Originally Posted by Teach
“I’m not a ‘wetback,’” my grandfather said. “I’ve never been to Mexico in my life,” he continued.
It was the Eisenhower years. My grandfather had traveled from Syracuse, NY to Houston, TX to visit his youngest son, my Uncle Louis.
As my uncle tells it, his father (my grandpa was a swarthy man) was up early one morning to have some breakfast at a local diner. After breakfast, as my grandfather headed back to his son’s house, he was picked up by immigration enforcement agents (The Eisenhower Administration had just started “Operation Wetback”).
Well, according to my uncle, agents took my grandpa to their headquarters in downtown Houston; they began interrogating him. Although my grandfather’s English was never crisp, he tried his best to explain to authorities that he hadn’t crossed into the United States from Mexico.
In the end, my grandpa called his son (my uncle) and told him where he was. My uncle came down to immigration headquarters and explained to authorities that the man they had in custody was a naturalized U.S. citizen who had never lived in nor visited Mexico. The thought of my grandfather, at the time past his 60th birthday, swimming across the Rio Grande was quite frankly, ludicrous. My grandfather was such a frail man that a strong gust of wind would literally blow him over.
Finally, after its implementation, “Operation Wetback” gave rise to arrests and deportations by the U.S. Border Patrol that were civil rights violations, which resulted in several hundred United States citizens being illegally deported without being given a chance to prove their citizenship.
As for my grandfather, he made his way back to Syracuse, NY. When I saw him a few months later, he said, “They should have known (immigration authorities), I can’t speak a word of Spanish.”
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