As her junior year of high school came to a close in 2023, Tamara Gisiger’s history teacher tasked the class with a research project of their choosing.
A then-17-year-old Gisiger narrowed in on what she called an “underground, hurtful and dark part of history that just isn’t talked about” — the Mexican repatriation that took place in the 1930s amid the Great Depression.
The repatriation involved deporting 1 million people with Mexican heritage, 60% of whom were American-born citizens, and was one of the largest deportations in American history, according to Gisiger, who lives in New York City.
The epicenter was Los Angeles, where up to 75,000 Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans were deported by train — often at Union Station — in one year, Gisiger, now 19, said in a phone interview, reciting the dates and numbers off the top of her head.
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