The mantra well known in Mexico, “Poor Mexico, so far from God, yet so close to the United States,” rings true in Decade of Betrayal. The Great Depression drove individuals in the United States to preserve aid benefits and jobs for “real” U.S. citizens, and in response to these racist attitudes the United States began a systematic program of repatriating Mexicans and Mexican Americans.

In Decade of Betrayal, Francisco Balderrama and Raymond Rodríguez criticize the consequences of repatriation: racism, the hysteria of preserving economic and social conditions for U.S. citizens, the fallacy of trying to save U.S. taxpayers’ money, and the effect of Mexicans’ return on the reforms pursued by the Mexican government in the 1930s.

Racism was a major factor used to justify the deportations. The authors demonstrate how racism virtually pervaded U.S. society. In California, for example, the private sector acquiesced to the demand to hire “real Americans,” relegating Mexicans to compete in an unfair labor market. Meanwhile, Secretary of Labor William Doak called for “ridding the nation of the enemy in our midst” and the Chicago Tribune for “the elimination of the alien horde.”

Many in the United States argued that the repatriation policy to return “indigent nationals to their own country” would preserve jobs and save money for welfare agencies. Balderrama and Rodríguez’ study reveals, however, that the United States did not accrue substantial savings, because Mexicans or Mexican Americans comprised less than 10 percent of all relief recipients. Many Mexicans feared the application process, moreover, and experienced discrimination. In contradiction to negative stereotypes, many Mexicans took with them substantial amounts of money they had saved in the United States. In 1931, California reported that repatriated Mexicans withdrew nearly seven million dollars from U.S. banks.

The authors also reveal the hypocrisy of saving jobs as a goal of repatriation. As many U.S. citizens called for restricting employment opportunities for Mexicans, agricultural employers sought to keep Mexicans in the United States at least for the harvest season. Agricultural management understood that most Anglo workers would not work for the prevailing pay in the farm community. Ironically, as the authors note, many Mexicans who were repatriated had been lured to the United States with the promise of employment.

The book captures the poignancy of Mexicans’ return home to Mexico. Many had fled Mexico for political and economic reasons that developed during the Mexican Revolution. The return created family problems, particularly in families with U.S.-born children—called agringados (Americanized)—who spoke little Spanish and identified with U.S. culture. Many repatriates faced family members who had resented their departure; and now their return suggested that they had failed in the United States.

Decade of Betrayal balances the story by revealing Mexico’s failure to treat the repatriates warmly. Beyond reporting the “caravans of sorrow” crossing the border, the Mexican press, and consular staffs, did not protest U.S. policy. Such criticism, the authors point out, would have embarrassed Mexico, which was carrying out a similar policy to deport Chinese. Ultimately, Mexico acknowledged that a nation possessed the right to determine who lived within its boundaries.

During the 1930s, the Mexican government advocated a public works project and the establishment of colonizing programs (a cornerstone of Lázaro Cárdenas’s plan for land reform) to provide the repatriates with land and employment. Although the authors sidestep the implication that superior agricultural knowledge existed in the United States and therefore had to be brought across the border, they recognize that the Mexican government lacked the funds for large-scale development projects. As a result, Mexico could not provide substantial aid to its displaced nationals.

A fresh and well-written study, Decade of Betrayal examines the problems for both countries as they responded to the issue of repatriation. Balderrama and Rodríguez couple traditional archival research with extensive oral interviews, producing a methodology that captures the frustrating difficulties experienced by Mexican Americans and Mexicans moving from the United States to Mexico in the 1930s. This work should be considered by those interested in conditions faced by repatriated Mexicans both in the United States and Mexico.