Mexican: Historians suggest that there may have been 23,000 Mexican Texans Most Mexican Texans lived in or near San Antonio,between the Nueces river and the Rio Grande or along the Rio Grande. Most of them worked as sheep herders, cow hands,or ranch laborers. Juan Cortina believed that most Mexican Texans were treated unfairly. He argued that Anglo Americans had taken land from tejanos who were unfamiliar with the court system