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The New Deal Public Works Programs And Mexican-Americans In Mcallen, Texas, 1933-36, Irene Ledesma

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

In an area like the Rio Grande Valley of Texas with a majority population of unskilled Mexican-Americans who generally worked for another group in trouble, the farmer, there was bound to be a high rate of unemployment during the Great Depression of the 1930's. Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration responded to unemployment with the several New Deal public works acts in 1933. The question then arises: what effect would such acts have on a majority group in an area where the minority population had political power?

Extensive use of county and city newspapers, a number of interviews, a short survey, and …