During the Great Depression, many Americans were out of work. Anger and frustration led some people to blame immigrants for the country’s poor economy. And California had plenty of immigrants.
In California, government officials and other groups deported hundreds of thousands of Mexicans and Filipinos. Many of the deportees had been born in the United States.
But in the years after World War II, California’s population grew even more diverse. Activists spoke out on behalf of groups that had been discriminated against. People began to recognize the many ways that people of different cultures had been treated unfairly.
