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Mexican Repatriation

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The Mexican Repatriation refers to a forced migration that took place between 1929 and 1939, when as many as one million people of Mexican descent were forced or pressured to leave the US. (The term "Repatriation," though commonly used, is inaccurate, since approximately 60% of those driven out were U.S. citizens.)[1] The event, carried out by American authorities, took place without due process.[2] The Immigration and Naturalization Service targeted Mexicans because of "the proximity of the Mexican border, the physical distinctiveness of mestizos, and easily identifiable barrios." [3]

The Repatriation is not widely discussed in American history textbooks;[4] in a 2006 survey of the nine most commonly used American history textbooks in the United States, four did not mention the Repatriation, and only one devoted more than half a page to the topic.[4] In total, they devoted four pages to the Repatriation, compared with eighteen pages for the Japanese American internment.[4]

These actions were authorized by President Herbert Hoover and targeted areas with large Hispanic populations, mostly in California, Texas, Colorado, Illinois and Michigan.

Context

The Quota Act of 1924, which established a system of national origins quotas, reduced immigration to the United States from over 1 million persons per year to 165,000 per year (adjusted to 155,000 in 1929), although Canada, Mexico, and other Latin American countries were exempted from such numerical limits.

Following the onset of the Depression, the U.S. government began an active drive against immigrants living illegally in the country. Announcing that there were 400,000 illegal immigrants in the U.S., Secretary of Labor William Doak ordered his agents to carry out provisions of the new law[citation needed]. They raided public and private places from New York City and Chicago to Los Angeles and San Francisco. Between 1929 and 1935, some 163,900 people were deported from the country for being here illegally, of whom 35,000 were deported to Mexico, roughly 20% of the total[citation needed].

Statistics and factors

The Mexican origin (both foreign and native) increased from 1.3 million in 1930 to 1.6 million in 1940.[citation needed] The American born population of Mexican descent increased from 642,000 to 1.2 million in this period, while foreign born population declined from 637,000 to 375,000.[citation needed]

Abraham Hoffman, author of Unwanted Mexican Americans, which is the authoritative[by whom?] account of the repatriation of the 1930s, documents how some 500,000[citation needed] Mexican Americans left the U.S. from 1929 to 1939. Around 35,000 were deported, while another 47,000 underwent voluntary departure[citation needed] (illegal immigrants who left on their own volition). This is all on file with the Immigration and Naturalization Services files[where?]. About 400,000 voluntarily repatriated[citation needed]. According to Abraham, "Apart from this, it has been shown that the actual movement of thousands of Mexican nationals was not due solely to federal motivations but was the result of a web of factors spun by acute unemployment, the threat of deportation, the urging of welfare officials, and the acceptance of repatriation idea (by Mexico) with its lure of colonization projects and free transportation."[citation needed] The factors involved were complex. He continues: "The vast majority of Mexicans who returned to Mexico during the depression did not take part in government sponsored programs. Many repatriates simply returned to the area they had been born and where their relatives and old friends lived. In many cases the children they brought with them looked upon Mexico, not the United States, as a foreign land."[citation needed]

By state

California

In a three-week period in 1931 in Los Angeles where an estimated 200,000 Mexicans lived at the time (a 100-time increase of this ethnic community since 1900), the immigration agents questioned several thousand people across the county. During the El Monte raid, some 300 were stopped[citation needed]. In the City Plaza Raid, 400 people were detained and questioned by officers[citation needed]. 11 Mexicans, 5 Chinese and 1 Japanese were taken into custody. After complaints by the Mexican consulate and the Spanish-language paper “La Opinion”, Sheriff Watkins agreed to work only in small groups on the county’s outlying districts[citation needed]. According to Hoffman, “The federal deportation campaign and local repatriation campaign programs had blurred into a mass movement of Mexicans and Mexican Americans departing from the region.”[citation needed] Rafael de la Colina of the Mexican Consulate found nothing to criticize in repatriation, claiming “Allow me to express, in behalf of my government, our sincere appreciation for the work at your welfare department.”[citation needed]

Apologies

The federal government has not apologized for the repatriations. In 2006, representatives Hilda Solis and Luis Gutiérrez introduced a bill calling for a commission to study the issue, and called for an apology.[5]

The state of California was the first state to apologize when it passed the "Apology Act for the 1930s Mexican Repatriation Program" in 2005, officially recognizing the "unconstitutional removal and coerced emigration of United States citizens and legal residents of Mexican descent" and apologizing to residents of California "for the fundamental violations of their basic civil liberties and constitutional rights committed during the period of illegal deportation and coerced emigration."[5][6]

See also

Further reading

  • Abraham Hoffman, Unwanted Mexican Americans in the Great Depression: Repatriation Pressures, 1929-1939 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1974)
  • Francisco Balderrama and Raymond Rodríguez, Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995), ISBN 0826315755
  • John Chavez, The Lost Land: A Chicano Image of the Southwest, (New Mexico University, 1984)
  • INS Yearbook of Statistics-Years 1929 to 1939
  • Robert R. McKay, "The Federal Deportation Campaign in Texas: Mexican Deportation from the Lower Rio Grande Valley during the Great Depression," Borderlands Journal, Fall 1981
  • National Academy of Sciences, 1998, "The Immigration Debate"
  • Peter Skerry "Mexican Americans: The Ambivalent Minority"
  • Christine Valenciana, "Unconstitutional Deportation of Mexican Americans During the 1930s: A Family History and Oral History," Multicultural Education, Spring 2006
  • Imigration...Mexican: Depression and the Struggle for Survival, the Library of Congress

References

  1. ^ Template:Cite article
  2. ^ Navarro, Sharon Ann and Mejia, Armando Xavier, Latino Americans and Political Participation Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2004. ISBN: 1-85109-523-3. page 277.
  3. ^ Ruiz, Vicki L. (1998). From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513099-5.
  4. ^ a b c (Hunt 2006)
  5. ^ a b USATODAY.com - U.S. urged to apologize for 1930s deportations
  6. ^ SB 670 Senate Bill - CHAPTERED
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