On the White Side of the Fence

[American G.I] Forum leader Manuel Avila feared that any mention of sympathy toward blacks might hurt the Mexican American cause.

"Sooner of later we're going to have to say which side of the fence we're on. Are we white or not [and] if we are white why do we ally with the Negro?"

Avila wrote. "Let's face it, first we have to establish we are white then be on the white side and then we'll become Americans - otherwise never."

Avila had rather simple logic; as whites, Anglos were Mexicans' natural ally, not blacks. He also contended that Mexican Americans in California and Arizona had progressed because they "will never make an issue of defending the Negro."

"To go to bat for the Negro as a Mexican-American," Avila emphasized, "is suicide".

Fighting Their Own Battles: Mexican Americans, African Americans, and the Struggle For Civil Rights in TexasBrian Behnken - University Of North Carolina Press - 2011

The Mexican White Supremacist

Pedro R. Ochoa, owner of Ochoa Auto Parts and Publisher of the weekly six-page paper Dallas Americano, was a staunch White supremacist during the 1950s and printed headlines such as "conserva su raza blanca" (preserve your White race) and "segregacion es libertad" (segregation is liberty). Ochoa's whiteness embodied extremes of nativism and White supremacy... 

He regarded Mexican Americans who joined African Americans in the struggle for civil rights as race traitors and encouraged his readers to join the "Spanish Organization of White People."... 

Ochoa wrote: "...the NAACP, chamber of commerce and other nigger groups ["agrupaciones niggerianas"] have consistently promoted integration to raise the equality, intelligence, and superiority of the black race". 

Ochoa strongly believed that every improvement in the lives of Black Americans came at the expense of Latino Americans and that only by keeping blacks down could White Mexicans raise themselves up.

Reflexiones 1997: New Directions in Mexican American Studies Neil Foley - The University Of Texas, The Center For Mexican American Studies - 1998

Felix Mexican Restaurant

A prominent and respected restauranteur, Felix Tijerina practiced a form of white supremacy that was common in the 50s. For one thing, he took the unusual step of posting a detailed policy statement, titled "Negroes," on the serving of blacks in his Felix Mexican Restaurants... 

Tijerina charted out specific situations and gave his staff stock statements to use if African Americans attempted to be seated at one of his restaurants... 

Other entrepreneurs shared his view. G.I Forum official Manuel Avila told Forum leader Ed Idar "The Negro knows he can't go into white businesses," Avila argued, "but he will try and use the Mexican as an ally and as self defense unless the Chicano says "I'm white and you can't come into my restaurant." Like Tijerina and other Mexican American business people, Avila wished to show no sign of unity with African Americans in order to promote cooperative relations with whites.

Fighting Their Own Battles: Mexican Americans, African Americans, and the Struggle For Civil Rights in TexasBrian Behnken - University Of North Carolina Press - 2011

The Dallas Bombings of 1950

On a warm Monday night in May 1950, a handful of dynamite easily destroyed Robert and Marie Shelton’s American dream. The bomb ripped through the African American couple’s newly purchased home in South Dallas, demolishing their front porch, knocking the house off its foundation, and leaving behind a large hole in the ground… 

The main suspects were Mexican American men who felt threatened by the encroachment of African American families into white neighborhoods. One of these individuals, Pete Garcia, later admitted that he had painted “For Whites Only” signs in the neighborhood, threatened black home buyers with a knife, and chased two African American real estate agents out of the area.

Fighting Their Own Battles: Mexican Americans, African Americans, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Texas By Brian D. Behnken

"The Sum and Substance of the White Race"

Mexican Americans did not object to the segregation of Blacks or challenge the assumptions of White supremacy. On the contrary, they supported strict segregation of Whites and Blacks in the schools and in public facilities. The basis for their claim for social equality was that they were also white...

A group of Mexican Americans, mostly urban and middle class, founded their own organization in 1929 in Corpus Cristi, the League of United Latin American Citizens... 

LULAC sought to set the racial record strait. In a 1932 article in the LULAC News titled "Are Texas-Mexicans 'Americans'?" the author asserted that Mexican Americans were "the first white race to inhabit this vast empire of ours." Another member of LULAC boasted that Mexican Americans were "not only a part and parcel but as well the sum and substance of the white race."

As self-constituted Whites, LULAC members considered it "an insult" to be associated with Blacks or other "colored" races. In 1936 a LULAC official deplored the practice of hiring "Negro musicians" to play at Mexican bailes because it led to "illicit relations" between Black men and "ill-informed Mexican girls." He urged fellow LULAC memebers to "tell these Negroes that we are not going to permit our manhood and womanhood to mingle with them on an equal social basis". 

Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present. United Kingdom, Taylor & Francis, 2015.