How One Million Mexicans—Most of them US Citizens—Were Deported in the 1930s

Gisiger, who is of Latin American heritage, said she decided to write it with a Latino angle because she didn't feel represented enough in her school. "I didn't see myself in the curriculum," she told NBC News.

As she explored the subject, Gisiger learned about the plight of the one million Mexicans and Mexican Americans deported by President Hoover in the 1930s.

The measure was taken amid the lean times of the Depression, when many Americans blamed Mexican immigrants for taking jobs from US job workers. Gisiger was shocked to learn that 60 percent of those deported during the so-called Mexican Repatriation were US citizens.

She said her research, going through letters and documents of the time, gave her an insight into the suffering caused by this policy, with many families being separated. "Anyone who didn't have proof of citizenship was taken," she told NBC.