Box 1: Importing Farm Workers: From Bracero to H-2A
As World War II intensified, the need to produce food for
the troops helped overcome public opposition to Mexican agricultural guest workers. The Mexican government was also initially reluctant to allow its citizens to work in U.S. agriculture,
but the Mexican Farm Labor Program commonly known as
—
the “Bracero Program”—became the official Mexican contribution to the war effort.1
The Bracero Program operated from 1942 to 1964. Between 1 million and 2 million Mexican agricultural workers
participated in the program, some going back and forth across
the border several times for a total of 4.5 million admissions
of workers to the United States. During the war years, the program required the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide
the Mexican workers with the same safety and health protections as U.S. agricultural workers. Employers had to pay
migrant workers the prevailing wage so as not to undercut
domestic farm labor wages. Other worker protections were
also included. But the U.S. and Mexican governments failed
to comply with key parts of the agreement—at the expense of
Mexican workers.2
Although the program was initially slated to end after World
War II, U.S. growers used their political clout to advocate for
the program’s continuation, claiming that eliminating it would
cause labor shortages and end in disaster for U.S. agriculture.3 The program eventually ended in 1964, after 22 years,
in the midst of the Civil Rights movement and under pressure
4 Briefing Paper, December 2011
1956:
Annual Bracero
admissions peak
at 445,197.
December 31, 1964:
Bracero Program ends with a
total of 4.5 million admissions
since the program originated
22 years earlier. By the end,
2 million Mexicans have
participated in the program
(some for multiple years).
Oregon State University Archives
September 1942:
First Bracero workers
enter the United States
in El Paso, TX, en route
to Stockton, CA, sugar
beet fields.
December 1952:
Immigration and Nationality Act
creates the H-2 temporary worker
program used mostly by East
Coast growers (primarily hiring
Caribbean temporary workers)
while West Coast growers
continue to rely on the Bracero
Program.
National Museum of American History
July 1942:
The United States and Mexico
agree to the Mexican Farm Labor
Program (Bracero Program) to
bring Mexican agricultural guest
workers to the
United States to
fill seasonal farm
worker jobs.
from organized labor, the U.S. Catholic Church, and Mexican American organizations that denounced exploitation and
abuse within the program.4
Growers’ predictions of catastrophe did not come to pass.
The end of the Bracero Program brought changes that increased efficiency and improved working conditions. Agricultural economist Phillip Martin explains that in lieu of cheap
and abundant labor growers began to use modern human resource methods to ensure that farm workers were deployed
more efficiently. The most effective workers on each crop
were identified and assigned to work in their areas of expertise, which led to more consistent production. Both workers
and growers benefited financially from the increase in productivity.5 Martin describes the post-Bracero era as the “golden
age” for farm workers.
The end of the Bracero Program also meant increased
mechanization. An industry that relied on immigrant labor had
to adapt when the flow of legal immigrant workers stopped.
Martin explains what happened using the example of tomatoes produced for sauces and other processed foods. These
process-grade tomatoes were harvested by Bracero workers
during the early 1960s. Within a few years of the program’s
end, harvesting was mechanized, the industry expanded, and
tomato prices decreased.6
Farm workers became increasingly unionized in the late
1960s and the 1970s, since growers could no longer prevent