...as White as any Anglo-Saxon

 

LULAC leaders like [Paul] Andow clearly worried that too close an alliance with black civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and endorsement of their tactics would imperil the position of Latinos and Latinas in a white supremacist society. Andow further implied that blacks succeeding in the wake of the civil rights movement did not deserve their good fortune. Meanwhile, LULAC sought a white identity for its members, campaigning against racial designations on government forms that classified Latinos as Mexicans. The term Mexican referred to a nationality, not a race, LULAC insisted, and Latinos were as white as any Anglo-Saxon. 

Jacob I. Rodriguez of LULAC bristled at the Mexican label. "There's no sense of shame in being, or being, a Mexican - IF YOU ARE A CITIZEN OF MEXICO!" Rodriguez wrote in a 1963 letter to the Sand Antonio Express. "There's just no reason why we - as U.S Citizens - should be called what we are not."

Phillips, Michael. White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001. United States, University of Texas Press, 2010.