1959 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000KK2T68?ie=UTF8&tag=doc06-20&link... Watch the full film: http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/2010/11/why-braceros-1959.html
Even though the United States had made use of migrant Mexican labor in its agricultural sector since the early 1900s, such labor tended to be both migratory and seasonal with many workers returning back to Mexico in the winter. The situation changed with the involvement of the United States in WWII that created a massive labor shortage in all sectors of the economy with the withdrawal of much of the nation's active labor force into the various armed services. The extreme labor shortage forced a change in immigration policy for the United States that resulted in development of the Bracero Program in conjunction with Mexico. The Bracero Program was a guest worker program that ran between the years of 1942 and 1964. Over the twenty-two year period, The Mexican Farm Labor Program, informally known as the Bracero Program, sponsored some 4.5 million border crossings of guest workers from Mexico (some among these representing repeat visits by returned braceros).
The growing realization among businesses was that provisions within the program ensured an increase of costs for the imported labor. The program mandated a certain level of wages, housing, food and medical care for the workers (to be paid for by the employers) that kept the standard of living above what many had in Mexico. Not only did this enable many to send funds home to their families, but it also had the unintended effect of encouraging illegal immigration when the USA's workers quotas were met. These new illegal workers could not be employed "above the table" as part of the program leaving them open for exploitation. This resulted in the lowering of wages and not receiving the benefits that the Mexican government had negotiated to insure their legal workers well being under the bracero program. This in turn, had the effect of eroding support for the program in the agricultural sector for the legal importation of workers from Mexico in favor of hiring Illegal immigrants to reduce overhead costs. The advantages of hiring illegal workers were that they were willing to work for lower wages, without support, health coverage or in many cases legal means to address abuses by the employers for fear of deportation. Nevertheless, conditions for the poor and unemployed within Mexico were such that illegal employment was attractive enough to motivate many to leave in search of work within the United States illegally, even if that directly competed with the legal workers within the bracero program leading to its discontinuation.
Labor unions which tried to organize agricultural workers after WWII targeted the Bracero program as a key impediment to improving the wages of domestic farm workers. These unions included the National Farm Laborers Union (NFLU), later called the National Agricultural Workers Union (NAWU), headed by Ernesto Galarza, and the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), AFL-CIO. During his tenure with the Community Service Organization, César Chávez was given a grant by the AWOC to organize in Oxnard, California which culminated in a protest of domestic U.S. agricultural workers of the U.S. Department of Labor's administration of the program. In January 1961, in an effort to publicize the effects of bracero labor on labor standards, the AWOC led a strike of lettuce workers at 18 farms in the Imperial Valley, an agricultural region on the California-Mexico border and a major destination for braceros.
The end of the Bracero program in 1964 was followed by the rise to prominence of the United Farm Workers, and the subsequent transformation of American migrant labor under the leadership of César Chávez. Dolores Huerta was also a leader and early organizer of the United Farm Workers. According to Manuel Garcia y Griego, a political scientist and author of The Importation of Mexican Contract Laborers to the United States 1942-1964, the Contract-Labor Program "left an important legacy for the economies, migration patterns, and politics of the United States and Mexico."
The guest worker program continued until 1964.
Cultural references * Woody Guthrie's poem Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos), set to music by Martin Hoffman, commemorates the deaths of 28 braceros being repatriated to Mexico in January 1948. The song has been recorded by dozens of prominent folk artists. * Protest singer Phil Ochs's song, "Bracero", focuses on the exploitation of the Mexican workers in the program. * A minor character in the classic 1948 Mexican film Nosotros los pobres wants to become a bracero. * The 1949 film Border Incident looks at the problem. * Tom Lehrer's song about George Murphy
Loading...
10:15
The Bracero Program: Tales from the fieldby starbabe06402,232 views
When Americans go shopping, we cannot afford to buy and eat fresh fruit and vegetables. No one talks about the fact that large farms are owned by CORPORATIONS. Just to buy an apple is $1.00 in most stores. Buying sour grapes can cost you $4 a pound. Buying one bell pepper can cost you $2.00. The answer is obvious that these farmers are making such a PROFIT from using these illegals, that they don't want to hire legal Americans. Farmers pay illegals $3-4/hour. Minimum wage is $12/13 hr.
MsPamAnn 5 months ago