I thought this question was necessary to ask because it is important to understand how, why and when the latinos/hispanis/Mexican-Americans immigrated to the US in order to understand their position and role in the US. Also, it is relevant to how they are viewed by non-latino-Americans. To begin to answer this question, I began to research the Spanish-American war, and part of the Mexican-American war. The American view of manifest destiny in the 1800s has affected many of the relationships between Cuba, Puerto Rico and Mexico.
In the Spanish-American war the US being interested in Cuba's economic resources lead to the US helping them gain their independence from Spain and gaining Puerto Rico as a territory. The reactions by US citizens were not exactly inviting. There were several different reactions from the people, such as people who were worried this would undermine the jobs of US citizens, people who thought it was unconstitutional, and others who were worried how this would affect the character of Americans. I can only imagine that because of these views, some sort of discrimination ocurred. More research will be done to gain a better understanding of how this affected their reputation.
After researching the Spanish-American war, I began to look at the Mexican-American war. I thought it was interesting how this war was, too, affected by the idea of manifest destiny. The US wanted to expand further west and south. This lead to the want for Texas which was owned by Mexico. The US wanted to spread democracy as well. Not only this, but most Americans thought that they were superior to Mexicans socially, and politically. This even went to the extent where Mexicans were viewed as a different race. This view of Mexicans could definately seem less than inviting to Mexicans, later on, who would want to immigrate to the US. This view of Mexicans before and during the Mexican-American could help explain some of the discrimination that Mexican-American faced when they immigrated to the US. More about the discrimination during and after the war will be researched.
Really interesting work so far and you already the beginnings of a potential thesis-The notion that how the American government related to Hispanic or Latino governments leading to discrimination for immigrants from those countries. I would suggest use this as a working thesis to guide your further research. After looking at the wars, what does the relationship become? How does the United States view (or use) Mexico, Cuba, and Puerto Rico after those respective wars? What is the status of the relationship later in the twentieth century?
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