The Great Depression and Repatriation, 1929-1941 Migrant Cotton Worker, California, 1936

Major Themes Mexicans suffered from harsh economic conditions during the Great Depression, but they also endured a public narrative that defined them as undeserving of scarce jobs and public aid. Access to New Deal relief programs was difficult for many Mexican workers, though some did benefit. During the 1930s federal, state and local governments sent many Mexicans (both citizen and immigrant) to Mexico in order to reduce the number of people on relief. Some returned to Mexico voluntarily, but others were pressured to do so and some were deported. Labor organizing increased dramatically during this time period and Mexicans were active in forming their own unions and joining in interracial organizing efforts. Overall events of the 1930s fostered a greater emphasis in Mexican communities on a Mexican-American identity.

Key Questions What New Deal programs excluded farm workers as a class? What is repatriation? How is it different from deportation? On the whole was “The Repatriation” voluntary or coerced? Were people born in the United States sent to Mexico as a result of repatriation efforts? What factors motivated the establishment of repatriation programs on the local level? Why did some Mexicans in Detroit want to repatriate while others did not? How did the Great Depression affect working conditions, wages and unionization? What impact did the Great Depression have on Mexican communities’ economic well-being and cultural identity? \

The Great Depression Includes 4 images of people of Mexican descent in the U.S. during the great depression. 1. A family changing the tire on their car, piled with their belongings as they travel to California in search of work. 2. A man playing the guitar on a break from work. 3. Families in front of their housing in California, which is in very poor condition. 4. Father and son working the carrot harvest, boy between 3 and 6 years old.

Access to Relief & New Deal Programs Images include logos of the CCC and WPA, and photos described in the lecture.

The Repatriation

Repatriation or Deportation? Images are 1. A photo of the family described in the lecture. 2. A chart comparing the percentage of the Los Angeles County population and people on relief that whites, Mexicans and “Negroes” comprised. The chart indicates that the total population of Los Angeles County in 1936 was around 2,164,328 with 506,615 people on relief, about 23% of the total population. Of that total whites comprised 90% of the total population and 88% of those on relief, Mexicans comprised 8% of the total population and 10% of those on relief, African Americans comprised 2% of the total population and 2% of those on relief.

Repatriation in Michigan Caption on slide describes all images. From upper left in a clockwise direction: Housing for Mexican Sugar Beet Workers near Saginaw, Michigan, preparing dinner in same housing (both at the end of the Depression in 1941) and Diego Rivera painting the Detroit Murals.

Labor Organizing Slide contains 3 photographs from the film reel of the 1937 Republic Steel Strike Memorial Day Massacre. Image 1 shows floating tear gas, around 15 police officers, a number of strikers laying on the ground and Guadalupe Marshall arguing with a police officer in the background. Image 2 shows around 30 to 40 strikers laying on the ground, leaned over or fleeing the police line. Image 3 is a close-up of Guadalupe Marshall walking amongst strikers laying on the ground looking at the police in the very near foreground. She wears pumps, a skirt-suit and carries a clutch purse and newspaper.

Effects of the Repatriation on Mexican Communities Caption on slide describes images. Mexican man working on irrigation in Eloy, Arizona in 1940 who immigrated to the U.S. just prior to the Great Depression and Mexican woman protesting immigration law in California in 1941.

Further Readings You can see video of the Memorial Day Massacre, and Guadalupe Marshall, at the following website: http://vimeo.com/10637926 Actual video footage from the day begins around 4 minutes in. Arredondo, Gabriela F. Mexican Chicago: Race, Identity, and Nation, 1916-39. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008. Balderrama, Francisco E. Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006. Blackwelder, Julia Kirk. Women of the Depression: Caste and Culture in San Antonio, 1929-1939. College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1984. Guerin-Gonzales, Camille. Mexican Workers and American Dreams: Immigration, Repatriation, and California Farm Labor, 1900-1939. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 1994. Latinas in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006. Monroy, Douglas. Rebirth Mexican Los Angeles from the Great Migration to the Great Depression. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Ngai, Mae M. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2004. Vargas, Zaragosa. Labor Rights Are Civil Rights: Mexican American Workers in Twentieth-Century America. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2005. ———. Proletarians of the North: A History of Mexican Industrial Workers in Detroit and the Midwest, 1917-1933. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.