Greaser Act

The Anti-Vagrancy Act, also known as the Greaser Act, was enacted in 1855 in California, to target those of Mexican descent, among others, by legalizing the arrest of those perceived as violating its anti-vagrancy statute. The law is sometimes referred to as the Greaser Act because the law uses the word "Greaser," found in section two, to refer to individuals of "Spanish and Indian blood."

The end of the Mexican-American War in 1848 was marked by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which resulted in Mexico’s cession of the Southwest, leading the United States' acquirement of California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. As elaborated by Latino History and Culture: An Encyclopedia, “Euro-Americans were eager to solidify their power in the region they had just taken from Mexico,” and thus began to construct a legal and economic system to develop the Southwest.

California underwent much development during the late 1840s and early 1850s, especially due to the economic boom produced by the Gold Rush between the years 1840 and 1855. Some have characterized the sentiments of this era as being a consequence of the economic development; for example, scholar Leonard Pitt has described that "nativism was born in the months of 1849 and early 1850 when mining enterprise was most individualistic, government most ineffectual, and immigration most rapid."

Tensions mounted in the region, catalyzing both vigilante justice and legal discrimination against minority groups to retain Euro-American interests in the region. The Greaser Act is part of a history of anti-immigration (e.g. Chinese Exclusion Act) and discriminatory laws passed in the Southwest (e.g. Foreign Miners' Tax). The Foreign Miners' Tax of 1850, which called for all non-European noncitizen miners to pay a tax in order to work in the mines, can be considered "a system of taxation and indenture...to exploit alien caste laborers rather than expel them."

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