A state law that will become effective next year requires Illinois students to learn in U.S. history courses about the forced migration of millions to Mexico during the Great Depression.
The law was sponsored by state Sen. William Delgado, a Chicago Democrat, who says the U.S. government ordered the forced removal of nearly 2 million people to Mexico from the late 1920s to the mid-1940s to make more jobs available in the United States.
But many of those deported were U.S. citizens, and Mr. Delgado says many never received apologies or public acknowledgment of their suffering. The law, signed by Gov. Pat Quinn, requires all U.S. history classes for elementary and high schools to include a unit on the forced repatriations to Mexico.
