#TEXAS ONE AND ALL REGISTRATION#

The lawyers claimed that the all Anglo-Saxon jury, which indicted Hernandez, denied him his equal protection under the 14th Amendment. Despite being 14% of Edna's population, no Mexican American had executed their citizenship rights as jury commissioners, petit jurors, or grand jurors in over 50 Texas counties with a predominant Mexican American population since 1926.

Westminster case in 1947, the Court unanimously ruled that the 14th Amendment protects those beyond the members of the “two class theory” and that Mexican Americans were a “special class” in Jackson County, Texas.ĭespite more than 100 years of citizenship rights under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) and post WWII integration into the local economy, Mexicans Americans in Texas endured segregation in systemic jury discrimination, which reached a climax in 1951 with the Hernandez case. On May 2, 1954, under Chief Justice Earl Warren, who was governor of California during the Mendez v. Mexican American civil rights lawyers Gus Garcia and Carlos Cadena from San Antonio and James de Anda from Houston, Texas took the Hernandez’ case to the United States Supreme Court. In 1951, Pete Hernandez, a young Mexican-American cotton picker, was accused of murdering Joe Espinoza and charged with life imprisonment by an all Anglo-Saxon jury in Edna, Texas. Texas: A Legacy of 60 Years,' by Francisco Macías (In Custodia Legis Blog: May 5, 2014). Supreme Court Decision delivered by Chief Justice Earl Warren. 2002: Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act & 2012: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).1991: American Baptist Churches (ABC) v.1990: Temporary Protection Status (TPS).1986: Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

#TEXAS ONE AND ALL REGISTRATION#

1974: Southwest Voter Registration Education Project.1968: The Young Lord's Organization/Party.1967: Tierra Amarilla Land Grant & Courthouse Raid.1938: Spanish Speaking People's Congress.1911: Meeting of the Mexicanist Congress.Let it be so, for Texas, for the United States, and for the world, let us “love down” the worst and raise up the best in all of us. Some people don’t believe in prayer, but in the midst of a tornado, as in a foxhole, as has often been said, there are no atheists in crisis we all yearn toward something better, and isn’t that yearning simply non-dogmatic prayer? As one of my good friends said about a hostile and hurtful person in her life, “Finally, we loved her down.” Perhaps prayer, which, in my opinion, is based in love, not ridicule or criticism, would be helpful. To calm the storms of hate and prejudice and racism and bigotry and ignorance and greed and impoverishment and privilege, as well as the storms of weather. In short, in Texas, we really need some good energy to come our way. The behaviors of humans around the world have initiated climate change which is, we are told, bringing on these storms, and also, who knows, maybe this stormy effect is increased by all the negative psychic energy pointed one way and then the other way by so many polarized peoples… (I’m not saying I believe that, I’m just saying…who knows?) Texas, like the rest of the world in recent years, has endured horrific drought, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and floods.

(Actually, maybe all of us need to change, each in our various ways, to change Texas, change the U.S., or change the world.)īut perhaps good change would come faster if we all consciously started sending good thoughts out everywhere, even to Texas, instead of giving energy to the worst aspects of any of us, or taking refuge in cynicism, self-righteousness, despair, or hopelessness. Many of the actions of the “crazies” do need to change, I agree. There are, in Texas, thankfully, many people who don’t fit the “crazy” caricature, politically or spiritually, just as, in the United States, there are many people who are not racists, Muslim-haters, or imperialists, although around the world there are those who think this is so and direct negative energy toward the United States, sometimes manifesting as bombs, sometimes as-well, who knows what. At my age most everything feels like a Great Mystery and hardly anything feels like a fact, so I don’t know what I believe about this anymore.īut a lot of people say that thoughts influence energy and actions, both personally, physically, and cosmically, and if that’s so, then all the negative thoughts directed toward Texas these days are having an effect worse than could have been intended.

Texas one and all