The Lynching of Persons of Mexican Origin or Descent in the United States, 1848 to 1928

Writers William D. Carrigan and Clive Webb, state in their article, “The Lynching of Persons of Mexican Origin or Descent in the United States, 1848 to 1928”, that their purpose is “to expand upon the existing work in the fields of lynching studies and Mexican American history by providing the first systematic analysis of Mexican lynching victims” (Carrigan, Webb 4). The writers are trying to convince the readers that Mexicans were also targeted when it came to lynches and the story went farther than African Americans and “White” Americans. All the information given in this article was shocking to me because I had never heard of any Mexicans being lynched, and in my head lynching had always been something done to African American people by racists group such as Ku Klux Klan.

        In this article, Fred H. Allison explores how memory and time can affect narrative and thus oral history. The article studies the differences in the accounts of a single firefight provided by a Vietnam soldier whose version of the day’s events was recorded by the marines immediately afterwards and by a historian 40 years later. Allison finds that whereas the early version was narrow in focus, fragmented, and full of details, the later version tells a cohesive story. This story includes drama – much color, description, dramatic pauses, emphasis on what is significant, and even sound effects have been added (223-224). The later narrative includes more justification for actions (225). For example, the marine’s own gunfire set off the event that resulted in the loss of many of his squadron, but in the earlier version he simply notes that he opened fire because he may have been seen while in the later version he explains at length how he had no choice but fire (225). The later version is also broader, focusing less on the minutia of what happened blow- by-blow and more on the overall picture (223-224). So instead of recounting what each wounded man said to him and how he tried to help each one he aided, he just explains that he helped several men by giving them first aid and moving them to the helicopter (223-224). Part of the cohesiveness of the later story involves the changed context of the telling (226). While the earlier version focused on what happened to a marine issued knife, the later story focused more on the death of his fellow soldiers (226). Allison explains that the audience is driving the material presented – the marine interviewer understood the horror of war, so there is no need to make sense of the deaths, but the civilian interviewer/audience would expect more of a focus on the deaths (226). Another part of this coherence is the belief systems that forge a logical story from raw events by helping the teller decide what is significant (226). For the interviewee, the loyalty of soldiers to one another is a key belief system that, though present in the first narrative, is stressed in the second narrative (226-227).

        The challenging part of this article is that the K-12 education system is not acknowledging the fact that Mexicans or Mexican Americans were also a part of the horrible lynches. The authors say scholars constantly overlook the violence on Mexicans, and when in school, it doesn’t show up. In the education system, Mexican lynching was not something that ever came up in a lesson plan. From what I can remember such topic was only considered two sided, black and white, not ever knowing that Mexicans along with other cultures fall under White.

        The authors use a variety of tables and even used the lyrics to a song by Joaquin Murrieta. Carrigan and Webb inform the readers the primary sources they used an array of diaries, journals, government records and so forth. The tables clearly describe the statistics they talk about in their paragraphs. Although there are various tales set out I wish there were actual pictures as visuals. Being a visual learner, I grasp a concept better when there are pictures rather than more words that are often placed in columns. The authors mention a couple of people in their article and having a face to put to a name would have been very helpful.