1.) In A Short, Offhand, Killing Affair, author Paul Foos contends that the American military army and volunteer forces that invaded Mexico represent an accurate cross section of American society and American views on race and ethnicity during the 1840s. Utilizing Foos, explain the state of race relations and racial attitudes in America during the U.S. Mexican War; what specific actions did the U.S. military forces take in Mexico that prove many among the American forces were racist? Provide specific examples from the book that might be indicative of how Americans viewed the Mexican people, as well as other peoples they perceived as racially different.

Next, utilize your course book to detail a few instances of how the racial attitudes described by Foos during the 1840s set the tone for the way Americans continued to deal with people they perceived as different (African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, and Native Americans) from the end of the U.S. Mexican War to the end of Reconstruction in 1877. You may also discuss, if you like, immigration’s impact on how America struggled over the issue of who should be included in American society and who should be excluded based on race and ethnicity.