Kelly K. Wight and Dr. Alf Pratte, Communications

During the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), violent movements against the United States of America sprang up throughout all of southern Mexico. A huge surge of Mexican patriotism united most of the Mexican citizens against the United States and its influence on their culture. This sense of Mexican patriotism did not exist in the northern parts of Mexico, however. In the areas of California to Texas that were once a part of Mexico, virtually no uprisings or movements occurred resisting the assimilation of these areas into the United States of America. The Mexicans in these areas typically accepted the United States as their new authority and they acculturated with little or no resistance to the change.

This lack of Mexican patriotism and quiet acceptance of a new government is puzzling. My goal was to examine the Spanish-language newspapers printed in the years just following the Mexican-American war to see what role they may have played in this peaceful transition. By doing a simple content analysis of these papers, my hope was to determine whether newspaper owners were using agenda-setting techniques (using the press for the promotion of their own personal views), gate-keeping (eliminating opposing points of view from their newspapers), or if they tended to remain neutral in their promotion of the “American way of life.” I began my research simply by tracking down and cataloguing where any existing copies of these Spanish-language newspapers were located. This proved to be the hardest part of my research. Very few copies of these papers exist, and most are located in state or university libraries in California and Arizona.

Once I located the copies, I was able to travel to the libraries that carried the largest collections of these papers to examine them personally. I was able to look at the articles, opinion columns, advertisements and illustrations. I was able to see what wording and terminology was used, and how it supported the United States’ Manifest Destiny.

I was able to look at 44 different Spanish-language newspapers (over 300 individual editions)1 that were published in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. All were published in the 50 years following the Mexican-American war. I found articles that instructed native Spanish speakers on the proper way to celebrate Thanksgiving, April Fools’ Day, and Independence Day. Many papers had English lessons included in them, with short stories or jokes in English. Some papers included articles explaining different parts of the Constitution and what they meant. Whole papers were dedicated to Abraham Lincoln after his assassination explaining his view of Democracy and why Americans revered him. Every paper had large classified sections advertising medical practices, lawyers and schools that taught English. While none of these papers seemed overly-American or blatantly supporting the “American way of life,” it was quite clear that all of them accepted and condoned capitalism, democracy, and the United States’ government.

In my research I only came across five articles that spoke negatively about Americans, the Constitution or the government. Two of these articles spoke about the mistreatment of Mexican workers by American bosses and land owners. One addressed the government and the lack of representation for the Mexican people. The other three were specific reports of criminal activity against Mexicans.

While all of these papers seemed to support the Manifest Destiny, most also included articles that supported the idea of hanging on the “good” parts of the Mexican culture as well. There were many articles dedicated to Mexican holidays and celebrations for specific Mexican Saints. There were stories and editorials that discussed issues in the Mexican government in various states in Mexico. Over 2/3 of the papers had specific sections reporting news from each state in Mexico. About 1/3 of the papers I examined were bilingual, with sections written in English and Spanish. Some of these included Spanish lessons in the English section for Americans to learn specific phrases and vocabulary in Spanish. Surprisingly few (only 3) of these papers were direct translations from English to Spanish. Most of the Spanish sections had more articles dealing with specific news from Mexico. The Spanish sections of these papers also had more fictional literature, poems, and religious content than the English sections.

It has been difficult and time consuming to examine all of these papers. Many had been damaged overtime making them difficult to read, and spelling and meaning of words have been changed through the years, making translation difficult. When I began my research, I hoped to finish my analysis and publish my findings by November, 2003. Unfortunately, this analysis has taken much longer than anticipated. I still have many other editions to analyze, and while the evidence seems to strongly support that all of these papers are Pro-America, further research may show differing conclusions.

I should conclude my analysis of all these papers by mid-February, and hope to publish my findings in a professional journal this spring. There has been little research on the exact role these papers played in the acculturalization of the Mexican people; the funding I received has benefited the field of media history research. I have yet to find any research that has been this extensive and has dealt specifically with this topic. I plan to continue the research I have begun into graduate school this fall.