What Historians Have to Say
(Map of repatriates from across theUnited Sates; While California had nearly 53,000, Texas had over 132,000 repatriates)
Throughout history and throughout much of the world, the lives of the working classes have not been widely written about. The Mexican immigrant in the United States is no exception. Mexicans have occupied an important place in the labor force. In fact, many scholars such as Rodolfo Acuna, author of Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, argue that without Mexican labor, the development of agriculture, mining, construction, and railroads would have been retarded in the Southwest. Regardless of the importance and presence of Mexicans, it has not been until recently that historians have started to write about the working classes, including this group. The amount of existing work and the topics that are being written about, however, remain limited.1
Early work on Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the U.S. was predominately written by the dominant race. Inevitably, many of these works betray a negative bias. Julian Nava, of California State University, writes in the forward of Abraham Hoffman's, Unwanted Mexicans in the Great Depression, that "in too many Anglo oriented accounts where the Mexican appears at all, he usually has been portrayed as the brunt of humor."2 Hoffman says that American historians traditionally have approached the study of immigration from a European orientation and have almost totally ignored immigration from the Western Hemisphere.3 More attention, however, has been focused on immigration than emigration of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the U.S.4
In recent years various historians have taken note of emigration of Mexicans, especially during the 1930s. In researching Mexicans during the Great Depression, both commonalties and differences between the views and approaches of those historians, who have written on the subject, have been found. Abraham Hoffman stated in his 1974 book that Mexican repatriation studies have been practically nonexistent. Of the works that do exist, they concentrate on repatriation from California. Most overlook its effects on other parts of the United States. Works by Abraham Hoffman, and Franciso Balderama and Raymond Rodriguez admit to their emphasis on southern California and agree that, "detailed studies of repatriation from Texas, Arizona, or the many other states in which Mexican immigrants lived, still await investigation." Many historians such as Hoffman believe concentrating on California does however shed some light on conditions that were going on during this time in other parts of the Southwest and sections of the Midwest and east.5
Although more work has been written on California than other states, statistics show that Texas had a larger number of repatriates than California during the depression. While 52,946 were repatriated from California, 132,639 were repatriated from Texas. Over half of the total U.S. repatriates came from Texas.6 During the 1930s, however, one single article about repatriation in Texas was published. It was entitled "The Mexicans Go Home" by Edna E. Kelly and was published in, "Southwest Review" in 1932. Nothing more appeared until the 1980s.7
Repatriation happened throughout the United States wherever there were concentrations of Mexicans. San Antonio, Texas was not excluded. San Antonio, in the 1930s, as today had a large concentration of Mexicans. There is however little work which looks specifically at San Antonio during this period and which deals particularly with this group. One book that does concentrate on San Antonio during the Great Depression is, Women of the Depression: Caste and Culture in San Antonio, 1929-1939, by Julia Kirk Blackwelder in which she focuses on the lives of women in San Antonio. Although the author does not dwell specifically on the Mexican community in this book, it is significant because it portrays the terrible conditions that Mexicans experienced during the depression, which contributed to repatriation. Overall, Blackwelder uses this book to "attempt to understand and explain ethnic discrimination and the social structures of the early twentieth century in San Antonio.8
There are commonalties and differences in the thoughts of historians on reasons for the process of repatriation of Mexicans. Many of the works that concentrate on repatriation during the depression share the opinion that as jobs vanished during the Great Depression, the migratory flow to the United States reversed. Times were simply bad and jobs were not available. Rodolfo Acuna blames repatriation on the "resurfacing of nativism with renewed vigor." Mexicans were competing for jobs with Anglos and were being overlooked in order to give members of the dominant race jobs.9 Other historians take a different approach and acknowledge that many Mexicans were voluntarily going back to Mexico and that they believed that they were better off in Mexico where they would have a better chance of finding a job. Others, like Michael R. Ornelas, approach the experience of Mexicans by relating it to other examples of people who moved or were moved from one place or another in U.S. history. Among those, for example, are the relocation of Indian tribes and the relocation of Japanese American population during World War II. Historians such as Ornelas acknowledge that Mexicans were not the only group to be repatriated, but it was easier with this group because of its proximity to Mexico.10 Many Historians acknowledge that Mexicans simply were not wanted in the U.S.. Others argue that they could not be supported economically and socially.
Studies indicate that the repatriation policy failed to distinguish between Mexican immigrants and citizens of Mexican descent. Acuna argues that Hispanic U.S. citizens were treated as aliens. They had similar characteristics and it would be difficult to distinguish between the two simply by their appearances. The only real way to distinguish between the two would be through proof of citizenship such as a birth certificate or other documentation. Many historians share the idea that there was no distinction between the two and in many works, the two are referred to interchangeably. This was compounded by the fact that a large number of Mexican immigrants had children while they were in the United States, making their children American citizens. Both generations experienced segregation, discrimination in employment and in other aspects of everyday life during the Depression. They both experienced repatriation as well. Many Mexican Americans, who had established lives and families in the United States and even those, whose parents were Americans, were wrongfully repatriated. Robert McKay argues that the term repatriate is actually inaccurate for Mexican American citizens because one can not be repatriated to a foreign country.11
The reasons for repatriation are not clear but historians tend to agree that as times turned bad during the depression, Mexicans were among the first to be dismissed from their jobs. According to some historians it is a topic that has been suppressed. Hoffman believes that, "it being omitted from the textbooks is a forceful indictment of the neglect given to the historical presence of the Mexican American."12
