[1] As elaborated by Latino History and Culture: An Encyclopedia, "Euro-Americans were eager to solidify their power in the region they had just taken from Mexico," and thus began to construct a legal and economic system to develop the Southwest.
Some have characterized the sentiments of this era as being a consequence of the economic development; for example, scholar Leonard Pitt has described that "nativism was born in the months of 1849 and early 1850 when mining enterprise was most individualistic, government most ineffectual, and immigration most rapid.
"[3] Under "An Act for the Government and Protection of Indians", passed in 1850, Native Americans in California were targeted under the guise of stopping vagrancy and promoting apprenticeship.
Six short sections outline the punishment at first incident, the protocol for disarming greasers, the consequences of a second conviction, the potential avenues of employment for vagrant, the discharge procedures and the timeline for when the act is to go into effect.
The law defined a vagrant as including all those who do not have or accept employment, prostitutes and drunkards and calls for their incarceration for up to ninety days; during this time they may be "sentenced to hard labor."
[6] Some scholars have argued that the vagrancy act is an example of "internal colonialism" because "this law was an attempt to reintroduce the peon bondage system, which provided cheap labor to the ranchos that existed in California prior to the Anglo immigration.
"[7] This is an example of how Mexicans "were nevertheless subject to laws designed to deny them the privileges and status of whiteness, based on their working-class position," complicating how race and citizenship were understood in the region.