They Lynched Mexican-Americans Too: A Question of Anglo Colorism

Introduction

The act of lynching pertains to “justice” carried out by mob violence, the longevity of which likely precedes civilized society. Prior to the organization of human civil structures, lynching was thought of as a way to maintain order among the communal gatherings of a unified population. It also allowed for the expression of societal outrage directed at an offending source/sources (Howard, 2006). In modern-day America, lynching is portrayed by historians as a punishment aimed particularly at African-Americans usually by violent Anglo mobs. The origin of the term “lynch” is given to considerable speculation causing much disagreement among historians and other scholars for whom it is their forte. However, among some documented references is the contention that the origin of the term is attributed to one William Lynch. William Lynch was an 18th century Anglo American citizen known to have been a Virginia plantation owner. In the state of Virginia is where he is reputed to have led enraged Anglo gangs who meted out mob justice against African-Americans who eventually became an all-too-common aspect of antebellum Americana (West’s Encyclopedia of American Law, 2008).

The act of lynching was in fact a form of domestic terrorism perpetrated against all darker-skinned Americans by lighter-skinned Anglo mobs in taking the law into their own hands. By the 1880s, lynching was much too common in the American South and would remain so until the 1930s (Smangs, 2017). Documentation in history texts suggests that between 1880 and 1930, approximately 2,400 African-American men, women, and children were put to death illegally by Anglo mobs as their preferred means of meting out justice. Victims were frequently guiltless of the crimes that brought no charges or arrests of perpetrators. The states where such lynching more often took place include Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, and North Carolina. Ironically many of these same state locations embraced their identity as the Christian “Bible belt” hence moral authority despite being historically the most brutal and violent areas of the country (Smangs, 2017).

At onset of a lynching, the innocent victims of a violent protest were confronted by angry Anglo street mobs at their homes, or dragged from the jail cell where the potential victim might be awaiting trial. Members of the mob included local citizens, while a more active core group might assume the responsibility for actually carrying out violent acts. Those who presumed to witness the horror included “respectable” Anglo men, Anglo women, and Anglo children. The victims they came to view were shot, stabbed, or beaten to death. After concluding the acts of their brutality, mob participants would leave the victims’ corpse hanging usually from trees as a dramatic illustration for public display (Wood, 2003). Eventually, a member of the victim’s family or someone from the African-American community would assume the responsibility for its removal and ensuing burial. Military and/or local law enforcement failed to prevent Anglo mobs from partaking in such violent acts and in fact on occasion took part. At conclusion of the ordeal, the message conveyed was that the Anglo community was supremacy and in total control.

More often than not, the frequent accusation of crime at the onset of a lynching was rape. In particular, the rape of a White woman by an African-American man garnered the ultimate in Anglo mob violence. The actuality of the crime was irrelevant, as the mere accusation commonly unfounded incited no less rage (Lightweis-Goff, 2013). Thus, as little as an African-American man failing to address a potential Anglo rape victim in the prescribed Jim Crow manner of deference was enough to result in his death. The psychological justification Anglo mobs professed for such acts was the protection of White womanhood from otherwise violent, immoral beasts who might threaten the purity of Anglo women despite being little more than boys such as Emmett Till (West’s Encyclopedia of American Law, 2008).

Emmett Till was an African-American 14-year-old boy born in 1941 who resided in a middle-class African-American Chicago neighborhood. His status as a young, virile African-American male threatened the Anglo male psyche and its professed purity of Anglo womanhood. Till had been visiting family in Money, Mississippi in 1955. During his visit, Till was accused of whistling at an Anglo woman named Carolyn Bryant who was then a cashier at the local grocery store. When word of the incident reached Bryant’s spouse, Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam, they proceeded to abduct Till. Once in the two adults’ custody they beat the boy disfiguring his face to the point of being unrecognizable as human and shot him in the head. An all-Anglo male jury who later found each of them innocent tried both men for murder. Years after the incident, a Duke University history scholar named Timothy Tyson published The Blood of Emmett Till informed by an extensive investigation. While being interviewed for the book, Tyson revealed that Carolyn Bryant, years before, had confided to him that she had lied about Till whistling at her (Biography, 2019).

Many of the lynching transgressions exacted upon the African-American community are numerous known and numerous unknown. Historical literature is replete with the details of their brutal and violent encounters with violent Anglo mobs. Lynching was a social and political undertaking that scarcely a citizen of the American public could muster the will or ethical determination to intervene. Despite the fact, few in society were ignorant of the lynching transgressions visited upon the African-American community. However, the same few and society in general were ignorant of the fact that Mexican-Americans were also lynched (Carrigan & Webb, 2003). The brutalities they suffered were exacted by Anglo mobs particularly in Border States such as Texas and Arizona. They too, by Anglo standards, were darker-skinned similar to African-Americans. A Mexican-American 14-year-old male victim met a similar fate to Till under similar mob circumstances only to also have his assailants go free. The objective of this article is to inform the public and the academy at-large as pertains to the details of their fate. The following is intended to facilitate initiation of this process via: (a) review of the literature; (b) the lynching of Mexican-American Antonio Gómez; (c) Anglo colorism; and (d) conclusion.

Review of the Literature

The history of Mexican-Americans lynched by Anglo mobs has been for the most part ignored by Western historians. Carrigan and Webb (2003) provide an essay that addresses a systematic data set on the topic. In doing so Carrigan & Webb suggest that between the years 1848 to 1928, Anglo mobs lynched a minimum of 597 Mexican heritage individuals in America. Those who offer an account of traditional Western violence as rationale for lynching are likely in error. Contrasting traditional violence, the lynching of Mexican-Americans was more often specific to being Mexican-Americans. The factors underlying such violence included: race (darker skin), the history of Anglo American expansion, economic competition, and diplomatic tensions between Mexico and the United States at the time. In response, Mexican-Americans resorted to various means of resistance against the violence of Anglo mobs. Among the various means of resistance included the threat of arms, waging public protest, the formulation of activist organizations, and requests for assistance from the Mexican government. The objective of Carrigan and Webb is to inform the scholarly literature about lynching and move beyond the Black/White paradigm. By inserting a more expansive perspective into the history of lynching will enable comprehension of its causes. Sources for the essay were consisted of diaries, letters, memoirs, folk culture, newspapers, government documents, and diplomatic correspondence (Carrigan & Webb, 2003).

According to Wheeler (2012), Anglo mobs directed violence by lynching at non-White Americans in an effort to maintain social and political control. Those subjected to such violence included Native Americans, Mexican-Americans, and African-Americans. The act of lynching as an American tradition emerged from legacies of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. Under the circumstances, mob murder by Anglo vigilante groups prevailed as a norm circumventing due process. The aftermath sustained racial hierarchies and the standardization of White supremacy.

Martinez (2018) contends that prejudice against dark-skinned Americans accounts for much of the Anglo mob violence against Mexican-Americans. Other factors attributed to Mexican-Americans include the Catholic religion; conflict with Mexico; anti-Americanism in Mexico; and suspicions that Mexican-Americans were not patriotic. Several months following the lynching of Mexican-American Antonio Rodríguez in the town of Thorndale was the case of Antonio Gómez. Similar to African-American Emmett Till, Gómez was a 14-year-old Mexican-American male abducted by Anglo mobs from law enforcement custody. The 14-year-old having darker skin was eventually beaten and hanged.

According to Campney (2015) in commenting on Carrigan and Webb (2003), Anglo mob violence against Mexican-Americans from 1848 to 1928 has largely been forgotten by historians. These historians do not promote the discourse of Mexican-American lynching as commonly applied to African-Americans. The fact that the term is imprecise and frequently contested gives pause for its usage. In providing a book review account, Carrigan and Webb (2003) opine “we do not want the debate to distract from what this book is really about, the acts of mob violence committed against Mexicans in the United States” (p. xi). In doing so, authors contest a number of historiographical assumptions. Among the most salient is that the Anglo mob-lynching era transpired between 1880 and 1930. Furthermore, racist violence in the United States was limited to the American South.

In making reference to Carrigan & Webb’s work, Bishop and Shu (2016) comment that, Mexican-American workers or those who owned land were the victims of Anglo lynch mob violence. Anglos might accuse their Mexican-American victims of theft or other fictitious accusations. Anglo mobs were motivated by racism and greed for Mexican-American land. To rationalize their violence, Anglo mobs convinced themselves that what they did was necessary to maintain civil order as in the case of Francisco Arias and Jose Chamales. Arias and Chamales were lynched in California’s Santa Cruz area of the state (Bishop & Shu, 2016). Those individuals who committed the crime were never brought to justice or identified in court. Speculation exists that some of the Anglo members of the jury also took an active part in conducting the violent affairs of the lynch mob in question, as lynching became all too common in 13 states (Bishop & Shu, 2016), see Table 1.

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Table 1.

Lynching of Mexican-Americans by State.

State	Number
Texas	282
California	188
Arizona	59
New Mexico	49
Colorado	6
Nevada	3
Nebraska	2
Oklahoma	2
Oregon	2
Kentucky	1
Louisiana	1
Montana	1
Wyoming	1

Source. Carrigan and Webb (2003).

Marquez (2009) investigated the lynching of Mexican-Americans in the Western United States from 1850 to 1935. He contends that a systematic effort exists on the part of historians to overlook the lynching of non-African-American peoples in the historical record. Scholars, journalists, and society at-large, Marquez asserts cooperated in the omission of Mexican-American lynching via the perception that African-Americans were the sole victims while Mexican-American lynching in the West was a matter of “frontier justice” and the initial tendency in America to define Latinos as “White.” In fact, the genetic heritage of Mexican-Americans is of limited European origin. As per official documentation, Mexican-Americans racially categorized are 9% White, 60% Mestizo, 30% Indigenous, and 1% other including African. Subsequently, the Pacific population of Guerrero in the nation of Mexico is calculated as being 22% of African origin (Wall, 2007). Therefore, in common with African-Americans, the Mexican-Americans lynched were likely darker skinned. Their darker skin identified them to Anglo mobs as out-group members. Unlike Europeans such as Germans, Irish, or British who might have been recent immigrants, Anglo mobs by lighter skin identified Europeans including noncitizens as in-group members. Subsequently, was the lynching of darker-skinned out-group Mexican-Americans such as Antonio Gómez.

Although Mexican-American lynching data are scarce, what does exist calculates that between 1848 and 1879, they were lynched at a rate of 473 per 100,000 of individuals within the Mexican-American population. By the turn of the century, the Mexican-American population had grown as Anglo lynching significantly declined after 1880. Despite the fact, there were 27.4 Mexican-Americans lynched by Anglo mobs per 100,000 members of the population. Comparable to African-Americans who were lynched between 1880 and 1930 in South Carolina and North Carolina at the rate of 18.8 and 11.0 per 100,000, Mexican-American rates were all but unknown.

While the criminal elements of the Anglo community more often carried out the violence of lynch mobs, not a few among them were law enforcement officials who also took part. It is documented that on February 1857, a law official forced a group of Mexican-Americans to witness the decapitation of a Mexican-American. Following this act, the officer then stabbed the corpse repeatedly (Carrigan & Webb, 2003).

Perhaps the Texas Rangers carried out the most hideous of law enforcement participation. They are credited by some historians as engaging in state-sanctioned terrorism. As with Anglo mobs, the statistics are unreliable. However, what does exist is estimated to be in the hundreds and/or thousands. The Texas Rangers additionally crossed the United States–Mexico border to exact violence upon Mexican nationals. According to a historical account in March of 1881, Texas Rangers crossed the Mexican border to illegally arrest Onofrio Baca. They escorted him back to the United States on a charge of murder. Upon their return, the Texas Rangers released their Mexican-American captive to an Anglo mob who “strung [him] up to the cross beams of the gate in the courthouse yard until he was dead” (Carrigan & Webb, 2003). The event was commensurate with the lynching of Antonio Gómez.

The Lynching of Mexican-American Antonio Gómez

Approximately 40 years before the lynching of 14-year-old African-American male Emmett Till was the lynching of the aforementioned 14-year-old Mexican-American male Antonio Gómez noted here in detail (Martinez, 2018). The darker complexion of both adolescents was in stark contrast to the lighter-skinned Anglo mobs that put them to death. For Gómez, death came in the evening of June 19, 1911. An Anglo mob had gathered in the town of Thorndale, Milan County Texas to avenge the death of a German Anglo American named Charles Zieschang. Zieschang was a local resident of the town where he owned and operated a service garage. The garage owner before being killed stood outside of the town saloon with another Anglo American who was a Constable named Robert L. McCoy. Gómez passed the two walking with a knife he had been using to whittle a piece of wood. The saloon owner named William Stephens, harassed Gómez for littering the sidewalk with wood shavings that fell from the piece of wood he had been whittling. Immediately, the Anglo Zieschang reached for the boy’s knife and commenced to cursing Gómez for littering. Gómez acted to defend himself by stabbing Zieschang in the chest with his knife. Within a short while, Zieschang died from loss of blood due to the stabbing.

In the aftermath of stabbing, Gómez attempted to flee the scene. However, Constable McCoy standing by apprehended him and proceeded to take the boy into custody. While Gómez was incarcerated, an Anglo gathering had begun to form on the town’s Main Street, who had come to investigate the disturbance. Eventually, word of Zieschang’s death spread throughout the town. Anglo residents began to assemble to express their anger. Soon after a mob had formed, which consisted of approximately 40 adult Anglo men in front of the jail where Gómez had been detained. McCoy realized the mob potential and thus removed the boy from his cell and placed a chain around his neck to transport him elsewhere. One of the Anglo townsmen named Wilford Wilson offered McCoy his assistance when the two exited the jail with the boy. Citizens were ordered by the Constable to remain in their places.

The events following Gómez’s removal from the local jail cell and concluding in the actual lynching have been subject to some dispute. Those identified as eyewitnesses disagreed as to the numbers in the Anglo mob, from 4 to 16, and who actually took part. As a result, the court did not provide a transcript, but a summary only of those aspects of the event with which witnesses agreed. Thus, in further court proceedings what was summarized often conflicted with the testimony of presumed eyewitnesses.

In an effort to enforce the law, Constable McCoy, assisted by Wilson, had intended to hide Gómez from the Anglo mob in a local cotton gin. Wilson searched for a vehicle they could use to transport Gómez to the county jail about 23 miles away in Cameron, Texas, where he might be safe. A vehicle could not be found as the three met at the residence of a town local named G.W. Penny to figure out another strategy.

As told by Wilson, after the Constable left, a gathering of four to six Anglo men arrived at the Penny residence demanding Gómez be released to their custody. Wilson refused escaping with Gómez by an alley behind his house. They were met by another group of Anglo men, one on horseback and three others standing on foot. The man on the horse then grabbed Gómez by the chain around his neck and proceeded to drag the boy through the streets behind him. Wilson went looking for assistance, but encountered the men in the Anglo mob once again. They had placed a ladder by a telephone pole on which Gómez had been beaten and suspended by the chain on his neck that had been placed there for security reasons. No less than “respectable” townspeople such as Reverend J. L. Watson, E. A. Johnson, and Buck Bonds, witnessed the tragedy but chose to do nothing. Wilson then informed Justice of the Peace Woodsbury Norris of what was taking place. He identified Z. T. Gore, Jr., Garrett Noack, Harry Wuensche, and Ezra Stephens who was the son of saloon owner William Stephens. They all had been in the lynch mob. Gómez’s body was eventually removed from the ladder by Constable McCoy and J. P. Norris with some help. No more than 3 hours had passed since the time of Zieschang’s stabbing and Gómez’s lynching.

News media reported on the story of Gómez’s lynching the following day. Many such reports were inaccurate and/or conflicting. The local newspaper Thorndale Thorn in the June 23 edition reported both on the stabbing of Zieschang and the lynching of Gómez. Some distance away the San Antonio Express falsely made reference to Gómez as an 18-year-old lynched by a mob of 100 towns’ people. The Spanish-language newspaper La Crónica located in Laredo, Texas described Gómez’s lynching as an “act of cowardice.” The reporter who made such a reference criticized the Texas German community. A German paper named the Giddings Deutsches Volksblatt reported in German that Zieschang’s killer had been brought to justice swiftly and that Gómez’s death was not a lynching, but a hanging by due process. No less than the New York Times reported on reaction to the lynching by the Mexican government whose leadership insisted that the members of the Anglo mob be brought to justice (Spencer & Abigail, 2019). Buried in historical archives, the lynching of darker-skinned 14-year-old Antonio Gómez by a lighter-skinned Anglo mob was in fact a Mexican-American victim manifestation of Anglo colorism (Martinez, 2018).

Anglo Colorism

Although the longevity of colorism is historical, the origin of Anglo colorism is a recent credit to an African-American author of The Color Purple who is also a social activist named Alice Walker (1983). Initial reference to the term appeared in a 1982 article published by the Essence magazine. Walker wrote the article originally to express the various forms of racial discrimination suffered by African-American women exclusively. She later revised the term colorism in her following 1983 publication of In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens. According to that publication, colorism is a social phenomenon pertaining to the “prejudicial or preferential treatment of same-race [i.e.: Mexican-Americans] people based solely on their color” (Donovan & Walsh, 1991).

Today, colorism is a prevalent mainstream American social transgression brought about by Anglo racism. Colorism is acknowledged as an omnipotent disorder that permeates the whole of American society and its various institutions. According to Russell et al. (1992) colorism having arrived from alien Anglo norms is no less potent and formidable than racism. From the youthful ages of Mexican-Americans, skin color descends upon their American experience such that colorism implies a distinction between those who are lighter skinned and those who are darker skinned (Smart, 2018). In any number of instances suggested by rigorous investigation, colorism impacts quality of life, conveying light skin as in-group status and dark skin as out-group status associated with victimization via aggression and crime. Such demeaning symbolism is indicative of eugenics introduced by mainstream Anglo “science” and internalized by “civil” Anglo populations, who eventually evolved into violent lynch mobs (Toldson, 2010).

In the most common applications, colorism has been intragroup limited to African-Americans and/or dark-skinned people of color including Mexican-Americans. The invention, perpetration, and perpetuation of colorism is an Anglo motivated phenomenon seldom assigned to Anglo origin. Specifically, Anglo colorism has been a product of Anglo racism and discrimination not irrelevant to the lynching of darker-skinned populations, relative to Till and Gómez. Although less apparent in the postlynching era, Anglo colorism against Mexican-Americans is sustained via social, political, cultural, and economic operations. In academic discourse, Anglo colorism similar to colorism in general is rooted in racism, but secondary relative to perceived significance. Considering the support of Anglo intellectuals, Anglo colorism is then reduced in urgency compared to racism. In rhetoric, racism is left to exclusive reference and intellectual preference (Monk, 2014). Conversely, considering discrimination no less racist is Anglo colorism, manifested in Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI, 2017) hate crime statistics, see Table 2.

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Table 2.

2017 FBI Hate Crimes.

Victim	Incidents
Anti-Black or African-American	2,013
Anti-Hispanic/Latino or Mexican-American	427
Anti–American Indian or Alaska Native	251
Anti-Asian	131
Anti-Arab	102
Anti–Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander	16
Other	2,120
Total	5,060

Source. FBI (2017).

Note. FBI = Federal Bureau of Investigation.

According to Table 2, as pertains to hate crime incidents reported in 2017, there were 5,060 victims identifiable by race. Of said incidents, 39.7% were African-American victims; 8.4% were Hispanic/Latino, that is, Mexican-American victims; 4.9% were American Indian or Alaska Native victims; 2.5% were Asian victims; 2.0% were Arab victims; and 0.31% were Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander victims. Irrelevant to skin color was “Other” at 41.8%. Based on Felix Von Luschan’s color scale, hate crimes per Anglo colorism are ranked in proximity to darker skin, where darker skin pertains to out group as the most critical characteristic factor correlated to hate crime perpetuation. Subsequently, Anglo lynch mobs then acted upon African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans accordingly because via colorism, their darker skin implied a threat via out-group status (Swiatoniowski, Quillen, Shriver & Jablonski, 2013).

Conclusion

Recent social science literature has begun to acknowledge the existence of colorism by rigorous scientific investigations. However, aside from Dhillon-Jamerson (2018) few social science scholars have acknowledged the existence of Anglo colorism. In fact, colorism as pertains to people of color is an extension of Anglo colorism that the public at-large including social science scholars have overlooked and/or misunderstood. Subsequently, is belief in the origin of colorism as addressed by Walker (1983). The assumed origin for the term people of color was initially attributed to African-American women of color and later expanded to include all people of color. What error occurred under the auspices of Anglo social scientists including some among their darker-skinned, non-Anglo racial counterparts was a failure to acknowledge the origins of colorism as a product of Anglo colorism via racism. Anglo colorism is then a stealth social phenomenon subjugated by the more traditional transgressions of racism (Nelson, 2013). Social scientists who conduct rigorous investigations pertaining to the various forms of discrimination collect data on race omitting the collection of data on skin color. Therefore, race erroneously became a standard, predisposed variable as the primary discrimination culprit of social science investigation.

Similar to the acknowledged version of colorism, Anglo colorism is a prejudice that enables discrimination to be carried out in behavioral acts. Unlike the acknowledged version of colorism, which transpires intraracially, Anglo colorism transpires interracially (Smart, 2018). In the aftermath, both versions of colorism compound the devastating transgressions visited upon people of color including Mexican-Americans assessed relative to Anglo light skin. Darker skin in designating Mexican-Americans as an out group has provided a convenient rationale for Anglo lynch mobs who seek justification for their acts. Some of the most brutal acts have been dismissed from the attentions of able social scientists. Their lack of attention enabled the lynching of Mexican-Americans in years past and sustains other forms no less devastating to Mexican-Americans today (Ridge & Montoya, 2013).

Historically, darker skin designated Mexican-Americans as members of an out group, which qualified them for various forms of Anglo discrimination. Today, speaking Spanish is associated with darker-skinned peoples equally designates Mexican-Americans as out group. By virtue of out-group status, modern-era Mexican-Americans are subjected to various forms of language discrimination, whereby their oppression which absents the traditional drama of lynching is sustained nonetheless. The case of Sylvia Mendez is a dramatic illustration of modern-era, covert Anglo lynching of Mexican-Americans.

In the 1940s, approximately 80% of Mexican-American children attended segregated schools. Mendez had been denied admission to an excellent all-Anglo facility for elementary school students near her residence. School officials directed Mendez to the dilapidated Hoover Elementary for Mexican-Americans. Students there were arbitrarily admitted to Hoover via complexion (i.e., darker skin) and their Spanish surname (Ruiz-Pérez et al., 2003). Mendez’s family objected to her attending Hoover and, in 1945, sued four Orange County California school districts. Their objective was to establish that all children could attend California schools without a racial requirement. School officials from the Anglo school insisted that Mexican-Americans were filthy and infected with diseases that put the health of Anglo students at risk. School officials insisted that Mexican-Americans did not speak English and as a result should not be admitted to English-speaking schools. What’s more, one school official stated: “Mexicans are inferior in personal hygiene, ability and in their economic outlook” (Short & Magana, 2002). The attorney for Mendez countered the accusations of school officials and offered testimony of 14-year-old Carol Torres. The attorney in the Mendez trial used Torres’ testimony to prove that Mexican-American students could and did speak English as well as any Anglo student.

In a case that should have been decided with little hesitation, the judge in Mendez’s trial pondered the facts for a total of seven months. Eventually on February 18, 1946, Judge Paul J. McCormick ruled that the school had violated Mendez’s Constitutional rights. The school challenged the ruling but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Judge McCormick. As a result of Mendez v. Westminster School District, the state of California officially ceased to segregate its students. Following the court’s decision, Mendez began attending the school. She was teased and harassed by her Anglo schoolmates on the day she arrived. Despite the fact, she overcame the challenges to her being allowed to attend and graduated.

In the United States today, a question of Anglo colorism prevails per Mexican-Americans as a single member of the out-group Latino population. Approximately 43 million of them speak Spanish. However, as the largest minority group in the United States, Anglo colorism remains constant against them. According to a 2016 Pew survey, 52% of Mexican-Americans confide that they have encountered discrimination (Blakemore, 2017). Anglo colorism publicly acknowledged in the lynching of African-Americans has declined, but Anglo colorism manifested in Mexican-American discrimination is publicly sustained, via objection to Spanish language, continuation of school segregation by de facto means and the omissions from social science of a Mexican-American lynching past by Anglo mobs (Donato & Hanson, 2012). Once informed of such crimes, social scientists and the American society at-large must then admit they lynched Mexican-Americans too!