The Bracero Program Analysis

In the 1920s, due to a lack of job opportunities in the agricultural and industrial sectors Mexican immigrants in the United States were encouraged to return to Latin America through the deterioration of their social and economic standing in American society. Mexican Americans went through repatriation in large numbers during the early 1930s because of the quickly rising unemployment rates caused by the Great Depression throughout the United States. These unemployment rates led to even fewer opportunities for minority workers in the United States, as well as increased hostility from bitter White Americans towards immigrant workers for taking jobs that could belong to American workers. Mexicans were also discouraged from entering into the United States from Mexico because of the declining economic prospects and social status. About a decade later, during World War II, America was short on low-wage labor because Americans were participating in the war effort, and America looked to the Mexicans as a source of labor, inviting them back into the United States through the Bracero Program. The Program held that Mexicans would be allowed to come to United States and work for a certain period of time. The program was kept in place after the War ended. (WEBSITE) The ethnic Mexicans participating in the Bracero program and living in …show more content…
An example of this would be in a Bracero camp Tulare California. On August 30, 1949 130 Braceros stood in for lines outside of the contractors office waiting for their return. When their boss arrived, one representative proposed a change in the Bracero contract and re-contracting one of the Braceros as a “special immigrant,” (Rosas, 107.) The contactors, due to escalating tensions in the workplace, decided to accept the proposal