It is so strange - we have many well-educated friends who refuse to believe that there was such a thing as "Opertaion Wetback" in the early 1950's in USA where thousands and thousands of Mexicans (AND many Mexican-Americans!) were forced across the Texas border (by Texas Rangers) during the anti-Hispanic era of Senator McCarthy, President Eisenhower and then-appointed INS Commissioner Joseph Swing.
To even TRY to fathom how this racism developed, you need to understand how it started:
In many counties in the southwestern United States, Mexican Americans were not selected as jurors in court cases which involved a Mexican American defendant.[19] In 1954, Pete Hernandez, an agricultural worker, was indicted of murder by an all-Anglo jury in Jackson County, Texas. Hernandez believed that the jury could not be impartial unless members of other races were allowed on the jury-selecting committees, seeing that a Mexican American had not been on a jury for more than 25 years in that particular county. Hernandez and his lawyers decided to take the case to the Supreme Court. The Hernandez v. Texas Supreme Court ruling declared that Mexican Americans and other cultural groups in the United States were entitled to equal protection under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.[20]
Many organizations, businesses, and homeowners associations had official policies to exclude Mexican Americans. In many areas across the Southwest, Mexican Americans lived in separate residential areas, due to laws and real estate company policies. This group of laws and policies, known as redlining, lasted until the 1950s, and fall under the concept of official segregation.[21][21][22][23] In many other instances, it was more of a general social understanding among Anglos that Mexicans should be excluded. For instance, signs with the phrase "No Dogs or Mexicans" were posted in small businesses and public pools throughout the Southwest well into the 60s.[15]
The effort began in California and Arizona in 1954 and coordinated 1075 Border Patrol agents, along with state and local police agencies. Tactics employed included going house to house in Mexican-American neighborhoods and citizenship checks during standard traffic stops.
Some 750 agents targeted agricultural areas with a goal of 1,000 apprehensions per day. By the end of July, over 50,000 illegal aliens were caught in the two states. An estimated 488,000 illegal aliens are believed to have left voluntarily, for fear of being apprehended. By September, 80,000 had been taken into custody in Texas, and the INS estimated that 500,000 to 700,000 had left Texas of their own accord. To discourage illicit re-entry, buses and trains took many deportees deep within Mexican territory before releasing them.
Tens of thousands more were deported by two chartered ships: the Emancipation and the Mercurio. The ships ferried them from Port Isabel, Texas, to Veracruz, Mexico, more than 500 miles to the south. Some were taken as far as 1000 miles. Deportation by sea was ended after seven deportees jumped overboard from the Mercurio and drowned, provoking a mutiny that led to a public outcry in Mexico.[1]
Civil rights violations
There were widespread allegations of abuse against Mexicans and US citizens of Mexican descent, including harassment and beatings.[3] Lawsuits were filed and settled in favor of victims
THEREIN lies the problem - there was not just the deportation of illegal Mexicans, but anyone "Mexican-looking" including Mexican-American citizens were herded to Mexico like cattle.
The Mexican Repatriation refers to a mass migration that took place between 1929 and 1939, when as many as 500,000 people of Mexican descent were forced or pressured to leave the US.[1] The event, carried out by American authorities, took place without due process.[2]. Some 35,000 were deported, amongst many hundreds of thousands of other immigrants who were deported during this period. The Immigration and Naturalization Service targeted Mexicans because of "the proximity of the Mexican border, the physical distinctiveness of mestizos, and easily identifiable barrios." [3]
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]. Nevertheless, many mainstream textbooks now carry this tpoic, while susequenetly ignoring other mass deprotations and repatriations of European immigrants (all in the guise of multiculturalism). In total, they devoted four pages to the Repatriation, compared with eighteen pages for the Japanese American internment[4] which affected only one-tenth as many people.[1]
These actions were authorized by President Herbert Hoover and targeted areas with large Hispanic populations, mostly in California, Texas, Colorado, Illinois and Michigan.
We even have friends who cannot understand and DO NOT BELIEVE that in the 1920's discrimination against Mexican-Americans was such that they were not admitted into many Universities. MANY Mexican-Americans (especially those of lighter skin, green or blue eyes) would "pass" for Whites and legally change their names to whatever "Anglo" name came up in the phone directory. Like I said, these are well-educated people who certainly know about discrimination and human rights violations of every OTHER race or religion, but because this information has been minimized in American school textbooks - they can't "fathom it" as real.
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