Bracero Program History

Karen Andrade: - Bracero program:

The United States is an immigration country in which it creates a movement of people into their country to settle there. As a result, the U.S government had to establish immigration polices where they implemented policies that dealt with the transit of people across its boarders, but especially for those that intend to work and to remain in the country. On the other hand, Mexico has been a country of emigration since the 1920’s, where its people leave their country to live somewhere else. As a result, the Mexican people have become economic migrants, as they seek employment to improve their financial positions. An illustration of this is the Bracero Program that began in 1942 in which it covered the worker gap of the U.S. wartime. The United States and Mexico agreed in the Mexican labor force in farm and agriculture, where both were working for their best interests. In The Bracero Program 1942-1964 an online presentation slide conveyed the history of million Mexican peasants who lost their lives in the Mexican Revolution of 1910. By the late 1930’s, when the crops in Mexico began yielding insufficient harvest and employment became scarce, Mexican

workers were forced to look for other means of survival. This situation in Mexico coincided with the emergence of a demand in labor in U.S. The presentation slide further informs Mexico’s expectations “the Mexican government hoped the braceros would learn new agricultural skills, which would benefit the development of Mexico’s own agricultural programs and expected the possibility that the braceros would earn good wages in the U.S., bring the money back to Mexico and the remittances that would stimulate the Mexican economy”. Immigration is a theme topic for U.S. and Mexico both will be in constant battle for their own national state’s sovereignty and establishing foreign policies. As a result of the Bracero Program, the U.S and Mexico will continue a delegation and construction of the foreign policies that will further expose issues of labor, immigration, and civil rights.
In a capitalistic society, the U.S. economy after WWII was doing well and wanted to eliminate any country as competition. As the capital standards are to keep cost low and cheap labor, this was going to be provided by the immigrants. At the same time U.S. citizen’s socioeconomic status was higher, they were no longer entering low wage jobs like the agriculture. A demand for agriculture labor began, but the domestic labor force would not supply the demand. Therefore the U.S. and Mexico created this guest worker program in 1942 called the Bracero Program where ideally the workers fill in the gap, stay temporarily, and then leave back to their country of origin. However the U.S. was in wartime and need to supply the work, thereof this emergency labor continued from 1942 to 1946. However, because the demand for labor and the necessity for employment were great, by the end of the war in 1945 the Bracero program grew from 1700 to 4 million. Between 1942 and 1964, approximately “4.5 million Mexicans entered the United States as the program required the US Department of Agriculture and US Employment Service to work with the Mexican government in labor recruitment” (Meyers pg. 2). At the same time the Mexican council in the local embassies were fighting for Mexican workers rights, because of the discrimination against them, and low wages. Mexican representatives in the U.S. not only made their voice be heard, they also reclaim Mexican sovereignty, in which they were able to protect Mexican workers. As the years passed, by the early fifties the U.S farmer became frustrated because their Mexican workers were enforcing their rights. The farmers wanted the U.S. to be the only one controlling, but the Mexican government wanted a bilateral contract for their workers. Consequently, U.S. had been given a reality check from their fantasized Mexican worker who would solely work, leave, and had no rights or benefits as a worker. Hence, the U.S began accepting and receiving undocumented workers of México, where they did no have any rights due to no contract. Accordingly, the undocumented Mexican worker reached its peak in immigration history.
The Braceros: History, Compensation article states, “However, growers had the upper hand in Congress, which in 1951 approved PL-78, the Mexican Farm Labor Program. In 1952, the Immigration and Nationality Act was enacted and, while it made harboring illegal aliens a felony punishable by a $2,000 fine and a prison term of five years, it also included the so-called Texas Proviso, which asserted that employing an illegal alien is not harboring. Thus, there were no penalties on US employers who knowingly hired illegal workers. In 1959 the U.S. congress made this “Texas Proviso” where employers would not be prosecuted by hiring illegal immigrants.” As for the employers even though they had contracts with the braceros they still hired undocumented workers that should not have been working without the U.S and Mexican agreement, undocumented workers were better business since they were losing money before. Consequently in 1954 the “Drying out” of the Wetbacks came into play because farmers became frustrated the Mexican laborers. The U.S had shut down its borders; they wanted the worker to sign their contracts. Therefore the U.S. told the Mexican workers to sign a contract with them where they would have to go back to their country and get back in the U.S. But this was for the benefit of the U.S. Mexican councils were in contract vigilance of the security go their workers. At the same time Mexico told the workers that they should not sign anything until the Mexico had a bilateral contract with the U.S. Consequently the Mexican workers would have total rights in the U.S. where the U.S just wanted profit. But the farmers did not want to pay more for their workers. As it is in the capitalist economy the appealing is to have cheap labors to get the highest revenue and profit, therefore the farmers were losing profits.
Bill Dredge states in his Los Angeles Times report, 6000 Mexicans Mill About Fence at Border about the thousands of migrant workers recruits in the border of Mexicali, Baja California. They were rioting to get in and were not leaving until they were employed, but the U.S had closed the border. This event really exposed the chaotic situation these workers where, they were the ones in the middle and were objectified my U.S. officials, “Welter G Francis U.S. Labor Department official who runs the El Center reception center said that 3447 braceros had been admitted there up to this afternoon…Mexicali-recruited braceros may go into fields and orchards as far north as the Canadian border. Washington, Oregon and California are totally supplied with Mexican labor through the Mexicali port”. This news report from January 28, 1954 of the L.A. Times democrats the disposability and the objectification of the Mexican labors. It was literally taken in practiced; the word bracero comes from the word in Spanish brazo, which translates, to arms. This was literally what the U.S. awaited from the Mexican workers, their hands and arm to give their labor for a temporary and leave. But the reality is, the Mexican workers were not an arm, a hand, or a number, they were human beings. And human beings migrate and want to establish roots, wherever they fine it most convenient. As their stay prolonged in the farms some Mexican workers would go back but some did not. All their experiences were different for workers.
As Deborah Waller Meyers stated “Mexican citizens were to receive the same safety and health protections as US agricultural laborers. To further ensure that the hiring of less-expensive foreign workers would not create disadvantages for domestic labor, employers were required to cover transportation costs and living expenses for their temporary workers in contracts guaranteed by the US government. In reality, however, many of the Bracero workers were housed in camps formerly occupied by prisoners of war, earned salaries of as little as $9 per week (well below the $30 average weekly salary nationwide in 1940), and did not receive the same safety and health protections as native-born workers” (pg., 2). The living condones of the braceros were difficult however their experiences vary from one worker to another.
In an interview by Mireya Loza on August 31, 2005 to Juan Loza an ex bracero, the many life experiences in the Bracero is revealed. Juan Loza was born on October 11, 1939 in a family thirteen he was the oldest son. His family lived in a hacienda called Maravilla in the municipality of Manuel Doblado in Gunajuato. He only heard of the Bracero program after his father spent all the family’s fortune gambling on horse races and left the family in great debt. Loza had to begin searching employment to help his family. One day he went to the chairman of Manuel Doblado to ask for a number, and specifically a space to come as a bracero to the U.S. His expectations in coming to U.S to work were to give his family mother and siblings a better life. After receiving the from the chairman who told him to try his luck and that he would have to travel to the Monterrey, Nuevo Leon to the contracting center. Loza did not have the money for his ticket to he needed a minimum of the 1,000 pesos for his passage to the United States and if chances were you were or not going to be contracted. In that case on needed an extra 200 pesos to return to the place of origin. So in his need, Loza went to his grandfather, who happily loan him the 1000 pesos free of interests and expiration date. As with the support to the grandfather, he went the chairman to tell him he was ready to leave. Approximately, 1,500 braceros traveled that night at 10 pm in twenty buses with ninety where only forty-five fitted traveled in such horrible conditions almost five hours. As the entire list from the different states arrived he had to wait almost a month to be contracted. The lists were drawn from nine am to the twelve pm. In the meantime he stayed, but many left. He had to sleep in a cardboard roof and cardboard walls for the first night near a small restaurant. Loza has thee owner if she needed help, he was in need of a job in the meantime a wait to be called. When he was called they inspected his documents and disinfected him with a liquid and powder so that they would take any germs to the border of U.S. from there, they were taken to the another contracting center on the boarder where they did further meticulous exams that were at times cruel, where the doctors examined three thousand a day. He was contracted for irrigation to go in Lubbock Texas he was paid 55cent an hour 24 hours and 7 day a week. Although they were not pay as much they were not charge for rent, light, gas and they would cook their food of average charge 10 to 12 dollars per week. He lasted a total of three years and in between he was able to go back home twice and was in constant communication with his family through letters. From Texas to California and from Arkansas to Chicago, where he experienced being kick 3 times out a coffee shop, to being harassed but the black workers who raided his room, to have a horrible event with the pochos (Americanized Mexicans) who mistreat them as foremen (pg. 1-16). However with all that history Juan Loza said “Well the term bracero for me it a word of distinction. Form me it is a word full of pride it is a word that I want to live on in history… And in the future the reality shines that the United States will pay attention to us – not like numbers, rather like people with rights, with respect, with dignity, so that our race and our children can feel proud to be Hispanics and o be people who have come, come from braceros ” (pg. 16-17). Juan Loza’s story gives light to a history that the U.S. does not release freely and or recognized.
The Bracero Program came to an end in 1964 due to the many issues of serenity this program brought, stabilization to the U.S.

worker gap. In the Braceros: History, Compensation article of the UC Davis, “The year 1965 was a "year of transition," as farmers adjusted to the end of the Bracero program. The number of US migrants, 465,000, reached a record 15 percent of the 3.1 million hired US farm workers. Some farmers joined or formed labor associations that generally increased labor market efficiency, as they reduced or stabilized labor costs and simultaneously increased average worker earnings”. The Bracero Program left a legacy of a constant undocumented immigration waves where they get addicted to low wage labor in the U.S. where Mexican immigration go to the U.S. solely to

work.