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C H A P T E R 7 Repatriating the Unassimilable Aliens Writing in the AMERICAN MERCURY in the early 1930s, Carey McWilliams pointedly described the origins of the great exodus of Mexicans and Mexican Americans streaming south across the Rio Grande. When it became apparent last year that the program for the relief of the unemployed would assume huge proportions in the Mexican quarter, the community swung to a determination to oust the Mexican. . . . At this juncture, an ingenious social worker suggested the desirability of a wholesale deportation . But when the federal authorities were consulted, they could promise but slight assistance, since many of the younger Mexicans . . . were American citizens. . . . Moreover, the federal officials insisted on, in cases of illegal entry, a public hearing and a formal order of deportation. This procedure involved delay and expense, and, moreover, it could not be used to advantage in ousting any large number. A better scheme was soon devised.1 That “better scheme” was repatriation: the voluntary removal of aliens to their native country. Aliens can repatriate themselves or they may receive assistance in doing so from friends, relatives, local public or private agencies , the federal government, or their local consulate. It is distinct from deportation, which can only be carried out by the federal Immigration Service and does not require the alien’s consent. While welfare scholars have ignored the role that welfare agencies have played in the expulsion of individuals from the country, historians and Chicano studies scholars have produced rich and compelling accounts of the mass repatriation of Mexicans during the Great Depression.2 What this literature has typically overlooked, however, is how European immigrants were treated during this period. By comparing the treatment of Mexicans and European immigrants, we can better understand the distinctiveness of the Mexican experience. The last chapter focused on cooperation between relief and immigration authorities to deport dependent aliens in the Southwest. In this chapter , I argue that relief agencies across the country helped repatriate immigrants during the Depression. But the scale, scope, and character of these efforts differed drastically depending on the target of repatriation. Relief officials both inside and outside the Southwest used their own funds to repatriate Mexicans who requested relief assistance. These officials con- Repatriating the Unassimilable Aliens • 157 ducted mass-removal programs, often using coercive practices, targeting Mexicans and Mexican Americans alike, and placing greater emphasis on the economic savings than on the effects on those repatriated. Where European immigrants were concerned, however, repatriation programs developed on a more limited “casework basis,” where the needs and wishes of the individual were paramount. The different treatment of Mexicans and European immigrants is not well explained by differences in levels of nativism in the general population . Individuals from all regions of the country wrote to their public officials saying that expelling destitute aliens was just and would help solve the economic crisis. And public opinion polls from the mid- to late 1930s showed only slightly higher support in the Southwest for expelling indigent aliens. Most American residents believed mass expulsion was a good idea. Nor are these differences well explained by the level of economic distress in different cities. Los Angeles, where the repatriation campaign was carried out with special vigor, was not in more dire straits than cities with more limited repatriation campaigns. The role of politics in this chapter is also less straightforward than in the last. It is certainly true that elected officials in Los Angeles not only supported repatriation, they helped come up with the plan and authorized the funds to help carry it out. But the New York State legislature went a step further, authorizing a statewide forced repatriation plan. Yet social workers there refused to implement it. Furthermore, even many of the most ardent immigrant advocates supported repatriation as long as it was truly voluntary and as long as the immigrant would be betteroff in his homeland. Federal relief officials in FDR’s administration— sympathetic to the plight of destitute immigrants—were therefore ambivalent about using federal relief funds for repatriation. While they wanted to provide stranded immigrants opportunities for voluntary repatriation, they also worried that some local relief officials would pressure repatriates to leave. Social workers’ discretion in the implementation of repatriation therefore proved especially important. As a result, the different attitudes social workers held about Mexicans and European immigrants produced much of the variation in treatment. Repatriating Mexicans in Los Angeles The Los Angeles County Department of Charities was not satisfied with efforts...

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