Decade Of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation In The 1930s

September 10, 2015 4:01 PM

Francisco E. Balderrama on Fresh Air: America's Forgotten History Of Mexican-American 'Repatriation' In the 1930s, during the Depression, about a million people were forced out of the U.S. across the border into Mexico. It wasn't called deportation. It was euphemistically referred to as repatriation, returning people to their native country. But about 60 percent of the people in the Mexican repatriation drive were actually U.S. citizens of Mexican descent.

I'm thinking of the case of Ignacio Pena (ph). And Ignacio lived in the area of Idaho. And his family was about to sit down to have breakfast. And the sheriffs came to the house. They took everybody in custody, and they were told that they could only leave with the clothes that were on their back. They could not bring any of their personal belongings, and they were placed in a jail. His father was working out in the fields, and he was also placed in a jail. They stayed in that jail - he with his mother and his brothers and sisters in one cell and his father in a separate part of the jail. They were placed on trains after a week, and then they were shipped to Mexico. They never were able to recover their personal belongings, even though they were told that those belongings were - would be shipped to them. And among those belongings was a documentation of his father having worked in the United States for over 25 years. Among those belongings was his and his sisters' and his brothers' birth certificates, having been born in the United States.

Francisco E. Balderrama, Raymond Rodriguez. Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995. ix + 283 pp. $22.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8263-1575-5; $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8263-1628-8.

Reviewed by Yolanda C. Leyva (Division of Behavioral and Cultural Sciences, The University of Texas at San Antonio)
Published on H-LatAm (June, 1996)

Decade of Betrayal is a book which accomplishes dual purposes. First, it fills a considerable gap in the historiography of Mexicans in the United States. Second, Francisco Balderrama and Raymond Rodriguez have chosen a topic that is as relevant in today's world as it was in the 1930s. In the last several years, repatriation has resurfaced as public discussions examine the whys, wheres, and hows of reverse, frequently involuntary, migratory movements. Despite differences in specific historical circumstances such as motivations, government policies, and public reaction, expatriates returning home, whether Haitian, Afghan, or Mexican, share certain universal dilemmas and challenges. The governments involved, too, face similar difficulties and hurdles in responding to the entry of their repatriates. Decade of Betrayal provides critical insights into the dynamics of the repatriation process.

Donald Trump's call for mass deportation: How did it work before?

The campaign broke up families and sent children to Mexico who had lived in the US their entire lives, many of whom could not speak Spanish.

In 2006, lawmakers in California passed the Apology Act for the 1930s Mexican Repatriation Program, which expressed contrition to the deportees “for the fundamental violations of their basic civil liberties and constitutional rights during the period of illegal deportation and coerced emigration."

posted by Golden Eternity (31 comments total)

Donald Trump's call for mass deportation: How did it work before?

Well, how did it? Did the number of undocumented decrease, and if so, by how much and at what cost?
posted by jpe at 4:28 PM on September 10, 2015

And by cost, I mean cost in dollars rather than in feelings or social justice or what have you.
posted by jpe at 4:34 PM on September 10, 2015

They were put on trains and buses. I presume, per person, the costs of deportation would have been similar to that of the holocaust. Probably a little bit more.
posted by Golden Eternity at 4:42 PM on September 10, 2015

It doesn't sound like they sincerely cared about getting rid of the undocumented, just anyone with Mexican heritage.

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.

Social Security numbers didn't exist in the 30s, but a birth certificate alone should have been enough to stay in your own American home with an apology for wasting your time. As for whether Trump's proposal could succeed where this one failed, well, I suspect the people in charge of it would be about as sincere as they were before.
posted by Rangi at 4:46 PM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

And by cost, I mean cost in dollars rather than in feelings or social justice or what have you.

According to the author, 60% of those deported were American citizens. How is the cost in dollars even relevant? That is absolutely an injustice, despite your antipathy to "feelings or social justice."
posted by ActingTheGoat at 4:51 PM on September 10, 2015 [10 favorites]

According to the author, 60% of those deported were American citizens. How is the cost in dollars even relevant? That is absolutely an injustice, despite your antipathy to "feelings or social justice."

To me, that comment doesn't read as antipathy, it reads as "I suspect that even by the hardest-hearted accounting, this was a criminal waste, let alone by terms that take emotional consequences into account." I could be wrong though.
posted by Four Ds at 4:56 PM on September 10, 2015 [6 favorites]

"There was a perception in the United States that Mexicans are Mexicans,"

Sadly there's not a similar perception in the United States that a full 1/4 of the land of the US was Mexico until 1845 with that entire shitstorm of the Texas Annexation, the Mexican-American War, the Mexican Cession and the Gadsden Purchase.
posted by Talez at 4:58 PM on September 10, 2015 [6 favorites]

I suspect costs could be kept way low by ignoring due process, and by the very nature of targeting a largely disenfranchised segment of the population.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:07 PM on September 10, 2015

The interview is really worth listening to. It was clearly a very close issue for both authors. I can't believe I've never heard of this considering how awful it is. Shows what a hole there is in our Mexican American history education. I suspect there is a lot more to be uncovered here.
posted by Golden Eternity at 5:12 PM on September 10, 2015 [4 favorites]

The Mexican word for "non-Mexican Mexicans" who have left Mexico and lost their culture, don't speak Spanish, etc., is "pocho", not "bocho" as the NPR transcriber heard it.
posted by Fnarf at 5:15 PM on September 10, 2015

The Mexican word for "non-Mexican Mexicans" who have left Mexico and lost their culture, don't speak Spanish, etc., is "pocho", not "bocho" as the NPR transcriber heard it.

Yup. "bocho", or "vocho", is a Volkswagen bug.
posted by clearlydemon at 5:23 PM on September 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

The Mexican word for "non-Mexican Mexicans" who have left Mexico and lost their culture, don't speak Spanish, etc., is "pocho", not "bocho" as the NPR transcriber heard it.

Or chicanos. Here in Northern Mexico where I live, "pocho" refers to the way of talking of many Mexicans in the US, who combine spanish and english words and sometimes make up new words with an english base but spanish sound. Like washateria, or typear, etc.
posted by CrazyLemonade at 5:38 PM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

From 2009:

Kara Hartzler, an attorney at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project (FIRRP), agrees with Lofgren. Last year Hartzler's staff of six attorneys provided presentations and occasionally individual advice to more than 8,000 detainees in southern Arizona. About 10 percent of people ICE detains nationwide are sent to Florence and nearby Eloy, about sixty miles south of Phoenix. Hartzler testified, "The deportation of US citizens is not happening monthly, or weekly, but every day."

ICE does not keep records on cases in which detainees claim to be US citizens. If larger trends are consistent with the pattern in Hartzler's caseload, since 2004 ICE has held between 3,500 and 10,000 US citizens in detention facilities and deported about half. US citizens are a small percentage of ICE detentions for this period, which totaled around 1 million, but in absolute terms the figure is staggering.

[PDF warning]
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:06 PM on September 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

And then, of course, the U.S. decided it needed the cheap labor a few years later.
posted by Etrigan at 6:33 PM on September 10, 2015

I listened to this today & was also struck by this "excised" part of American History. What strikes me the most is two things: those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And a question: How do these "free market" conservatives find that the EXCEPTION to their "free market" rules apply to "illegal" immigrants? None of them would raise a peep if the illegal immigrants were Swedish (or other primarily white nationality). This is nothing more than veiled racism, in the name of respect for "law". It's quite laughable (to this non-political Nebraskan white male).
posted by spock at 6:48 PM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

I just wrote and deleted a lot of angry and vicious commentary here that none of you deserve to read because you aren't the people who committed or supported this atrocity, but I should just say, as someone who's been struggling with the US immigration system for decades: it is chilling to see that even citizenship isn't a guarantee against being made to leave.

Jesus fuck, you guys, what's the point for any of us to even try to find a place in your asshole country?
posted by bl1nk at 7:01 PM on September 10, 2015 [7 favorites]

> What strikes me the most is two things: those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Doomed? I expect the people driving these policies are hoping to repeat it.
posted by at by at 7:12 PM on September 10, 2015

Etrigan: And then, of course, the U.S. decided it needed the cheap labor a few years later.

Because, you know, The War. And later/simultaneously deported en masse. The forceful ebb and flow of immigrants from Mexico is covered well in the Library of Congress' web "presentation" on Mexican immigration, which is designed to be a teaching tool. I, for one, was educated, so thank you LOC. (Also, I really liked the writing - "The first Mexicans to become part of the United States never crossed any border. Instead, the border crossed them," noting that a huge swath of what is now the Southwest U.S. was Mexican territory, so many Mexicans became Mexican-Americans "with two strokes of a pen.")
posted by filthy light thief at 7:18 PM on September 10, 2015 [5 favorites]

I actually exclaimed "Jesus fucking christ!" out loud when I read the lead in. The rest of the deli patrons were not amused.

Interesting, isn't it, that you never hear of round ups of canadians pushed back across the northern border.

The crazy thing is there is almost certainly no way the life of Douchebag White Republican "Get Dem Illegals Out" Person isn't made better by immigrants every day, from cheap produce to cheap labor to build their mcmansions. They probably save more in one trip to the store than their taxes might be dinged for any services immigrants might use.

(To be clear, I don't support exploiting immigrants, I'd rather pay more and have everyone earn enough to live on. I'd rather there wasn't a border.)
posted by maxwelton at 7:25 PM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

The people who were affected by this event, or may be affected by the echoes of this event in Trump's vitriol or in the Republican rhetoric are not just "immigrants." What the Repatriation is evident of, and what lies at the dirty heart of this mass deportation conversation and the associated birthright citizenship conversation is that this isn't about controlling or reducing immigration.

This is about taking American citizens who aren't of the right color and telling them that they don't belong. This is about people who have spent multiple generations in one land, being rounded up and sent out of the country because they weren't white or black and because they didn't make a habit of carrying their birth certificate in their wallet. This is about people who have been singled out as scapegoats for an economic depression that was caused by factors far larger than them, and using the spectacle of their suffering as a false sign of progress.

This is about ethnic cleansing without the murder.

(I'm going to walk away from the computer now and try to direct this rage elsewhere.)
posted by bl1nk at 7:40 PM on September 10, 2015 [11 favorites]

bl1nk I only caught the matinee of the USCIS and its bullshit. I did it with resources, money, and a good lawyer and it was still the biggest pain in the ass I've had to endure in my entire life. I can't imagine what it would be like to be stuck in the system with the anxiety it brings for decades at a time.
posted by Talez at 7:52 PM on September 10, 2015

Seriously though, has anyone ever sued the USCIS for eighth amendment violations?
posted by Talez at 7:53 PM on September 10, 2015

Jesus fuck, you guys, what's the point for any of us to even try to find a place in your asshole country?

A Nation of Sociopaths? What the Trump Phenomenon Says About America
posted by Golden Eternity at 7:54 PM on September 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

YIKES

can we not

there are ways to thoughtfully compare different instances of genocide, forced population transfer, and ethnic cleansing.

just because something terrible happened within a decade or so of the holocaust, thats no excuse to casually compare the cost, to the perpetrators, per victim, of putting racialized people on busses vs murdering them.

furthermore, the USA, conservative and liberal administrations alike, is responsible for much worse things for latin americans than this, way more recently than 1930 even. like if you're going to throw around comparisons of USA supported ethnic cleansing and fascism to nazism why not go for, say, Guatemala.
posted by thug unicorn at 9:16 PM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

wwii era europe is FULL of ethnic cleansing related population transfers of people to neighboring countries with some kind of shared language, ethnicity, and history, theres really no good reason to casually bring up the genocide of Jews and Roma in particular...
posted by thug unicorn at 10:36 PM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

I might be missing a deleted comment where someone other than you mentioned genocide, thug unicorn, but I really do not think we should be shying away from mentioning ethnic cleansing as bl1nk did in the context of mass resettlement based on ethnicity. And if you're packing people onto trucks together with others from a tuberculosis sanitarium, as described in the first link, you don't really give a shit about whether they come out of it alive, either.
posted by XMLicious at 10:50 PM on September 10, 2015

I wasn't responding to bl1nk and i agree with what you're saying.
posted by thug unicorn at 11:16 PM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

"The first Mexicans to become part of the United States never crossed any border. Instead, the border crossed them," noting that a huge swath of what is now the Southwest U.S. was Mexican territory, so many Mexicans became Mexican-Americans "with two strokes of a pen.")
posted by filthy light thief at 7:18 PM on September 10 [+] [!]

A lot of my family are native New Mexicans, who were living in the same area for a couple centuries before it became US territory. I am often perturbed, however, that there's an assumption in the US culture that anyone of hispanic ancestry is necessarily a recent (and probably illegal) immigrant or the child of one. My English ancestors are more recent immigrants than the hispanic ones.

Also for whatever interest it may be: a story my grandmother often tells of an occasion where she met a Chinese lady who asked her what country she was from. My grandma always seems to imagine that she was squinting her eyes and the Chinese lady thought she was also Chinese, but I'm pretty sure the reason for the question was that grandma's first language was Spanish and though she speaks perfectly good English, she does so with a Spanish accent. (This of course being the common local accent of her era, it doesn't strike her as an unusual way to speak English or that most of the US would think she talks like a foreigner.)
posted by Peregrine Pickle at 12:31 AM on September 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

600 000 people in 1930 is an absolute shit ton of voters in 2016.
posted by PenDevil at 1:41 AM on September 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

My maternal grandfather was a highly educated man from Mexico City -- a mathematician -- and he never talked about this, but all evidence seems to point to his having been repatriated in the 1930s, probably during the first immigration sweeps of Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley on the orders of Bill Doak in 1931. My grandfather later returned, likely as a bracero during the Second World War. The disproportionate number of people who were deported were from the business and professional class. My grandfather was one of them.

If his story is like any of the other folks who were repatriated, he had to live with shame and humiliation the rest of his life. He was a very proud man, but what this national mass-crime must have done to his soul I'll never know.
posted by blucevalo at 11:41 AM on September 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

One interesting person who was repatriated, and then came back to the United States was Romana Acosta, founder of Ramona's Mexican food from Echo Park, Los Angeles.

She later became Secretary of the Treasury under Richard Nixon and is still involved with her company at age 89.
posted by cell divide at 12:54 PM on September 11, 2015 [1 favorite]