Bracero Program
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The Bracero Program was originally a binational temporary contract labor program initiated, in August 1942, by an exchange of diplomatic notes between the United States and Mexico after a series of negotiations. Bracero is Spanish for 'unskilled laborer'. The program was designed initially to bring a few hundred experienced Mexican agricultural laborers to harvest sugar beets in the Stockton, California area but soon spread to cover most of the United States to provide much needed farm workers to agriculture labor market. As an important corollary, the railroad bracero program was independently negotiated to supply U.S. railroads initially with unskilled workers for track maintenance but eventually to cover other unskilled and skilled labor. By 1945, the quota for the agricultural program was more than 50,000 braceros to be employed in U.S. agriculture at any one time, and for the railroad program 75,000.
The railroad program ended promptly with the conclusion of World War II, in 1945, but the agricultural program under various forms survived until 1964, when the two governments ended it as a response to harsh criticisms and reports of human rights abuses. The program made a large contribution to U.S. agriculture, leading to the advent of mechanized farming. However the program, for the most part from a humanitarian standpoint, was deemed a complete and utter failure.[citation needed]
The workers who participated in the Bracero Program have generated significant local and international struggles challenging the US government and Mexican government to identify and return deductions taken from their pay, from 1942 to 1948, for savings accounts which they were legally guaranteed to receive upon their return to Mexico at the conclusion of their contracts. Many, if not most, never received their savings. However, lawsuits presented in federal courts in California, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, highlighted the substandard conditions and documented the ultimate destiny of the savings accounts deductions, but the suit was thrown out because the Mexican banks in question never operated in the United States.
The redevelopment of a similar program has recently been spotlighted in the political media when U.S. President George W. Bush presented the possibility of creating such a program in conjunction with Mexican President Vicente Fox to fulfill immigration needs. Such a program would allow laborers to apply for a visa, be screened and then come to the United States to work. It is expected such a program would apply to various industries and not solely agriculture. This program was widely expected to begin operation in 2000 or 2001, but was put aside in US foreign policy after the September 11th attacks. However, the possibility of such a program being enacted was revived by President Bush, in late 2004, when he began referring to the possibility of it being opened once more, after his re-election in 2004.
Protest singer Phil Ochs's song, "Bracero", centers on the exploitation of the Mexican workers in the program.
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In the last year immigration legislation has captured the headlines of America’s newspapers and newscasts. In order to understand this debate it is important to look at the history of the United States’ policy towards Mexican immigrants. Even though the United States has been dependent on Mexican labor in its agricultural sector since the early 1900s, the Bracero Program changed the face of immigration policy in the United States. The Bracero Program was a guest worker program that ran between the years of 1942 and 1964. Over the twenty-two year period, The Emergency Farm Labor Program or Bracero Program as it is called, the United States saw the influx of some 4.5 million guest workers from Mexico. Historian David Gutierrez argues that no other American immigration policy had more of an affect on the ethnic Mexican community than the Bracero Program; he argues that the Bracero Program made immigration a political issue. According to Manuel Garcia y Griego a political scientist and author of “The Importation of Mexican Contract Laborers to the United States 1942-1964”,[1] the Contract-Labor Program “left an important legacy for the economies, migration patterns, and politics of the United States and Mexico.” Griego’s article discusses the profound and persuasive bargaining position of both countries, arguing that the Mexican government lost all real bargaining power after 1950. “Mexico lacked either the political will or the policy instruments to withhold the labor of its workers on whose behalf it was negotiating, and its cooperation with the United States in this and other issue areas were no longer vital.” It was evident at this point that the United States wielded the power. This guest worker program continued until 1964 when the U.S. deemed it no longer vital for American production and industry. Today, the United States is still an attractive destination for immigrants from all over the world, offering economic opportunity and social mobility, but the United States continues to grant entrance to those immigrants it deems useful and non threatening. The Bracero Program awakened policy makers to the power that they wield over other nations and other peoples, when they choose to close the “Golden door” on would be immigrants.
[edit] Sources
- ^ Manuel García y Griego, “The Importation of Mexican Contract Laborers to the United States, 1942-1964,” in David G. Gutiérrez, ed. Between Two Worlds: Mexican Immigrants in the United States (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources,1996), 45-85
[edit] External links
- Los Braceros: Strong Arms to Aid the USA - Public Television Program
- The Bracero History Project
- The Bracero Program: Legal Temporary Farmworkers from Mexico, 1942-1964
Categories: Articles needing sections | Articles with unsourced statements since April 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles in need of internal merging | All pages needing to be wikified | Wikify from April 2007 | 1942 establishments | 1942 in Mexico | 1964 disestablishments | 1964 in Mexico | Agricultural labor | Economic history of the United States | Economic history of Mexico | Modern Mexico | History of North America | International trade | Mexican-American history | Mexico and the United States | History of immigration to the United States
