The Bracero Program: Migrant Workers in America Documentary Part 2 (1959)

In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, over 500,000 Mexican Americans were deported or pressured to leave, during the Mexican Repatriation. There were thus fewer Mexican Americans available when labor demand returned with World War II.

The Bracero Program was initially prompted by a demand for manual labor during World War II, and begun with the U.S. government bringing in a few hundred experienced Mexican agricultural laborers to harvest sugar beets in the Stockton, California area. The program soon spread to cover most of the United States and provided workers for the agriculture labor market (with the notable exception was Texas, who initially opted out of the program in preference of an "open border" policy, and were denied braceros by the Mexican government until 1947 due to perceived mistreatment of Mexican laborers). 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 75,000 braceros working in the U.S. railroad system and 50,000 braceros working in U.S. agriculture at any one time.
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 10 percent mandatory 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 field working braceros never received their savings, however most railroad working braceros did. 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. Today, it is stipulated that ex-braceros can receive up to $3,500.00 as compensation for the 10% only by supplying check stubs or contracts proving they were part of the program during 1942 to 1948. It is estimated that, with interest accumulated, $500,000,000.00 (five hundred million) is owed to ex-braceros, who continue to fight to receive the money owed to them.
thefilmarchive http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/2010/11/why-braceros-1959.html

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[JohnB5304]

The Braceros deserve their money. If they are not alive now their decendants should get the money plus interest.