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The Bracero Program: An Exploitation Of Mexican-American Labor

888 Words4 Pages

The Bracero Program was a guest worker program implemented by the United States between 1942 and 1964 that brought millions of Mexican laborers to work in agriculture, railroads, and other industries. The program's main goal was to fill labor shortages in the United States during World War II and to support the U.S. economy after the war. However, perspectives are split on whether the Bracero Program was an opportunity for Mexican-American laborers or an exploitation of their sacrifices and hardworking nature. The Bracero program was an exploitation of Mexican-American laborers due to several aspects, mainly being the wages they were paid, the labor/working conditions they were subjected to, and the housing conditions they lived in.

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Evidence from the book Harvest of Empire by Juan Gonzalez shows that workers were forced to live in substandard conditions, such as crowded barracks, with limited access to medical care. A Bracero History Project interviewee indicated that the support system for Braceros wasn’t given enough attention to be functional, and workers who voiced their concerns at the consulate hardly ever saw repercussions. Additionally, workers were often subject to discrimination and racism, with some being denied access to public spaces or services. As mentioned before, the program was an exploitation of Mexican-American laborers in the fact that workers were required to live in poverty-level conditions despite their unconditional hard …show more content…

The program's aspects of wages, labor conditions, and living conditions were designed to put laborers at a disadvantage. Mexican laborers were paid below the minimum wage, subject to long work hours and hazardous working conditions, and forced to live in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. While some Mexican laborers were able to improve their lives through the program, an overwhelming majority were not. It is important to learn about the Bracero Program because it precedes several immigrant labor civil rights movements in the United States, which continue to this

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