By Franco

November 21, 2014

While waiting for a bus in the depot of Dallas, Texas, I overheard an interesting conversation. Sitting next to a young Hispanic woman was an elderly Mexican man, probably in his 80s, wearing a palm Mexican hat. A group of ragged looking young men walked through the doors of the bus depot, looking like they had just crossed the border. Immediately the young hispanic woman became visibly upset and commented to the elderly man that those illegal aliens should be deported immediately back to Mexico. The elderly Mexican responded to her: "You better watch out because you can also be deported. Uncle Sam doesn't just deport undocumented people, they can also kick US citizens like you out of the country. They did it during the depression. American citizens just like you, never expected to be deported, so don't be so hard on the undocumented people, you might have to beg for food, if they deport you."

The elderly gentleman continued, "I was just a kid living in Mexico when deported Americans arrived in our small town in Durango, they called them Pochos. They couldn't speak Spanish, they were families with children. They would go house to house begging for food, but people were so poor in our town they couldn't offer them much. There were droughts in those times that made food scarce, you had to survive off the land or die. That's what happened to many of the Americans, they died of starvation. Most were from US cities and didn't know anything about survival in the wilderness. People felt sorry for the children who became orphaned and adopted them. Most of those American orphans are now very old or dead."

It is estimated that between president Hoover and president Delano Roosevelt (1925 till 1931) they deported an estimated 1.2 million US citizens of Mexican descent, what are now called Hispanics. The story of these deported US citizens has yet to be told, the fact that many of these US citizens died as a direct result of deportation to Mexico, has not made the history books of today. The Federal government has not apologized for this tragic violation of citizen's rights. The State of California issued an apology in 2005, officially recognizing the "unconstitutional removal and coerced emigration of United States citizens and legal residents of Mexican descent." California apologized "for the fundamental violations of their basic civil liberties and constitutional rights committed during the period of illegal deportation and coerced emigration."

Just like the Jews didn't believe that Hitler would eventually put them in gas chambers, certainly the US citizens of the depression era who happened to be of Mexican descent didn't expect to be deported, after all they were American citizens. They were caught unprepared and suffered many hardships, many unfortunately died. History teaches lessons, the unexpected can happen, a change of government, a war, a depression, events can trigger inhumane actions against unsuspecting people.