Gringo justice

Alfredo Mirandé states that he used the term gringo justice because it would have been illogical in his view to characterize the American criminal justice system as anything other than an unjust system for Chicanos, or a system that only worked for white people. As Mirandé describes:

Titles such as Law, Justice, and the Chicano and Chicanos and the Legal and Judicial System were considered and discarded because they implied that the American legal and judicial system had been just and equitable in its treatment of Chicanos. The title Gringo Justice seemed to more accurately capture the reality of the Chicano experience before the American tribunals.

In his book Gringo Justice (1987), Mirandé outlines the theoretical underpinnings of gringo justice. He then lists the basic or essential components of gringo justice. These basic principles of the theory are explained by Mirandé as follows:[2]

1. The criminalization of the Chicano resulted not from their being more criminal or violent, but from a clash between conflicting and competing cultures, world views, and economic, political and judicial systems.
2. In the aftermath of the North American invasion and the acquisition of Mexico's northern territories, Chicanos were rendered landless and displaced politically and economically, but they became a vital source of cheap and dependent labor for the developing capitalistic system.
3. Chicanos were labeled as bandidos because they actively resisted Anglo encroachment and domination but lacked the power to shape images of criminality or to articulate sociological/criminological theories. The bandido image served to reinforce or legitimate their economic, political, and legal exploitation.
4. As Chicanos were displaced economically and politically, they became increasingly concentrated in ethnically and residentially homogenous neighborhoods or barrios. Barriorization made it possible to maintain a constant supply of cheap labor without contaminating Anglo society, while keeping Chicanos in a subordinate and dependent position.
5. Conflict with law enforcement intensified during the twentieth century. With growing barriorization the police assumed an increasingly important role in maintaining Chicanos under control and enforcing the social and physical isolation of the barrio.
6. Although Chicanos are essentially a landless people not integrated into the American melting pot, barrios are a symbolic land base and an important source of identity and pride.
7. So-called gangs or barrio youth groups may have negative manifestations, but they are not inherently deviant or criminal, and they provide an essential sense of identity, self-worth, and pride for their members that is afforded other youth by more socially acceptable groupings.[2]

Mirandé also connects gringo justice to the inequitable treatment of Black Americans within the criminal justice system in his book Gringo Injustice (2019), stating that "it is neither possible nor desirable to be indifferent or neutral toward racism or the prevailing unequal system of justice in the United States."[1]

The historical roots of gringo justice are based in the movement of white Americans from the east coast into the northern territories of Mexico (Alta California, Santa Fe de Nuevo México, and Coahuila y Tejas), who brought with them racist ideas of Anglo superiority and domination. As described by historian Ed A. Muñoz, "not surprising, these Anglo American immigrants in the northern borderlands came to view Mexicans as a subhuman and inferior mongrel race due to their centuries-old African, Indian, and European mestizaje, or racial/ethnic mixing." Mexican land soon became the object of desire for Anglo American settlers under ideas of manifest destiny and the desire to expand slave states westward (slavery was abolished in Mexico in 1829; it was not abolished in the United States until 1865). For Anglo settlers, "Mexican lands were a fountain of resources for a burgeoning U.S. society bent on spreading modern capitalist society around the globe."[3]

In 1836, Anglo immigrants in Texas declared independence from Mexico and Mexican officials refused to recognize this claim as it was an infringement on their sovereignty. This resulted in an open conflict between Anglos and Mexicans, which has roots in the development of the stereotype of the Mexican bandit. As described by Muñoz, "oddly enough it was Mexican resistance to American aggression and illegal colonizing that led to the evolution of the Mexican 'bandido' stereotype. This negative icon portrayed Mexicans as bloodthirsty savages filled with wanton lust for American land and women and worked to justify sustained skirmishes in disputed lands." Texas was annexed in 1845. As a violation of international law, this effectively resulted in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). Following the war, Mexicans still within the borders of what was now the United States, were transformed from Mexican citizens "into a dependent labor force for southwestern commercial agriculture and industrialization."[3]

Mexicans were stripped of social, economic, and political rights which had been outlined in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) and were increasingly portrayed as criminal and subjected to violent policing by groups such as the Texas Rangers. The U.S. government completely erased Article X of the treaty which guaranteed "the validity of land grants distributed by Mexican authorities before the war," which made many Mexicans landless. Anglo vigilante groups, both formal and informal, also attacked Mexicans, who became second-class citizens. Mexicans who resisted this violence like Gregorio Cortez, las Gorras Blancas, and Juan Cortina were labelled as outlaws by Anglos, but became champions among some Mexican American people along the border "because they openly resisted the legal and extralegal takeover of Mexican lands, suppression of Mexican civil rights, and the violation of Mexican families."[3]

Two Mexican American boys stripped of their zoot suits during the Zoot Suit Riots by U.S. navy sailors.

This resistance, along with further displacement of Mexican revolutionaries from Mexico into the southwestern United States and conflicts with Pancho Villa's revolutionary army, contributed to the rise of "a notion of unpatriotic disloyalty among the U.S. Mexican-origin immigrant and nonimmigrant population." However, the need for Mexican labor soared in the American capitalist system, which led to increasing barrioization or hyper-segregation of Mexicans into areas with poor infrastructure and opportunities by the early 20th century. In these spaces, Mexicans were criminalized at a level unprecedented in Anglo-American communities. Scholars have compared this to Jim Crow laws applied to Black people in the South. During the Great Depression, Mexican labor was suddenly treated as disposable because of the collapse of the American economy, which resulted in the Mexican Repatriation (1929-1936)[3] in which 400,000 to 2 million Mexicans were deported from the United States against their will (it is estimated that about 60% of them were birthright citizens of the United States).[7]

By the 1940s, the pachuco subculture had emerged in open defiance and resistance to this system of gringo justice, embracing a style of dress and social behavior that was widely condemned by Anglo-American society and also by more assimilationist-focused Mexican Americans. Anglo-American hatred for pachuco defiance culminated in the open attacks on Mexican American zoot-suiters by white servicemen in the Zoot Suit Riots. While Mexicans were largely the victims of the attacks, they were arrested by the police while servicemen went free.[3] Some police officers reportedly joined in on the rioting and attacks.[8] The local press praised the attackers and described the riots as a "cleansing effect" to free Los Angeles of Mexican "miscreants" and "hoodlums."[9] Over 500 Latinos were arrested and charged with "rioting" and "vagrancy." The zoot suit garment itself was also criminalized in the city, as the city council stated it represented "hoodlumism."[8]