The Bracero Program

The Bracero Program

1942 - 1946

Mexico and the United States

1942 - 1946
 What is the Bracero Program?

The official name for the Bracero Program

was the “Mexican Farm Labor Program
Agreement” signed by the Mexican and
American governments on August 4,
1942.
What did the program agreement
say?
 The agreement said that Mexican
workers could come to the United
States to work as farm laborers for a
fixed amount of time.
 The agreement also said that workers
should be paid 30 cents per hour and
be “treated humanely”
What does
“Bracero” mean
in Spanish?

Why do you think

this was called
the Bracero
program?

Picture of a Bracero named Plutareo, standing in a

field in Salinas, California.
 Why did the Bracero Program
happen?
 The United States was just coming out
of The Great Depression and in the
middle of World War II. There were
very few men to work in farms, and
farmers could not afford to pay high
wages to men who would work in them.
This is a World War II
Recruitment Poster.

What is the purpose of this

poster?

Who do the two arms in

the poster belong to?

How does this poster

relate to the Braceros
Program?

Discuss your answers with a

partner sitting next to you.
 How did people get chosen for the
Bracero program?
Getting chosen was a very difficult process.

Workers traveled from their home towns to

reception centers in big cities.

At the centers, they would go through medical

examinations and paperwork.

Often, they would wait for weeks to find out if they

had been picked.
A picture of men being fingerprinted at a Processing Center in
Hidalgo, Texas.
After being chosen,
men would travel
by trucks, cars or
trains to their
farm in the United
States.

This is a truckload of
chosen Braceros
waiting to be
driven to their
farms.
Eventually, 4.6 million Mexican workers
came to as many as 36 states through the
Braceros program.
Braceros worked in many different types
of farms: including
 What was life like as a Bracero?
Working as a Bracero was often difficult.

Often, Braceros were ill-treated and not

paid the wages they were promised.

Braceros found it difficult to get medical

treatment and faced discrimination in
many places in the U.S.
Bracero living quarters, California
 Why did the Bracero Program
end in 1964?
 Many labor groups in the United States
saw the Mexican workers as a threat to
their own jobs - they protested the
Bracero program strongly.
 Many Mexican workers stayed past the
terms of their program. They became
illegal immigrants, living in the United
States and raising families here.
 While many Mexican workers remained
in the United States long after the
Bracero program ended, many workers
and their families were repatriated to
Mexico by the U.S. INS.

What do you think are the implications of

the Bracero program on American
immigration and labor laws?