Elena Herrada: In the 1910s and 1920s, the US needed workers and actively recruited Mexicans not just for agricultural work, but also for the auto industry in Detroit. But as the US economy collapsed with the Great Depression, President Hoover needed to look like he was taking action.  His solution? Promote “American jobs for Americans,” that is, for white Americans. Blame Mexican-Americans, round them up, and send them “home.” About a million were “repatriated,” some 60 percent citizens, mostly children born in the United States. All of this, unconstitutional.

Your own grandfather was a Repatriado. His story?

He had been recruited by Ford and planned to settle for good in the US. He lived in Detroit’s thriving Mexican community. The famed Communist muralist Diego Rivera also spent time there and helped start a worker co-op. 

In my grandfather’s case, a social worker came to the door and asked, “Where are you from?” Nobody put a gun to his head. They just told him that the families of laid-off workers like him, ineligible for assistance, would starve if they stayed in the United States. So better pack up for México.

I had no clue. In other Repatriado cases, just the father was deported and the family remained in the US. When the fathers returned, they told their children not to speak Spanish, so they wouldn’t be targeted. My father’s generation doesn’t speak Spanish. Is it any wonder that Mexicans still don’t fill out the census, vote, or accept benefits?

Not until the 1970s, when my generation came of age and began to ask questions, did we start to uncover the truth.

Did you find collecting the stories of Repatriados easy?

Hardly! My own father didn’t approve of what I was doing. I put an ad in a little Latino paper that asked, “Was your family deported during the Depression?” No response, for years. Who would want to make public a degrading experience, my dad said. Who would want people to know they have been exported on trains like a herd of cattle? My dad did me a favor! My question changed. I asked: “Were you one of the pioneering Mexicans in Detroit?” Then I got calls.

But some people started yelling at me when they found out what I was doing and saw me coming. And even after interviews, I would almost invariably get another call: “Don’t publish my story.” My dad’s last words to me, before he died: “I never liked your Repatriado project.” But no matter how hard, I still feel that victims must speak up to prevent future atrocities.

What effect did the U.S. repatriation program have on Mexican-American families?

The repatriation divided families. The deportees, in trauma and ashamed, suffered in silence. Many elders who had been small children at the time of the deportations felt abandoned by their fathers, who in many cases had been rounded up and deported without a chance to inform their families.

Repatriation left huge emotional scars on families and communities. Detroit’s Mexicano community dwindled from 15,000 to 5,000.

You and other descendants of Repatriados made a video documentary.  What reception did you receive?

In 2001, we had a showing at the Detroit Institute of Art. In spite of the resistance to the project, 300 people showed up. A cathartic experience. Tears flowed. Families talked. After so many years, the wall of silence tumbled down. Across generations, people finally knew the truth about their family separations.

Then in 2004, to my surprise, a professor in México contacted me. He wanted to show our video to Repatriados who never made it home to the US. Their stories still need to be told. More families need to be reunited, at least in memory.