I’m just relating my observations upon living in TX from 1972-1982. I was shocked too, having come from CA where Mexicans were not subject to so much discrimination — probably because there were not so many of them at the time.
The old timers in CA (Mexican-Americans) were well integrated into the communities, and the newer ones were migrant workers, or ‘braceros’, who crossed back and forth the border legally with the crops.
We built a house upon arriving in Texas and were finishing it up the first month were were there. There was a lot of touch up since it had survived a hurricane during construction and the interior got wet from a broken window when it was still unoccupied.
The head of the paint detail was a gracious, gentle, Mexican man named Tony. He had a very responsible job, and I worked closely with him. I was told to make a list of EVERYTHING that needed touch up and he would fix it.
I kept giving him my list, and I also asked him for the paint formula so that I could make repairs as my kids damaged the woodwork. He’d come out and work a day and get through about 1/3 of my list. Each time he came, he’d ask me to take him around and show him exactly what was wrong, but he’d never quite finished the job. And he would NEVER give me the paint formula. One day he frankly told me, “I don’t write!”
Insulted, I complained to the construction superintendant and was told that Tony neither could read, nor write, because he hailed from South TX and the counties down there did not make the Mexican kids go to school. He could only sign his paychecks. It was shortly after that the the courts passed a decision that required the Texas schools to educate the immigrant kids.
And, yes, I have Mexican-American relatives myself, including 3 grandchildren who carry Mexican names. They live in NY, however, where people think they are Italian! LOL!
Italians, huh? That is funny, and like the people in north Texas, when I was little-we used to visit an aunt in Amarillo, and my mom thought it was funny that they called my aunt and the rest of us “Spanish people”...
Cities here are the only places I’ve observed the bigotry you describe, and Houston was the worst-may still be.
Illegals are not welcome in the SW country and small towns-probably because there are so many old families there of primarily Hispanic ancestry, mixed with a bit of everything else through a couple hundred years of marriages-there are two young West Prussian men in my ancestry-came here from that part of Europe for whatever reason in the late 1820’s, stayed to ranch and marry into Hispanic families.
One of them married into mine, and wrote from a cattle drive that a friend who came with him from Prussia had sent passage money to his girl in Prussia for her come be with him after he had land and some livestock, but that seemed like a big expense when the Spanish ranchers all had healthy, strong daughters that were used to ranch work and made good wives. Not terribly flattering, but hey-it was the frontier...
Since mojados don’t get hired out here-everyone knows everyone else’s business, and will call la migra on them- they go to the cities where there are big companies and no one cares if they are breaking the law because they work cheap, and get paid under the table.