An eleventh grade assignment for Spanish or Global Studies, probably the latter. It's about one of the pesky little human rights abuses in U.S. history that Americans don't like to remember.
Los Braceros
By C. Randall Nicholson
United States Department of Labor
July 17, 1956
During World War II, sixteen million Americans left their homes to fight the Axis powers. This was a necessity for saving the world but left a severe shortage of farm workers on the home front, which quickly became a cause for alarm. Fortunately Mexico was not involved in the war effort and the United States was able to negotiate with them a program whereby their citizens were allowed to come and work here. They were called “braceros” because they work with their "brazos", arms; and although the war is long over they still work in the United States and are in fact central to our agricultural economy. Following various complaints my companion Leonard Nadel and I have been called on to investigate the conditions existing today in this program, and some of our findings gave much cause for alarm.
Perhaps most shocking of all is how the Mexicans are treated when they first arrive. Immediately after crossing the bridge from Mexico at Hidalgo, Texas for instance, they are herded by the hundred into makeshift booths like cattle. Here, to prevent the spread of diseases and such that they may have brought with them, they are fumigated with DDT. Now, I am aware that research as to the toxic and deadly nature of DDT is inconclusive as of yet, but the man doing the spraying, as you will see in Leonard’s enclosed photograph, wore a mask. The implication? Obviously he would not wish to get a faceful of the stuff himself and therefore the workers are undergoing substandard treatment from the start. There may not be a pertinent passage in the bracero agreement for this situation, but I think we are talking basic human rights violation here.
The workers’ homes in Mexico often consist of only two rooms, although families may contain nine or more people. This is a pity, of course, but it has been thrust upon them by financial necessity; in contrast, the much worse conditions imposed on them in our country are hardly called for. As many as 200 braceros may be housed in the same building, in rows of stretched canvas beds stacked two high and each barely wide enough to hold a man. Leonard has pointed out that this is the probable cause for such high incidences of respiratory illnesses among them. This certainly does not conform to the original bracero agreement, which clearly states "The Mexican workers will be furnished without cost to them with hygienic lodgings, adequate to the physical conditions of the region of a type used by a common laborer of the region and the medical and sanitary services enjoyed also without cost to them will be identical with those furnished to the other agricultural workers in the regions where they may lend their services."
The working conditions are hardly any better. One of the worst jobs in many opinions seems to be thinning and hoeing in the half-mile long fields. For some reason, the workers are forced to use short-handled hoes. This may be a cost-cutting enterprise of some sort but to me it smacks of nothing less than deliberate cruelty. Obviously, the result of this is that the hoers have no choice but to bend over, and get up, and bend over, and get up, and so on and so forth all day. This is very painful on the back, and yes they could bend with their knees but that would merely shift the focus of pain. Those we interviewed also complained of hard ground and resulting calluses. Of course calluses are a normal part of farm work for anybody and there isn’t much we can do about that, but in this case it seems to be merely one more insult on top of everything else.
One of the most memorable interviews we did was with a Mexican named Jose Guadalupe Murguia, who came to this country just a few years ago in 1952. He was excited for the work opportunity but quickly found his wages evaporating in exchange for food, housing and transportation. This blatantly violated the bracero agreement which states, "Transportation and subsistence expenses for the worker, and his family, if such is the case, and all the other expenses which originate from point of origin to border points and compliance of immigration requirements, or for any other similar concept, shall be paid exclusively by the employer or the contractual parties." Miraculously, Jose and his fellow braceros managed to put an end to this outrage by going on strike. In many of the farms where they work they are too expendable to have that kind of leverage. Now Jose is working in tomato groves in Yolo County, California, averaging a dollar a day, and when the workers there complain they are humiliated and told to go back to Mexico like "perros con la lengua de corvata". This means "dogs with the tongue of [something]" – we couldn’t figure out what "corvata" means but we doubt it is very kind in this context, and this is much more typical of the treatment these braceros encounter.
In conclusion, I think this entire program needs to be overhauled.
Read more of my essays here.
July 17, 1956
During World War II, sixteen million Americans left their homes to fight the Axis powers. This was a necessity for saving the world but left a severe shortage of farm workers on the home front, which quickly became a cause for alarm. Fortunately Mexico was not involved in the war effort and the United States was able to negotiate with them a program whereby their citizens were allowed to come and work here. They were called “braceros” because they work with their "brazos", arms; and although the war is long over they still work in the United States and are in fact central to our agricultural economy. Following various complaints my companion Leonard Nadel and I have been called on to investigate the conditions existing today in this program, and some of our findings gave much cause for alarm.
Perhaps most shocking of all is how the Mexicans are treated when they first arrive. Immediately after crossing the bridge from Mexico at Hidalgo, Texas for instance, they are herded by the hundred into makeshift booths like cattle. Here, to prevent the spread of diseases and such that they may have brought with them, they are fumigated with DDT. Now, I am aware that research as to the toxic and deadly nature of DDT is inconclusive as of yet, but the man doing the spraying, as you will see in Leonard’s enclosed photograph, wore a mask. The implication? Obviously he would not wish to get a faceful of the stuff himself and therefore the workers are undergoing substandard treatment from the start. There may not be a pertinent passage in the bracero agreement for this situation, but I think we are talking basic human rights violation here.
The workers’ homes in Mexico often consist of only two rooms, although families may contain nine or more people. This is a pity, of course, but it has been thrust upon them by financial necessity; in contrast, the much worse conditions imposed on them in our country are hardly called for. As many as 200 braceros may be housed in the same building, in rows of stretched canvas beds stacked two high and each barely wide enough to hold a man. Leonard has pointed out that this is the probable cause for such high incidences of respiratory illnesses among them. This certainly does not conform to the original bracero agreement, which clearly states "The Mexican workers will be furnished without cost to them with hygienic lodgings, adequate to the physical conditions of the region of a type used by a common laborer of the region and the medical and sanitary services enjoyed also without cost to them will be identical with those furnished to the other agricultural workers in the regions where they may lend their services."
The working conditions are hardly any better. One of the worst jobs in many opinions seems to be thinning and hoeing in the half-mile long fields. For some reason, the workers are forced to use short-handled hoes. This may be a cost-cutting enterprise of some sort but to me it smacks of nothing less than deliberate cruelty. Obviously, the result of this is that the hoers have no choice but to bend over, and get up, and bend over, and get up, and so on and so forth all day. This is very painful on the back, and yes they could bend with their knees but that would merely shift the focus of pain. Those we interviewed also complained of hard ground and resulting calluses. Of course calluses are a normal part of farm work for anybody and there isn’t much we can do about that, but in this case it seems to be merely one more insult on top of everything else.
One of the most memorable interviews we did was with a Mexican named Jose Guadalupe Murguia, who came to this country just a few years ago in 1952. He was excited for the work opportunity but quickly found his wages evaporating in exchange for food, housing and transportation. This blatantly violated the bracero agreement which states, "Transportation and subsistence expenses for the worker, and his family, if such is the case, and all the other expenses which originate from point of origin to border points and compliance of immigration requirements, or for any other similar concept, shall be paid exclusively by the employer or the contractual parties." Miraculously, Jose and his fellow braceros managed to put an end to this outrage by going on strike. In many of the farms where they work they are too expendable to have that kind of leverage. Now Jose is working in tomato groves in Yolo County, California, averaging a dollar a day, and when the workers there complain they are humiliated and told to go back to Mexico like "perros con la lengua de corvata". This means "dogs with the tongue of [something]" – we couldn’t figure out what "corvata" means but we doubt it is very kind in this context, and this is much more typical of the treatment these braceros encounter.
In conclusion, I think this entire program needs to be overhauled.
Read more of my essays here.
