Synchronicity struck again last night. Today you write of President Eisenhower's Operation Wetback. Last night, I watched "Finding Your Roots" and lo & behold, one of the subjects of the program has a grandfather (or great....) who was deported during Operation Weback. It wasn't simply mentioned but minute of so of b&w news clips showed …
Synchronicity struck again last night. Today you write of President Eisenhower's Operation Wetback. Last night, I watched "Finding Your Roots" and lo & behold, one of the subjects of the program has a grandfather (or great....) who was deported during Operation Weback. It wasn't simply mentioned but minute of so of b&w news clips showed how "illegal' Mexican immigrants [JS: many of whom had been invited into the U.S. in the Bracero Program of WW II] were loaded up and sent across the border into Mexico. Promised documents to formalize their status as temporary workers were largely never provided.
"The short-lived operation used military-style tactics to remove Mexican immigrants—some of them American citizens—from the United States. Though millions of Mexicans had legally entered the country through joint immigration programs in the first half of the 20th century, Operation Wetback was designed to send them back to Mexico.
With the help of the Mexican government, which sought the return of Mexican nationals to alleviate a labor shortage, Border Patrol agents and local officials used military techniques and engaged in a coordinated, tactical operation to remove the immigrants. Along the way, they used widespread racial stereotypes to justify their sometimes brutal treatment of immigrants. Inside the United States, anti-Mexican sentiment was pervasive, and harsh portrayals of Mexican immigrants as dirty, disease-bearing and irresponsible were the norm."
We can count on this happening again if TFG ever again becomes U.S. president.
Synchronicity struck again last night. Today you write of President Eisenhower's Operation Wetback. Last night, I watched "Finding Your Roots" and lo & behold, one of the subjects of the program has a grandfather (or great....) who was deported during Operation Weback. It wasn't simply mentioned but minute of so of b&w news clips showed how "illegal' Mexican immigrants [JS: many of whom had been invited into the U.S. in the Bracero Program of WW II] were loaded up and sent across the border into Mexico. Promised documents to formalize their status as temporary workers were largely never provided.
https://www.history.com/news/operation-wetback-eisenhower-1954-deportation
"The short-lived operation used military-style tactics to remove Mexican immigrants—some of them American citizens—from the United States. Though millions of Mexicans had legally entered the country through joint immigration programs in the first half of the 20th century, Operation Wetback was designed to send them back to Mexico.
With the help of the Mexican government, which sought the return of Mexican nationals to alleviate a labor shortage, Border Patrol agents and local officials used military techniques and engaged in a coordinated, tactical operation to remove the immigrants. Along the way, they used widespread racial stereotypes to justify their sometimes brutal treatment of immigrants. Inside the United States, anti-Mexican sentiment was pervasive, and harsh portrayals of Mexican immigrants as dirty, disease-bearing and irresponsible were the norm."
We can count on this happening again if TFG ever again becomes U.S. president.