The racialization of mexican americans and puerto ricans: 1890s-1930s

This article describes the basic processes of racialization. The paper begins by analyzing how Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans were racialized during the first decades of the 20th century. This was a significant time, when the ideologies of scientific racism and imperialism became part of the popular culture; it was also a time when Puerto Ricans and Mexicans were being colonized, both in their nations of origin and in their diasporic homelands. While there is some significant descriptive work on contemporary racialization in the Chicano and Boricua experience, very little comparative and theoretical understanding supports these efforts. By looking at the patterns that emerge in the process of subordinating, controlling, and classifying Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans, we gain a perspective on the role of colonialism (both internal and external), as well as the role of class and gender in racialization, and we begin to create the basis for a theoretically grounded perspective on racialization.