why was the bracero program bad
In 1951, the Bracero Program brings an annual average of 350.000 Mexican workers to work in the United States. The bracero program is now widely believed to have contributed greatly to patterns of unauthorized immigration to the United States from Mexico. Participants of the Bracero Program “were often subjected to humiliating exams and bureaucratic procedures” (Smithsonian They were told to strip and were sprayed with the pesticide DDT as they passed through the stations they were herded through. For example, the “Battle for Work” photograph shows hundreds of Mexican workers waiting at the border to be selected for the Bracero Program. After the bracero program was dismantled in 1964, foreign workers could still be imported for agricultural work under the H-2 sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Pages 8 This preview shows page 7 - 8 out of 8 pages. The Bracero Program officially named the Labor Importation Program, was created for straightforward economic reasons. The Bracero Program was questionable in now is the ideal time. The bracero workers are an interesting group of people. Mexican men who participated in the Bracero Program traveled to border cities, where they presented their credentials, signed labor contracts, and underwent a medical examination. By the end of 1944, more than 80,000 men had been contracted to work on the railroads, having undergone the same recruiting procedures as those braceros destined to work on farms. The role of the Bracero Program In 1942, the U.S. government, with the cooperation of the Mexican government, enacted the Bracero Program, which allowed short-term contract labourers from Mexico, known as braceros , to work legally in the United States . The Bracero program, an informal arrangement between the United States and Mexican governments, became Public Law 78 in 1951. In 1942, the U.S. and Mexico jointly created the bracero, or laborer, program, which encouraged Mexicans to come to the U.S. as contract workers. The jobs they had were backbreaking work. The Bracero Program created informal networks of labor migration from Mexico to the United States, and many former braceros circumvented the program and made their way back to their previous places of employment or elsewhere in the states. In so doing, she uses a wealth of materials seldom used by investigators of the bracero program, and also provides a clearer picture of the internal workings of the bracero program in Mexico than any other study produced to date. School Skyline High School; Course Title HISTORY 39W; Type. Admissions peaked at 62,000 in 1944, meaning that less than 2 percent of the 4 million U.S. hired workers were Braceros. During World War II (WWII), another labor shortage creates the Bracero Program (in 1942) How many workers came to the U.S. through Bracero? However, the program kept going any longer than foreseen. About. Most analyses conclude that the Mexican government had the most influence over Bracero programs in their first years, before networks developed that enabled Mexicans to migrate to the US on their own. The wartime Bracero program ended in 1947, and many Mexican workers elected to … Over those 22 years, 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 Growers have a very great deal of money. While some two million Mexican nationals took part in the Bracero Program, disagreements and tensions over its effectiveness and enforcement would lead to the implementation of Operation Wetback in 1954. New recruitment for work on the railroads was suspended in August 1945 (Bracero timeline, 2002). In 1951, after almost 10 years in presence, worries about creation and the U.S. section into the Korean clash drove Congress to formalize the Bracero Program with Public Law 78. Even though many men were exploited and subjected to inhumane conditions some men that passed through the program likely benefited from it and were able to avoid these bad places. The larger-scale Bracero Program was designed to guarantee more protections for Mexican workers, including ninety-day contracts, housing, food, and medical care. At some point, the people trying to organize the farm workers put a lot of pressure on the Government to end that Bracero Program. The program came to an end in 1964 in part because of concerns about abuses of the program and the treatment of the Bracero workers. For USC women, largest-ever … The bracero program was a bad idea the first time around; it remains a bad idea. Lastly the article depicts how the Bracero Program was ideally supposed to be operated but unfortunately this was not what with the program. Current debates about immigration policy-including discussions about a new guest worker program-have put the program back in the news and made it all the more important to understand this chapter of American history.