==Problems In [[File:MexicaliBraceros,1954.jpg|thumbnail|left|300px|Mexican workers in Mexicali waiting for legal work in the US]]__NOTOC__What was the bracero program? It was an immigration program created through a series of bilateral agreements between the United States and Mexico Pre-Bracero Program==in 1942. The program was designed to alleviate farm labor shortages in the United States caused by American entry into World War II and help Mexican farm laborers get work. Essentially, the United States agreed to allow Mexican farm laborers, "Braceros" in Spanish, to come to the US to augment the US farm labor force. Debates about immigration policy, including recent discussions about how documented and undocumented workers fit into the American labor system, are reminders of the United States’ biggest experiment with guest workers: the bracero program.
There are a slough of factors that lead to the creation of this program, but in order to fully understand it’s impact, it is important to layout the transnational creation of large migrant working population in Mexico. The factors that are most important begin with the Mexican Revolution and the leadership of Profirio Diaz who opened up Mexico’s economy agricultural workers were brought to the U.S. and other countries who began building factories and railroads farms to replace American workers dislocated by the Uwar.S. creating The program was intended as a temporary wartime solution, but American farms’ growing dependence on Mexican labor kept the passageways program active for future migrants to travel in to two decades beyond the U.Swar’s end. The Mexican government and companies based in Over the U.S. would buy land and eventually most life of the land owned by farmers program, between 1942 and working poor would be swallowed up. Without this land 1964, nearly 5 million Mexican citizens who used to farm had no other means to provide for their families. With new ‘’maquiladoras’’ or factories (mainly cotton factories) being built, many Mexicans would flood men came to those and begin to internally migrate towards the railroads and factories.<ref> Deborah Cohen, ‘’Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico’’, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011)on temporary, 35short-37term agricultural contracts.</ref> In 1910The bracero program is historically controversial, many of the prompting scholars to debate whether it was an opportunity for migrant workers employed by the cotton ‘’maquiladoras’’ and Communist Party members would join the ranks or exploitation of Pancho Villa as the Mexican Revolution beginslabor. These workers would continue It continues to fight for workers rights shape discussions of modern trade agreements and better wages within the ‘’maquiladoras’’ over the next three decades but without any real land ownership and the poor economic environment that lingered after Diaz’s reignwill color ideas about how, Mexican working and poor and the government it helped come to powerwhether, had no real choice but to head to the U.S. process and it’s economic policies. <ref>Deborah Cohen, ‘’Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico’’, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 37utilize migrant labor.</ref>
==The Creation ==Roots of the Bracero Program====The bracero program would not have been as easily implemented or as popular without the economic and cultural relationship established between Mexico and the United States since the late nineteenth century and if Mexican citizens could have made a living in Mexico. The Mexican economy had been uprooted by the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920); President Porfirio Diaz had opened Mexico’s economy to the United States in the early 1920s; railroad building across Mexico had created passageways to and from the north; and the Mexican government and companies based in the United States had bought land in Mexico for the building of maquiladoras (cotton factories) throughout the 1910s.
The Bracero Program, officially named Land originally owned by farmers and the Labor Importation Programworking poor were swallowed up by these companies, was created leaving these Mexican citizens with no other means to provide for their families. The economic reasonscircumstances and infrastructural possibilities were set for a culture of migratory labor. In the 1930s<ref> Deborah Cohen, white Anglos farmers had decided to move ‘’Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in to the more urban Postwar United States and industrious cities in order to gain more wealth than what they had been earning working their cropsMexico’’, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 35-37. With this huge shift from rural to urban industriesSee also Deborah Cohen, ‘’Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the government had to make an important decision to bring in a labor force that would be able to sustain their large urban population Postwar United States and help pick the crops that would feed themMexico’’, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 37.</ref>
After ====The Bracero Programs sought to ensure access to Cheap Guest Workers for American Farms====Whatever the Great Depression and circumstances, Mexico has long been a source of cheap temporary labor for the United States. Until the consequential ‘repatriation’ establishment of thousands of Mexican and even the U.S. born Border Patrol in 1924, citizens that had migrated to of both countries crossed the border at will, and farmers in the Usouthwestern United States recruited seasonal workers from Mexico without government oversight.S. as political refugees from Mexican workers also maintained the Mexican Revolution, productivity of American agriculture after the UUnited States entered World War I.SThe bracero program, at least on paper, was an extension of this type of labor arrangement—a more formal and more tightly supervised agreement to provide an adequate labor force during another global military conflict. would eventually decide to bring back some of the workers it had kicked out<ref>Gonzalez, Gilbert G. Guest Workers or Colonized Labor? Mexican migrants would be a scapegoat for many decades Labor Migration to come and each economic downturn in the UUnited States.SBoulder, CO: Paradigm, 2005. would automatically create a ‘’Mexican problem’’, a cycle thrust in Study of the state of Mexican labor immigration to existence by this the United States into the early twenty-first ‘repatriation’ during the Great Depressioncentury. </ref>
In ====The Creation of the Program====[[File:BraceroProgram.jpg|thumbnail|250px|left|Braceros arriving in Los Angeles in 1942(picture by Dorthea Lange)]]The Bracero Program officially named the Labor Importation Program, was created for straightforward economic reasons. In the 1930s, white In mid-1941, as it became clearer to U.S. and Mexico struck a deal leaders that the nation would allow Mexican citizens have to become temporary workers in enter World War II, American farmers raised the U.S. agricultural systems. This program was supposed to be completely under the supervision of the U.S. federal government and possibility that all contracts there would again be overseen by them. Neverthelessa need, between 1947 and 1951as had occurred during the First World War, the federal government had given up their role as supervisor and allowed for foreign workers and employers to create their own contracts, allowing maintain agricultural productivity. The United States looked south for certain types of discriminatory practicesthat labor, such as extremely low pay and shanti-like living quarters. After waiting sometimes weeks on end requesting that the Mexican government provide workers to enter address the U.S. they were allowed in, stripped ongoing demands of their clothes and sprayed with DDT, a toxic chemical thought to rid Mexican migrants of diseases that they were presumed to be carrying in to the U.S. Following that, American agribusinesses supporting the men would then undergo a medical examination war effort and only to replace the men who seemed impoverishedpoor white, poorblack, and only spoke Spanish Latino Americans were picked by the farmersleaving farms to occupy jobs in better-paying industrialized factories.<ref>’’Harvest of Loneliness: The Bracero Program’’. Films On Demand. 2010. Accessed May 21Cohen, 2016. http://fod.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=103120&xtid=43712.111</ref>
==Migrants Mexico was initially hesitant, owing to strained racist cultural relations that had been brewing through the 1930s. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 ultimately pushed Mexican leadership into providing workers for the United States as a way to actively contribute to the Allied war effort. The Mexican government also believed that participation in such a program would modernize their country, transforming it into a modern nation-state. Even so, before Mexico would enter into a cooperative labor program with the United States, the nation demanded that four major issues be addressed: # No Mexican workers would serve in the American military# Mexican workers would not be subject to discrimination# Mexican workers would be given transportation to and Scapegoats==from their jobs, would be provided with decent living conditions, and would be repatriated at the end of their contracts# Mexican workers would not be used to replace domestic servants or to reduce wage levels Those concerns were addressed, and the final agreement that established the bracero program was signed on August 4, 1942.<ref>Edward Kosack, “The Bracero Program and Effects on Human Capital Investments in Mexico, 1942–1964,” 2013, http://eh.net/eha/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Kosack.pdf</ref>
As ====Migrants and Scapegoats====<dh-ad/> Opponents of the Korean War came to the surface program in both nations raised concerns almost immediately. Labor unions in the 1950s, many U.S. citizens had once again felt United States argued that the ‘’illegal’’ migrants were getting out of control no significant wartime labor shortage existed and were therefore no justification for a threat to the Ularge continuing influx of migrant workers.S. economy in a volatile time. This time Mexico and Mexican laborers raised an issue with violations of the ‘repatriation’ had a nameagreement, including that American growers made Mexican workers pay for food, lodging, Operation Wetback. Under President Eisenhowerand tools, this operation would successfully deport over one million Mexican and Urequired them to perform tasks beyond those specified in their contracts.S. citizens Racism was also a common experience for the braceros, as was being paid wages that were far below levels required by 1954the program. <ref>Deborah Cohen, ‘’Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico’’, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 212-213.</ref> At this point, legislation had fallen through two years prior under President Truman, who tried to reinstate some kind of rights for the migrant workers. Unfortunately, the big agricultural companies and their lobbyists would thwart any efforts he had tried to make in order to come up with humane laws that the growers had to follow in order to keep migrant laborers safe and well-paid. <ref> See also Robert S. Robinson, “Taking The Fair Deal to the Fields: Truman's Commission on Migratory Labor, Public Law 78, and the Bracero Program, 1950–1952.” ‘’Agricultural History’’ 84, no. 3 (2010): 399. </ref>
The migrant worker population would further destroy Mexico’s economy because Regardless of mass migration out of Mexico complaints or violations, the program was renewed in 1947, with no money returningMexicans expanding their work to railroads. With Operation Wetback in full effect directly in the middle The agricultural aspects of the Bracero Programs existenceagreement were also renewed in 1951, during the simultaneous need for labor and need for scapegoats would not help Mexico’s situation economicallyKorean War. In Aware of the U.S. checkered history of the anti-Mexican sentiment would push migrant workers program, in the Southwest early 1950s President Harry S. Truman established a commission to organize for their rights with study the help of organizations such as the United Farm Workersagreement, evaluate complaints and violations, and suggest reforms. Any recommendations made by the United Cannerycommission were ignored, Agriculturalultimately, Packing, and Allied Workers because the program was economically popular among growers (because of America, cheap labor) and League of United Latin American Citizensconsumers (who paid lower prices for bracero-harvest crops). President John F. Such organizations were pivotal Kennedy finally ended the bracero program in creating 1964 after his commission determined (and convinced Congress) that the momentum for a larger Chicano Movement or ‘’El Movimiento’’ in agreement was negatively affecting wages, employment opportunities, and the Southwestworking conditions of domestic laborers.
==Conclusion== Bracero Program's Significance==== <div class="portal" style='float:right; width:35%'>
====Related Articles===={{#dpl:category=United States History|ordermethod=firstedit|order=descending|count=6}}</div>The Bracero Program is still a relatively unknown historical event. Needless to say, the program had major affects effects on both the Mexican economy and the U.S. agricultural business and immigration policies. Mexico would never truly recuperate from all of the migrants that were lost and the implementation of NAFTA only exacerbated the economic issues that it faced. Small farmers in Mexico would continuously have to compete with U.S. imported produce that was ironically being picked by Mexican migrant workers. Additionally, the U.S. would continuously rely on Mexican and Latin American migrant workers while calling for more border reinforcement. NAFTA would continuously allow products to flow through the border but would police the bodies that would cross. Finally, NAFTA would cause enormous job losses for U.S. citizens to new ‘’maquiladras’’ that would continue to flourish with the aid of the new trade agreement. <ref> Bill Ong Hing, ‘’Ethical Borders: NAFTA, Globalization, and Mexican Migration’’, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010), 5.</ref> Essentially, the Bracero Program is important for U.S. and Mexican history because it is a part of a larger pattern that the U.S. constantly involves itself in and only when we acknowledge this pattern can we begin to change the way that migrant labor is handled in the future.
Additionally, the United States would continuously rely on Mexican and Latin American migrant workers while calling for more border reinforcement. NAFTA would continuously allow products to flow through the border but would police the bodies that would cross. Finally, NAFTA would cause enormous job losses for U.S. citizens to new ‘’maquiladoras’’ that would continue to flourish with the aid of the new trade agreement.<ref> Bill Ong Hing, ‘’Ethical Borders: NAFTA, Globalization, and Mexican Migration’’, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010), 5.</ref> Essentially, the Bracero Program was a vital part of U.S. and Mexican history as part of a larger pattern of migrant labor practices, whether considered opportunity or exploitation; only when we acknowledge this pattern can we begin to change the way that migrant labor is handled in the future. ====References====
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