The Bracero Program

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Problems and Hardships

The Bracero Program was an opportunity for the Mexican workers to earn money and send home to their family. There was a reason that they had to send the money home; families were not allowed to come. Only the men were allowed to make the trip and work. The reasoning behind it was so that the men would go back to Mexico after the program was over.

           Another incentive to go back to Mexico was that the United States government would take 10% out of their pay checks and the workers would receive it when they returned to Mexico. The Mexican government was hoping that by holding some money out of pay checks the small peasants that went to work in the U.S. would be come yeomen farmers when they returned. Buying farms and equipment with the 10% the workers would receive upon their return.

 In fact most of the workers they sent were not peasant or rural farmers. They had no prior agriculture experience and when they returned only a hand full continue to work on a farm. The Mexican government’s dream of the workers returning and increasing agricultural production was just that, a dream. It never happened.

Workers had to perform the most dangerous, the most difficult and the dirtiest jobs. After working the hardest jobs they had to sleep in poor housing conditions. The housing was more like barracks than houses. The living conditions were cramped and poor plumbing. They were also isolated from the regular population. When they were not working they would spend time with each other. They had no social life outside of the people they worked with.

The many of the jobs were extremely dangerous. In California from 1953 to 1957 the rate of disabling injuries was 50 per 1,000 in the agriculture industry. Many worked in the sun causing sunburns and dehydration. Much of the work was physically demanding causing back problems. Job to job there was many different hazards.

Sleep was also an issue. After working 6-8 hours in the fields many workers went to work canneries at nights. When workers were in the United States they would work as much as they could to earn as much money as they could in the span they were here. The lack of sleep would in turn increase their chances of getting injured.

Although there were many loop holes and hazards the Bracero Program did help to keep the United States running. It also helped to employ many people from Mexico. While the program was in place in the 1950s the remittances sent back from workers in the United States was the third largest source of income in the country of Mexico only behind tourism and oil.