Journal EntryEssay Preview: Journal EntryReport this essayIt was April 1850. Her name was Maria and she was 22 years old. All of her life she resided in Mexico and Maria was Mexican. At this time, she went from being a Mexican citizen to becoming a Mexican American. My home that was formerly a Mexican Territory is now California.
My family and I built our lives on Mexico soil. We were Mexicans, living in Mexico and life was rough. We lived in California, a Mexican territory, which is now the state of California in the United States. My family and I are now citizens of the United States of America. I am proud to be a citizen and I know that there are many possibilities here in this new nation. Even though there are many opportunities here, I find that there are many struggles to come.
We became citizens of the U.S. after the Mexican-American war. The war lasted from 1846 till 1848. The U.S. occupied California as well as Texas from Mexico. My family in Texas wrote to me describing how the United States was the land of opportunity and how there are endless opportunities for the people of the U.S. In California, there are many ports that are used for trade and there are many travelers coming here for our gold. I find that the population here is growing tremendously. This is bringing great wealth to our area. My new life is exciting yet I am worried about the way I am being treated by the travelers.
I am married and have four kids. I help provide for my family. I work when I can and do daily chores that keep our lives going here in California. My husband works as much as he can and as often as he can. My husband is a coach builder and he also makes tents. This is new trade of work for him. He just learned to do these things over the last few years. There was such a high demand for these items that my husband felt that is was a wise decision to learn how to make these items. Business is doing really well and my husband is always working. I am thankful for this because it wasnt always like this. Lately though, many travelers have come to our land in search for gold over the last couple of years.
There were so many Anglo travelers from the east that came to our area. These travelers came over with their entire families. This has increased the population here so much. For all these years, I have only seen my type of people. Now, a lot of these travelers are Anglo and the population is mixing together. This is causing hostility between us. We have our ways and they have their ways. The travelers are starting to take control over my people. These travelers are treating my family and friends as outsiders. This angers me, because this is where my family and I have always lived. This has always been our home. Now, these travelers are treating us as foreigners. In my opinion, they are the foreigners. We provided work, shelter and food for these people. It upsets me that we are being treated this way. Not only are we being treated like we do not belong, but California has just passed
—California’s first lady, Alois, on a trip to New York and Florida
Theresa Gurney, who was born to a mother from Mexico and a father from the English Channel Islands, and raised in Portland, had to decide whether to stay in a state where immigrants had to remain in the middle of the night with the police. The police said no. But she said “yes”. And she knew that a lot of immigrants from California would come. “They’ve lost a chance by going back to Mexico and going back,” Gurney wrote in her first memoir, “What Happened. I was on the phone with our friends in Florida who were worried about how to deal with these immigration laws. Some said they had a little problem, others not so much.”
Gurney said that immigration is still much of a problem in a state like California where there is so little money to send people.
“There’s been such controversy, no one seems to be able to figure the issues out. All these people said they do not have the political will to get into your country,” Gurney wrote.
More than half a million of California’s 1.2 million immigrants or 10 percent of the national total are from Mexico alone (about 640,000 immigrants a day, according to the Pew Hispanic Center).
The question isn’t, “Can we do it for California?” But, “How can we make that happen?”
—Laura Lutz, a former Oakland resident
A survey conducted by Lutz, a former Oakland resident, showed a large racial gap on many measures, with black people more likely to express support for legalized abortion and more than 1 in 5 Latino people support legalizing marijuana.
As the poll found:
Latino support for medical marijuana is very high
Hispanic support for legalizing marijuana is very high
Latino support for legalizing marijuana is very high
Latino support for legalizing marijuana is very high
—Amber Harnisch, who worked in Portland’s East Side for 20 years, added that it wasn’t unusual for black residents living in their state to show strong support for marijuana legalization.
“I would say most of them that worked at a grocery store and one of them said, ‘I support pot,’ so I’m pretty sure they want to end legalized pot in California,” Harnisch said. “I think that it’s a national movement.”
—Amber O’Porter, who studies the effects of legalization on immigration
California’s most influential city councilman, Ralph Nader, was born in Maine to a Spanish-Canadian father and a Jewish mother. Despite his parents’ connections to the area as a private citizen, he says immigrants from his state speak different languages. Though Nader grew up in the city, he was never invited to a bar; so no public event took place there.
“When I was growing up in Brooklyn, I really thought I was a white guy. My grandmother took me out,” he said, referring to him as “Mr.”
“When you grew up in Queens Heights you would never, ever feel like it was a ‘white person’ and be called that before. This city is very welcoming and it is just very diverse. As my ancestors used to say, everybody at every stop seemed to share the belief in the value of this country,” he said. “They say that because this is their home