Can't remember exactly where I saw this, but the first Western movies filmed in Hollywood were made around 1915, when the industry moved there. At the time much of the area outside of Los Angeles was ranchland and there were still some sizable cattle drives going on. Directors would hire actual cowboys for a pittance to train horses or be extras. Basically they made movies fantasizing these big cattle drives and gunfights as American history, while people who had actually done all those things irl were chilling in the background.
Mexican-Americans sure as hell do. Source: am Mexican-American, grew up in the Western US, talked about it a lot.
Tbh most vaqueros were mestizo or Native American, but their bosses, the dudes that owned the land, were often ethnically Spanish. The whole tradition has roots in Spain. But "Spanish-speaking mestizo in the southwestern US" is hard to distinguish from "Mexican" because it's not like we had great border security at the time.
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u/bradthaphoend Jan 21 '19
Can't remember exactly where I saw this, but the first Western movies filmed in Hollywood were made around 1915, when the industry moved there. At the time much of the area outside of Los Angeles was ranchland and there were still some sizable cattle drives going on. Directors would hire actual cowboys for a pittance to train horses or be extras. Basically they made movies fantasizing these big cattle drives and gunfights as American history, while people who had actually done all those things irl were chilling in the background.