The United States has a long history of the exploitation and overwork of immigrants for labor. The pattern is evident in the half million Africans bought for slavery between the 17th-19th centuries, the factories in early 1900 sustained by Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe, and the farm fields in the 1940s worked by a majority of Mexican families.
During World War II, the United States government funded the Bracero Program to deal with war shortages. This program let more than 4 million Mexican workers into the U.S. for a limited season to work on farms in the Southwest region. This appealed to many impoverished Mexicans after their government failed to provide resources demanded after the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Expecting money and opportunity to bring back to their families, many experienced Mexican farmworkers traveled North.
Mexican immigrant farmworkers sustained and raised the American economy greatly, but were paid little for the hard labor. Many were forced to sign unfair contracts written solely in English. Immigrants also suffered discrimination and harassment from Americans and racist authorities. Some describe the cycle as "legalized slavery." In 1964, the Bracero Program ended, but in effect, the cycle and immigration pattern continued.
"We have no names. We are called only by numbers." - Photographer Leonard Nadel's caption to this photograph of a bracero worker holding a short-handed hoe. This photograph was taken in 1956 as commissioned by the Fund for the Republic, a group advocating the repeal of the Bracero Act because of concerns of exploitation. (amhistory.si.edu)
"Much in the same manner and feeling used in handling livestock, upon crossing over the bridge from Mexico at Hidalgo, Texas, the men are herded into groups of 100 through a makeshift booth sprayed with DDT." - Photographer Leonard Nadel in 1956. Mexican workers were also searched for drugs, vegetables, and weapons. (amhistory.si.edu)
This poster was commissioned by the U.S. Office of War Information in 1942. It shows an Uncle Sam-style hat and a "sombrero." This piece of propaganda was meant as a message of unity to Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigrants during WWII during protests and zoot suit riots in Los Angeles. (digital.library.unt.edu)