Historical Roots of the Mexican Americans.

App.113



Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 
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http://www.law.umaryland.edu/
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states




No. 12-96

R U L E  33 .1 (h ) C E R T IF IC A T E  O F  C O M P L IA N C E

Shelby County, Alabama.

Petitioner,

v.

Eric H. Holder. Jr.. Attorney General, et al..

Respondents.

As required by Supreme Court Rule 33.1(h), I, Carter G. Phillips, certify that 
the Brief Of National Latino Organizations As Amici Curiae In Support Of 
Respondents in the foregoing case contains 8,962 words, excluding the parts of the 
document that are exempted by Supreme Court Rule 33.1(d).

I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.

Executed on February 1, 2013.

CARTER G. P H IL IP S  
SIDLEY AUSTIN LLP 
1501 K Street, N.W. 
Washington, DC 20005 
(202) 736-8000



C E R T IF IC A T E  O F  S E R V IC E

No. 12-96

Shelby County, Alabama.

Petitioner,

v.

Eric H. Holder. Jr., Attorney General, et al..

Respondents.

I, Carter G. Phillips, do hereby certify that, on this first day of February, 
2013, I caused three copies, and an electronic copy, of the Brief Of National Latino 
Organizations As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondents in the foregoing case to 
be served by first class mail, postage prepaid, and by email, on the following parties:

Bert W. Rein 
W iley Rein LLP 
1776 K Street, N.W. 
Washington, DC 20006 
(202) 719-7000 
brein@wileyrein.com

Jo n M. Greenbaum 
Lawyers' Committee for Civil 
Rights Under Law  

1401 New York Avenue, NW 
Suite 400
Washington, DC 20005 
(202) 662-8315
jgreenbaum@lawyerscommittee.org

Debo P. Adegbile 
NAACP Legal Defense & 
Educational Fund, Inc.

99 Hudson Street, 16th Floor. 
New York, NY 10013 
(212) 965-2249 
dadegbile@naacpldf.org

Laughlin McDonald 
American Civil Liberties Union 
Foundation

230 Peachtree Street NW 
Atlanta, GA 30303-1504 
(404) 523-2721 
lmcdonald@aclu.org

mailto:brein@wileyrein.com
mailto:jgreenbaum@lawyerscommittee.org
mailto:dadegbile@naacpldf.org
mailto:lmcdonald@aclu.org


Donald B. Verrilli Jr.
Solicitor General
United States Department of Justice 
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. 
Washington, DC 20530-0001 
(202) 514-2217
SupremeCtBriefs@USDOJ.gov

CARTER G. PHIELIPS 
SIDLEY AUSTIN LLP 
1501 K Street, N.W. 
Washington, DC 20005 
(202) 736-8000

mailto:SupremeCtBriefs@USDOJ.gov