History Commons^™

The 1930s Repatriation Of Mexican And Mexican-Americans May Have Similar Consequences With The New Donald Trump Administration, Erika Rosales-Shelfo

Scholarly and Creative Works Conference (2015 - 2021)

In the early 1930s, government officials from the local, state and federal level of the United States deported up to half a million Mexican and Mexican-Americans. How did government officials justify these repatriations? Beginning with the onset of the Great Depression, these deportations were designed to provide employment to out-of-work whites and to free up resources being spent on unemployed people of Mexican descent. Some of the deportees were Mexican citizens, and others were American citizens of Mexican heritage. Regardless of citizenship, many repatriados experienced similar adversities in the forced journey to Mexico and trying to integrate into the Mexican …