right now, at this defining moment in america. ♪ we gonna be all right >> with so much on the line, from abc news, himy america, yo america, our america. this is "turning point." tonight, mexican-americans, battling racism and discrimination. >> they're bringing drugs. they're bringing crime. they're rapists. >> now fighting back. >> when they talk about lazy mexicans or mexicans are all drug dealers and murders? i'm like, where? i haven't seen that. i'm not, you know. >> calling for justice justice present and the past. can stolen land be reclaimed. tonight, what america owes, here now juju chang.

>> thanks for joining us. tonight, among mexican-americans in the southwest, there's a saying. they didn't cross the border but rather the border crossed them. a simple truth about the long and bitter history of their heritage and their land, seized and claimed by the u.s. it's the latest in our series on reparations. but first some background from abc's whoopi goldberg. >> many people think of the dividing line between the u.s. and mexico as fixed, as something that's always been there, but 172 years ago, what we now consider the southwest wasn't part of the u.s. at all. it was actually the north-most part of mexico. but the u.s. was not content with what it had, pushing west ward to seize the land that many presidents believed was america's destiny. to reach that goal, president james polk provoked war with mexico, after a long and bloody battle. the u.s. occupied much of

mexico. the two countries decided to work up an agreement, and ceded half their country to the united states. this part was important. there was an agreement called the treaty the agreement protected the rights of any mexican whose land was now part of the u.s. but, when the treaty got sent to congress, the senate removed the part that protected the land claims of mexicans who now lived in america. this would forever change the fate of generations of mexican-americans to come.

>> my body tells me when to stop. my family has settled this area for literally centuries. so we have very deep, deep, native roots here. we're at the top in new mexico, established in 1739. our eastern boundary was the top of the crest. the crest of the mountain. so that was the original boundary. >> we've lost some land through the years. at one point, several years ago, we were on a land grant and had 123,000 acres of land. today it has approximately 400

acres. my name is andrea padilla. america owes us the opportunity to take care of our own communities. >> my name is rita padilla ortay gas. i think gaining some of our land back would be this is kind of our land grant room. here we have the patent, signed by ulysses grant. this is the patent that was granted after the war with mexico and the treaty to honor

our land grant, and it's signed by ulysses grant. later they stole our mountain, so. >> i'm a land grant heir. half of our soul was here before columbus ever hit the sand. we come from some of the spanish communities that came over as well as native-american communities, so we're sort of mestizo, we're mixed.

this was my grandfather's plot. so this is a traditional house. on this side you can see they used adobe. my dad grew up here and left in the '70s. didn't have opportunities. that's the stuff that's hard to swallow, when you're like, man, this is something that was in our family and belonged to us, because of circumstances beyond our control, this drives the work that i do, working with land grant communities and trying to get justice for our communities. there's a huge disparity here in terms of poverty, in terms of education. these communities have been left behind. the land grant and the treaty issues is probably what you consider the first latino issue in this country, and it's still unresolved. >> what happened with mexican-americans in some ways is a quintessential american story. we like to tell ourselves that

we are a country of great values and that we follow through on the promises that we make, but, again and again we saw that the federal government would make promises to groups and then would just turn its back on those promises. >> when mexico negotiates the treaty in good faith, what it doesn't understand is that for the united states, only whites have the right to full citizenship, and so the territorial government s systematically go about disenfranchising all mexican citizens whom they deem to not be white. >> so this is a collection of documents that spans all the way from the late spanish colonial period, all the way through the 20 years into the u.s. territorial period. this grant goes from over

400,000 acre grants to a 1422 ac acre grant. they've reduced this down to about 4500 acres. you know, the longevity that we have in this place, you know, that these communities existed 100, 150 years before the treaty of guadalupe hiddalgo, our identity is tied to place, but we don't see that place as having an identity without us, either. it defines us just as much as we define it. >> it hurt my father deeply. because he fought till the very end, you know, telling people, you can't do this, you can't do this. once you sell your land, you're

nothing, you lose your culture, everything. this land should never have been sold, it should still be ours, so people who didn't have a lot of acreage other than that lost their way of life. >> i just don't think people get the passion that's attached to this. it's the history, for god's sake. plain and simple. >> your language, your customs. your food, your traditions. but for us, it's being a land-based people. >> today there's a lot of rhetoric about the mexicans and anti-mexican. it does hit me in the heart. >> they're bringing drugs. they're bringing crime. they're rapists. >> what happens when the vast majority of those people are dispossessed when that land is

given to white settlers? the representation of these mexicans as barberous. >> we always worked hard. and we made a living, and we did the right thing. so when they talk about lazy mexicans or these mexicans are all drug dealers and murders, i'm like, where? i haven't seen that, i'm not, you know. >> some of these questions of racism that are surfacing, for communities like us ex-we kn, w it's ever gone away. we've always felt it, we've always known it. we've been on the receiving end of it either through institutions, bureaucracies or the individual level. >> back in the '60s, there was an individual by the name of reyes lopez.

>> 50 million americans have a right. >> he came to new mexico preaching the treaty and telling the people that they were going to lose their land. >> that kind of culminates in a courthouse, a raid, ends up in a shootout. >> like, hey, there's a civil war in new mexico and these people are fed up, and they send in the national guard. >> they put all the heirs of land grants in a corral like sheep. >> so the move to chicano is precisely a move to reclaim our

own indigenous heritage, our own original belonging to these territories. that's why the movement is a huge part of the chicano movement, because they were articulating it completely saying we have these land grants, and we want these land grants honored. >> he opened our eyes. he taught us, and we've always tried that. >> i'm here on behalf of the new mexico land grant council. >> so what the current legislation does is it would create a federal definition of traditional uses on federal lands for land grant communities, access to fuel wood to heat your home, access to pasture to graze your livestock,

and it would require the federal government to consult with them. >> the dream would be that we'd get our land back. >> i also think our communities are due some type of reparations in terms of monetary compensation. >> what that figure looks like, probably $2.7 billion. not to bpay individuals but communities. >> we are going to have a museum where we think kids will spend one night, the idea is to keep the legacy alive, not destroy and forget the history. >> we don't want handouts, we want to provide for ourselves. justice would be giving us that opportunity to do that. >> i know that the hard work of my dad and my grandfather and great grandfather, that their blood, sweat and tears, that that's something that i have to make sure that none of that was

for vain and that their hopes and dreams survive on and survive on in their kids and my kids. >> we've always been here, and we're not going anywhere. this is who we are. this is where we come from, this is our land, and we're going to protect it, and we're going to continue to be here as long as we possibly can. first, and you're going to find yourself where you need to be. ♪ the race is never over. the journey has no port. the adventure never ends, because we are always on the way. ♪ ♪ what do i know? i'm just a kid. our generation's too young to vote. i was one year off. kind of gets me mad a little bit. the pressure for my generation to address the climate crisis is growing. we can't ignore the climate.

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padre island is a popular vacation spot in texas. it's a relaxing place in some times of the year, but it's also a big party place for young people. >> it's our history of the it's our legacy. it's our heritage. heritage. my name is concepcion.

and i'm a certified genealogist. growing up, we heard these stories. we didn't know if that could be true, an island belonging to the family. >> as i understand it, none of the family members who turned their deeds over received payments. >> heirs of padre island were just common people. they weren't rich. >> the story of the loss of this land was a wound that was festering. she was searching for these deeds. in 1985, she almost magically

finds these deeds in the county courthouse in south texas. >> to mow, e, it was like extre happiness, just to know that my people had been right in what they were saying. the most interesting thing about those deeds is there was a royalty clause in there. so it allowed for us to do something in court. >> nobody got rich from this case, but i think the bigger significance was to have history rewritten or corrected in a sense. you know, the story of texas has been told through the eyes of the angelo settlers. we've been excluded from that

story of texas. so i think the significance of the case is much wider. >> my happiness in this is that we prove what we had already stated. my family was vindicated. the system does work. even if we're mexican-american or any other ethnic group. it takes time. a lot of work. and it works. less oral steroids. taking my treatment at home. nucala is a once-monthly add-on injection for severe eosinophilic asthma. not for sudden breathing problems. allergic reactions can occur. get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. infections that can cause shingles have occurred. don't stop steroids unless told by your doctor. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. may cause headache, injection site reactions, back pain, and fatigue. ask your doctor about nucala at home. find your nunormal with nucala. ask your doctor about nucala at home. over time, you go noseblind to the odors in your home. (background music) but others smell this... (upbeat music) that's why febreze plug has two alternating scents

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into the line, month-long event, late night on and tomorrow on "turning point", how to fix the american justice system from within. and be sure to join our conversation with the #turningpointabc. that's "nightline," thanking for staying up with us. goodnight, america.