The bracero program grew out of a series of bi-lateral agreements between Mexico and the
United States that allowed millions of Mexican men to come to the United States to work on,
short-term, primarily agricultural labor contracts. From 1942 to 1964, 4.6 million contracts were
signed, with many individuals returning several times on different contracts, making it the
largest U.S. contract labor program. An examination of the images, stories, documents and
artifacts of the bracero program contributes to our understanding of the lives of migrant
workers in Mexico and the United States, as well as our knowledge of, immigration, citizenship,
nationalism, agriculture, labor practices, race relations, gender, sexuality, the family, visual
culture, and the Cold War era.
The bracero program was controversial in its time. Mexican nationals, desperate for work, were
willing to take arduous jobs at wages scorned by most Americans. Farm workers already living
in the United States worried that braceros would compete for jobs and lower wages. In theory,
the bracero program had safeguards to protect both Mexican and domestic workers for
example, guaranteed payment of at least the prevailing area wage received by native workers;
employment for three-fourths of the contract period; adequate, sanitary, and free housing;
decent meals at reasonable prices; occupational insurance at employer's expense; and free
transportation back to Mexico at the end of the contract. Employers were supposed to hire
braceros only in areas of certified domestic labor shortage, and were not to use them as
strikebreakers. In practice, they ignored many of these rules and Mexican and native workers
suffered while growers benefited from plentiful, cheap, labor. Between the 1940s and mid
1950s, farm wages dropped sharply as a percentage of manufacturing wages, a result in part of
the use of braceros and undocumented laborers who lacked full rights in American society.
The U.S. turned to Mexico as a supplier of labour.Mexico doubted that a legitimate labor scarcity
existed and viewed the Bracero program as a way
for the U.S. to obtain cheap labor.
Mexican officials were concerned about the
deportation and repatriation of Mexicans which
occurred in the 1930’s and were anxious to
prevent another such episode.
Mexico did not want to permit their workers to be
sent to discrimination prone states in the U.S.
Mexico felt that there might be a danger to
Mexico's economic development if many
thousands of their workers left for the U.S
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