1. Managing the Great Depression, Forging the New
Deal, 1929-1939
Youth and Ambition, Virginia Pitman, 1938. Mural created under the Federal Arts Project.
2. The Repatriation Years, 1930-1933
As your textbooks points out, the Great Depression led to 1/3 or as many as
½ of all Mexicanos leaving the United States for Mexico, some voluntarily,
others less than willingly; it is speculated that about half of all Mexicanos
who left the U.S. during this period came from Texas.
In the census of 1930, almost 51,000 in Los Angeles were unemployed,
roughly 10% of the gainful workers, and by the end of the year one out of
five workers could not get employment. By 1933 unemployment was at
41.6% and wages had declined 38 percent.
In August 1931 the California state legislature passed a law that made it a
crime for any company doing business with the state government to employ
“aliens” on public jobs. The discriminatory Alien Labor Act disallowed
Mexicanos from working on construction sites, government office buildings,
schools, highways, and other public works projects. Over 900 jobs were lost
in the City of Los Angeles alone on the day the law was passed.
As unemployment grew worse, the number of welfare cases escalated from
18,650 in the fiscal year 1928-29 to 42, 124 in 1930-31. Yet the number of
Mexicanos on relief diminished from 21.5 percent in 1928-29 to 12.5 percent
in 1930-31, despite the poverty in the Mexicano community. There was
almost no federal relief yet, and so the allocation of resources fell to local
officials who were able to discriminate amongst ethnic groups as they saw
fit; thus in 1931, food allowances for “American” families were reduced by
10 percent, while allocations for Mexicano families were cut by 25 percent.
Even the Catholic Welfare Bureau, which took care of the majority of
assistance for Mexicanos, was ultimately pressured into this same sort of
behavior, because once its money ran out, funding came from the Los
Angeles Community Chest whose monies, in better times, came from private
donations, but now came from public funds.
As economic conditions grew worse, many chose to leave the
United States for Mexico – the first wave of repatriados were young,
single men, white- collar workers, heading back to Mexico with a
car or truck packed with furniture and other belongings, and
learned skills and savings with which to build a better life in this or
that big city in Mexico – they had profited from their several years
living in El Norte. In the first two weeks of December 1930, roughly
2700 repatriados passed through Nuevo Laredo, and 800 more
went through there and Nogales in a single day in early January,
1931. By the end of 1930, appr. 10,000 Mexicans had gone back,
but for every hundred that left Los Angeles, another hundred took
A Mexicano family awaits the departure of a repatriation train, 1932
3. their place, arriving from the small rural towns of California’s interior looking for better public welfare
programs in the big city.
Ironically, the old “push-pull” of the immigration tale was at work here, but in a weirdly reversed way.
There were public officials in L.A. such as Charles P. Visel who were eager to rid the city and county of as
many Mexicanos as possible. The new director of the Los Angeles Citizens Committee on Coordination
of Unemployment Relief, he created a scheme to widely publicize a visit to the city by the regional
immigration director to scare local “aliens” into leaving for Mexico voluntarily. Press releases were sent
to all city newspapers, especially the foreign language press, stressing the coming campaign to rid the
At left: a mob scene at a 1931 repatriation
train
city and county of as many Mexicanos as
possible. The new director of the Los
Angeles Citizens Committee on
Coordination of Unemployment Relief, he
created a scheme to widely publicize a visit
to the city by the regional immigration
director to scare local “aliens” into leaving
for Mexico voluntarily. Press releases were
sent to all city newspapers, especially the
foreign language press, stressing the
coming campaign to rid the city of all
“deportable aliens.” L.A. newspapers ran
articles with headlines such as “U.S. and
City Join in Drive on L.A. Aliens.” They
exaggerated alleged crimes committed by
Mexicanos including shootings, fights, and
rapes. Then, on February 26, 1931, a
sweep was made in the Plaza district in
which four hundred were detained (only
seventeen arrested), but the desired effect
was had – many Mexicanos left, and/or
began to contemplate leaving the U.S for
Mexico.
4. So much for the “push.” However, the “pull,” to
keep Mexicanos IN the United States, was now
swinging into being, led by local businessmen
concerned over losing their large supply of cheap
labor once the immediate unemployment
emergency was over. The L.A. Chamber of
Commerce rejected their initial support of
repatriation and worked with local political
leaders to strengthen their alliance with the rural
landowners in the San Joaquin and Imperial
Valleys.
At the same time the Mexican consulate, Rafael
de la Colina, was angered over the American
effort to scare Mexicanos out of the country – but
was 100 percent behind any campaign to
convince his countrymen to voluntarily
repatriate. In fact, by late 1930, the consulate
had received many visits from unemployed
Mexicanos asking for financial assistance in
returning to Mexico. Colina argued to local
officials that offers of repatriation should be
made not only to those on the welfare lists, but
to Mexicanos in general. In March 1931 county
sponsorship of “repatriation trains” was
announced, and the consulate papered the
Mexicano-dense areas of the county with flyers
headlined: “Mexico llama a sus hijos” or “Mexico
calls out to her children,” encouraging
repatriation with a storyline that argued that with
the knowledge and skills learned in the United States, Mexicanos could be of great value, and earn
a great deal by returning, to their motherland.
The majority of those leaving in the second wave of repatriations were low-paid blue-collar
workers, and once they returned, they discovered that there was little opportunity awaiting them
in Mexico, regardless of whatever skills or knowledge they brought back with them. In addition, if
they were family men, as most were, the transition back to Mexico was not easy for their wives
and children; for the latter, it was absolute culture shock as they had been born and raised in the
United States where even having lived in lower class circumstances, their standard of living had
been significantly better than what they were now confronted with in Mexico. Women had to go
Repatriation headline from La Opinion, 1931
5. The Great Wall of Los Angeles mural, detail, group project of S.P.A.R.C., specific artists unknown, 1978-83
from cooking on gas ranges to open fires, and from flour tortillas to maize. Bathing was now in an exposed tub that had to be filled from a well – no more
running water in a bathroom. “One woman who repatriated back to a family ranch from southern California at age seven remembered laughing at the first
adults she encountered wearing sandals, large sombreros, and white cotton pants she called ‘pajamas,’ only to find herself crying months later when her
clothes and that of her siblings ran thin and they had to begin dressing like other Mexicans.” Many children were held back in school as they could not
read or speak Spanish. Many dreamed of returning to the United States when they grew old enough to go.
The repatriates who did the best were generally those who had spent the least time in the U.S. and been the most isolated in the barrios – life in Mexico,
for them, seemed familiar. Ironically, those most skilled and knowledgeable, the most “Americanized,” the ones that the Mexican government most
wanted back to bring progress to their villages – became the most discontented. They looked for every chance to get back to the United States and, having
enjoyed higher wages in the north and often having been members of unions, ended up becoming agraristas, or labor radicals, and were among the most
demanding of the Mexican government in terms of living up to the promises of the Mexican Revolution and the Constitution of 1917.
“You see, there is precisely
something about the United
States which awakens me,”
said one. “We saw in the U.S.
that progress comes from
work…and we remembered
that here, the rich man don’t
work, they just exploit the
poor.”
6. With these and the following image, it helps to remember that it was not only Mexicanos that felt the hard hand of
discrimination and racism at this time________________________________________________________________________
Interestingly, in Mexico City in late 1932 La Union de Repatriados Mexicanos (the Union of Mexican Repatriates) was
formed to pressure the Mexican government to put a halt to repatriation efforts until they actually followed through on
the promises made to the repatriados that had already come back. They asked that Mexican officials own up to the
“painful reality” of the repatriate’s economic situation, and that they “stop the deception by the National Committee on
repatriation which seduced potential repatriates with a thousand promises of improvement and aid to all Mexicans who
returned to their native
country.” The Union sent a
letter to La Opinion in Los
Angeles in April of 1933 with
photographs asking that they
be published as honest
documentation of the light of
repatriados in Mexico,
showing “they had returned
only to die of hunger and to
inspire pity at the doors of
charitable organizations,
where they receive only one
meal a day.”
Increasingly many repatriados
began to consider a return to
the United States, only to find
that this was an impossibility,
even for those with
impeccable credentials. Take,
for example, Pablo Guerrero,
who wrote from Mexicali,
Baja California, with a request
for legal immigrant status for
himself, his wife, and his five
children all of whom had been
born in the U.S. and were
therefore citizens:
7. “I worked in the U.S. of A. since 1904 with different companies. I registered in the world war in
Johnson, Arizona, Cochise Co. I have never given my services to the Mexican government nor to the
Mexican capital. I have worked all my life, since I was nineteen years of age, in the U.S. of A., and that
is why I wish to return to the country where I am entitled to live with my children so that they be
educated in the schools of your country and not in Mexico.”
Unfortunately most, including Pablo Guerrero, found no sympathy on the part of county
officials.
But by early 1933 the flow of repatriation had petered out for several reasons: first and
foremost, the majority of those inclined to go had already done so by that time; second, the
grim reports about conditions in Mexico for repatriados had become widespread,
discouraging further interest in the process; and third, the inauguration of President Franklin
D. Roosevelt, and the promise of major changes in the distribution of relief funds, gave new
hope to Mexicanos, and encouraged them to remain in the United States.
New federal laws made it illegal to discriminate in the allocation of relief funds on the basis
of legal status, and relief funds could not be used to transport aliens out of the country;
further, the new Federal Civil Works Program which was creating enormous numbers of
good-paying jobs welcomed only American citizens or aliens who had begun the process of
naturalization. So now, not only were there greater possibilities for relief for Mexicanos,
there were compelling reasons to become American citizens. This would create a dramatic
demographic in less than a decade – in 1930 the Mexican-origin population in California as a
whole, the ratio of native-born to foreign-born was 91 percent; but by 1940, the native-born
had become dominant by a ratio of 164 percent.
Just as a side note – in Texas things were far worse than in California. The deportation
campaign started there in 1928, before the Depression even started, so no economic
justification can even be offered for what was done – so one can only conclude that racism
was the primary motivating factor. Authorities often did not allow deportees to collect
wages or sell property before sending them to Mexico; families were often separated.
Mexicans who challenged the deportations were denied fair
hearings. As Rodolfo Acuna reports, “In July 1931, federal judge
F. M. Kennedy heard the evidence in 83 cases, 70 of which
violated immigration statutes, on one six-hour sessions.
Kennedy found all of the immigration defendants guilty. The
court deported 49 of them and jailed the rest.”
Remember the Alamo, indeed.
9. Mexicanas and the Labor Movement: Luisa Moreno
As your text points out, Luisa Moreno, was of Guatemalan birth, but her story is so inspiring and as she
spent her working life in the service of Mexicanos and their labor struggle, her story must be included
here. Born to wealth, she rejected her background and as a teenager was the lead organizer of La
Sociedad Gabriela Mistral, which successfully forced the issue of admitting women to be admitted into
Guatemalan universities. She received her university degree in journalism in Mexico City at the age of
twenty, and by the following year was married with a daughter and living in New York City.
In 1930, when she was twenty-three, Under a Texas Moon
was released. The film sparked a protest because the main
character, a stereotypical Mexican of the time (a liar and
womanizer), was offensive to Mexicano audiences. Police, in
quelling the protest, accidentally killed one of the protesters,
which led to a larger pan-Latino protest which Moreno joined
– she later credited this with “awakening” her to her lifelong
mission of working on behalf of Latino communities.
When the Depression hit, Moreno organized a garment
worker’s union in Spanish Harlem, and in 1935 left her now-
abusive husband and moved to Florida, where she was
employed by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) as
an organizer. She became representative of the United
Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America
(UCAPAWA), and edited their Spanish language newspaper in
1940. She helped to organize cigar-rollers in Florida and
pecan-shellers in Texas. She worked with cannery workers in
10. L.A. She settled in San Diego and helped to organize El Congreso de Pueblos de Habla Espanola (Spanish Speaking People’s Congress), taking a
year off to travel the country speaking to Latino groups, rallying, motivating, organizing.
In 1940 she was invited to speak to the American Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born (ACPFB). Her ‘Caravan of Sorrow’ speech
was a passionate description of the lives of migrant Mexican workers and the difficulties that they faced. She said, in part:
Long before the “grapes of wrath” had ripened in California’s vineyards, a people lived on highways, under trees or tents, in shacks or railroad
sections, picking crops—cotton, fruits, vegetables—cultivating sugar beets, building railroads and dams, making a barren land fertile for new crops
and greater riches … These people are not aliens. They have contributed their endurance, sacrifices, youth, and labor to the Southwest. Indirectly,
they have paid more taxes than all the stockholders of California’s industrialized agriculture, the sugar beet companies and the large cotton interests
that operate or have operated with the labor of Mexican workers.
The speech was reprinted in its entirety in ACPFB pamphlets for many years, becoming even more well-known than its author.
During the years she lived in San Diego, Moreno, along with historian and activist Carey McWilliams and fellow labor organizer Bert Corona,
was instrumental in helping to form the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee to help in the defense of the young men accused of murder in
that famous criminal investigation in Los Angeles. She also was involved in investigations into attacks on Mexicans by U.S. armed forces
personnel in the Port of San Diego, which was deemed “unpatriotic and un-American” by the authorities as this was going on during World
War II. During the 1940s she organized the walnut pickers of El Monte, CA, and helped to organize the San Diego chapter of the Mexican Civil
Rights Committee, working to educate people about stereotyping, racial profiling, and police brutality.
In 1950, when the anti-communist hysteria set in and Operation: Wetback was in full swing, Moreno became a prime target due not only to
her having rubbed so many figures in positions of power the wrong way, but also because of the fact that labor leaders were listed for
deportation by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Moreno was offered the chance to stay in the country – if only she would testify
against a friend as having bene a member of the Communist Party, but as she said, she would not choose to be a “free woman with a
mortgaged soul.” She and her second husband left for Mexico and eventually Cuba, living there for a number of years before moving back to
Tijuana. Moreno spent the last years of her life in her native Guatemala, dying in 1992.
11.
12. Herbert Hoover: The Right Man at the
Wrong Time
If you were to write resumes for every president,
citing all they had accomplished before they were
elected president, Hoover would be one of the best
qualified men for the office. He was the classic
example of the “rags to riches” American success
story. An orphan who made himself into a multi-
millionaire businessman by his 30s, he devoted
himself during World War I to the effort to feed the
people of Belgium, all the while making sure that the
Germans did not appropriate the food; it’s estimated
that Hoover kept 9,000,000 alive throughout the war.
So Hoover knew about suffering and people in need.
So why, with this recent experience, and his overall
abilities, was he so unable to adequately deal with
the problems of the Great Depression, which got
worse every year that went by during his presidency?
The problem was that Hoover had a very specific and
rigid view of what had made the United States great.
In his book, American Individualism, Hoover argued
that there were only three things owed to the
American people by their government: liberty, justice,
and equality of opportunity; competition and
individual ability would take care of everything else in
terms of success or the lack of it.
13. America, Hoover argued, had been built by individuals who had
taken care of their own problems and had not asked the
government for a handout. Hoover believed that if the govern-
ment even once gave money, food, assistance to people, it would
permanently weaken them, and that would be the beginning of the
end for the U.S. Instead, he argued that the traditional sources of
public assistance would be enough to help people: the Red Cross,
Salvation Army, and the YM/WCA. But what he did not take into
account is that those organizations received their financing in the
form of donations, and in these financially tightened times, people
were not able to give as much to charitable groups as they had in
the past. So the days, weeks, months, and even years went by, with
Hoover and the Congress trying one thing and then another, but
they were simply not equipped, in terms of their general ideological
perspective (conservative), imagination and ability to think outside
of the box, to deal with the catastrophe. The great economist John
Maynard Keynes was asked in an interview if anything like the Great
Depression had happened before, and he replied, “Yes, it was called
the Dark Ages, and it lasted four hundred years.” As the Election of
1932 approached, the majority of American has lost their belief in
Hoover and his administration, and were anxious for a change…
14. Below, you see the Bonus Army on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. The following two images show them
camped out on the Mall, waiting patiently for Congress to review their petition for assistance. The next two
images after that show the men fighting with the police and federal troops who were attempting to drive them
out of the capital, and the burning of their camp; with grim irony the Capitol Building can be seen in the
background…after all, were they not engaged in a lawful petition to their government?
The Bonus Army - 17,000 veterans, and all told,
43,000 people when wives & children are included
15.
16.
17.
18. Election of 1932
The single largest victory by a presidential candidate in American history (through today), and in 1936 FDR would win the
second largest victory. When the presidency is won by this wide a margin, it tells us that the American people REALLY
wanted a change. It also gives the winner a tremendous mandate (the authority to carry out a course of action based on
the will of the great majority of the voters), ensuring that at least for a year or two, everyone in Congress, even the
opposition party, is going to cooperate with just about whatever the president wants – after all, senators and
representatives have to run for reelection, and if their constituents know that they have been voting against the designs
of the president…they may not get reelected. Remember, every politician is always thinking about one thing more than
anything else – winning the next election.
19. FDR to Save
the Day!
Even though this cover for
Vanity Fair is from 1934, it
conveys the feeling in the
United States after the
election – this new
president, with the famous
last name, conjuring
memories of Teddy and the
Square Deal (Theodore
Roosevelt had only died in
1919), now on his way to
the White House with a
“deal” of his own, a New
Deal – could he be the one
to tame the bucking bronco
that was the Great
Depression? In the second
image, A clearly unhappy
Hoover and an ebullient
Roosevelt on their way to
the inauguration, January,
1933.
20. “The Roosevelt Touch”
One of the hallmarks of Roosevelt’s
presidency would be his trademark
grin and generally cheerful demeanor.
In his first inaugural address he had
said, “The only thing we have to fear is
fear itself,” and he conveyed the truth
of that in the way he conducted
himself: getting out as much as he
could to meet the people (whereas
Hoover had holed up in the White
House, rarely leaving), being driven
and driving around himself in his
specially equipped car that allowed
him to operate the gas and brakes with
his hands; smiling, chatting, asking
people how they were doing, making
himself accessible. He confronted one
of the greatest challenges any
president had ever faced as though
there was nothing else he’d rather be
doing.
21. OBAMA and ROOSEVELT
Roosevelt (the Great Depression) and Lincoln (the Civil
War) faced the greatest challenges of any presidents
upon entering office. Many observed that President
Obama faced the third greatest challenge in 2009 when
he began his presidency, and there were quite a few
parallels were drawn between Obama and FDR. In this
cover from Time Magazine, published in the second
week of his presidency, it’s clear that the editors of Time
were expecting big things from this new president – that
he should “learn from FDR.” As to whether he did or not
– the verdict of history is still out.
22. And six months later in July, 2009, Time was perhaps trying to gently nudge
President Obama in the right direction by reminding him, yet again -- be
a little bit more bold, more daring -- like FDR!
23. It was public knowledge that FDR was
crippled from polio, but right from the start
there was an unwritten understanding
amongst the members of the press that they
would refrain from publishing photos of the
president in his wheelchair or in his leg
braces and crutches: they believed that in
this time of trouble the American people
needed to see their leader as strong, not
crippled. Ironically, many Blacks voted for
FDR because even with his handicap he had
accomplished so much; they liked that he
was not a complainer. Only a half dozen or
so photographs of FDR in his wheelchair
survive; here you see him with his
granddaughter.
The “Handicapped” President
24. Representative “bread lines” or “soup kitchen” lines, even when the line in question
was for coffee and doughnuts or a full meal – the thing that always strikes me about
these images is how well dressed the “down and out” people of the Depression
were, these folks who needed to stand in line for an hours, hours, even, for a free, or
extremely cheap, meal – not exactly the sort of folks you see in line at shelters
nowadays.
25. “Those in need…”
This map really gets to the heart of the matter –
“Relief” refers to states where ‘x’ percentage of
the families in that state could only survive
because of money they got from their state
governments every month. As you can see, in
1934, when FDR took office, the situation was
particularly dire in the South, less so in some
other areas. But still, at the beginning of 1933
25% of the working men and women in the
United States were unemployed. To put that in
perspective, perhaps you remember the worst
unemployment numbers from 2008-2011 – they
topped out at about 10%, and it was considered
to be a national emergency. Now look again –
25%!!! And every sector of the economy was in
trouble, but nowhere were things worse than in
agriculture…
26. THE DUST BOWL
The plight of the farmer was nowhere more
problematic than in the area where the Dust Bowl
had literally destroyed the land’s ability to produce
a crop. Planting and replanting on the same land,
and not giving the soil time to regain its health,
had broken the soil down into dust, and then
unprecedented wind storms had howled down out
of Canada and blown all of the desiccated top soil
up, and off – like Dorothy’s house in The Wizard of
Oz – into the distance. It blew across the United
States…under the door of the White…across the
buildings of New York City…and out onto sailing
vessels in the mid-Atlantic, several thousand miles
from the Midwest! Any of you see the science
fiction film Interstellar? Well, dig the next few
images…
27.
28.
29.
30. TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION…sometimes
Still with me? Didn’t lose you in those pics, did I, kids? Astonishing, huh? Like the end of the world…if you saw
Interstellar, it may interest you to know that the elderly people interviewed about the environmental collapse portrayed
in the film and how it was affecting them, well, those were segments from interviews with folks who had lived through
the actual Dust Bowl of the early 1930s – amazing what you learn in a history class, huh?
31. Mother Earth Laid
Bare, Alexandre
Hogue, 1936
There were many artists who were
drawn to and inspired by the ecological
disaster of the Dust Bowl. In the next
image you see Joe Jones’ ironically titled
American Farm, where the farm perches
above the ruined landscape like Noah’s
Ark, stranded on Mt. Ararat following
the flood. Above, the title of Hogue’s
painting speaks for itself. The four
images following American Farm are by
Walker Evans, the foremost
photographic chronicler of the toll the
Dust Bowl took on its human victims.
32.
33.
34.
35. The New Deal tried to put people to work at tasks to which they were best suited; perhaps you saw the 2005 remake of King Kong? In the
opening scene a group of actors are standing around and complaining because the Federal Theater Project was defunded by Congress and now
they are all out of work. That’s how several of them end up employed on the expedition to shoot a movie on legendary Skull Island. (Amazing
what you learn in a history class, what?) The New Deal employed writers to write, builders to build, theatrical folks to stage free theater in towns
where no one had ever seen a play, musicians to play concerts free for the public, and artists to create art, particularly public murals. In the
image below, you see New Dealers doing what they did best: building, planning, teaching, designing, surveying, and all in service to the American
people.
36. The image below (like the previous one untitled because I downloaded it so many years ago I’ve lost the title, gimme a break, everybody’s
human!) is a tribute to those men who worked their way across vast and inhospitable regions of the United States in the service of one of the
New Deal’s greatest achievement – the Rural Electrification Project. Dig it: when FDR entered office in 1933, less than 50% of Americans had
electricity in their homes; by 1945, when he died, nearly 100% of Americans had the juice flowing. Think of how we take for granted our
ability to just push buttons, flick switches, lay down multi-strips…and think of how annoying it is when there is even a brief power outage.
Now, think again – HALF of all Americans had NO electricity…until the Rural Electrification Project. Once their work was done, unless you
were some bizarre old hillbilly, like the Unibomber in his cabin at the top of the mountain, then you had electric power, because every small
town and every wide spot in the road had a line. No more need for light to read by from the fireplace, or a kerosene lamp – ELECTRICITY.
And, as with all of their monumental projects, the people behind the New Deal knew that in order to sell it, they had create a catchy
promotional campaign, and sell it to the American people through posters and ads in magazine. You will see some of these images in the
next three slides following.
42. Pro-business critics of the New
Deal have argued, then and
now, that the real strength of
the United States was crippled,
tied down by too many federal
bureaucracies, too much red
tape, too many so-called
‘alphabet agencies,’ just as
Gulliver was
tied down by the Lilliputians in
Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s
Travels. Here you see Uncle
Sam having been laid low and
rendered helpless in just this
way – true, or false? Obviously,
it’s open to debate.
43. The Unfinished Portrait
President Roosevelt was sitting for this
portrait in the last months of his life, and
he passed in the spring of 1945, before it
was finished. The war was still being
fought in Europe and the Pacific, and when
news of his death reached Germany,
soldiers on both sides, American and
German alike, called cease-fires and came
out to talk about it. Along with Hitler and
Churchill, Roosevelt had straddled and
defined the depression and war years, and
they could not believe it, that FDR could be
dead. The only man to have been elected
president not just three, but four times, he
was also the most important and is
generally considered by the majority of
historians to be the greatest president of
the 20th century: everyone that followed
him into the Oval Office would, in one way
or another, be measured in their successes
and failures by the yardstick of his legacy.
