The year was 1965. On Cinco de Mayo, newspapers across the country reported that Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz wanted to recruit 20,000 high schoolers to replace the hundreds of thousands of Mexican agricultural workers who had labored in the United States under the so-called [Bracero Program](permalink: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/07/31/634442195/when-the-u-s-government-tried-to-replace-migrant-farmworkers-with-high-schoolers?live=1). Started in World War II, the program was an agreement between the American and Mexican governments that brought Mexican men to pick harvests across the U.S. It ended in 1964, after years of accusations by civil rights activists like Cesar Chavez that migrants suffered wage theft and terrible working and living conditions.
But farmers complained — in words that echo today’s headlines — that Mexican laborers did the jobs that Americans didn’t want to do, and that the end of the Bracero Program meant that crops would rot in the fields.
Much more at the link and well worth the read. This is from 2018 but the most recent version of this story is behind a WaPo paywall.
Hawkwin
Hat-tip to Smerconish who profiled this story yesterday.
As a kid growing up on a small berry farm, here in N CA, my parents used Braceros program folks during the picking season… I’m sure many of those folks stayed, became citizens, had a good home here, although today, most of that older agriculture is gone, now… Upsetting to see similar workers being treated as terrorists by this admin…
Please do not refer to human beings as aliens; however, if you insist, then please remove the title of Dr. from your screen name. Otherwise, first do no harm. Spot
Or, somebody changed the rules and decided people who were here legally all the sudden became deportable.
We have a large population of descendants of immigrants who came here under very loose immigration laws suddenly thinking that others don’t deserve the same opportunities. It’s super gross.