Title: Migrants, family of Mexicans, on road with tire trouble. Looking for work in the peas. California
Source: Library of Congress
Creator: Dorothea Lange
Publisher: U.S. Farmer Security Administration
Copy Right: No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. For information, see U.S. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black & White Photographs http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/071_fsab.html
Date: February 1936
Format: Image
Description:
This photo shows a Mexican family having issues with their car tires on the side of the road. They seem to have a lot of cargo and valuables with them. They are likely moving to a new area. There are nine individuals in the photo and three of them are children. There is another car on the right side of the photo in the distance. This could possibly be another car transporting some of the individuals seen in the photography. There are tire materials and an air pump laying on the ground. The man directly in the back of the car seems to be searching for materials that will fix the tire. The women standing beside the car are wearing heavy coats. Everyones facing away from the camera, occupied with the car troubles, except for the little girl in the front who is looking directly at the camera.
Mexican Repatriation:
Americans were convicted that Mexicans were occupying all their jobs. They believed that all the government funded services were being spend on poor Mexicans. Newspapers and influential citizens grabbed on to the racist sentiment and pushed their officials to deport Mexicans- many of which were birthright citizens. President Herbert Hoover called for the deportation of Mexicans in order to rid the country of the “infestation”. The government help raids that forced Mexicans out of their communities and on to trains headed to Mexico. Proof of residency was ignored in many cases. All that mattered was the color of their skin.
While the government took action to drive Mexicans out of the country during the 1930s, they were not the main cause of the repatriation. Employers were pressured by the government and the public to lay off Mexican workers first. This drove the Mexican unemployment incredibly high. The lack of work mixed with he hostility from Americans led to the difficult decision for Mexicans to leave the U.S. It’s difficult to pin point exactly how many Mexicans left the U.S. during the repatriation but estimates show that around a million left during the 1930s.
Haleigh Diaz 