1908: Birth of a stereotype

Before his Ku Klux Klan-promoting film “Birth of a Nation” (1915), D.W. Griffith codified Mexican characters and themes that persist today. The reprobate father. The saintly mother. The wayward son. And especially the “greaser,” often with white actors darkening their skin to play either thieves and rapists or doomed souls whose noble nature cannot be rewarded because they’re, well, Mexicans. Griffith’s “The Greaser’s Gauntlet” (1908) was the first to use the slur in its title.