Presenter(s): Jonah Gomez Cabrera — Art
Faculty Mentor(s): Julie Wiese
Session: (In-Person) Oral Panel— HURF
The Bracero Program was a guest worker program that was held under a bilateral agreement between the United States and Mexico to resolve labor shortages during World War II between 1942 and 1964 Mexico desired a program that would boost their modernization movement which involved industrialization and proving their morality and social values through an international lens. Mexico’s goals to fortify a greater relationship with the United States held influence on modern migration habits that would be recorded as employed and documented through Bracero Contract, leaving amidst their contract, or arriving in the North undocumented altogether. My research explores these migration alternatives through literary analysis in the form of archival government documents from Mexican consuls, US government officials, and braceros to further understand their story and involvement that influenced the actions of Bracero workers to choose either to stay in the program or leave. Through the exploration of individual bracero workers’ and migrants’ experiences and stories through a humanistic aspect, it helps us analyze how these cases are still historically relevant to modern migration methods, vocabulary, ideas, as well as its current problems.