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We Wanted a Guest Worker,
But They Brought Us a Human Being

Photo from: Echando Raices/
Taking Root

Under an agreement between the Mexican and U.S. governments, the bracero program brought as many as five million Mexicans to the United States as agricultural contract workers between 1942 and 1964. (Bracero comes from brazo, the Spanish word for “arm.”) In addition to filing a multimillion-dollar suit for lost wages, former braceros tell stories of the many abuses they suffered — including backbreaking labor, inhuman living conditions, and long separation from their families. Because their temporary visas were tied to working for a particular employer, they lacked the freedom to look for a better job.

Braceros mainly labored in the western United States. Another guest worker program, known as H2A, dates back to 1943 and continues to the present day. The H2A program brings as many as 40,000 temporary contract workers a year to eastern agricultural states, with the largest number working the tobacco farms of North Carolina. The H2A program has repeatedly been cited for many of the same abuses as the bracero program, and over the years advocates have won a range of legal protections for H2A workers, many of whom are from the Caribbean. Employers’ groups, meanwhile, have continued to advocate for expanding the program — and weakening its protections.

Just before September 11, the Mexican and U.S. governments were expected to announce agreement on a new guest worker program. Most immigrants’ rights organizations opposed the idea of new guest worker legislation, arguing that legalization for the large population of undocumented people already living in the United States should take precedence. Farm worker advocates, for their part, argued that employers were seeking to create an artificial oversupply of labor in order to keep wages down and reduce the negotiating power of farm worker organizations. At this writing, this initiative is considered likely to return to the policy agenda.

Whether they are undocumented, legally documented, or temporary contract workers, farm workers face a host of problems. Most farm workers are excluded from minimum wage laws, unemployment insurance, and protections for union organizing. Substandard housing, lack of sanitary facilities or even clean drinking water in the fields, and pesticide exposure are among the many issues they confront. Existing immigration law prevents many farm workers from living with their families and forming settled communities. Each of these problems has been the focus of a long tradition of organizing, dating back more than fifty years.

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