1. Goals:
Examine the consequences of Repatriation during the Great Depression
Examine labor activism among Mexican farm workers during the GD

2. Repatriation and the GD
Welfare and the New Deal
Hostility toward Mexican communities
Repatriation as a solution

3. “Employ no Mexican while a white man is unemployed. “
Securing employment during the GD
Discriminating against Tejanos
Restrictions denied work to American born Tejanos
New Mexico
State relief agencies to deny transients public assistance
Los Angeles
Mexican Americans denied work

5. Dust Bowl migrants during the GD

6. Hungry children of the Dust Bowl

7. Poverty in Oklahoma

8. Mexican Family during GD

9. African Americans line up for relief during GD.

10. Near Brawley, Imperial County
Near Brawley, Imperial County. Homeless family of seven, walking the highway from Phoenix, Arizona, where they picked cotton. Bound for San Diego, where the father hopes to get on the relief because he once lived there.

11. The Border and Immigration
Growers call for open border
U.S. Dept. of Agriculture
Immigration Act of 1929
President Hoover publicly denounces Mexicans
Publicizing raids and scapegoating Mexicans
William N. Doaks

12. Raids and Roundups Local law enforcement Sick and elderly
Repatriations in Texas
Texas legislature refuses relief funds

13. Raids and Roundups Los Angeles, January 6, 1931 Scare-ahead tactics
La Placita Raid
Walter E. Carr, local law enforcement
Public space and psychological warfare
Law enforcement denies racism

14. 1938 Border Patrol

16. 1938

18. March 1938

22. Consequences Repatriation and the Mexican family Mixups and screwups
Economic impact
Was repatriation economical?
1200 aliens = $237,000

23. FDR and INS Immigration and Naturalization Service
FDR reviews repatriation
Banks hurt by repatriation

24. Back in the Homeland Where did the Mexican gov’t. stand ?
Arrival of repatriates
Culture shock in the homeland

25. Illegal Aliens Illegal = Mexican
Dismal plight of Mexicans and Mexican Americans
Immigration Bureau
Wholesale disposal of human labor

26. This slide intentionally left blank

27. The GD: Labor Activism and the New Deal
The Farm Bloc and the New Deal
Workers in ag. vs. industrial workers
Agricultural Adjustment Act
National Labor Relations Act 1935
Section 7A

29. Great Strike of 1933 Great Strike of 1933
Pat Chambers and the Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union (CAWIU)
Cotton industry

30. Pixley, California, Cotton Strike
Pixley, California, Cotton Strike. Pat Chambers speaks to a crowd of strikers during a rally.

31. Pixley Cotton Strike leader Caroline Decker, a Communist organizer

32. Pixley Cotton Strike. Procession (line) of trucks carrying strikers as a sort of mobile picket line. First truck has a sign on side: "Join the Picket Lines; Don't Scab."

33. John Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle is a novel describing the Great Cotton Strike of 1933 by farm workers in the California Central Valley.

34. The Mexican Response Organizing Strikes Mexican revolution
Communist party

35. The Great Strike Unfolds
Evictions by growers
Corcoran becomes a refugee camp
CAIWU’s success
Women

36. Pixley, California, Cotton Strike, 1933
Pixley, California, Cotton Strike, Overview of camp of evicted cotton strikers.

37. The Great Strike (cont.)
Strikebreakers
Local law enforcement sides with growers
Violence escalates
Strike receives national attention

38. At the Pixley, California,Cotton Strike in 1933, eight armed farmers wait to ambush strikers/unionizers as they cross over to the union hall.

39. Pixley, California, Cotton Strike, 1933
Pixley, California, Cotton Strike, A line of men (possibly farm owners) stands next to a long line of policemen, preparing for battle. 

41. Government Intervention
Wagner Act not yet finalized in 1933
Killings force gov’t. intervention
Growers resisting arbitration

42. Gov’t Intervention Growers agree to federal mediation
Strikers refuse to return to work
Partial victory for strikers
Hope for the Wagner Act?