wetbackn.
/ˈwɛtbak/, U.S. /ˈwɛtˌbæk/ slang (originally and chiefly U.S.). derogatory and offensive.
An immigrant who enters the United States illegally by swimming or wading across the Rio Grande between Mexico and Texas; (hence) any Mexican living in the United States, including one having legal immigration status. Also occasionally in extended use: an immigrant who enters any country illegally, especially one who wades or swims across a body of water in order to get there. Cf. wet n.1 7, mojado n.Although a derogatory slang term, wetback occurs in U.S. governmental and mainstream media publications throughout the 1950s and 1960s, esp. in connection with Operation Wetback, a 1954 deportation programme (cf. quot. 1954).
ΚΠ
1920 Galveston (Texas) Daily News 27 Jan. 4/5 The committee was told of instances where..deals were made by..[planters] with Mexicans who furnished ‘wet backs’. The term applied to Mexicans brought across the river at points where there were no immigration inspectors.
1954 N.Y. Times 19 June 15/2 ‘Operation wetback’ moved into the mopping up stages faster than expected today... Reports indicated fewer ‘wetbacks’ were being located.
1972 Observer 28 May (Colour Suppl.) 28/1 Last year in California alone, border patrols turned back 27,000 wetbacks (the contemptuous name derives from their practice of swimming the Rio Grande to reach the US).
1979 Guardian 8 June 5/2 Illegal migrants from South China..are getting into Hong Kong..usually swimming the last part of the trip. The total of Chinese ‘wetbacks’ intercepted..in the first week of June alone came to 3,722.
1992 Economist 12 Sept. 56/2 There is a big difference between the Africans and Asians who try to slip across the Straits of Gibraltar and the Mexicans who swim or wade across the Rio Grande. Europe's ‘wetbacks’ prefer not to enter the water.
1994 Q. Tarantino Pulp Fiction i. 11 Busboys, some wetback gettin' paid a dollar-fifty a hour.
2017 L. Khadivi Good Country vi. 32 Rez..tried not to hear Kelly talk about wetbacks and illegals and fucking Mexicans and how California should start a war and take Baja.
Compounds
General use as modifier.
ΚΠ
1920 Galveston (Texas) Daily News 3 Dec. 4/5 The head tax of 8 pesos for Mexican laborers should be abolished to make entry of laborers from Mexico to the United States easier through regular ports of entry, and stop the wet-back system.
1982 T. Beattie Diamonds xii. 100 It might be that wetback job I did... But they can't prove anything.
1993 Financial Times (Nexis) 3 Nov. Hardly a day goes by without a news story of illegal immigrants being arrested on arrival from Morocco aboard tiny fishing smacks... The Mediterranean ‘wetback’ saga has all the elements of a North-South drama.
2002 Sunday Herald (Glasgow) 23 June (Seven Days section) 11/2 In countries such as Spain, governments have turned a blind eye to illegals for decades because they know the farmers need cheap wetback workers.
2006 A. A. Gill Previous Convictions 140 That long, sad, invisible queue to be wetback migrants cleaning Californian toilets and serving hot dogs.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2022).
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n.1920