Reparations Sought for '30s Expulsion Program
SACRAMENTO — With an emotional state Senate hearing and a class-action lawsuit, politicians and legal advocates launched a campaign Tuesday to win an apology and reparations for more than 1 million people of Mexican descent who were deported or forced to immigrate to Mexico during the 1930s.
The Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit accuses the state of California, the county and city of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce (now called the Los Angeles Area Chamber), and 500 other unnamed individuals and entities of violating the civil and constitutional rights of Emilia Castaneda of Riverside and other individuals sent to Mexico during the Depression-era campaign.
The lawsuit accuses the defendants of organizing the campaign to "eliminate competition for jobs" and "decrease the public assistance rolls and save the money that would have otherwise been spent to help aid destitute individuals of Mexican ancestry."
"This lawsuit goes to the essence of who we are as a state and the dignity of a people," said attorney Raymond P. Boucher of the Los Angeles law firm of Kiesel, Boucher & Larson LLP. "We have to recognize that in the 1930s we used the Mexican population as a scapegoat. Until we take an honest look in the mirror, none of us is truly safe."
The lawsuit was timed to coincide with a hearing Tuesday conducted by Sen. Joseph Dunn (D-Santa Ana), chairman of the Select Committee on Citizen Participation. After nearly four hours of testimony, Dunn said his committee would likely ask the full Legislature to commission a state-funded study of the 1930s campaign while seeking congressional support for a national study.
Dunn is also preparing legislation that would extend the statute of limitations for victims who wish to file claims for damages. Although the campaign in the 1930s was referred to as repatriation, scholars estimate that more than 60% of the more than 1 million people sent to Mexico were U.S. citizens.
"They were deported for just one reason: They happened to be of Mexican descent," Dunn said.
Dunn's staff has spent the past year building on research by Francisco Balderrama, a Cal State Los Angeles professor of Chicano studies and history, and Raymond Rodriguez, a retired history professor at Long Beach City College, who co-wrote "Decade of Betrayal," a 1995 book on the campaign.
