Editing Bracero Program (section)

== Introduction ==
[[File:MexicaliBraceros,1954.jpg|thumb|Mexican workers await legal employment in the United States, 1954]]

The Bracero Program operated as a joint program under the State Department, the Department of Labor, and the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) in the Department of Justice. Under this pact, the laborers were promised decent living conditions in labor camps, such as adequate shelter, food and sanitation, as well as a minimum wage pay of 30 cents an hour.  The agreement also stated that braceros would not be subject to discrimination such as exclusion from "white" areas.<ref name="Ngai-2004">{{Cite book |title = Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America |url = https://archive.org/details/impossi_nga_2004_00_9423 |url-access = registration |last = Ngai |first = Mae |publisher = Princeton University Press |year = 2004 |isbn = 978-0-691-12429-2 |location = Princeton, NJ |pages = [https://archive.org/details/impossi_nga_2004_00_9423/page/139 139] }}</ref>

This program, which commenced in [[Stockton, California]] in August 1942,<ref>{{Citation |last=Loza |first=Mireya |title=UNIONIZING THE IMPOSSIBLE: Alianza de Braceros Nacionales de México en los Estados Unidos |date=2016 |work=Defiant Braceros |pages=97–136 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9781469629773_loza.7 |access-date=2024-08-27 |series=How Migrant Workers Fought for Racial, Sexual, and Political Freedom |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |jstor=10.5149/9781469629773_loza.7 |isbn=978-1-4696-2976-6}}</ref> was intended to fill the labor shortage in agriculture because of World War II. In Texas, the program was banned by Mexico for several years during the mid-1940s due to the discrimination and maltreatment of Mexicans, which included [[lynching]]s along the border. Texas Governor [[Coke Stevenson]] pleaded on several occasions to the Mexican government that the ban be lifted to no avail.<ref>{{cite book |last=McWilliams |first=Carey |author-link=Carey McWilliams (journalist) |title=North From Mexico: The Spanish Speaking People of the United States}}</ref>  The program lasted 22 years and offered employment contracts to 5 million braceros in 24 U.S. states—becoming the largest foreign worker program in U.S. history.<ref name="Calavita-1992" />

The Mexican government, at the federal, state, and local levels, handled the selection of workers for the Bracero Program. The Mexican states of Guanajuato, Jalisco, and Michoacán, supplied large numbers of laborers to the United States. Political issues such as opposition to the ruling political party, disputes with labor unions, and even local responses to natural disasters played a key role in deciding who could leave Mexico to work in the U.S. This decentralized system meant that local officials had considerable control over who received contracts, which often led to favoritism, bribery, and corruption.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Garcia |first=Alberto |date=2021 |title=Regulating Bracero Migration: How National, Regional, and Local Political Considerations Shaped the Bracero Program. |url=https://read.dukeupress.edu/hahr/article-abstract/101/3/433/174031/Regulating-Bracero-Migration-How-National-Regional. |journal=Duke University Press |volume=101 |issue=3 |pages=433–460}}</ref>

From 1942 to 1947, only a relatively small number of braceros were admitted, accounting for less than 10 percent of U.S. hired workers.<ref name="migration.ucdavis.edu">{{Cite web|title = The Bracero Program – Rural Migration News {{!}} Migration Dialogue|url = https://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/more.php?id=10|website = migration.ucdavis.edu|access-date = December 9, 2015}}</ref> Yet both U.S. and Mexican employers became heavily dependent on braceros for willing workers; bribery was a common way to get a contract during this time. Consequently, several years of the short-term agreement led to an increase in undocumented immigration and a growing preference for operating outside of the parameters set by the program.<ref name="Ngai-2004" />

Moreover, Truman's Commission on Migratory Labor in 1951 disclosed that the presence of Mexican workers depressed the income of American farmers, even as the U.S. Department of State urged a new bracero program to counter the popularity of communism in Mexico. Furthermore, it was seen as a way for Mexico to be involved in the Allied armed forces. The first braceros were admitted on September 27, 1942, for the sugar-beet harvest season. From 1948 to 1964, the U.S. allowed in on average 200,000 braceros per year.<ref name="Ngai-2004" /> For some, it took up to 6 months of waiting to enter legally to work as a Bracero.<ref name=":3">Ramirez, Alfredo. “Alfredo Ramirez.” By Camille Chandler. ''Bracero History Archive'', April 15, 2009.</ref>