Mexican Americans suffered along with millions of other Americans during the economic catastrophe of the 1930s.
Beginning in 1929 with the crash of the U.S. stock market, businesses closed, fortunes were wiped out, and many people, including Mexican Americans, were thrown out of work.
Mexican Americans also suffered something worse: the anger of Anglos who regarded them as foreigners taking away jobs and relief funds from “true” Americans.
All across America, government and private agencies organized repatriation programs for sending Mexican Americans back to Mexico. About 500,000 Mexican Americans were encouraged, intimidated, or forced into leaving the country, the largest numbers from Texas, California, and the region of Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan.
The Mexican government cooperated, setting up refugee camps to receive them.
Some of the repatriated people were undocumented workers, but many were legal residents or even U.S. citizens. Few Anglos protested, and few today even remember, the violations of civil rights associated with repatriation. But Mexican Americans stung by the injustice remembered.
Related Posts
-
What was the Great Depression and When did the Great Depression take place?
On October 29, 1929, the U.S. stock market crashed. This meant that the value of stocks went way down, because everyone sold their stocks in a panic. This stock market panic was caused…
-
How many Americans died in the Mexican American War and Was the Mexican American War easy to win?
The Mexican American War was not easy for the 13,000 Americans who died fighting it, most of them succumbing to disease in unhealthy camp conditions. Over a year's worth of battles were fought,…
-
Why did Henry David Thoreau oppose the Mexican American War and did all Americans support the Mexican War?
The Mexican American War in 1846 was popular, especially in the South. As in the case of Texas, southerners hoped that slavery would expand into newly conquered territories, giving them more votes in…
-
How were African Americans in the South affected by the Great Depression?
American farmers were the first group to be affected by the Great Depression. The farmers in the South did not have the money to buy seeds or supplies or even the goods that…
-
Why were Mexican Americans hired to build the railroads in the southwest during the 1880s?
Large stretches of the railroads crisscrossing our nation were built or maintained by Mexican Americans. The Southern Pacific and Santa Fe lines hired Mexican Americans to build new desert lines in the 1880s.…
-
What did Anglo miners learn from Mexican Americans during the 1800s?
In mining as in ranching, Mexican Americans knew more than the Anglo newcomers to the West and Southwest. Mexican Americans taught Anglos how to use a bates, a flat-bottomed pan, to extract gold…
