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Repatriation of Mexican Americans

Repatriation literally means returning to one's country of origin. In the United States, this term often refers to a nationwide repatriation program of Mexican nationals during the 1930s. The stock market crash in the fall of 1929 and the resultant Great Depression in the United States provided its ideological impetus. Both local welfare agencies and the federal government blamed Mexican aliens for taking scarce jobs from workers in the United States and for draining public resources by being on relief rolls. Although Mexican officials feared that the massive return would add to an already existing labor surplus in Mexico, the government assisted the returnees by subsidizing transportation costs from the border to the interior of Mexico. By the end of the 1930s, an estimated half million Mexican nationals and U.S. citizens of Mexican descent—people for whom the United States, not Mexico, was homeland—were compelled to leave for Mexico. This entry describes this complex and troublesome era in U.S. history.

Background Situation

In the decades preceding the repatriation, the demand for reliable labor increased with rapid development in the U.S. Southwest. For instance, the leading Western railroad companies employed Mexicans by the thousands. In 1909, approximately 6,000 Mexicans were on railroad payrolls, about 17% of the total railroad workforce. By 1929, the number jumped to some 23,000, or 59.5% of the workforce. Mexicans also proved to be indispensable workers in steel mills, meatpacking plants, canneries, mines, and other related industries. The agricultural sector represented perhaps the area of greatest labor need, albeit seasonal. Especially in California and Texas, a significant proportion of Mexican workers dominated work related to specific crops, those that required stoop labor, the especially hard work involved in planting and harvesting plants such as lettuce and beets.

Despite the apparent need for steady labor resources, Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1917, which made it difficult for Mexicans to officially gain entrance to the United States. In particular, the United States imposed an English literacy test and applied an $8 tax on every immigrant. The U.S. consul who issued the visas had tremendous latitude in interpreting another provision, “LPC” or “liable to become a public charge.” Because of the policy changes, Mexican immigration had significantly dropped during the years between the two world wars, especially during the Depression years.

When the stock market crashed, Mexicans and other racial minorities bore the brunt of diminishing economic opportunities. Other state laws severely curtailed Mexicans and other minorities from obtaining jobs in the public and private sectors. Mexicans' and minorities' needs, in turn, added pressure on the already overburdened charity and relief organizations.

A Political Turn of Events

The repatriation of Mexicans occurred in the context of growing political backlash in the Southwest against an increasing racial minority population in times of economic deprivation. However, Mexicans were treated differently than were other minorities because of Mexico's unique geopolitical and economic ties with the United States. In California, for instance, a significant number of Japanese, Filipino, and Asian Indians worked alongside the Mexicans in agriculture.

Each of these groups experienced social and economic discrimination, compounded by a series of immigration exclusions. That Mexico shares its border with the United States enabled Mexicans to be a flexible source of labor. In hard economic times, Mexican workers were more easily repatriated or deported than were other populations, and when labor shortages became acute, the U.S. government counted on Mexican workers to meet the demand. The Mexican repatriation policy during the Great Depression should be understood in this broader economic, political, and historical context.

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