Contextual Essay

It is not a secret that the white citizens of America have treated people of color as lesser since before the country was even founded. Slavery held up the entire economy of certain states before it was outlawed and migrant laborers were used and abused for generations. Eventually unions were established to try and help fight for the rights of oppressed workers – whether they were white or a person of color (POC). Unfortunately, even here there was oppression; oftentimes people such as Latinx migrant workers were not represented by, or allowed access to, unions. The solution to this was simple: they formed their own.

In order to fully explore the plight of migrant laborers it is necessary to thoroughly analyze the bracero program from the 1940s; this will allow for a full understanding of the way that these people were treated and how they were taken advantage of. Following that will be a discussion of the efforts made by Mexican laborers to secure equal rights and pay. This will include specific focus on the efforts of Ceasar Chavez and El Teatro Campesino. Lastly will be an examination of the way that modern-day politics have grown and shaped around these issues, with focus being on specific cases of Latinx workers/immigration disputes.

However, before all of this can be covered, it is important to establish some background information. The people of Mexico have long been exploited as a labor force by countries that are primarily white. The first instance of white people oppressing Mexicans comes from the initial colonization of Mexico and Latin America by the Spanish. Under the encomienda system, which was slavery disguised as a tribute system, the indigenous people of Mexico were forced to work for the Spanish. Although there was some resistance from certain towns, the vast majority of the indigenous Mexican population was decimated by the time the Spanish finally gave them their freedom.¹ Ultimately, it’s difficult to draw comparisons or connections between the encomienda system and the way that America treats Mexican laborers due both to the fact that the Spanish and Americans are very different and because the genetic makeup of the people of Mexico has changed so much between now and then. It is important, however, to establish some historical context: the people of Mexico, in one form or another, have spent the past four centuries being taken advantage of by those of white European descent. There is precedent, however far removed, for the appalling way the migrant Latinx workers have been treated.

One of the earliest instances of the United States implementing a ‘guest-worker’ program is the bracero system. Beginning in 1942, this system was a guest-worker program wherein Mexican laborers were brought into America to work on the farms for the summer months. Although this program sounds like a good thing on paper, in reality the workers were underpaid and mistreated. According to Louis Gradias who grew up around braceros the idea of the program is well thought-out, but “they just needed to find a way to pay them better, give them better areas to live their life and what have you.”² Gradias is not the only one who speaks about the injustices of the bracero program. Linda Fregoso, a radio host, interviewed three migrant workers in 1981, two men and one women. Although by that point the bracero program was no longer in place, the circumstances in which the workers lived their lives were similar to the conditions that Gradias described. Furthermore, all of the workers share something in common: their age. 

The three people that Fregoso interviewed were all organizers with the various farm workers organizations, working to demand better conditions. All had been working as migrant laborers since before they were teenagers. They all speak about why they were forced to work so young and it’s evident that, despite being children, their age wasn’t unusual for either the bracero program or the more modern migrant labor groups.³ This is backed up by both data from the Pew Research Center and a photo from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) archive. According to Pew researchers, the average age of Latinx people in America is only 29, as of 2017, compared to the overall average of the U.S. which is 38.⁴ That is a nearly ten-year gap – clearly, Latinx people entering this country must typically be younger than those from other ethnix groups.

In terms of the photograph from the USCIS archive, this information is even further proven valid. The photo depicts braceros on board a train waving goodbye to their wives and children before they depart for the United States. Although all the men look to be younger, this still doesn’t prove the Pew data. What does validate it, however, is one bracero in the middle of the photograph. He’s staring straight at the camera and it is readily apparent that he’s young – he looks as though he’s no older than maybe 15. Even then, 15 is a generous guess; regardless, the point is that here is a depiction of a minor entering the country to work as a bracero.⁵

As if that wasn’t enough to corroborate the fact that many braceros were minors, desperate enough for money to support their families that they would work for incredibly low wages, an interview with a former bracero named Juan Loza only adds fuel to the fire. Loza, who was only 17 when he became a bracero, endured horrible, dehumanizing, even cruel conditions.⁶ He describes the way that the medical exam necessary to enter the program happened, saying that “they take off all of your clothes, they bathe you with disinfectants—with powders and a series of things that [made him] sad to even mention.”⁷ There was, most likely, some sort of stereotype about braceros being unclean, dirty, especially since Loza says they went through this disinfectant process twice. 

Negative stereotypes like the ones Loza describes are common even in modern America, long after 1964, when the bracero system ended. Although some of these stereotypes remain the same, there are also new ones that have come about with the changes to the political climate since the 1960s. Scholar Louis Mendoza talks about these changes in his article “Conversations across ‘Our America’: Latinoization and the New Geography of Latinas/os,” saying that “anti-immigrant, anti-Latino discourse that revolves around the core of who [the United States is] as an immigrant nation, the cultural, philosophical and political qualities that define who “belongs” in the United States” is the reasoning behind the growth of new negative ideas and views about Latinx people.⁸ One of the stereotypes that has come from this discourse is that Latinx working class parents are bad parents, or selfish. This new stereotype comes from the increase in illegal immigration issues that the United States has been dealing with for the past few decades. 

One example of this comes from the story of Elvira Arellano, an illegal immigrant who had to fight to remain with her son, an American citizen. One of the arguments made against her was that, since she gave birth to her son after illegally immigrating to the U.S., she was selfish and had only had a child so she could use him as leverage to remain in the country. In the 2006 Frontline documentary Chicago: Little Mexico, viewers are exposed directly to Arellano’s case, watching clips of the different legal battles about the status of illegal immigrants in Chicago. While anti-immigration activists claim that “anyone who breaks the law [can not] demand any rights,” Arellano argues that it shouldn’t matter because “they accepted my taxes and they accepted my labor… Not only me, they let millions of other families make their lives here.”⁹ That being said, Arellano, and others like her, are not simply accepting the attempted dissolution of their families and systematic oppression based on negative stereotypes. They’re attempting to fight back, to free themselves from the weight that comes with being a migrant laborer. This is not something new, either; people have been pushing for the rights of migrant laborers since the 1960s.

Unions, organizations designed to protect the rights of workers, are not something new to American society. They’ve been in existence in America since the late 1800s, a time period known as the Gilded Age. Many unions, however, were only accepting of  white laborers, not people of color. Unions also did not typically accept migrant laborers due to both their lack of American citizenship and the racial differences. As such, migrant laborers began to unionize themselves, fighting for their own rights. The most significant leader of this charge was a man named Cesar Chavez. He formed the United Farm Workers Union (UFWU), serving as the first president of the organization.¹⁰ From this organization many more developed; of these, one of the most notable of these is El Teatro Campesino.

El Teatro Campesino is a Latinx theatre company. Founded in 1965 in the picket lines of the Delano Grape Strike (which was organized by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee with assistance from Chavez’s National Farm Workers Association; the two groups would later combine to become the UFWU) the original add for the company stated that “IF YOU CAN SING, DANCE, WALK, MARCH, HOLD A PICKET SIGN, PLAY A GUITAR OR HARMONICA OR ANY OTHER INSTRUMENT, YOU CAN PARTICIPATE: NO ACTING EXPERIENCE REQUIRED.”¹¹ Although the company has evolved from its original purpose (it now has a permanent home, rather than following the strikes around) it’s message remains the same: show off Latinx culture and champion the fight for the rights of migrant laborers. 

Although El Teatro may have found a permanent home during the past 50 years, that does not mean that it stopped traveling because protests and picket lines stopped happening. In 2006 there was a march on Washington D.C. to draw attention to the plight of Latinx immigrants. This march, organized by Emma Lozano (mentor to Elvira Arellano) was led by illegal immigrants with legal children.¹² This was not the only protest event to take place in 2006; in May there was a nationwide boycott intended to “influence the debate in Congress over granting legal status to all or most of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country” by showing how different America is without it’s immigrants, legal or not.[Archibold, “Immigrants Take to U.S. Streets in Show of Strength.”] Although the intended boycott did not fully take place, devolving into a series of protest events and rallies, the desire of those who organized and/or participated in the “Day Without An Immigrant” event came through. They stood up for the rights of their own families, and others like them.

America still has a long way to go in terms of treating migrant laborers, legal or illegal fairly. Although times have changed since the bracero program, there is still discrimination and opression, helped by the harmful stereotypes of Latinx people that plague society. However, the Latinx community is working hard to try and fix these problems and secure their rights as workers, as parents, and as human beings. Through the work of activists like Elvira Arellano and organizations like El Teatro Campesino, there is hope that these people will find the better world they are fighting for. 

 

Sources

1615 L. St NW, Suite 800Washington, and DC 20036USA202-419-4300 | Main202-857-8562 | Fax202-419-4372 | Media Inquiries, “Key Facts about U.S. Hispanics and Their Diverse Heritage,” Pew Research Center (blog), accessed May 4, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/16/key-facts-about-u-s-hispanics/.

Avis Mysyk, “Land, Labor, and Indigenous Response: Huaquechula (Mexico), 1521–1633,” Colonial Latin American Review 24, no. 3 (September 2015): 336–55, https://doi.org/10.1080/10609164.2015.1086595. 

“A 2011 Oral History Interview with a Man Who Grew up on a Farm in Arizona Recounting How Hard the Braceros Worked in the Fields.,” Digital Public Library of America, accessed May 4, 2020, https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/mexican-labor-and-world-war-ii-the-bracero-program/sources/74.

“Bracero Program Images,” USCIS, January 7, 2020, https://www.uscis.gov/history-and-genealogy/featured-stories-uscis-history-office-and-library/bracero-program-images.

“El Teatro Campesino: Fifty Years and Counting | El Teatro Campesino,” accessed May 4, 2020, http://elteatrocampesino.com/uncategorized/el-teatro-campesino-fifty-years-and-counting/.

“Evening Rally: Cesar Chavez (United Farm Workers Union President) [Page 1 of 2],” accessed May 4, 2020, https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/protests/id/148/.

“FRONTLINE/WORLD . Rough Cut . Chicago: Little Mexico | PBS,” accessed May 4, 2020, https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2006/10/chicago_little.html.

Juan Loza, Mireya Loza, and Mireya Loza, Juan Loza (Chicago, Illinois, 2005), http://braceroarchive.org/items/show/175?view=full.

LOUIS MENDOZA and Frances R. Aparicio, “Conversations across ‘Our America’:: Latinoization and the New Geography of Latinas/Os,” in Latina/o Midwest Reader, ed. OMAR VALERIO-JIMÉNEZ, SANTIAGO VAQUERA-VÁSQUEZ, and CLAIRE F. FOX (University of Illinois Press, 2017), 25–39, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt1rfsrxw.5.

“Onda Latina ~ The Mexican American Experience Program Collection of the KUT Longhorn Radio Network,” accessed May 4, 2020, http://www.laits.utexas.edu/onda_latina/program?sernum=000536950&header=Politics.

Randal C. Archibold, “Immigrants Take to U.S. Streets in Show of Strength,” The New York Times, May 2, 2006, sec. U.S., https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/02/us/02immig.html.