1 million Mexican Americans were deported a century ago. A new L.A. audio tour explores this 'hidden' history

 

For years, I had been visiting Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles for many years before I learned of the Mexican "repatriation" and mass removals of Mexican ancestry who were arrested near Olvera Street.  Although largely forgotten, the repatriation every so often makes the news. 

Today, I ran across this story in the Los Angeles Times:

"Olvera Street . . . did not always look as vibrant as it does today. While the historic pedestrian street and El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument attract about 2 million tourists annually, many don’t know how the area came to be or that it was the site of the first public immigration raid in Los Angeles.

A new self-guided audio tour, presented by the California Migration Museum, explores both the origin of this storied area and the “hidden” history of the La Placita raid that ultimately led to the deportation of as many as 1.8 million Mexican Americans across the country in the 1930s."

KJ