FRANCISCO BALDERRAMA: You’re right that it’s largely not known—and that’s in the larger American society, the Mexican nation, as well as in the Mexican community itself—that this occurred during the Great Depression, a period of vast unemployment and underemployment, that at least over a million—Joe Dunn thinks in terms of maybe almost 2 million—individuals, Mexican nationals and American citizens of Mexican descent, were swept up and expelled out of this country. And it covered the entire United States. From Alabama and Mississippi to Alaska, from Los Angeles to New York, this mass expulsion occurred, and of a population that included Mexican nationals, many of them that had lived in this country 20, 30 years, but increasingly important is the 60 percent or more of American citizens of Mexican descent. In other words, what occurred here was unconstitutional deportation.
The role of the press is significant, but it is also reflecting the larger American society at this time, as well. The key notion that the press puts forward is that a Mexican is a Mexican. There is no distinction in terms of residents in this country—as I mentioned earlier, many of them had lived in this country 20, 25 years, most of them were documented, most of them had papers—and that their children that were born in this country were U.S. citizens. No distinctions made. And that is accepted in this society and serves as a way of looking at the population, that even though they had contributed during better times to the economic prosperity of the United States, that now that’s not recognized. They are the other, so to speak. More here.