Julia Young: History of U.S.-Mexico Border and RC Efforts | National Catholic Reporter

Julia Young: History of U.S.-Mexico Border and RC Efforts | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Interesting bit of history, although I would have liked to have her call them Mexican-Americans, which they were from the second that New Mexico, Arizona and Texas were made part of the United States.  The immigrants were the white settlers.  The discrimination, which continues - though without legal sanction - is largely because of racist guilt that every colonizer exhibits - and we are a nation of not only immigrants, but also colonizer.  Sadly, the racism came about because the legal theory was that Mexican Americans were white, and therefor were not covered by the 14th Amendment equal protection clause.  It took a Supreme Court case and that start of the expansion of the meaning of that Amendment (the kind that Justice Scalia fights against) that in short order protected contraception and abortion - and later consenual sodomy and soon marriage equality.



The Pro-life Catholic Bishops have a mixed record on that issue - it would throw out all the privacy provisions and some of the equal protection ones (even though those same provisions give at least legal, if not physical protection to the Church in the Deep South - particularly in Alabama).  The Amendment has also helped undocumented immigrants, who have an equal right to assistance and education, despite numerous attempts to stop them.  At least there, the Church has been supportive.  Sadly, there are Catholic nativists now - including those who never quite accepted the American citizenship of Mexican-Americans - even though they likely call themselves pro-life.