Membership Denied: Braceros and the Conditional Value of Labor
Work and Housing
Since the termination of the Bracero Guest Worker Program in 1964, official narratives have presented the program through two opposing frameworks: either opportunity or exploitation. The nuanced experiences of Mexican guest workers, however, have remained limited and largely forgotten in U.S. public memory.
The reality for these guest workers was more complex, with both opportunity and marginalization moving beyond the rancher-worker dynamic. Indigeneity coupled with regional Mexican difference also played a role in the connections built in the United States.
Examining the experiences of individual braceros highlights the diversity within the Bracero Program and calls into question the generalization that guest workers were racially and ethnically homogeneous.
Romiro Solis’ Oral History
When the strawberry season was at its peak, we were paid by the hour, while the local workers were paid by the box because they worked quickly. The boss would tell us, “Faster, faster! Look at that man, look how many boxes he’s filled, and you haven’t done anything.” They wanted us to work at the same pace, but they were being paid by the box, while we were being paid by the hour. When the strawberry season ended, the grower then put us on contract work to clean up everything that was no longer producing fruit, the little plants. We were only cleaning them, but we were paid by contract. We spent the entire day working and never filled a box because there wasn’t any fruit left. We were just cleaning, and we spent the whole day earning 57 cents an hour.
Tell me about the other braceros who worked there. Did you become friends with any of them?
Very little, very little, because I became friends with the cooks instead. After dinner and everything, the other braceros in the camp with me didn’t like to bathe. We Yucatecans, because of the heat, bathed every day. So they started talking about me, saying that I was dirty and that was why I bathed every day. Because of that, I would go and chat with the cooks instead. That’s how I became friends with them. I would help them out while we talked, and in return they helped me by finding me easier jobs.
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