N.A.C.L.A. the temporarily superflous labor fo~ce would be needed again once the crisis was over (14). But Mexicans have always been right next door to the United States and could be brought back easily. The depression of the 1930s meant unprecedented deportations of Mexican workers from the U.S. As, unemployment in the Southwest soared - worsened by the migration of over a million people into California from other parts of the United States between 1930 and 1.940- as urban Mexican communities such as Los Angeles began to rebel, and as farm tabor strikes flared up throughout California, the rate of deportations increased. More than 75,000 Mexicans were deported from Los Angeles alone in 1931, "but when the harvest season once again came around, the growers dispatched their 'emissaries' to Mexico, and again recruited thousands of Mexicans" (15). If by the late thirties, some employers were ta:lking about dangerous excesses of labor in the Southwe~t (16), the United States' sudden entry into World War li dramatically changéd the tide once again. The defense industry drew heavily upon the labor supply, as did the growing manufacturing, transportation and service industries in general. Once again the growers began to clamor for the importation of farm labor. This timethe response was more systematic: . ln 1942 the spontaneous and irregular migration that had prevailed gave way abruptly to one that was supervised and reçiulated by government... lt was during this period that the agricult-ural industr.y made its choice ln favor of governmentally administered migration of Mexicans (17). ln 1942, the U.S. and Mexican governments negotiated the first of a series of emergency açireements to import thousands of Mexican braceros to meet the feared labor shortage. Between 1942 and 1950, over 430,000 contracted laborers entered the United States through the three principal recruitment centers in Mexico: Hermosillo, Chihuahua, and Monterrey (18). One of the bracero recruitment centers was at Empalme on the Sea of Cortez, about 700 miles south of the U.S. border Here the Americans set up offices and a temporary camp fo, processing the braceros on their way to work in the U.S. 15. McWilliams, op. cit. p. 129. 16. Fisher, op. clt. p. 5. 17. Galarza, op. cit. pp. 14-15. 18. Ibid. p. 52. 86
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