Frontera NorteSur December/ 1999 January /2000

Holiday season in El Paso's Segundo Barrio is a crowded affair. On weekends, long lines of cars and people crowd the Santa Fe Bridge between Juárez and El Paso waiting to enter the U.S. side to do their Christmas shopping. But while throngs of bargain-seekers filled clothing and electronics stores on the first frantic day of the sales rush, hundreds of others gathered nearby for a more solemn purpose. For the third year in a row, El Paso's Border Agricultural Workers Center (CTAF) was the scene of a Thanksgiving weekend celebration designed to draw attention to the contributions and needs of elderly, Mexican farmworkers who labored in the United States during the Bracero Program between 1942 and 1964.

Weathered farmhands and their families made up an audience that heard speeches, listened to Andean music, watched performances of Mexican folkloric dances, and enjoyed a hot meal in the cold, fading days of autumn. Many were among the more than 3 million Mexican men who were given legal contracts to work the farms of the United States during what was popularly known as "la braceriada."

In the early years of the binational program, a number of Mexican workers also labored on the railroads of the Southwest. Organizers of the annual Bracero Day celebration consider the old guestworker program an important but ignored aspect of World War II, when the entrance of thousands of braceros relieved labor shortages in the U.S. triggered by the enrollment of millions of men in the armed forces.

Ignacio Ibarra, a twenty-something CTAF outreach worker who attended the University of Texas at El Paso, said he would like to see the history of the braceros become widely known and appreciated. Ibarra's grandfather was one of the workers who kept the trains running. "Throughout my high school experience, even down through my elementary there was no mention of the bracero." In local terms, emphasized Ibarra, the Bracero Program was an important factor contributing to the growth of Ciudad Juárez. Workers' families from the interior relocated to the border to be close to the El Paso staging area from where many braceros were sent to different sections of the United States.

"(Americans) also should know that México and the braceros are a fundamental part of the process of this country," said Mario Sosa, an organizer with the El Paso-based Sin Fronteras Organizing Project's Bracero program. "This is an important part of history that the Americans should know about, so they don't consider us apart. They should know that in the moment of need, many Mexicans gave their hand to move things forward." A native of San Pedro de las Colonias, Coahuila, Sosa followed a generational trail paved by his father and brothers, who worked in the Bracero Program, when he entered the United States more than 15 years ago to find employment in agriculture. Sosa's family hails from the La Laguna region of northern México, a place that acquired the reputation of providing the best cotton pickers from México. Farmworkers from La Laguna were instrumental in the success of the vast, billion-dollar cotton industry of Texas and New México that flourished until the 1960s.

But today Sosa and others are saddened by the fate of many former braceros, especially those that live in México without a retirement check, medical attention and adequate nutrition. Added Sosa, "Many people, at least here in the U.S., have everything they need to celebrate the holidays. But when you go back to your birthplace and the ejido where you come from it causes a lot of sadness . . . when the holiday season and new year arrive because the children want toys and something different to eat. Where we are from in México, where our family is, the people celebrate the holidays eating beans and tortillas."

About five years ago, groups in the United States and México began meeting and discussing the situation of millions of surviving former braceros who live on both sides of the border. Subsequent mass meetings in México touched off a growing movement that is spreading from one rural corner of the country to the other. In El Paso, SFOP began documenting the case histories of thousands of ex-braceros in order to assess whether or not the United States owes them anything for their service. Standard bracero contracts included provisions for life insurance and worker's compensation.

According to Carlos Marentes, SFOP director, his group has compiled 37,000 complete files. "The basic objective of our project is to bring justice to the braceros," explained Marentes. "We have found, for example, that some of the braceros who came to this country died. And their survivors, the widows, never received a single cent as compensation for the death of the bracero. We have also found out that a lot of braceros who came to this country became disabled and never received any type of compensation for their disability. So we are trying to find out exactly what happened and if we find out that there are debts that need to be paid to the braceros than one day we will demand that those debts be paid."

Instead of being an uplift out of poverty, contended Marentes, the Bracero Program sometimes became an unexpected burden for already impoverished families. "In most of the cases we've found out that the widows and the survivors, the relatives of the braceros who died, had to make collections, had to beg, in order to pay for the transportation of the bodies. So they never received anything."

In addition to the former braceros living in México, a fair number of the old workers residing in the United States are likewise experiencing severe economic difficulties. Martin Murrillo, 67, first came to the United States as a bracero in 1954. Afterward he worked the migrant trail from Maine to California, picking apples, cotton and other crops. Although Murrillo is formally retired, he's found that the check he receives from Social Security isn't enough to cover expenses. As a consequence, Murrillo still works. "There are many retired people like myself, but they get a very small check. Some get $100, $150 or $120," said Murrillo. The veteran farmworker agrees with the goals of the Bracero program. "It would be good if there were some type of compensation for the people who worked during those years," added Murrillo. "Something that could be seen."

While the discontent of Murrillo and other ex-braceros harkens back to a decades-old program, the specter of a new bracero system hangs over the Southwest. During the past several years, farm employer groups such as the American Farm Bureau Federation have floated the idea of reviving a bracero program because of an alleged shortfall in harvest labor. Some business groups in México have also endorsed the concept. In Washington, a bipartisan proposal from the non-profit Council on Hemispheric Affairs says "neo-bracero" is picking up steam. Senator Gordon H. Smith (R-Ore.) and Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.) are sponsoring what they call the Agricultural Job Opportunity Benefits and Security Act of 1999. If approved, Senate Bill 1814 would legalize upwards of 500,000 undocumented workers currently working in U.S. agriculture, with the stipulation that the newly-legalized residents promise to work in agriculture for at least five years.

While immigrant rights groups including the Oakland-based National Network for Immigrant Rights are denouncing the measure as a return to "indentured servitude," several agribusiness organizations and politicians are lining up behind Smith and Graham. New México Governor Gary Johnson, for one, supports the legislation. Bracero Program coordinator Carlos Marentes contended that the Congress and public should carefully review the history of the old program before embarking on a new version of the guest worker system. "The idea is that they learn from the past so the suffering and exploitation that happened during the bracero program won't occur again," said Marentes, who cautiously added that expediting the legalization of current undocumented workers is one possible solution to the farm labor crisis, though existing pockets of high unemployment among farmworkers contradict claims of labor shortages.

"We oppose any program that will be used to deteriorate even more the working and living conditions of the farmworkers who are already here," said Marentes. "However, we believe if the governments want to do a new bracero program they need first to review what happened in the old bracero program so they don't commit the same injustices that were committed in the past."

Meanwhile, many aging ex-braceros like Enrique Campoya say they plan to work "until the bones get tired."