Week 9 — Readings & Resources

Introduction to Ethnic Studies Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 9 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 10 items (4 readings and 6 videos). Allow 53–62 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (19–21 min total)

① When the border moved

Chapter 9, Section “Read the 1848 treaty: the border moved” · Session 1, Segment 1, “The border moved” · Remember: in 1848 the people of the ceded lands did not move; the border did, and Article VIII let them become citizens where they lived.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848): Annexation & Conditional Citizenship — The Chicano Chronicle — a short narrated history of the signing that says the Mexican citizens living in the ceded lands woke up to find a border had crossed them; listen for its account of Article VIII's one-year choice and of the Senate striking Article X on land grants, and notice that the promise of property and the loss of land are two different stories. Use it while completing the Week-9 module overview. (video, 3 min) (captions: automatic)
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo — Pritzker Military Museum & Library — a two-minute military-history segment on how the war began and ended, the 15-million-dollar payment, and the 55 percent of Mexico's land the treaty transferred; it mentions the rights of Mexican citizens in the ceded lands only in passing, so pair it with the chapter's reading of Article VIII. (video, 2 min) (captions: automatic)

② Working under two governments' papers

Chapter 9, Section “Read the Bracero Program: an agreement between two governments” · Session 1, Segment 3, “The Bracero Program” · Remember: a bracero came on a legal contract that two governments agreed to, and the contract's promises were not always kept.

The Bracero Program — NBC News Learn — a three-minute history explaining that the program, set up by the U.S. and Mexican governments in 1942, let Mexican men enter legally for up to six months of farm work, and that employers did not always pay or house workers as promised; notice that it gives its own, more precise count of participants, while the chapter gives the Library of Congress figure in words as more than four million, so read each figure with its source. (video, 3 min) (captions: automatic)
The Bracero Program - Rafael Morales — MSC Museum of Sonoma County — a clip from a county museum's oral-history collection in which a man who came north from Oaxaca in 1950 describes signing a bracero contract at the border and working bent over a short-handled hoe in rows a mile long; set his real, named account beside E1, the course archive's illustrative one. (video, 6 min) (captions: creator)
About the Bracero History Archive — Bracero History Archive — an online archive of braceros' stories, documents, and objects; read its opening history of the program, which lists the protections the contracts promised on paper, such as housing and meals at reasonable prices, and says employers often ignored them, then skip the staff list. Notice it counts contracts signed, not people, because many men came back on more than one. (reading, 4–6 min)

③ Two courtrooms, one amendment

Chapter 9, Section “Read Mendez v. Westminster: which court, and why it mattered” · Session 2, Segment 5, “Mendez and Hernandez” · Remember: Mendez was decided by a federal district court and affirmed on appeal, and Hernandez was a unanimous Supreme Court decision.

Moments in History: Mendez v. Westminster — United States Courts — the federal courts' own short documentary on the case, with the family's story told in their words and the trial before a federal district judge; listen for the moment the narrator says the case never reached the Supreme Court. It uses the word interning for the Japanese American family whose farm the Mendez family leased; the course says incarceration, and Week 11 explains why. (video, 10 min) (captions: creator)
Background: Mendez v. Westminster Re-Enactment — United States Courts — a one-page summary from the federal courts of the class action against four school districts, the district judge's ruling, the Ninth Circuit's affirmance, and the line from this case to the later school case before the Supreme Court. (reading, 3–5 min)
Hernandez v Texas - Oyez, Oyez, Oh Yay! — State Bar of Texas — a state bar's documentary on the jury case, from the trial in one Texas county to the unanimous Supreme Court ruling; listen for the class apart argument and for the segregated restroom the lawyers found in the county's own courthouse. This builds on Week 6's reading of the 14th Amendment and its equal protection clause. (video, 13 min) (captions: automatic)
Hernandez v. Texas — Oyez — a free case summary that sets out the facts, the question the Court answered, and its conclusion, including the Court's words that the 14th Amendment is not limited to a two-class theory. (reading, 3–5 min)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

INS Records for 1930s Mexican Repatriations — USCIS History Office — the federal immigration agency's own history note on the 1930s departures; read why it gives the number as a range and why most departures left no federal file, since most people left through state, local, and charity programs. (reading, 6–9 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

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