thumb|People waving goodbye to a train departing [[Los Angeles with 1,500 Mexicans on August 20, 1931]]
The Mexican Repatriation was the repatriation or deportation of between 300,000 and 2 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans from the United States during the Great Depression between 1929 and 1939. Forty to sixty percent were citizens of the United States, overwhelmingly children.
Although repatriation was supported by the federal government, it was largely organized and encouraged by city and state governments, often with support from local private entities. However, voluntary repatriation was far more common than formal deportation and federal officials were minimally involved. The government formally deported at least 82,000 people, The Mexican government also encouraged repatriation with the promise of free land. Mexicans were further targeted because of "the proximity of the Mexican border, the physical distinctiveness of mestizos, and easily identifiable barrios".
Estimates of the number who moved to Mexico between 1929 and 1939 range from 300,000 to 2 million, This land was roughly half of Mexico's pre-war territory.
80,000-100,000 Mexican citizens lived in this territory, and were promised U.S. citizenship under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican–American War. Mexicans who remained in the U.S. were considered U.S. citizens and were counted as "white" by the U.S. census until 1930, but a growing influx of immigrants combined with local racism led to the creation of a new category in the census of that year.
Emigration from Mexico
Mexican immigration to the United States was not significant until the construction of the railroad network between Mexico and the Southwest, which provided employment and eased transit. and again during the Cristero War in the late 1920s. During the 1920s, the highest number of Mexican immigrants to the United States traveled from the Mexican states of Jalisco, Michoacán, and Guanajuato.
Records indicate that between the years of 1901 to 1920, hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Mexico settled in the country and that immigration between the US and Mexico was largely unregulated during this time. was expelled from the town.
American employers often encouraged such emigration from Mexico into the United States. This led to the existence of Mexican communities outside of the Southwest, in places such as Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Minnesota, Tennessee Mexicans immigrated to states such as North Carolina, Wisconsin and Louisiana during the early 20th century. As a Chicago-based steel company, The Inland Steel Company provided a substantial portion of its jobs to Mexicans, adding up to 18 percent of its total workforce. Additional immigrants went to Oregon, Idaho and Washington as farm laborers and to Colorado to work in the sugar beet industry. and the steel industry in Pueblo, Colorado
These large inflows of immigrants raised concerns quickly among legislatures and committees. Representatives of Texas' agricultural industry shared with a committee that some immigrants were bringing their families with them during their journey to the United States. These growers reported that 30 percent of workers brought their families.
These early waves of immigration also led to waves of repatriation, generally tied to economic downturns. During the depression of 1907, the Mexican government allocated funds to repatriate some Mexicans living in the United States. A period of heightened Nativism and the Passage of the Immigration Act of 1924 contributed to anti immigrant policies
Due to the lax immigration enforcement, and porousness of the border, many citizens, legal residents, and immigrants did not have the official documentation proving their citizenship, had lost their documents, or just never applied for citizenship. Prejudice played a factor: Mexicans were stereotyped as "unclean, improvident, indolent, and innately dull", so many Mexicans did not apply for citizenship because they "knew that if [they] became a citizen [they] would still be, in the eyes of the Anglos, a Mexican". Hoffman estimates that over 400,000 Mexicans left the US between 1929 and 1937, Brian Gratton estimates that 355,000 people moved to Mexico from the US in the 1930s, 38% of them American born citizens and 2% naturalized citizens. He estimates that this number is 225,000 higher than would be expected during the depression period. The government formally deported around 82,000 Mexicans from 1929 to 1935.
Besides coverage in local newspapers and radio, deportation was frequent enough that it was reflected in the lyrics of Mexican popular music.
Justifications for repatriation
thumb|[[Martin Dies Jr.]]
Even before the Wall Street crash, a variety of "small farmers, progressives, labor unions, eugenicists, and racists" had called for restrictions on Mexican immigration.
Racism was also a factor. Another justification made by Mexican officials for bringing back Mexican nationals was to repatriate large numbers of Mexican citizens with agricultural and industrial expertise learned in the United States; however, Mexico's economy was often unable to effectively integrate these skilled workers.
Early voluntary repatriation
Mexicans were often among the first to be laid off after the crash of 1929.
Federal government action
thumb|[[William N. Doak|William Doak, Secretary of Labor]]
As the effects of the Great Depression worsened and affected larger numbers of people, feelings of hostility toward immigrants increased rapidly, and the Mexican community as a whole suffered as a result. States began passing laws that required all public employees to be American citizens, and employers were subject to harsh penalties such as a five hundred dollar fine or six months in jail if they hired immigrants. Although the law was hardly enforced, "employers used it as a convenient excuse for not hiring Mexicans. It also made it difficult for any Mexican, whether American citizens or foreign born, to get hired." "Strike leaders and picketers would be arrested, charged with being illegal aliens or engaging in illegal activities, and thus be subject to arbitrary deportation."
Repatriation in Los Angeles
Beginning in the early 1930s, local governments instigated repatriation programs, often conducted through local welfare bureaus or private charitable agencies. Los Angeles had the largest population of Mexicans outside of Mexico, and had a typical deportation approach, with a plan for "publicity releases announcing the deportation campaign, a few arrests would be made 'with all publicity possible and pictures,' and both police and deputy sheriffs would assist".
After the peak of the repatriation, Los Angeles again threatened to deport "between 15,000 and 25,000 families" in 1934. While the Mexican government took the threat seriously enough to attempt to prepare for such an influx, the city ultimately did not carry through on their threat. However, it did not typically act on this stated policy, because of a lack of resources.
Modern reinterpretation and awareness
thumb|Engraving at Los Angeles' [[LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, which discusses the repatriation.]]
Apologies
In 2006, Congressional representatives Hilda Solis and Luis Gutiérrez introduced a bill calling for a commission to study the issue. Solis also called for an apology. Los Angeles County also issued an apology in 2012, and installed a memorial at the site of one of the city's first immigration raids.
Education
Repatriation is not widely discussed in U.S. history textbooks. In a 2006 survey of the nine most commonly used American history textbooks in the United States, four did not mention the topic, and only one devoted more than half a page to the topic. In total, they devoted four pages to the repatriation. California has passed legislation attempting to address this in future curriculum revisions.
Academic research
A National Bureau of Economic Research working paper that studied the effects of the mass repatriation concluded that<blockquote>cities with larger repatriation intensity ... performed similarly or worse in terms of native employment and wages, relative to cities which were similar in most labor market characteristics but which experienced small repatriation intensity. ... our estimates suggest that [repatriation] may have further increased [native] levels of unemployment and depressed their wages.