Ronald Mize - The U.S.-Mexico Bracero Program, 1942–1964

The front cover shows the text U S History at the top, The U S - Mexico Bracero Program, 1942 - 1964," at the center, and the authors name, Ronald Mize, and Bedford Document Collections at the bottom.

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Bedford Document Collections

Ronald L. Mize, Oregon State University

How did the nations first and largest guestworker program establish the context for the U.S. treatment of Mexican labor migrants?

In this unit you will learn about the U.S.Mexico Bracero program and the experiences of those who labored within it. You will work with primary sources that document the history of this guestworker program from the very different vantage points of all the major players. By analyzing texts and images with such distinct perspectives, you will gain an understanding of how historians interpret, assess, and contextualize primary sources. This unit will also add to your understanding of the experiences of racialized groups in the United States and of the present in a historically based context.

Bracero is a Spanish term that refers to one who works with their arms, though a common colloquial translation would be field hand. Bracero also refers to the binational agreement between the federal governments of Mexico and the United States from 1942 to 1964, known as the Bracero Program. It was the first formal and largest guestworker program in history. (An earlier temporary immigration practice brought Mexican laborers into the United States during World War I, but it was never formally sanctioned by either government.) The binational agreement was designed to meet U.S. labor needs by creating a legal arrangement that covered the existing flow of undocumented migrants from major sending areas in Mexico in addition to encouraging new migrants from other parts of the country. The program operated where developed and developing worlds came together, along the U.S.Mexico border, but its reach and impact spread across most of North America, including thirty U.S. states. Operating under various U.S. federal agencies (including Labor, Agriculture, Immigration and Naturalization Service, State Department, and War Manpower Commission), the program employed between 2 and 3 million men who together signed 4.5 million individual work contracts. During World War II, the Bracero Program included both agricultural and railroad laborers, but it continued beyond its wartime labor relief function, at agricultural growers behest, until 1964. A variation of the program continues today under the H-2A temporary visa program and has even extended between Mexico and Canada with the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP).

The Bracero Program began on August 4, 1942, with the arrival of 500 Mexican farm workers at the Stockton, California, Livestock Pavilion. Southwestern agricultural growers had pushed the U.S. government to recruit foreign laborers since many American workers had been drafted. The agreement, negotiated between the federal governments of Mexico and the United States, outlined the general provisions that would come to define the programs 22-year existence. (Excerpts from this document are included in this unit.) Under many of the same agreement guidelines, though utilizing different administrative channels, nine months later the U.S. railroad industry was allowed to bring in Mexican laborers to meet wartime shortages.

As part of the Braceros program agreement, a mandatory savings fund was established from Braceros paychecks, at a rate of 10 percent, withdrawn by Wells Fargo Bank and deposited into accounts in Banco de Crdito Agrcola, to be collected by the Braceros in Mexico upon their return. What happened next is still a source of controversy, but many men found that their money had disappeared upon return to Mexico. The entire rural banking system (BANRURAL) was dissolved and liquidated in 2002, effectively ending any financial claims made by ex-Braceros. Even though the Mexican government offered cash payments to ex-Braceros in 2007, no party has accepted culpability for any missing savings.

While the Bracero Program was operating at its height, the Immigration and Naturalization Service orchestrated a public relations campaign that stoked fears of undocumented migration and an economic recession. The resulting deportation campaign, derisively named Operation Wetback, resulted in over one million people being deported in 1954. Overall, the Bracero Program resulted in the widespread exploitation of Mexican laborers across the United States and established the precedent for how immigrant agricultural workers would be treated in the United States.