From spaniard to Mexican and then American: Perspectives on the Southwestern latino school experience, 1800-1880

Abstract

During the span of only half a century, residents of what became the southwestern states of the United States were transformed from subjects of the Spanish monarchy to citizens of the Mexican Republic (1821-1848) and then to conquered peoples of the United States as a result of the Mexican American War (1846-1848). As questions of citizenship and national identity shifted under these governments, the role and purpose of public education were transformed. In this chapter we explore the ways in which social categories and social relations were structured under these governments, and how the agency of Native Americans and Latinos has conditioned, challenged, and altered those categories and social relations in the realm of schooling. We particularly explore issues surrounding the political dynamics of language (indigenous, Spanish, English) and religion (non-Christianity, as practiced by local tribes, Catholicism, and Protestantism) as they related to the purposes of schooling. Under each form of governance (monarchy, republic, democracy), the role and purpose of public schooling held different meanings for the three major ethnic populations in the Southwest: Native Americans and their descendants; mestizos (the descendants of Native American and Spaniard unions); and Spaniards claiming pure blood lines to their European families. Of these three groups, mestizos were the largest and included a smaller subgroup of Afromestizos.