Bracero Program Timeline

Ten percent of participating workers' pay was mandatorily deducted for savings accounts that workers were legally guaranteed to receive when they returned to Mexico.

In Medford, Oregon, braceros staged one of the first notable strikes, protesting a pay system based on payment per box rather than per hour.

A strike in Dayton, Washington, united Mexican braceros and Japanese-American workers. Its cross-community character made it one of the program's especially notable labor actions.

About 500 braceros suffered food poisoning in Grants Pass, Oregon, illustrating poor food conditions and the difficulty of enforcing standards in the Northwest.

Ten Mexican labor inspectors were assigned to monitor contract compliance throughout the United States, but the small number of inspectors made policing pay and working conditions, especially in the Northwest, difficult.

Camacho endorsed a campaign encouraging women to join the workforce to help balance labor shortages associated with the wartime economy.

Deteriorating food quality and quantity persisted into 1945, when the Mexican government intervened.

Braceros working on Caldwell-Boise sugar-beet farms struck because hourly wages were 20 cents below the rate established by the County Extension Service.

In Idaho Falls, 170 braceros organized a nine-day sit-down strike after 50 cherry pickers refused to work at the prevailing rate.

More than 1,000 braceros refused to harvest lettuce and peas in Idaho, making the action one of the program's largest and most significant strikes.

In Wenatchee, Washington, 100 braceros refused transportation to Idaho for beet harvesting and demanded a train back to Mexico.

Beginning in 1953, Catholic priests were assigned to some bracero communities, and the Catholic Church undertook other efforts specifically directed toward braceros.

An AFL and CIO spokesman testified before a congressional committee against the program, citing the Labor Department's failure to enforce pay standards.

Responding to criticism, the Department of Labor closed numerous bracero camps and imposed new minimum-wage standards.

The Department of Labor demanded that American workers recruited through the Employment Service receive the same wages and benefits as braceros.

The AWOC led a strike of lettuce workers at 18 farms in California's Imperial Valley to publicize the effects of bracero labor on labor standards.

Image source: United Farm Workers

Before the program ended, the Chualar bus crash in Salinas, California, made headlines and illustrated the harsh conditions faced by braceros in California.

Image source: Chualar train-bus collision

The deaths of 28 braceros being repatriated to Mexico inspired Woody Guthrie's poem “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos),” later set to music by Martin Hoffman.

Image source: Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)

The film Border Incident explored the efforts of two federal agents to end a bracero-smuggling operation.

Image source: Border Incident

Pedro Infante recorded “Canto del Bracero” under the Peerless label, adding a popular cultural representation of bracero labor.

Image source: Pedro Infante

Photojournalist Leonard Nadel took photographs of bracero workers and their communities, later included in the Smithsonian's bilingual exhibition on the program.

The Smithsonian National Museum of American History opened the bilingual exhibition “Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program, 1942–1964.” It used photographs, documents, objects, and oral histories to examine workers' experiences, their families, Mexican American history, and guest-worker debates.

The documentary Harvest of Loneliness described the history of the Bracero Program.

After the original exhibition closed on January 3, 2010, it was converted into a traveling exhibition and visited Arizona, California, Idaho, Michigan, Nevada, and Texas under the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.

The documentary A Convenient Truth urged viewers not to let governments repeat what it called the “follies” of the Bracero Program during its end credits.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service launched Operation Wetback to repatriate unauthorized laborers to Mexico. The short-lived operation used military-style tactics.

Department of Homeland Security statistics record 17,695 removals and 232,769 returns during fiscal year 1955.

Image source: Operation Wetback

Mexican immigration increased between 1963 and 1972 as many Mexican men who had already lived in the United States returned with their families.

The end of the program was followed by the rise of the United Farm Workers and a transformation of American migrant labor under César Chávez, Gilbert Padilla, and Dolores Huerta.

The A-TEAM, or Athletes in Temporary Employment as Agricultural Manpower, program was created to address the farmworker shortage following termination while providing summer jobs for teenagers.

Image source: The A-Team

A Congressional Research Service report concluded that the program addressed farmers' need for temporary workers and was instrumental in significantly reducing illegal immigration by the mid-1950s.

The Immigration Reform and Control Act was passed to address the hiring of undocumented migrants by American employers.

Ex-braceros pursued local and international struggles seeking the return of mandatory savings deductions. Under the stated compensation process, eligible former workers could receive up to $3,500 by supplying contracts or check stubs proving participation from 1942 to 1948.

Donald Trump cited Operation Wetback during his 2016 presidential campaign as an example of what he would do if elected president.

Studies published in 2018 and 2023 found that the program did not adversely affect wages or employment for American-born farm workers, while its termination adversely affected American-born farmers and increased farm mechanization.