At Unhinged History, we are nothing if not consistent. To prove that, Angie shares a solid resistance story from WWII. In this unbelievable tale, Major Cary Elwes, not that Cary Elwes, along with fellow SAS sneak behind enemy lines, steal a train, and rescue POWs.

Theresa presses all the buttons triggering outrage as she shares the Mexican Repatriation Act, that time the United States deported up to 1.8 million people, with up to 60% of them being citizens.

This episode pairs well with:
The man who created the SOE
The Great Locomotive Chase of the Civil War
“Mad” Jack Churchill
The Black Village That Thrived in Central Park

Transcript:
Theresa: Hi, and welcome to the Unhinged History Podcast, the podcast where two friends are going to compulsively study history, go on a ton of rabbit holes, and then come together and tell the two hell. The other one has never heard it before. I’m host one, I’m Teresa, and that’s… I… 

Angie: Oh, sorry, I cut you off. You can introduce me. No, I was gonna say that. 

Theresa: I’m Angie. Yeah, that’s Angie. 

Angie: Yeah, that’s Angie. That’s me. And I guess I’m going first today. 

Theresa: You are going first. It is your turn. Okay. 

Angie: And when we say today, it’s a story we only just learned, I’m really sticking to that. Oh, okay. I’m sticking to my guns on that. Okay. 

Theresa: So what I’m hearing is I didn’t realize my homework was due until an hour ago and I came up with something. 

Angie: No, I knew… Okay, so I had a different story in mind for most of this week. And as I was collecting sources and things like that, I started to realize that that particular circumstance needed more than a week’s worth of digging to get to the actual truth. And so I didn’t feel like I’d be doing that individual justice by telling the story without knowing exactly what’s true and exactly what’s false. 

So I click Pivoted yesterday. I don’t want to call it short and sweet, so we’re just going to call it a banger. It’s not a long story, but my God, it’s a fun one. Wow. So that being said, my first source is called PressReader.com. It’s a digital newspaper magazine type thing. 

I’ve never… I personally have never dealt with it, but it had a really fabulous article on a particular member of my cast, if you will. That sort of told their life story and then the story of the writing of their memoir, which was what I was looking for. And then there is a Daily Mail article, which is such a random main source, but I’m going to be honest with you and tell you it’s the only source. 

Theresa: Oh, so that’s not Wikipedia, but it’s a JSON. 

Angie: It’s Wikipedia-adjacent, but you’ll see why it’s the only source very, very soon. There is a fabulous YouTube video from a channel called Uncovered Secrets from April of 24, and the title of this YouTube is called The SAS Raid No One Has Ever Heard Of. So. Okay. 

Okay. Then there is a history extra article by Gavin Mortimer that was published in October of 22 that I am only adding because it gave me a little bit of context information that I needed. And the Special Air Service National Army Museum is also… is my last source. 

So with that said, I am going to tell you… Let me just tell you the article’s title and that’ll help you get it all. Top Secret World War II SAS Raid is revealed at last. Commando stole train and drove it behind enemy lines to rescue hundreds from concentration camps. An incredible mission that has been kept under wraps for 80 years. Wow. 

This might be at the top of my list of favorite stories. So I’m going to say. So for those playing at home and those new to the world of World War II history and Teresa and I, we are suckers. Absolute suckers for a good resistant story coming out of World War II. Would you agree? 

Theresa: I mean, I think we’re a sucker for resistant stories in general. We seem to find quite the treasure trove in World War II. I agree. I agree to your terms. 

Angie: So for those of you that are new to us, the SAS is the Special Air Service. It is Britain’s elite Special Forces unit. It’s formed in the summer of 41 and here is a very, very gross oversimplification of this. But basically two Scottish brothers, David and Bill Sterling, they’re stationed in Cairo and they’re so they’re on the front of the war in North Africa and things are like they’re not going well for Britain. So the Sterling brothers come up with an idea for a small unit of volunteers who undertake guerrilla raids deep inside enemy territory. Now, the original gist of this is they will be parachuted in. Like that’s sort of the running idea. Like these are our logistics here, right? 

Okay. So with that very oversimplified idea of what the SAS is, it is also worth noting that a regular brigade of men is usually up to 5,000. So the SAS have a lot of success because they really initially only have like very few men and that name is designed to deceive the enemy. So they’ve got men from commandos number 7 and 8 and commando number 62, which is also known as a small scale raiding force. So their unit, I don’t know initially what their unit numbers were, but as a whole they were never a large unit. Like I’m thinking at least in the beginning probably not topping out more than 60. 

Okay. I think by the end of the war there was many more, but I still don’t think it was in the thousands like we have of other squadrons and brigades. Like this is a very small, very elite unit like today’s Navy Seals. 

Theresa: I still like the idea of Colleen Brigade. Like where’s the rest of you? Right. We’re all here. We all show, trust me, we all held hands. I got my buddy. Okay. 

Angie: Buddy system accounted for, look there’s Dave over there. We’re great. So these guys are the cream of the crop if you will. And the reason that this story only has one source is that it only recently came to light thanks to the good historian Damon Lewis who was digging through the Q archives in Britain and comes across a confidential report from 80 years ago. 

Theresa: I think Damien Lewis wrote one of the ministry of Ungeneral Enemy Warfare books. Yes. Yes. 

Angie: We’re going to talk about the, we’re going to briefly mention the ministry of Ungeneral Enemy Warfare. Great. 

Theresa: Now I don’t know if he wrote the one that was about the Dane or the one that was about Colin Govins but he wrote one of them. 

Angie: I don’t know either. I know he’s written a lot about this unit so there’s multiple things. So he could have written, written, my God words are hard, written, either one but then he’s written several based on these commandos. 

Theresa: I love the fact that you said just the name of the author and I was like, ah, book name. I feel good. I feel good. Carry on. 

Angie: So we’re doing good? Okay. So the Daily Mail article quotes Lewis saying, it was the most audacious mission he’d ever read about and too far fetched for a Hollywood plot. He goes on to say that the genius of the idea was typically SAS as only their imagination and daring could make possible. With that said, I hope I give them the justice with a little bit of information that I do have for the story. 

Theresa: So, so hold on. With that in mind, Damien Lewis has written about some absolute incredible bangers that had my jaw on the floor. So for him to say this is the most audacious, you’ve set the bar rather high. 

Angie: He set the bar rather high. 

Theresa: He’s the one that’s been quoted by David. You’re quoting him and telling me about it. That’s true. So I guess adjacently I am saying it as well. Okay. 

Angie: So it’s just six days after the Allies begin their invasion of Italy. The SAS landed at Tonitou on September 9, 1943. Part of the SAS goal here is to probe the line. Like we’re cutting a path through the animal line all the while chasing after them. So like we’re just trying to piss everybody off. 

That’s my like two cents. It just sounds like we’re trying to take everybody off here. Like we’re finding where the weaknesses are. We’re making things difficult. We are doing exactly what the Allies are good at. Right? Yeah. There’s there’s so much fun stuff in this like timeframe, but I’m not going to get into it because that’s not where the story is. 

So along with their goals of breaking through these lines and chasing the bad guys, they are also tasked with rescuing Allied POWs once the Italian armistice is goes through. Okay. Then. 

Okay. So here’s where their story takes a while turn like their mission takes a staunch left turn. And a Yucca saw called Zelenko breaks out of a place. Are you ready? Yeah. I did not know this place existed. The Steechie and he makes it to the Allies. Where? 

Theresa: Don’t don’t repeat the word. Tell me where that is. I’m getting ready to let me finish the sentence. I you know what? Look, this is the ADHD talking. You’re welcome. So sorry. 

Angie: The Steechie, according to Zelko Zelko Zelenko is a concentration camp and it is the first concentration camp in Italy. So just let that sit there because I had no idea like in my brain Italy didn’t have any sort of concentration camp, but they did. 

Okay. So he reports to the Allies that also being held in this Italian concentrate. Right. 

Let’s say okay, this Italian concentration camp is being run by like a joint task force of Nazi German Nazis and their Italian allies because we are still the Italians haven’t swapsize yet. Right. Yeah. 

Okay. So he reports that also being held there are other freedom fighters, Jews, artists, intellectuals and Catholic priests. And according to him, he knows that the prisoners are about to be moved to Germany at which point he is well aware that there is a human catastrophe within hours. A plot has hatched. Enter Major Kerry Ellis. 

Theresa: No, I wanted to be Meiji. Nope. 

Angie: It’s Major Kerry Ellis. I was, I’m just going to let that name suit you for a second. 

Theresa: Of like Wesley. 

Angie: Yes. Why he, I believe if I did the math right, he’s not his grandfather. I think he was his grand uncle. 

Theresa: So like how if I did the math right, I was like, she’s going to say he’s a vampire. She’s going to say he’s not this time. 

Angie: I know. Wild. I did not this time. I spent far too many hours last night trying to figure out their direct correlation, but it is 100%. He is definitely part of the family. 

I think Major Kerry Ellis is Kerry Ellis’s grand uncle is what I’ve come to the determination of. Unfortunately, because he did not talk about his life and only now are things being released in English. We’re only now able to piece things together about him. 

So hopefully soon we’ll have access to more information. But anyway, he can cox this crazy plan with his French deputy, a guy by the name of Raymond Kalu. Now crew with the assistance of an American socialite called Mary Jane Gold had already been involved in the saving of 2000 Jewish people from the Gestapo in France. They smuggle them out of the port of Marseille. Additionally, crew had also been with the SOE, the Ministry of Ingenuinely Warfare. 

So he’s got some credentials to back him, right? So these two, they’re like, okay, we’ve been told there’s a concentration camp. It’s about 60 miles away. We know that they’re going to get moved. We got to do something. So now it’s September 13 and they have to get to the stashy. 

And what do you think the next logical step is? Well, I’m just going to tell you, they get a bunch of their SAS buddies together and they raid the nearby town of Chiatana and they steal a freaking train. Like they storm the local railway station and just seize the drink. 

Theresa: You know, now it’s the Persians who said, if you want to come to a great decision, come to a decision drunk and sober up and see if you can come to the same decision. 

Angie: You know, I’m going to assume at least someone in the room had something to drink when they came across this. But I wasn’t there. So I don’t know. So like I said, this is easy is at least it’s roughly probably about 60 but at least 50 miles deep into Nazi occupied territory. And they have a freaking train. 

Theresa: So which is the most stealth of vehicles. Right? 

Angie: Yeah, the steam doesn’t you don’t see that coming for miles, but whatever. And the maneuverability. Right? So, Corot, who by now is going by the name, thank God, Lieutenant Jack William Raymond Lee and a friend because I give him a minute. 

Theresa: He don’t say him to like 12 first names. 

Angie: That’s why that is exactly what I said. Like you still had to be French in your statement here. Like you chose an English name, but you did it with the most flair possible. 

Theresa: No, he couldn’t. He couldn’t choose an English name. He chose all English names. 

Angie: Right. So him, he so he is now Lieutenant Jack William Raymond Lee and a French squad of former French Legionnaires take over the train. They are not alone. Because also remember, I said there are other buddies also on the train with him is Lieutenant Alistair McGregor’s SAS troop. So now so we’ve got like we’ve got some dudes on there. Meanwhile, Major Kari Owas and a patrol of at least four up to six willies. You know the Jeeps. 

Theresa: Oh, okay. I was like Willie, that sounds obscene. 

Angie: The Jeep, not the obscene one, the military one. Although it could be obscene either way. I guess let me say it like that. They sand guard at one of the key crossings on route. So they’re holding the junction, making sure no enemies make it through. 

So imagine if you will for a second. The train arrives on September 14th. You’re the guards of Nazi occupied Italy. And you’re like, meh, the train’s here. I guess it’s time to load up the prisoners. When the train doors open and bam, like 50 commandos jump out. It’s a complete element of surprise. 

Theresa: You know, you’re firmly behind enemy lines. Yeah, it’s fine. It’s fine. We’ve made it this far. And what’s the year again? It’s 43. 43. Okay. All right. I’m with you. 

Angie: So they jump out completely, like encased in the element of surprise. The camp guards are quickly overpowered. And this gives 180 of the inmates that the prisoner came in. 

Theresa: Beth, you became Australian for one word. 

Angie: Inmates? Inmites. Inmites. This gives 180 of them a chance for freedom. They stuff as many of the prisoners back onto the train they can. And they tell the rest to hide in the mountains until the rest of the ally force is working their way across Italy, make it to them. Now, it is worth noting that one of the individuals that the commandos put on the train was captured and it was the Pstige camp commandant because they are going to bring him in for justice. Hell yes. 

Right? They head back the full 50 miles with the Germans hot on their tracks. So despite the tracks, train tracks, like literally, right? Despite the fact that this mission is wholly successful, like they get out with just minor cuts and bumps, like they succeed in exactly what they intended to do. Despite this, the mission is kept secret. 

It’s not reported on at all back in Britain. And there’s this belief that if the information, like the information about the camp comes to light, there’s too much, there’s going to be too much public outrage. And it would be so intense that no enemy soldier is ever going to surrender. 

Like hands down, we’re not doing it. We’re not cutting a word to anybody about what we’ve seen here because we still have bad guys to catch, which is bizarre to me because I feel like once the commandos see him, once they know what’s up in these concentration camps, we probably don’t have to worry. 

Theresa: Well, yeah, but they’re trying to get him to surrender and if they’re like, look, I’m dead either way. I might as well fight the last man. You’ve just delayed the end of the war and you’ve signed the death certificates of thousands of more humans, 

Angie: which is probably exactly what British Command is thinking. Now, just also despite this wild success of this mission, no medals are ever awarded. Like the same reason. Yeah. And the only reason we know about this story is because of the work of Mr. Lewis, the Damien Lewis, and the memoirs of a French resistance fighter called Marie Claire Cummings. Now, Marie Claire, she writes a book called I Choose the Storm. It’s her memoir. 

She writes, she releases it like in the 60s, but it’s only written in French. Okay. So I want to say about 12 years ago now. I don’t, I don’t have the exact year in my notes, but about 12 years ago, she decides it needs to be put into English like her story needs to get out. She has so much good information in her book. 

She contacts the daughter of Major Cariolis to help her translate it. Oh, holy crap. Right. Now, this, this is like all brand new information to their family, but so the daughter is like painstakingly help helping to translate this woman’s memoir from French to English and learning bits about her dad that he never shared. 

Like at all. In fact, when, when Claire, the daughter Claire, who’s the original helper in this translation project, she passes away, her sister, Catherine takes over and says, he never spoke of this time in the war. In fact, quote, it was difficult to get my father to talk about the war as he was very constrained by the official secrets act. And he took that very seriously. 

However, she says, I also knew nothing about the train mission. It was completely, it was a complete revelation. It astounded astounded. 

Excuse me. It astounded all of us, the family when Mr. Lewis reached out to tell them about it. The only thing that she had been told when she was a young girl was that he had learned how to drive a locomotive. Whoa. 

Isn’t that wild? Like he has this huge, larger than my story, which is a lot of it is in Marie Claire Cummings book, but you, like he doesn’t say a word of it to its family. Basically, she goes on to say that we should be very grateful to their generation as we will never know the extent of what they did or sacrifice. Trust, which I believe is totally true. 

Right. He basically remains in the army post war, has five children with his wife, Pamela, and then she works in the war office during the Blitz and he dies in the 90s without ever saying a word about the things he saw and the things he did and the missions he was involved in it, saved countless lives. Would you like to see his picture? Yeah. I am just absolutely in love with this guy. He sounds like an absolute riot of an individual because I mean, why wouldn’t you be right? 

Theresa: And I’m hoping he looks a lot like the dread pirate Roberts. 

Angie: Just, just wait one moment. There we go. I had to get the right screen. He is the one on the left, on our left. 

Theresa: Oh, he is a mountain of a man. Okay. Right. She’s showing me an individual that I’m not kidding. Looks like he’s seven foot one. 

Angie: And either that or the other guy’s four foot nine. 

Theresa: Yes, and, yes, and. Okay. Like I, okay. So there is it in the background, there is a castle like building, large stone. Um, he is incredibly tall. He’s got boat for feet. Um, his hands, which are folded and clasped in front of him. 

Angie: He looks like me like he’s just clapped his hands like, Oh, jolly good. Yeah. I’d be a bit glad. 

Theresa: The mass that is his hands is the size of the man next to him’s head. That’s true. They are very much. Yeah. Like this dude, like guest on who eats 12 dozen eggs. Yes. Yes. Um, he’s got a broad smile. He’s got the, um, bray on the dash. 

Angie: Yeah. It’s got the bray. I’m sorry. Yeah. 

Theresa: He’s massive is what he is. Okay. There he is. He looks more human shaped or human sized. I should say inside. Um, okay. So here we see a very grandfatherly looking man. He doesn’t look seven and a half feet tall. 

The age shrinks you, I suppose. Um, so wearing the bray though and still got the mustache. He looks like a hand class. And the hand class right now, but look at the size of those, those murder mints. 

Angie: I love him so much. 

Theresa: But he looks like the dread pirate roppers as a grandfather. Like he has the same face as Wesley. Doesn’t he? 

Angie: Like, look at, I just, just adore this man, just adore him. And the fact that we only know his story because his daughters teamed up with a French resistance fighter to translate from French to English. And then because some historian was digging through archive records to find information on the FASD, we even know that they stole a train to save POWs and concentration camp prisoners. 

Theresa: That is a crazy story. 

Angie: So that’s my absolute banger of a little bitty that I learned this week and have been absolutely obsessed with. 

Theresa: I don’t know what level of detail you need to get through to find that man’s height, but I need you to research how tall he was at maximum capacity. Okay. 

Angie: I’m just going to, I’m just going to tell you this. I scoured the internet for him and he doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. Like Carrie, Carrie Yulz, our Carrie Yulz does obviously, right? 

Theresa: Our Carrie Yulz, the one in my closet, Carrie Yulz. 

Angie: Yeah. The one we all keep. He, he does, right? And some of his ancestor message are mentioned and things like that, but major odds of all of Carrie Yulz, there’s almost nothing online. 

And if it is, it’s very small little references. Um, and so I’m just dying for more of these records to be released. Like I hope Mr. Lewis keeps digging and, and we’ve passed the point of the secret acts so that they can be released to the public so we can learn more of his story because I too would like to know how tall he is. I too would like to know, um, like I want, I want to find journals of his. Like I just feel like he was such a character of a human being just from the little bit that I learned. Like who in their right mind hears a prisoner say, this is what I know. This is where I’ve been. 

And then immediately goes, you know what? We should steal a train about it. I think we should do that. And then do it. I mean, it’s one thing to say, let’s steal a train and then one thing to do it. 

Theresa: I have been in conversations where, you know, the outlandish we should do blank. I bet it would work, but then to get sign off and clearance for it is a completely different story. Right. 

Angie: And the crazy part to me is that he, well, they were, this was quote unquote, like part of their job. Like they were there to help POWs and these types of things, but they had such, I don’t want to say they had such a free range with what they could do, but I feel like they had far more ability to make a decision on the fly than say your regular operating standing army, right? Cause there’s so few of them. They’re already elite. They’re already trained. We have the information right now. Let’s go do the thing. 

Right. But I could just, I could you imagine like that going through the bureaucratic channels, like, oh, um, major Ellis is on the phone and he’d like to steal a train. Boss, is that okay? 

Theresa: Like legal says no. Right. 

Angie: Exactly. So that’s it. That’s my story. Um, yeah, be prepared because there’s some doozies incoming from the Craig household. 

Theresa: Uh, three six steps you’re offering. Okay. I’m going to take an incredibly sharp left turn. Um, I, I have in my notes for you to take your headphones off while I tell my sources, but you had a source that the title gave everything away. I’m okay. If you want to keep them on, you tell me what you want. 

Angie: I don’t mind taking them off to the town. Me. I’m ready. You know what? Take them off. 

Theresa: All right. My sources history.com. The deportation campaigns of the great depression by Becky little national drought mitigation center from the university of Nebraska, the death bowl during the internal articles, there’s several incoming. We’ve got social service review, volume 15, number three, uh, the Mexican repatriation of mixed Michigan public assistance in historical perspective by Norman D. Humphrey, the international mitigation review, volume 47, number four, the title, that article is immigration, repatriation and deportation, the Mexican origin population in the United States 1920 to 1950 by Brian Gratton and Emily merchant several podcasts, candle teacher talk, unbelievable history, episode 33, the best bowl slash Mount Rushmore worth presidential mistakes, an episode of fall summits, the Mexican repatriation. It’s a two part series history lesson con le genie, the Mexican repatriation, AKA behind the great depression. 

Angie: I was trying so hard to lip read. I can not a lip reader at all. 

Theresa: And I was over annunciating and going a mile a minute. Have fun. 

Angie: It was delightful. I did not catch a single thing. 

Theresa: Great. Okay. So here’s the framework we’re working with. Okay. Okay. So I’ve stripped a lot of identifying information because I want you to get a picture in your head and I don’t want to paint it with nouns. Okay. Proper now. 

So the name, aren’t they? Oh, in my house, they’re actually crucial and I would like to cancel the words it and that from husband and child vocabulary. I understand this, but for you, I make exceptions. Thanks. 

Okay. So it’s the 1930s. The economy’s in the toilet. People are struggling to make ends meet. The unemployment rate is about 25% in the country. Nearly 13 million people are out of work. And this costs us a lot of angst and resentment to build up. 

Anxed. During this time we’ve got, as the tensions are building up, the nation starts identifying foreigners of one particular race as the source of their problems. Okay. One city department begins deporting hospital patients who share the synopsis over the border. Okay. 

One of these patients has leprosy and basically is just abandoned. Oh. Okay. 

Others have tuberculosis, paralysis, mental illness, or problems that are just related to old age. Okay. So patients, they’re just getting rid of their deplorables. 

Okay. Orderlies are carrying these patients. This is happening in the US? I haven’t said country. Oh, okay. I intentionally have stripped that out. Okay. Okay. So think of where you will, but it’s the 30s. Okay. Okay. Orderlies have carried them out of these medical institutions and just sent them out of the country. Over the next six years, 1.8 million people would be deported. 

Angie: 1.8 million. Correct. Okay. 

Theresa: This is the story of the Mexican repatriation. Or that time when the US government shipped off 20% of California’s Mexicans or a third of the Mexicans in the United States, with up to 60% of them being United States citizens. I already hate this. Yeah. It is going to end on a note. It’s going to end on a note. I warned you it was going to end on a note. My next line is buckle up buttercup. 

We’re in for a rough ride. All right then. Let’s go. 

Okay. So it’s during the 1920s that we see a decrease in European immigration. This is largely because during World War or right after World War one, there’s some strict regulations in place. This regulation of immigration doesn’t apply to the Western hemisphere. So we start seeing a huge spike in immigrants from Canada and Mexico. Okay. Now we have the roaring Tonys. It’s lovely for those who celebrate. 

Okay. If you had money, life’s rosy. But then we get this quote from the National Drought Mitigation Center that shares, due to low crop prices and high machinery costs, more sub-marginal lands are put into production. Farmers also start to abandon soil conservation practices. 

Okay. So we stop paying like, we stop paying so much for the crops. The machines start costing more and farmers are trying to make ends meet. That sounds starkly familiar. I mean, there’s going to be a lot that sounds like, is this a repeat in news or Theresa, are you just reading today’s newspaper? 

Angie: You know what? I recently, not to interrupt you, but I can’t remember if I was a TikTok I saw or something, but somebody made the comment that history doesn’t repeat itself, history rhymes. Oh. I have been stuck on that for days. Yeah. 

Theresa: Okay. Is that good? That is good. Yeah. 

Angie: I was like, dang, we need to call it out. 

Theresa: Right. Anyhow, looking at what’s happening with the cost of crops and the cost of machinery, this ends up laying the groundwork for the severe soil erosion that would cause the dust bowl. Oh, okay. Right. Okay. 

Okay. 1929 hits and the Great Depression kicks off. 1931, the dust bowl begins. Charmine. Now, this is the first of four drought episodes that would occur over the course of the next decade. 

Okay. And in my brain, I did not link dust bowl and Great Depression. Like I knew bone happened. Logically, they happened at the same time, but did I think one fed into another and made the other worse? No. 

Angie: Oh, that’s funny because that’s like the only correlation I’ve ever made. Oh. Like we went from the roaring 20s, which, you know, according to pictures and all the footage we have was just absolutely golden for everyone. Yeah. And then the dust bowl happened and then the depression happened and the entire depression was covered in dust. Like that’s how my brain saw the whole of the 30s go. 

Theresa: Yeah. I kept both separate. Might have all been different countries. Anyhow. Okay. So the federal aid to drought affected states is first given in 1932. Okay. But funds that are marked specifically for drought release are not released until the fall of 1933 and it started in 31. So there’s lag time. Yeah. 

Angie: Oh, how governmental is that? 

Theresa: Oh, yeah. Bureaucracy at its finest. So there’s a huge spike and a substantial need, right? Like there are things. Now the dust bowl’s fault is the result of people who practice those poor conservation practices, right? Like they literally created the issue. It is a manmade catastrophe. And it was the people at the top that did it. 

This checks. But no one wants to blame the farmers who started it. They all want to scapegoat. So who best to blame than the lowest member of the totem pole? The immigrant worker. You see where we’re going with this. 

Okay. Now to deal with the plight of the country, the government comes up with a way to reduce the strain of financial support because with unemployment at 25%, all of the welfare programs are being strained. Everybody is really having a tough time. You’re right. Okay. They decide to start what they call repatriation drives. Like a blood drive. 

Yeah. Well, I mean, we’ve got two kinds of repatriation drives. We have the voluntary program where we send people to their country of origin. And then we have the forced deportation. Okay. Now local governments and officials deported up to 108 million people back to Mexico. 

That research is conducted by former state Senator Joseph Dunn who in 2004 investigated the deportations under President Herbert Hoover. This guy. This guy. It’s not Jay Edgar, but it’s another Hoover. 

Angie: Yeah. Are they related? I never thought about that before. 

Theresa: I don’t know either. I’m always just so filled with disdain when I hear Hoover. 

Angie: So if they hear the name, I’m like, how that guy. Okay. Yeah. 

Theresa: Okay. Now Dunn estimates that about 60% of these people were actually American citizens, many of them born in the United States to first generation immigrants. 

Angie: So we’ve been doing this for a long time. Like this is not new. 

Theresa: This is an old tune. This has just been remixed. Okay. Now the crazy part is, is that the Mexican labor that we’re deporting, they’re willing to work for wages that are less than those that natives of the area would accept, which is why they were imported in the first place. 

Right? So during the Great Depression, lower wages became the norm. And the imported Mexican found himself the unpopular competitor for jobs and an equally welcome candidate for the relief. So everybody’s jobs now have low pay. 

And if I’m going to be forced to get low pay, I better not compete against, right, insert several Latin names. Now the logic behind, okay. So when I said we had two kinds of repatriation drives, we had the voluntary and then we had the unvoluntary, the deportation, right? Right. 

So these are conducted in series of rates because there’s nothing new under the sun, at least here. Yep. Yeah. Okay. The logic behind these rates is that Mexican immigrants are supposedly using resources and working jobs that should go to white Americans that were affected by the Great Depression. 

Angie: Right. Because American doesn’t just mean American. No. No. 

Theresa: It’s very small subset. These deportations only happen in border states like California and Texas, but also in places like Michigan, Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, and New York. Right. Okay. A 2003 Detroit-born U.S. citizen named Jose Lopez testified before a California legislative committee about his family’s 1931 deportation to Western Mexico. Okay. So this impact was long lasting. No, I would imagine so. The average cost per family of executing the repatriation program, and I hate that I had this information, is $71.14. 

Angie: That’s how much it cost to deport an entire family? 

Theresa: Yeah, in the 30s. And that was including the food and transportation. $71. Yes. God, I hate that. 

Angie: Don’t I want to know what the inflation rate is? 

Theresa: I didn’t look that up because I just have so many other numbers here, numbers that are going to really wrinkle you because it cost Los Angeles County over $77,000 to repatriate one shipment of roughly 9,000 humans. It would have cost just under half a million to provide this number of people with charitable assistance that they would have been entitled to if they remained. So the county has a net savings of $350,000. They’ve masked it out. It makes sense. 

Angie: Yeah. The fact that that’s even a conversation that somebody was like, you know, we need to get the accountants in here and figure out what’s cheaper. Yeah. Human lives or, I don’t know, working with charitable companies and organizations and churches to, I don’t know, equally feed us all. Right. Right, okay. 

Theresa: Now, on paper, the savings looks like a fantastic solution if you’re a soulless bureaucrat, but there’s a lot of downstream effects. 

Angie: Oh, there is? Surprise. I wouldn’t have thought that. 

Theresa: So, 1932, we have the Detroit Department of Public Welfare. They set up what they called a Mexican bureau and any Mexican who, after the establishment of the bureau, tries to apply for some kind of aid, first gets sent to this agency. Okay. And once you walk into the agency, they start asking you, well, have you thought about going back home? 

Angie: Have you thought about just taking a Tylenol? Yeah. Have you thought about not being poor? 

Theresa: Oh, I hate that one. Which basically is what it all boils down to. Thank you. Now, this means within the Detroit Department or the Detroit area, you have just over 1,100 families that consent to go back to Mexico. That’s just from Detroit alone. And you said it was 1,100? Yeah. 

Okay. In Detroit, you see such hostility towards Mexican families that even naturalized citizens, people with a birthright citizenship are forced to repatriate or urged to repatriate. And their rights to the same protections that many white people had are not taken into account. They’re actually denied or there’s threats of deportation or stopping the relief programs that they’re getting. If they don’t go? 

If they don’t go. It’s like you could be an actual citizen born here. And it’s like we don’t serve your kind here anymore. 

I don’t care if your taxes paid for these services that you’re entitled to. Right. Okay. 

That checks. Now, some of these changes that are happening include telling people that they’d be placed on what’s called a cafeteria list, which meant instead of getting the same type of services that you had been getting for food support, things like that, you’re simply given the ability to go to a commissary for meals. You’re literally like put in line for a cafeteria as opposed to the white family that is able to get food assistance and make food in their own homes. 

Angie: Wow. I feel like honestly that’s just asking for, that’s giving people an environment to stoke rebellion. We didn’t think that part through. 

Theresa: Well, we didn’t, but it didn’t end in rebellion. So here we are. 

Angie: That makes me sad. I wanted a rebellion. 

Theresa: You heard it here first, though. Now, it’s easy to demonize this treatment and it is deplorable. It is deplorable. I should also mention that Detroit even back then was basically bankrupt. Yeah, that checks. It’s a bad situation. 

Angie: But it’s been a bad situation for a long time. 

Theresa: Right. Now, I think the biggest thing that I have the problem with is that their bad situation was not equally distributed among everybody regardless of nationality or ethnicity. Right. Yeah. Okay. 

That’s fair. Looking at repatriation in Texas, historians conclude that most of the early returns were voluntary and enthusiastically encouraged by the Mexican government who were giving them stipends, promising land, all that kind of stuff. 

Angie: Like, please come back to, like, please leave the U.S. and come back to Mexico without you. 

Theresa: We’ll help you. We’ll support you. Oh, okay. Okay. You know, and I think whenever you look at big immigration patterns or things like that, those who leave first, they’re better. Yeah. Every time, actually. Which is awful, but here we are. 

Right? So this is what it is. However, we have the subsequent deportation rates and they get more coercive repatriation programs that emerge shortly after this. 

So things go downhill in a hurry. There’s one person who went through it said, I was five years old when I was first relocate. I became very sick with whooping cough and suffered very much. It was very difficult to breathe. And after both of his parents died and one brother died in Mexico, he and his surviving siblings managed to return to the U.S. in 1945. We were lucky to come back and there were others who were not so fortunate, which is so awful. 

Yeah. The raids that would catch these families up tore families and communities apart and they left lasting trauma for Mexican Americans who remained in the U.S. Former California State Senator Martha M. Escolita, I think I butchered that, has said that growing up in East Los Angeles, her immigrant grandfather never even walked to the corner grocery store without his passport for fear of being stopped and deported. Even after he became a naturalized citizen, he continued to carry it with him. I would too. 

Angie: I mean, it’s terrible that that’s even a thought he had to think, but when you’ve been through something like that, why would you think anything different? 

Theresa: That’s awful. Deportation of U.S. citizens has always been unconstitutional, yet scholars argue the way in which the repatriation drives deported noncitizens was unconstitutional as well. 

Angie: Well, yeah, I mean, when it says give us your weary and tired, yep, by default, but sounds like it should be unconstitutional when it’s just there, you know? Yeah. Yeah. 

Theresa: One of the issues with repatriation was that it took place that any legal protections in place or any kind of due process. And that was said by Kevin R. Johnson, a dean and professor of public interest law and Chicano studies at the University of California, Davis School of Law. He goes on to say, so you could argue that all of them were unconstitutional. All of them were illegal because no modicum of process was followed. 

That’s why there’s rules. Yeah. Local officers and governments instead arrested people and put them on the backs of trucks, buses or trains bound to Mexico, regardless of whether they were documented immigrants or even native born citizens. Of course. The deporters rounded up children and adults, however they could, often raiding public places where they fought Mexican Americans hung out. In 1931, one Los Angeles raid rounded up more than 400 people at La Placita Park and deported them to Mexico. 

Angie: Can you, I’m so sorry. No, please. Can you imagine sending your child, your children out to play while you just finished making dinner? Yeah. And they never come home? Yeah, no, that’s absolutely 100%. Not okay. 

Theresa: Or you have, you’re coming home from work on the bus and your bus has stopped. And anybody that looks like you has pulled off the bus. Yeah. 

Angie: It’s no wonder that if you, like, we hear about this time and time again, but if you are white passing, I too would do everything in my power to just protect my family. And like, it’s heartbreaking. You should not, first of all, white passing shouldn’t even be a sentence. Like it shouldn’t even be part of the words. So I’m just going to shut up now and let you finish. 

Theresa: No, no, no, this is all important. And I think it highlights, it highlights the concept of white privilege in a way that I think it’s overlooked by those who are ignorant to the privilege they have. Yep. I think that you are right. 

So I think, you know, interrupt, say the things because it might help somebody unpack their own bias and how they benefit from the systems so that we’re able to move forward and try to make things better. 

Angie: Yeah. Yeah, that’s fair. Like you have to educate yourself and like see where you sit in the whole system of things anyways. Yeah. 

Theresa: Yeah. Now, the federal government in the 1930s prosecuted 44,000 people under section 1325. This is the same law that criminalizes unauthorized entry today. These criminal prosecutions are separate from local rates. 

They were informal and they lacked any due process. Johnson. Oh, surprise, surprise. Okay. 

Our man Johnson, who’s been talking law to us, he points out that any active group of lawyers or lawyers advocates on behalf of immigrants today, he says, in the 1930s, there was nothing like that that they just basically didn’t have the support and I would barely have support today. Yeah. I don’t see any guide reels in place. Yeah, no. 

Angie: Not I think the bulk you might be lucky like there might be a few that have a good access to an attorney or something like that or some sort of community group that provides legal aid, but I genuinely do not believe that there is sufficient access to any sort of help, especially in the immigration process. Right. Yeah. There’s a lot of fuzzy math, so to speak. 

Theresa: A lot of gray area. A little bit vague. Yeah, intentionally. Hmm, shocking. Now, during this, these 1930 raids, there’s no federal law or executive order authorizing them. President Herbert Hoover’s administration used the slogan, American jobs for real Americans. 

Angie: Oh, so the ones that are born here and have been paying taxes that just happened to be of descent. Sounds about white. 

Theresa: Now, his secretary of labor, William Doak. I want to say Dork, but it’s Doke. 

Angie: Doke sounds ridiculous too, so you’re good. All right. Also help pass local laws and arrange agreements that prevented Mexican Americans from holding jobs. 

Theresa: Some laws banned Mexican Americans from government employment, regardless of their citizenship status. Oh. Meanwhile, companies like Ford, US Steel, and the Southern Pacific Railroad agreed to lay off thousands of Mexican American workers. Oh, that’s charming. Yeah. 

Now, modern economists who studied the effects of the 1930s repatriation drives, they kind of go on to talk about how those raids didn’t boost the local economy. Surprise, surprise. What? 

Angie: It’s weird when you take the workforce away. 

Theresa: Here’s a good quote. So the repatriation of Mexicans who were mostly laborers and farm workers reduced demands for other jobs mainly held by natives such as skilled craftsmen and managerial administration and sales jobs. 

Angie: No way, because if you don’t have labor, you have no one wanting to buy the product anyways. Dun dun dun. 

Theresa: No product to buy. It goes on to say, in fact, our estimates suggest that it may have furthered increased the levels of unemployment and depressed their wages. 

Angie: They are the architects of their own demise. Yep. 

Theresa: Now, one of the podcasts I listened to when I was researching this, because I went down a series of rabbit holes, said that when the Mexican workers were rounded up in a metropolitan area like, say, Detroit, and were shipped off to Mexico, Mexico’s not prepared for this influx of people. And so they’re not doing like a full skill inventory to like figure out who needs to go where based on what they are best suited for. 

Angie: Well, why? Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah. 

Theresa: So they’re like, okay, well, we’ll create a bunch of farming communities and we’ll put these people on farms so they can create their own food. They can have a good like up small problem. 

Angie: So this is the people in Mexico that are coming with this decision? Yeah. Okay. 

Theresa: But if you take a bunch of people who’ve been working factory jobs and give them farmland, they are ill-equipped. 

Angie: Yeah, you have to also help them. Like if you tell them how to farm, you don’t just come born with that ability. 

Theresa: So many of these communities fail and the super impoverished starving people disperse trying to find anything to make it work. Okay. This checks. But our man Hoover, small ray of light, lost the presidential election in 1932 because voters who now referred to shanty towns as Hooverville’s blamed him for the ongoing depression. Well, and are you ready for this next line? No. Indeed, Hoover’s decision to raise import tariffs did prolong the depression at home and abroad. 

Angie: Shocking. Didn’t see that coming. Well, is that about history rhyming? 

Theresa: Yeah, I didn’t know. It’s time for another rousing chorus of let’s do that again. So broke. Yeah, F around and find out yet again. 

Angie: Oh, we’re the kings of that. We have one king. 

Theresa: You know, I every time I hear somebody refer to Trump as king, my first response is we’ve never had a king, but we’ve had one emperor and damn emperor Norton was the best. 

Angie: I know dude for real. Okay. Sidebar. I guess I read an article the other day that was yesterday I think about how King Charles has is working on inviting the US to be part of the Commonwealth, some sort of coalition. And when I first read the headline, I was like, Oh, please take us back. 

Theresa: And then I read like the whole article and like I need to do some digging. But like my basic understanding of this is that the Commonwealth like coalition that he’s talking about, that’s not the right word, but is basically like 

Angie: we agree for you to be a part of our club. So that you’ll be nice to our friends in the north. Okay, right. Like you be nice, be a part of our big boy band 

Theresa: and we’ll get matching jackets, but you have to be nice to Canada. 

Angie: Right, but you’re still very much your own country like you’re not going to be like absolved like absorbed into the Commonwealth. They’re just a part of the foundation of I don’t know, however many something like 200 countries or something. I can’t remember some stupid number of countries that are all part of that. And I was like, Oh, so no, don’t work on my curtsy then. 

Theresa: I guess not yet. Okay. Well, but anyhow, repatriation drugs. I do apologize. No, you’re fine. You’re good. So whoever loses that election in 1932, the next president FDR doesn’t officially sanction repatriation drives, but it doesn’t suppress them either. The rates go on for a good long time. And they continue under his administration and only really die out during World War II when the US began recruiting temporary Mexican workers through the Brasil program because it needed wartime labor. 

Of course. In 2005, California State Senator Joseph Dunn helped pass the Apology Act for the 1930s Mexican repatriation program. And California during this time had deported about 400,000 people. And this act officially apologized for the fundamental violations of their basic civil liberties and constitutional rights that were committed during the period of illegal deportation and coerced immigration. The act also called for a creative commemorative plaque in Los Angeles in 2012, the city unveiled the plaque near the site of the 1931 La Placita Park raid. The next year, California passed a law requiring its public schools to teach the repatriation drive history, which had been largely overlooked. 

Angie: Oh, shocking. Yeah, I was never taught it. Yeah. But I feel like that’s like such a good step in the right direction, California, you’ve done something right. Yep. But I also, I don’t know, maybe something more than a plaque. I’m unclear of what the appropriate thing to do is, but at least somebody’s acknowledging the travesties and the atrocities that were there instead of just sweeping them under the rug. So, yeah, that’s a place to start. Yeah. 

Theresa: And I have pictures. Oh, fortunately. Yeah. I mean, I’m sure you’re so stoked about this given the title. 

Angie: So is this, okay, so she’s showing me what looks like a train depot, like a rail station with many people of Latino descent waiting. They all look fairly cheerful. So I’m wondering if maybe this is the first group going back to Mexico. 

Theresa: Is that what I’m so according to the description, it says relatives and friends wave goodbye or train carrying 1500 persons being expelled from Los Angeles to Mexico. August 20, 1931. 

Angie: Why does it seems like this got to be some sort of publicity stunt like, oh, everything’s okay. See, they’re happily waving. 

Theresa: I don’t know. There’s like a mix of emotions because I originally saw a couple of smiling faces, but then I see a couple questioning faces for sure. 

Angie: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. 

Theresa: And then this is just hundreds of Mexicans at a L.A. train station that are awaiting deportation. I hate this. Yeah. We’re getting off a boat. 

Angie: Getting off a boat. This is a gang plank with with several people coming down the stairs and then there are more people up on the deck. Yeah. That look like they’re also going to be disembarking here soon too as well. Wow. 

Theresa: Wow. It’s a note. All right. It’s a note. It’s a note. But I think it’s stories like this that we need to keep telling. We need everyone to know so that we recognize we’ve been here. We’ve done this. We should learn from it for once. Like we could certainly try. We didn’t even, this was 90 years ago, not even a hundred. Yeah. And we’ve forgotten it. 

Angie: Yeah. Some of these children’s children are still alive. 

Theresa: Depending, like if you were, if you were an infant, you’re, you could easily be alive. You could be 90, 91, 92. 

Angie: Yeah. So that’s what I was saying. They’re children’s children. Like the next generation that is still very affected by this is still very much alive. Yeah. 

Theresa: So that was, that was awful. And I was just like, well, okay. And that’s the reason why I want to start with a, it’s this year, these things are happening. 

Cause when I was listening to it and I was reading it, I was like, this sounds very much like 1930s Germany where we’re finding a scapegoat for our failings, for our economic instability. Yep. And then I was just like, oh no, this was, this was homegrown, completely homegrown. I was just like, I hate that this was happening in multiple places. 

Angie: And what inspired you to, to further find information on this? 

Theresa: So I had a friend of mine I used to work with named Carmen and she found this story, sent me the history.com article. And I had it on my list of ones to cover, but I was like, I want to get through black history month. 

I want to get through women’s history. Right. And so it’s just like, this has been on my to be done list. Well, thank you. Yeah. I’m not going to say I loved it. You know, honestly, I expect this with my stories. 

Angie: But I appreciate it because like you said, it, people need to know that it happened and it was not taught. And I am a full fledged, born and bred California girl who went to school here my entire life and never once like the closest that we ever got to learning about any of this is reading very well to man’s and our and knowing that the Japanese were interred and interming against the California. That is, and that’s the closest, right? Like that’s not even on the same page, not even in the same book. Right. Like that’s 100% not okay. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. We don’t blame you for needing a stiff drink. 

Theresa: If you also need a stiff drink and you’re wondering what I’m going to do to drive you to drink next week. Right. Reviews subscribe and come back. Please come back. I’ll tell a happier story next week or let Angie and I’ll Palaklin. 

Angie: I’ve got some do’sies coming up. I’m so excited about. 

Theresa: Well, fantastic. On that note. Goodbye. 

Theresa: Goodbye. 

Angie: But you also told me that I could have tuberculosis and I was like, are you telling me I could be suffering from Victorian disease? Where’s my hanky? 

Theresa: I mean, if the crow start following you and saying never more. 

Angie: I’ll let you know.