Cycles of immigration have defined U.S. history and demographics for centuries. This was no different in the 20th century, when anti-immigrant sentiment and nativist movements rose post-World War I. Whereas the most familiar manifestation of this sentiment may lie in the in the Immigration Act of 1924, which imposed quotas to limit immigration based on national origin, 1924 also saw the establishment of the U.S. Border Patrol. This signaled a less-discussed shift in immigration patterns, as the U.S. began a decade’s work of unconstitutional deportation of Mexican and Mexican-American citizens known rather euphemistically as the Mexican Repatriation of 1929-1936. Given the rise of nationalism in both Mexico and the U.S. at the time, these observations …show more content…
His article explores a postwar surge in Mexican nationalism which led the Mexican government to “[discourage] migration to the United States, and [initiate] a campaign to promote the purchase and consumption of Mexican-produced goods” (11). At the forefront of his analysis is the artist and political activist Diego Rivera, who founded the Liga de Obreros y Campesinos in Detroit in 1932. The Liga was primarily concerned with assisting and encouraging the repatriation of Mexican citizens, and was heavily entrenched in Mexican Revolutionary Nationalism. Rivera held educational sessions with members in order to “develop to the highest grade possible the nationalist sentiment” (14). Similarly, in an article from the International Migration Review authors Brian Gratton and Emily Merchant too emphasize “the vigorous activity of the Mexican government in encouraging repatriation” (950). Therefore one possible interpretation is that Mexican nationalism was a major, if not primary, influence in the creation and implementation of the Mexican …show more content…
Gratton and Merchant draw figures specifically and deliberately from a 1974 article which overall under-reports the numbers of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans forcibly repatriated – that is, deported – despite the fact that numerous studies ranging from 1994 to 2006 have disputed these estimates (950). Indeed, in his own paper Valdés acknowledges that Rivera’s Mexican Revolutionary Nationalism “was largely a bourgeois phenomenon unwilling to do much beyond rhetoric on behalf of the poor in the United States,” and the Liga “a failure” (23). These weaknesses lead one to consider a more nuanced interpretation of the causes of the Mexican Repatriation: U.S. nationalism not only originated the Mexican Repatriation programs of 1929-1936, but also led to an appropriation of Mexican Revolutionary Nationalism ideas in order to justify Repatriation programs. The U.S. put pressure on the Mexican government to accept and indeed encourage Repatriation efforts. Unable or perhaps unwilling to poke the bear of postwar America, as it were, Mexico instead attempted to utilize their own nationalist rhetoric to both cope with Repatriation programs, as well as save