Over 1 Million Were Deported to Mexico Nearly 100 Years Ago. Most of Them Were US Citizens

A Book on the Mexican Repatriation

Tyche Hendricks for KQED in the San Francisco Bay Area offers some history supporting a bill pending in the California state legislature that would commemorate the so-called “Mexican Repatriation” a mass removal of persons of Mexican ancestry — U.S. citizens as well as immigrants —  during the Great Depression of the 1930s.  “[T]he bill’s backers say it’s all the more relevant in this election year when mass deportation is again a political topic.”

The Mexican Repatriation began in 1930, as the Great Depression took hold. President Herbert Hoover had announced a plan to ensure “American jobs for real Americans.”

As Hendricks describes it, the bill, SB 537, would authorize a nonprofit organization representing Mexican Americans or immigrants to build a memorial in Los Angeles recognizing the people who were repatriated.

KJ