Özet:

This paper studies Mexican Americans and Native Americans, whose situation as the other was the result of their exposure to the colonial and racial laws of the 19th century United States. Although these two marginalized groups were the already resident people uprooted by the colonial power of the United States and their ties to the lands that once belonged to them were broken by laws of displacement and education, the American political system aimed more as it tried to break down the cultural identity of the mentioned groups. I look at three literary works to analyze how these systems are represented in literature of Mexican Americans and Native Americans as these works dwell on similar subjects that focus on law and education with an emphasis on Mexican American and Native American identities. María Amparo Ruiz de Burton's The Squatter and the Don, John Rollin Ridge's The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta and Gertrude Bonnin's Zitkala-Ša American Indian Stories are analyzed to see the effect of legal and education systems on the identity construction of Mexican Americans and Native Americans in literature. Moreover, Mexican-American War, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the Indian Removal Act, and the education reform movement are at the core of this paper since the American legal procedure aimed to break down the other and serve the interests of the white population through these phenomena.