The law of the noose: A history of latino lynching

Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review

Volumn 44, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 297-312

  Delgado, Richard ^a  

^a SEATTLE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 70049085319     PISSN: 00178039     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (264)

1. For a description of the events at Jena, see Paul Krugman, Politics in Black and White, N.Y. Times, Sept. 24, 2007, at A23, which describes the arrest of six black teenagers for beating a white classmate during a schoolyard dispute over the right to sit under a tree. Students who hung nooses were suspended for three days. The black students accused in the beating were charged with second degree attempted murder.
2. For further discussion of the events at Jena, See Andrew E. Taslitz & Carol Steiker, Introduction to the symposium: The jena six, the prosecutorial conscience, and the dead hand of history, 44 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 275 (2009).
3. See Krugman, supra note 2 (describing public reaction to the appearance of the noose);
4. Adam Nossiter, Black Youth, Conviction in Beating Voided, Will Stay Jailed, N.Y. Times, Sept. 22, 2007, at A12.
5. For other recent incidents featuring the display of a noose see Peter Applebome, Racial Crisis? Or Just Rope in the Hands of Fools?, N.Y. Times, Oct. 14, 2007, at A37;
6. Jeannine Bell, The Hangman's Noose and the Lynch Mob: Hate Speech and the Jena Six, 44 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 329 (2009) (discussing the symbolic significance of the noose).
7. And trouble, of course, is what they found, in the form of social opprobrium and, for some, a criminal prosecution.
8. See, e.g., Barbara Holden-Smith, Lynching, Federalism, and the Intersection of Race and Gender in the Progressive Era, 8 Yale J.L. & Feminism 31 (1996), Race and Races: Cases and Resources for a Diverse America 155, 155-159 (Juan F. Perea et al. eds., 2d ed. 2007) [hereinafter Race and Races] (describing Jim Crow era and the practice of lynching)
9. see also Philip Dray, At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black Americans (2002) (providing histories of the practice of lynching.
10. Robert L. Zan- grando, The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching, 1909-1950 (1980) (same).
11. Today, a different set of practices, notably police profiling, imprisonment, and the death penalty, remind African Americans of their precarious position.
12. See, e.g., David Harris, Profiles in Injustice (2003) (critiquing use of ethnic profiles by law enforcement agencies and documenting how the practice fails to achieve its own aims);
13. Race and Races, supra note 4, 1142-44, 1147-1150.
14. Munieer I. Ahmad, A Rage Shared by Law: Post-September 11 Racial Violence as Crimes of Passion, 92 Cal. L. Rev. 1259 (2004)
15. Race and Races, supra note 4, at 1106, 1107-09, 1115.
16. Donna Coker, Foreword: Addressing the Real World of Racial Injustice in the Criminal Justice System, 93 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 827 (2003)
17. Race and Races, supra note 4, at 1131-1135.
18. David A. Harris, New Risks, New Tactics: An Assessment of the Re-assessment of Racial Profiling in the Wake of September 11, 2001, 2004 Utah L. Rev. 913
19. Race and Races, supra note 4, at 1144-1146.
20. Andrew Taslitz, Stories of Fourth Amendment Disrespect: From Elian to the Internment, 70 Fordham L. Rev. 2257 (2002)
21. Race and Races, supra note 4, at 1122-1124.
22. For the view that widespread incarceration of blacks is a form of latter-day lynching, see Joseph Kennedy, The Jena Six, Mass Incarceration, and the Remoralization of Civil Rights, 44 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 477 (2009)
23. see also Gabriel J. Chin, The Jena Six and the History of Racially Compromised Justice in Louisiana, 44 Harv. C.R-C.L. L. Rev. 361 (2009) (pointing out how compromised justice effects the same end).
24. For analysis of these and similar epithets and symbols, see Richard Delgado & Jean Stefancic, Understanding Words that Wound 47-77 (2004), which discusses the history of such words as "kike," "spick," "wop," and "nigger."
25. Applebome, supra note 2. Compare the noose with another symbol of racial hatred, namely the burning cross.
26. See R.A.V. v. St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377 (1992) (analyzing the constitutionality of a statute criminalizing cross-burning as an instrument of terror);
27. Home-Grown Racism: Colorado's Historic Embrace - and Denial - of Equal Opportunity in Higher Education 70 U. Colo. L. Rev. 703, 704, 724, 781 (1999) (discussing the Ku Klux Klan's deployment of a burning cross to intimidate minorities and summon the organization's members to rallies). Home-Grown Racism: Colorado's Historic Embrace - and Denial - of Equal Opportunity in Higher Education 70 U. COLO. L. REV. 703, 704, 724, 781 (1999) (discussing the Ku Klux Klan's deployment of a burning cross to intimidate minorities and summon the organization's members to rallies).
28. That is, the period beginning just before the War with Mexico (1846) to about 1925 for Latinos, and the period between the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century for blacks. See Holden-Smith, supra note 4, at 155 (citing TUskegee Institute records).
29. See infra notes 77-100 and accompanying text (demonstrating how English-Only (or Official-English) rules can (a) sever cultural connection with the past;
30. (b) demoralize and inhibit redress;
31. (c) literally kill, as, for example, when an individual cannot communicate with emergency personnel)
32. see also infra note 10 (summarizing the respects in which language restrictions function much like a noose).
33. 10 See Juan F. Perea, Los Olvidados: On the Making of Invisible People, 70 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 965, 965, 967-969 (1995) (describing death from demoralization).
34. In addition, English- Only rules may interfere with vital communications with the police during times of civil disturbance, Perea, supra, at 967-69, or with a foreigner's ability to seek asylum in the United States id. at 988-989
35. See also id. at 988-989 (discussing "symbolic deportation").
36. Latinos and the Law: Cases and Materials 207-209 (Richard Delgado, Juan F. Perea & Jean Stefancic eds., 2008) [hereinafter Latinos and the Law].
37. See, e.g., William D. Carrigan & Clive Webb, The Lynching of Persons of Mexican Origin or Descent in the United States, 1848 to 1928, 37 J. Soc. Hist. 411,413 (2003) (citing this number and declaring it conservative) [hereinafter Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin]
38. Rodolfo Acuna, Crocodile Tears: Lynching of Mexicans, HISPANICVISTA.COM (Jul. 20, 2005)
39. Latinos and the Law, supra note 11, at 207 (giving similar number but going on to mention that many more Mexicans and Mexican Americans may have been murdered for reasons similar to those motivating lynching; the line between the two crimes is indistinct).
40. see also William D. Carrigan & Clive Webb, "A Dangerous Experiment": The Lynching of Rafael Benavides, 80 N.M. HIST. REV. 265, 268 (2005) (giving the same number) [hereinafter Carrigan & Webb, Dangerous Experiment];
41. KEN GONZALES-DAY, LYNCHING IN THE WEST: 1850- 1935, at 206 (2006) (listing several hundred lynchings, 132 of them of Latinos, in California alone).
42. Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 414 (discussing the period when most lynchings of Mexicans took place)
43. Carrigan & Webb, Dangerous Experiment supra note 12, at 266 (giving 1928 as the date of the last known lynching of a Mexican in the United States with the full support of the local community).
44. Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 418-22 (listing the most common reasons for Latino lynching);
45. Carrigan & Webb, Dangerous Experiment supra note 12, at 271 (mentioning lynching and vigilantism to coerce Mexican Americans to abandon their lands).
46. Id. at 273 (mentioning lynching of Mexicans for making advances toward Anglo women).
47. see also ARMANDO NAVARRO, MEXICANO POLITICAL EXPERIENCE IN OCCUPIED AZTLAN 133 (2005) (describing lynching used to enforce the Foreign Miner's Tax Law and force Mexicans off mining claims that Anglos coveted).
48. Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 420 (describing lynchings carried out because of the gendered construction of Mexican identity, including cheating at cards, cowardliness, carrying a concealed knife, and other unmanly traits and behaviors)
49. id. at 421 (describing lynchings carried out by Anglos acting on other stereotypes of Mexicans).
50. id. at 423 (describing lynchings of Mexicans based on suspicions of revolutionary sympathies and territorial irredentism).
51. see also Carrigan & Webb, Dangerous Experiment, supra note 12, at 281 (describing the role of racism in the lynching of Mexicans and Mexican Americans).
52. Gonzales-Day, supra note 12, at 185-87 (describing the lynching of "Josefa" or "Juanita" in California);
53. supra note 12, at 421 (describing the lynching of Mexican women, especially of the "lower type").
54. See Rodolfo AcuNa, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos 268-273 (4th ed. 2000) (describing World War II riots aimed at punishing Mexicans who flaunted their identity);
55. Navarro, supra note 14, at 193-94, 211, 254 (describing atmosphere that pervaded the Zoot Suit riot).
56. See Rodolfo AcuSa, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos (3d ed. 1988), Latinos and the Law, supra note 11, at 828-832
57. Navarro, supra note 14, at 193-94 (citing a Los Angeles sheriff who explained that Mexicans' Indian blood predisposed them to lives of crime and delinquency and discussing coverage in the Los Angeles Times and Herald Examiner sympathetic to the attacks).
58. See, e.g., Acuna, supra note 12; Holden-Smith
59. supra note 4, at 155-156 (giving a similar figure and mentioning Tuskegee Institute records listing the number of African Americans lynched as 4743).
60. 20 See Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 414, 430-432 app. (supporting this calculation).
61. Id. at 416, 420-422
62. Navarro, supra note 14, at 108-12, 120-21, 173 (describing the organization's role in suppressing Mexican Americans).
63. see also Richard Delgado, Rodrigo's Corrido: Race, Postcolonial Theory, and U.S. Civil Rights, 60 Vand. L. Rev. 1691, 1738 (2007) (discussing oral literature complaining of brutal treatment at the hands of this group).
64. Gonzales-Day, supra note 12, at 100-01, 113-14, 124 (describing postcards of Iynchings);
65. Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin supra note 12, at 419 (describing how lynchings often assumed the form of "public spectacle").
66. Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 415-416 (describing the argument of Richard Maxwell Brown).
67. 24 Id. at 419 (describing dismembering, decapitating, repeated stabbing, and cutting out a victim's tongue or other body parts)
68. Holden-Smith, supra note 4, at 155-159 (describing the atmosphere at a number of black lynchings).
69. 25 See Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 416-419
70. see also Gonzales- Day, supra note 12, at 175-178 (describing a head preserved in a bottle). Similar mutilation, of course, often took place during black lynchings.
71. See, e.g., Holden-Smith, supra note 4, at 155-156.
72. 26 See Carrigan & Webb, Dangerous Experiment, supra note 12, at 273-274 (describing favorable press coverage).
73. See Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 415 (listing locations of known lynchings).
74. Id.
75. See, e.g., Holden-Smith, supra note 4, at 155-156 Why were Latino and black lynching concentrated in these regions and not others? One possible explanation is group contagion - one incident of lynching gives surrounding society permission to carry out others. A second possible explanation is social competition-aggression theory, which holds that competition between groups for limited resources is apt to increase distrust and racism.
76. See, e.g., Richard Delgado et al. Fairness and formality: Minimizing the risk of prejudice in alternative dispute resolution 1985 Wis. L. Rev., 1359, 1378-1379 (discussing a number of theories of racial prejudice). Both approaches may explain why Latino lynching took place in the Southwest, which contained large numbers of that minority, and why most black lynchings took place in the South, where the black population was particularly concentrated.
77. See generally Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin supra note 12, at 417 (citing Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (1987) (describing, as Carrigan and Webb put it, the "continuing contest for cultural dominance between Anglos and non-white minorities" in that region));
78. Carrigan & Webb, Dangerous Experiment, supra note 12, at 271 (noting that "[c]ompetition for economic resources created a bitter ethnic rivalry. in. areas of Anglo colonization");
79. Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 417, 422 (noting, as well, that lynching ran highest when Anglos and Latinos were in most intense competition with each other or when diplomatic relations with Mexico were tense).
80. Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 416.
81. Id. (quoting L.A. Star, June 13, 1874, at 1)
82. see also Carrigan & Webb, Dangerous Experiment, supra note 12, at 275 (describing local coverage of lynching as a form of "noble and patriotic service" (quoting Farmington Times Hustler (N.M.), Nov. 30, 1928, at 16)).
83. Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 416.
84. Id.
85. see also Delgado, supra note 21, at 1738 (describing oral history lamenting treatment at the hands of this group);
86. Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin supra note 12, at 425 (describing Mexican American corridos lamenting deaths and celebrating brave heroes who died defending their rights)
87. Navarro, supra note 14, at 121 (describing mistreatment at hands of this group).
88. Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 417 (noting that the organization's enthusiasm for punishing Mexicans ran so high that they even crossed the United States-Mexico border to arrest one, who was then returned to the United States where he was "strung up to the cross beams of the gate in the court house yard until he was dead" (quoting El Paso Times (Tex.), Apr. 8, 1881)).
89. Id. (reporting that the figure is close to zero);
90. see Carrigan & Webb, Dangerous Experiment, supra note 12, at 280 ("[T]he only Anglo convicted of the offense received a one-year sentence.")
91. See also Navarro, supra note 14, at 121. Navarro quoted a magazine writer of the time as writing: "Some. have degenerated into common man killers. There is no penalty for killing, no jury along the border would ever convict a white man for shooting a Mexican. Reading over Secret Service records makes you feel as though there was an open gun season on Mexicans along the border."
92. Id.
93. See Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 417, 427-428
94. see also Carrigan & Webb, Dangerous Experiment, supra note 12, at 266, 282-285 (writing that it was international condemnation that ultimately spelled the end of the practice). Mexico's protest grew out of lynching in the territory of New Mexico.
95. Id. at 268. It should not be surprising that lynching in that region would elicit protest. New Mexico was part of Mexico before the war with the United States.
96. Id. at 269. Moreover, the state has always been a tri-cultural region, with Anglos, Indians, and Mexican Americans sharing power.
97. Many of the villages, especially in the northern part of the state, have Latino mayors or sheriffs, and many of the families (including Anglos) speak Spanish as well as English. Much intermarriage takes place.
98. Carrigan & Webb, Dangerous Experiment supra note 12, at 269. The region thus contains many long-term residents of Mexican lineage who are part of the power structure and others who are comfortable with that structure. As such, they were not likely to take kindly to lynching of one of their neighbors by Anglos who did not respect the region's tenuous power- sharing.
99. See id. at 269
100. see also Laura Gomez, Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race 54-56 (2008) (describing the role of Latino elites and common folk in New Mexico's history)
101. Navarro, supra note 14, at 137-141 (describing distribution of power in that state).
102. Carrigan & Webb, Dangerous Experiment, supra note 12, at 266, 282-284 (describing protests by community organizations);
103. Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 424-426 (same).
104. On this mythic figure, see Delgado, supra note 21, at 1740.
105. see also Navarro, supra note 14, at 103-105 On Chicano resistance in general.
106. see Robert J. Rosenbaum, Mexicano Resistance in the Southwest 53-67 (1981), which discusses a host of acts, large and small, by which Latinos protested their mistreatment.
107. Corridos are ballads composed, often spontaneously, to celebrate an event or hero.
108. See Navarro, supra note 14, at 109-117
109. Americo Paredes, With His Pistol in His Hand (1994) (discussing Gregorio Cortes and his significance in border folklore);
110. Rosenbaum, supra note 39, at 42-49.
111. Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 424
112. see also Delgado, supra note 21, at 1739-1740 (same).
113. On the Latino oral tradition, see The Anthology of Hispanic Literature of the United States (Nicolas Kanellos et al. eds., 2002) [hereinafter Anthology of Hispanic Literature].
114. See Benjamin Heber Johnson, Revolution in Texas: How a Forgotten Rebellion and Its Bloody Suppression Turned Mexicans into Americans (2005) (describing rebellion);
115. Navarro, supra note 14, at 100, 317 (same);
116. Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 425 (same).
117. see also supra notes 39-41 and accompanying text (describing other resistance figures).
118. Navarro, supra note 14, at 113-115 (describing the secret organization known as Las Gorras Blancas (The White Caps));
119. Carrigan & Webb, Dangerous Experiment, supra note 12, at 278 (same).
120. Navarro, supra note 14, at 97-120 (describing era of resistance and Anglo responses to it);
121. Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 425
122. see also Gomez, supra note 37 (describing role of light-skinned, wealthy New Mexican elites in the territory's social order).
123. See Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 416 (describing the sentiment behind anti-Latino vigilantism as institutionalized discrimination)
124. id. at 417 (noting that "racial prejudice was the primary force in fomenting mob violence against Mexicans");
125. see also Carrigan & Webb, Dangerous Experiment, supra note 12, at 266 (noting how Anglo violence ran high in the wake of the Mexican-U.S. war).
126. Acuña, supra note 12, at 207-208.
127. See Latinos and the Law, supra note 11, at 208-209
128. 47 Linchamientos means lynchings. It is a Spanglish word that combines the English term "lynching" with the Spanish language suffix "miento," meaning "the act of." Acuna, supra note 12, at 207-208.
129. When Anglo newspapers covered lynchings of Latinos, the coverage was often matter of fact, Carrigan & Webb, Dangerous Experiment, supra note 12, at 271, or favorable.
130. id. at 274-275 The literature on Latino lynching is, thus, sparse.
131. Actos are skits, often improvisational, and a form of street theatre.
132. Cantares are poetry, sometimes sung, and part of an oral tradition.
133. See Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 425-46 (discussing a number of these corridos). One such corrido reprinted by Carrigan & Webb is the following: Now I go out onto roads To kill Americans You were the cause Of my brother's death You took him defenseless You disgraceful Americans.
134. Id. at 426.
135. For additional corridos and analysis of their types and themes, see Anthology of Hispanic Literature, supra note 41, at 115-116.
136. Navarro, supra note 14, at 116-117.
137. Delgado, supra note 21, at 1738-1740.
138. See supra notes 39-41 and accompanying text. Juan Cortina was a member of a prominent Texas family that had suffered indignities and land loss at the hands of Anglo settlers and courts. When Cortina saw a sheriff pistol-whipping a drunken vaquero who worked for his mother, Cortina shot the sheriff and left town with the vaquero. Two months later, he led a posse of sixty friends into Brownsville, where he exacted revenge on Anglo merchants and released all the Mexican prisoners in the local jail. When a force of Anglo and Mexican national guardsmen attempted to arrest him, it suffered a resounding defeat. Cortina's actions received widespread support from the local populace, which believed he was an agent of justice. It took the U.S. Army to defeat him and his insurgent group.
139. See Rosenbaum, supra note 39, at 41-51 (describing Cortina and other insurgent Mexicans during this period).
140. See Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 412 (discussing the role of these two early scholars).
141. See Acufia, supra note 12.
142. Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 429 (citing a Wisconsin newspaper that reported in 1916 that "there are still lynchings in the far west, especially along the Mexican border. although they escape the average collector of statistics" and that "[t]he subject is one that invites searching inquiry")
143. see also supra notes 46-48 and accompanying text.
144. 56 See, e.g., Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 413,429 (suggesting that the invisibility of Latino lynching is due to historians' "narrow racial emphasis upon African Americans and their regional emphasis upon the South")
145. Juan F. Perea, The Black/White Binary Paradigm of Race: The "Normal Science" of American Racial Thought, 85 Cal. L. Rev. 1213 (1997) (describing the common practice of placing the African American experience at the center of discourse and marginalizing that of other groups).
146. 57 See Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12, at 413 (noting that some historians employed a "neat binary division" in which they recorded lynching victims as either black or white, including in the latter category Native American, Mexican American, and even Asian American victims of lynching);
147. Perea, 77ie Black/White Binary Paradigm of Race, supra note 56 (explaining how the binary paradigm of race marginalizes Latinos' concerns and histories)
148. Richard Delgado, Rodrigo's Fifteenth Chronicle: Racial Mixture, Latino-Critical Scholarship, and the Black-White Binary, 75 Tex. L. Rev. 1181 (1997) (same)
149. see also Navarro, supra note 14, at 1-5, 8-10, 97-98, 123 (discussing the internal-colony model of Mexican American history).
150. See Delgado, supra note 21, at 1703-18 (describing this school and some of its principal themes). Are domestic Latinos an internal colony of the United States? Notes 64-65 and the accompanying text, infra, suggest that the answer is yes.
151. See also Latinos and the Law, supra note 11, at 3, 48, 128 (explaining the internal-colony model)
152. Delgado, supra note 21, at 1697-1699 (same).
153. See Delgado, supra note 21, at 1714-1718 On the image of the bestial minority man
154. see Richard Delgado & Jean Stefancic, Images of the Outsider in American Law and Culture: Can Free Expression Remedy Systemic Social Ills?, 77
155. Cornell L. Rev. 1258, 1265, 1268, 1273- 75 (1992). On the stereotypical depiction of Latinos during the period in question see Gonzales-Day, supra note 12, at 29-38.
156. See, e.g., Delgado, supra note 21, at 1717-1718.
157. 61 See Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism 100 (1993) (describing Western literature's tendency to represent foreign cultures in this fashion).
158. See John-Michael Rivera, The Emergence of Mexican America 2-4 (2006)
159. Said, Culture and Imperialism, supra note 61, at xii-xiii, 100, 162.
160. Abdul R. JanMohamed, The Economy of Manichean Allegory, in The Postcolonial Studies Reader 18, 18 (Bill Ash- croft, Gareth Griffiths & Helen Tiffin eds., 1995)
161. see generally Rudyard Kipling, The White Man's Burden: The United States and the Philippine Islands, McClure's Mag., Feb. 1899, at 290-91 (poem encouraging white men to engage in colonization and imperialism over "new- caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child"). Some of the Western scholars include JanMohamed, supra (UC-Berkeley);
162. Ashcroft, supra (University of New South Wales, Australia); and Chantal Thomas (University of Minnesota Law School).
163. 63 See generally Carrigan & Webb, Mexican Origin, supra note 12 (attributing this to Anglo-American racism).
164. See Rodolfo Acuna, Occupied America: The Chicanos' Struggle Toward Liberation (1972) (describing Chicano liberation movement)
165. Rodolfo Acuna, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos vii-ix (2d ed. 1981) (explaining author's use of the internal-colony analogy)
166. Robert Blauner, Racial Oppression in America (1972) (explaining theory of domestic colonialism)
167. Navarro, supra note 14, at 1-5, 8-10, 97-98, 123 (discussing Mexicano community as a colonized people).
168. see also supra note 58 (discussing internal- colony model for understanding the Latino condition and noting the role of conquest, in particular that of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Southwest).
169. Might one argue that blacks, too, are an internal colony of the United States? Although the question lies beyond the scope of this paper, I believe that the answer is no. Unlike Puerto Ricans living in Puerto Rico - for all practical purposes a colony of the United States - or Mexican Americans living in parts of the Southwest that were once Mexico, the ancestors of most blacks arrived in the United States by means of slavery, not conquest.
170. See Howard Zinn A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present (1995).
171. Race and Races, supra note 4, at 97, 99-102.
172. Race and Races, supra note 4, at 102-04, 105, 108, 109-12, 114-26, 129-133.
173. Benjamin B. Ringer & Elinor R. Lawless, Race-Ethnicity and Society (1989)
174. Race and Races, supra note 4, at 19, 24.
175. Benjamin Franklin, Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind (1755)
176. Race and Races, supra note 4, at 104-105.
177. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIV (1787)
178. Race and Races, supra note 4, at 105-108.
179. Frederick Douglas, The Meaning of the Fourth of July for the Negro, Rochester, NY (1852)
180. Race and Races, supra note 4, at 112-114.
181. Herbert Aptheker, Negro Slave Revolts in the United States 1526-1860 in Essays in the History of the American Negro (1973)
182. Race and Races, supra note 4, at 126-129.
183. Frederick Douglas, The Dred Scott Decision: Speech delivered before American Anti-Slavery Society, New York (May 11, 1857)
184. Race and Races, supra note 4, 133-134 Thus, the dynamics of their suppression differ from those that one finds in connection with Latinos.
185. See Delgado, supra note 57 (noting that much of current antidiscrimination law is based on the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, which seek to eliminate the vestiges of slavery). The two groups suffered systematic destruction of their culture and, later, a system of media stereotypes.
186. See, e.g., Delgado & Stefancic, supra note 59, at 1258, 1261- 67, 1273-1275 (discussing the histories and set of stereotypes that developed for the two groups). Yet the Latino experience and civil rights agenda are slightly different from the African American version. The objective of the Latino agenda, in simplest terms, is to abolish the badges and incidents of Conquest - including loss of ancestral lands and cultural and language rights - not to abolish the badges and incidents of slavery.
187. Jean Stefancic & Richard Delgado, No Mercy: How Conservative Think Tanks and Foundations Changed America's Social Agenda 9-19 (1996) (discussing the Official-English movement)
188. Juan F. Perea, Demography and Distrust: An Essay on American Languages, Cultural Pluralism, and Official English, 11 MINN. L. REV. 269 (1992) (discussing the same movement and its targeting of Latinos and other recent immigrants).
189. On the Official-English movement and its recent surge, see Perea, supra note 66.
190. Navarro, supra note 14, at 445, 448, 452, 480, 521; S.I. Hayakawa, English is the Key to Opportunities of American Life, Reading Eagle (Mar. 20, 1990)
191. Latinos and the Law, supra note 11, at 230-232
192. Richard Rodriguez, Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982)
193. Latinos and the Law, supra note 11, at 247-249 Most of this sentiment seems aimed at Latinos and other recent immigrants.
194. Latinos and the Law, supra note 11, at 473-474, 477
195. Paul Vitello, Rift over Illegal Immigration Leads to Talk of Secession, N.Y. Times, Dec. 16, 2006, at B12
196. Latinos and the Law, supra note 11, at 474-77;
197. Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Memo-Letter to Hazleton, Pennsylvania City Government (July 12, 2006)
198. Latinos and the Law, supra note 11, at 478-480
199. See, e.g., Garcia v. Spun Steak Co., 998 F.2d 1480 (9th Cir. 1993).
200. Latinos and the Law, supra note 11, at 652-58;
201. Rivera v. Coll. Of DuPage, 445 F. Supp. 2d 924 (N.D. 111. 2006).
202. Latinos and the Law, supra note 11, at 668-670 These places of business appear to be especially incensed at the speaking of Spanish, and not other European languages, like French or Italian.
203. See, e.g., id. at 652-658.
204. Hayakawa, supra note 67, at 910.
205. But see Perea, supra note 66, at 347 (arguing against this view).
206. See Latinos and the Law, supra note 11, at 250
207. Navarro, supra note 14, at 133, 451-52, 458-459.
208. Cf. Lau v. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563 (1974) (holding that a lack of bilingual instruction for Chinese students unable to speak English violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act).
209. Lau, 414 U.S. 563.
210. Latinos and the Law, supra note 11, at 251-253
211. Serna v. Portales, 499 F.2d 1147 (10th Cir. 1974).
212. Latinos and the Law, supra note 11, at 261-269
213. Kevin R. Johnson & George A. Martinez, Discrimination by Proxy: The Case of Proposition 227 and the Ban on Bilingual Education, 33 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1227 (2000) (discussing a California referendum limiting bilingual education in the public schools of that state).
214. For the view that language uniformity is not necessary for social harmony, and noting that a number of U.S. states have been officially bilingual during parts of their histories, see Perea, supra note 66, at 273, 309-328, which discusses official bilingualism in New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and elsewhere.
215. See also Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923) (striking down a Nebraska rule forbidding the teaching of any language other than English). Common sense leads one to conclude that most immigrants are highly motivated to learn English since speaking English is a practical necessity for getting a job and making one's way in U.S. society.
216. See Perea, supra note 66, at 309-328 (pointing out that for much of its history English enjoyed no special status in the United States, and that, indeed, several states conducted their business in two or more languages for many years without dire consequences)
217. Frank W. Wu, Burning Shoes and the Spirit World: The Charade of Neutrality, 44 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 313, 316-317 (2009) (discussing other types of pressure to assimilate).
218. See Perea, supra note 66, at 272.
219. See Race and Races, supra note 4, at 288 (conquest of Mexico).
220. See id. at 308-320 (fraudulent deprivation of ancestral lands).
221. See id. at 296-302 (violations of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo).
222. See Juan F. Perea, Buscando America: Why Integration and Equal Protection Fail to Protect Latinos, 117 Harv. L. Rev. 1420 (2004)
223. Race and Races, supra note 4, at 329-333 (struggling against segregated schools).
224. See Rosenbaum, supra note 39, Race and Races, supra note 4, at 326 (surviving deadly hostility of Texas Rangers).
225. See Race and Races, supra note 4, at 308 (fraudulent deprivation of ancestral lands).
226. See Ediberto Roman, Empire Forgotten: The United States' Colonization of Puerto Rico, 42 Vill. L. Rev. 1119 (1997)
227. Race and Races, supra note 4, at 376-379 (describing conquest of and colonization of Puerto Rico).
228. Rubin Francis Weston, Racism in U.S. Imperialism (1972).
229. Race and Races, supra note 4, at 370-375 (same).
230. See supra notes 48-51, 54-56 and accompanying text.
231. This is, of course, the standard civics-class view. Consider, however, how learning about almost any case of Latino lynching could resonate with a young Latino's experience and prompt her to see connections with her own experience, for example, of stereotypical treatment at school, cultural images that malign her people, or police harassment and profiling of Latino drivers. The case of Rafael Benavides, whose lynching Carrigan and Webb describe as the last known one of record, is typical of many others. See Carrigan & Webb, Dangerous Experiment, supra note 12, at 266. Benavides, an uneducated manual laborer who was both a husband and a father, assaulted the wife of an Anglo rancher who was away on a hunting trip.
232. Id. at 276. Sheriff George Blancett assembled a posse that quickly rounded up Benavides, who was hiding in an abandoned house nearby.
233. Id. at 268. When the fugitive refused to come out, the posse fired a volley into the house, wounding him in the abdomen.
234. Id. Benavides was then arrested and taken to a nearby hospital, where doctors told them he had little time to live.
235. Id. at 265. On learning of Benavides' crime - attacking a white woman - the surrounding community was inflamed.
236. Id. at 267-268 Four masked men burst into the hospital, seized Benavides, and bundled the dying man into the back of a pickup truck.
237. Id. at 265. A second truck with six other men sped along with the kidnappers' vehicle to a farm a few miles away; the kidnappers forced their victim to stand on the back of one of the trucks, tied a rope around his neck, and fastened the other end to a nearby tree.
238. Id. When the driver accelerated, the body fell, snapping the man's neck.
239. Id. Benavides, who would almost surely have died anyway, thus expired without due process or the benefit of a trial. Was he guilty? Innocent by reason of insanity? Did he really assault the farmer's wife (as opposed to, for example, becoming her lover and then having an angry quarrel with her)? Why did none of his murderers stand trial? We will never know the answers - but questions like these could easily form in the mind of a young Latino child, just as they likely would in that of the trained legal reader.
240. Trinh Minh-ha, Woman, Native, Other 47-76 (1989).
241. See, e.g., Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1952) (recounting the disintegration of a proud, highly purposive village under the impact of English colonialism).
242. See Haunani-Kay Trask, From a Native Daughter 3, 21 (1993) (discussing the consequence of forcible training in English for Hawaiian culture and society).
243. See Ngugi wa Thiong'o, "Moving the Center": An Interview by Charles Cantalupo, in The World of Ngugi wa Thiong'o 219-220 (Charles Cantalupo ed., 1993) (observing that whenever a conqueror suppresses the language of a group, its individual members suffer)
244. see also Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature 4 (1986) (same).
245. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks 17-18, 27 (Charles L. Markmann trans., Grove Press 1967) (1952) (highlighting how adopting the colonizer's language can transform and assimilate the native's identity).
246. See, e.g., Allison M. Dussias, Let No Native American Child Be Left Behind: Re-envisioning Native American Education for the Twenty-First Century, 43 Ariz. L. Rev. 819 (2001)
247. Race and Races, supra note 4, at 741-745.
248. See Thiong'o, supra note 89, at 4, 23, 27-29.
249. Ngugi wa Thiong'o, The Language of African Literature, in The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, supra note 62, at 285, 287.
250. 93 See Ngugi wa Thiong'o, On the Abolition of the English Department, in The Post- Colonial Studies Reader, supra note 62, at 438 (urging abolition of the English department at an African university).
251. 94 See, e.g., Patricia Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights 5-14 (1991) (noting that the arcane vocabulary of Anglo-American law flattens discourse and obscures insights about race, power, and authority)
252. Richard Delgado, Storytelling for Oppositionists and Others: A Plea for Narrative, 87 Mich. L. Rev. 2411 (1989) (discussing storytelling in general)
253. Richard Delgado, When a Story Is Just a Story: Does Voice Really Matter?, 76 Va. L. Rev. 95 (1990) (defending storytelling).
254. See Said, Culture and Imperialism, supra note 61, at xii-xiii.
255. Braj B. Kachru, The Alchemy of English, in The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, supra note 62, at 291, 291.
256. Simon During, Postmodernism or Postcolonialism Today, in The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, supra note 62, at 125, 125.
257. Fanon, supra note 90, at 141-210.
258. see also Navarro, supra note 14, at 2 (discussing the anti-colonial writing of Algerian psychiatrist Frantz Fanon).
259. See Alejandro Portes & Ruben G. Rumbaut, Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation 276-281 (2001) (discussing high incidence of depression and self- destructive behavior in the children of Mexican immigrants).
260. See supra notes 77-85 and accompanying text (positing a mechanism by which this occurs).
261. See, e.g., Kenji Yoshino, Covering: The Hidden Assault on our Civil Rights (2006) (describing social pressures on gays and lesbians to conceal their sexual orientation from others)
262. Devon Carbado & Mitu Gulati, Working Identity, 85 Cornell L. Rev. 1259 (2000) (noting how workplaces often subtly coerce minorities to adopt a nonthreatening, conformist identity and how this exacts high psychic costs)
263. Stephen Feldman, Please Dont Wish Me a Merry Christmas (1997) (discussing how pressures emanating from Christian practices and demands take a toll on Jewish people). The reader is invited to ponder which other practices and traditions subordinate outsider groups in ways that do not readily fall under current antidiscrimination law.
264. See text and notes 9-10 supra (describing "Death by English" and describing how English-only Language orthodoxy can kill, including impairment of emergency medical services, spiritual demoralization, and symbolic deportation).