of the act clearly states that its purpose is "To punish Vagrants, Vagabonds, and Dangerous and Suspicious Persons." Six short sections outline the punishment at first incident, the protocol for disarming greasers, the consequences of a second conviction, the potential avenues of employment for vagrant, the discharge procedures and the timeline for when the act is to go into effect. The law defined a vagrant as including all those who do not have or accept employment, prostitutes and drunkards and calls for their incarceration for up to ninety days; during this time they may be "sentenced to hard labor." Section 2 identifies people by ethnoracial background by referring to "all persons who are commonly known as 'Greasers' or the issue of Spanish and Indian blood... and who go armed and are not peaceable and quiet persons." The word "greaser" (a vestige of the Mexican–American War) was a derogatory term used to refer to Mexicans and Mexican Americans referring to "the practice of Mexican laborers in the Southwest greasing their backs to facilitate the unloading of hides and cargo," their skin color, or presumptions about their hygiene. Impact in California Discriminatory actions created by the California legislature in the 1850s socially and economically restrained minority groups, and in many ways the Greaser Act, "criminalized everyday behavior and wrote racist language into the law of California" as a way for Anglo-Americans to control the new rising economy. The Anti-Vagrancy Act, as well as laws of its time such as the Foreign Miners' Tax, kept minority groups out of the growing mining economy, by restricting and controlling the laboring bodies of minorities and claiming that labor and productivity would serve to reform idle individuals. Some scholars have argued that the vagrancy act is an example of "internal colonialism" because "this law was an attempt to reintroduce the peon bondage system, which provided cheap labor to the ranchos that existed in California prior to the Anglo immigration." This is an example of how Mexicans "were nevertheless subject to laws designed to deny them the privileges and status of whiteness, based on their working-class position," complicating how race and citizenship were understood in the region. The distinction between 'native' and 'foreigner' played a crucial and central difference in the racism and discrimination emblematic of the Southwest during the time period. The stigma of 'foreigner' was detrimental to the economic and social opportunities of minorities, as