HW 2

CH S 445

Mexican migrant and Kuwaiti “Bedoon”

During the 20th century, Hispanic Americans — the majority of whom were Mexican Americans — comprised the largest minority group in California. One-half million Mexicans migrated to the United States during the 1920s, with more than 30 percent settling in California. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, racial anxieties ran high. Mexicans in California and other states were seen as competition for already scarce jobs. Various civic organizations and chambers of commerce successfully pressed local, county, and state governments to round up Mexican Americans indiscriminately (citizens and non-citizens alike) and "repatriate" them to Mexico.

This situation shifted in the early 1940s. World War II brought a labor shortage as American workers joined the armed forces. In 1942, Congress enacted the Emergency Labor Program — called the Bracerro program (brazos is the Spanish word for arms) — to allow temporary Mexican migrants into the United States to work in American industry.

In Kuwait citizens without citizenship

The word "Bedoon" is from the Arabic phrase "bedoon jinsiyya," literally meaning either "without nationality" or "without citizenship." The term should not be confused with the English word Bedouin, from the Arabic word "badawi," meaning nomad (the plural is "badu," or the more colloquial "bidwan"). Although many of the Bedoons are of Bedouin origin, most of them have long settled in the urban centers of Kuwait, and many have never lived a nomadic life. In Kuwaiti usage, Bedoon is used as a singular or plural noun. To avoid confusion, in this report "Bedoon" is used for the singular and "Bedoons" for the plural.

Kuwait practices a system of institutionalized discrimination against its residents known as Bedoons, long-time inhabitants who have been denied Kuwaiti citizenship and are now being rendered stateless. Barred from employment, denied education for their children, restricted in their movements, and living under the constant threat of arbitrary arrest and deportation; Bedoons are a community of "have nots" in one of the wealthiest countries of the world. At the same time, tens of thousands of Bedoons who fled Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation have been barred from returning to their country.