The racial and ethnic status of Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans continues to shift. In the 19th century, Mexicans were classified as "white," and were allowed to naturalize, based upon an 1848 treaty. In 1930, nativists lobby to classify them separately on the census, to limit their immigration, and reinforce their distinctness from white people. In the 1940s, when the need for Mexican labor increases, Mexican-Americans will successfully lobby for the classification to revert back to "white," thereby gaining more legal rights and privileges as a result.

Some who lobby for this will connect the classification of "Mexican" with the forced deportation of hundreds of thousands of Mexican-Americans–some of them U.S. citizens–during the 1930s. For many members of the Mexican community, this shift will be seen as a way to protect their families from ongoing deportation. In the 1970s, this will shift again to “Hispanics.”