LATINOS in HOUSTON Trabajando Para La Comunidad Y La Familia
VOLUME 15 • NUMBER 2 • SPRING 2018 LATINOS IN HOUSTON Trabajando para la comunidad y la familia CENTER FOR PUBLIC HISTORY LETTER FROM THE EDITOR savvy businessmen making it a commercial hub. By the What is Houston’s DNA? 1840s, Germans were coming in large numbers, as were “Discover your ethnic origins,” find other European immigrants. The numbers of Mexicans and the “source of your greatness,” trace Tejanos remained low until the 1910s-1920s, reaching about your “health, traits, and ancestry,” 5% in 1930. African Americans made up almost a quarter and “amaze yourself…find new rela- of the population, with their numbers growing during the tives.” Ads proliferate from companies Great Migration and with the influx of Creoles throughout like AncestryDNA, 23andMe, and the 1920s. MyHeritage enticing us to learn more Houston’s DNA, like the nation's, remained largely about who we really are. European due to federal laws: The Chinese Exclusion Acts Debbie Z. Harwell, People who send a saliva sample for of 1882, 1892, and 1902; the Immigration Act of 1924, which Editor analysis may be completely surprised by imposed quotas mirroring each ethnic group’s representa- the findings or even united with unknown family members. tion in the population and maintained the existing racial For others it either confirms or denies what they believed order; and the Mexican Repatriation Act of 1930, which about their heritage. For example, my AncestryDNA report permitted deportation of Mexicans — even some U.S. cit- debunks the story passed down by my mother and her izens — to relieve the stress they allegedly placed on the blonde-haired, blue-eyed siblings that their grandmother, economy.
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