Editing Bracero Program (section)

== Impact and influence of home life ==

=== US government censorship of family contact ===
As men stayed in the U.S.,  wives, girlfriends, and children were left behind often for decades.<ref name="Rosas-2014">{{Cite book |last=Rosas |first=Ana Elizabeth |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt13x1hjj |title=Abrazando El Espíritu: Bracero Families Confront the US-Mexico Border |date=2014 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=9780520282667 |jstor=10.1525/j.ctt13x1hjj |access-date=2021-12-05}}</ref> Bracero men searched for ways to send for their families and saved their earnings for when their families were able to join them. In the U.S., they made connections and learned the culture, the system, and worked to found a home for a family.<ref name="Rosas-2014" /> '''U.S. Consulate officials would censor letters those whom were of Mexican descent and varying legal status, both men and women.'''<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rosas |first=Ana Elizabeth |url=https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520958654 |title=Abrazando el Espíritu |date=2019-12-31 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-95865-4 |location=Berkeley}}</ref> These letters went through the US postal system and originally they were inspected before being posted for anything written by the men indicating any complaints about unfair working conditions.<ref name="Rosas-2014" /> However, once it became known that men were actively sending for their families to permanently reside in the US, they were often intercepted, and many men were left with no responses from their women.<ref name="Rosas-2014" /> Permanent settlement of bracero families was feared by the US, as the program was originally designed as a temporary work force which would be sent back to Mexico eventually.<ref name="Rosas-2014" /> Many Braceros moved their families to towns near the U.S.-Mexico border, helping urbanize those towns into cities.<ref name=":4"/>

=== Women experiences in the Bracero Program ===
In ''La Pena Negra'', Mayra Lizette Avila centers the experiences of Mexican women who were deeply affected by the U.S.-Mexico Bracero Program (1942–1964), which brought millions of Mexican men to the U.S. for temporary labor. The study explores how these women managed the absence of male breadwinners, shouldering new roles in both the household and community. Avila draws from oral histories and archival sources to highlight individual stories. For example, some women became sole providers, working in agriculture, managing family finances, and raising children alone. This was a sudden shift in traditional gender roles. Others reported feelings of abandonment, especially when their husbands failed to return or sent little money home. Divorce and familial estrangement also became more common, particularly among women who challenged expectations of passive loyalty.  Yet, the work also emphasizes resilience and power for these women. Some women used extended kinship networks or created informal community support systems to survive economically and emotionally. Avila positions these experiences as crucial to understanding the broader impact of transnational labor migration, not just for those who migrated, but for those who stayed.

Due to the shortage of labor in northern Mexico caused by the Bracero Program, Avila Camacho, the former president of Mexico, was under pressure to fill those gaps. In 1944, Camacho endorsed a campaign for women to join the workforce to balance the shortage.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Castillo-Muñoz |first=Verónica |url=https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520291638.001.0001 |title=Other California |date=2016-11-15 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-29163-8}}</ref>