Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s

by Francisco E. Balderrama, Raymond Rodriguez

During the Great Depression, a sense of total despair plagued the United States. Americans sought a convenient scapegoat and found it in the Mexican community. Laws forbidding employment of Mexicans were accompanied by the hue and cry to get rid of the Mexicans! The hysteria led pandemic repatriation drives and one million Mexicans and their children were illegally shipped to Mexico.

Despite their horrific treatment and traumatic experiences, the American born children never gave up hope of returning to the United States. Upon attaining legal age, they badgered their parents to let them return home. Repatriation survivors who came back worked diligently to get their lives back together. Due to their sense of shame, few of them ever told their children about their tragic ordeal.

Decade of Betrayal recounts the injustice and suffering endured by the Mexican community during the 1930s. It focuses on the experiences of individuals forced to undergo the tragic ordeal of betrayal, deprivation, and adjustment. This revised edition also addresses the inclusion of the event in the educational curriculum, the issuance of a formal apology, and the question of fiscal remuneration.


Francisco Balderrama and Raymond Rodr�guez, the authors of Decade of Betrayal, the first expansive study of Mexican repatriation with perspectives from both sides of the border, claim that 1 million people of Mexican descent were driven from the United States during the 1930s due to raids, scare tactics, deportation, repatriation and public pressure. Of that conservative estimate, approximately 60 percent of those leaving were legal American citizens. Mexicans comprised nearly half of all those deported during the decade, although they made up less than 1 percent of the country's population. 'Americans, reeling from the economic disorientation of the depression, sought a convenient scapegoat, ' Balderrama and Rodr�guez wrote. 'They found it in the Mexican community.'--American History

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Latinx, Academic, Social Commentary, Cultural

427 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1995

Reviews

[Brittany Batong · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an eye-opening book! The extent of my knowledge of Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s was drawn from the scene in Mi Familia where the Jennifer Lopez character gets rounded up and deported to Mexico. I had no idea how rampant this so called “movement” was, nor any knowledge of the insidious methods employed by members at every level of government to bully people from their rightful homes. The book provided fresh information about the scapegoating by various factions of both native-born Mexicans and American citizens of Mexican descent. As a woman who is half Mexican American and whose family has been based in Los Angeles County for several generations, this book had me pondering to what extent this hysteria affected my immigrant great-grandparents and their outlook on raising their very American children. I am now able to look at my family history from a fresh perspective. It is important to note that this book is also an excellent source of information regarding life in 1930s Los Angeles and America in general, as well. Whether you have Mexican ancestry, know someone that does, or are just interested in delving deeper into a little-known piece of 20th-century history, this book is a worthwhile read. And, given the current climate of anti-immigration sentiment going around, this book is a necessary reminder that, if we allow history to become forgotten, it will no doubt repeat itself.

[Synful · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book suggested during a Mexican American Civil Rights Institute (MACRI) interview. As many who've stumbled upon this book have said, I'd never heard, at least not to this extent, the way Mexicans and Mexican Americans were cut off at the knees economically and then deported in the 1920s and 30s. Not that it's new nor that it hasn't continued to this very date. It's just useful to see how extensively all levels of government colluded and conspired to unconstitutionally deprive residents and citizens of their rights to the detriment of an entire generation, if not two or three generations.

There was a lot of useful anecdotes and data in this book which repeatedly got my ire up. However, I'd be interested to know how this book was written/put together, especially since there's 2 authors credited. It seems like there was way too much repetition of those things throughout the book in different chapters. It was like the chapters were written by the different authors and then they didn't cross-check who had mention what earlier in the book so either the latter chapter could phrase it differently rather than retelling the whole thing or come up with a different person's story to make their point. It got tedious halfway through and I started skimming when it became obvious it was something already mentioned.

Finally, a personal dislike was that there was so much emphasis on California and not a whole lot of mention from at least Texas, being the other major location of Mexicans and Mexican Americans. Maybe replacing some of those several-times repeated stories with different ones from people in Texas would've been better use of space in the book.

Here I've stuck major points I wanted to make note of which you may or may not be interested in:

-The Mexican government didn't say a whole lot against the illegal shit the U.S. government was up to because they were doing the same thing, deporting people they didn't want who'd also made a life in Mexico for many years if not decades, primarily Chinese people.

-Most people were just dropped at the border where there was no food, shelter, or clean water or plumbing and were divested of their belongings to cross the border. This after they'd had to sell their properties pennies on the dollar if they even managed to sell at all, something states got to keep in the end.

-People being deported were angry that people of many other places, in particular from Europe, who were often the ones actually on government assistance, weren't the ones being treated this way literally getting run out on a rail. Rightfully, they often pointed out that their hard labor had grown the "Colossus of the North" to its might and at the time of these people's need instead of helping them they were being unceremoniously dumped into Mexico, whether or not they were actually born there.

-Their treatment was especially egregious when they started to go through institutions and deporting the disabled and mentally ill as well, no matter their condition or ability to survive on their own.

-Unsurprisingly, the U.S. government didn't care about its (WWI) veterans and deported them too. Meanwhile, the Mexican press snarkily pointed out the last time Mexico let in huge waves of Americans to live in their territory, they got to put up with people like Sam Houston saying racist b.s. like, "I didn't come to Texas to live under the Greaser's yoke." And then Mexico ended up losing half of the country.

-This was most difficult on adolescents who had the hardest time as the most adapted to living in the U.S. for many years if not their entire lives. Many of those who were able to evade deportation or were able to return right away and continue on with their lives ended up leagues ahead of those who were forced into equal or worse poverty in Mexico which required payment to get an education. One man who stayed managed to get into Harvard and got a PhD which he says would've never happened if he'd been deported. Many of those children ended up dying in poverty poorly educated or even illiterate.

-When that generation grew up in the U.S. and went to WWII, they were treated worse than German POWs and got to return to the U.S. to be treated like trash, denied housing in good places and separated even in cemeteries from white people.

-Racists arguing against the U.S. being held accountable trotted out the usual argument that Mexican Americans just like playing the victim and that they were born to people in the U.S. illegally, something they didn't bother to prove at all at any time. They also generally siad that reparations are too much work and too expensive to make up for all the illegal shit that was done.

-Speaking of trotting out old garbage myths, government reps claimed too many Mexicans and Mexican Americans were getting assistance when in fact then as now the overwhelming majority of welfare was going to white people. In fact the assistance was low considering their amount of poverty and starvation because many were too proud or scared to ask for welfare.

-"While legal justification could be made for getting rid of unwanted aliens, it was an entirely different matter to deprive American citizens of their constitutional rights... Instead of protesting the horrendous injustice and wholesale violations of basic human rights the media acquiesced in the despicable action by commending authorities for their zeal and success in getting rid of as many Mexicans as possible."

The official number of people deported or coerced into leaving is approximately 1,000,000, but it's probably a lot more considering they weren't being very conscientious about the paperwork for their unconstitutional activities. Not to mention a lot of people saw the writing on the wall and just left before they were forcibly removed. It's also piqued my interest of looking into some of my own family who are now almost entirely gone, but who may have been effected by this back then. Something further to look into.

[Kathleen (itpdx)]

I didn't have time to get all the way through this book. It is a library book that was on hold. This is a very important piece of history that is little known. And it is important because the US seems to be repeating it. We haven't learned. The authors of this book interviewed a number of people who had been deported during this move in the 30's. But the authors did not use the information to tell cohesive personal stories that, for me, would have made a much more interesting book.
Times get tough and some people in the US figure it is the fault of too many "illegal" Mexicans in the country. They come up with a mechanism to deport them; sometimes sweeping up US citizens in the process. Sending people south of the border to a country where they may or may not have support systems, to a place where many may not speak the language well and may be illiterate in it. And then when times are good again, the US unofficially welcomes them back.

[Glauber Ribeiro · Rating 5 out of 5]

(This review came from the future, through an alternative reality portal.)

The study of history is helpful for understanding cultural tendencies, especially considering that unresolved tendencies cause cyclical repetitions. This book describes in great detail, based largely on interviews with the participants, the second largest period of xenophobic expatriation of Latin minorities in the USA, starting in the 1920s and going full speed during the 1930s. Many of the deported were American naturalized or born citizens, who appeared to "look Mexican," or spoke Spanish.

This parallels very well what happened in the Twenty-First Century, starting with the clockwork efficiency of the Obama administration deportations, taking speed during the first and second Trump governments and finally running to completion during the third and fourth Trump governments. (By the beginning of the Cyber-Trump era, the country had ran out of people of that demographic to deport.) The loss of an important part of American culture was one of the main causes of the precipitous end of USA cultural and economic influence in the world.

[Susan Wertheim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This happened in the 30s and most people have know idea it even took place. I this book is well written and it looks a personal accounts of those that were re patriatated to Mexico because Americans were afraid of loosing their jobs. Deja Vu..

[Kathryn Davidson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in 1995, this book ends on the optimistic note that the lower US birthrate should mean the tide will turn and immigrants will be welcome again as a valuable labor force. Sadly, that did not turn out to be true. I read this book because of the similarity between the actions of the US government beginning in 2025 to those in the period covered by the book (1929 to 1939). The underlying economic conditions appear to be similar (increased poverty), leading to a feeling of unfairness that “undeserving” people were getting more than their fair share, and the human desire to do something, even if that something is more harmful than helpful. While there was a lot of marketing on both sides of the border that the efforts were “helping”, the data in the book show that this wasn’t beneficial for either side despite a lot of people in various capacities with big ideas. I appreciate that the authors tried to be balanced, showing that Mexico was engaging in the same behavior on their side by also expelling people that they could easily label as “different”, in their case Asians (which America subsequently did in the decade after the period this book covers). The authors posit that the only reason the situation improved in the 1930’s was because economic conditions began improving. This book is a diligent, earnest, academic effort. The inclusion of photos was powerful and the inclusion of select source documents informative.

[Kayla_451 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes, history is invisible. The legacy of the Mexican 'Repatriation' is beating with a heavy, hidden heart.

This book is a great starting point for initial exposure to the mass removal, intimidation and deportation of upwards of 2 million Mexican and Mexican-Americans during the Great Depression. The Mexican Repatriation is undertold, so I'm grateful for a book that does the heavy-lifting.

My criticisms are basically symptomatic of the general lack of historical work on the topic (managing conflicting perspectives/arguments, gathering deep and varied source types to strengthen the central narrative, so on). This is not directed at Balderrama but more so at the scholarship on US/Mexican/Mexican-American histories--which he himself moved to rectify through this book.

With more attention given to this history, we'll achieve the rigour needed to appreciate the Mexican Repatriation's impact, scale and legacy. And boy, could post-2024 America afford to give it that attention.

[Dora Barba · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anger is the feeling I had reading about how families were forced to leave the only country they knew because of bigotry. I especially was appalled by the patients in TB hospitals and mental institutions that were forced onto trains and sent to Mexico even though they were still very ill. My mother and her family were repatriated in 1931. She often spoke of the extreme poverty she and her family encountered. Her 3 eldest sisters died of TB because of their exposure to this disease working in sweatshops. Luckily my mother was able to return to her country the US where she lived until the rest of her life. The info in this book needs to be part of the American history taught in our schools. It needs to be shared, so as to not forget the atrocities Mexicans and Mexican-Americans endured at the hands of its own government.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Pobre México, so far from God and so close to the United States.”

A seminal read every American should be assigned — if only to experience the dizzying aspect of history repeating note by note, beyond rhyme or reason. If only to learn how many American citizens end up bearing the brunt of racist hysteria whipped up against the foreigner, to learn “the bitter lesson that constitutional guarantees are meaningless when mob hysteria is accorded institutional or legal status.” If only to acknowledge we may be too far gone in this cycle to stop the wheel of ever-revolving fate — but not to late to fight to stem the tide, to document the truth for future generations.

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the one hand, this covers a subject I've rarely seen covered before, and uses a good number of original sources and interviews; on the other hand, the random commas, exclamation marks, and missing quotation marks drive me nuts (I feel like they're the work of the reviser, not the original author... the last couple of chapters could definitely use a real writer or editor), it feels like words are repeated too close to each other (including saying "Senator Joseph Dunn" over and over), and some places feel like the author (or reviser) is making broad generalizations.

[Willie Kirschner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book about a time that Americans would do well to remember. In light of the current hysteria fomented by Trump, it is significant to remember that this same unrealistic and bogus characterization of our Mexican neighbors has played a shameful part in our history. I recommend this book and hope you can find it.

[jane canfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Didn't get this in our "history" books. History is repeating itself. I knew nothing about this chapter in our history. Amazing how stuff like this is buried.

[Henry A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned of this book from my late cousin, Jesse Roa. He was old enough to remember it.
CLICK ON COVER TO READ THE REVIEW THERE.
The 1917 immigration act excluded Asians, some Europeans and Mexicans. But the United States had entered the Great War and needed workers to replace Americans going off to war. It needed farm workers, factory workers and railroad workers so Mexicans were allowed to immigrate to fill those jobs, they worked hard for less pay. My relatives lived in boxcars provided by the EJ&E Railroad in Joliet, Illinois. Everything was great until the depression. Mexicans were now non grata because they were taking jobs from Americans. Thus, the Hoover "Repatriation". Yet Hoover was in office only four years of the program, Roosevelt was in office for the other six years. But nothing is said about that.

My paternal grandparents, Marcelino and Ambrosia Roa, were victims: COPY & PASTE: file:///M:/ROA%20VALENCIA%20GENEALOGY... I never got to know them.

I speak of it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGc0C... COPY & PASTE

Henry A. Roa
http://www.mexican-folkloric-dance-ch... COPY & PASTE

[Lianna]

Wow! 1930's.


From the description -
Americans sought a convenient scapegoat and found it in the Mexican community. Laws forbidding employment of Mexicans were accompanied by the hue and cry to "get rid of the Mexicans!"

And Wikipedia -
The Repatriation is not widely discussed in American history textbooks;[4:] in a 2006 survey of the nine most commonly used American history textbooks in the United States, four did not mention the Repatriation, and only one devoted more than half a page to the topic.[4:] In total, they devoted four pages to the Repatriation, compared with eighteen pages for the Japanese American internment.[4:]

[Kcshrader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Admittedly, I only got halfway through this book. It was simultaneously fascinating (because of the subject matter) and dull (because it couldn't decide if the audience was scholarly or popular).

Hoping to revisit the topic through a different author.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of knowledge I was embarrassed to not own sooner. If you aren't sufficiently terrified of Trump and havoc he could bring, read this book and learn about the historical precedent for mass deportation of undocumented and legal citizens.

[Karla Callejas c · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by one of my mentors @CSULA :)