Title: A Civil Rights History: Latino/Hispanic Americans |
Headings: A Civil Rights History: Latino/Hispanic Americans
A Civil Rights History: Latino/Hispanic Americans
Content: Emboldened with the fervor of “Manifest Destiny” — an expansionist doctrine declaring it their right and obligation to occupy all the continent — they began exploring and settling the territory that would become Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and California. They were not the first. The land had already been occupied for millennia by the original settlers who had come to be called Indians. For more than a century, it had been the conquered territory of the Spanish Conquistadores. And for decades, it had been home to their Spanish-speaking descendants who had become Mexicans. The Americans — or Anglos, as they would become known — pressed ahead with their quest to occupy the land from coast to coast. In 1846, they incited a conflict with Mexico, which evolved into the Mexican-American war. The final result was the U.S. annexation of about half of Mexico’s territory for a payment of $15 million. In 1898, still in an expansionist mood, the U.S. invaded Puerto Rico and Cuban, adding them, Guam and the Philippines to American territories from the Spanish-American War. Since then, Spanish-speaking minorities — from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, other parts of Central and South America — have continued to grow in the U.S. through immigration.