Mexican Americans and the Great Depression

Naturalization

A legal process to obtain citizenship

Social Security Act of 1935

Created both the Social Security Program and a national assistance program for poor children, usually called AFDC.

Good Neighbor Policy

FDR's foreign policy of promoting better relations w/Latin America by using economic influence rater than military force in the region

Farm Security Administration

Lent money to sharecroppers and tenant farmers to help them buy their own farms; established camps for migrant workers

Black Tuesday

October 29, 1929; date of the worst stock-market crash in American history and beginning of the Great Depression.

Mexican Repatriation, 1929-1939

Special law authorized by President Hoover to send Mexican-American immigrants back to Mexico. More than half a million Mexican-Americans were forcibly sent back to Mexico during the Great Depression, many of whom were lawful American citizens, separated from their families.

Rugged Individualism

The belief that all individuals, or nearly all individuals, can succeed on their own and that government help for people should be minimal.

Desegregation

The ending of authorized segregation, or separation by race.

New Deal

The name of President Roosevelt's program for getting the United States out of the depression

Social Security

federal program of disability and retirement benefits that covers most working people

Assimilation

the social process of absorbing one cultural group into harmony with another