Posted on 10/15/2010 1:33:29 AM PDT by thecodont
Antonio Nuño Gonzalez stood in line in Mexico and waited for his papers to come to the United States.
Eventually he was packed into a cattle car with other men for the trip north. After crossing the border, he was sprayed with DDT and stripped naked for a physical examination so thorough he's still making ribald jokes about it more than 50 years later.
It was all worth it for the chance to do back-breaking work — picking cotton, strawberries, lettuce and other California crops, from the desert heat of Brawley to the verdant coastal valley of Watsonville.
His American employers housed him with hundreds of others in barracks, but provided three daily meals.
"My belly was full," Nuño said. "Eating! That was the profit I got out of it." For a man who'd known hunger in his drought-stricken Mexican village, that was plenty.
Nuño was a "bracero," a word derived from the Spanish word for arm, brazo, and the name given to temporary workers contracted from Mexico in the 1940s, '50s and '60s.
Launched during the labor shortages of World War II, the bracero program led to 4.6 million legal border crossings of temporary workers to the United States. Complaints by labor unions and others about braceros lowering wages for Americans helped bring the program to an end in 1964.
The story of the braceros is an American epic. And it's an especially important chapter in the history of Ventura County, whose fields and orchards received more of the laborers than in any other county in the United States.
In Ventura County today, thousands of families trace their roots to a bracero. Oxnard was home to the Buena Vista bracero camp, the largest in the nation, which at its peak housed 5,000 workers.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
There must be a reparations angle here
The bracero program ended in 1964, wasn’t that about the time that Ted Kennedy introduced some legislation about allowing in more migrant labor? And isn’t this about the time Cesar Chavez started organizing the United Farm Workers?
Mr. Tobar has an agenda.
“The growers did abuse these people, and so deserved getting the union formed.”
True; then the unions abused the employers, and so deserved being replaced by machines.
Yes, correct. This article seems to be clouding the line between illegal alienism and temporary work program
And, even when someone mentions “Temporary Worker” or “Guest Worker”....that is code for “Amnesty”. With high unemployment all around the USA...there is no need for any guest workers....any mention of a “Guest Worker Program” is Amnesty
If you are not willing to seal the border, deport 100% of all Illegal Aliens, and end NAFTA...you support Illegal Alien Amnesty
There was no WWII labor shortage in Mexico because they supplied practically no personnel for the war effort.
I have said on FR before that a brocero type program in which labor companies would bring in agriculture workers for a season, then take them home. It worked well before. There may have been a few who walked away but I don't recall any,
The bracero program was a victim of its own success. Bracero contractors were responsible for the conduct of the bracero workers and to provide the basics of food, transportation, housing and medical care. Not saying there weren’t abuses or practices such as mass delousing — there were—but it was a different era.
Ultimately the bracero program was a victim of its own success. Braceros were getting green cards for permanent worker status and performing other jobs than stoop labor. The Kennedy administration killed it at the demand of the unions although there weren’t many union men wanting to do stoop labor in the fields.
A modernized and well-regulated bracero program would be a good way to handle the issue of immigrant labor.
Ping!
True; then the unions abused the employers, and so deserved being replaced by machines.
You logic is impeccable, it would appear.
Thanks; that was one of my way-too-early-in-the-morning rants...
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