California Museum to Document Operation Wetback in New Exhibition

The California Museum in Sacramento will present a bilingual exhibition titled 'Help Wanted / Leave Now: "Operation Wetback" & the Revolving Door of Mass Deportation,' opening August 13 and running through January 10, 2027. Organized in collaboration with historians including Juan Garcia, professor emeritus at the University of Arizona, and labor rights activist Dolores Huerta, the exhibition examines one of the US's most notorious deportation campaigns targeting Mexican immigrants. Garcia, who grew up in South Texas in a Mexican-American ranching family, has spent his career studying the political forces that led his family to relocate to Chicago when he was six. His research and family story will be featured in the exhibition, which takes its name from the derogatory term 'wetback' used for undocumented immigrants crossing the Rio Grande. The show aims to document the historical context and human impact of Operation Wetback, a mass deportation effort in 1954.