Expulsion of Mexicans and Mexican Americans During the Great Depression

During the Great Depression, over 1 million people of Mexican ancestry were sent from the United States to Mexico. Over 60 percent of those relocated were U.S. citizens. While many people refer to these events as Mexican repatriation, how was it possible to repatriate people to Mexico who never lived there in the first place?

The Mexican Repatriation: A Dark Chapter in U.S. History

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the United States carried out a mass deportation campaign known as the Mexican Repatriation. This often-overlooked event resulted in the forced or coerced departure of an estimated 1.8 million people of Mexican descent, many of whom were actually U.S. citizens.The justifications for this mass deportation were largely based on flawed economic reasoning and xenophobia. As historian Francisco Balderrama noted in “Decade of Betrayal,” “Americans, reeling from the economic disorientation of the depression, sought a convenient scapegoat. They found it in the Mexican community.” The methods used to carry out this repatriation were often cruel and unconstitutional.

According to the California State Apology, “Throughout California, massive raids were conducted on Mexican-American communities, resulting in the clandestine removal of thousands of people, many of whom were never able to return to the United States, their country of birth.” These raids targeted people indiscriminately, with authorities characterizing even U.S. citizens and legal residents as “illegal aliens.”The deportations were carried out through various means:

1. Direct deportation by immigration authorities
2. Coercion through threats and acts of violence
3. Pressure from local officials and employers
4. “Voluntary” repatriation under duress

Many families were forced to abandon or were defrauded of their personal and real property, which was often sold by local authorities as “payment” for transportation expenses.The human cost of this policy was enormous, particularly for children born in the U.S. who were forced to move to Mexico. These children, American by birth and culture, found themselves in a foreign country where they often didn’t speak the language or understand the customs. Many struggled to adapt and faced significant hardships in education and social integration.The impact on Mexican communities in the U.S. was devastating. As the California State Apology notes, “United States citizens and legal residents were separated from their families and country and were deprived of their livelihood and United States constitutional rights.”

Entire neighborhoods were emptied, businesses closed, and cultural institutions disrupted. The fear and trauma inflicted by these deportations lingered for generations.Ironically, the economic justification for the repatriations was largely unfounded. Balderrama and Rodríguez’s study reveals that the United States did not accrue substantial savings, as Mexicans or Mexican Americans comprised less than 10 percent of all relief recipients. In fact, in 1931, California reported that repatriated Mexicans withdrew nearly seven million dollars from U.S. banks, contradicting the stereotype that they were a drain on the economy.The Mexican Repatriation set a troubling precedent for later deportation efforts and exposed deep-seated issues of racism and xenophobia in U.S. immigration policy. As former California State Senator Joseph Dunn observed, “the Republicans decided the way they were going to create jobs was by getting rid of anyone with a Mexican-sounding name.”

This dark chapter in American history reflects the complex and often troubled relationship between the United States and Mexico, echoing the sentiment often attributed to Mexican President Porfirio Díaz: “Poor Mexico, so far from God, yet so close to the United States.” In 2005, the state of California officially apologized for its role in the Mexican Repatriation, acknowledging the unconstitutional removal of U.S. citizens and legal residents of Mexican descent.

While some people did agree to go to Mexico, it is wrong to say that these were voluntary decisions. Mexicans and Mexican Americans were facing increased hostility from law enforcement, politicians, and from many in the press.

Historian Francisco Balderrama, co-author Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s explains:

… During the Hoover administration in the late 1920s and early 1930s, particularly the winter of 1930-1931, William Dill (ph), the attorney general who had presidential ambitions, instituted a program of deportations. And it was announced that we need to provide jobs for Americans, and so we need to get rid of these other people. This created…tension in the Mexican community. And at the same time, U.S. Steel, Ford Motor Company, Southern Pacific Railroad said to their Mexican workers, you would be better off in Mexico with your own people. At the same time that that’s occurring, differing counties on the county level in some cases the state level, then decide to cut relief cost – their target at Mexican families.…

T]here was the development of a deportation desk from LA County relief agencies going out and recruiting Mexicans to go to Mexico…LA legal counsel says you can’t do that. That’s the responsibility, that’s the duty of the federal government. So they backed up and said, well, we’re not going to call it deportation. We’re going to call it repatriation. And repatriation carries connotations that it’s voluntary, that people are making their own decision without pressure to return to the country of their nationality. But most obviously, how voluntary is it if you have deportation raids by the federal government during the Hoover administration and people are disappearing on the streets? How voluntary is it if you have county agents knocking on people’s doors telling people oh, you would be better off in Mexico and here are your train tickets? You should be ready to go in two weeks.

…Sometimes families that did have individuals that were working maybe limited time, which was very common during the Great Depression, but scaring them and telling them well, I don’t know how long you’re going to keep that job. Maybe you better just go to Mexico because you’re liable to lose that particular job. And I think another factor is just waking up and looking at the newspaper, seeing that there’s raids. Here in Los Angeles, we had the very famous Placita raid, in which a part of Downtown Los Angeles is cornered off, and there’s banner headlines saying, deportation of Mexicans – not distinguishing between those with papers and not distinguishing those that are American citizens but always just referring to Mexicans and deportation of Mexicans and not making any of those distinctions. Those are the pressures that this population lived with…

Immigration historian Erica Lee believes that we need to use more accurate language to describe what happened. She explains,

“Because these efforts did not distinguish between longtime residents, undocumented immigrants, and American citizens of Mexican descent, this was not just a xenophobic campaign to get rid of foreigners–it was a race-based expulsion of Mexicans.” (Lee, America for Americans)

As the depression set in, politicians and civic leaders argued that Mexicans were taking jobs from deserving  citizens. Of course, the argument ignores the fact that many of those targeted for deportation were citizens, citizens of Mexican descent. The producers of PBS’s Latino Americans explain that “Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were used as scapegoats during the depression, and forced to leave on trains. Many of them were not allowed back into the country.”

Sources for the Classroom:

• This clip from PBS’s Latino Americans provides explores anti-Mexican xenophobia during the depression of the 1930s.
• The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has collected newspaper accounts of the “repatriation.” You can access them here.
• Educators at the Boulder Latino History Project curated a set of primary and secondary source documents to teach the impact of the expulsion of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in Boulder, Colorado.

Student Activism

Finding the appropriate language to describe what happened is only part of the story. Despite the massive impact, and the illegal deportation of U.S. citizens, very few people in the U.S. know this story and even fewer learn about it in school. The Latino USA story below explores both the history and the actions taken by LA area students to make sure this history is taught in schools.

In addition, this October 2024 report from NBC News describes how Tamara Gisiger’s high school paper influenced California State Senators Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach) and Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) to introduce a bill to authorize a nonprofit organization representing Mexican Americans or immigrants to build a memorial in Los Angeles recognizing the people who were forcibly deported from the U.S. during the Great Depression. The bill passed and the goal is to erect the memorial ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

This article from KQED provides additional detail and oppportunites for reflection.