3. Exhibit 25: Racial Covenants

Attorneys for Cisneros also sought to demonstrate that Mexican Americans were treated differently than their Anglo/white couterparts, that, as a group, they were deliberately discriminated against.

Among the numerous methods for maintaining racially segregated neighborhoods and suburbs in the United States during the period were racial covenants—contracts which specified that land parcels and homes could only be sold and rented to other Anglo/white people. These restrictions were outlawed by the Fair Housing Act of 1968, but they had already established neighborhood boundaries, many of which remain today.

Below are excerpts from plaintiff’s Exhibit 25, a collection of land contracts from 1940-1949 that maintained segregation in Corpus Christi through this method. These covenants make clear not only that segregation was deliberate, but also that Mexican Americans, along with African Americans and Asian Americans, were specifically segregated from Anglo/white residents (Caucasians).

Notably, these rules included an exception to allow Anglo/white homeowners to house their domestic workers.

TEXT: “No tract, lot or part of a lot in said subdivision shall at any time be occupied or used by any person or persons not of the Caucasian race except that this covenant shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of a different race while domiciled with an owner or tenant. This provision shall be construed as excluding from occupancy in said addition Mexicans, Latin-Americans, Negroes and people of the yellow race.”

TEXT: “No lot or part of lot in said addition shall at any time be occupied by or used by any person except those of the caucasian race, except that this covenant shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants [of] a different race or nationality employed by an owner or tenant. This provision shall be construed as exclusion from occupancy in said addition Mexicans, Latin-Americans, Negroes, and people of the yellow race.”

TEXT: “No part of said land shall at any time by conveyed to or occupied by any person of Mexican, Latin-American or African descent, nor by any person of the Yellow race, except that this covenant shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants employed by owners or tenants.”

SOURCE:

Jose Cisneros Collection Regarding a Court Case against C.C.I.S.D and Segregation of Mexican American Children, Collection 36, Box 12, Folder 12, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library. Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.