Friday, March 25, 2011
Repatriation of Mexicans and Mexican Americans
The Depression is not associated with thoughts of Mexican Americans. I had never even considered the immense struggles they had to face. The idea of deportation really arose as a result of the Depression. With the growth of unemployment came increased hostility towards immigrant workers. White Americans were now willing to take the lower jobs of immigrants because they desired some source of income. The Mexicans were sent out of the country even though they had been recruited earlier. I think that this new hostility was a result of fear and paranoia. The immigrants could be used as a scapegoat for the extreme unemployment because it could be thought that they were taking jobs away. People were deported if they even were suspected of being Mexican. The life of a Mexican American was even harder than the average American living through the Depression because they had the same great economic struggles but had to deal with the threat of deportation as well. They are such an interesting group of people to look at during the Depression because I believe they had to suffer even more than most. Deportation is still a very large issue today, and I had no idea that some of its strongest origins could be tied back to the Depression.
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I think you made really good points about the struggle that the Mexicans endured. They faced challenges that no one should ever experience. It is very suprising that us as Americans would be so ignorant to these people considering that this country was built of equality.
ReplyDeleteThanks Sloan you're the best
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that in the panic of the Great Depression issues of race and ethnic identity with which our nation continues to struggle appear to fall by the wayside. However, I find that in times of crisis if anything, preexisting disposition toward hatred and bigotry is accelerated (Think CP Ellis or even Nazi Germany). In that sense I agree with you that life was even more difficult for Mexican Americans that it had been previously, an idea which is staggering to comprehend, especially given our current obsession with “protecting our borders”. Do you think that the deportation of Mexican Americans was a result of trying to lighten the labor force, or do you think it was part of something much more deeply ingrained in American society? What does the state of the economy have to do with people’s perception of threats? Isolation? Identity?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that Mexican Americans and other minority groups living in the United States during the Great Depression suffered more than other groups. Like you said, they were subjected to the economic troubles of American society as well as the fear of deportation. I think that in addition to these threats, other factors that made living so difficult for these groups at this time and at other times in the United States' history were discrimination and preexisting prejudices. Each one of these factors proved to be another obstacle that groups needed to overcome just to have a life that was at the same level as their non-minority counterparts.
ReplyDeleteIn this post, I also liked how you connected the deportation issue during the Great Depression to the deportation issue today. This allowed me to clearly see the recursive nature of American history.