Braceros, "Wetbacks" and the Farm Labor Problem: Mexican Agricultural Labor in the United States, 1942-1954.

1990 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 385
Author(s):  
Douglas J. McCready ◽  
Otey M. Scruggs
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Farm Labor ◽  
Agricultural Labor

Digital Resources: The Bracero History Archive

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Leon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Media ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Local Community ◽  
El Paso ◽  
The United States ◽  
Farm Labor ◽  
Guest Workers ◽  
University Of Texas ◽  
Dissemination Process

Between 1942 and 1964 millions of Mexicans came to the United States as guest workers, authorized by a set of bilateral agreements. Beginning in late 2005, a coalition of academic scholars and public historians from Brown University’s Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, the Institute of Oral History at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History (NMAH), and the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM) at George Mason University came together to launch an effort to gather the stories of those workers. This unprecedented project resulted in the collection of oral histories, documents, and images over the course of five years. It involved not only scholars but also a host of local community groups that enabled the partners to surface previously hidden materials that were unlikely to make it into traditional archival collections. The collection and dissemination process was facilitated by the creation of the Bracero History Archive, an open-access website that allowed the project partners to simultaneously build the collections from widely dispersed locations as they worked to document the lives and experiences of those workers. Between 1942 and 1964 millions of Mexicans came to the United States as guest workers, authorized by a set of bilateral agreements. Beginning in late 2005, a coalition of academic scholars and public historians from Brown University’s Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, the Institute of Oral History at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History (NMAH), and the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM) at George Mason University came together to launch an effort to gather the stories of those workers. This unprecedented project resulted in the collection of oral histories, documents, and images over the course of five years. It involved not only scholars but also a host of local community groups that enabled the partners to surface previously hidden materials that were unlikely to make it into traditional archival collections. The collection and dissemination process was facilitated by the creation of the Bracero History Archive (http://braceroarchive.org), an open-access website that allowed the project partners to simultaneously build the collections from widely dispersed locations as they worked to document the lives and experiences of those workers. The Bracero History Archive serves as the primary repository for the stories, documents, and artifacts associated with the migrant laborers from Mexico who came to the United States under the auspices of the more than 4.6 million contracts issued during the years of the Mexican Farm Labor Program. As such, it is an important complement to the established scholarship on the program. At the same time, the site serves as a model of how to undertake and complete a distributed collecting project that builds upon important community relationships. This combination of scholarly value and methodological innovation was essential to ensuring the funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities Division of Preservation and Access that made the project possible. In recent years, the project has proven important for contemporary work on the Mexican Farm Labor Program, and it has contributed to enhancing our understanding of migration, citizenship, nationalism, agriculture, labor practices, race relations, gender, sexuality, the family, visual culture, and the Cold War era.

Seasonal Farm Labor in the United States

1946 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 611
Author(s):  
Roy J. Smith ◽  
Harry Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Farm Labor

Farm Labor in the United States

1968 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-103
Author(s):  
Lamar B. Jones
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Farm Labor

Economic Integration and Labor Flows: Stage Migration in Farm Labor Markets in Mexico and the United States

1995 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Zabin ◽  
Sallie Hughes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Farm Labor ◽  
Stage Migration ◽  
Southern Mexico ◽  
Export Agriculture ◽  
The North ◽  
The Family ◽  
Short Run

This article examines the probable effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (nafta) on migration from Mexico to the United States, disputing the view that expansion of jobs in Mexico could rapidly reduce undocumented migration. To the extent that NAFTA causes Mexican export agriculture to expand, migration to the United States will increase rather than decrease in the short run. Data collected in both California and the Mexican State of Baja California show that indigenous migrants from southern Mexico typically first undertake internal migration, which lowers the costs and risks of U.S. migration. Two features of employment in export agriculture were found to be specially significant in lowering the costs of U.S. migration: first, working in export agriculture exposes migrants to more diverse social networks and information about U.S. migration; second, agro-export employment in northern Mexico provides stable employment, albeit low-wage employment, for some members of the family close to the border (especially women and children) while allowing other members of the family to assume the risks of U.S. migration.

scholarly journals Immigration Policy and Agriculture: Possible Directions for the Future

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 252-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Martin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Incentives ◽  
Farm Labor ◽  
Guest Workers ◽  
Executive Orders ◽  
Payroll Taxes ◽  
Sending Areas

Presidential candidate Trump in 2016 promised to prevent unauthorized migration and deport unauthorized foreigners in the United States, and President Trump issued executive orders after taking office in January 2017 that could lead to a 2,000-mile wall on the Mexico-US border and the removal of many of the 11 million unauthorized foreigners, including one million who work in US agriculture. This paper emphasizes that, especially agriculture in the western United States, has long relied on newcomers to fill seasonal farm jobs. The slowdown in Mexico-US migration since 2008–09 means that there are fewer flexible newcomers to supplement the current workforce, which is aging and settled. Farm employers are responding by offering bonuses to satisfy current workers, stretching them with productivity-increasing tools, substituting machines for workers, and supplementing current workforces with legal H-2A guest workers. Immigration policy will influence the choice between mechanization, guest workers, and imports. Several factors suggest that the United States may be poised to embark on another large-scale guest worker program for agriculture. If it does, farmers should begin to pay Social Security and Unemployment Insurance (UI) taxes on the wages of H-2A workers to foster mechanization and development in the workers' communities of origin by dividing these payroll taxes equally between workers as they depart and commodity-specific boards. Worker departure bonuses could be matched by governments in migrant-sending areas to promote development, and commodity-specific boards could spend monies to reduce dependence on hand labor over time. The economic incentives provided by payroll taxes could help to usher in a new and better era of farm labor.

The Hazards of Child Labor

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 95 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-313
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Children And Adolescents ◽  
Child Labor ◽  
Motor Vehicle ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
The United States ◽  
Farm Labor ◽  
Family Farms ◽  
American Children ◽  
Fair Labor

Child labor is the paid employment of children under 18 years of age. Today, more than 4 million children and adolescents in the United States are legally employed.1 Illegal child labor is also widespread and apparently has increased in frequency over the past decade. An estimated 1 to 2 million American children and adolescents are employed under unlawful, often exploitative conditions—working under age, for long hours, at less than minimum wage, on dangerous, prohibited machinery. Widespread employment of children in sweatshops—establishments that repeatedly violate fair labor as well as occupational health and safety standards—has been documented.2,3 Tens of thousands of children are employed in illegal farm labor. Detected violations of child labor laws increased fourfold from 1983 to 1989.4 LEGAL CONTEXT Since 1938, child labor in the United States has been regulated under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).5 Under this Act, employment in any hazardous nonagricultural occupation is prohibited for all children less than 18 years old. No child under 18 may work in mining, logging, construction, on a motor vehicle, or with power-driven machinery. The Act imposes additional restrictions on the employment of children under age 16 and sets limits on the number of hours a child may work on school days (no more than 3 hours per day for 14- and 15-year-olds). In agriculture, where legal restrictions are much less stringent, work with power-driven equipment and hazardous pesticides is prohibited only until age 16, and all work on family farms is exempt from legal protection. Work permits are a central aspect of the administration of FLSA.

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