The bracero program began in 1942 and ended in 1964, it was a program made from a series of laws and diplomatic agreements. This program allowed Mexican men to come to the United States and work on short term labor contracts. These contracts could last anywhere from six months to twelve months at a time. While learning about the Bracero Program in elementary school, I learned that a lot of the history behind the program was presented really briefly and we never went in depth. For this project, I wanted to make sure I was searching more deeply into the history behind this program and focused on both the economic and personal changes made during the duration of it. One main question I focused on throughout the project was, what economic changes were created as a result of the bracero program to both Mexico and the United States?
When looking through a variety of sources, I came to my conclusion and believed that the United States decided to provide jobs for the Mexican men not only because of the proximity to the country but also because of cheap labor and because they would be able to benefit off of the work done by braceros in a few different ways like charging them in order to receive a contract to enter the country. I will be utilizing three secondary sources to explain the history and to explain how the bracero program shaped today’s views on immigration. I decided to use Kathryn Kopinak’s article, Consuming Mexican Labor: From the Bracero Program to NAFTA, which was published by the Canadian Journal of Sociology because it gave me a perspective on the economic aspect of the bracero program and because it goes into detail about the organization of the program. The second source I will be using is an article by Susan Green named, Braceros:Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico, which uses Deborah Cohen’s book as a way to highlight the way the bracero program has been seen either as an exploitation or an opportunity. Lastly, I will be using Natalia Molina’s article named, Borders, Laborers, and Racialized Medicalization Mexican Immigration and US Public Health Practices in the 20th Century, which offers a different perspective compared to the other authors. She shines her focus on public health and the ways that the bracero program has had an influence on diagnosis throughout history.
Kathryn Kopinak wrote, Consuming Mexican Labor: From the Bracero Program to NAFTA, it is a book that shines light on North American consumption patterns and how they shape Mexican immigrant labor in terms of goods and services. In this book, they made it a goal to emphasize some problems immigrant workers find themselves in due to the exploitation of workers and the overconsumption of products all over the world. The main argument was that in the current era of global capital accumulation, the consumption of U.S. and Canadian Canadian citizens is based on the marginalization and exploitation of immigrant labor. Kathryn Kopinak is a Professor of Sociology with a focus on researching the impact of gender and maquiladora employment on labor migration from Mexico to the U.S. This is relevant because as we do research we need to make sure we are using credible sources in order to receive the correct information. Kopinak is someone with an enormous amount of knowledge relating to the labor migration which is beneficial because she is credible. While reading her article, I didn’t see anything bias or any assumptions made which was great because it was all factual. Kopinak provided access to facts about the program and it was one of the biggest strengths this article had.
As mentioned above, I also used Susan M. Green’s article named, Braceros:Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico. In this article, Green uses Deborah Cohen’s book as a way to create emphasis on the way that the bracero program was seen as either exploitation or opportunity. This article was a little more different than Kopinaks because it spoke about the program and the way that it came with expectations, rationalized agendas of nations, and interest groups. This article also provided insight to the braceros experience and it mentioned that maybe they were hoping to gain financial stability or they were just trying to raise money for their families back in Mexico. Green was able to provide us with a new perspective which allowed us to erase any bias in relation to information we had heard before. Some evidence used through the article were the percentages of food production during this time which allowed us to see the way the nation was being changed by the braceros working in agriculture.
Overall these three sources provided different perspectives on the bracero program. There are many different factors that play a role in the way that our society views certain people. As mentioned before, both economies were affected by the bracero program but we are able to see the difference in the transformation between both countries by the way that its citizens were treated and by the way that they are being portrayed today. Something that stood out to me about these articles is that they focus on different aspects but they all correlate with one another because we can clearly see the negative effects that this program had on the Mexican population in terms of portrayment. After looking through documents and reading a little bit more about this program, I learned that it was a program that created some benefits for braceros but they didn’t last long because they had been getting taken advantage of and in the end, this program became related to negative experiences.
The last secondary source I utilized throughout my research was an article written by Natalia Molina, named, Borders, Laborers, and Racialized Medicalization Mexican Immigration and US Public Health Practices in the 20th Century. This article provided new perspectives in relation to public health, she goes on to speak about three major historical episodes, one of them being the bracero program, and their influence on a diagnosis. She mentions that in history there has been a correlation between a person’s race and the diagnosis they would receive when they went to get medical treatment. Although there was this correlation between race and diagnosis, this caused professionals to also see the way that other structures and factors needed some focus. Poor working conditions and structural inequalities were big in healthcare and they were the ones treating braceros who worked in agriculture and railroads which caused sickness. Molina says, “Negative representations of Mexicans as disease carriers and health burdens shaped the programs, policies, and practices of immigration and health agencies” Molina states that the past has shaped the way today’s society views immigrants but in this case, more specifically, Mexicans. This article provided me with new information about the healthcare system and its influence on our economy as a whole because it ultimately shaped our views or certain people today. This article did a great job in providing new information about the correlation between healthcare and policies.
Sources
- Green, Susan Marie. “Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico.” Read.dukeupress.edu, n.d. https://read.dukeupress.edu/hahr/article/94/1/163/10965/Braceros-Migrant-Citizens-and-Transnational.
- Kopinak, Kathryn. “Consuming Mexican Labor: From the Bracero Program to NAFTA by Ronald L.Mize and Alicia C.S. Swords.” The Canadian Journal of Sociology. No.4 (2011): 411-413. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/canajsocicahican.36.4.411.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A0743e8cd4fae3055b4c64f78f2e8a723&ab_segments=&origin=&acceptTC=1
- Molina, Natalia. “Borders, Laborers, and Racialized Medicalization Mexican Immigration and US Public Health Practices in the 20th Century.” American journal of public health. U.S. National Library of Medicine, June 2011. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3093266/.