After the war, the program continued in agriculture until After the war, Mexican workers were restricted to agriculture, as U. Mexicans participated in the belief that becoming braceros temporarily would enable them to acquire additional skills and knowledge while earning higher wages than available in Mexico. In practice, many became trapped in cycles of working abroad for higher wages in harsh manual labor agricultural jobs in the United States.
The bracero program persisted until , despite its many problems, when labor and civil rights reformers successfully pressured for its termination. For the temporary migration of Mexican agricultural workers to the United States. Contracts must be written in Spanish. The Mexican health authorities will, at the place whence the worker comes, see that he meets the necessary physical conditions. Criticism of the Bracero program by unions, churches, and study groups persuaded the US Department of Labor to tighten wage and housing standards, thus increasing the cost of hiring Bracero workers and reducing the number employed.
Growers argued that they needed Braceros because American workers would not do seasonal farm work, and that the availability of Braceros kept agriculture competitive and food prices low. The CBS documentary "Harvest of Shame" aired in November , and the discussion of farm labor that followed convinced newly elected President Kennedy that Braceros were "adversely affecting the wages, working conditions, and employment opportunities of our own agricultural workers.
During the summer of , there was a showdown in Congress over the Bracero program. Farmers argued that without Braceros, fruit and vegetable production would shrink and food prices would rise.
On September 17, , 32 Braceros were killed and 27 injured when a bus taking them from the fields to their labor camp collided with a train in Chualar in the Salinas Valley. Their bodies were not claimed immediately, highlighting the lack of accountability that critics said was common in the Bracero program, and setting the stage for a decisive vote in Congress to end the Bracero program.
Many California farmers expected to employ Mexican workers under the H-2 changed to H-2A in temporary worker program used to import Caribbean workers to hand cut sugar cane in Florida and to harvest apples in the northeast. This was not a problem for the shorter seasons in the east, but California farmers who wanted to employ Mexican workers 11 months a year tried to transfer the authority to certify the need for H-2 workers from the US Department of Labor to the US Department of Agriculture.
The farmers' failed in the Senate in only because Vice-President Hubert Humphrey cast the deciding vote against the growers. The year was a "year of transition," as farmers adjusted to the end of the Bracero program. The number of US migrants, ,, reached a record 15 percent of the 3.
Some farmers joined or formed labor associations that generally increased labor market efficiency, as they reduced or stabilized labor costs and simultaneously increased average worker earnings. A second response to the end of the Bracero program was labor-saving mechanization. The s was a time of rapid technological change, a celebration of the accomplishments of engineers who were able, in the case of the cannery tomatoes used to make catsup, to work with plant scientists to develop a uniformly ripening tomato and with canneries to handle large volumes of machine-picked tomatoes.
The widespread replacement of workers with machines in the fields was expected to continue until there would be only machine operators, not hand harvesters. One study predicted that if a fruit or vegetable could not be harvested mechanically, it would not be grown in the United States after The third response to the end of the Bracero program was successful unionization.
There had been organizing efforts and farm labor strikes during the s and early s, but farmers were usually able to get their crops picked by borrowing Braceros from their neighbors. The strike failed, as table grape growers used labor contractors to get their grapes picked. However, Chavez mounted a boycott of the wine and liquor sold by conglomerates that also grew table grapes during the Christmas buying season in , and some consumers responded by shunning Schenley Industries products.
The UFW led a mile march from Delano to Sacramento in the spring of to highlight the grape dispute and, during the march, Schenley became the first table grape grower to sign an agreement with what became the United Farm Workers. The agreement raised wages 40 percent and launched a year golden era for California farm workers.
Between and , farm workers and their struggles were front page news, as churches, unions, students and politicians boycotted table grapes, lettuce and wine in support of the UFW and farm workers.
Over the two years of the operation, over 1. Between and , over a dozen strikes and work stoppages were staged, mainly in the Pacific Northwest, by braceros protesting racial discrimination, low wages, and poor working and living conditions. The most notable of these was the strike at the Blue Mountain Cannery in Dayton, Washington, during which Mexican braceros and Japanese American workers joined forces.
The U. Calling the order a case of racial discrimination, some Mexican braceros and Japanese American farm workers went on strike just as the pea harvest was about to begin. Concerned for the success of the critical harvest, local officials called for the U.
Two days later, the strike ended as the workers returned to the fields to complete a record pea harvest. Employers in the states adjoining the border from California to Texas found it easier to threaten braceros with deportation. Knowing they could be easily and quickly replaced, braceros in the Southwest were more likely to grudgingly accept lower wages and worse living and working conditions than those in the Northwest.
Throughout its year existence, the Bracero Program was besieged by accusations from civil rights and farm labor activists like Cesar Chavez that many braceros suffered gross mistreatment—sometimes bordering on enslavement—at the hands of their U.
Braceros complained of unsafe housing, overt racial discrimination, repeated disputes over unpaid wages, the absence of health care, and lack of representation. In some cases, workers were housed in converted barns or tents without running water or sanitary facilities. They were often herded on poorly maintained and unsafely driven buses and trucks to be taken to and from the fields.
In Mexico, the Catholic Church objected to the Bracero program because it disrupted of family life by separating husbands and wives; tempted the migrants to drink, gamble, and visit prostitutes; and exposed them to Protestant missionaries in the United States. Starting in , the American Catholic Church assigned priests to some bracero communities and engaged in outreach programs specifically for the migrant braceros.
When the Bracero Program ended in , American farmers complained to the government that the Mexican workers had done jobs that Americans refused to do and that their crops would rot in the fields without them. In response, U. Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz, on May 5, — ironically Cinco de Mayo , a Mexican holiday—announced a plan intended to replace at least some of the hundreds of thousands of Mexican farm workers with healthy young Americans.
Called the A-TEAM, an acronym for Athletes in Temporary Employment as Agricultural Manpower, the plan called for the recruitment of up to 20, male American high school athletes to work on farms in California and Texas during summer harvest seasons. Citing the farm labor shortage and the lack of part-time jobs for high school students, Sec.
They are entitled to a chance at it. However, as the farmers had predicted, fewer than 3, A-TEAM recruits ever signed up to work their fields, and many of them soon quit or went on strike complaining of the back-breaking nature of harvesting ground-growing crops, the oppressive heat, low pay, and poor living conditions.
The story of the Bracero Program is one of struggle and success. While many bracero workers suffered severe exploitation and discrimination, their experiences would contribute to lasting positive impacts on U. American farmers quickly adjusted to the end of the Bracero Program, as by the end of , some , migrants made up a record 15 percent of the 3.
Many U.
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