Análisis profesora 3

A vast literature exists, and is still being added to (see Mitchell, 2012) on a series of labour supply programmes which came to be known as the bracero programme. The “impressive range of research and writing” (Driscoll, 1999, p. xi) refers to the period 1942-1964, during which time over 5 million

braceros (see Galarza, 1964; Grove, 1996; Verdugo, 1981) were recruited from Mexico to work in 30 states of the USA, but particularly California and Texas. An earlier “informal” programme had operated from 1917-21, under pressure from the sugar beet industry (Gilmore & Gladys, 1963), and it was in this context that the ‘win-win’ notion probably first appeared in migrant labour context.23

The programme, which was closely followed by a range of European guest worker programmes post World War II24_{, began as a wartime labour supply programme under the control of the U.S.}

Department of Agriculture (Scruggs, 1963) and growers were resentful that operations were not left under the control of farmers as they had been in 1917-21. Initially Texas was excluded from the programme, as the Mexican State imposed some authority against discriminatory practices (D. Cohen, 2001; Scruggs, 1963), but by the time P.L. 78 was passed by Congress in 1951, this authority had been undermined by a flood of “wetbacks”. The programme remained controversial and was finally discontinued when Congress failed to renew P.L.78 in 1963. One factor in this decision was progress made in the mechanisation of cotton harvesting (Grove, 1996), but there were two major threads of criticism concerning human rights and overstaying which intersected in diverse and complex ways. Calavita (1992) points to the contradictions between the different agencies of state, particularly the Immigration Service and the Department of Labour, as being definitive in shaping the programme’s history.

Early research by Galarza (1964) focused on abuses and power asymmetries. From a human rights perspective it is important to question whether the bracero programme represented a significant step forward from the indenture programmes of the previous century. Gonzalez says no:

23 _{Mexican Consul Santibanez argued in this manner when advocating for a guest worker programme in 1930} (Gonzalez, 2006, p. 145).

Ample evidence demonstrates conclusively that under the terms of the bracero agreements, bracero labour was identical in many respects to traditional forms of colonial labour exploitation, in that the braceros were systematically controlled and denied the right to organise, to bargain over wages individually or collectively to protest and to change residence or employer (Gonzalez, 2006, p. 35).

Ness takes this unfavourable comparison a step further to say “the difference between nineteenth century indentured labour and guest workers is that today’s migrant labourers - with few exceptions - are unable to buy their freedom and legal status in the North”(Ness, 2007, p. 439).

For the first seven years of the programme, while it was government administered, 10% of workers’ wages were deducted, and placed in a special savings account to be collected at the end of the contract, but many workers never saw this money again (Gonzalez, 2006, p. 35; Ruhs, 2006, p. 30). In the North-Western states of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, officials expected the workers to live in mobile tent camps in spartan conditions, and nutritional disorders were common (Gamboa, 1987).

At the height of the programme in the 1950s, nearly half a million braceros were recruited each year. It has been claimed that any braceros who showed ‘rebellious tendencies’ were returned to Mexico and blacklisted (Gonzalez, 2006, p. 2), however detailed evidence provided by Galarza (1964, p. 224) suggests that entire work gangs were sometimes disbanded and relocated to quash any work disputes. The lack of labour rights which Gonzalez emphasises began with the process of recruitment which required at least some of the applicants to line up for physical inspection as to their suitability for ‘stoop’25 _{labour. A photograph published in Gamboa (1990 following page 47) shows a line-up of}

braceros moving single file past an inspector who is examining the hands of a worker for evidence of physical labour. Transportation to the Mexican border typically involved men standing in crowded trucks or trains (Rothenberg, 1998). Rothenberg (1998, p. 38) relates a vivid eyewitness account of men herded into trains “without seats” to arrive in their thousands at a recruitment centre where they were shouted at by aggressive mayordomos (gang masters).

A second main body of criticism concerns unintended consequences, particularly overstaying and the onrush of undocumented workers (see Ruhs, 2006). A rhetoric around this concern has impacted on the design of future programmes. For example, Martin and Teitelbaum (2001) suggest that “virtually no low-wage ‘temporary’ work program in a high wage democracy has ever turned out to be

temporary”. These views are not without foundation, but need historical context in the case of the

braceros. At the time of the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe in 1848, some 100,000 Mexicans were living in the ceded territories (Nevins, 2008). Southern Texas, in particular, was the stage for

25 _{The term in widespread use referred to the crouched position required to be sustained for long hours in the} act of harvesting at ground level.

bitter clashes between encroaching Anglo-settlers and the Mexican inhabitants. Daniel (1981) recounts how between the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the 1930s a large pool of Chinese harvest labour in California was replaced by a large pool of Mexican labour. The border control was not established until the 1920s, prior to which time people travelled freely (Nevins, 2002). Texan farmers who were excluded from the bracero programme nonetheless managed to acquire “wetbacks” to harvest their cotton until they were included in the bracero programme. The

bracero programme was linked with, but hardly the sole cause of a series of repatriations

culminating in “Operation Wetback” in the 1950s (see Garcia, 1980). The bracero programme was simply a part of a much bigger issue. Further, there was a mixture of negative and positive effects from the overstaying, given that migrant labour is more effect than cause of a dependent economy. Hometown associations in the United States now work with their Mexican communities in a three way partnership which involves provincial government (Fox & Bada, 2008; Orozco & Lapointe, 2004). This historical perspective does not negate the reality of overstaying; for example in Germany 25% stayed over from the Gastarbeiter programme (P. Martin, Abella, & Kuptsch, 2006). It merely suggests that a more nuanced view is required than a simple equation of overstaying with failure.

There is no evidence in the literature that the controversial aspects of the bracero programme directly influenced the crafting of the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Work Programme. One dimension which represents a departure is found in the measures taken to present overstaying and the accompanying strict limits on total numbers of participants.