There is no doubt that the government should not be blamed as the initial driving force behind the unfair and unconstitutional deportation of Mexican Americans. In fact, there are several other reasons that contributed significantly to such a tragic event. One of them is the tough economic situation at the time. After the stock market crash in 1929, the economy of the United States suffered a severe crisis that needed a swift and effective solution. The wages were set at unacceptably low rates while some industries became outdated and fell out of business. The number of unemployed American workers was large, which is why local governments were trying to create a solution to include American citizens in the job market.
The government is not to be blamed for the stock market crash as the economy of the United States operates on a free market and is not strongly controlled by the government. Moreover, the previous presidents made efforts to prevent the crisis from happening. For example, Harding cut governmental expenditures and taxes nearly in half (Scott et al. 716). Nevertheless, it could not prevent the Great Depression, making people think of ways to provide jobs for Americans. The deportation of Mexicans nowadays seems like a cruel solution. However, at that time, citizens believed that this would give jobs to the unemployed as racial sentiments were highly popular.
The American society antagonized Mexicans as scapegoats for unemployment and highly encouraged the government to create measures and policies against them. After all, it was citizens who voted and gave support to the government in order to establish their racist views. In this sense, the democratic government of the United States may be called the reflective image of what people think and want, thus, making citizens partly responsible for what happened. In other words, the president was under immense pressure to provide an effective method to decrease the unemployment rates. At that time, people believed that it was the only solution, saying that Mexicans occupied welfare offices and benefitted from Americans by taking their resources away.
Moreover, it is difficult to say that these deportations were in some way truly governmental. Unlike the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (Scott et al. 502) or the Immigration Act of 1924 (Scott et al. 553), the deportation of Mexicans was not driven by any official regulations, laws and Acts. It was mostly local communities who took the initiative without any governmental orders. In addition, local authorities in the Southwest encouraged the deportation and even provided free transportation to Mexico.
Nonetheless, it was them, not the federal authorities, who gave orders to the police to engage in unconstitutional actions against people. It is highly possible that some citizens and the police might have taken action because of their sense of duty to their country. It was mainly justified by the fact that back in Mexico, immigrants could be with their own people. Furthermore, they could feel better where they were able to speak their mother language and live freely in their native land.
That is why the U.S. federal government should not be regarded as responsible for the deportation of Mexican Americans. It was the unfortunate combination of economic issues, racist sentiments among the nation, and independent actions of the local authorities. The government did not provide any legislation or enactments to start or encourage this process, which means that it did not necessarily approve such actions against Mexicans.
Work Cited
Corbett, P. Scott, et al. US History. Samurai Media Limited, 2017.