Dr. J. A. Hockaday Collection - Operation Wetback (1954)

Duration: 5:40

Year Published: 1954

Format: 16mm

Sound: silent

Description: In this home movie from 1954, Donald L. Hockaday and his father, Dr. James A. Hockaday, watch as Border Patrol officials load apprehended illegal immigrants into a ship—named the Emancipación—for deportation from Port Isabel, Texas to Veracruz, Mexico. The immigrants were deported as part of “Operation Wetback,” a quasi-military repatriation project headed by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service that sought to remove illegal Mexican immigrants from the Southwest. After the ship departs, the footage captures the Hockaday family enjoying an afternoon at the beach. Please note: ”Wetback” is a derogatory term applied to Mexicans laborers who crossed the Rio Grand River. The Texas Archive of the Moving Image does not condone the use of this term, but presents this film with its accurate historical context, because to do otherwise would be the same as to claim this discriminatory behavior never existed.