leave, forcing both Mexicans and Mexican
Americans to prove that they were in the
United States legally. Those who could
not were deported to Mexico.
State governments in California,
Texas, and Colorado played a role in the
repatriation process as well. Mexican
Americans applying for welfare relief were
steered to “Mexican bureaus,” where offi-
cials strongly encouraged them to go back
to Mexico. If they refused, welfare pay-
ments were refused as well. Indignity was
part and parcel of repatriation. In Santa
Barbara, California, immigration officials
herded Mexican-American farmworkers
into sealed boxcars as if they were cattle.
As a result of such federal and state
government actions and voluntary migra-
tion, more than 400,000 Mexican
Americans left the United States for
Mexico during the 1930s. The largest
numbers came from Texas, California,
Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan.
The U.S. federal government and
various states were not the only authori-
ties promoting repatriation. The Mexican
government cooperated with the efforts,
as well. Working through chapters of a
semi-official Mexican goverment organi-
zation known as the Comisión Honorífica
Mexicana, Mexican consuls in the United
States served as official links between
prospective repatriates and the Mexicangovernment, providing them with infor-
mation on employment opportunities.
Consuls also helped repatriates raise the
money needed for the return trip through
fund drives and often coordinated the
actual journeys.
In addition to the work of its consuls
in the United States, the Mexican govern-
ment aided the repatriation effort in other
ways. For example, the goverment abol-
ished import duties on repatriates’ belong-
ings, thus reducing the cost of returning
to Mexico for those Mexicans who had
acquired significant possessions; the
Ministry of Interior gave free transport
from the border to their final destinations
in Mexico. The Mexican Migration
Service sped the passage of returning
Mexicans through border towns; and
during the late 1930s the Ministry of
Foreign Relations even recruited U.S.-
born Tejanos to colonize land in Mexico.
Although the final destinations of
Mexican repatriates cannot be stated for
certain, most returned to the towns and
villages from which they had come.
Others traveled to Mexico’s larger cities.
It is believed that the majority resettled in
northern border states like Nuevo León,
Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and Chihuahua,
although others returned to states in cen-
tral Mexico, such as Guanajuato, San
Luis Potosí, and Michoacán.
Not all returnees headed for their
home towns or for large cities. Some
journeyed to Mexican government-spon-
sored agricultural colonies. Mexico’s
National Irrigation Commission and
other agencies provided land to be settled
by returnees.
Many of the repatriate colonies were
located in northern Mexico, where large
amounts of unsettled land were available.
Many repatriates from Texas ended up at
one of six National Irrigation
Commission– sponsored colonies in
northern Mexico. The land required
clearing and preparing before being cul-
tivated. Although few records exist that
document the success or failure of these
colonies, it is known that a number did
fail. Some repatriates were forced to
move from one colony to another in
order to find a successful one, while oth-
ers left colony life to look for work in the
cities. Still other repatriates tried to
return to the United States.
Whether returnees to Mexico at-
tempted to settle in Mexican government-152 ATLAS OF HISPANIC-AMERICAN HISTORY
Children of migrant laborers sit on a truck parked at a Farm Security Administration
labor camp, in Robston, Texas, in 1942 (Library of Congress)