Document 49 And 50: Discrimination Against Mexican Women

How are Mexican women discriminated against? Under Mexican law, a women's property was protected. When she married, any possession was entrusted to her husband to protect. After the U.S takeover, the law changed and Mexican women became common law dependent of their husband. This meant that their husband had control over the women's property and could prevent sale, lease, or bequest. I will be arguing about the discrimination based on gender how men were discriminated against and compared to women.

When reading document 49 and 50 I notice there is discrimination in general with all race. An example is when the United States denied U.S citizenship to Indians they were a Mexican citizen. The reason why is because the 1787 northwest ordinance Indians did not own the land they inhabited. Here we can see that Indians were extinguishing their property rights by the U.S. Also mestizos and African people were affected by racially prejudiced land policies. Each state and territory passed property laws that only affected people of color.

In document 29, we see that there were a lot of problems with land, especially in California and Texas. Mexicans in the ceded territories lose their land but also

In the document she comments on how Mexican women look she says "the women slap about with their arms and necks bare, perhaps their bosoms exposed if they are about to cross the little creek that is near them, they pull their dresses, which in the first place but little more than cover their calves up about their knees and paddle through the water like ducks." (pg 91). In this quote, we can see she is judging the women on how they dress because they are showing more than she usually does. Also, she describes the Mexican women who were exposing skins to be not the prettiest or whitest. Here we can see that her definition of the prettiest would be someone that is white or someone who is