The Mexican Repatriation is the common name given to the repatriation, deportation, and expulsion of Mexicans and Mexican Americans from the United States during the Great Depression between 1929 and 1939. Estimates of how many were repatriated, deported, or expelled range from 300,000 to 2 million.
People waving goodbye to a train carrying 1,500 Mexicans from Los Angeles on August 20, 1931
California mother describes voluntary repatriation: "Sometimes I tell my children that I would like to go to Mexico, but they tell me, 'We don't want to go, we belong here.'" (1935 photograph by Dorothea Lange).
Martin Dies Jr.
William Doak, Secretary of Labor
Mexican Americans are Americans of Mexican heritage. In 2022, Mexican Americans comprised 11.2% of the US population and 58.9% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexican Americans were born in the United States; they make up 53% of the total population of foreign-born Hispanic Americans and 25% of the total foreign-born population. Chicano is a term used by some to describe the unique identity held by Mexican-Americans. The United States is home to the second-largest Mexican community in the world, behind only Mexico. Most Mexican Americans reside in the Southwest, with over 60% of Mexican Americans living in the states of California and Texas.
Symbols of the Southwest: a string of chili peppers (a ristra) and a bleached white cow's skull hang in a market near Santa Fe.
Mural in Chicano Park, San Diego, stating "All the way to the Bay"
The Henry B. González Convention Center and Lila Cockrell Theater along the San Antonio River Walk. The Tower of the Americas is visible in the background.
An example of a Chicano-themed mural in the Richard Riordan Central Library
