Given Donald Trump’s recent executive orders and mass deportations, against those particularly those from Latin America, he is once again placing a target on the lives of Mexicans.
To Trump and MAGA, it doesn’t matter where a Mexican is born- whether in the United States or in Mexico, you’re still a Mexican.
Whether first or eighth generation, English or Spanish speaking, light or dark skinned, your’re still Mexican to this group.
The scapegoating of Mexicans—and, by extension, any Brown people—for economic downturns and social unrest is nothing new.
In this latest iteration, Trump and the MAGA movement are reaching into history to find “legal” justifications for ostracizing communities they deem unfit and unworthy of American citizenship.
In doing so, they are opening a Pandora’s box filled with long-buried grievances—one that, once unleashed, may not be easily closed again.
With each passing day, it is clear that the slogan “Make America Great Again” is giving way to Rewrite America Again.
Trump’s ongoing efforts to redefine citizenship is particularly telling and at the core of who Trump and MAGA are.
His use of obscure 19th-century laws—including an 1884 ruling that denied Native Americans birthright citizenship—to challenge the very foundation of the 14th Amendment is a stark warning.
If Trump is determined to exploit obscure rulings to erode citizenship rights and fundamentally remake America, then Chicanos and all Brown communities ought to engage in the same historical reckoning.
Let’s start with the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the U.S. war of aggression against Mexico.
In that treaty, the United States pledged to extend American citizenship to hundreds of thousands of Mexicans living in the territories it seized.
These newly minted American citizens were promised property and voting rights, the right to hold elected office, and protections for their language, religion, and culture.
Instead, state after state worked aggressively to strip Mexican Americans of their rights, reducing them to second-class status—an injustice that persisted well into the 20th century and whose legacy continues to shape their struggle for equality today.
Now, here we are in the 21st century, once again talking about bounties on Mexicans.
The state of Missouri is considering a bill that would reward anyone who turns in an undocumented person with $1,000.
Meanwhile in Mississippi, politicians are exploring a similar bill aimed at creating a bounty hunter program to track down undocumented immigrants.
Sound familiar?
These efforts are moving forward without any credible data to justify targeting this population.
We’ve been here before.
In the aftermath of the Texas rebellion and the U.S-Mexico War Mexicans became target of death threats, destruction of property, murder (lynchings) and wholesale massacres when they refused to bend to Anglo colonial rule.
Mexicans saw themselves as equals to their Anglo peers, but Anglos, for the most part, refused to acknowledge or accept racial equality.
By the turn of the 20th century millions of acres of land were stripped away from Mexican Americans. With loss of land came a loss of power.
History has not been kind to Mexican Americans.
Reaching deep into the historical grab bag, let’s go all the way.
Let’s revisit every broken treaty with First Nations and calculate what’s owed for the lands taken and “gifted” to white settlers.
Let’s do the same for every other ethnic, racial, and social group that has suffered injustices at the hands of white supremacy.
If citizenship is to be determined by who was here first and who contributed to building this nation from its very foundation, then these communities should be at the top of the list.
But that’s not what Trump and MAGA, with its Great Replacement Theory and Project 2025, is after.
Their vision isn’t about historical reckoning—it’s about redefining America as White and English speaking only.
The Great Replacement Theory harks back to an era of extreme racial division.
Its goals are explicit: increase white political power by reducing non-white populations’ access to voting, government resources, and even citizenship.
The obsession with reducing non-white census numbers, ending birthright citizenship, and targeting immigrants is all part of a broader strategy to maintain Whiteness.
For those light skinned Mexican Americans and/or Latinos who believe their light skin might protect them because of their proximity to Whitness, The Great Replacement Theory does not include you.
Denouncing these extremist ideologies is not enough; exposing and isolating them is essential to weakening their grip on political power.
Resistance cannot be passive—it must be strategic, collective, and sustained.
Trump and MAGA’s racist policies are hard for many in our community to conceive as true. But they are true.
Public and constant discussion on the racist nature of the Great Replacement Theory is critical. Rinse and Repeat until the message is clear.
The challenge for those opposing MAGA lies in overcoming three dangerous obstacles: ignorance, arrogance, and fear.
The information is available—much of it in Trump’s and MAGA’s own words. Dismissing their policies as mere bluster or assuming “this too shall pass” is an act of arrogance.
Failing to act allows this ideology to grow unchecked. To remain voluntarily ignorant or passive in the face of this threat is to be complicit.
As parents, community leaders, and citizens, we cannot ignore the dangers before us.
Trump and MAGA’s greatest mistake may not be their racism, but their hubris in assuming the past would remain buried.
By resurrecting unresolved histories, they may have set the stage for a reckoning—one that could ultimately dismantle the very ideologies they seek to uphold.
Cover Photo: Credit Gama Buelna
Gabriel Buelna holds a PhD in Political Science from Claremont Graduate University and serves as a faculty member in the Chicana/o Studies Department at California State University, Northridge. He is also a practicing Family and Criminal Law attorney in California. Dr. Buelna is also a Trustee for the Los Angeles Community College District and can be reached at gabriel@buelnalaw.com
Enrique M. Buelna is a faculty member in the History Department at Cabrillo College, specializing in Chicano history with an emphasis on class, race, labor, radical activism, civil rights, immigration, culture, and identity. He is the author of Chicano Communists and the Struggle for Social Justice (2019). Dr. Buelna earned his doctorate in history from the University of California, Irvine, and holds an M.A. in Public Administration from the University of Washington, Seattle. The author can be reached at embuelna@gmail.com.
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