A National Threat: Eugenic Perspectives on Mexican Immigrant Labor in the United States During the Great Depression

This thesis explores developments that occurred in American eugenics during the late 1920s. Specifically, through looking at eugenic and medical literature, this research explores the shift in focus towards financial issues in American eugenics during the Great Depression. Like a great deal of American society, the American eugenics community came to frame many of their arguments through the lens of financial issues. At the same time, Mexican immigrants were the largest group of racialized Others entering the United States. Eugenicists aimed their new focus towards Mexican immigration and a great deal of eugenics literature highlighted how much Mexican immigration purportedly cost the white American public. In exploring how Mexican-American racial identities were constructed and re-framed by eugenicists and other members of the scientific community during the Great Depression, this thesis also considers the motivation for these developments and in doing so address a silence within existent historical literature on American eugenics