BITTERSWEET HARVEST: THE BRACERO PROGRAM, 1942-1964
Suggested Discussion Questions and Some Extra Context for Facilitators
For introductions and ice breakers:
Facilitators can ask people to introduce themselves and share one detail about their own
migration history or the history of their ancestors.
Throughout the discussion, facilitators can encourage people to share their personal
experiences with immigrant workers and/or friends (of various statuses).
Guest Worker Programs Then and Now
Who is going to work in agriculture in the future and under what conditions?
What lessons can we learn from the past?
What policies for agricultural workers and/or guest workers are in place now?
What polices do you think should be implemented in the future?
Deeper questions:
What does it mean for American society to continually have a group (or groups) of people who
are granted the right to work here temporarily (as “authorized workers,” or as “undocumented
workers”) and then are expected to return to their own country (or countries)?
What does it mean for Mexico to have a large portion of its working-age adults emigrating?
What does it mean for the U.S. and for Mexico that jobs (for domestic workers as well as
immigrant workers) seem to be becoming increasingly temporary, subcontracted, and/or are
providing less worker benefits, such as health care, paid vacations, and retirement, and less
worker protections, such as having rights to organize and expect safe working conditions?
The Image of Mexican Immigrants as “Hard Workers” Then and Now
What images do we have of agricultural workers? “unskilled” or low-wage workers?
Mexican (and other Latino) immigrants? undocumented immigrants?
How are those images (and stereotypes) affecting workplaces and policy making?
Deeper questions:
How do Latinos (and Asian Americans and others) fit into race relations in the South that
historically were divided among whites and blacks?
What about the question of labor competition?
How do people get along at work and during everyday life? (Ethnographic accounts and
everyday experiences suggest that there are tensions as well as collaboration between Latinos
and whites, and Latinos and blacks.)
How has agriculture and food production been changing in the United States in the last 30-50
years? (There has been a shift from small to large farms. Beef and pork processing shifted from
large cities to rural areas in the Midwest and South. Chicken consumption and processing has
expanded dramatically, especially in the South. These industries have been employing
immigrant workers. Much more of our food dollar goes to processors now than to producers.)
BITTERSWEET HARVEST: THE BRACERO PROGRAM, 1942-1964, Context for Facilitators
Provided by De Ann Pendry, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer, Anthropology, University of Tennessee-Knoxville
Many people are unaware that the United States has been actively recruiting and
deporting Mexican labor (in relation to fluctuations in the economy) since the late 1800s. In
the late 1800s and early 1900s Mexicans were recruited for jobs in agriculture, mining, and
railroads (especially track maintenance). Many of these jobs were temporary (or boom and
bust) and/or migratory and were often located in rural areas. Early migration was
concentrated in the Southwest, but not exclusively. The 1930 census, for example, shows that
Mexican immigrants were living in every state, including a few in Tennessee. Labor was
recruited for mining in Arizona (and paid at rates that were half of the Anglo wages), for sugar
beets in Colorado and Nebraska in 1909, for the first “bracero” program during WWI, and then
there were mass deportations during the Depression. Dam construction made large-scale
agriculture possible in places like California, Arizona, and Texas. Recruiters or “enganchistas”
would hire crews, so employers often did not deal directly with workers. There were abuses
associated with this system. The Border Patrol was set up in 1924, along with the Quota Laws.
The 1924 quotas did not apply to Mexicans, Canadians, and other residents of the America’s.
(The U.S. needed the labor.)
All of this preceded the Bracero Program. The Mexican government, in particular, was
interested in trying to cut out abuses by recruiters and U.S. discrimination against Mexicans
(such as Jim Crow laws applied to Mexicans, especially in Texas). As they say in Spanish, entre el
dicho y el hecho hay gran trecho; there is a great gap between what is said and what is done.
The Bracero Program was supposed to ensure that workers would not displace domestic
workers and would be paid the prevailing wage, but growers’ requests for workers were
generally rubber stamped (and increased after the end of WWII), grower associations
determined the prevailing wage, and wage short-changing was not uncommon. The program
was supposed to ensure adequate housing and food, but those were often less than desirable,
and workers were charged fees for various items. The Mexican government insisted on men
only, which created camp environments that involved spending wages on drinking, prostitution,
and gambling. During the war years, 10% of the workers’ salaries were deducted and
presumably held in bank accounts for them to receive on return (which was intended to ensure
their return), however most never received the money, and it likely went into the pockets of
Mexican officials. In 2007 some surviving braceros finally managed to win a law suit against the
Mexican government and received token compensations for those pay deductions. The
Mexican government retained the right (which weakened over time) to sanction regions or
growers. For example, they initially refused to allow workers to go to Texas (given its history)
and later sanctioned growers in delta region of Arkansas (due to discriminatory practices).
Many growers initially resisted participating. Consequently, in Texas in particular, several
instances occurred where the growers encouraged undocumented migration (because there
were less regulations and it created competition among workers). In an effort to convince
growers to participate in the Bracero Program, INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service,
now known as ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement) would arrest the undocumented
workers, take them to the border, convert them into braceros, and then take them back to the
work sites. Another theme that emerges in the literature (and is documented by Calavita) is the
way that INS and the executive branch often implemented policy changes (that would change
enforcement or the status of workers), which would eventually be approved by Congress.
Manuel García y Griego outlines the history of three phases of the Bracero Program:
1942-1946, the WWII years, which included contracts for railroad workers; 1947-1954 which he
calls the “turbulent years” because this included “Operation Wetback,” which was deporting
large numbers of undocumented migrants and then re-importing many as braceros; and 19551964 as the apogee and demise. He notes three trends: the Mexican government’s ability to
negotiate working conditions for the contracts weakened over time while various levels of the
U.S. government began making more unilateral decisions; the power of growers increased; and
the numbers of braceros dramatically increased during the last two phases of the program (so
much so that the war years only constituted 7% of the total number of contracts issued). Luis
Plascencia, who is currently writing an article about the historical precedents leading up to the
Bracero Program, has very high regard for the article by García y Griego (which was based on
his doctoral dissertation). Galarza wrote the first major critique. Another major sociological
study of the Bracero Program was conducted by Henry Anderson. As Gonzalez discusses, his
career was cut short by the University of California as a result. Calavita’s policy analysis is
frequently cited by scholars. Herrera-Sobek’s composite story is based on 16 men from her
grandfather’s hometown in Michoacán. Cohen interviewed braceros living in Durango. For
other further reading, beyond the sources listed for discussion participants, Driscoll describes
conditions for the railroad workers, and Gamboa focuses on bracero experiences in the Pacific
Northwest. Another overview of Mexican labor that is helpful and recent is Mark OvermeyerVelásquez’s edited volume.
Likewise, many people are not aware that the U.S. has had guest worker programs in
place since the Bracero Program. The H-2 program was implemented at the same time as the
Bracero Program and initially focused on recruiting Caribbean workers to work on the East
Coast agricultural migratory circuit, and then continued to operate after the Bracero program
ended, and began to include Mexican workers as well. In 1986 (with the IRCA reforms), it was
reformulated at H2-A (for agriculture), H2-B (for other temporary workers), and H1-B
(temporary visas for professionals). Kretsedemas’ work is interesting, precisely because he
focuses on who the U.S. is allowing to migrate, and he discusses the increasing trend towards
issuing temporary work visas of various types. He also observes that professional temporary
workers have pathways to lawful permanent residency, whereas agricultural workers have
been restricted from those pathways (except during the 1986 reforms). Griffith provides
ethnographic accounts of several temporary visa programs in Florida, South Carolina, North
Carolina, Virginia, and New York, including women working in seafood processing. In
Tennessee, the mushroom plant in Lenoir City has been using H2-A, the ski lodge in Gatlinburg
hires temporary immigrant workers, and there are undoubtedly other examples. As I suggested
above, one possibility for discussion is to ask people to share their personal experiences with
immigrant workers.
Douglas Massey and his colleagues lay out the dynamics that have led to our current
situation with approximately 11 million undocumented people. As they argue, networks
between workers and employers that were put in place during the Bracero Program (if not
before) continued to sustain undocumented migration after the Bracero Program was
terminated. Subsequently, employers in the Southeast in agriculture, meat processing, chicken
processing and other areas have established similar networks. Fink describes the history of
these processes quite well for Guatemalans, who initially were recruited by a company official
who visited Indiantown, Florida, where they were working in agriculture, and asked them to
work in chicken processing in Morganton, North Carolina. Fink also describes how many of
these workers eventually decided to join a labor union. In addition to the volume edited by
Ansley and Shefner, other volumes with articles about migration to the Southeast include those
edited by Massey and Odem and Lacy. In addition to the ethnographies by Gill, GombergMuñoz, and Marquardt et al. on the discussion list, I recommend Striffler’s Chicken and
Zlolniski’s ethnography on janitors in San Jose, California. Students in my undergraduate
classes have enjoyed reading all five of these, and Zlolniski’s book was a runner-up for the
annual Latina and Latino Anthropology Association book award.
Additional Bibliography for Facilitators:
Manuel García y Griego (1983) “The Importation of Mexican Contract Laborers to the United
States, 1924-1964: Antecedents, Operation, and Legacy,” in Peter G. Brown and Henry Shue,
eds. The Border That Joins, also reprinted in David G. Gutiérrez (1996) Between Two Worlds.
Henry Anderson (1976) The Bracero Program in California.
Erasmo Gamboa (1990) Mexican Labor and World War II: Braceros in the Pacific Northwest,
1942-1947.
Barbara A. Driscoll (1999) The Tracks North: The Railroad Bracero Program of World War II.
Mark Overmeyer-Velásquez, ed. (2011) Beyond La Frontera: The History of Mexico-U.S.
Migration. Includes article by Michael Snodgrass, “The Bracero Program, 1942-1964.”
Douglas S. Massey, Jorge Durand, and Nolan J. Malone (2002) Beyond Smoke and Mirrors.
Douglas S. Massey, ed. (2008) New Faces in New Places.
Leon Fink (2004) The Maya of Morganton.
Mary E. Odem and Elaine Lacy, eds. (2009) Latino Immigrants and the Transformation of the
U.S. South.
Steve Striffler (2005) Chicken.
Christian Zlolniski (2006) Janitors, Street Vendors, and Activists: The Lives of Mexican
Immigrants in Silicon Valley.