Stock Market Crashes, Ushering in the Great Depression: 192935

The problems of the Great Depression affected virtually every

group of Americans, and no group was harder hit than African
Americans. By 1932, approximately half of Black Americans
were out of work. In some Northern cities, white people called
for Black workers to be fired from any job as long as there were
white people out of work. Racial violence increased, especially
in the South, where there was a significant rise in lynchings.
Much heralded measures to address the economic hardships
experienced during the Great Depression, notably the New
Deal, would exclude Blacks either overtly or in practice.

Social Security, for example, didn’t apply to agricultural and

domestic workers—positions likely to be held by Black people.
Consequently, while 27% of white people were ineligible for
Social Security in 1935, 65% of Black people were excluded and
70-80% of Black people in the South.36

This was especially harmful to Black women, who, “compared

with other women the United States, have always had the highest levels of labor market participation regardless of age, marital status, or presence
of children at home…. Black women have been the most likely of all women to be employed in the low-wage women’s jobs that involve cooking,
cleaning, and caregiving.”37

35 SEIU Diversity Timeline

36 https://www.yesmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/74/74-JTF-8.5x11.pdf
37 https://www.epi.org/blog/black-womens-labor-market-history-reveals-deep-seated-race-and-gender-discrimination/

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Los Angeles Police Round Up Over 400 Mexican Americans and Mexican Immigrants at La Placita Park: 1931

On a Sunday afternoon in February 1931, two police officers blocked each of the two entrances to Los Angeles’s La Placita Park and “rounded up all
the people with brown skin,”38 demanding proof of citizenship or legal residency. Those who couldn’t immediately prove their right to be in the
country were detained, with some being made to board one of the flatbed trucks lining the park’s perimeter. The trucks were taken to the local train
station where, regardless of documentation status, Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans were forced to board chartered trains that would
deposit them deep into Mexico.39Many U.S. citizens who had never lived in Mexico were unable to return home for years.

This was one of the most visible of “repatriation raids” that took place throughout
the 1930s. As the Great Depression wreaked havoc on the job market, people of
Mexican descent were scapegoated both for taking jobs some claimed would
otherwise be going to white Americans and for overwhelming government relief
programs. In reality, less than 10% of recipients of government aid were Mexican
immigrants or Mexican Americans, and studies decades later would suggest that
these repatriation drives actually harmed the economy because they reduced the
demand for other jobs.

While these raids were not explicitly part of federal policy, the Herbert Hoover
administration reimbursed municipalities for the cost of chartering trains and
buses, and its campaign of “American jobs for real Americans” indicates more
than tacit support. Hoover also convinced a number of large companies, including
the Ford Motor Company, U.S. Steel, and Southern Pacific Railroad, to lay off
employees of Mexican descent. Conservative estimates are that between one
million and 1.8 million people were deported, of whom as many as 60% were U.S.
citizens.40

38 https://www.npr.org/2015/09/10/439114563/americas-forgotten-history-of-mexican-american-repatriation
39 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/08/13/the-time-a-president-deported-1-million-mexican-americans-for-stealing-u-s-jobs/
40 https://www.history.com/news/great-depression-repatriation-drives-mexico-deportation

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The Home Owners Loan Corporation Develops Redlining: 1933

The federally-sponsored Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) was created

in 1933 with the primary function of refinancing mortgages that were going
into foreclosure. At the time, mortgage foreclosures were occurring at the
rate of almost 50%. The HOLC refinanced approximately one million homes,
representing close to 20% of US mortgages between 1933 and 1936. Less
than 1% of that $3.5 billion went to Black homeowners.41

This is because the HOLC assigned color- and grade-coded designations to

neighborhoods, to indicate whether they were worthy of mortgages.
Neighborhoods designated as “A” or “green” were considered the best places
to provide loans, and those designated as “D” or “red” were considered
“hazardous” places to provide loans.42 Communities of color were uniformly
“redlined.” Even “a single Black household in a middle-class area could make
the whole neighborhood ‘risky’ for mortgage loans in the eyes of the federal
government.” 43 The HOLC codified patterns of racial segregation and
disparities in access to credit.44 While the practice would become illegal in
1968, unspoken practices, poor enforcement, and, more recently, the advent
of discriminatory computer algorithms have stepped in to accomplish a similar
purpose.45

41 SEIU Diversity Timeline

42 https://www.redfin.com/blog/redlining-real-estate-racial-wealth-gap/
43 https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/19/498536077/interactive-redlining-map-zooms-in-on-americas-history-of-discrimination
44 Badger, E. (2017), How Redlining’s Racist Effects Lasted for Decades. Retrieved from,https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/upshot/how-redlinings-racist-effects-lasted-for-decades.html
45 https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-modern-day-redlining-20180215-story.html

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