DfDeportation's Blog

Senator pushes school course on mass 1930s deportations By Steve Lawrence
Associated Press Article Launched: 04/21/2008 01:32:59 AM PDT

 

SACRAMENTO - State Sen. Gil Cedillo is trying to shine some light on a shocking but little known episode in American history. He faces an uphill battle.

The Los Angeles Democrat is the author of a bill that would require public junior high and high schools to teach students about the deportation of about 2 million Latinos, including 400,000 Californians, to Mexico during the Great Depression.

Elementary schools would have the option of including information about the deportations in social science instruction.

The deportation program was started in 1929 (and ran to 1944) by the Hoover administration, supposedly as a way to get rid of illegal immigrants and open up jobs during the Depression. Most of those rounded up and sent to Mexico were American citizens or legal immigrants, critics say.

Cedillo calls it "an embarrassment to all Americans."

"Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it," he said. "That would be another tragedy upon a tragedy. . . . The way to avoid that is through education."

Cedillo's bill is scheduled to be considered today by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

That committee shelved an earlier version of the legislation last year as part of an effort to hold down spending. A committee analysis said the bill could lead to hundreds of thousands of dollars in state costs to reimburse school districts for a new mandate.

Cedillo said he might be able to "tweak the

language regarding what's mandatory, what's optional or available" to get the bill out of committee.

Even if the bill clears the Legislature, it faces a possible veto by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who turned down similar legislation in 2006 that was introduced by then-Sen. Joe Dunn, a Democrat from Garden Grove.