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“Amazing!? All these years of working with Mexicans who come up on work visas and I never realized we needed a “guest worker” program.”

California had a “guest worker program” in the 1950’s and 60’s. When a few Blacks made it into our legislature, they claimed that the Mexicans who came here under that program were “taking their jobs.” So the program was terminated. Just drove across the Salinas Valley last week at 6am. The “commute” to the fields was in full swing. No Blacks, but most of the Mexican Farm Workers were driving new cars! It’s back-breaking work, something that Blacks decided wasn’t for them years ago.

California did not have a guest worker program in 50s and 60s.

The United States had the Bracero program in the 1940s because the Americans were drafted for World War II.

But they were supposed to leave when the war was over. Their money was kept in a special account...in Mexico.

The farmworkers before them were mostly white, many from the South. Migrant workers used to be from Oklahoma....you also recall. Watsonville in 1950 was 90% white.

But life in the US was far better than Mexico. So many of them simply didnt go home.

This what led to Operation Wetback in 1954. It only took about 500,000 actual deportations and then the other 1.5 million went home on their own.

But the seed had been planted. Once the 60s rebellion got started, the remaining legals and illegals decided to take advantage of the situation to agitate for themselves and their relatives back home. Strength in numbers and the gringos started to show weakness.

It led directly where we are today.

There have always been guest worker programs since the beginning of immigration laws in the US. We have had H2A visas for decades. The A stands for agriculture. We dont need a program, we have always had one.

Its all BS. What is happening now is immivasion, complete anarchy.

PS when they got home, many were paid a fraction of what they were owed. The Mexican government and the bankers stole the rest.

“Guest Worker” (Brazeros) began in WWI when most of our men were at war in Europe. Along came WWII and the Brazeros program was used again. The farms needed tending and the Mexicans were more than happy to help out for dollars. Word got out about life in America and spread among the villages (mostly inhabited by mixed Indian people). Pappa came here to work, and we hired him. He’d go home at Christmas and sometimes bring his family back....and that is how the trickling stream of Mexicans became a flood.