THE ORIGINS OF MEXICAN AMERICAN SUBORDINATION IN TEXAS.

This article discusses the origins of Mexican American subordination in Texas. Although there has been a frequent recognition that a full understanding of the social position of Mexican Americans in the United States requires an historical dimension, comparatively little work of this type has been published; and among the papers and books in which some attempt is made to account for the contemporary position of the Mexican Americans in terms of their unique historical background, few have been guided by an explicit theory or conceptual scheme. In the course of this test no effort is made to adduce new historical evidence. The intention here, rather, is to employ well-known secondary materials to provide tentative answers to two guiding questions: First, does Donald L. Noel's theory afford a comprehensive interpretation of the events culminating in the subordination of the Mexican Americans? Second, does the application of Noel's ideas to an historical process other than the development of black slavery in the United States-the initial testing ground for the theory-suggest ways to modify and increase the theory's explanatory flower? Students of the development of the relations among the Spanish speaking and English speaking peoples of North America have long recognized the importance of the separate elements of Noel's theory.