The Bracero Program:

A DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION TO POST-WAR QUANDARIES

http://27233806.nhd.weebly.com/

Nicholas Manfred Senior Division

Individual Website

Process Paper

The Bracero Program is unquestionably the largest guest worker program in United States history and one of the largest guest worker programs in world histo-ry. The fact that so many people in the United States have no idea what the Bracero Program is or have never heard of it at all is surprising, considering this. I first heard of the Bracero Program while writing an extra credit report for my Spanish class. While researching Mexican history, I came across the Bracero Program and was fascinated to find out that recent problems concerning illegal immigration stem from it. What started out as the legal result of intercontinental diplomacy quickly turned to opprobrium and xenophobia. Due to its relevance in current events, pedagogical potential, and abundance of resources, I thought it would be a good idea to incorporate the Bracero Program into my National History Day project. In the initial parts of my researching I found and apprehended a timeline of the Bracero Program in order to evaluate its major events. Doing this helped me come up with the pages and subpages of my website. Withal, it provided me with a guideline which would assist with discerning which sections of inquiry were of the most significance. Afterwards, I read multiple books regarding the Bracero Pro-gram. Collectively they gave me lots of insight about each aspect of the coopera-tion between Mexico and the United States, how braceros’ conditions regressed, and which laws were instituted or dismissed throughout the duration of the Bracero Program. Then, I looked online for primary source interviews with braceros in or-der to more effectively grasp how they were affected by their encounter in the United States when they were treated as illicit transients rather than facilitative op-portunists. Later on, I found manifold political cartoons, newspaper articles, and photographs to familiarize myself with Bracero Program propaganda. I decided to construct a website as the format for my National History Day project because I felt that it was the most effective way to utilize several dimen-sions of research, since it is relatively easy to incorporate photographs, music, au-dio clips, quotations, videos, galleries, documents, et cetera. Also, I generally find it helpful to work with a medium in which it is possible to make constant changes with ease. Websites definitely are more susceptible of change than other types of research projects.

My topic relates to the National History Day theme, “Exploration, En-counter, and Exchange in History,” in that the Bracero Program was a type of polit-ical exploration in which diplomacy between the United States and Mexico estab-lished an economically interdependent labor system. When United States agricul-tural workers occupied industrial occupations and left a need for foreign labor, it provided a mutually-beneficial opportunity for the United States to exchange capi-tal for foreign labor. This seemingly flawless quid pro quo led to the encounter of various forms of exploitation to braceros, such as underpayment and subjectivity. The Bracero Program has left a legacy still experienced contemporarily between the bordering countries.

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