Flexible families: Bracero families' lives across cultures, communities, and countries, 1942-1964

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FLEXIBLE FAMILIES: BRACERO FAMILIES’ LIVES ACROSS CULTURES,
COMMUNITIES, AND COUNTRIES, 1942-1964

by

Ana Elizabeth Rosas

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(HISTORY)

December 2006

Copyright 2006 Ana Elizabeth Rosas

ii
DEDICATION
To my loving parents,
Dolores and Francisco Rosas

iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Frias, Garza, Magallanes, Manzo, Medina, Rodriguez, Rios, Rosas, Ruiz, and
Sánchez families’ dedication and trust made researching and writing this dissertation
possible. Their willingness to share their archives, life histories, insights, and homes
facilitated learning more about and from their experience-History. Always encouraging
and generous, their example, efforts, and prayers nurtured my commitment to learning,
community, and family at every stage of my graduate education. I hope that this
dissertation in some way finally draws attention to the invaluable importance of their
sacrifices and journey.
Raised in South Central Los Angeles, the daughter of working class Mexican
immigrant parents, I never imagined earning a doctorate. Had it not been for Dr. George
J. Sánchez, I am convinced it would never have happened. It has been a blessing, honor,
and privilege to learn from Dr. Sánchez. Words cannot express my gratitude. His
example, compassion, integrity, and extraordinary dedication to my education have
improved my life dramatically. His sage mentorship at every stage facilitated my survival
in what oftentimes has been an extraordinarily alienating yet intellectually satisfying
journey. His editorial wizardry made earning my doctorate a reality. I am indebted to his
vision of higher education and social justice, high expectations, and unparalleled
mentorship. De todo corazon-gracias!
Philippa Levine, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Maria Elena Martinez, and Lon
Kurashige’s passion and profound respect for innovative and meticulous research and
writing also laid the foundations for genuinely educational and exhilarating discussions.

iv
Their questions were a source of energy throughout critical stages of my research and
writing. I thank each of them for their committed dedication, encouragement, and
support.
I have been very fortunate to have the honor of learning from Dr. Vicki L. Ruiz.
Her own research and writing, editorial eye, encouragement, and advice improved my
writing and restored my spirits on multiple occasions. Never too busy to meet or discuss
my progress, I am indebted to her commitment to the diversification of higher education.
She has been wonderfully supportive at every stage of my dissertation research and
writing.
I am extremely grateful to the University of Southern California’s department of
History’s faculty and students. Terry Seip, Peter Mancall, Lois Banner, Joe Styles, Lori
Rogers, Laverne Hughes, Brenda Johnson, and the late Dr. Mauricio Mazon’s
encouragement and efforts throughout my undergraduate and graduate education have
been invaluable to my progress. The university’s Program in American Studies and
Ethnicity also made it possible to learn from exceptionally talented and supportive
colleagues. Throughout the years, Desiree Campos Marquez, Belinda Lum, Karen
Bowdre, Genelle Gaudinez, Maria Elena Espinoza, Ilda and Christopher Jimenez y West,
Jeff Kosiorek, Anne Choi, Gerardo Licon, Lorena Muñoz, Sandy Garcia-Meyers, Theresa
Gregor, Jinny Huh, Laura Barroclaugh, Hilary Jenks, Denise Kwok, Lata Murti, Jose
Prado, Reina Prado, Luis Carlos Rodriguez, and Karen Yonemoto have been excellent
role models. I look forward to continuing to learn from their amazing research and
service.

v
A Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History fellowship in
Latino/a Studies financed my first year of intense dissertation research at the Library of
Congress and National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Maryland
and Washington, DC. Susan McLaughlin, Pete Daniel, Peter Liebhold, Steve Velasquez,
Marvette Perez, and Faith Ruffins were generously receptive and helpful in navigating a
rich maze of information and resources. Prudence Clendenning, Dee Anne Clendenning,
and Bob Clopp generously welcomed me into their home. Their thoughtfulness and
support made this an intensely dynamic and rich year of learning.
A National Research Council Ford Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship,
Haynes Foundation Fellowship, and research grants from the Historical Society of
Southern California and the Huntington provided me with an opportunity to expand my
research and writing into fantastic archives throughout Mexico and the United States.
Their funding and resources greatly enriched the scope of my research, provided me with
much needed time to write, and introduced me to an amazing world of archivists and
resilient children, women, and men.
Throughout my dissertation fellowship at Stanford University’s Bill Lane Center
for the Study of the North American West, Dr. Richard White, Margarita Ibarra, Gina
Wein, and Monica Wheeler were generously encouraging and supportive. Their efforts
made accessing campus networks and resources, and in turn, transitioning into this
community a smooth process. Working with Polly Armstrong advanced my archival
research throughout the final stages of my writing. This fellowship also afforded me the
honor of learning from Dr. Albert Camarillo. Throughout each stage of my fellowship,

vi
his attention to detail, love of teaching and Compton, California, and mentorship were
profoundly educational. Never losing sight of what really matters-family, discipline, and
progress- he generously shared his insights and time at critical stages of my writing. This
fellowship also introduced me to the exciting and wonderful accomplishments and talents
of Taurean Brown, Michael Brown II, Anna Chen, Jessica Covarrubias, Porsha Cropper,
Cynthia Gomez, Christina Hewko, Lori Flores, Prisilla Juarez, Francisco Preciado, and
Laura Rodriguez. Their resilience, service, and solidarity should make Stanford
University and respective ‘hoods proud. Each made this fellowship year and previous
research trips to the “farm” a wonderful learning experience.
I would also like to express my admiration and gratitude toward Dr. Ramon
Gutierrez, Mae Ngai, Sonia Saldivar-Hull, Natalia Molina, John McKiernan-Gonzalez,
Julie Wiese, Luz Calvo, David Hernandez, Stephen Pitti, and Alicia Schmidt-Camacho.
Each in their own way nurtured my spirits at critical junctures of my graduate education.
Their example, comments, and support greatly advanced my conceptualization of this
rich immigrant family experience, as well as the importance of learning from others
committed to expanding our fields of inquiry, lines of communication, and pursuit of
social justice.
The faculty and students at the University of Houston, University of California,
Irvine, University of Texas, El Paso, and Yale University were also extremely receptive
and encouraging. Their respective workshops and invitations to share my research greatly
improved and advanced completion of my dissertation. I look forward to continuing to

vii
learn from their insights, resources, scholarship, and commitment to establishing strong
and supportive national networks.
Afraid of flying and at times dependent on public transportation, I would like to
thank Robin D.G. Kelley, Toni Morrison, Nine Inch Nails, Lauryn Hill, Los Tigres del
Norte, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Vicente Fernandez, Ella Fitzgerald, The Beatles, KINKY,
Frank Sinatra, Gorillaz, Bob Marley, The Killers, Manu Chao, The Doors, Sade, Miles
Davis, Lila Downs, Coldplay, REM, Home Box Office entertainment, and U2 for
producing engrossing texts. Their writing, concerts, albums, and screenplays transformed
flying into and out of airports, commuting to and from bus depots and stops, and rushing
through subway stations into a restorative process throughout my research and writing.
Their ability to inspire tolerance, patience, and confidence made traveling throughout
Mexico and the United States a far more enjoyable part of my workday.
My respect and gratitude also lies with the strong women of the ‘hood. Helping
and cheering each other on throughout the years has been a blessing. MariaTeresa
Rodriguez, Leticia Nuño, Ramona Frias, Sylvia Manzo, Emma Solorzano, Esther
Sánchez, Daniela Manzo, Thalia Manzo, Dafne Manzo, Araceli Gomez, Yadira
Cervantes, Elizabeth Sánchez, Maria Concepcion Ruiz, Catalina Ruiz, Ana Bertha Ruiz,
Sandra Arellano, Reyna Soriano, Mercedes Mendoza, Annette Preciado, and Sandy
Escobedo have been incredibly generous and supportive. Their friendship, love,
accomplishments, and talents-our shared life journeys have been profoundly educational
and inspirational.

viii
My grandparents, Francisca Medina de Ramirez, Desiderio Medina Ahumada,
Josefina Rosas de Gomez, and Manuel Ricardo Rosas, and aunts and uncles, Abigail
Rosas Gomez, Maria Elena Medina Ramirez, Cesario Rosas Gomez, Moises Medina
Ramirez, and Luis Medina Ramirez deserve my heartfelt appreciation and respect for
holding our family together. Their prayers, letters, cards, phone calls, networks, and
generosity throughout my upbringing and dissertation research and writing have been
instrumental toward nurturing my spirits, learning more about and from our family’s
history, and unearthing sensitive yet critical dimensions of the Mexican immigration in
Mexico and the United States. I thank them for everything, most especially their
confidence and love.
I reserve my deepest admiration, respect, gratitude, and love for my parents,
Dolores and Francisco Rosas. Their faith, love, respect, sacrifice, work ethic, and care in
support of our family’s welfare and my pursuit of a doctorate have been foundational at
every stage of my life journey. I am very blessed to have them as parents and proud of
how far we have come. Their extraordinary confidence and trust always inspires me to
listen and write from the heart. Con mucho cariño-gracias! I love you.
Finally, I am forever grateful to my sister, Abigail “Abbie” Rosas. Her love,
honesty, intelligence, ingenuity, work ethic, spunk, resilience, commitment to sisterhood,
and own research are genuinely inspirational and a blessing. Without her confidence and
efforts, earning my doctorate would not have been possible. I look forward to continuing
to enjoy learning, giving back, and growing in support of each other, the ‘hood, and
social justice.

ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

ABSTRACT xi

INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER 1: 37
RACIAL LOGIC AND BRACERO RECRUITMENT IN THE MEXICAN
COUNTRYSIDE

CHAPTER 2: 117
MANAGING BRACEROS AND THEIR FAMILIES:
THE EFFECTS OF “SPECIAL IMMIGRANT” STATUS ACROSS BORDERS

CHAPTER 3:
FEMALE HEADS OF HOUSEHOLD AND INTERNAL MIGRATION: 171
THE EFFECTSOF IMMIGRANT ABANDONMENT

CHAPTER 4:
“INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT FOR FAMILIES” AND THE 240
TRANSFORMATION OF RURAL WORKING CLASS WOMEN

CHAPTER 5:
“OPERATION WETBACK,” FAMILY DIVISIONS, AND NEW 361
SETTLEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES

x
CONCLUSION 442

BIBLIOGRAPHY 452

xi
ABSTRACT

This dissertation historicizes the transnational and gendered fluidity of state
manufactured conceptions of the mid-twentieth-century Mexican immigrant family and
the different ways in which three generations of children, women, and men appropriated
and challenged this ideal in Mexico and the United States. The Mexican and U.S.
governments’ demand and management of these families under the Bracero Program, is
as much a transnational history of the reopening of the U.S.-Mexico border as it is about
Mexican immigrant families learning to lead lives stretched across borders. Oscillating
between Mexican citizens, braceros, undocumented Mexican immigrants, and U.S.
permanent residents, transnational conceptualizations of the ideal Mexican immigrant
worker and family generated the second largest yet most understudied wave of Mexican
immigration to and from the United States. Historians of the immigrant experience have
overlooked Mexican immigrant families as historical actors in the Mexican and U.S.
governments’ construction and management of this gendered simultaneous Mexican
resident and immigrant ideal. Using archival documents and oral life histories, this
dissertation is the first to link and examine the transnational roots and routes of
discourses, cultural practices, and political strategies shaping this family experience in
Mexico and the United States and its relationship to a longer history of Mexican
immigrant ebbs and flows to and from the United States.
To illuminate the transnational and gendered complexity of this immigrant family
experience, this dissertation centers on the Mexican and U.S. governments’ reification of
the U.S.-Mexico border through normative gendered management of an estimated 5.2

xii
million Mexican immigrant families across borders. The Mexican and U.S. governments’
commitment to immigration reform and economic progress recklessly separated and
managed Mexican immigrant children, women, and men as strictly a transnational
immigrant workforce. Historicizing this family experience reveals the moments and ways
in which these families embodied, appropriated, and challenged governmental
conceptualizations of immigrant work, family, and progress. For far from viewing
themselves as helpless victims in a diplomatic exchange, Mexican immigrant families led
arduous transnational lives to achieve their own visions of family and progress.

1
INTRODUCTION
On August 4, 1942, the Mexican and U.S. governments simplistically reduced the
reopening of the US-Mexico border into the straightforward importation and repatriation
of temporary Mexican immigrant contract laborers under the Emergency Mexican Farm
Labor Program, more commonly known as the Bracero Program. Mexican President
Manuel Avila Camacho proposed rehabilitating allegedly racially inferior rural Mexican
men into modern citizens by exposing them to U.S. customs, skills, and work habits that
they did not know through temporary contract labor in the United States. Confident that
after earning U.S. wages and learning U.S. methods and skills, men would return
adequately prepared to invest and labor in Mexico and move the nation forward on the
path toward technological sophistication and modernity, Avila Camacho overlooked this
Program’s exigencies.
1

This vision of rural working class progress did not automatically modernize, but
disrupted Mexican immigrant families. Despite the Mexican governments’ vision, the
World War II and post World War II Mexican immigrant experience in Mexico and the
United States is a history of transnational family disruption. The Mexican and U.S.
governments’ reopening of the U.S.-Mexico border and management of Mexican
immigration and settlement are at the heart of this history. It encompasses Mexican
border towns, rural towns and villages, and urban cities, U.S. agricultural labor camps
and surrounding towns, and Mexican immigrant children, women, and men’s desires,
resourcefulness, limitations, and obligations. Continually moving, Mexican immigrant

1 Manuel Avila Camacho to Eduardo Zepeda, 4 August 1942. Series 19, Folder 60, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

2
families worked hard to belong in Mexico and the United States. Bracero Program
conditions compelled Mexican immigrant families to work in both countries, but made it
difficult for them to remain in either place for very long. Their class, ethnic, and racial
identity, immigration status, terms of employment, family ties, and gender inequality
severely limited their immigration and settlement across borders. Rigorous poorly
compensated temporary contract labor, deportation, and restrictive gender norms and
relations complicated their negotiation of short and long-term family separation and
reunification. Conceptualizing and investigating the Bracero Program as a transnational
immigrant family experience renders new perspectives on the resources and potential for
success that Mexican immigrant families brought to their negotiation of the reopening of
the U.S.-Mexico border and state manufactured conceptualizations of immigrant family
life in Mexican and U.S. society.
Mexican immigrant men’s uncontrollable movement and economic investment in
sending rural Mexican towns and villages and U.S. agricultural labor camps and towns
has erroneously dominated transnational historical conceptualizations of the Bracero
Program experience. Capturing the material traces of Mexican immigrant men’s
temporary contract labor, entrepreneurial and venturesome spirit, and undocumented
immigrant labor is a prevalent theme that narrowly overemphasizes one transnational
dimension of this immigrant family experience: Mexican immigrant men’s reconstruction
of Mexican society. Without ever accounting for the gender inequality or child, elderly,
and women’s labor fueling and sustaining Mexican immigrant men’s construction and
repair of family homes, businesses, and public service facilities throughout sending

3
Mexican rural towns and villages, this rendition effaces Mexican immigrant men’s
relationship and dependence on their families throughout their Program participation and
immigrant family experience writ large. Neglecting the emergence and centrality of
transnational Mexican immigrant family life obscures the economic and social networks,
gender inequality, and immigration policy driving this Program and the constant material
and social restructuring of Mexican and U.S. society and in turn, transnational Mexican
immigrant family life over time.
Rather than conceptualize and investigate the Bracero Program as strictly a
circuitous transnational immigrant male journey to breathe single handedly material life
into sending Mexican rural towns and villages, this dissertation centers on transnational
Mexican immigrant family separation, cooperation, and reunification and its relationship
to the economic, social, and cultural restructuring of Mexican and U.S. society.
Contextualizing the emergence and role of transnational Mexican immigrant family life
with an emphasis on gender, “the social and cultural ideals, practices, and displays of
femininity and masculinity organizing and shaping opportunities, decisions, and
relationships” throughout the Program’s trajectory

demonstrates the Mexican and U.S.
governments’ overdependence on entire immigrant families’ labor and gender inequality
to finance and sustain this Program.
2
I argue that the Program’s government sanctioned
family separation, cyclical temporary reunification, and resettlement under economically,
socially, culturally, and emotionally unequal terms compelled Mexican immigrant
families to pursue a transnational, circuitous, and gendered immigrant family life that

2 Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette. Gendered Transitions. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

4
defied Program ideals and conditions by stretching across borders. The Mexican and U.S.
governments’ overdependence on financially and emotionally vulnerable Mexican
immigrant families inspired children, women, and men to think and act transnationally.
Historians cannot afford to underestimate the formative roles of family disruption
and gender throughout the Bracero Program’s history. Since the Program’s inception,
weary of promoting uncontrollable Mexican immigration and settlement and Mexican
immigrant women’s reproductive potential in the United States, the Mexican and U.S.
governments did not contract Mexican families or women. They required Mexican men
to separate from their families, before issuing or renewing their contract to labor
temporarily in the United States. Financing the Program’s exigencies fell on Mexican
children, the elderly, women, and men’s shoulders. This government sanctioned family
separation produced a complex continuum of family anxiety, flexibility, ingenuity, and
resilience on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. It required overwhelmed families to
make difficult decisions concerning their family situations, employment conditions,
gender relations, and settlement. Mexico and the United States’ constant oscillation
between sending and receiving status and downward shifts in the Mexican economy,
nonetheless, compelled an estimated 5.2 million Mexican men to separate from their
families and participate in this Program in anticipation of earning enough to invest in
desirable life opportunities of their own making.
After this Program’s recruitment campaign, participating families were convinced
that modernizing the Mexican rural working class was not a governmental priority.
Collapsing Mexican immigration and repatriation into highly organized operations

5
emerged as the Bracero Program’s cornerstones. Satisfying alleged U.S. labor shortages
and managing undocumented Mexican immigrant settlement was at the heart of the
Mexican and U.S. governments’ Program management throughout Mexico and the
United States. Both governments concentrated their energy on interrogating, bathing,
delousing, and registering—in other words, dehumanizing Mexican men—to labor in the
United States without ever informing them of their destination and contract duration.
3

Bracero dehumanization, insularity, and segregation in contracting sites and agricultural
labor camps limited their interaction, physical mobility and visibility, and settlement, and
in turn, allowed the U.S. government to depress wages and repatriate them upon their
contract’s expiration, denying them the right to organize and bargain for fair wages
individually and collectively. Neither the Mexican nor U.S. government advocated or
protected Mexican immigrant families’ interests.
This approach did not curb but further obligated Mexican immigrant families to
lead transnational lives in Mexico and the United States. The Mexican government’s
failure to create competitive and desirable domestic employment opportunities among the
rural working class, and the U.S. government’s reluctance to address the national
proliferation of Mexican immigrant exploitation in its agricultural industry made it
difficult for Mexican immigrant families to reunite and settle in either country. Leading
lives stretched across borders was their only option. Transitioning into and out of
temporary contract labor and into a combination of internal migrant and undocumented
immigrant labor throughout Mexico and the United States emerged as a popular alternate

3 Ibid.

6
route toward surviving a struggling Mexican economy, and the Mexican and U.S.
governments’ commitment to publicly asserting control over the U.S.-Mexico border.
After years of bracero, migrant, and undocumented immigrant labor, Mexican immigrant
families often settled for transnational long distance family relationships or permanent
family separation. Over its twenty-two year trajectory, this Program’s exorbitant demands
knew no bounds.
Bracero and undocumented Mexican immigrants’ pursuit of working in two
countries was an extraordinarily charged transnational family process. The Mexican and
U.S. governments’ commitment to controlling Mexican immigrant labor and settlement
escalated, resulting in their investment in the widely publicized border enforcement
campaigns of the “El Paso, Texas incident,” “Operation Wetback,” Internal Security Act,
and Walter-McCarran Act. Both governments’ commitment to obfuscating the U.S.
agricultural industry’s insatiable demand for vulnerable Mexican immigrant labor and a
worsening Mexican economy challenged Mexican families to pursue belonging in
Mexico and the United States in protection of their interests. This manipulative public
exercise in border enforcement intensified Mexican families’ alienation, exploitation, and
mobility.
Holding undocumented Mexican immigrants solely and publicly accountable for
their uncontrollable movement, economic hardships, and family disruption did not
diminish the importance of earning higher U.S. wages, sending remittances, and
combining domestic and immigrant wages to survive the Mexican and U.S. governments’
negligence of the rural working class in Mexican and U.S. society. Program conditions

7
and public interest in managing Mexican immigrant settlement via exploitative
employment and investment opportunities, educational programs, and gender norms
motivated immigrant families to finance economic and family arrangements that offset
their and their families’ vulnerability to discrimination and poverty by excelling as
transnational immigrant families. Bracero Program conditions and border enforcement
campaigns did not curb, but accelerated the transnationalization of immigrant families.
Bracero families’ embodiment, appropriation, and rejection of state manufactured
conceptualizations of the eligible Mexican immigrant male worker and patient self-reliant
immigrant family were dialectal government and family driven processes that
restructured the Mexican and U.S. governments’ management of Mexican immigration
and settlement. Families’ coordination of emotionally and financially arduous
transnational immigrant family relationships comprised of temporary contract labor,
cyclical family reunification, internal migration, undocumented immigration,
transnational business and property agreements and educational programs, and permanent
family separation and resettlement influenced the Mexican and U.S. governments’
management of the Bracero Program and in turn, the reopening of the U.S.-Mexico
border’s changing shape. Dramatic increases in undocumented Mexican immigration and
settlement in the United States temporarily disrupted governmental relationships and
Program labor agreement negotiations, but did not deteriorate the Mexican and U.S.
governments’ commitment to the Program’s longevity. Coupled with Mexican immigrant
families’ resolve to belong in Mexico and the United States, these governments with the
support of concerned residents constantly restructured the contours of governmental

8
enforcement of the U.S.-Mexico border. Employing emotionally and financially
vulnerable Mexican immigrant men in U.S. agricultural labor camps and towns via the
Program remained a shared longstanding government priority whose on the ground
design and implementation changed in accordance with local priorities concerning
demands for Mexican immigrant labor.
By investigating the Bracero Program experience in Mexico and the United States
as a transnational and gendered immigrant family history, this dissertation does not
conform neatly into the traditional linear teleology used to frame and investigate
immigration to the United States: immigrant settlement, assimilation, and citizenship.
The U.S. government used Program labor agreements to deny braceros and
undocumented Mexican immigrants these rights. Their repatriation upon their contract’s
expiration, deportation, family ties, and visions of progress that stretched across borders
kept Mexican immigrants returning and investing in their sending Mexican rural towns
and villages, elements that do not conform neatly into a linear investigation.
The Mexican and U.S. governments’ implementation of Program conditions and
families discouraging Mexican immigrant relatives from severing their economic ties to
the United States and familial ties to Mexico compelled Mexican immigrants to pursue
belonging in both countries. Both governments and families left behind depended on
Mexican immigrant remittances to prevent the disintegration of their families and
employment and social networks across borders. Conditions that render this immigrant
family experience qualitatively different from Oscar Handlin’s account of an earlier wave

9
of transatlantic immigrants’ relationship to the United States and their sending countries.
4

Handlin argues that despite transatlantic immigrants’ labor exploitation, emotional
turmoil, and racial discrimination, eventual improvements in their class, ethnic, race, and
labor relations in the United States weakened their accountability and ties to their sending
countries. A process that was different from that of the World War II and post World War
II Mexican immigrant experience. The constant struggle to sustain themselves and their
immigrant relatives’ U.S. earning potential through Program participation and
undocumented immigration required families to re-invent their transnational family
oriented social and economic networks in support of each other. Participating and
benefiting from the Program rested on the labor and resilience of transnational immigrant
families stretched across borders.
The Program’s overdependence on transnational Mexican immigrant families’
labor sustained the Program, but did not allow the Mexican and U.S. governments’ to
collapse the reopening of the U.S.-Mexico border into an efficient transition into and out
of temporary contract labor. Even so, a myriad of understudied Program conditions
prevented Mexican immigrants from permanently transplanting themselves in the United
States. Unlike, John Bodnar’s assessment of previous waves of transplanted immigrants
in the United States, the Program’s cyclical nature and costs required Mexican
immigrants to remain connected to their sending Mexican rural towns and villages.
Transnational family labor and business agreements financing their Program participation
or undocumented immigration entailed developing and financing transnational economic

4 Handlin, Oscar. The Uprooted. Second Edition. Canada: Little Brown and Company,1972.

10
and social networks that required their temporary return and continued economic
investment. Severing their economic and familial ties to their sending Mexican rural
towns and villages limited their ability to reenter and resettle permanently in the United
States. Mexican immigrants confronted a different and far more complicated transition
into permanently settling in the United States than previous immigrants to the United
States. Mexican immigrants and their respective families depended on each other’s
earnings, labor, and mobility to survive financially in Mexican and U.S. society.
Permanent family reunification and settlement was a charged and circuitous transnational
family process.
Their increased earning potential and precautionary measures stemming from
sending Mexican rural town and village conversations had not been enough to prepare
Mexican immigrants to confront what Matthew Frye Jacobson describes as the “weight of
departure and absence.”
5
Nonetheless, the Mexican and U.S. governments and historians
of the immigrant experience have underestimated Mexican immigrant families’ ingenuity
and resilience. This immigrant generation’s Program participation, undocumented
immigration, and economic and social networks accelerated what Michael Kearney and
Roger Rouse argue as the simultaneous transnationalization of Mexican immigrants and
sending Mexican rural towns and villages.
6
Indeed, this Program and families’
negotiation of its conditions underwrote the incentives and networks that would mature

5 Frye Jacobson, Matthew. Special Sorrows. Boston: Harvard University Press, 1995.
6 Rouse, Roger. “A Making Sense of Settlement: Class Transformation, Cultural Struggle and
Transnationalism among Mexican Migrants to the Unites States,” in Annals of the New York Academy of
Science, 1992, 25-52. Rouse, Roger. “A Thinking Through Transnationalism: Notes on the Cultural Politics
in the Contemporary United States,” Public Culture 7:2, Winter 1995, 353-402.

11
into what Douglas Massey argues are the building blocks of post-1965 Mexican
immigration to the United States: “interpersonal, institutional, and economic
incorporation through Mexican immigrant ties with each other and the United States
resulting from their social interaction, membership, employment, and consumption
patterns.”
7
The dialectal relationship between the Mexican and U.S. governments’
negotiation and management of Program conditions and families’ confrontation of these
terms demonstrates that neither governments nor families acted in a vacuum or in clear-
cut Program phases, but in accordance with their respective visions of progress.
Investigating the dialectal relationship between the Mexican and U.S.
governments’ Program management and Mexican immigration and settlement entailed
building on Chicano/a scholars’ meticulous periodization of shifts in the negotiation of
labor agreements between 1942-1947, 1947-1951, 1951-1954, and 1954-1964.
Contextualizing the equally invaluable importance of Mexican immigrant families’
continuous immigration and circulation of remittances and information in relationship to
the negotiation of shifts in Program labor agreements is critical to enriching our
understanding of an equally foundational yet understudied subset of discourses and
conditions shaping the Program’s implementation and development. Shifts in the
Mexican and U.S. governments’ negotiation of Program labor agreements writ large may
have set the tone, but were not the sole determinants of the conditions shaping Mexican
immigrant families’ transition into and out of this Program. Mexican immigrant families’

7 Massey, Douglas, Rafael Alarcon, Jorge Durand, Humberto Gonzalez. Return to Aztlan: The Social
Process of International Migration from Western Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.

12
varied approaches to short and long term family separation and reunification did not
conform to shifts in Program labor agreement negotiations.
By investigating the diversity of discourses and subcultures shaping the Bracero
Program’s transnational dimensions, this dissertation demonstrates that we cannot
continue to focus strictly on the Mexican and U.S. governments’ negotiation of Program
labor agreements to understand this Program’s impact on Mexican immigrant families.
Explicating and integrating local Mexican governments and Mexican immigrant families’
interpretation of Program labor agreements to contextualize their appropriation and
resistance to shifts in Program conditions is an important contribution to the field of
Chicano/a History. It finally illuminates the relationship between local Mexican
governments and Mexican immigrant families’ transnational negotiation of shifts in
Program conditions in Mexico and the United States. This process reveals that advancing
transnational business agreements, economic investments, educational programs, and
transportation routes and in turn, local social and economic networks benefiting local
Mexican economies and facilitating Program participation emerged as local Mexican
governments and Mexican immigrant families’ only viable alternative toward working
together in pursuit of simultaneously protecting their interests and participating in this
Program. Their participation, and more urgently, belonging to economic and social
networks and families stretching across Mexico and the United States demanded their
tactful collaboration and appropriation of the reopening of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Mexican rural town and village governments and families worked hard to maximize on
Mexican immigrant men’s access to earning higher U.S. wages by reorienting their town,

13
village, and family priorities in accordance with Program conditions. Financing their
Program participation and constantly overcoming the Program’s failed promises required
Mexican immigrant families to oscillate between Mexican citizen, bracero,
undocumented immigrant, and undocumented U.S. residents. Transnational and gendered
transitions that require looking past Program labor agreements and learning more about
on the ground everyday strategies that kept towns, villages, and families connected and
accountable across borders. National governmental neglect confirmed that it was their
obligation to themselves and their families, town, and villages to look after themselves, if
they ever hoped to transition out of contract labor under desirable and healthy terms.
Historicizing Mexican immigrant families’ compliance and resistance to
governmental management of intimate aspects of their transnational family relationships
and investments illuminates this Program’s transnational history without reproducing
categories that diminish the importance of either the U.S. or Mexican government or
Mexican immigrant families. Considering the Program’s disruptive impact on Mexican
immigrant families in Mexico and the United States also does not minimize the
importance or occurrence of long-term family progress. Nonetheless, this dissertation
does not conceptualize immigrant family progress as strictly an expenditure or immigrant
male endeavor. Male and female family members were integral to the decision-making
and vision shaping their families’ transition into and out of this Program. Exploring the
transnational and gendered dimensions of Mexican immigrant families’ Program
participation enriches discussions of progress by illuminating that progress in the form of
affordable, desirable, healthy, and profitable permanent family reunification and

14
settlement in Mexico and the United States was contingent on successfully negotiating
unfair Program conditions, charged ethnic, class, gender, and race relations in Mexican
and U.S. society. Coupled with earning and investing U.S. wages, developing and
maintaining strong transnational support networks among similarly struggling families
was also critical to Mexican families of various immigration statuses’ successful long-
term settlement. Living and working among increasingly unreceptive families in Mexico
and the United States did not automatically result in harmonious and supportive
relationships and networks. It often required achieving varying levels of tolerance and
cooperation among fellow residents and workers to secure profitable long-term
settlement. Mexican immigrant families’ concerns, vulnerability, and visions of progress
resonated differently across borders.
In her investigation of the Bracero Program’s gender politics, Deborah Cohen
overlooks these considerations by restricting her investigation to the Program’s
impractical vision of rural Mexican masculinity and modernity and bracero investment in
U.S. products to achieve their respective visions of progress.
8
She is right to point out that
these strategies neither modernized nor uplifted braceros from underdevelopment and
poverty, but her failure to contextualize bracero plans for progress in relationship to their
families’ labor and sending Mexican rural town and village resources underestimates the
transnational social and economic networks and in turn, the complex relationships
shaping and making immigrant progress possible. It erases the importance and diversity

8 Cohen, Deborah. “Masculine Sweat, Stoop-Labor Modernity: Gender, Race, and Nation in Mid-
Twentieth Century Mexico and the United States.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 2001.

15
of approaches braceros, and most especially, entire families used to negotiate the
Program’s gendered and transnational costs throughout their departure, contract duration,
undocumented immigration, temporary return, and undocumented immigrant permanent
settlement in Mexico and the United States. Her focus on Mexican immigrant men’s
purchasing power and temporary return compartmentalizes this experience into neat
stages without ever accounting for family relationships and networks that make braceros’
plans for progress transnationally intricate and financially feasible. She assumes that
families left behind did not play an integral role nor devised strategies of their own to
facilitate braceros’ transition into and out of this Program and their families’ lives.
It is also just as critical to avoid overemphasizing the power of Mexican
immigrant families’ appropriation of Program conditions, support networks, purchase of
U.S. products, and investment in transnational business agreements, property, and
educational programs. These strategies and expenditures provided Mexican immigrant
families with incentives to remain committed to their transnational family and economic
relationships and persevere through difficult situations, but did not protect them against
alienation in U.S. society. According to historians of the Mexican American experience,
the Bracero Program and restrictive immigration policies targeting ethnic Mexicans, like
the Internal Security Act, Walter-McCarran Act, and “Operation Wetback” escalated
class, ethnic, and racial tensions among and between braceros, undocumented Mexican
immigrants, longtime Mexican immigrants of varying legal statuses, and Mexican
Americans competing for employment in the U.S. agricultural industry. They argue that
the U.S. government’s aggressive pursuit of deportable aliens of ethnic Mexican

16
background fueled varying levels of intolerance toward bracero and undocumented
Mexican immigrants among Mexican Americans and longtime Mexican immigrants.
9

Mexican American community service organizations coordinated naturalization
workshops, English as a Second Language programs, voter registration drives, and labor
unions to assert their U.S. citizenship and long time residence in the United States. They
excluded braceros and undocumented Mexican immigrants, restricting their interaction to
employment situations, occasional chats in social settings, and seasonal public outreach
efforts. Mexican Americans worried that identifying and interacting with braceros and
undocumented Mexican immigrants would diminish their right to claim their fundamental
Americanness. Overwhelmed, they too often lost sight or became unsympathetic to
braceros and undocumented Mexican immigrants-recently arrived members of Mexican
immigrant families’ plight.
Nonetheless, and unlike historians of the Mexican American experience, this
dissertation expands on the transnational resonance of such alienation among Mexican
immigrant families left behind in Mexico. It does not lose sight of the alienation
experienced in the United States’ relationship to the longevity and intensity of similar
tension among and between Mexican rural elite and working class immigrant families in
Mexican society. Mexican immigrant families left behind’s struggle against
dehumanizing class tension escalated in accordance with worsening U.S. class, ethnic,
and racial tension, revealing the transnationality of their vulnerability and resilience. This

9 Garcia Matt. A World of Its Own. North Carolina: University of North Caroline Press, 2003.; Gutierrez,
David G. Walls and Mirrors. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.; Pitti, Stephen. The Devil in
Silicon Valley. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2003.; and Vargas, Zaragosa. Labor Rights and
Civil Rights. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2004.

17
dissertation argues that like Mexican Americans, Mexican rural elite families developed a
subset of discourses and initiatives to simultaneously assert class differences and protect
their economic and social interests throughout the Program’s history. They appropriated
state funds and conceptualizations of the ideal Mexican immigrant worker and family to
manage Mexican immigrant families’ education, investments, and labor-their transition
into and out of the Program to their advantage. The rural Mexican elite were cognizant
that being similarly apprehended and investigated as deportable aliens would not sit well
with Mexican Americans, and took advantage of Mexican immigrants’ alienation in the
United States to implement consistently exploitative transnational economic networks
among their emotionally and financially vulnerable families in Mexican society. Program
conditions and longstanding class, ethnic, and racial tension transformed pursuing
bracero and undocumented Mexican immigration and settlement in the United States
under fair and desirable terms into an arduous transnational family struggle.
Ethnic Mexican families in Mexico and the United States did not acquiesce to
Mexican American labor activist, Ernesto Galarza’s call to organize transnational labor
unions and organizations to advance a collective struggle for ethnic Mexican equality and
progress in Mexico and the United States. Selective inclusion, exploitation, and the
Immigration and Naturalization Service’s arbitrary interrogation, apprehension, and
deportation of ethnic Mexicans made it extremely difficult for Mexican immigrants of
varying immigration statuses, Mexican Americans, and Mexican citizens to cooperate
with one another. Confronting the Program’s reification of class, ethnic, gender, and
racial difference in Mexican and the U.S. society pitted ethnic Mexican families against

18
each other. This Program’s exigencies and more specifically, its dehumanization of the
ethnic Mexican rural working class knew no bounds.
Transnational Mexican immigrant social alienation stretching across sending
Mexican rural towns and villages and U.S. agricultural towns used to manage Mexican
immigrant families’ Program participation transformed these locations into critical sites
in the dual process of Mexican immigrants’ self-making and being made in relation to a
wider social matrix of the continuous reinvention and reification of the U.S.-Mexico
border.
10
Hence, this dissertation re-conceptualizes our mapping of this experience to
include critical sites, communities, and networks—a subset of subcultures anchored in
racial, gender, class, and ethnic difference to demonstrate the expanse of the transnational
economic and social networks sustaining this Program and these families’ Program
participation. Rather than restrict itself to U.S. agricultural towns, this dissertation begins
in the sending Mexican rural town of San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, tracing the
Program’s evolution in the receiving U.S. agricultural town of Tulare, California,
rendering its domestic costs in the Mexican border town of Empalme, Sonora, and
culminates with an exploration of the simultaneous acceleration of the
transnationalization of San Martin de Hidalgo and Tulare to contextualize the
transnational, cyclical, and multidirectional intensity of Mexican immigrant families’
alienation, flexibility, and resilience throughout the Program’s trajectory. The
relationship between Program conditions, familial ties, transportation routes, and other
long standing economic and social networks connecting Mexican resident, migrant, and

10 Espiritu, Yen Le. Homebound. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.

19
immigrant and Mexican American families and these locations demonstrates that the
Mexican and U.S. governments’ used transnational discourses on border enforcement and
rural working class Mexican inferiority, family, womanhood, and progress to manage
Mexican immigration and settlement. This dissertation argues that the Mexican and U.S.
governments were far more aggressive in their management of Mexican children, the
elderly, and women in Mexico than in their management of Mexican immigrant men and
the U.S.-Mexico border. Their dependence on their flexibility, labor, and sacrifice was
critical to the Program’s longevity, leaving very limited room for families left behind to
create desirable life opportunities of their own.
Each site’s management of Mexican immigration and settlement informed
Mexican immigrant children, women, and men’s embodiment, appropriation, and
resistance to government priorities concerning the Program, elucidating the local class,
ethnic, and gender politics shaping their sense of belonging, physical mobility, and
family. San Martin de Hidalgo serves as a perfect sending Mexican rural town from
which to historicize the changes and continuities of this immigrant family experience.
Located 90 miles south of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, the largest city in the state of
Jalisco, this town was connected to transportation routes spanning the entire Mexican
countryside and leading up to the U.S.-Mexico border, facilitating the uncontrollable
movement of Mexican immigrants to and from the United States. Like other sending
Mexican rural towns and villages throughout the Mexican states of Campeche,
Guanajuato, Mazatlan, Mexico, Districto Federal, Michoacan, Monterrey, Oaxaca,
Sonora, and Zacatecas, this town’s local government, elite middle class, and struggling

20
rural working class financed and sustained their Program participation by developing
intricate transnational social and economic networks. Contextualizing the genuinely
transnational nature of this immigrant family experience and in turn, the Program’s
inception, evolution, longevity, and legacy entails investigating Mexican rural town and
villages from which braceros and undocumented Mexican immigrants came and for the
most part remained connected to. Despite this town’s regional specificity, its Program
participation mirrors the transnational contours of other sending Mexican rural towns’
negotiation of the reopening of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Similar to other sending Mexican rural towns and villages a combination of poor
wages and underemployment in this town’s agricultural industry, highway and railroad
construction, and brick and textile manufacturing compelled increasingly younger and
higher rates of Mexican men to pursue contract or undocumented immigrant labor in the
United States. The Mexican governments’ failure to generate competitive employment
opportunities throughout this Program’s trajectory, and escalating costs of operating
businesses administered by groups of women and children left behind and catering to
similarly struggling rural working class families were not enough to prevent their
immigration and often resettlement in the United States. An estimated 89 percent of male
town residents and an uncalculated percentage of women and children journeyed to the
United States in search of higher U.S. wages. This dissertation argues that this town’s
Program participation was part of a larger national trend of depending on a combination
of contract, migrant, domestic, and undocumented immigrant labor to sustain the
Program and struggling local Mexican economies. These towns established gendered

21
discussions concerning this Program’s benefits, costs, and challenges to finance their
participation and the Mexican and U.S. governments’ management of Mexican
immigration and settlement in the United States with their economic interests always in
mind.
Integral to understanding the Program’s gendered dehumanization and disruption
of Mexican immigrant families is the investigation of the continuous reification of the
U.S.-Mexico border in officially designated sites for the inspection, selection, and
contracting of Mexican immigrant men. Despite an influx in undocumented Mexican
immigration, the Mexican and U.S. governments’ remained committed to screening and
contracting Mexican men in Program selection centers in Mexico, Districto Federal,
Empalme, Sonora, San Ysidro, Baja California, and Ciudad Juarez. Unprepared to
process thousands of Mexican immigrant men, these sites increasingly expanded their
management of Mexican immigration to the United States by severely managing town
residents and abandoned financially desperate Mexican immigrant women journeying to
these sites in search of employment. Maintaining a public semblance of border control to
appease governmental concern concerning the Program and more urgently, these sites’
purpose and efficiency entailed managing Mexican children, women, and men under
increasingly dehumanizing terms.
This dissertation stretches into Empalme, Sonora to illuminate the transnational
and gendered contours of managing the reopening of the U.S.-Mexico border in Mexico.
This site’s border enforcement is critical to understanding the immigration and gender
politics shaping the escalation of border enforcement against rural working class Mexican

22
women. In a concerted effort to monitor their sexuality and reproductive potential, both
the Mexican and U.S. governments severely limited women’s interaction, labor, and
settlement at this and other Program selection center sites. Preventing their immigration
to the United States emerged as a top priority at these sites, most especially in Empalme.
It emerged as the most transited selection center in the nation.
Its management of Mexican women illuminates the intensity of Mexican
immigrant families’ plight, as its local government negotiated employing and managing
unskilled and unaccompanied abandoned and estranged bracero and undocumented
Mexican immigrant female relatives’ mobility and settlement. Desperate for wages, these
women migrated to this site in hopes of immigrating and working in the United States.
They left behind sending Mexican rural towns like San Martin de Hidalgo in hopes of
improving their earning potential and in turn, their families’ situation. This dissertation
argues that rather than invest in improving abandoned, estranged, and similarly struggling
rural working class women’s plight, the Mexican government invested in monitoring
their interaction with prospective Mexican immigrant men and potential undocumented
entry into the United States. The Mexican government’s projection of efficient
management of these women’s interaction and mobility was critical to publicly asserting
their management of the U.S.-Mexico border on Mexican soil and in turn, their
commitment to Program labor agreements.
Tulare, California is also critical to understanding the evolution of the
dehumanization shaping the intimate contours of this immigrant family experience. This
agricultural town emerged as one of the few destinations in which the Mexican and U.S.

23
governments invested an estimated $289,000 to develop a permanent labor camp culture
that would facilitate the temporary employment, repatriation, and deportation of
vulnerable Mexican immigrant men.
11
The U.S. government firmly believed that by
perfecting U.S. Program contractors’ management of bracero and undocumented
Mexican immigrants’ interaction, labor, mobility, and visibility, it would offset U.S.
resident anxiety and opposition to the Program.
Similar to other towns throughout California’s Central Valley, this town was
comprised of immigrant and U.S. born ethnic Italian, Portuguese, and Mexican families
dependent on the harvesting of lettuce, strawberries, cherries, grapes, and garlic to make
ends meet. Their vehement opposition to recently arrived Mexican immigrants
performing and competing for jobs at dramatically lower wages intensified class, ethnic,
and racial tension among long time residents, braceros, and recently arrived
undocumented Mexican immigrants throughout U.S. agricultural towns nationwide.
Staffing Program agricultural labor camp barracks and fields with recently arrived,
vulnerable, and flexible Mexican immigrant workers did not appease resident and long
time immigrant workers. Establishing distance between them, braceros, and
undocumented Mexican immigrants did not minimize the cost of working long hours for
poorer wages. The U.S. government’s development of internal Program management
models did not quell U.S. resident and worker opposition, but intensified Mexican
immigrant men’s commitment to transnational family, economic, and social networks
that in some ways stood to advance their families’ visions of progress.

11 Labor Camp Report. 14 August 1945. Record Group 211, National Archives and Records
Administration, College Park, Maryland.

24
Investigating these sites’ individual inner workings and their relationship to each
other reveals the transnational scope of the Mexican and U.S. governments and Mexican
immigrant families’ priorities. Each site magnifies the gendered politics of financing,
managing, and sustaining this Program, pointing to the complexity of economic and
social networks and relations within and without the United States. These complexities
did not assume identical patterns across different societies, and in investigating them, we
finally understand Mexican immigrant relations of control and resistance. Using these
locations to historicize and untangle a subset of Program discourses, pressures, and
opportunities shaping Mexican immigration, settlement, and cultural production enriches
our understanding of what Mae Ngai describes as the “heterogeneous character of World
War II and post World War II Mexican immigration and settlement” in Mexico and the
United States.
12
Learning more about everyday forms of immigrant family disruption and
adaptation alerts us to the importance of the on the ground confluence of transnational
discourses, interpretations, and individual and collective resourcefulness framing this
history. It advances our understanding of transnational family ingenuity “as much more
than a series of clever maneuvers,” but as ideas, sites, and relationships connecting
families across cultures, communities, and countries. Program labor agreements cannot
fully account for the racially infused historical and social context shaping the
contradictions and convergence of class, ethnic, gender, and racial inequality and

12 Ngai, Mae. Impossible Subjects. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2004,14.

25
immigration policy shaping children, women, and men’s negotiation of change over the
life of this Program.
13

Limiting our analysis of this immigrant family experience to Program conditions
writ large does not account for Mexican children, the elderly, and women’s relationship
to the United States. Mexican archives and bracero, migrant, and undocumented
immigrant family histories reveal that Mexican rural town and village governments and
Mexican immigrant families developed and exerted competing transnational transition
scripts into this Program of their own making. They did not rely strictly on the national
Mexican government’s outline of Program conditions to structure their Program
participation. Instead, local Mexican governments implemented transnational transition
scripts that consistent with national Mexican government Program priorities did not
protect but took advantage of rural working class resident, migrant, and immigrant
families’ vulnerability and labor to finance Program costs and exigencies. This approach
compelled rural working class resident and immigrant families to also devise and exert
competing transnational transition scripts to overcome their exploitation.
These transnational transition scripts are important because they illustrate the
importance of re-conceptualizing this immigrant family experience to include the
aforementioned sites and Mexican immigrant families’ ingenuity. This dissertation argues
that the Mexican and U.S. governments’ negotiation of Program labor agreements does
not account for the full extent of this Program’s organization or management. There were
equally important and much larger intricate negotiations of Program implementation that

13 Kelley, Robin D.G. Freedom Dreams. Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 2003,20.

26
unfolded at the local levels of Mexican and U.S. government and society. Local Mexican
and U.S. government transnational transition scripts were government-sanctioned
transitions into educational programs, employment sectors, family relationships, and
transportation routes that sustained Mexican rural town or village Program participation
without overwhelming government resources. Resident, migrant, and immigrant family
transnational transition scripts were family generated and financed business, education,
employment, and investment opportunities sustaining families’ collective struggle to
protect their families’ interests throughout their immigrant relatives’ immigration to and
from the United States. These scripts enrich our understanding of the economic and social
networks sustaining Mexican immigrant men’s Program participation over time. Local
and national Mexican government officials and Mexican immigrant families did not lose
sight of this. They could not afford to reduce each other to neglectful government
officials or an obscure wave of residents and immigrants under the legal domain of the
Mexican and U.S. governments. Instead, each framed their individual and collective
priorities and interests into transition scripts that advanced their support of a combination
of Program conditions and their own visions of progress.
Hence and in accordance with George J. Sanchez’s conceptualization of an earlier
generation of Mexican American working class families’ negotiation of change, these
transnational transition scripts demonstrate that Mexican government officials and
families’ transition into the Program was also not

27
“a fixed set of customs, but rather a process influenced by the selective
borrowing, retention, and creation of distinct cultural forms of accommodation,
resistance, and transformation of individual and collective identities integral to a
larger struggle against political, economic, gender, and cultural inequality
emerging from daily interaction that transcends borders.”
14

Fleshing out this process’ transnational and gendered dimensions through an examination
of the discourses, policies, and labor fueling collaboration between Mexican government
officials and rural elite middle class families and working class families of varying
immigration statuses expands our understanding of this Program’s costs and limitations
in Mexico and the United States. Transitioning into and out of this Program was at heart
about striking a balance between Program conditions, patriarchal economic and social
networks and gender relations, and transnational visions of progress. Although, the
Program disrupted families and did not result in desirable resettlement automatically, it
was an indispensable source of revenue for national and local Mexican governments, the
U.S. agricultural industry, and Mexican elite middle class and rural working class
families alike. Intensifying their selective appropriation and violation of Program
conditions to avoid jeopardizing their immigrant relatives’ contract renewal or
undocumented immigrant labor resulted in carefully coordinated resistance and survival.
World War II and post World War II ethnic Mexican families’ oral life histories
and personal archives also inform and shape the mapping and scope of this dissertation,
as they reveal the context and human spirit that gave meaning to these families’
disruption, ingenuity, resistance, and resilience. Without their interpretation of the
transnational and gendered exigencies of the reopening of the U.S.-Mexico border, one is

14 Sanchez, George J. Becoming Mexican American. New York and London: Oxford University Press,
1993, 22.

28
hard-pressed to understand their experience. Only after studying their recollections and
records did integral yet overlooked dimensions of this experience surface. The Mexican
and U.S. governments exerted much energy and resources in recording material aspects
of their management of Mexican immigration and settlement, but did not investigate the
Program’s human and gendered dimensions, or these families’ reaction to such
management. Official accounts and assessments of this experience collapse this history
into misleading and racially infused one-dimensional accounts and categories. Hence, this
dissertation relies on personal and official government records to avoid reducing this
history into the immigration and repatriation of a homogenous immigrant wave. These
children, women, and men were members of families whose disruption and transition into
transnational immigrant family life is critical to our understanding of the heterogeneously
transnational and gendered character of World War II and post World War II immigration
and settlement in Mexican and U.S. society. Learning more about this experience, and
more specifically, the transnational and gendered costs of belonging in Mexico and the
United States requires seriously undertaking what Vicki L. Ruiz frames as the historian’s
task: “providing spaces for people to express their thoughts and feelings in their words
and on their own terms.”
15

Taking this task to heart was the driving force behind this dissertation. After
reading extensively on the arbitrary repatriation of an estimated 350,000 U.S. citizens and
immigrants of ethnic Mexican background in Los Angeles, California, my interest for the
immigration and gender politics shaping the World War II and post World War II

15 Ruiz, Vicki L. From Out of the Shadows. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, xvi.

29
Mexican immigrant experience took hold. I wondered how families who had recently
witnessed the Mexican and U.S. governments’ reckless disruption of thousands of ethnic
Mexican families interpreted and negotiated the re-opening of the U.S.-Mexico border
via the Bracero Program. My search for records revealing the anxiety associated with
Mexican immigration to and from the United States, and more specifically, separating
from one’s family after experiencing the turmoil of repatriation under similarly alienating
and uncertain terms led me to San Martin de Hidalgo, Empalme, and Tulare.
This journey began by interviewing my parents about their experiences growing
up under my grandparents’ guidance and the formative role of their generation’s
confrontation of a shift in immigration policy on a younger generation of women and
men’s immigration and settlement. Curious to understand how Mexican working class
families confronted a series of contradictory and illusory discourses on Mexican
immigration and settlement, I did not focus my attention on their immigration status, but
centered my questions on their priorities, individual and collective aspirations, family
backgrounds, and the locations shaping their lives. As a working class graduate student
without much foreknowledge of the challenges of graduate education, after a tough day
or reading extensively on the rigors of Mexican immigration, I kept wondering how my
grandparents negotiated such a charged transnational transition in immigration history,
and I assumed their-our family’s history. Learning more about and from other historians’
conceptualizations of this experience, and reflecting on its potential implications, I
speculated that my grandparents’ exposure to this Program was partly responsible for our
close attachment to our longtime family friends and neighborhood. Unlike, our family

30
friends and neighbors turned honorary aunts, uncles, grandparents, nephews, and nieces
through religious and community ties, ours was the only family whose closest blood
relative was our aunt, Nena. She lived in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. The rest of
our family had never been to the United States, residing in San Martin de Hidalgo and
Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
This was a sore subject in our family. Neither of my parents would elaborate on
the reasons behind our families’ decision to remain in Mexico. Interviewing them on the
matter elicited vague recollections of the hardships associated with Mexican immigration
and settlement in the United States. They insisted that learning more about and finally,
understanding and contextualizing our family’s history, my grandparents’ generation,
required traveling to San Martin de Hidalgo, Empalme, and Tulare to interview my
grandparents and their generation. My parents explained that they did not feel entitled to
reflect on an older generation’s decisions. After sharing family anecdotes detailing the
preparation of family meals on shoestring budgets and holidays in which they took
comfort in sharing a family gift, because their parents could not afford to purchase
individual gifts for fourteen children at a time, they did not share much more. Stressing
that their family situations had been very difficult, and only their grandparents and
parents were entitled to reflect and speak on the subject. Their unwillingness to expand
on their parents’ negotiation of the re-opening of the U.S.-Mexico border revealed that
my grandparents’ generation confronted extraordinarily difficult obstacles that even a
younger generation considered too sensitive to discuss out of respect for their resilience
through such difficult times.

31
Nonetheless, it was my grandparents and fellow women and men of this
generation’s acknowledgement of the continuities between their experience and that of
current generations of immigrants that compelled them to share their recollection and
reflections on the re-opening of the U.S.-Mexico’s border impact on their lives with me.
Extremely generous in their candidness and detail, they opened their family archives,
accompanied and gave me tours of important locations, and welcomed me into their
homes to genuinely feel and familiarize myself with their life histories. My willingness to
apply for research grants, schedule archival research around their schedules, read
extensively on the subject, visit them on multiple occasions outside the scope of research,
and careful coordination of our interview sessions encouraged my grandparents and other
women and men to expand on the transnational, gendered, and intimate dimensions of
their negotiation of an increasingly difficult situation. They insisted that if I wanted to
learn more about the U.S. History, I could not lose sight of Mexico. Their recollections of
the ubiquitousness of the U.S.-Mexico border and constant remembrance of their anxiety
concerning the disintegration of their families, and now, the potential loss of their
generation’s history motivated them to reflect on the severity of the circumstances
shaping their decisions and opportunities. After three years of extensive research, I am
convinced that the Program left an indelible mark on my family, one that for the most
part discouraged them from journeying to the United States.
This dissertation consists of five chapters exploring the Mexican and U.S.
governments and families’ negotiation of this Program’s exigencies across borders.
Chapter one centers on the centrality of sending Mexican rural towns and villages toward

32
understanding the divergent visions of rural Mexican working class progress to illustrate
the Program’s intensification of the economic, gendered, and transnational contours of
family disruption and exploitation in Mexico and the United States. On the heels of U.S.
repatriation, Mexican rural town governments and families did not rely exclusively on the
national Mexican governments’ Program conditions to recruit and sustain Mexican
immigration to the United States. Instead, they appropriated the national Mexican
government’s vision of rural working class progress to finance their Program
participation without jeopardizing their interests. Their shared estimation of Program
benefits and costs, as well as rural working class families’ alleged inferiority, desires, and
financial vulnerability converged and intensified struggling rural working class families’
flexibility to lead lives stretched across borders in San Martin de Hidalgo and other towns
and villages throughout the Mexican countryside.
Managing bracero and undocumented Mexican immigration in Tulare, California
was also a racially infused, gendered, and transnational process. Chapter two examines
U.S. Program contractors’ appropriation of Program conditions and collaboration with
local Mexican rural town governments to recruit and manage a “special” immigrant
workforce comprised of “specially selected, exemplary, highly disciplined, and versatile”
braceros and bracero families to enforce insular agricultural labor camp management
models in the United States and “special” immigrant investment in local Mexican
economies. Determined to monitor their interaction with domestic workers and residents,
minimize their visibility, and prevent their permanent undocumented U.S. permanent
settlement, U.S. Program contractors and local Mexican rural town governments worked

33
together to enforce a series of understudied draconian immigration policies targeting
children, women, and men to satisfy Program conditions and preserve their right to
recruit and contract Mexican immigrants.
Dependent on their flexible cheap labor and investment in local Mexican
economies, Program contractors and local rural town governments became extremely
skilled in their management of a financially vulnerable “special” immigrant workforce.
Their collaboration illuminates the importance of incorporating an in-depth exploration of
the relationship between U.S. agricultural labor camp and Mexican rural town Program
management to understand the complexity of the economic networks, cultural politics,
and immigration policy shaping what Yen Le Espiritu has described as the differential
inclusion of immigrants in U.S. and Mexican society. The enforcement of a distinct way
of belonging carved out of repressive state, labor, and cultural practices designed to
prevent undocumented immigrants’ U.S. permanent settlement fueled special immigrant,
bracero, and undocumented immigrant family disruption rooted in unequal dehumanizing
income generating activities.
16

Investigating variations in Mexican women’s gendered transition into this
Program reveals the equally complex and transnational escalation of family disruption
over time. Chapter three explores the consequences of bracero and undocumented
Mexican immigrant abandonment, estrangement, and negligence on women, children,
and older relatives left behind in Mexican society, and more specifically in the spaces in
between: Program selection sites. A struggling Mexican economy, Program conditions,

16 Espiritu, Yen Le. Homebound. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.

34
and agricultural labor camp management often did not leave much money left over for
bracero and undocumented Mexican immigrants to finance their families’ welfare. Severe
forms of family disruption compelled struggling women to assume head of household
obligations on their own under extremely gendered and precarious terms, forcing them to
separate once again.
Mexican immigrant relatives’ failure to write and send remittances regularly or
return motivated financially vulnerable female heads of household to undertake
unsupervised, unaccompanied, and unskilled internal migration to Empalme and other
selection towns in search of full time better paid unskilled employment. Their internal
migration exposed them and fellow town residents to dehumanizing employment,
management, and settlement at the hands of Mexican and U.S. government, public health,
and Immigration and Naturalization Service officials. Their financial vulnerability and
family obligations were overlooked yet their interaction with prospective braceros and
proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border reduced them to simultaneously undesirable direly
needed laborers. Considered a threat to prospective braceros’ health and reproductive
liabilities in the United States, the Mexican and U.S. government aggressively monitored
women laboring at this site. Managing Mexican immigration to the United States,
although dependent on female flexibility and labor, superseded improving local and
migrant women’s plight.
The tightening of the U.S.-Mexico border increased women and children’s
mortality, and dependence on extended immigrant family arrangements. Compelling
concerned Mexican government authorities and Mexican immigrant families to propose

35
alternatives to Mexican immigrant families’ dependence on the Program. Chapter four
historicizes the emergence of Mexican government and Mexican immigrant family
sponsored supervised skilled migration to Mexican rural towns and vocational institutes
to facilitate a healthier and financially feasible transition into and out of this Program
among young rural working class women and men. National and local Mexican
governments and struggling extended immigrant families concurred that it was necessary
for women to work and excel in skilled trades to establish and finance self-sustaining
local economies and settlement that would offset the escalating costs and dependence on
Mexican immigration and settlement. The precariousness of undocumented Mexican
immigration made it extremely difficult for Mexican immigrants to contribute financially
to their extended immigrant families’ welfare. Eager to prevent their families’ further
plight, it once again, fell on rural working class women’s shoulders to finance the burden
of impractical Program conditions under gendered terms.
Similarly, their failure to finance their transition out of the Bracero Program
motivated Mexican immigrant men to pursue undocumented immigrant labor for
extended periods of time and U.S. permanent settlement without consulting their families
left behind. Some even married Mexican American women in pursuit of U.S. permanent
resident status. Chapter five investigates the consequence of this shift in their adaptation
to an increasingly alienating employment and family situation to reveal that the
tightening of the U.S.-Mexico border confronted Mexican families of varying class and
immigration statuses with the reality that unskilled rural working class women were
worthy of reasonable settlement conditions. Aware that it was becoming financially

36
unfeasible for their immigrant relatives to “ir y venir” (come and go), rural extended
Mexican immigrant families came together and were eventually joined by elite middle
class families to devise strategies toward financing the economic demands of permanent
family separation and the intensification of Mexican immigrants journeying north. Aware
of the perils of undocumented immigration, internal unskilled, unaccompanied, and
unsupervised migration, and U.S. agricultural labor camp cultures, and unable to finance
an education, unskilled rural working class women entered into agreements of their own
to sustain the extended uninterrupted immigration or permanent U.S. settlement of their
immigrant relatives to prevent the intensification of their families’ disintegration and
exploitation.
By re-conceptualizing the Bracero Program experience as a transnational
immigrant family experience, this dissertation focuses on Mexican immigrant families’
sacrifices, ingenuity, and resilience to finally draw attention to the human consequences
of immigration reform. Collapsing this experience and our current approach to Mexican
immigration and settlement into neat state manufactured categories, labor agreements,
and periodizations of immigrant life does not account for the costs and disruption that
immigration policy inflicts on children, women, and men across borders. Without
acknowledging or learning from a longstanding transnational history of Mexican
immigrant ebbs and flows to and from the United States, historians, politicians, and
voters risk an erroneously dangerous and inhumane conceptualization and in turn,
extending our dehumanized treatment of Mexican immigrant children, women, and men
as an expendable homogenous wave of immigrants into the next century.

37
CHAPTER 1:
RACIAL LOGIC AND BRACERO RECRUITMENT
IN THE MEXICAN COUNTRYSIDE

On August 7, 1942, Eduardo Zepeda, president of the rural town of San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco faced an unenviable challenge. Mexican President Manuel Avila
Camacho had ordered him to recruit 8,300 men into the Mexican Emergency Farm Labor
Program, more commonly known as the Bracero Program.
1
With the repatriation of
500,000 Mexican American and Mexican immigrant children, women, and men during
the 1930s still fresh on their minds, unskilled rural Mexican men would be asked to
immigrate to the United States in pursuit of Avila Camacho’s vision of national
rehabilitation.
2

Avila Camacho’s vision went beyond strengthening ties to the United States in a
time of war. He believed firmly that unskilled rural Mexican men were an inferior race
that only would acquire the qualities, skills, and wages necessary for Mexico to advance
socially and technologically by exposing them to elements from more advanced countries
like the United States.
3
He believed the Program suited unskilled rural Mexican men
perfectly.
4
According to this racial logic, rural Mexican men’s mastery and
implementation of U.S. agricultural methods and skills “improved the quality of people

1 Governmental Correspondence. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 3, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.
2 Governmental Correspondence. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 1, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.
3 Governmental Correspondence. Record Group 22, Series 10, Folder 1, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.
4 From this point forward I refer to the Bracero Program as the Program.

38
moving Mexico forward toward social and technological sophistication-rehabilitation.”
5

Temporary U.S. contract labor would rehabilitate them, as well as generations of men
throughout the Mexican countryside upon their return.
The power of the Bracero Program’s racial logic is the subject of this chapter. By
focusing on San Martin de Hidalgo’s appropriation and translation of Avila Camacho’s
vision of rehabilitation, this chapter enriches historical interpretations that overlook the
enactment, reinforcement, and contestation of boundaries and meanings of rehabilitation,
race, and gender.
6
The transnational unevenness of rehabilitation’s race and gender
boundaries and the importance of discursive conflicts, hidden transcripts, and children
and women’s labor reveal that race and gender shaped the Program. In turn, the Program
reenergized race and gender inequality in Mexico and the United States. By focusing on
the transition of unskilled rural Mexican families into the Program, I argue that state’s
visions of rehabilitation compelled men to rely on children and women’s flexibility and

5 Governmental Correspondence. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 1, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.
6 Garcia y Griego, Manuel. “The Importation of Mexican Contract Laborers to the United States, 1942-
1964.: Antecedents, Operation, and Legacy.” La Jolla, California: Program in U.S.-Mexican Studies,
University of California, San Diego, 1980.; Hancock, Richard. “The Role of the Bracero Program in the
Economic Dynamics of Mexico,” Stanford, California: Hispanic American Society, 1981.; Copp, Nelson
Gage. Wetbacks and Braceros: Mexican Migrant Laborers and American Immigration Policy, 1930-1960.
San Francisco, R and E Research Associated, 1981.; Durand, Jorge. “Mas Alla de la Linea: Patrones
Migratorios Entre Mexico y Estados Unidos.” Mexico, D.F.: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y Artes,
1992.; Calavita, Kitty. Inside the State: The Bracero Program, Immigration, and the I.N.S. New York:
Routledge Press, 1992.;Gamboa, Erasmo.Mexican Labor and World War II: Braceros in the Pacific
Northwest, 1942-47. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990.; Galarza, Ernesto. Strangers in our Fields:
Based on a Report regarding the Compliance with the Contractual, Legal, and Civil Rights of Mexican
Agricultural Contract Labor in the United States, 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: United States Section, Joint
United States-Mexico Trade Union Committee, 1956.; _________. Merchants of Labor: The Mexican
Bracero Story. Santa Barbara, CA: McNally and Loftin, 1964.; _________. Spiders in the House and
Workers in the Fields. South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970.; Massey, Douglass and Xiang
Liang.AConsequences of Temporary Worker Programs,@ Population Research and Policy Review. 8(3):
1989.: and Garcia, Juan Ramon. Operation Wetback: The Mass Deportation of Mexican Undocumented
Workers in 1954. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980.

39
labor to negotiate alternative visions. Reduced to an “intellectually, culturally, and
socially inferior race” worthy of exploitative conditions and terms, unskilled rural
Mexican families appropriated this racial logic in pursuit of achieving their own vision of
rehabilitation in Mexico and the United States.
7
Nonetheless, rural Mexican men’s
visions of rehabilitation consistently took children and women’s labor for granted and
preserved gender and race inequality, just like the vision of Mexican President Avila
Camacho.
Federal Visions, Local Implementation
Avila Camacho entrusted Mexican rural town and village presidents throughout
the states of Jalisco, Michoacan, Sonora, Veracruz, and Zacatecas to recruit an estimated
75,000 men to pursue rehabilitation through the Bracero Program.
8
He issued a
confidential mandate announcing that the Mexican and U.S. governments had agreed to
the Program after months of negotiation. This mandate explained that the Program
allowed the U.S. government to contract men to build and repair railroads and harvest
crops throughout the United States for three to nine month contract periods. It specified
that contracted men, who would be known as, “braceros,” were exempt from immigration
requirements, such as literacy tests, head taxes, and other admission fees. In addition,
they would be exempt from military service and protracted from social discrimination.
The U.S. government guaranteed employment for at least 75 percent of their contract
period at the “prevailing wage rate,” as well as housing, meals, and transportation to and

7 Intergovernmental Bracero Program Agreement Correspondence Files. Record Group 22, Series 12,
Folder 1, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
8 Ibid.

40
from the United States. Once their contracts expired, they would be required to return to
Mexico. Both governments agreed to compensate fairly and to penalize Program
violations.
9

Avila Camacho punctuated his mandate by emphasizing that Mexico’s plan for
rehabilitation was indisputable. Braceros “would return with something to show for their
time in the United States.”
10
The Program required the U.S. government to withhold ten
percent of braceros’ bi-weekly earnings. These funds were to be deposited into a rural
savings fund, transferred subsequently to Mexico’s Agricultural Credit Bank, and the
funds would be redeemable upon their return. With these savings, Avila Camacho
imagined braceros purchasing agricultural equipment to plant and harvest plots of land
efficiently and profitably, and, in this way apply the Program’s knowledge, skills, and
wages, to help Mexico achieve economic, social, and technological progress.
11

The President of San Martin de Hidalgo, Eduardo Zepeda carefully reviewed
Avila Camacho’s mandate and its accompanying assessments. After reading the attached
highly classified announcements, Mexican foreign affairs aide Guillermo Casares and
social scientist Benjamin Orozco had become alarmed.
12
Casares advised Mexican rural
town and village presidents like Zepeda about Avila Camacho’s discourse of
rehabilitation to recruit men carefully and selectively. He clarified that U.S. grower
associations administering the Program would resist the conditions and terms.

9 Intergovernmental Bracero Program Correspondence Files. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 2,
Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Governmental Correspondence. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 5, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.

41
Administrative grower associations had never been obligated to provide such guarantees
for U.S. domestic workers. Even as the Program stipulated that braceros would not be
contracted to displace U.S. domestic workers, serve as strikebreakers in labor disputes, or
reduce the standard wage for any region, the Program facilitated administrative violation
of these very conditions and terms. Under these conditions, Bracero rehabilitation would
be highly tentative.
Casares explained that requiring braceros to work for the “prevailing wage”—the
current average wage paid by the piece or by the hour to U.S. domestic workers for the
same job in the same region of the United States— the Mexican and U.S. governments
had set the foundations for the violation of Program conditions and terms. He speculated
that administrative grower associations would set wages at record low rates. Cautioning
that instead of conducting independent surveys of regional wages, Casares warned that
U.S. government officials overseeing this process were likely to survey U.S. grower
associations in the surrounding region as to wage scales, then accept their response
without investigating the accuracy or fairness of their claims. This process would depress
wages, as grower administrative associations would mobilize into regional associations,
that collectively set the regional wage far below the accepted wage for the tasks in
question. U.S. domestic workers would then refuse to work for such wages, making U.S.
administrative grower associations eligible for Program contracts. Such covert and
carefully planned Program violations would go unnoticed, he warned and confined
braceros to exploitative and unprofitable employment conditions and terms. Casares
advised presidents to consider that this Program would not rehabilitate braceros

42
automatically, and that it was in their interest to avoid using Avila Camacho’s sweeping
rhetoric and vision in their recruitment efforts. This would prevent the promotion of an
unreliable process and improper incentives, and a return migration reminiscent of
repatriation.
13

Using a similarly cautionary tone, social scientist Orozco stressed that local
officials target and recruit men with wives and children. He recommended that mayors
restrict their recruitment to experienced agricultural laborers with families, because they
were “most likely to accept and frame their participation as a temporary stint of
educational labor, and settle for timely payment of U.S. wages and prompt return.”
14

Family obligations would motivate them to comply with government-sanctioned
departure and return schedules. Orozco doubted that single men would comply with the
Program’s pre-designated return. He speculated that married men with children were less
likely to skip out or continue to work after their contract’s expiration and, in turn,
facilitate the Mexican and U.S. governments’ management of their immigration and
rehabilitation.
15

Local president Zepeda’s frustration intensified the following morning when he
received government issued Program recruitment materials indiscriminately targeting
town men. Avila Camacho’s top administrative aides sent packages stuffed with
handbills, posters, and a final confidential memorandum promoting the Program as an
effort of great urgency to the war against the axis powers and critical to “the

13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.

43
rehabilitation of Mexican manhood and in turn, the entire country.”
16
Rural town and
village presidents were instructed to recruit men by papering their respective towns and
villages with promotional materials urging men that “with their head held high,” they
lend “the strength of their manhood and arms” to this Program. Rural men’s manhood
was contingent on their rehabilitation, as Avila Camacho announced that becoming a
bracero was a “manly act of loyalty to country and progress.”
17
Their labor promised to
strengthen wartime U.S.-Mexico war efforts and relations, since their temporary
employment would prevent U.S. labor shortages and set the material foundation for their
own rehabilitation. Upon their return, U.S. training, wages, and savings would strengthen
their earning potential, and enable them to assert their manhood. By growing and
harvesting plots of land efficiently and skillfully, they would overcome the challenges of
sharecropping and thrive as rehabilitated men-“efficient workers, providers, and
citizens.”
18

After an in depth Program assessment, Zepeda considered his mandate a risky yet
crucial first step toward “exposing San Martin de Hidalgo’s men to different customs—
that they did not know.”
19
He too was confident that men’s mastery of U.S. skills and
wages “would rehabilitate formerly backward men into efficient workers, providers, and
citizens.”
20
Ironically, contracted men would perform work similar to that which they had

16 Government Correspondence. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 6, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 7, Archivo Municipal, San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
20 Ibid.

44
always done, namely physically exploitative, unskilled, and poorly paid agricultural
labor, hence the term “bracero” literally “arm man.”
Zepeda spent the entire day in his office reviewing the various renditions of the
Program’s conditions and terms only to realize upon reading the last of the attached
confidential memorandum that his orders included locally financing Program recruitment
and transportation to this Program’s selection center in the nation’s capital: Mexico,
Districto Federal. Indeed, each prospective bracero was required to pay an estimated 250
pesos, roughly the equivalent of four months’ worth of a typical unskilled town family’s
earnings.
21
This made 43 percent of this town’s unskilled rural working class, “those most
in need of rehabilitation” ineligible.
22
In San Martin de Hidalgo, only middle class men
could afford the recruitment fees. Their temporary absence and tentative rehabilitation
would drain the town’s economy and resources, doubling unemployment among the
unskilled rural working class. Zepeda needed the middle class’ investment and
purchasing power to keep businesses open and employment opportunities intact. His
administration could not afford to lose middle class families to immigration without a
plan in place. This local assessment did not conform to Avila Camacho’s vision of
rehabilitation, and more specifically to the financial interest of Zepeda’s administration:
under these conditions and terms, Program participation would eventually require the
rehabilitation of the entire town both the working class and the once affluent middle
class.

21 Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 8, Archivo Municipal, San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
22 Ibid.

45
Arturo Andrade, Avila Camacho’s head chief of staff, addressed widespread
concern by confirming that recruitment fees were mandatory. Each town president was
required to finance the public notarization of letters confirming prospective braceros’
moral eligibility to work in the United States and transportation to the Program’s
selection center. Documentation of bracero moral and physical eligibility was mandatory.
Braceros needed at least 250 pesos to finance this process. Bribing selection center
officials would save braceros money and time.
23

After careful deliberation, Zepeda decided to enlist strategically middle class
families’ financial support to finance rural working class men’s participation from the
town. In addition, he organized the town’s clergy to develop a compatible and persuasive
vision of rehabilitation to recruit town men. Developing and facilitating a local discourse
and financial agreements that went beyond Avila Camacho’s mandate set the foundations
for a deceptive, yet comprehensive appropriation and translation of rehabilitation.
Securing middle and working class families’ participation would prevent further
unemployment and complete disinvestment in the town. Such a recruitment strategy
required conveying a narrowly defined set of identities, roles, and values that mobilized
the town’s women, children, and men to pursue local and eventually transnational
rehabilitation both into and out of contract labor collectively.
24

To recruit these families effectively, Zepeda aggressively pursued Padre Gustavo
Montez’s support, the Catholic town priest. He was confident that Montez was the most

23 Ibid.
24 Government Correspondence. Record Group 23, Series 1, Folder 15, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.

46
qualified individual to assist in the development and promotion of a local discourse on
Program conditions, terms, and incentives that would resonate among middle class
families. Convincing successful entrepreneurs, teachers, and professionals to immigrate
to a country that had recently repatriated 120 town families, and to undertake physically
demanding labor in agriculture and railroad construction was difficult. Zepeda was
confident that Montez would fit perfectly into local recruitment because Montez’s town
efforts already went beyond daily and weekend church services. On a bi-weekly basis,
Padre Montez met with town residents to plan monthly and seasonal fundraisers and
festivals to raise charitable funds and attract clientele from neighboring towns.
25

Montez speculated that the Program’s conditions and terms could potentially
rehabilitate braceros and, in turn, town economic development, if their vision of
rehabilitation centered on women, children, and men working collectively across borders.
Certainly, temporary U.S. wages and training were preferable to unemployment. He
convinced Zepeda that promoting loan agreements between participating families, as well
as inclusive vision of family progress through Program participation was critical toward
enlisting families to weather hardship in preparation for their participation and return.
Casting their participation as rehabilitation would offend middle class families, and draw
unwanted attention to class differences, fueling existing town hostility between the
town’s middle and working classes.
26

25 Government Correspondence Files. Record Group 23, Series 1, Folder 17, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
26 Government Correspondence Files. Record Group 23, Series 1, Folder 17, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

47
Montez anticipated “that U.S. wages would finally make their way to San Martin
de Hidalgo.”
27
He firmly believed that braceros’ training and savings would finance the
expansion of profitable agricultural town projects, and “breathe much needed life into
town.”
28
Its potential to rehabilitate the entire town fueled Montez’ support of the
Program, while Zepeda sought to comply with his duties as a civil servant in ways that
would serve his administration’s interests. Like Avila Camacho, Zepeda and Montez
idealized contract labor and return, and were complicit in their failure to protect
prospective braceros and their families from the hardships of family separation under
potentially exploitative employment conditions. Neither developed employment
opportunities that accommodated short-term family separation or facilitated returning
braceros’ transition out of contract labor into profitable long-term settlement in Mexico.
Their vision of rehabilitation was incomplete.
Zepeda and Montez recruited middle class families by casting the Program as an
excellent opportunity brimming with potential among middle class entrepreneurs. Middle
class braceros were expected to return and invest their earnings into an already profitable
business or trade. Working class families that were financially dependent on male
laborers were less likely to thrive. Their Program participation and return involved
paying existing family debt, fulfilling recruitment loan agreements, and creating
employment opportunities within and outside of agricultural labor on their own. Their

27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.

48
circumstances had not received government concern, and they were not considered
worthy of local recruitment.
29

Like Avila Camacho’s vision, the local vision of rehabilitation did not prevent
overwhelming debt and exploitation from occurring. According to Mexican government
officials, legal access to U.S. skills and wages were the only means by which to achieve
profitable long-term settlement patterns throughout the Mexican countryside. Families
interested in rehabilitation and progress had no other choice but to struggle collectively
and across borders. It was men’s responsibility to work as contract laborers, while their
families patiently worked and waited behind.
Community Forums and the Local Gender Script
To deflect attention from international, national, and local negligence, and fulfill
recruitment quotas, Zepeda and Montez did not paper town walls with government issued
announcements and posters, but instead hosted community forums to promote desirable
Program recruitment conditions. They developed a local script that appealed strategically
to middle class families and excluded working class families. Only middle class heads of
families were invited to the community forums. Confident that the potential of earning an
estimated 60 pesos for eight hours of agricultural labor in the United States— the
equivalent of three weeks’ worth of a local agricultural laborer’s wages— would spread
widely throughout town. Zepeda and Montez neglected the town’s working class because
they assumed working poor men would mobilize quickly to a list. They feared inviting,
seating, and recruiting families from different class backgrounds under the same roof,

29 Ibid.

49
certain that it would derail middle class families’ support and enlistment. They were
needed as contract laborers, and ever more urgently, lenders to others. Their willingness
to lend large sums of money toward working poor men’s recruitment fees would insure
the participation of “those most in need of rehabilitation,” a recruitment goal which
fulfilled Avila Camacho’s vision.
30

On August 10, 1942, Zepeda and Montez hosted this forum. Consuelo Alvarez, a
middle class town resident helped her husband. Jesus baked orders of sourdough bread,
pan dulce (sweet bread), and cakes before rushing off to walk her children to school and
attend this forum on her family’s behalf. She sat alongside fellow bakers, barbers, cooks,
doctors, merchants, seamstresses, tailors, and other enterprising married and single
middle class women and men invested in other trades. She noticed agricultural laborers
were absent, and instead of distributing sign-up sheets for the upcoming festival, men in
attendance were handed handbills announcing the Mexican and U.S. governments’
demand for their “brazos, lealtad, and hombria” (arms, loyalty, and manhood) to separate
from their families, and build and repair railroads and harvest crops throughout the
United States.
31

Consuelo read her older brother’s copy because this document was not distributed
to women. Despite the history of U.S. repatriation and the fact that most in attendance
had struggled to maintain their own business or trade to avoid this line of work, most did
not object to railroad or agricultural contract labor in the United States. Consuelo and

30 Government Correspondence. Record Group 23, Series 2, Folder 8, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.
31 Government Correspondence Files. Record Group 23, Series 2, Folder 19, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

50
other forum attendees were receptive to earning U.S. wages. After the forum, she
remembered that the Program struck her as a sound investment of energy and money.
Families in attendance were acknowledged as successful entrepreneurs or very successful
at their trade. They stood to earn a healthy profit, especially if they did not enlist through
loan revenues.
Zepeda and Montez’s decision to target middle class families caught middle class
interest, while re-conceptualizing the Program as a sound business venture. Montez
reiterated that it was their responsibility as “men of their word and parents to prove their
manhood by immigrating temporarily to the United States to advance loyally their
country’s interests and in turn, their families’ long-term prosperity.”
32
The Program was
thus promoted as a sound investment of energy, money, and time among middle class
families, and worthy of men of moral and physical strength. Discussions of Avila
Camacho’s racial logic were replaced by characterizations of Program participation as a
loyal and responsible assertion of the masculinity, of middle class men, effacing stigma
associated with laboring as contract agricultural laborers. Moreover, Zepeda assured
middle class men that “after having served their country, they would have strengthened
their ability to provide for themselves and their families.”
33

Notions of traditional masculinity and femininity also influenced Zepeda and
Montez’s recruitment of middle class women. Regular town hall meetings were already
restrictively gendered family oriented events. During these meetings, women expressed

32 Government Correspondence Files. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 7, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
33 Ibid.

51
their concerns and opinions selectively, limiting themselves to suggesting future meeting
dates and times that did not conflict with their household chores. Often they were
restricted to hosting and organizing town fundraisers and festivals, after a town
committee comprised of men settled on the events. Women’s accommodation of the
Program’s conditions did not include increased decision making or purchasing power.
Instead, women’s potential empowerment through their accommodation of Program
conditions overshadowed discussions that neglected women’s concerns regarding power
relations within and outside of their households, businesses, and trades.
34

Convinced that women were often the driving force behind men’s success,
Montez encouraged women’s accommodation of the Program’s conditions, particularly,
family separation, by motioning to the long-term advantages of U.S. wages. He did this
without ever acknowledging potential changes in the decision-making roles in families,
business, and trade management. He assumed that men were entitled to control and
demand women’s labor and flexibility. Hence, women were encouraged to work
collectively in support of an already promising family business or trade’s longevity by
following their male relatives’ instructions concerning the delegation of and family
decision-making throughout their family separation. Focusing on Program terms that
exaggerated the Program’s financial benefits, as well as the brevity of their male
relatives’ absence was meant to efface doubts concerning power and these families’
emotional and financial adjustments. Men were assured that their female relatives would
enthusiastically follow their instructions and conform to working and waiting patiently,

34 Ibid.

52
taking comfort in the fact that Program benefits would strengthen their family’s earning
potential. Women’s labor and discipline would lay the foundations for a smooth and
profitable return to their marriage, children, business, or trade.
35

Montez encouraged women to accommodate their male relatives’ participation by
continuing to excel in their caretaking, homemaking, and preservation of town business
clientele without abusing their resources and power, stressing that it would jeopardize
their long-term potential to work under healthier and more profitable conditions, as well
as their marriage and other family relationships. In short, an increase in their family’s
earning potential would improve their quality of life. Participation would afford these
families the luxury of expanding their personnel and purchase of equipment, demanding
less of their labor and time.
It is important to stress that although these women were middle class, Montez was
right to point out that women were partly responsible for much of their respective
families’ success. According to San Martin de Hidalgo’s 1940 census, 94 percent of
middle class female heads of household listed working in their family’s business or trade
as their occupation.
36
Their description of occupational skills and responsibilities also
suggests that they were heavily involved in their family’s business or trade. Reminding
women of the temporariness of their roles and separation by emphasizing prospective
braceros as “heads of household deserved to return to a clean home, healthy children, and

35 Government Correspondence Files. Record Group 22, Series 2, Folder 8, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
36 Government Town Hall Meeting Files. Record Group 10, Census. Records 4, Folder 10, Archivo San
Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

53
thriving business.”
37
Montez stressed that their quality of life would improve upon the
return of their male relatives. Laboring in support of their bracero relatives was promoted
as women’s “obligation to family and nation and in their interest.”
38
Such narrow
conceptualization of middle class women’s interests and roles overshadowed their own
concerns and vision of rehabilitation.
Gendered overtones did not escape the women in attendance. The biased approach
prompted Consuelo Alvarez to dash out of this meeting. Montez had not allowed her to
ask questions. Consuelo reacted with bitter frustration, she thought of nothing else than
how a boost in her family’s earnings would allow them to purchase a few acres of land to
add a dining area to their bakery. They would expand their menu and clientele, and
finally be able to run a lonchería and cenaduría (eatery that served lunch and dinner).
They had already built large brick ovens, as well as an aluminum counter with wooden
stools to accommodate customers craving coffee, cocoa, milk, or tea with their pan dulce.
Her family’s participation would finance the expansion of their business, and double their
clientele and profits. Such plans prompted her to overlook Montez’s dismissal of her
concerns.
To reinforce the Program’s appeal, Zepeda and Montez aggressively promoted
their vision of women’s roles. The local newspaper, El San Martinense, published stories
showcasing middle class women. Rosalia Bermudez expressed enthusiastic support for
her husband’s participation, explaining that she would manage their tailor shop efficiently

37 Government Town Hall Meeting Files. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 18, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
38 Ibid.

54
throughout his absence, by continuing to follow his instructions carefully. They would
use his wages and savings to purchase new equipment to make alterations at a faster and
more profitable pace upon his return.
39
According to her, the Program “would make it
possible to work like those in the United States.”
40

The promise of U.S. wages also inspired Emilia Lozano to accommodate her
husband’s participation by agreeing to work longer hours cutting women and children’s
hair to preserve their clientele. Her husband was a barber with a strong town following in
desperate need of new chairs, equipment, and U.S. dollars that would finance such
expenses.
41
They also anticipated making a fair profit from loan agreements. Her plans
also made the front page, since she intended to dedicate herself to working longer hours
to safeguard their family’s trade. Her husband’s participation would also make U.S.
beauty trends accessible financially to the family business. She was confident that their
investment in U.S. equipment and styles would expand their already strong following to
neighboring towns.
These women’s plans and visions were compatible with Zepeda and Montez’s
vision of family cooperation and progress, but also reflect profound familiarity and
interest in contract labor and its relationship to U.S. consumer and labor trends. Among
middle class women and men, contract labor was considered a way to bring financial
accessibility to innovative U.S. consumer and labor trends. An emulation and application
of U.S. styles would improve how they worked and catered to their customers. Their own

39 Ibid.
40 Ibid.
41 Government Town Hall Meeting Files. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 20, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

55
idealization and imaginary of the benefits of legal access to U.S. wages fueled middle
class women’s support and their male relatives’ enlistment. In addition, middle class
families’ familiarity with the United States transcended repatriation. According to town
records, 58 percent of middle class families subscribed to catalogs and magazines
showcasing U.S. equipment, products, and trends.
42

This coverage and idealization of women’s negotiation of Program conditions
acknowledged these women, answered their questions, and appeased their frustration
tactfully. It asserted that they were entitled to express their point of view selectively on
account of their gender. Showcasing their aspirations and always in relationship to their
male relatives’ participation, decision making, and earnings this coverage was meant to
inspire and nurture women’s commitment to their male relatives’ participation in ways
that were publicly compatible with local gender norms. Women were to labor for the sake
of the entire family, and encourage others by example. Their own visions of progress
outside of this framework of collective family labor were publicly discouraged. To
further clarify women’s roles, Zepeda published and circulated editorials explaining that
“the intimacy of their households was the most appropriate setting for women to develop
and articulate their doubts and point of view.”
43

According to Zepeda and Montez, women such as Bermudez and Lozano had
adopted a desirable approach toward family cooperation across borders. They promoted
this vision to deflect attention from contract labor’s emotional and financial hardships, as

42 Ibid.
43 Government Town Hall Meeting Files. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 21, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

56
their promotional forum and coverage overlooked the stripping of their rights as men to
healthy family lives. Zepeda and Montez did not publicly address the gendered emotional
and financial costs of family separation. Recruited to forfeit their right to laboring and
living by their families’ side, they recruited men as direly needed, strong, and
enterprising men with bright futures who were strong and direly needed.
44
To convince
middle class men to separate from their families they appealed to their financial
obligation as parents, husbands, and providers for older financially dependent relatives.
Their assurance that temporary family separation was conducive to a family oriented
vision of long-term family progress offset middle class families’ anxiety.
This vision of Program support and plans for the town’s future circulated and
resonated widely. This newspaper’s issue was among this town’s top selling issues,
reprinted fifteen times. It confirmed Zepeda and Montez’s suspicion that to appeal to
men, they must target and enlist women selectively.
45
This forum and newspaper
coverage provided glimpses of family arrangements and goals that encouraged town
families to cast their participation as a feasible and profitable separation for the long-
term. Women’s labor was critical to Zepeda and Montez’s Program recruitment efforts.
Zepeda and Montez’s recruitment strategy achieved its desired effect. Upon
returning to their businesses, trades, and neighborhoods, those in attendance circulated
handbills and encouraged working class men to join the Program. Middle class women
and men in attendance overlooked class differences that had often kept them apart to
describe and promote their participation as a feat worthy of “strong and responsible

44 Ibid.
45 Ibid.

57
men,” insisting that it was an opportunity worthy of “men of their word.”
46
They replaced
Avila Camacho’s racial logic with their translation of this Program’s sacrifices and
benefits. Moreover, middle class families credited El San Martinense for recruiting an
estimated 5,939 working class families from town after agreeing to finance their loans.
47

According to town enlistment rosters, prospective working class braceros borrowed an
estimated 280 pesos from middle class families at a monthly interest rate fee of eight
pesos.
48
Middle class families had aggressively pursued loan revenues, as well as
enlistment. An estimated 2,471 middle class men joined the Program from San Martin de
Hidalgo.
49

Repatriation and Memories of Exploitation in the U.S.
By August 18, 1942, 8,410 of this town’s men had enlisted into the Bracero
Program.
50
They were middle class entrepreneurs and poor agricultural laborers.
Nonetheless, and contrary to town headlines, it had not been a smooth process. Town
recruitment efforts did not appease an older immigrant generation’s concern for the future
of the working poor and inexperienced working class, a widely ignored yet receptive pool
of prospective braceros. This older generation believed “this was not a way to get started
in life or know the world.”
51
Their own immigration histories informed their distrust of

46 Government Town Hall Meeting Files. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 23, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
47 Government Town Hall Meeting Files Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 25, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid.
50 Government Town Inquiry Files. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 27, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
51 Government Town Inquiry Files. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 30, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

58
the U.S. and Mexican governments and more urgently, this Program’s conditions and
terms. Such sentiments inspired a different approach to recruitment and working across
borders collectively, an approach that did not make the front page of El San Martinense,
but confronted to Avila Camacho’s racial logic.
This older generation was comprised of former immigrants to and repatriates from
the United States. They cautioned working class men that Zepeda and Montez had not
invited them to the promotional forum because they did not want to be accountable for
working class men in desperate need of creating profitable life opportunities through the
Program.
52
They explained that Zepeda and Montez had personally recruited older heads
of middle class families, strategically sidestepping situated working class families to
avoid future accusations of deception and fraud. The targeted younger generation’s future
through Program participation was highly suspect. High interest loans and potentially
exploitative employment conditions were an unprofitable combination. Moreover, they
claimed that Zepeda and Montez knew that it would take very little convincing to lure
thousands of working class and inexperienced men to journey to the United States in
pursuit of earning higher wages, paying off debt, and “knowing the world.”
53
Town
records confirm that an estimated 96 percent of single men enlisting into this Program
had never traveled outside their home state of Jalisco.
54
Repatriates insisted that the
Mexican and U.S. governments were taking advantage of their poor education, life

52 Government Town Inquiry Files. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 31, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid.

59
opportunities, and low wages to enlist them into an unprofitable and unhealthy quality
and standard of living.
Repatriates’ intense distrust of the Program’s conditions and terms, coupled with
their immigration histories, encouraged them to advise working class prospective
braceros to participate responsibly. Young prospective braceros were encouraged to
prioritize taking advantage of their participation to lay the material foundations to
transition into profitable long-term settlement with their families, stressing that each
approach contract labor as a temporary juncture in their lives-“a process that required
careful preparation for a healthy departure and return.”
55
Among this older generation of
immigrants, it was important that men consider that a contract would not translate
automatically into profitable long-term settlement. It required a carefully planned
adjustment to family separation, increasing debt, and tense ethnic, gender, race, and class
relations.
Repatriates did not host public forums in the town hall, but held meetings in the
privacy of their homes, offices, and neighborhoods which discussed immigrant life in the
United States with working class men and their families. Their testimonials and advice
led them to reflect on contract labor’s short and long-term implications. Certainly, this
was not the first time that this town’s men had been lured to the United States. Between
March 1920 and April 1928, mid-western and western U.S. railroad and steel industries

55 Government Town Inquiry Files. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 32, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

60
contracted an estimated 58,982 Mexican immigrant men nationwide.
56
Instead of
promoting immigration, repatriates followed a different script to explain the racial logic
shaping immigration to and from the United States to a new generation of prospective
braceros. They remembered setting out for the United States without foreknowledge of
U.S. employment conditions and town politics. Acting as concerned parents and town
residents, they circulated what they considered important advice to demystify Zepeda and
Montez’s idealization of the Bracero Program’s conditions, because the working class
“deserved and demanded better.”
57
Repatriates’ advice attracted and resonated with
concerned grandparents, parents, partners, and children left behind.
Upon learning of the Bracero Program, young prospective braceros in search of
advice met with repatriates, like Manuel Ricardo Rosas, who shared that his parents,
Amelia and Francisco Rosas, had adamantly objected to his decision to immigrate to the
United States.
58
He explained that both his parents had earned college degrees, and were
part of middle class social circles that assumed successful completion of a college
education, marriage, and management of trade, earnings, and property to claim the family
inheritance. His older brother, Joaquin, had earned a degree in dentistry and shortly
thereafter married, and their sister, Juventina, earned a liberal arts degree, married, and
taught English to wealthy town families to lay claim to their inheritance. On the heels of
the Mexican Revolution, demand for English instruction was high. Fear of exile to the

56 Government Town Inquiry Files. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 33, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
57 Government Town Inquiry Files. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 35, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
58
.
Oral History of Manuel Ricardo Rosas. Bracero Oral Life History Collection, National Museum of
American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

61
United States compelled middle class families to learn English, and inspired Rosas to
avoid settling down in pursuit of his inheritance. He was intrigued by the United States.
The town’s sudden fascination with the English language and everything
“American” motivated Rosas to pursue a liberal arts degree and mastery of the English
language. Convinced that a few years in the United States would enhance his command
of the language and quite possibly lead to a promising trade, he accepted and secured a
contract to work legally in Chicago’s Inland Steel Company. Unaware of his plans, his
parents assumed that like his siblings, he would pursue skilled employment opportunities
in San Martin de Hidalgo.
It was not until July 1929, a few hours after graduating and the night before his
scheduled departure that Rosas broke the news to his parents. His father opposed his
decision on grounds that “that was not for his family.”
59
Insisting that working in a steel
mill and in the United States was for “families of lower class standing without
connections and an education.” The younger Rosas did not heed his father’s advice.
60
He
was confident that his proficiency in the English language, college degree, and legal entry
would protect him against U.S. racial discrimination and exploitation described by long
time immigrant women and men “without family connections.”
61
His outraged father
warned that Mexican immigrant men irrespective of class became expendable unskilled
contract labor “return[ing] with only the clothes on their back.”
62

59 Ibid.
60 Ibid.
61 Ibid.
62 Ibid.

62
Manuel later learned that he was among sixty-eight of this town’s working class
and middle class men recruited to work eleven hours a day, six days a week, assembling
and stacking units of steel for very little pay. Rarely speaking English, his whole
existence revolved around Inland Steel. Required to live in the company town and trade
his suit and slacks for their standard issue blue jeans, cotton shirts, hat, and overcoat, his
plans had changed. For three years, he worked and saved for a speedy return with two
hundred dollars to his name, until breaking his hands while on the job. Inland Steel’s
failure to pay for his hospitalization and therapy, as well as their immediate termination
of his contract upon injury, absorbed most of his savings, and made him eligible for
repatriation. He was now temporarily disabled, unemployed, and likely to become a
public charge.
As his father had predicted, on December 1932, he returned to San Martin de
Hidalgo on his own account to avoid repatriation with only the clothes on his back. A
week later, the U.S. government repatriated an estimated 120 local families from
Chicago.
63
Rosas knew that the damage to his reputation was irreparable. Regardless of
the circumstances of his return, three year’s worth of hard earned experience was tainted
by what the town’s newspapers described as the “return of San Martin de Hidalgo’s most
impoverished negligent women and men.”
64
Despite his father’s efforts, following in his
brother and sister’s footsteps was nearly impossible for him and his fellow repatriates.
Employers throughout town offered employment on a month-by-month trial basis for

63 Governmental Town Newspaper Records. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 3, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
64 Ibid.

63
very little pay on grounds that they had a poor work ethic, so poor that they had been
deported, because they had been likely to become a public charge. Several job interviews
later as a presumed repatriate of “the worst kind, one who even with an education could
not keep a job,” he was hired to teach Math and Science at a neighboring town’s
vocational institute.
65
He had to provide his immigration and Inland Steel Company
employment identification cards and savings receipt to prove that he was gainfully
employed throughout the time leading up to his alleged repatriation. Even though his
check stubs bore the Inland Steel Company’s seal, company representatives refused to
provide confirmation of his employment history. Had it not been for his careful record
keeping, he would not have been hired in Mexico.
After two years of teaching, he was gainfully employed, a homeowner, and
married. He had finally fulfilled his family’s expectations, and developed a fierce distrust
of everything “American,” especially contract labor in the United States. Rosas could not
resist emerging as one of the Bracero Program’s most outspoken critics in San Martin de
Hidalgo. Cognizant that this young generation was plagued by debt, local exploitation,
and unemployment, he cautioned that it was important that they conceptualize and
manage contract labor as temporary employment. He cautioned, “living and working in
the United States required negotiating inhumane conditions and terms.”
66

Instead of opposing contract labor, Rosas was determined to encourage this
younger generation to prepare for a profitable future by discussing the actual rigors of

65 Ibid.
66 Oral History of Manuel Ricardo Rosas, Bracero Oral Life History Collection, National Museum of
American History, Smithsonian Institution.

64
immigration to and return from the United States. He knew that the opportunity to earn
U.S. wages was not something working class men and their families could afford to
refuse. Local employment opportunities were scarce and poorly paid, and families were
overwhelmed by debt. According to town enlistment rosters, an estimated 1,742 working
class prospective braceros were pursuing contract labor to finance existing family debt.
67

Working class families in town struggled with exploitative sharecropping, an inadequate
educational system, poor healthcare, and family histories plagued by poor life
opportunities. According to the town’s Program enlistment rosters, an estimated 2,396
young working class men had not completed an elementary school education.
68
They had
begun working as agricultural laborers as early as eight years old. They did not have an
education, own land, or have mastery of a trade to transition easily out of contract labor.
It was important that they manage strategically their participation. Working class
prospective braceros uninformed pursuit of contract labor would potentially corner them
into exorbitant debt and dependence on contract labor as a permanent way of life, if he
and others did not provide their support in the form of testimonials and advice.
Rosas’ efforts went beyond meeting with young prospective braceros, their
families, and other former repatriates in the privacy of their homes; Zepeda and Montez
ordered him to administer a critical phase in their recruitment. Program administrators
required letters of recommendation and formal written agreements financing loans from
middle class families to pay Program recruitment fees. To facilitate this process, Zepeda

67 Governmental Correspondence Files. Record Group 22, Series 13, Folder 4, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
68 Governmental Correspondence Files. Record Group 22, Series 13, Folder 6, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

65
summoned Rosas and the entire town high school faculty for assistance. Failure to appear
would result in their arrest.
Zepeda cancelled school for two weeks, so Rosas and the rest of the faculty could
write and issue Program loan agreements and letters attesting to prospective braceros’
strong work ethic and moral character. Termination of their teaching appointment and
arrest were at stake. Compelled by such coercion, his previous work experience in the
United States, Rosas wrote and issued an estimated 425 loan agreements and 603 letters
of recommendation, but not before offering a few words of advice to prospective braceros
with the help of former Inland Steel co-workers and repatriates.
69
Roberto Rodriguez,
Eduardo Castillo, Marcelino Ochoa, and Gustavo Hernandez, all former Inland Steel
Company employees and repatriates, helped Rosas advise each prospective bracero who
walked into his outdoor patio office to request a letter of recommendation and loan
agreement.
70

Upon being issued their employment and public health service identification card
and certificate, Rosas and others advised prospective braceros to tape these documents
onto a sturdy separate sheet of paper, as well as write their home address on this sheet,
and fold it into 16 squares, so that they could easily carry this documentation with them
at all times, as they had done previously when working at Inland Steel. Once they crossed
the U.S.-Mexico border different rules applied. They stressed that carrying forms of legal
identification, and providing information with regards to their assigned destination to

69 Governmental Town Inquiry Records. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 22, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
70 Governmental Town Inquiry Records. Record Group 22, Series 13, Folder 23, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

66
their families was important. They explaining that Mexican immigrant men “were denied
human rights and treated as inferior machines,” discriminated against, questioned, and
deported with nothing but the clothes on their backs, like they had been, not too long
ago.
71
It was their responsibility to carry documents confirming their legality, and keep
their families informed.
72
This older generation advised them to understand that
immigration implied “always having to prove the conditions and terms of your
employment, and not forgetting what you had left behind and must return to
eventually.”
73

Rosas and other high school faculty recorded that this was a difficult process in
their journals. Very few town residents had the courage to discuss publicly anything other
than loan agreements and the promise of U.S. wages. Prospective braceros and their
families signing loan agreements without assurance of a contract or information on the
Program terms had to be overlooked and accepted. Repatriates and faculty’s concern
emboldened the prospective braceros to assert their distrust. By facilitating a discussion
that acknowledged that crossing the U.S.-Mexico border implied learning to negotiate
language barriers, strict management, violation of contract conditions and terms, social
exclusion, and racial discrimination and exploitation, the older generation was doing a
great service to those who would follow.
Although these private and group conversations between this older and younger
generation of immigrants often excluded women, concerned grandmothers and mothers

71 Ibid.
72 Ibid.
73 Ibid.

67
collaborated to organize these conversations out of concern for their family’s welfare.
These conversations emerged as vehicles for women to indirectly express their advice
and concerns. Concerned women enlisted repatriates to advise them to administer their
earnings, savings, and time carefully.
74
Maria Antonia Acevedo explained,
“as mothers it was important to host these conversations. As a mother one
did not want one’s children working in hard labor because they had not
managed themselves with a better future in mind. Everyone would restrict
themselves to discussing how to get to the United States, but it was not
urgent for them to talk, nor prepare themselves for what they were going
to do upon returning into town. It was important that experienced people
shared their experiences, so they could take precautionary measures. They
wanted to go their own way, it was important that they carefully consider
where they were heading and with a goal in mind, that is why we would
do everything in our power so that repatriates would come and speak to
our children; even if we were not a part of the conversation. Organizing
these meetings was the best way as a mother and woman to participate in
this process.”
75

Other concerned women stressed that repatriates did not lecture their families, but served
as informed facilitators answering questions, describing border surveillance and
employment conditions, and advising them to write to their families. Jimena Ramirez
took comfort in repatriates’ approach,
“older immigrants would advise our grandchildren and children to pay
attention and learn quickly work rhythm, establishing a rhythm among
workers would help them better work according to fellow workers’ pace.
They had to keep us informed, because they remained members of our
families. They would advise them to adapt by keeping their own financial
records, departure and return dates, obtain their contractors’ names, follow
the group concerning employment conditions and terms, but not to go to
bars or gamble, and upon returning to return immediately to their
hometown-they still were needed.”
76

74 Public Life Files. Record Group 24, Series 2, Folder 4, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
75 Ibid.
76 Ibid.

68
Ramirez entrusted repatriates to “say what we had to keep to ourselves.”
77
Concerned
grandmothers and mothers confided in repatriates’ testimonials and advice to overcome
their exclusion and silence, confident that details shared when extending their invitations
influenced these conversations’ content, scope, and spirit. Acevedo explained,
“as mothers it was extremely difficult to accept that our lives were going
to change. We could not be overwhelmed, we had to act carefully and
provide our children with information before letting them go with our
blessing. It was important to provide them with information. My mother’s
intuition was to do everything possible to provide my children with this
immigrant generation’s advice to protect my children as they transitioned
into the United States without their families.”
78

In honor of women’s trust, repatriates encouraged prospective braceros to avoid
drinking, gambling, overspending, and to prioritize mastering a work pace that was
compatible with labor demands to achieve healthy employment conditions. Concerned
grandmothers and mothers considered such advice empowering. It was often the first
time that transitioning into and out of contract labor, as well as reaching adulthood was
discussed. Repatriates’ advice and testimonials echoed the parental concerns of
grandmothers and mothers, and emerged as a meaningful form of expressing their own
anxiety.
Concerned female relatives also invited repatriates to bring generations of male
relatives together to accept and support the Program participation of younger male
relatives. To ease tensions between disapproving grandparents and parents and their sons
and sons in law, former repatriates met and spoke with these men. Older and younger
male relatives often disagreed on whether their participation was affordable and

77 Ibid.
78 Ibid.

69
worthwhile. Older male relatives feared that their sons would “squander their youth,”
fearful that Program conditions would result in their permanent and reckless
bachelorhood and exorbitant debt.
79
Repatriates and concerned female relatives took
comfort in helping male relatives settle on the terms of their family’s separation through
an in-depth discussion of the Program’s implications on their transition into adulthood.
They advised young men to “work hard, save, and return eager to continue to work
hard.”
80
Older relatives demanded that young men assure them that they would act
responsibly throughout their contract period and upon their return.
Other grandparents and parents agreed that they needed U.S. wages desperately,
but opposed contract labor because they worried that their younger relatives would
become transient men. Javier Montenegro feared that his son’s unsupervised transition
into adulthood, would distract and prevent him from building a home and raising a family
of his own. Bringing their male relatives together for productive conversations to discuss
the conditions that were compatible with family harmony comforted grandmothers and
mothers, even if it required their exclusion. These women pursued family compromise in
preparation for their family’s separation and male relatives’ transition into adulthood
under the terms of contract labor under.
Concerned wives often adopted a different approach: they resisted their exclusion.
Fearful of an already desperate situation becoming worse, they worked together to
separate from their husbands under favorable terms. Their husbands’ contract labor

79 Government Town Inquiry Files. Record Group 22, Series 5, Folder 9, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.
80 Ibid.

70
would not improve their employment conditions or protect family relationships
automatically. They distrusted local coverage, and loathed Zepeda and Montez’s neglect
of the working class. Additionally, according to town rosters, 3,240 married prospective
braceros were enlisting to pay off existing family debt.
81
Their wives feared that,
overwhelmed by debt, recruitment fees, and poor wages, their husbands would neglect or
abandon them and their children. Neighborhood meetings were meant to address such
fears without drawing attention to individual women’s concerns or their respective
husbands’ shortcomings. Women did not assert their own emotional and financial needs,
concerns, or doubts at these meetings. This would have reflected poorly on them, their
marriages, and more specifically, their own husbands. This kind of assertion would
prevented them from learning more about contract labor and its potential impact on their
quality of life. Instead, wives utilized these forums to express their support of measures
that might prevent male relatives’ neglect and permanent family separation.
Women prepared aguas frescas (drinks), coffee, entrees, leña (firewood), and
pastries, and set up tables and chairs to cater to families attending what town residents
assumed were birthday celebrations. Fearful of drawing unwanted government attention,
women coordinated these meetings carefully. Hermelinda Camacho had never been to the
United States, so her husband did not take her concerns or advice seriously. Moreover, as
his wife, he doubted that she would ever support their temporary separation. Confident
that this neighborhood meeting would finally address her concerns and resonate with

81 Ibid.

71
other neighborhood couples, she participated in the organization of these meetings. She
explained that repatriates
“expressed what I intuited that I and my husband had to know and to
consider as he went to the United States. He was going to be far away with
much pressure and it was important that through older people with
experience’s advice he adopt a grounded approach and carefully meditate
over things. My intentions were not to hold him back. I simply wanted for
both of us to learn more about the United States to prevent our failure at
whatever cost. I did not want our marriage to fail, because we wanted to
earn more money. I helped to organize these meeting in our neighborhood,
because I felt that as his wife it was my obligation, I was confident that
this way I could convince him that my doubts and worries were valid.
Between marriages confronting the same situation and with a far more
experienced generation’s help it was easier to understand the importance
of remaining united.”
82

Camacho’s intentions reveal that repatriate testimonials and the sharing of couples
concerns addressed women’s anxiety concerning contract labor’s emotional demands.
Meetings centering on emotional and physical isolation and exploitation marked a
departure in approach and tone. These gatherings finally stressed the importance of
nurturing strong emotional long distance family relationships to address and ease female
relatives’ palpable anxiety and fear. Writing and remittances were showcased as essential
toward nurturing long distance family relationships and support. Among young couples,
repatriates often focused on the importance of not skipping out on their contract or
family. They counseled against conceptualizing their participation as an adventure. These
meetings publicly advised men to avoid taking women’s labor and care for granted.
Neighborhood meetings appealed to women and men because they believed that
lessons learned from lived experience were empowering. They stressed that it was their

82 Public Life Inquiry Files. Record Group 22, Series 5, Folder 10, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.

72
responsibility to empower themselves through the first hand knowledge of repatriates.
Families in attendance listened attentively and elaborated on repatriates’ advice by
drawing attention to contract labor’s implications on their reputation and livelihood.
Men’s failure to complete their contracts would resonate as irresponsible conduct, ruining
their reputation in town, as well as future prospects. Through these meetings, women also
came to understand that the Bracero Program would not change gender norms. Town
respectability and collateral were contingent on men’s successful contract completion and
women’s management of household, property, business, or trade under honorable
conditions that did not include interacting and catering to men who were not relatives.
Repatriates reflected on their return’s conditions, and reinforced the importance of
family, as well as town expectations, demands, and politics.
Their approach and receptiveness cemented repatriates’ credibility and popularity
among working class women. They set a positive example. Their attentiveness inspired
men to listen respectfully to women’s concerns. Gloria Lujan asserts,
“immigrants would give us our place and grant U.S. the right and support
to express what we very few times were allowed to say. Their treatment
served as an example for our husbands. Moved, they would do their part
by being respectful of our place when discussing such an important topic
as immigration.”
83

Repatriates’ incorporated women into these conversations by asking and addressing their
questions concerning family separation. This prevented the emergence of power struggles
between women and men. Often by the conclusion of these meetings, women’s
collaboration, coordination, and participation were determined socially responsible acts

83 Public Life Inquiry Files. Record Group 22, Series 5, Folder 11, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.

73
on behalf of their families and neighborhood. Their husbands and other male relatives
knew that their wives had risked their freedom to initiate these public conversations.
Organizing and using these meetings to prepare for an uncertain future could have been
penalized severely. Discussing this Program in large groups without government
authorization was an oppositional unlawful act, and could have resulted in their arrest.
84

Women were not excluded or silenced from neighborhood wide meetings because
they asserted themselves in ways that were compatible with local gender norms. Their
organization of these meetings did not resonate as inappropriate or an affront to male
authority, because it was considered an extension of responsible parenting and
caretaking. Moreover, women did not publicly express their concerns with regards to
their own labor and its relationship to accommodating contract labor. They did not assert
their concerns as laborers and citizens, but followed repatriates’ lead and censored how
they expressed themselves, avoiding the Program’s implications on their emotional
relationships, labor, and sexuality. They prefaced their statements and questions by
motioning to the fact that they were speaking as concerned grandparents, parents, and
wives and for their children and marriages’ sake. Under such terms, their participation
was in accord with their obligations as caretakers, and therefore accepted by all in town.
Women’s tactful approach prevented power struggles between women and men
from surfacing, but also deflected attention away from women’s exemplary organization.
These conversations were not celebrated as exemplary of women’s successful community
leadership or as acts of protest against local and national neglect, but widely taken for

84 Public Life Inquiry Files. Record Group 22, Series 5, Folder 12, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.

74
granted. Organizing and participating in these meetings marked the full extent of male
relatives’ tolerance toward women’s leadership, always cast as caretaking. Outside the
scope of these meetings, women were expected to follow their male relatives’
instructions leading up to and throughout their male relatives’ contract. Nonetheless, it
would mark the beginning of collaborations between working poor women, children, and
repatriates committed to their own sense of rehabilitation and progress.
Repatriates and women’s ingenuity toward negotiating the Program’s emotional
demands is a testament to their commitment to family and careful negotiation of gender
norms. Repatriates aggressively pursued the installation of accountability, goal setting,
and an obligation to family among working poor men and their families in order to lay
the foundations for their transition through contract labor and long distance family
relationships. Their efforts do not imply that working poor men idealized contract labor
or that individual assessments were beyond their grasp. Instead, it illustrates how an older
and younger generation came together to finally achieve progress through immigration,
as well as develop an alternative discourse to Program recruitment, one that in some ways
confronted the racial logic of contract labor.
Working Class Vision of Progress and the Mass Appeal of Emigration
Working poor prospective braceros were at a crossroads. They were unaware of
Avila Camacho’s vision of rehabilitation, the Program’s unfolding confirmed that they
would continue to inhabit a distinct and inferior racial category, unless they transitioned
successfully into and out of contract labor. Throughout the history of San Martin de
Hidalgo, working class men had been restricted to poorly paid unskilled agricultural labor

75
and discriminated against on account of their “cultural and intellectual backwardness and
inferiority.”
85
In light of the testimonials of repatriates, they realized that contract labor
would also require negotiating racially infused conditions concerning their ability,
background, labor, and rights, as well as gendered expectations concerning their
emotional relationships, settlement, and success. Contextualizing contract labor, and
more specifically the opportunity to earn and return with enough collateral to liquidate
debt and enter into other trades, motivated them to pursue a delicate balance between
being racialized, treated as expendable, illiterate, vulnerable, and unskilled laborers and
overcoming such racism and discrimination as determined and informed goal oriented
men.
86

The town’s working class prospective braceros began this process by articulating
their own visions of progress. They appropriated Program discourses to strengthen their
resolve. These visions were contingent on taking advantage of town resources already in
place, as well as emerging trends. Like middle class families, working class prospective
braceros asserted that access to U.S. wages would strengthen their earning potential.
They were confident that plans that centered on the first hand knowledge of repatriates
and their vision of rehabilitation would facilitate their transition into desirable long-term
settlement. Like repatriates, they shared their own informed renderings of practical
approaches to transcending racialization that reduced them to contract labor with each
other before pursuing a Program contract.

85 Public Town Life Inquiry Files. Record Group 24, Series 1, Folder 2, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.
86 Ibid.

76
The plans of young working class prospective braceros usually consisted of
borrowing money toward their recruitment fees from relatives or middle class families to
emigrate as braceros, before returning to take advantage of skills and trades learned in the
United States. Carlos Rodriguez was determined to learn how to fix automobiles to earn
enough to buy his own. Realizing that very few working class families in town owned or
could afford an automobile, he envisioned that working in the United States would make
this skill set and vehicles accessible to him as he became middle class and serviced that
community’s fleet of cars. After all, older immigrants had hailed the U.S., “the
automobile mecca of the world.”
87
Although Rodriguez’s goal was compatible with Avila
Camacho’s vision, it implied transcending poorly paid agricultural labor. Young
prospective braceros clearly had their own vision of what the Program could provide.
After participating in the Program, Desiderio Medina

also planned to purchase an
automobile and build a newsstand onto his parents’ bakery to sell the latest editions of
several national and surrounding town newspapers and publications. Demand among
town residents for the latest editions of international, national, and surrounding town
newspapers, as well as comic books, dailies, and journals, had increased with news of the
Program. The town’s thirst for information regarding the United States was growing, and
Medina was confident that U.S. wages would also facilitate his purchase of a radio and
large loudspeakers to air broadcasts of news and other popular programming, as well as
the best selling and most popular publications. He also envisioned selling sweets and
other homemade treats to offset the cost of gasoline, as he made his way to and from

87 Town Life Files. Record Group 22, Series 5, Folder 19, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco,
Mexico.

77
Guadalajara, and the surrounding towns of El Cruzero, Santa Cruz, Tepeguaje, and
Tlaquepaque to pick up subscriptions. Confident that access to U.S. technology, trends,
and wages would lay the foundations for healthy settlement, he signed a Program loan
agreement to pursue a contract. He was determined to transcend a life of poorly paid
unskilled agricultural labor in Mexico and the United States.
88

Government sponsored forums and press coverage, meetings between generations
of immigrants, and male plans for the future laid the foundations for a bracero culture that
centered on the importance of transitioning out of this Program as informed goal oriented
women and men. Nonetheless, the town’s miscalculation of the Program’s mass appeal,
as well as its economic and social impact, forced families to reconsider their negotiation
of Program conditions. Town officials and middle and working class families were
unprepared to accommodate the undocumented immigration of an estimated additional
11,910 working class men to the United States.
89
Desperate for U.S. wages and unable to
finance loans to pay for Program recruitment fees, these men journeyed to the United
States as undocumented immigrants. Contract and undocumented immigration
transformed families’ plans for progress into a transnational struggle for local
rehabilitation that transcended Avila Camacho’s vision, and took advantage of working
class children, women, and men left behind to labor.
Zepeda did not attempt to manage the town’s adaptation to the absence of an
estimated 20,320 men and the resulting separation of 55 percent of this town’s families

88 Ibid.
89 Ibid.

78
from their grandfathers, fathers, and husbands.
90
Middle class and working class families
left behind were on their own. The volatile combination of labor shortages, overworked
women, and streets teaming with “filthy and starving children” plagued rural towns and
villages throughout Mexico.
91
San Martin de Hidalgo was no exception. This town’s
adaptation and accommodation of contract and undocumented immigrant labor was
complicated by the racial, class, and gender differences that the middle class perceived in
this town’s working class, as well as by their distinct vision of family progress and
rehabilitation.
The Mexican nation’s preoccupation with national consumer patterns and trends
among the urban middle class deflected attention and funds from rural towns and villages
confronting an unstable local economy and strained social relations. The Program’s
impact on rural working class families left behind was not a national priority. Instead,
national authorities prided themselves on fulfilling Program recruitment quotas
successfully, and mobilizing urban middle class families to invest aggressively in U.S.
manufactured apparel, equipment, and trends in emulation of “a modern way of living
and working.”
92
Their exposure to different customs was restricted to their purchase of
U.S. consumer styles and trends, reducing Avila Camacho’s vision of rehabilitation to
“an efficient model for managing Mexican men’s immigration to the United States.”
93

90 Town Life Correspondence Files. Record Group 23, Series 10, Folder 19, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
91 Ibid.
92 Town Life Inquiry Correspondence. Record Group 23, Series 10, Folder 37, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
93 Town Life Inquiry Correspondence. Record Group 23, Series 11, Folder 6, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

79
The Program’s mobilization confronted middle class town families with labor
shortages and its unskilled working class with longer shifts for poorer wages. According
to town business records, women and men struggled to keep up with demands on their
labor and time.
94
Orders for apparel, dairy products, dry goods, meats, vegetables, and
other products were late 67 percent of the time and wages declined significantly.
95
Middle
class families worked fifteen-hour shifts to fill large orders or juggle several trades. The
working poor worked thirteen-hour shifts to earn an estimated three pesos a day. This
roughly equaled one hour’s wages in poorly paid unskilled U.S. agricultural labor.
Excessive pressure on town families’ energy, time, and resources did not exclude
children, most especially among the working poor. School age children missed school to
help relatives with household chores and trades.
96
Such demands on child labor and time
resulted in the expulsion of an estimated 680 out of 2,249 elementary and middle school
students on account of poor attendance and health.
97
Expulsion from school increased
petty crime among local youth. According to the town’s newspaper and police records,
arrest rates jumped from three for the entire calendar year leading up to the Program to an
estimated 193 three weeks into the Program.
98

Middle class families took an active interest in these issues. Their interest marked
a departure from a long history of middle class indifference toward the working class.

94 Town Life Inquiry Correspondence. Record Group 23, Series 11, Folder 9, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
95Ibid.
96

Public Inquiry Files. Record Group 23, Series C, Folders 19-20, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.

97
.
Secretaría de la Educación Papers. Series 78. Folder 110. Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco,
Mexico.
98

Public Town Inquiry Correspondence Files. Series J. Folders 23-27, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.

80
Nonetheless, the Program had drained middle class families of their workforce.
Motivated by a dramatic decline in their quality of life, middle class families utilized an
increase in crime, poverty, and school drop out rates to launch a vision of rehabilitation
that was consistent with Avila Camacho’s mandate and their family interests.
Rehabilitation of Town Life
On December 1942, five months into the Program, middle class families began
their rehabilitation of working class children left behind by braceros.
99
Middle class
families asserted that their educational curriculum and management would rehabilitate a
“backward, illiterate, delinquent, and malnourished race of children” into “disciplined,
literate, and productive citizens and employees.”
100
Like Avila Camacho, they used
racialized overtones to support their image of rehabilitation. Illiteracy, disease, poverty,
and unskilled labor made working class women and men unfit parents. According to
middle class families, the working class families had not been “exposed to culture or
adequately raised themselves to raise responsible and productive citizens.”
101
They
“belonged to a different race.”
102
Middle class families proposed rehabilitating working
class children not into skilled productive citizens but into literate unskilled laborers,
claiming that this was what they were best suited. Determined to preserve their middle
class status and differences between them and the working class, middle class families
developed and enforced an exploitative curriculum to rehabilitate working class children

99

Government Public Life Files. Record Group 29, Series C, Folders 22-29, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
100 Government Public Life Files. Record Group 23, Series 2, Folder 10, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.
101 Ibid.
102 Ibid.

81
into exemplary and malleable unskilled laborers. Like their bracero and undocumented
immigrant relatives, middle class families enlisted working class children of braceros to
overcome labor shortages under the pretense of rehabilitation.
Middle class families formed Congreso del Pueblo (CDP) or Town Congress, to
coordinate and administer working class children’s rehabilitation. This organization was
comprised of older middle class women and men, young wives left behind, and single
adults who prided themselves on being successful entrepreneurs, professionals, well-
educated teachers, or large landowners. Their participation was influenced by their
bracero relatives’ plans for progress.
103

They were committed to preserving their class status throughout their bracero
relatives’ contract labor to transition into revitalized businesses and comfortable homes
upon their return. CDP members were determined to make this possible through their
rehabilitation campaign. They recruited members aggressively. Women and men played
different roles in this organization. To prevent speculation concerning CDP goals, female
members served as administrators and spokespersons. They were confident that women’s
administration and recruitment efforts would resonate with working class bracero
grandparents and mothers as well intentioned outreach. Fearful that male membership’s
involvement would resemble governmental recruitment, middle class men were visibly
absent. Women were finally encouraged to assert a visibly public presence and role in the
town’s activities. Even if this implied working longer shifts, exemplified by caring for

103 Town Public Life Inquiry Files. Record Group 30, Series 50, Folder 1, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.

82
their own families and helping to administer and work their families’ trades, they now
had to implement this rehabilitation effort.
Women emerged as this organization’s spokesperson. The daughters of wealthy
town families targeted and enrolled working class bracero children. They appealed to
overworked bracero grandparents and parents by asserting that their children were
entitled to learn how to read and write and develop a strong moral character and work
ethic. Stressing that demands on grandparents, parents, and other caretakers’ labor and
time, as well as their own “backwardness” and poor education prevented them from
raising children and youth adequately and responsibly.
104
They recruited families by
making comparisons between CDP and other forms of public education. Unlike other
educational programs, working class bracero families did not have to finance CDP tuition
fees or school supplies. School activities would facilitate their employment and
household management. CDP’s management and supervision would also reinforce the
parenting of working class families throughout their bracero relatives’ absence. Their
children would be supervised carefully in class or when completing service learning
assignments by responsible instructors and supervisors, while grandparents and parents
worked to finance their welfare and accommodate their male relatives’ contract labor.
Their participation was promoted as a compatible and purposeful rehabilitation.
Repatriates and working class bracero families did not organize neighborhood
meetings to question or oppose their children’s rehabilitation. The high level of
undocumented immigration had shocked the entire town. Anxious and overworked

104 Ibid.

83
working class bracero grandparents and parents enrolled their grandchildren and children
dutifully. Questioning publicly or refusing CDP rehabilitation was not an option. The
families’ of these braceros had entered into Program loan agreements with CDP
members. Working longer shifts for poorer wages had made it difficult to liquidate their
loans immediately, so they were economically beholden to individual CDP members.
Confident that their children’s enrollment would appease CDP lenders, making it feasible
for their families to transition out of debt and eventually out of, contract labor, they
enrolled their children without asking questions. Working class bracero families were
committed to developing healthy relationships with their lenders. Middle class families
were aware of this situation and took advantage of bracero families’ vulnerability.
In December 1942, an estimated 535 students signed contracts agreeing to attend,
follow instructions, and perform lessons and tasks assigned by CDP instructors and
supervisors responsibly.
105
Elementary and middle school age children were divided into
groups as large as 30 and taught art, algebra, basic science, geography, geometry, and
reading comprehension for four hour intervals five days a week by grade level. Students
also completed a twenty hour weekly service component. Like their bracero relatives,
students signed and entered into contracts that bound them to CDP’s membership. CDP
rationalized that learning how to abide by contracts was critical to their rehabilitation,
when this contract was actually meant to secure their labor. Student violation of their

105 Ibid.

84
contract’s conditions result in their expulsion from this organization’s educational
programming.
106

Unlike other public education programs across the country, students spent most of
their time completing CDP’s service learning component. Mexican national public school
standards required a minimum of seven hours of school each day to be dedicated to the
study of letters, arts, and sciences. Service learning requirements were optional. CDP
clearly violated these standards. Students were required to spend half of their school day
working in the place of their absent bracero fathers, grandfathers, and brothers in CDP
owned fields, businesses, and trades. This organization denied students their childhood
and a quality education, as CDP enforced service schedules that met their membership’s
labor needs. Each child was required to work four hour shifts, five days a week for
successful entrepreneurs and large landowners throughout town, usually CDP members
or their relatives. CDP believed that through its service learning component, students
would develop marketable skills and a healthy public presence. They would become
“rehabilitated into disciplined work oriented citizens.”
107

Students between the ages of seven and ten were assigned to work in groups.
Those between the ages of eleven and fourteen were assigned individual tasks. By
working in groups, younger students were expected to get more done efficiently.
However, students were confined to exploitative unskilled labor. They cleaned, cooked,
delivered products, harvested crops, organized goods and wares, tended to livestock, and
washed and ironed clothing for middle class families to fulfill their service learning

106 Ibid.
107 Ibid.

85
requirements. The racial logic was consistent with that used to justify working class
men’s bracero contract, exposing students to “different customs that they did not know
would advance the quality of people” moving the town forward. In fact, CDP restricted
them to exploitative unskilled shifts of labor that only advanced middle class interests
beginning at the age of five.
108

CDP supervised and managed students’ efficiency closely, keeping detailed
attendance and performance records. CDP instructors met with grandparents and parents
to discuss student progress with regards to their work ethic on a bi-weekly basis.
Although, CDP supervision had improved attendance and literacy, as well as reduced
crime among its students, nonetheless working class bracero families resented the
curriculum and management of their children. These families and other town residents
attributed these results to the organization’s rehabilitation program cornerstone:
supervised unskilled labor. It occupied children’s entire day. Town business records
reveal that students’ labor was largely responsible for an increase in productivity among
middle class entrepreneurs. Not surprisingly, the quality of customer service had
improved dramatically.
109

Working as cheap unskilled day laborers at such a young age in place of their
older relatives devastated bracero families. They did not take comfort in improved
attendance rates or reduction in crime, and considered it too high a price to pay to
accommodate contract labor. The CDP had taken advantage of Program loan agreements,

108 Ibid.
109 Town Public Life Inquiry Files. Record Group 37, Series 3, Folder 88, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.

86
student contracts, and this service learning component to recruit a workforce comprised
of children to rehabilitate their own economic interests.
By January 1943, CDP expanded its educational programming. It required
students’ parents and grandparents to attend parent workshops. These workshops were
used to encourage them and their children to discuss the importance of an education,
family sacrifice, and nurturing strong lines of communication with bracero relatives. This
organization advised grandparents and parents to prompt students to write and pray for
their bracero relatives’ safe return. Such activities were meant to facilitate students’
transition into the CDP curriculum, and remind them that they were members of two
parent families and a town in great need of their labor. This organization reasoned that it
was in the town’s best interest to inspire student commitment to rehabilitation through
those they trusted most: their grandparents, parents, and other caretakers. Members
considered these activities expressions of genuine support and understanding toward
students’ emotional well-being.
Bracero grandparents and parents considered such an approach a profound
manipulative exercise in power. CDP restricted its interaction with these families to
classroom instruction, service learning requirements, and parent conferences and
workshops. Bracero grandparents, parents, and students were treated as inferior unskilled
cheap labor inside and outside of the classroom. Instructing them to encourage their
children to write and work like their bracero relatives was considered humiliating. It
implied that their bracero relatives had neglected or abandoned them, and that the
children themselves had forgotten them or did not honor and respect them. It cast doubt

87
on these families’ commitment to one another, and invaded their sense of privacy.
Discussing sensitive aspects of their lives under such terms, coupled with exploitative
management and supervision, heightened tensions between middle class and working
poor immigrant families, and inspired concerned bracero grandparents and parents to
nurture students’ self-esteem and belonging in the intimacy of their own homes and
neighborhood.
Andrea Rosas relied on her children and similarly struggling neighbors to
overcome the hardships of negotiating CDP curriculum and her husband’s absence. The
entire family would arrive home at seven in the evening and cook and help each other
clean and prepare for their next day of CDP curriculum and work. They looked forward
to dinner, as this was the only time they had to themselves. Most of the day was spent
either in the classroom, completing service-learning requirements, or working outside and
inside their homes. Weekends were extremely popular, as usually this was when
neighborhood block parties took place. Neighborhood families compared plans, pooled
their resources, and invited each other to neighborhood wide group birthday parties,
dinners, and curbside chats to honor groups of children. Individual birthdays or other
celebrations were rarely celebrated. Working class bracero families worked closely
together to instill a healthy sense of self-esteem to offset CDPs emotionally and
physically destructive management.
110

Nonetheless, there were parents who found it difficult to express their affection.
Single handedly raising their children was challenging. Women left behind had to be both

110 Family Inquiry Files. Record Group 37, Series 3, Folder 90, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco,
Mexico.

88
male and female parental figures in their children’s lives. This implied disciplining them,
while instilling a healthy self-esteem and conveying affection. In an effort to negotiate
such family obligations, Nora Castillo expressed her affection tactfully. She hugged her
children and kissed their foreheads only after they had fallen asleep. Fearful of losing her
authority over her children, she was extremely careful in revealing her vulnerability.
Castillo explained,
“It was difficult to express my affection. I feared my children would detect
my vulnerability. It was difficult to maintain their affection and trust and
simultaneously teach them discipline with so much work and
responsibility to take care of. I couldn’t afford to openly express my
affection.”
111

In December 1942, students pursued their own sense of rehabilitation by
challenging CDP’s management and racialization publicly. Young female students and
bracero daughters, Daniela Alvarez and Cristina Sanchez, ran for queen of the town
pageant honoring exemplary young women. The candidate who earned the most resident
votes was crowned queen. This was among the few times in San Martin de Hidalgo’s
history in which working class women had dared to run.
112

Soon after announcing their participation, they gained widespread attention and
support. This pageant resonated as a restorative activity and feasible goal throughout the
town’s working class neighborhoods. Their candidacies were widely celebrated as a
public assertion of the beauty and worthiness of working class bracero young women. It
was an affront to CDP’s racialization of working class young women as “dirty, dark,

111 Ibid.
112 Town Public Life Inquiry Files. Record Group 37, Series 4, Folder 12, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.

89
illiterate, and malcriadas (raised poorly).”
113
Entering this pageant reflected that Alvarez
and Sanchez considered their citizenship, intellect, and physical beauty worthy of public
esteem, recognition, and celebration, all traits CDP denied them.
Their candidacies required working long hours campaigning for votes for an
honor usually reserved for middle class young women, a task that did not conform to
CDP’s curriculum or service learning component schedules. Fellow students, repatriates,
and working class residents took an active interest in their campaigns, working long
hours in place of Alvarez and Sanchez, so that they could campaign in different
neighborhoods under the supervision of repatriates and their wives. Their campaigns
became working class neighborhood projects. Working toward their coronation with the
support of their classmates, friends, and other town residents was an honor and itself a
validation of their worthiness. Working class bracero families considered it a healthy
exercise, though it did not resonate as such among middle class families. The middleclass
characterized such collaboration as “tactics that were beneath them,” claiming that it
reflected a “difference in approach, class, and race.”
114
Middle class contestants often
relied on their wealthy relatives to purchase and cast votes on their behalf. Campaigning
was considered “begging and worthy of inferior young women.”
115

After a month of campaigning, Sanchez was crowned queen. Her coronation was
one of the most highly anticipated and attended ceremonies, since it was among the few
occasions in which a working class young woman won the pageant. Instead of spending

113 Ibid.
114 Ibid.
115 Ibid.

90
the prize money on a crown, gown, or flowers, Sanchez opted to honor voters and other
loyal supporters by financing a modest town celebration, as well as a self portrait
commemorating her feat.
CDP’s membership did not approve of this ceremony and celebration. Instead,
they published a scathing review, describing this coronation as the “worst exhibition of
unrest ever to take place.”
116
They punctuated their coverage by stressing that, instead of
celebrating this town’s cultural integrity, this ceremony had driven a wedge between
middle class and working class town families.
117
CDP claimed that these festivities
demonstrated differences in approach and, such as “race and class between those with
and without culture.”
118
Sanchez’s coronation was dismissed as exemplary of working
class youth’s “insolence.”
119
Their labor, organization, and success were reduced to
“backward and uncivil conduct,” and strengthened CDP’s resolve to rehabilitate Sanchez
and her supporters.
Public criticism did not silence the concern of working class bracero grandparents
and parents’ for their and their children’s future. Overwhelmed by the CDP curriculum,
their own exploitative and unprofitable employment conditions, and Program loan
agreements, they sought their bracero relatives’ support. They wrote in depth letters
describing CDP curriculum and its effects on their children to urge bracero relatives to
send remittances to liquidate their Program loan agreements immediately. This would
make their children’s transition out of the CDP curriculum possible. They explained that

116 Ibid.
117 Ibid.
118 Ibid.
119 Ibid.

91
accommodating their contract labor had cornered their children to follow in their
footsteps of contract labor. Families requested that bracero relatives prioritize eliminating
their children’s coerced exploitation. Estela Martinez wrote her bracero husband that “it
is important that you send enough to not owe CDP anything. They taking advantage of
the situations and our children. We cannot continue to go on like this. It is important to
pay off our debt.”
120

Bracero grandparents, mothers, and other caretakers is the working poor also
conveyed their inability to care for their children single handedly. Working thirteen hour
shifts as agricultural day laborers, cooks, customer service representatives, housekeepers,
vendors, and waitresses, they earned an average 18 pesos a week, roughly the equivalent
of a bracero and undocumented immigrant laborer’s day’s wages.
121
Their earnings were
not enough to raise their children, families implored bracero relatives “not to forget about
those they had left behind.”
122

These letters were difficult to write. Bracero grandparents and parents in the
working class feared that by conveying the full extent of their and their children’s
racialization and exploitation, bracero relatives would become disillusioned and
estranged. Their contract labor had been motivated by an already desperate situation that
their letters confirmed was worsening. Families speculated that bracero relatives were not
earning enough to finance their Program loan agreements, and that the CDP curriculum

120 Ibid.
121 Town Public Life Files. Record Group 100, Series 10, Folder 26, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.
122 Town Public Life Files. Record Group 37, Series 4, Folder 13, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco,
Mexico.

92
and town employment conditions would discourage them from returning. Nonetheless,
families had no other choice but to confide in their relatives and request bracero help.
Working class braceros responded by emulating the approach of repatriates. They
wrote and sent their families letters proposing uninterrupted U.S. employment, long-term
family separation, and their discretionary return to achieve long-term family
rehabilitation and settlement. Referring to them no longer as relatives, but as child,
female, and male laborers confronting exploitation and racism under conditions similar to
their own, braceros advised their families to administer enclosed remittances carefully
and keep children enrolled. Braceros envisioned that by taking advantage of CDP’s
academic curriculum and their access to U.S. wages, their families transcend would
eventually the racial logic that restricted them to poorly paid unskilled agricultural labor
on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Their vision of rehabilitation thus required long-
term family sacrifice.
The Transition of Long-term Family Separation
Working class braceros’ immigration histories reveal that U.S. wages and
discretionary return became the touchstone of their vision for family rehabilitation. They
envisioned that uninterrupted contract renewal or undocumented immigrant labor would
finance their liquidation of Program loan agreements and transition into desirable
conditions, as well as their children’s enrollment in a quality education. They were
certain that transitioning into long-term family separation was their only alternative.
Their assessment of the Program management and employment opportunities by the

93
Mexican and U.S. governments compelled them to extend their family separations, and
nurture family networks to return to at their discretion.
Working class braceros’ failure to consult their wives; yet request their
acceptance and accommodation of long-term family separation reflects the prevalence of
gender inequality in Mexican rural towns and villages. Mexican women were not entitled
by custom and tradition to question their husband or other male relatives’ assessment of
their family situation and options. Braceros’ immigration histories reveal that Mexican
women’s acceptance of their approach and vision of family rehabilitation was taken for
granted. Accepting and enforcing male instructions was considered “a woman’s
obligation to family and marriage.”
123
As male breadwinners and heads of households,
braceros believed they were entitled to demand Mexican women’s labor and sacrifice.
Families assumed that braceros knew and acted in their families’ best interest.
Like Mexican national and town government officials, braceros did not address
their families’ individual concerns. Instead, they wrote their families letters detailing their
and others’ immigration histories to support their instructions, warnings, and rationale for
long-term family separation and discretionary return. Their vision of rehabilitation did
not specifically address the sacrifices of working class children, women, and other
relatives. It was assumed that their return would improve their families’ quality of life
automatically. Braceros were convinced that they knew what was best for their families.
Working class braceros began their families’ transition into long-term family
separation by writing letters contextualizing the role of education in their respective

123 Record Group 34, Series 1, Folder M, Archivo Municipal, San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico

94
family histories. They were confident that this perspective would encourage their families
not to despair, but adjust to the children’s continued CDP enrollment. Braceros
encouraged their families to consider that the racial discrimination and curriculum of the
CDP did not diminish the fact that their children received instruction in reading,
geography, mathematics, and science, an education that they themselves had not
benefited from and otherwise could not afford. The contextualization of their children’s
education and exploitation within their larger family histories motivated working class
braceros to send remittances toward payment of their Program loan agreements, but
under the understanding that their children would remain enrolled even after liquidating
their loans. Documentation of the academic progress, of their children was encouraged
among bracero families until they saved enough to finance their own enrollment into a
quality education. Working class braceros considered such education a luxury as well as
empowering considering their situation.
124
Their previous employment history of poorly
paid unskilled agricultural labor and current bracero or undocumented immigrant labor
elevated the importance of an academic education. It became accepted as a vehicle
toward long-term well paid skilled labor and stability for the entire family.
Nicolas Vera was among hundreds of working class bracero husbands who wrote
and sent immigration histories cautioning their wives to keep their “sights set in Mexico,”
and disregard rumors that the United States “welcomed” undocumented Mexican
immigrant children and women. He urged their adaptation to long-term family separation

124 Town Correspondence Files. Record Group 37, Series 7, Folder 4, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.

95
and his eventual return.
125
Vera advised his wife, Andrea, to use remittances to make
payments toward their Program loan agreement, stressing that liquidating their loan was
the first step toward transitioning out of bracero labor.
Vera and others implored their families to administer remittances and engage in
labor under the understanding that immigrant labor in the U.S. was undesirable,
unfeasible, and produced an unhealthy and unstable quality of life. They pleaded that
extending their family separations did not mean that they had lost interest in those they
had left behind and were working to return to, insisting that there was “no room” for
Mexican undocumented immigrant children and women in the United States.
126

“Achieving profitable long-term rehabilitation and settlement in Mexico was necessary,”
according to Vera.
127

Working class braceros also used their own interpretations of the dehumanization,
emasculation, and isolation of undocumented immigrants to intimidate skeptical families
into long-term family separation. Such histories were meant to convince their families
that even as legally contracted laborers, they confronted dehumanization and exploitation
because of their race. Braceros asserted that irrespective of their legality and eligibility,
Program contractors and reduced them to expendable and malleable unskilled laborers.
Vera described his emasculation candidly by writing,
“it was difficult, it gives me great shame just to imagine that you, our
children, and our families would see me work and live like an animal, but
everything requires sacrifice. To be able to rehabilitate myself, I have to

125 Town Correspondence.Files. Group 38, Series 19, Folder 10, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco,
Mexico.
126 Ibid.
127 Ibid.

96
continue to be flexible by sacrificing my dignity to be able to be a family
and working man in town. I have to continue working in this country, even
if I have to endure other type of abuses without complaining or expecting
much in return. Americans do not believe that as a Mexican-with a
contract or undocumented was worthy of housing, clothing, food, no
human treatment. Here with a bit of luck one earns dollars to return, pay
off debts, and work under a better situation-like a respectable working
man. So don’t think about the United States. Protect our children, don’t
overspend, and preserve whatever little we have and I’ll send you money
so that I can return and quit working worse than an animal.”
128

By cautioning that U.S. employment conditions and racial discrimination did not make
humane housing, employment conditions and terms, education, or social interaction
possible for braceros, Vera and other working class braceros tried to convince their
families to value and preserve their family relationships in Mexico. Braceros asserted that
Mexican children, women, and men on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border were
deemed unworthy of human rights. Sharing their plight was meant to motivate their
families “to not lose sight of what with enough money could be possible in Mexico.”
129

They concluded that discretionary return, U.S. wages, and a Mexican family and home
would allow them to create, rehabilitate, and transition into desirable, humane, and
profitable family life opportunities in San Martin de Hidalgo. By stressing that bracero
and undocumented immigrant life in the U.S. was not conducive to family rehabilitation
and far more devastating than CDP curriculum, working class braceros tried to encourage
their families to make sacrifices and remain behind in Mexico.

128 Ibid.
129 Town Correspondence Files. Record Group 38, Series 19, Folder 10, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.

97
The Path to Undocumented Family Immigration
Working class braceros’ immigration histories and vision resonated with their
own families, but did not prevent other town families from pursuing undocumented
immigrant labor. In January 1943, Isabel and Manuel de Jesus Rubio undertook this
challenge.
130
Unwilling to separate from each other or conform to town employment
practices, they sold their belongings, and headed for the Bracero Program’s selection
center in Mexico, Districto Federal. Confident that they had enough money to bribe
Program selection officials to issue each a contract, they joined thousands of Mexican
men awaiting selection. Earning better wages together compelled Isabel and Manuel de
Jesus to stand in line for fourteen hours outside this selection center’s gates. When only
Manuel de Jesus was selected and Isabel shoved aside, they had no opportunity to bid
each other farewell or settle how to keep in touch. After parting ways, Isabel regretted not
having shared with Manuel de Jesus that she was two months pregnant.
Alongside thousands of men, Manuel de Jesus underwent callously administered
interviews and physical examinations to secure a contract. Isabel stayed behind and
worked as a babysitter and housekeeper fourteen hours a day, seven days a week for a
middle class family, until they learned of her pregnancy. They considered her single
mother status an affront to their own moral character and reputation. Shunned and forced
to leave, she decided to return to San Martin de Hidalgo. Hundreds of miles away,
Manuel de Jesus harvested crops throughout the United States, earning enough to
purchase antibiotics and bandages to treat his bruises, cuts, and sore limbs, and

130 Oral history of Isabel and Manuel de Jesus Rubio. Bracero Oral Life History Collection, National
Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

98
wondering what had become of Isabel. Their plans of living and working together in the
United States had been temporarily derailed.
Upon returning to town, Isabel and Manuel de Jesus’ families “did not want
anything to do with her or their child.”
131
Isabel approached and questioned his family on
Manuel de Jesus’ whereabouts, but they did not acknowledge nor answer her questions.
Disgruntled over his decision to pursue contract labor, and having learned of her
pregnancy at an advanced stage, they doubted her virtue and the legitimacy of their child.
Frustrated by their attitude and behavior, she gave up her search for answers, and worked
as a cashier and kitchen staff member at a tortilla shop and factory. However, her
economic situation did not improve. Her meager earnings forced her to bring her son,
Ernesto, to work everyday. Struggling alone with a newborn was challenging.
In March 1944, after countless letters and having secured a nine month contract in
southern California, Manuel de Jesus had Isabel and Ernesto smuggled into the United
States. Manuel de Jesus was convinced,“it was not worth working. . .without even the
possibility of sharing a bowl of beans with his family. That is why I worked hard to save
enough to continue working hard-but with my family by my side.”
132
Working towards
long-term U.S. settlement became their priority. They could not afford to return to
Mexico. Middle class families in San Martin de Hidalgo competed or confined working
class female and male employees to longer shifts for poorer wages.
As an undocumented Mexican immigrant, Isabel worked in a packing plant, relied
on sympathetic Mexican immigrant neighbors for affordable childcare, and lived in a

131 Ibid.
132 Ibid.

99
garage. Manuel de Jesus lived and worked in his assigned agricultural labor camp, and
visited them on weekends. Living and working together still entailed temporary
separation, but “they had to start somewhere.”
133
This family arrangement made
financing their child’s welfare feasible, but had not improved their quality of life. Their
rehabilitation was incomplete.
After completing his contract, Manuel de Jesus and Isabel expanded their efforts
to achieve desirable long-term family settlement. They worked as poorly paid
undocumented employees in the same packing plant, and became members of the
Asociacion de Cocineras Para Familias (Association of Cooks for Families). This
association’s membership was comprised of agricultural laborers of Mexican descent and
varying legal statuses committed to overcoming the racial tension and dehumanizing
conditions afflicting their quality of life. Female and male members pooled their
resources to organize fundraisers benefiting the healthcare of agricultural laborers’
children, and purchase food items in bulk to cook and sell Mexican food on weekends for
homesick agricultural laborers. Their earnings supplemented their wages, and careful
coordination inspired a sense of belonging among members and customers. Working
closely with fellow agricultural laborers enriched their quality of life.
Association members met once a week to discuss their collective budget and
weekly assignments, and recruited new members aggressively. It was difficult to
convince overworked and strictly supervised women and men to collaborate and work

133 Ibid.

100
outside of their assigned barracks, packing plants, and schedules. They feared grower
reprisals. Isabel explained,
“They did not dread the work, simply the racism and politics were fierce.
In those days one had much to lose, one could get deported for being
illegal and for wanting to improve oneself in something that was not the
fields or packing plant, and Mexican Americans could get fired from their
jobs and even deported for providing us with support, but even so they did
not give up and it gave us results. We sold much, and what’s more, after
two weeks, even our husbands although tired from working in the fields
helped us cook beans and meat, what’s more we entered politics.”
134

With pride, they announced their services to other Mexican agricultural laborers in the
United States, along with a bit of political education:
“Attention Mexican workers, the United States of North American is the
country where freedom is a right, what’s more the companies and people
you work for cannot obligate you to purchase food where they tell you to.
You have freedom, if you want to cook your own food or to go to any
restaurant. We have joined an organization to offer you delicious food,
well seasoned, and in the Mexican tradition.”
135

Their announcement reveals that they appealed and catered to disenfranchised
agricultural laborers of Mexican descent under the assertion that social inclusion on
culturally sensitive, equal, and affordable conditions was their right. Their services
transcended satisfying agricultural laborers’ demand for Mexican food by Mexican
women, and their coordination demonstrates that male members also advertised, cooked,
and tended to customers. Such collaboration and services were meant to resonate as an
expression of solidarity against the racism and exclusion of each member and customer.
By assuming a collective voice and positioning themselves as a force that catered to
disenfranchised agricultural laborers of Mexican descent as more than homesick

134 Ibid.
135 Associacion de Cocineras Para Familias flyer, July 1953, Personal Collection of Isabel Rubio.

101
consumers, this association’s members helped themselves and provided fellow workers
with services that had been denied. Isabel asserts,
“Our intentions were to establish a place where these men that worked
from sun to sun could chat and enjoy delicious Mexican food, so they
wouldn’t lose faith or their will and at the same help ourselves a bit. In
those days as Mexicans and even those born here were not allowed to dine
or enjoy in other venues. Whites would look at us badly, and place signs
even in Spanish that read that we were not welcomed-they were enormous
sign that said something along the lines of “We don’t want Mexicans
here”-but even with all of this-it was a risk to sell and consume our
food.”
136

This association’s services required careful coordination to avoid grower
opposition and reprisals. Posting these announcements in businesses, churches, and
community centers sympathetic to agricultural laborers of Mexican descent of varying
legal statuses, and selling these platters from Mexican American members’ homes was
critical to their success. As homeowners with business licenses, Mexican American
members were entitled legally to run businesses from the comforts of their homes,
making it possible to attract and cater to customers without violating the law and drawing
unwanted attention and reprisals. Nonetheless, undocumented immigrant members, like
Isabel and Manuel de Jesus, monitored their participation carefully out of fear of
detection and deportation. They posted announcements and prepared food in the comforts
of their home for Mexican American members to sell. Mexican American members could
be deported for knowingly admitting undocumented immigrant women and men into
their homes or entering into business transactions.

136 Oral life of Isabel and Manuel de Jesus Rubio. Bracero Oral Life History Collection, National Museum
of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

102
While working class braceros disapproved of Isabel and Manuel de Jesus’
transition out of contract labor and into undocumented immigrant family life, achieving
their reunification and eventual resettlement by appealing and collaborating with other
similarly disenfranchised women and men resonated with others. Mexican women and
men on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border confronted race based disenfranchisement
and profound dehumanization influenced by who they could be in the local contexts in
which they found themselves. Therefore, working class braceros wrote and circulated
detailed renditions of the Rubio family’s struggle among their own families to motivate
them to work with other similarly conflicted families.
Nevertheless, working class braceros also reflected upon the Rubio family’s
struggle to substantiate their own opposition to undocumented immigrant family
formation and U.S. settlement. They discussed this family’s living and work arrangement
and association activities to alert their families to the plight of undocumented immigrant
women. Braceros affirmed that contract, undocumented, and resident agricultural laborers
of Mexican descent were denied basic rights because of their race and irrespective of
gender. This narrative was meant to renew their families’ appreciation and commitment
to the preservation and expansion of the family, home, and sense of belonging braceros
had left in Mexico. They stressed that it required much coordination and labor to share a
warm meal with other women and men under dignified conditions to illuminate the
arbitrary dehumanization that plagued family rehabilitation in the United States.

103
Although, working class braceros wrote letters describing Isabel’s labor and
sacrifice as “exemplary,” they criticized her undocumented immigration severely.
137

Braceros asserted that her failure to remain behind and preserve a family, home, and
network for Manuel de Jesus to return in Mexico overshadowed her labor and sacrifice.
She had “committed willingly the greatest offense to her family and marriage.”
138
Her
undocumented immigration had “forever deprived” her family of long-term stability and
rehabilitation. Both hadto conform to an endless search for employment in the United
States.
139
Their undocumented settlement required year-round migration throughout the
western United States in search of poorly paid unskilled agricultural labor. Despite their
successful collaboration with similarly disenfranchised women and men, stability was
always out of their grasp. They did not have a home of their own to live or return to.
Working class braceros used the Rubio family’s struggle to substantiate their
claims that the United States was strictly a source of employment. They reduced Isabel
and Manuel de Jesus’ labor and sacrifice to “reckless ambition” to instill among their
own families the sentiment that long-term family rehabilitation and settlement were
contingent on their uninterrupted access to U.S. wages and having a family, home, and
network in Mexico.
140
They urged their families to understand that no matter how hard
they labored, U.S. racism, exclusion, and employment conditions and terms were not
conducive to family stability. The Rubio family’s quality of life “would never improve.”

137 Town Life Correspondence. Record Group 38, Series 19, Folder 14, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.
138 Ibid.
139 Ibid.
140 Ibid.

104
“They would continue to be denied family stability.”
141
Characterizing their
undocumented settlement as “the worst kind of family settlement,” braceros hoped
inspire an acceptance of the restriction of women’s efforts to be patient and responsible
childcare, household management, employment, and network building in Mexico.
142

Other working class braceros expanded their immigration histories to include
familiarizing their families with distant Program conditions and terms. They provided
glimpses of their resilience to share lessons learned from this Program’s selection center
and agricultural labor camps throughout the western United States. These narratives
supported their rationale for proposing long-term family separation, and provided their
families with strategies to negotiate CDP curriculum successfully. Working class
braceros were committed to justifying their decision and instructing their families on how
to transition into long-term family separation.
Reflecting upon and sharing this dimension of their immigration histories was
meant to instill the importance of negotiating strategically “a change in their lives in a
town and country that had although had not improved, would eventually with their return
give way to a rehabilitation- healthy family stability” among their families.
143
Six months
into the Program, working class braceros acknowledged that their quality of life had not
improved, and that it would likely become worse on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico
border. Bracero and undocumented Mexican immigrant men continued to emigrate,
increasing the number of families left in Mexico to compete for poorly paid unskilled

141 Ibid.
142 Ibid.
143 Town Life Correspondence. Record Group 38, Series 19, Folder 18, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.

105
employment opportunities. Working class braceros understood that securing
uninterrupted access to U.S. wages was as urgent as reflecting candidly on their own
dehumanization and dislocation. It was important to convey the similarities between their
own individual circumstances and their families’ adaptation to long-term family
separation to renew their families’ confidence, resourcefulness, and trust, as they
undertook what had become a transnational collective family struggle for their eventual
return.
Lessons Learned
The immigration histories of working class braceros reveal that their long-term
family separation and discretionary return was informed by lessons learned before setting
foot in the United States. Their renditions of Program selection conveys that becoming a
bracero, like their families’ CDP enrollment, entailed negotiating dehumanizing racially
infused eligibility processes. Confident that such accounts convinced their families that
family separation was an informed decision, Alberto Rodriguez explained that he and
other men waited three hours in the nude to undergo Program selection. He stressed that
“you were not allowed to ask anything, if they found you physically weak or with too
much attitude, you were dismissed and sent back. He had to play it smart, and put his best
foot forward before he could set foot in the fields.”
144
Pedro Gonzalez revealed that
selection center officials stood directly in front of him and singled him out as,

144 Oral History of Alberto Rodriguez. Bracero Oral Life History Collection, National Museum of
American History, Smithsonian Institution.

106
“a type they did not intend to hire. They agreed that he was no peon.
He was too well dressed, looked too intelligent, almost white.
He could pass for a Frenchman. The trouble with his kind . . .was that
they were too ambitious . . .He would end up telling
everyone off, and then there would be trouble.”
145

After enduring selection center officials’ racial assessment Gonzalez was issued a
contract. Enrique Buenaventura’s also wrote letters drawing attention to the Mexican
Americans who served as selection center officials and their implementation of this
public act of humiliation and selection. He wanted to stress the fact that, like the CDP,
selection center officials irrespective of race and ethnicity mistreated Mexican men. He
described being singled out as “a smart aleck, lazy, irresponsible, another no good
type.”
146
Buenaventura elaborated,
“Afraid of being sent back, most of us did not talk back. I was not
surprised that white men might not take to us, but to find Mexican
Americans feeling and saying racist things that just made things twice as
bad. We were in a rough spot. . . . .This program sounded so good in
writing, but once one stepped outside the train it was downhill from there.
I felt trapped. I did not know which was best to deal with- humiliation
after humiliation . . . but with a few cents in my pockets. . . .or to return
home with nothing but the clothes on my back, defeated to my wife,
children, compadres, mi pueblo. Ya me volvia loco (my town. I almost
went crazy).”
147

Braceros’ renditions of Program selection validated their decision to sidestep Program
selection through uninterrupted U.S. employment and long-term family separation in

145 Oral History of Pedro Gonzalez. Bracero Oral Life History Collection, National Museum of American
History, Smithsonian Institution.
146 Oral History of Enrique Buenaventura. Bracero History Project, National Museum of American
History, Smithsonian Institution.
147 Oral History of Gerardo Perez. Bracero History Project, National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution.

107
their efforts to convince their families that their decision was shaped by dehumanizing
treatment.
To demystify widespread idealization of the Program, braceros reflected on intra-
and inter-ethnic agricultural labor camp tension. Buenaventura wrote his family,
“We were not welcomed by anybody, white, black, other Mexican
immigrants, or Mexican Americans. We did not expect them to
understand. They saw us as competition. They did not care whether we
had been poor all of our lives or whether we were exploited and shipped
from labor camp to labor camp and treated as nothing more than a
machine. . .”
148

Fidencio Cardenas also elaborated on interethnic tensions to illustrate that, like San
Martin de Hidalgo’s class politics, bracero labor was plagued with unnerving tension.
Living and working alongside men whose family plans for a better future had
transformed them into braceros was challenging. Cardenas described,
“there were times when I had to work in labor camps, where men were
divided. Everyone from Jalisco would gravitate toward the right side of
the labor camp mess hall, while those from Guanajuato would sit out front,
and those from Zacatecas met at the very center. It was stressful and
difficult to keep all these divisions in my head day in and day out, as one
worked, ate, slept, and bathed. ”
149

Their dehumanization and dislocation compelled braceros to distrust one another and
separate into regional groupings. Their negotiation of such divisiveness compelled
braceros to urge their families to understand that contract labor was emotionally and
physically draining. Braceros were determined to convince their families that they
confronted interethnic hostility similar to that experienced by their families when dealing

148 Ibid.
149 Oral History of Fidencio Cardenas. Bracero Oral History Project. National Museum of American
History, Smithsonian Institution.

108
with CDP. They hoped that this would convince their families that they were desperate to
transition out of contract labor.
Middle class braceros also wrote their families to justify their contract renewal.
Raul Quezada wrote his family that although he had “worked just as hard, many times
harder to prove that he was disciplined enough to deserve braceros’ approval and
friendship,” and earn U.S. wages, he could not return.
150
He had not earned enough to
expand his hometown trade. He explaining that reading and writing regularly, and
wearing a comfortable coat and pair of shoes had made it difficult to work with working
class braceros. To earn their acceptance and respect, he would continue to endure an
“accelerated work pace.”
151
Differences in class status did not prevent middle class
braceros from renewing their contract, or appealing to their families under terms similar
to that of working class braceros.
Centering their immigration histories on how they coped with Program
management was also a recurring theme throughout working class braceros’ immigration
histories. It nurtured their families’ willingness to work closely with other families to
accommodate CDP curriculum and exploitative employment conditions. Their letters
compared working under the supervision of a series of foremen from their assembly point
in the morning, when harvesting crops under the scorching sun, and until disbandment in
the evening to CDP curriculum and local employment opportunities. Gerardo Perez
asserted that he had endured contract labor successfully because of his collaboration with

150 Oral History of Raul Quezada. Bracero Oral History Project, National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution.
151 Ibid.

109
braceros from the Mexican states of Campeche, Jalisco, and Zacatecas. Every evening
they would come together to hold prayer sessions in their agricultural labor camp barrack.
This was the only time they were allowed to meet without grower supervision. He
explained that they,
“would form a circle inside our labor camp mess hall, and one of the men
would start us off by reading a passage from the bible, and then we would
all offer our prayers in appreciation of having made it through another
day, for our loved ones back home, and for our fellow workers who were
either seriously hurt or facing deportation for “stepping out of line.
Eramos paisanos y entendiamos que todos estabamos jugando el todo por
el todo (We were fellow townsmen and understood that we each had much
at stake).”
152

He encouraged his family to collaborate on similar terms with other working poor
bracero families, stressing that it was important “for them to surround themselves with
families who understood and would collaborate willingly to rehabilitate their emotional
strength.”
153

Braceros also encouraged their families to approach the accelerated work pace
tactfully. They advised that maintaining a steady work pace to acclimate and meet the
demands of their employers required a carefully coordinated routine. Elias Gutierrez
advised his family to coyotear (work at a moderate pace).
154
This entailed pacing
themselves whenever their foremen or in their case, supervisors were at a reasonable
distance, as well as stretching and taking a series of deep breaths. This way, upon their
supervisors’ return, they would be better prepared to keep up “con la carrilla ” (arduous

152 Oral History of Gerardo Perez. Bracero History Project. National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution.
153 Ibid.
154 Ibid.

110
work pace).
155
Gutierrez shared that it would be in their best interest to re-conceptualize
how they labored, much like he had done to establish a healthier approach to working
longer shifts for poorer wages.
Overworked braceros also reflected on the importance of undertaking activities
that restored their optimism and nurtured their belonging. Ricardo Ramirez encouraged
his family to collaborate with other families, as he and other braceros had done
throughout their contract. He shared that, “New-comers, old-timers, everyone wrote or
joined in when singing corridos, drinking, or reminiscing of good times back home. In
the privacy of our tents, we tried to re-create that world. It’s joy, laughter, and stories. We
lived in two worlds, that of the labor tent and mess hall and that of the field. Our tent was
our lifeline.”
156
Ramirez elaborated on the importance of working to create “a sense of
home away from home,” by asserting that this was a far more difficult task for contract
and undocumented immigrant laborers than for their families left behind. He explained
that such camaraderie among braceros could only last a few weeks or months at a time,
because braceros and undocumented immigrant men were re-assigned to different
agricultural labor camps periodically.
157
Establishing a sense of belonging and home for
them throughout the United States was challenging, but far more feasible for their
families. Braceros insisted that their families were already a part of family and
neighborhood networks that lent themselves to establishing a healthy sense of belonging

155 Oral History of Jesus Espinoza. Bracero History Project. National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution.
156 Ibid.
157 Ibid.

111
and an improved quality of life throughout their absence. Ramirez shared that such
interaction motivated braceros to come together and
“pitch in, when a fellow bracero couldn’t buy medicine to cure their
injuries that went untreated by our foremen and employer. But most
importantly the fact that we were all braceros kept us together. We knew
we had to help each other out, because nobody else would, least of all our
foremen. Most of us had children and wives who needed whatever little
we earned, so we each tried to pitch in when things got tough.”
158

Other braceros echoed Ramirez’s advice, encouraging their families to develop bonds of
solidarity among families confronting similar challenges to overcome everyday
challenges successfully.
Working poor braceros’ immigration histories did not lessen their families’
anxiety and fears. Instead, they became disillusioned by their bracero relatives’
willingness to continue to follow in the footsteps of Zepeda and Montez. Despite their
descriptions of CDP curriculum and town employment conditions, braceros continued to
enlist their support as laborers. Families resented braceros’ request that they continue to
labor under current conditions without addressing their individual concerns or needs, as
citizens, laborers, and relatives. By centering their immigration histories on the plight of
undocumented immigrants, Program management, and developing a sense of belonging,
braceros did not address the individual concerns and needs of children and women.
Instead, their immigration histories, long-term family separation, and discretionary return
reminded families that their bracero relatives controlled their labor in Mexico from afar.
Families left behind were already familiar with recommended strategies toward
negotiating their children’s CDP enrollment and their employment conditions, and

158 Ibid.

112
resented the failure to provide detailed plans with regards to their rehabilitation.
Reducing their plans to uninterrupted access to U.S. wages and discretionary return did
not translate into an improved quality of life among older and young children, women,
and men working longer hours for CDP, their employers, and at home. According to the
town’s labor department records, eight months into the Program, families worked 16 hour
shifts for less than 15 pesos a week, terms that reflect a drop in wages and an escalation
in exploitation.
Additionally, middle class families took advantage of what they considered had
become an increasingly desperate working class bracero family situation. Punctual
payment of Program loan agreement conditions left working class bracero families with
very little left over. Even with their male relatives earning U.S. wages, middle class
families realized that working class families were unable to finance direly needed winter
clothing, nutritious meals, or provide adequate healthcare for their children. According to
CDP and the town’s business records, such indicators of poverty emboldened CDP
instructors to require students to complete longer service learning components, and
middle class families began to change their hiring practices. Instead of employing
housekeepers, caretakers, and agricultural day laborers on a half yearly basis and with a
set payment schedule, they renewed their assignments on a weekly basis, forcing women
and men in desperate need of wages to accept consistently lower wages.
In accordance with Mexican rural town gender norms, female relatives did not
oppose their bracero relatives’ proposal for long-term separation and discretionary return
in public or writing. They did not convey the continued deterioration of their quality and

113
standard of living. Weary of their bracero relatives returning without enough money to
liquidate their Program loan agreements, female relatives assumed instinctively that
“their access to uninterrupted wages in either country was better than unemployment and
unpaid Program loan agreements.”
159
Families settled for receiving remittances to finance
Program loan agreement payments and complement their increasingly lower wages. They
were convinced that if their previous efforts had not elicited much more than letters,
promises, and remittances toward liquidating their Program loan agreements, they did not
envision that another series of letters would inspire a different and more profitable
response.
Instead, the wives of working class braceros avoided writing letters, kept Program
loan agreement receipts, and filled notebooks itemizing their administration of
remittances. They feared braceros returning with only the clothes on their backs,
demanding accurate records of how their earnings were misspent. Bracero letters
convinced women that their male relatives were in “denial.”
160
Esperanza Juarez
explained that her bracero husband refused to accept how desperate their family situation
had become, and worked hard to avoid being blamed for their family’s failure. Juarez
recorded receipt of remittances carefully, and, after paying their monthly loan
installments, deposited leftover funds in their family savings account. Her husband’s
letters and their children’s sacrifice made her uncomfortable. She did not feel entitled to
spend his earnings on anything else. Like other female relatives, she took comfort in

159 Governmental Correspondence. Record Group 22, Series 12, Folder 39, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
160 Governmental Town Public Life Files. Record Group 38, Series 25, Folder 190, Archivo San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

114
financing the liquidation of their Program loan agreement to quit CDP curriculum
eventually. Despite their situation, creating better life opportunities for their children
remained a priority among those left behind.
In May 1945, working class bracero families learned that such priority would no
longer be a central component in their bracero relatives’ vision for family rehabilitation.
Upon the return of an estimated 6,492 of this town’s working class braceros, their
families learned that their plans for rehabilitation continued to require their support as
laborers and long-term separation.
161
Braceros’ failure to finance their children’s
enrollment in a quality education, repair their homes, purchase land, begin a business or
trade, or enter into agricultural labor under profitable conditions confirmed that they did
not intend to rehabilitate their families by transitioning into desirable long-term
settlement. This town’s returning bracero survey confirms that among an estimated 6,296
men surveyed, 96 percent reported not having, learned new skills in the United States, 97
percent reported having set money aside to renew their contract, and 98 percent reported
not having earned enough to resettle in Mexico.
162

Working class braceros continued to overlook overworked and malnourished
working class children, women, and older men’s exploitation and sacrifices as caretakers,
laborers, citizens, and individuals. Indeed, just two weeks after completing this survey,
they developed and financed a local bus transit system to provide and nurture the
profitable mobility of young men between 15 and 19 years of ages. Too young to secure

161 Dominguez, Martin. Los Braceros: Un Reporte para la Nacion. Mexico, D.F., Mexico: Oficina de la
Secretaria Nacional, 1946.
162 Ibid.

115
Program contracts or pursue undocumented entry into the United States, too old to enroll
in CDP curriculum, and too poor to enroll in local schools, returning braceros were
committed to providing these young men with supervised internal mobility toward
improving their quality and standard of living.
Returning working class braceros considered this generation of young men,
usually their sons and siblings, worthy of financial investment. They realized that like
them, their life opportunities were restricted by racially infused exploitation that
restricted them to poorly-paid agricultural and other forms of unskilled labor.
Nonetheless, bracero relatives were confident that by providing them with transportation
to and from surrounding urban towns and Guadalajara, Jalisco— one of the largest cities
their town’s home state— these young men would obtain employment, skills, and wages
that would prevent their entry into Bracero Program loan agreements, contract labor, and
undocumented entry into the United States. Working class braceros were committed to
providing young men without families of their own or bound by Program loan
agreements the mobility to thrive outside of Program management and town employment
conditions.
Braceros’ decision to invest in young men’s mobility and entry into urban
economies outside of town was influenced by their belief that their sons and siblings were
entitled to earning better wages and learning a trade. They considered exposing their sons
and siblings to potentially profitable opportunities their obligation as grandparents,
parents, and older siblings. Bracero and undocumented immigrant labor no longer
resonated as healthy alternatives for a younger generation of men. Unlike repatriates and

116
their parents, upon returning and witnessing first hand bracero labor, town employment
conditions and CDP curriculum, working class braceros committed themselves to
discouraging young men’s immigration to the United States. Their contract labor and
their absence had already made it difficult to parent this young generation. They were
confident that this bus transit system, with the help of unemployed repatriates who were
hired to drive them and supervise their behavior would result in profitable supervised
internal mobility and employment. Braceros were determined to rehabilitate this young
generation of men, using this method as an extension of their parenting.
The commitment of working class braceros to improving a younger generation’s
future reveals that they were not indifferent to male relatives’ shortcomings. Nonetheless,
it elucidates transnational gender politics that restricted children and women to
accommodating rural Mexican men’s attempts to transcend racially infused
discrimination and limited visions of rehabilitation. Rehabilitating themselves and a
younger generation of men from such confining life opportunities assumed that achieving
this goal entitled them to the labor of an older generation, children, and women.
Controlling children and women’s mobility and labor, and underestimating their concerns
reduced their labor to mandatory sacrifices. It became the obligation of children and
women to follow their instructions and await their return. They in turn, became part of a
similarly dehumanized and exploited workforce in their efforts to fulfill their obligation
to family and nation. This approach was compatible with local translations of Avila
Camacho’s mandate, but nonetheless would eventually tear families apart.

117
CHAPTER 2:
MANAGING BRACEROS AND THEIR FAMILIES:
THE EFFECTS OF “SPECIAL IMMIGRANT” STATUS ACROSS BORDERS

On August 30, 1949, after harvesting lettuce and strawberries, Renato Sandoval
and 159 fellow braceros did not retire into their labor camp barracks. Determined to
propose a solution to their grievances, they stood in four straight lines patiently silent
outside of the office of John Bowen and Montgomery Reynolds awaiting their arrival.
Bowen and Reynolds were contractors and owners of a modest bracero labor camp in
Tulare, California, the second largest regional Bracero Program contractor in central
California, contracting an estimated 19,800 braceros annually.
1
These braceros had
broken labor camp rules, since they were not allowed to enter or assemble in this labor
camp area. Seven years into the Program and emboldened by their need to transition out
of contract labor to financially rehabilitate themselves and families, they took a
calculated risk.
2

Upon their arrival, assembly organizer Saul Urbino and five other braceros
stepped forward from this human barricade to greet Bowen and Reynolds cordially.
Sandoval and others stood patiently waiting. Bowen managed them closely, but this was
the first time they had approached Reynolds. After explaining that he had been
designated the assembled braceros’ representative, Urbino proposed a change in
Sandoval’s bracero contract. Bowen and Reynolds overlooked their labor camp violation

1 Record Group 43, Box 11, Folder 2, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park,
Maryland.
2 Oral History of Renato Sandoval and Saul Urbino conducted on January 20, 2004 by Ana Rosas. Records
of Montgomery Reynolds and Kenneth Wilson part of Record Group 43, National Archives and Records
Administration. College Park, Maryland.

118
and listened carefully. Urbino urged them to contract Sandoval to provide direly needed
labor camp services along with harvesting crops, citing his eligibility and the advantages
of this arrangement. Before and after harvesting crops, Sandoval already routinely helped
their inexperienced labor camp cook prepare and distribute nutritious and tasty meals, as
well as repairing their barracks’ clogged drains, broken doors and windows, cutting their
hair, mending their chalecos (vests), gabanes (warm drapes), and other work clothes, and
cleaned their barracks on his own. His labor had improved their diet, living environment,
and personal hygiene and in turn, improved their work performance.
The others provided Bowen and Reynolds with thorough documentation in
support of their proposal. These documents included a financial estimate of the cost of
providing Sandoval with adequate equipment and wages to render these services. They
provided letters of recommendation once used to determine Sandoval’s Program
eligibility to confirm his experience as an agricultural laborer, barber, cook, and tailor,
and included his Program contract renewal statements to substantiate his exemplary
completion of previous contracts. The final supporting document was a petition signed by
each bracero assembled that evening. Each had signed this document to express their
confidence in the quality of Sandoval’s services and potential to satisfy Program terms
requiring contractors to “observe strictly health codes in protection of braceros’ health
and in turn, their work performance. It is a contractor’s legal responsibility to satisfy the
highest health code standards. Braceros are entitled to labor camps that do not pose a risk
to their health.”
3
They indicated in their petition’s final portion that Sandoval’s labor

3 Personal Collection of Saul Urbino.

119
camp services would satisfy health codes and dramatically reduce the time each spent
cleaning and repairing their assigned barrack and commuting to and from town to obtain
services Sandoval would now efficiently provide. Contracting Sandoval to work
mornings harvesting crops and afternoons providing labor camp maintenance and
services would improve their collective earning potential. Labor camp chores and
obtaining outside services required an estimated fifteen hours a week of their time to
complete, time that they considered better spent working the fields.
After providing Bowen and Reynolds with these supporting documents, Sandoval
emerged from the third row, and introduced himself. He conveyed that “he had come to
the United States to continue to do what he had always done, work hard to provide for his
family in Mexico.”
4
He explained, “I commit myself to undertaking whatever task with
care and humility.”
5
After Sandoval’s introduction, Bowen and Reynolds asked them to
return to their barracks, assuring them that they would consider their proposal carefully.
They did not penalize them for their labor camp violation, but warned against doing so in
the future.
Later that evening upon deliberating their proposal, Bowen and Reynolds’
attention centered on newspaper clippings and hate mail.
6
Town residents and displaced
domestic agricultural laborers had written newspaper articles and letters threatening them
and fellow contractors to keep braceros away from town restaurants, shops, and other
venues on weekends. Disgusted by their “foreign and filthy demeanor,” town residents

4 Oral History of Renato Sandoval conducted on January 14, 2004 by Ana Rosas.
5 Ibid.
6 Montgomery Reynolds Records. Record Group 43, National Archives and Records Administration.
College Park, Maryland.

120
opposed a “Sunday bracero invasion,”

threatening to “take matters into their own hands if
they and other contractors did not keep braceros in their place.”
7
Tulare residents opposed
braceros and undocumented Mexican immigrant agricultural laborers dining, gathering,
shopping, screening films, or attending weekend variety shows in this town’s downtown
district and marketplace. They considered Mexican agricultural laborers “criminal and
racially inferior single men” and unworthy of enjoying or interacting in family oriented
venues catering to town resident families on weekends.
8
Like contractors, families often
set weekends aside to drive into and enjoy this town’s downtown district and
marketplace. Escalating tensions and threats to their safety compelled Bowen and
Reynolds to accept the braceros’ proposal and use supporting documents to re-contract
Sandoval as a special immigrant.
Special immigrant status entitled Sandoval to form part of a workforce comprised
initially of exemplary and skilled contract agricultural laborers, cooks, customer service
representatives, entertainers, labor camp managers, and maintenance personnel to manage
bracero labor, mobility, and interaction in labor camps and surrounding towns throughout
the United States. Bracero and special immigrant contracts were similar. Special
immigrants were guaranteed employment in agricultural labor and skilled trades for 75
percent of their contract period; a minimum hourly wage of $0.50 cents; labor camp
housing; optional food services; protection of their social equality; transportation to and
from their labor camp barracks; and transportation to their designated Program selection

7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.

121
center upon their contract’s completion.
9
Their eligibility was contingent on contractors’
assessment of their employment history, physical fitness, and moral eligibility.
Nonetheless, and unlike regular braceros, special immigrants were required to provide
documentation of their responsible management of family obligations and investment in
Mexico to remain morally eligible for this status. Contractors used moral eligibility
standards to convey that although they undertook increasingly uninterrupted eleven to
twelve month contracts, special immigrants were legally contracted agricultural laborers
performing multiple services for extended contract periods. Documenting special
immigrants’ commitment to long distance family relationships and investment in
Mexican property, business, or trade to determine their moral eligibility offset
governmental anxiety concerning special immigrant U.S. settlement. Moral eligibility
was determined the most efficient tool toward instilling the temporariness of their
immigration and labor among special immigrants.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service’s (I.N.S.) commissioner, Joseph M.
Swing developed special immigration to entitle Program contractors to re-contract
exemplary braceros to facilitate bracero management at their discretion. This provision
entitled Program contractors to legally recruit a “compliant, efficient, and skilled”
Mexican immigrant workforce to manage and cater to braceros.
10
Swing firmly believed
that contractors needed a special immigrant workforce to contain bracero mobility,
reduce interaction between braceros, U.S. domestic agricultural laborers, and other town

9 Record Group 43. Box 112, Folder 10. National Archives and Records Administration, College Park,
Maryland.
10 Ibid.

122
residents, and diminish bracero visibility. This arrangement would create and enforce
borders throughout labor camps and their surrounding communities without violating
bracero contract conditions and terms. Reducing U.S. resident and displaced domestic
agricultural laborers’ anxiety concerning bracero settlement and I.N.S. border
management was the impetus behind this new provision.
Special Immigrants and the Movement of their Families to the U.S.
The Mexican and U.S. governments endorsed Swing’s special immigration plan.
Each government was certain that this provision would improve bracero management
throughout the United States. The U.S. government was confident that special immigrants
catering to braceros as barbers, cooks, customer service representatives, entertainers,
tailors, labor camp managers, and maintenance personnel would reduce racial tension. It
considered Mexican immigrant agricultural laborers unworthy of interacting with U.S.
residents, elaborating that special immigration built on Mexican president Manuel Avila
Camacho’s belief that braceros, special immigrants, and undocumented Mexican
agricultural laborers were racially inferior to justify its approval of this provision.
11

Special immigrants catering to braceros of the same race resonated as a desirable and
viable arrangement. The Mexican government looked past such racially infused
incentives in favor of the legalization of discretionary contract renewal in the United
States, and not along the U.S.-Mexico border. It approved this provision out of desperate
need for Mexican immigrant remittances. In its estimation, this new immigration status
translated into empathetic Mexican immigrant men managing and catering to fellow

11 Ibid.

123
immigrant men and longer, profitable contracts. Special immigrants’ remittances would
bolster local economies nationwide in Mexico.
Braceros and special immigrants were often unfamiliar with formal governmental
assessments of special immigration, but expressed a series of reactions to its
implementation. Often braceros approved of special immigrants providing direly needed
labor camp services, but nonetheless resentment between braceros and special
immigrants became widespread. Contractors pitted braceros and special immigrants
against one another to coerce them into increasingly restrictive Program terms. Special
immigration fueled tension in bracero labor camps and surrounding towns throughout the
United States.
However, when Bowen and Reynolds summoned Sandoval to re-contract him as
“an exemplary and skilled contract laborer worthy of special immigrant status,” fellow
braceros were supportive and anticipated an improvement in their contract labor’s
conditions.
12
They were unfamiliar with Sandoval’s special immigrant status. Motivated
by their need to work more hours performing agricultural labor to earn more wages, they
collaborated to propose a modification to Sandoval’s contract to improve their work
performance without considering its implications on his contract terms. After obtaining
their assessment of direly needed services, fellow braceros did not ask questions or
express their concern over Sandoval’s status. Urbino explained that contractors were
unreceptive to questions, and that he had not worried over Sandoval’s special immigrant

12 Ibid.

124
status because Bowen and Reynolds approved of Sandoval “for keeping busy.”
13
He
explained that “Sandoval did not complain to camp managers least of all to Mr. Bowen
and Reynolds. He was patient, accommodating, and hard working. He undertook tasks
with much humility. What’s more he was precise when cutting hair, and did not charge
for his services. He had earned braceros’ good will.”
14

Sandoval also did not ask questions or express his concerns. He signed his special
immigrant contract, and took comfort in laboring to improve the bracero labor camp
environment. His special immigrant contract entailed working three hours harvesting
crops, and seven hours preparing and distributing meals, cleaning labor camps, repairing
labor camp barracks, cutting bracero hair, mending work clothes, and traveling into town
to do shopping using long lists recorded the night before running this errand. Bowen and
Reynolds were committed to reducing bracero travel and interaction in this town’s
downtown district and marketplace.
Sandoval followed instructions without opposing fellow braceros’ restriction to
their labor camp barracks. Three weeks into his special immigrant contract, the travel of
fellow braceros into the downtown district and marketplace was restricted to weekday bi-
monthly four hour trips. Contractors had developed travel schedules to manage and
reduce the number of agricultural laborers traveling into Tulare’s downtown district and
marketplace to an estimated 300 men on any given weekday, as well as scheduled special
immigrant entertainment to coincide with their travel time.
15
They were prohibited from

13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Record Group 43, National Archives and Records Administration. College Park, Maryland.

125
traveling into downtown on weekends at all. Only special immigrants traveled into this
area outside of their designated travel schedule to conduct errands. Weekends were
strictly reserved for town residents only. The restrictive travel schedules allowed
Reynolds and other contractors to manage bracero interaction with town residents. They
diminished contract laborers’ mobility and public visibility to the days of the week with
the lowest town resident activity.
Contractors, business owners, and town residents firmly believed that contract
laborers were members of an inferior race. Designed to prevent exposing town residents
to “inferior, filthy, and potentially criminal men,” such racialization and restrictive travel
schedules transformed Sandoval and other special immigrants’ labor camp haircuts,
meals, and tailoring into indispensable services.
16
The negative racialization of contract
laborers motivated downtown business owners and customer service representatives to
discriminate against them. Town barbers denied them equitable customer service, making
them wait alongside twenty or more braceros for hours at a time to cut their hair.
Moreover, they were forced to sit on muddy stools instead of chairs used to seat other
customers, and accept a hairstyle that was not of their choosing. Department stores,
restaurants, and shops also set unreasonably high prices and displayed signs that read “No
Aceptamos Braceros” (We do not accept braceros) to discourage them from entering their
restaurants, shops, and other businesses.
Sandoval’s exposure to such discrimination motivated him to take his special
immigrant contract seriously. He performed multiple tasks in support of fellow braceros’

16 Ibid.

126
diligently. In his estimation, his contract facilitated the hours and wages to “do
everything possible, so that we lived and labored under less humiliating circumstances.
Because we had been denied our dignity and respect in surrounding towns, it was our
goal and responsibility to work hard to avoid depending on business owners that abused
and discriminated.”
17
Although his labor reduced fellow braceros’ access to this town’s
downtown district and marketplace, he provided them with quality services that provided
an alternative to alienating downtown district customer service. He was committed to
laboring and taking advantage of his own mobility to offset the discriminatory restrictions
of braceros. Additionally, his assessment of the overall contribution of his labor to
mitigating the compensating for discriminatory practices against his fellow braceros
prevented him from experiencing heightened emasculation. Although he spent most of
his workday completing tasks traditionally performed by women, he nonetheless
explained,
“the work that I did before was considered women’s work, but the work
involved compelled everyone to acknowledge that only a man could
complete that much work. I cleaned, cooked, and tended to at least 300
braceros and an endless number of undocumented immigrant agricultural
laborers. It was difficult for a woman to undertake so much work among
so many men. It was not healthy. It required much energy and patience.
Everyday had to be well organized and the food, lawn, crops, and barracks
had to be ready. It was difficult work for one person.”
18

Sandoval used the amount of work required and quality of work performed for hundreds
of Mexican immigrant men to offset his labor’s emasculating potential.

17 Oral History of Renato Sandoval.
18 Ibid.

127
In August 1952, after laboring as a special immigrant for three consecutive years,
Sandoval’s efficient labor camp maintenance and services compelled Bowen and
Reynolds to request that Sandoval work with his wife and child by his side. His special
immigrant contract terms required family labor and reunification. With the apprehension
of an estimated 526,000 undocumented Mexican immigrants throughout the U.S.-Mexico
border region, contractors needed a different special immigrant workforce in place to
manage their agricultural workforce’s labor, mobility, and visibility without jeopardizing
their contracting privilege.
19
The heightening of U.S. anxiety toward undocumented
Mexican immigration cast suspicion on special immigrant men’s moral eligibility and
limitations on their mobility to labor year round throughout labor camps and surrounding
towns.
The national intensification of a racialization that continued to cast Mexican
immigrant laborers as “filthy, criminal, and racially inferior men responsible for the
displacement of domestic agricultural laborers” demanded a different model to manage
braceros and undocumented Mexican immigrants.
20
This model required a morally
eligible and mobile special immigrant family workforce. To ease national anxiety,
contractors facilitated special immigrant men and their families to labor in camps and
surrounding towns. Contractors were certain that special immigrants working hard with

19 “Special” Family Fact Sheet, Record Group 84. National Archives and Records Administration. College
Park, Maryland.
20 Record Group 84, Box 112, Folder 10. National Archives and Records Administration, College Park,
Maryland.

128
their families by their side would successfully challenge racialization that cast them as
“wandering criminal and menacing year round immigrant employees and vagrants.”
21

It was no longer feasible to rely on supporting documents alone to prove special
immigrants’ moral eligibility. Their families needed to be physically present undertaking
contracts of their own to reinstate the mobility of special immigrants throughout labor
camps and surrounding towns without jeopardizing Reynolds and other contractors’
privileges to secure Mexican labor. Special immigrant men without families of their own
did not lose their contracts, but became part of a workforce comprised of entire families
of special immigrant men. It is important to note that very few Mexicans labored within
special immigrant families.
Throughout the seven-year history of the special immigration program an
estimated 35,547 Mexican immigrant families labored as special immigrants and an
estimated 71,374 special immigrant men worked without their families by their side.
22

Though these members do not resonate as a “menacing wave of Mexican immigrant
family settlement,” the contract conditions of special immigrant families rendered them
selectively visible.
23
Fearful of losing his special immigrant status, Sandoval complied
with Bowen and Reynolds’ request, since he could not afford to forgo U.S. wages. A
family contract would allow his family to conveniently manage his labor, mobility, and
visibility. Sandoval’s reunification with his wife and son, Aurora and Roberto Sandoval,
transformed them into a special immigrant family, but did not challenge the racialization

21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.

129
of his family or other agricultural laborers.
24
Transitioning into a special immigrant
family was difficult. Renato, Aurora, and Roberto had achieved their desired
rehabilitation by administering their earnings and remittances carefully. They had been
unable to reunite before, but their family earnings had allowed them to purchase land,
build a home, and finance three sewing machines, so that Aurora sold women’s apparel
from the comforts of their home in San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco. It was difficult to
convince her to leave behind what had taken years to build. Nonetheless, neither of them
could afford to jeopardize Sandoval’s special immigrant status and earnings, since he had
financed a bulk of their business and property license, taxes, and other fees.
Upon receiving Sandoval’s second letter to her requesting that she and their son
prepare to immigrate to the United States, Aurora did not protest, confident that their
family earnings would protect them from poverty and finance their prompt return. Indeed,
rumors that the Program was in its last stages had reached San Martin de Hidalgo.
Escalating tension over the increase in undocumented Mexican immigration to the United
States was drawing international attention to this Program’s border mismanagement and
bleak future. She packed their clothes to reunite with Sandoval in the United States.
Special immigrant family status did not protect families from exploitation. This
provision reunified legally special immigrants with their families to undertake contracts
that required an entire family’s labor, excluding children between the ages of zero and
nine years of age. Each special immigrant family member ten years or older was issued a
contract guaranteeing employment for 75 percent of their contract period; housing;

24 Ngai, Mae M. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern American. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2004, 155.

130
transportation to and from labor camps; transportation to Program selection centers after
their contract completion; and protection of their social equality. An hourly wage rate
was not a part of their contract. Special immigrant family members were often women
and young daughters and sons, and considered unworthy of fair wages. Under the best of
circumstances, contractors paid them at their discretion. Special immigrant families were
required to pool their wages to finance their expenses. Moreover, their reunification was
deceptive. Special immigrant male family members labored away from their families for
weeks and months at a time, while their families labored in different labor camps and
surrounding towns in accordance with the labor needs of contractors. Special immigrant
women and children were contracted to clean labor camp interiors and exteriors; clean
and operate restaurants and shops catering to Mexican agricultural laborers; harvest
crops; prepare labor camp meals; as well as clean contractors’ homes and care for their
children. Special immigrant families had to be flexible, and considered members of a
workforce and not independent families.
25

International governmental scrutiny of Program management placed a larger
incentive on using Program selection centers as apparatuses toward documenting special
immigration accurately and curbing undocumented Mexican immigration to the United
States. Before approving Sandoval and other special immigrant families’ application for
special immigrant status, I.N.S. Program selection center officials required proof of their
employment contract, adequate earning potential to support dependent family members,
as well as remittance receipts to prove their “commitment to a special immigrant family

25 Ibid.

131
worthy of this contract and status.”
26
The Sandoval special immigrant family status
separated them under similar conditions to their previous family separation. Their
contract required Aurora to work for the Reynolds’ family, cleaning their numerous
homes and caring for their children and grandchildren for seventeen hours a day, seven
days a week. Roberto forfeited access to an academic education to help his father harvest
crops, repair labor camps, and transport braceros to and from their labor camp barracks.
The Sandoval family came together on Sundays to prepare and host large labor
camp picnics. Their interaction was consistently work related. Special immigrant families
organized and catered these gatherings to reduce bracero travel into surrounding town
sectors. Banned from most downtown districts, the Sandoval family, with the help of
other special immigrant families, coordinated these gatherings to offset bracero
frustration concerning their physical mobility. Reynolds and other contractors did not
oppose special immigrant women interacting with large groups of braceros and
undocumented Mexican agricultural laborers. Their similar racial background and
respective husbands’ participation in these events made them the most eligible to prepare
and distribute meals at these gatherings. They did not express reservations concerning its
implications on these women’s honor and respectability. Among contractors, contracted
Mexican immigrant women, children, and men “were the same.”
27

Restricting Mexican agricultural laborers’ interaction to labor camps entailed
overlooking special immigrant families’ concerns and sensibilities. Although Aurora and
Sandoval characterized such gatherings as cordial and well-organized labor camp events,

26 Renato Sandoval Personal Collection.

132
they both labored closely together to prevent bracero and undocumented agricultural
laborers from harassing Aurora or their son. Sandoval explained, “I did everything
possible to protect them from fellow braceros disrespecting them. I couldn’t do very
much with regards to our boss’ labor demands, but with regard to our work inside the
camps I would forget about my contract. I did everything possible to protect them.”
28

These gatherings were among the most unnerving and often potentially emasculating
tasks he completed throughout his contract labor.
A year after transitioning into a special immigrant family, their organization of a
large bracero picnic celebrating contract completion captured Agricultural Life, a
regional publication’s attention. It considered the “Sandoval family’s flexible labor
worthy of special immigrant status.”
29
A preference for celebrating their labor and
resourcefulness effaced the conditions and terms of their deceptive family reunification.
Translated into Spanish this article circulated widely throughout Mexican rural towns and
villages, including this family’s hometown. Its reprinting also overlooked the full extent
of their continued family separation to emphasize that contractors selectively recruited
Mexican immigrant families to provide braceros with hometown comforts. Neither
publication considered their contract labor a family sacrifice. Their attention centered on
the family’s ability to earn U.S. wages together to eventually resettle in Mexico.
Restricting Mobility and Managing Braceros in U.S.

28 Oral History of Renato Sandoval.
29 “A Special Family.” Agricultural Life. (Fall) Fresno, California: California Growers Incorporated Press,
1955.

133
Sandoval’s transition into a special immigrant illuminates the importance placed
on managing contract laborer’s mobility, interaction, and visibility to Program
management. The Sandoval family’s transition illustrates the premium placed on having a
flexible Mexican immigrant workforce in place to keep braceros and undocumented
agricultural laborers contained in labor camp barracks and away from U.S. residents. This
Mexican immigration management model transcended the U.S.-Mexico border. Using
archival methods, this chapter explores the resonance of special immigration in Mexico
and the United States to illuminate the relationship between border management and
labor camp culture. The I.N.S. and Program contractors’ management of contract and
undocumented laborers’ internal mobility, labor, and visibility reveals that the Mexican
and U.S. governments were not invested in curbing undocumented Mexican immigration
to the United States, but in perfecting their internal management of Mexican immigration
without overwhelming their resources. The recruitment of a special immigrant workforce
had its desired effect. It kept contract and undocumented Mexican immigrant laborers
away from whom and where it mattered most: U.S. residents and domestic agricultural
laborers. Special immigrants reproduced borders that kept an alleged inferior race of
contract laborers and undocumented agricultural laborers away from U.S. residents,
family oriented venues, and neighborhoods, often successfully restricting their mobility
and visibility. Their approach shaped local Mexican governments’ enforcement of special
immigrant moral eligibility standards, restricting children and women’s internal mobility,
labor, and visibility.

134
Focusing on Tulare, California and San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, both rural
towns caught in the grip of special immigration, demonstrates a shift from rehabilitation
to Program management in Mexico and the United States. This chapter elevates the
importance of local internal immigration politics and its transnational resonance to reveal
the importance of moving beyond our traditional conceptualization of Bracero Program
management. The Program’s contract conditions and terms often did not satisfy
contractors’ vision of bracero management. Relying on a similarly vulnerable, yet
carefully managed special immigrant workforce to enforce a labor camp culture centered
on management that was compatible with their idealization of desirable contract
conditions. In turn, analyzing the impact of special immigrants on other contract laborers
requires investigating the relationship between immigration, race, gender, and labor
without underestimating the sensibilities of women, children, and men in agricultural
labor and local internal immigration politics. It is important to understand that the
interpretation and enforcement of contract conditions and terms did not conform to
governmental visions of management and fairness.
By focusing on the transnational resonance of special immigration, this chapter
expands on Kitty Calavita and Mae Ngai’s definition of special immigration. They define
it as a “system that privileged exploiting individual special immigrant’s labor, making
their healthy and full participation in U.S. society impossible.”
30
Their definition captures
this provision’s exploitative aspects in the United States, but does not account for special

30 Calavita, Kitty. Inside the State: The Bracero Program, Immigration, and I.N.S. New York: Routledge
University Press, 1992, 130-33.; Ngai, Mae M. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of
Modern American. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004, 155.

135
immigrant family status in Mexico. Special immigrant families were not only contracted
Mexican immigrant families laboring in the United States. Local Mexican government’s
interpretation and enforcement of special immigrant moral eligibility standards also
transformed special immigrant families left in Mexico to provide supporting documents
in support of their relatives’ application for special immigrant status. Local Mexican
governments’ special immigrant moral eligibility standards in the form of letters of
recommendation, surveys, fees, and gendered business policy also managed and
restricted female relatives’ labor, internal mobility, and visibility. Like special
immigrants in the United States, they conformed to increasingly restrictive labor
management in anticipation of rehabilitating themselves into a healthier quality of life
that evidently had become increasingly out of reach to their male relatives in labor camps
throughout the United States.
Tulare, California is an important location toward understanding special
immigration as an internal management model for Mexican immigration. Contractors in
this region were among the most organized in developing a special immigrant model of
insularity to manage Mexican immigration within bracero labor camps and their
surrounding towns. The first model was comprised of employing a combination of
special immigrant labor camp managers and maintenance personnel. Like Sandoval,
special immigrants were contracted to maintain bracero labor camps up to Program health
code standards, provide labor camp services, and conduct outside errands to reduce
bracero travel and interaction in surrounding towns to complement management of
braceros’ labor, mobility, visibility, and interaction inside labor camp barracks and when

136
laboring in the fields. Extended contract periods and increased U.S. earning potential
served as incentives to enforce strict management of this special immigrant workforce.
Despite its incentives, this model of special immigration management was
alienating, physically demanding, and attracted much public attention. Opposition to their
labor was widespread. Braceros, domestic agricultural laborers, and labor activists
opposed their exploitative coercion into a year round contract. Labor activist Ernesto
Galarza protested that special immigration “lowered the validity of bracero recruitment
and selection already in place. It was the driving force behind the recruitment of a larger
and far more vulnerable pool of immigrant labor.”
31
He proposed that the prospect of
guaranteed contract renewal was most damaging. Potential contract renewal stifled
contracted and prospective special immigrants’ challenge to this Program’s management.
Moreover, working as special immigrant labor camp managers became associated with
Program contractors. This position exposed them to intense tension with other braceros,
and made their labor camp management increasingly difficult.
Learning to live with difference, while defending sameness, was at the center of
this bracero labor camp management model. To preserve their special immigrant status,
special immigrant labor camp managers cleaned and repaired labor camp barracks,
harvested crops, and managed braceros and undocumented Mexican laborers carefully
before organizing for reform. They were committed to achieving high productivity rates.
Their failure to pace themselves, and demand similarly accelerated paces from braceros
under their management fueled labor camp tension. Braceros resented their willingness to

31 Ibid.

137
“work themselves to exhaustion.”
32
Maintaining an accelerated work pace and efficient
contract compliance were integral to this model of labor camp management, as well as
conducive to special immigrant eligibility. Contractors favored braceros exhibiting an
exemplary work ethic and full compliance with Program management. Uninterested in
achieving this status, Alberto Cervantes explained that it was draining emotionally and
physically to labor alongside men competing to achieve this status. In his estimation,
“fellow braceros committed to making a good impression increased the arduous work
pace special immigrant managers demanded.”
33

Contractors were indifferent to labor camp tensions. They considered special
immigrant managers most qualified to work through these tensions to nurture a
productive labor camp environment and pace. Their proposal in support of special
immigration cited braceros and special immigrants’ “shared racial inferiority as
conducive to efficient labor camp management It would eliminate tension between
braceros and contractors. Their similarity in legal status and contract conditions and
terms would obligate them to work well with one another.”
34
The incentive of contract
renewal coerced special immigrant managers to higher levels of efficiency compared to
U.S. domestic agricultural managers who did not live in labor camp barracks. Special
immigrant managers trained and managed braceros and undocumented laborers far more
efficiently. Even so, the most efficient special immigrant managers feared losing their
status, and did not make distinctions between their field and labor camp barrack

32 Oral History of Renato Sandoval.
33 Oral History of Abel Cervantes conducted on December 13, 2003 by Ana Rosas.
34 “Special” Family Fact Sheet. Record Group 42. National Archives and Records Administration. College
Park, Maryland.

138
management.
35
They enforced strict curfews, and monitored bracero interaction and
pastimes to prevent the escalation of existing tension, especially destructive alcoholism
and gambling after work hours. Maintaining detailed records of production levels of
individual braceros to document their wages and account for overall bracero production
also facilitated their management. They used these records to hold braceros individually
accountable, and account for specific shortcomings in their management. Managing
braceros itself became a full time contract.
Gustavo Juarez, a former special immigrant manager, recounted how establishing
a cooperative and productive labor camp environment did not include alienating
management strategies. He refused his contractors’ binoculars to manage braceros from a
distance. Developing management strategies that did not include spying or using
surveillance equipment was a far more efficient way of monitoring bracero labor. He
benefited most from establishing cooperation with braceros based on mutual trust,
providing them with an opportunity to labor under less supervision for a few hours of
their workday, and timing work breaks adequately. The distribution of pamphlets
detailing contract conditions and terms and labor camp rules, even when translated into
Spanish, was helpful but inefficient. It did not diminish the importance of assembling
braceros and undocumented laborers to explain the individual rules of special immigrant
managers. Their distribution often required an in-depth discussion of special immigrant
management. Braceros described their contract conditions as “grueling. A pamphlet was
not a good crash course. No two labor camps or special immigrant managers were the

35 Correspondence Records. Record Group 42, National Archives and Records Administration. College
Park, Maryland.

139
same.”
36
Special immigrant managers negotiated striking a balance between management
concerns and trust of braceros to establish productive and respectable management.
Before beginning a workweek, Justino Morales, a special immigrant manager,
assembled braceros and undocumented laborers, and announced pay scales and schedules
to prevent tension from surfacing. Wage scales and payment of due wages were shared
incentives. A clear and detailed announcement prevented confusion, and motivated
braceros and others to focus on their work and less on their renumeration. Assured
punctual payment of due wages set the right tone to beginning and managing an arduous
work schedule. An advance warning that their careful attendance and productivity records
reflected wages paid for hours worked raised bracero productivity and reduced anxiety
concerning their earning potential. By informing braceros and others “how things really
worked,” Morales was able to manage braceros with a clear understanding of “the
pressures under which we worked.”
37
It is important to note that braceros and special
immigrant managers earned the same hourly wage rate of $0.50 cents an hour.
Special immigrant managers prioritized establishing healthy lines of communication with
braceros and undocumented laborers under their management. Miscommunication
jeopardized their employment status. Bracero complaints or poor productivity levels
exposed special immigrant managers to contractor questioning, possible termination, and
deportation. Indeed, special immigrant manager reassignment was rare. Records indicate
that throughout the history of special immigration only an estimated 10 out of 140

36 Oral History of Gustavo Juarez. Bracero History Project, National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution..
37 Oral History of Justino Morales. Bracero History Project, National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution.

140
terminated special immigrant managers remained working as braceros.
38
The rest were
deported. Resentment, shame, and bracero criticism discouraged special immigrant
managers from continuing to work in labor camps altogether. They either returned to
Mexico or settled for “trabajando de mojado” (working as a “wetback” undocumented
immigrant) in other employment sectors.
39
Contractor scrutiny pressured special
immigrant managers into exhausting work schedules. Contract conditions for special
immigrant managers were often far more challenging. They were not entitled to their
anonymity, and held to increasingly high standards of accountability. Unlike other special
immigrants working alongside thirty or more braceros half of their workday, special
immigrant managers were held accountable for overall labor camp shortcomings. Their
management was associated directly with poor labor camp profits and other financial
setbacks, resulting in their public humiliation and, at worst, termination. Contractors
scolded and threatened Jose Alameda and Abel Campos with termination because of poor
bracero performance and production rates. Contractors blamed their labor camp
management. They did not have any other option than to develop management strategies
to raise bracero work performance:
“There was no flexibility. Upon accepting to work as a special immigrant
manager, one was afraid of helping everyone else. Everything we did had
to be done discretely. We would lend a helping hand by giving them
(braceros) a 10 minute lunch break in addition to the 25 minutes that they
were used to getting in those days, so that they rested when contractors
were away. But that was the full extent of our efforts. We were
overwhelmed with production rates. By providing them with a few
minutes rest, we thought we would obtain better work performance.”
40

38 Oral History of Renato Sandoval.
39 Oral Histories of Gustavo Juarez and Justino Morales..
40 Oral History of Abel Campos conducted on February 10, 2003 by Ana Rosas.

141
Although such pressures were draining, Mexican employment conditions compelled them
to continue to improve their labor camp management, since “they had little choice but to
complete their contract.”
41

In August 1950, special immigrant managers were required to monitor bracero
interaction inside labor camp barracks after work hours and on weekends. Setting a
positive example and enforcing orderly conduct was their responsibility. Bracero
weekend activities were attracting national attention so supervision was no longer
optional. A confidential U.S. Department of Labor report revealed that poorly supervised
bracero weekend activities had resulted in an increase in bracero-on-bracero crime. An
estimated 5,209 braceros and an unreported number of undocumented Mexican laborers
had undergone medical treatment for wounds received in labor camp fights nationwide in
1950. This was a dramatic increase, since annual records reveal that, at its very highest,
an estimated 82 men underwent medical treatment for fight-related injuries in any given
year since the Program’s inception. Expanding their management to include after work
hours and weekends intensified special immigrant managers’ alienation.
42
Contractors
scrutinized their ability to enforce discipline, compelling them to act with “much more
caution. One could not stay late playing cards or drinking. Everyone else would follow
suit. It was a distinct way of living and working.”
43

In an effort to prevent the escalation of existing tensions into physical fights, they
hosted workshops instructing braceros to avoid abusing alcohol and reckless gambling. A

41 Ibid.
42 Record Group 42. National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland.
43 Oral History of Mauricio Ibarra conducted on April 22, 2003 by Ana Rosas.

142
combination of drinking and gambling accounted for an estimated 91 percent of reported
bracero violence.
44
Nonetheless, they were not entitled to ban either activity. Contractors
feared that boredom would fuel existing tension, or push them to develop weekend
activities that involved town resident interaction. They preferred placing the burden of
management on special immigrant managers, convinced that “town residents did not
welcome interacting with immigrant men of an inferior race.”
45
The accounts of special
immigrant managers illuminate that monitoring their own intervention was among the
most challenging aspects of managing braceros after work hours and weekends. It was
difficult to gage to what extent they befriended fellow braceros. Every aspect of their
daily interaction influenced their ability to monitor bracero conflict. Managing braceros
exposed special immigrant managers to intense contractor scrutiny and bracero
resentment. Braceros disapproved widely of their full time management. This model of
labor camp management did not afford special immigrant managers or braceros healthy
camaraderie with each other.
By April 1950, this model would no longer be feasible. U.S. President Harry S.
Truman in response to widespread criticism of the government’s mismanagement of
bracero labor camp conditions was forced to conduct an investigation of agricultural
labor camps nationwide.
46
This report found that bracero labor camps were among the
most “deplorable and substandard” in the nation.
47
It cautioned that braceros and other

44 Ibid.
45 Ibid.
46 Government Correspondence. Record Group 24, Series 1, Folder 10, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.
47 Ibid.

143
agricultural laborers worked long shifts without adequate work breaks, rarely left these
camps to obtain direly needed services, and lived shrouded in filth and disease. Truman
reacted immediately to this report by mandating I.N.S. and Bracero Program contractors
to modify their labor camp management. Their original special immigrant management
model drew negative international attention to the U.S. government’s labor practices.
Failure to comply would result in the termination of Program contractors’ privileges.
In May 1951, in response to this report, Tulare Program contractors launched a
second model of Mexican immigrant management to achieve a publicly acceptable form
of insularity. This model included Mexican American educators, special immigrant
families, and the purchase and remodeling of ten business lots to create town centers
exclusively catering to braceros. Special immigrants would be contracted to operate and
manage these centers. Enforcing this model required I.N.S. and Program contractors to
provide special immigrants access to English instruction, as well as mobility throughout
surrounding towns. Special immigrants were expected to manage these town centers
alongside often resentful Mexican American business owners, and develop a culture of
insularity that asserted ethnic differences in support of varying levels of second-class
citizenship.
Tulare Program contractors invested an estimated $608,975 to repair 891 bracero
labor camps and contracted an additional 500 special immigrant maintenance workers to
undertake this rebuilding effort. It also contracted 75 Mexican American educators to
teach English to carefully selected special immigrants during evenings after harvesting

144
crops and rebuilding labor camp barracks.
48
Program contractors hired these educators to
instruct special immigrants on how to interact with other Mexican American families
using the English language. Their ability to negotiate and deal with competing business
owners would perpetuate Program contractors’ desired insularity without attracting
undesirable public attention.
Morality and Management in Mexico
The value placed on special immigrant status in Mexican rural towns and villages
like San Martin de Hidalgo was equally high. Its impact upon Mexican rural town and
village governments resulted in strictly enforced special immigrant moral eligibility
standards, benefits, and restrictions impacting the lives of Mexican children, women, and
men left behind. Their struggle no longer centered on rehabilitation but on preserving
what little they had been able to build. Moreover, even this became increasingly difficult
as local Mexican government officials used special immigration to reinforce a restrictive
model of family formation and enterprise that further alienated female relatives left
behind. Upon its inception, town families pursued special immigrant status aggressively.
It increased the odds for contracted renewal for immigrant men for periods of up to ten to
twelve months, becoming direly needed collateral to provide for their families. Achieving
“special” status assured town merchants and lenders that they stood to pay debt incurred
in a timely manner. Their extended contract periods allowed special immigrants to “earn
enough in dollars so that their families could spend what they needed in pesos,” raising

48 Ibid.

145
the value of this status in Mexican rural towns and villages throughout the nation.
49

Special immigrant status became invaluable in San Martin de Hidalgo. Special
immigrants’ ability to labor and earn U.S. wages for uninterrupted and extended periods
of time provided them with the collateral to adjust and enter into reasonable loan
agreements with town lenders. Eight months into the second special immigration contract
cycle, this town’s special immigrants had sent their families an average of $485 to
purchase land, build and repair homes, invest in family businesses and trades, and make
payments on their Bracero Program loans. Special immigrants were making inroads
toward their desired rehabilitation by building or repairing homes, developing their
trades, reducing debt, and increasing expenditures and investments that confirmed their
commitment to long distance family relationships and Mexican settlement to I.N.S. and
Program contractors. Their earning potential and investments captured the interest of
Mexican town officials and lenders, compelling them to offer reasonable loan agreement
interest rate fees. They calculated that special immigrants were among the most eligible
to finance annual business, property, and trade fees, as well as reasonable loan agreement
interest rate fees.
This rationale placed other bracero and undocumented families at a disadvantage.
Their immigrant male relatives’ failure to achieve special immigrant status reflected
poorly on their earning potential and work ethic. Additionally, after completing an
average five contract cycles, an estimated 6,348 braceros had barely begun to purchase
land, build or repair homes, or invest in family businesses or trades. It had taken them at

49 Ibid.

146
least five contract cycles of six to nine months to achieve what special immigrants had
achieved in two twelve month contract cycles. This notable difference deteriorated their
ability to benefit from reasonable loan agreements and protect their business, property,
and trade. Shorter contract periods without the possibility of discretionary contract
renewal devalued bracero contracts.
Town officials and lenders assumed that special immigrant status was accessible
and desirable. They underestimated its demands, contribution to bracero and
undocumented laborers’ racially infused containment, and overall scarcity. Only an
estimated 18,561 “special” contracts were issued annually and nationwide. Instead, they
overlooked such consideration and used special immigration as justification to penalize
the families of bracero and undocumented immigrant financially. These families were
restricted to loan agreements at higher interest rate fees than those offered to special
immigrant families, and had comparably less wages to finance increases in annual
business, property, and trade fees. The full time and year round employment of special
immigrants allowed them to send remittances amounting to an estimated $720 per year
compared to the $220 that braceros sent after completing six to nine month contracts and
returning for at least three months. Special immigration resonated unevenly in town and
intensified bracero and special immigrant compliance with contract conditions and terms.
None could afford to risk losing their U.S. earning potential nor developing family
interests.
50

50 Ibid.

147
This town’s government officials also used the moral eligibility standards of
special immigrant status to enforce an exploitative and restrictive vision of immigrant
investment and enterprise that conformed to their own particular economic interests.
Entrusted to define and document special immigrant moral eligibility, town government
officials used this process to manage Mexican immigrant investment with an emphasis on
women’s entrepreneurship. Aware of the limited number of special immigrant contracts
issued, neither the Mexican nor U.S. governments publicly circulated information on
special immigration among residents in Mexico or the United States. Instead, both
governments centered their attention on placing a high premium on the documentation of
special immigrants’ moral eligibility among I.N.S., Program contractors, and Mexican
rural town and village government officials, mandating that they collaborate to contract
the most eligible of special immigrant applicants. They disapproved contracting Mexican
immigrant men without families and investments in Mexico. Enforcing moral eligibility
contingent on Mexican immigrant investment in Mexico to placate government anxiety
concerning the potential permanent U.S. settlement of special immigrants was a shared
priority of both federal governments and at the heart of strict special immigrant moral
eligibility standards.
The suspected forgery of family letters and supporting documents previously
accepted to confirm special immigrant moral eligibility compelled overextended I.N.S.
and Program contractors to delegate this process to Mexican rural town and village
government officials. They required these officials to issue letters confirming special
immigrant moral eligibility to prospective applicants. Developing and enforcing

148
standards that conformed to a broad national standard of special immigrant moral
eligibility became their responsibility. San Martin de Hidalgo’s town government
officials opted to use special immigrants’ successful investment in their town economy to
determine special immigrant moral eligibility.
51
The success of special immigrants’
management of their earnings and remittances defined their morality. Both governments
approved this as an adequate barometer, confident that it would “disqualify uncommitted
special immigrant families.”
52

On May 20, 1953, town government officials began their documentation and
assessment of special immigrant moral eligibility, two and one-half months before the
beginning of the third special immigrant contract cycle. This schedule provided town
officials, prospective special immigrants, their families, the I.N.S., and Program
contractors enough time to complete this process. Town government officials worked
tirelessly to develop a moral eligibility process that offset the importance of Program loan
agreements. The focus shifted to using special moral eligibility standards to encourage
and monitor special immigrant investment in a struggling town economy. Poorly paid
unskilled labor, exploitative child service learning components, remittances, and
exorbitant Program loan agreement interest rate fees had not boosted the town’s
economy. Requiring prospective special immigrant men, like those from San Martin de
Hidalgo to invest in their towns’ economy to preserve their status motivated an estimated
3,984 San Martinenses to invest in family businesses, property, and trades. This was a

51.Ibid.
52 Government Correspondence. Record Group 42. National Archives and Records Administration.
College Park, Maryland.

149
marked increase from the 1,217 special immigrants already doing so on their own. This
translated into the eventual management of special immigrant men’s families by town
officials, including their female relatives’ labor and decision-making. Special immigrant
men consistently acted as investors, while their female and other relatives acted as
managers and laborers. The successful management of a business, property, or trade by a
transnational family determined their immigrant male relatives’ special immigrant
eligibility.
53

Special immigrant families, and eventually other town families, had no other
choice than to learn to live with difference while constantly defending sameness in a
Mexican context. Investing their earnings and remittances to nurture family businesses,
property, and trades in support of a gendered transition benefiting the town’s economy
entailed conforming to a local governmental vision of immigrant family life. The moral
eligibility standard for special immigrants formally acknowledged the desirability of a
transnational family arrangement that facilitated managing family economic activity. It
encouraged having a transnational immigrant family life in place as a model from which
other families could learn from. Town government officials used special immigrant status
to compel special immigrant men to excel as responsible wage earners and investors,
while pushing female relatives to continue to labor in support of their contract labor in
anticipation of expanding family businesses or trades. Female relatives’ labor in Mexico
continued to be critical to the male relatives’ contract labor in the United States. This
time town government officials used special immigrant moral eligibility to monitor

53 Sergio Altamira Files. Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

150
women’s labor and management skills. Without men’s continued financial investment
and women’s successful management, families risked losing their special immigrant
eligibility and investments, incentives that motivated women and children to labor under
intense government pressure. With this added financial pressure, other families followed
suit. Their ability to thrive as members of this town’s business community was also at
stake. In accordance with town officials’ shift in strategy, bracero families invested
similarly in the town’s economy to compete with special immigrant families.
Previously, special immigrant moral eligibility was contingent on remittance
management. Renewing their special immigrant contract was contingent on confirmation
of receipt and careful management of remittances by families. Special immigrants
returned to their families for two-week periods to request family letters and government
issued supporting documents to confirm their commitment to long distance family
relationships and Mexican settlement. Typically special immigrant husbands returned,
and traveled to the town’s municipal government office accompanied by their wives to
have town officials document the legitimacy of their remittance receipts and their wives’
careful remittance management. This process required these couples to answer broad
questions concerning their expenditures and its relationship to their plans for settlement.
Women labored exceedingly hard and were by their side throughout the entire interview;
nonetheless, town records reveal that special immigrant husbands answered most
questions. Querying special immigrant wives on equal terms to their male relatives was
not standard practice. Town officials feared emasculating special immigrant male
relatives by turning to their wives to answer questions concerning expenditures and

151
investments. Even though women conducted and kept careful records of these
transactions, government officials ignored their experience and knowledge.
After satisfying this interrogation successfully, couples provided three references
that could attest to their work ethic and morality. The Olivares family for example, had
successfully satisfied this moral eligibility process by providing remittance and
expenditure receipts confirming their investment and labor in their cenaduria (makeshift
diner) and home. Listing the town’s priest, their son’s teacher, and their uncle as
references in support of their application for special immigrant eligibility, they earned
required government issued supporting documentation to renew their special immigrant
contract. Town officials determined that the Olivares family’s investment in town
settlement was legitimate. They had proven “lawful citizens who relied on their honesty
and discipline to make a living, leading responsible and moral lives.”
54

Town officials became increasingly dissatisfied with this process because it did
not provide them with enough leverage or records to manage the town’s non-immigrant
workforce: relatives left behind laboring in support of contract labor and shared
investments. Its failure to raise enough funds to develop and enforce immigrant and non-
immigrant working class families’ participation in employment and business surveys had
derailed this town’s efforts to develop policies to manage this workforce’s labor and
remittance management efficiently and in protection of town interests. Town officials
remained uninterested in women and other remaining relatives’ concerns and
shortcomings. Nevertheless, redefining special immigrant moral eligibility to include

54 Ibid.

152
surveying, documenting, assessing, and managing special immigrant families resonated
as a viable alternative to advancing their overall management of working class labor and
investment in this town’s economy.
Using the successful management of town investments by special immigrant
families to determine their male relatives moral eligibility placed the onus on working
class women and other relatives working by their side. Throughout the first eight years of
the Bracero Program, town records reveal that working class women with or without
immigrant relatives were rarely listed as business owners or managers. Indeed, only an
estimated seventeen women were listed as managers in bakeries and dress shops.
55
By
January 1953, two years after special immigration, town records reveal that business
licenses issued or renewed to female business owners and managers had increased
significantly. An estimated 2,319 town women had a license to own and or manage their
own business. National business indexes reveal a healthy increase from 11 to 36 percent
in female business ownership and or management nationwide.
56

Among the most striking changes associated with this increase in this town’s
documentation of female entrepreneurship and ongoing Mexican immigration were the
conversion of barbershops, cantinas, and moderately priced restaurants into grocery
stores and makeshift vending booths. An increase in women’s ownership and
management of grocery stores, building material warehouses, bakeries, cenadurias
(makeshift diner), and dress shops, as well as records of their payment of annual tax fees,
reveals women’s careful management of remittances and labor toward making inroads in

55 Ibid.
56 Ibid.

153
this town’s business community.
57
They listed their special and other immigrant relatives
as sources of financial business support, and assumed ownership and managed businesses
associated traditionally with women’s labor, such as baking, cooking, sewing, and retail
to begin or expand enterprises that confirmed their special immigrant relatives’ moral
eligibility. Town business license records indicate that an estimated 1,317 special
immigrant relatives’ entrusted their male relatives’ with formal business ownership and
management. Special immigrants underestimated their female relatives’ earning potential
and investment management, requesting that their male relatives assume formal
secondary ownership and management, even as an estimated 1,245 of these family
business arrangements listed female relatives working arduous schedules as business
personnel. Acquiring and operating a business under these conditions confirmed their
special immigrant relatives’ investment in the town’s economy.
58

An increase in female owned and managed businesses peaked town officials’
interest in women’s formal participation in this town’s economy. Aware that working
class women had labored in these businesses without incentive or formal documentation
of their participation throughout the town’s history, town officials’ used special
immigrant moral eligibility to benefit from their increased formal participation. They
conducted a survey assuring female business owners and managers that their candid
participation would determine their special immigrant relatives’ moral eligibility, and
warning them that their failure to participate disqualified their special immigrant male

57 Map obtained from sketched filed in Record Group 39-C, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco,
Mexico.
58 Ibid.

154
relatives automatically from contract renewal, thereby coercing women to participate.
Using allotted national Mexican government funds, town officials designed and
conducted this survey to document women’s successful ownership and management and
special immigrant relatives’ moral eligibility.
This survey demonstrated that out of an estimated 2,073 special immigrant female
business owners and managers an estimated 82 percent were married to special
immigrants; 10 percent were special immigrants’ female parents; and the remaining 2
percent were special immigrants’ daughters. These women were between 20 and 55 years
of age. An estimated 38 percent operated businesses from the comforts of their home; 45
percent owned vending booths; 12 percent owned grocery stores; and 5 percent managed
cenadurias in this town’s outskirts. Town officials used their previous year’s payment of
business license and tax fees and annual earnings, which averaged the equivalent of $205
to determine their management skills of remittances and investment. Additionally, town
officials used this growing workforce’s survey information to levy an additional 110
pesos business license fee— the equivalent of one and a half months’ worth of
earnings— to secure their special immigrant’s moral eligibility.
59
This additional fee’s
revenue bolstered the town’s annual budget and placed an added burden on special
immigrant and other business owning working class families. Business owners’ license
renewal for the upcoming year and special immigrant relatives’ moral eligibility was
contingent on their payment of this fee.

59 Journal Correspondence Files. Record Group 119-D, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

155
Town officials assumed that special immigrant families and other town families
did not have additional financial expenditures. Their selective assessment of their moral
eligibility restricted special immigrant and other families to using earnings and
remittances to finance their investment in business ownership and management. Their
failure to pay business license, tax, and other related fees, irrespective of special
immigrant moral eligibility resulted in the loss of their business license, ownership, and
management. Town officials’ assessment of this service sector’s composition pressured
immigrant and non-immigrant business owners and managers to administer remittances
carefully. An estimated 85 percent of female and 88 percent of male town business
owners and managers financed their license renewal. Their failure to finance annual
business license and tax fees forced the remainder out of business, jeopardizing their
special immigrant male relatives’ moral eligibility. Achieving special immigrant contract
renewal was certainly challenging for women and men left behind.
The assessment of special immigrant moral eligibility by town officials intensified
the alienation of special immigrants’ families. Investing in businesses of their own to
rehabilitate their families into a healthier standard of living had surfaced as a feasible
alternative among bracero, special immigrant, undocumented immigrant, and non
immigrant families alike, but formalizing legally entrusting female relatives to own and
manage immigrant male relatives’ investment in business and trades was rare overall, but
consistently common among special immigrant families. Unlike other immigrant men,
upon acquiring special immigrant status moral eligibility requirements compelled men to
establish or expand businesses and trades under terms that legally formalized their female

156
relatives’ shared ownership and management of their investments to confirm their
commitment to family and Mexican settlement. Even as these formalized arrangements
comprised an estimated 6 percent of this town’s business ownership, other town families
were unreceptive to special immigrants’ female relatives’ legal ownership and
management of family businesses. Certain that women were unqualified to assume legal
responsibility for family business management, immigrant and non-immigrant men
feared special immigrants’ female relatives’ potential success might motivate their female
relatives to pressure them into similar formal legalization of their labor and roles. This
was a change they were unprepared to adapt to and finance. Making changes to business
license agreements cost 80 pesos the equivalent of three weeks’ worth of modest business
profits.
60

Anxiety over Female Businesses and Shifting Lines of Gender
The survey by town officials and an additional business license fee fueled tension
among competing immigrant, non-immigrant, and special immigrant business owners and
managers. Town anxiety concerning the widespread appearance of female business
ownership and management and an additional fee levied after special immigrant families
had participated voluntarily in a widely publicized government sponsored business
survey further alienated special immigrant family business owners and managers from
other town families. Struggling town families blamed and resented special immigrant
families for intensifying the financial pressure under which they labored to keep their
businesses afloat and provide for their families’ basic needs. Like the predicament for

60 Ibid.

157
special immigrant families, financing an additional fee was devastating. Special
immigrant business owners and managers assumed a flexible and attempt to resourceful
business approach to overcome this tension and nurture a healthy clientele.
Similar to their male relatives contracted to work as special immigrant labor camp
managers, the female relatives in charge of managing shared business interests were
cornered to adapt quickly to heightened scrutiny and tension to earn healthy profits. Nora
Covarrubias, special immigrant, married to Carlos Covarrubias, assumed a flexible
approach to administer their business and remittances.
61
After financing annual town
business fees, she could not afford to use remittances to subsidize an unprofitable
business cycle without making significant changes to their business services. Like an
estimated 1,835 working class special immigrant female business owners, she switched
products and services, converting her bakery into a dairy products shop, remodeling their
pantries to display shelves replete with butter, coffee, cheese, eggs, grains, milk, and
sugar, and making their large brick ovens accessible for a service charge. Dairy products
were in demand, and customers baking large portions of food using their ovens free of
charge drew customers. Providing helpful quality services without charging customers
was critical to establishing and nurturing a healthy clientele, a combination of affordable
products and services and additional inexpensive incentives motivated customers to look
past their special immigrant status and survey participation. Covarrubias explained,

61 Oral History of Nora Covarrubias conducted on March 13, 2004 by Ana Rosas.

158
“We had to be very astute and willing to sacrifice a little of our earnings to
be able to compete and earn this town’s trust. It was very difficult to work
twice as much as other women to develop and maintain our businesses.
They did not understand that we were facing the same situation, and trying
to take advantage of what little we were sent to preserve and maintain
what little we were trying to achieve.”
62

The success of special immigrant female relatives was also contingent on their
collaborations with supportive male relatives. To enter into quality and affordable
product agreements with surrounding town distributors, it was important that
female business owners and managers work with their male relatives. Town
distributors used their special immigrant business status to offer unreasonable
distribution agreement terms to corner them into bankruptcy. Resentful of their
special immigrant relatives’ status and its implication on their business
management, town distributors discriminated against special immigrant family
businesses, providing them with poor quality products and services at expensive
rates. Negotiating with surrounding town distributors without male relatives by
their side and negotiating on their behalf was socially unacceptable among town
women. Town women were discouraged from traveling and negotiating
agreements with male distribution managers on their own and in surrounding
towns. Independent travel and negotiation cast doubt on their respectability and
sexual virtue. They risked ruining their reputations and marriages.
Restricted to laboring within the physical confines of their businesses,
overcoming town distributor discrimination was transformed into a time consuming, long
distance process, exposing them to intense public scrutiny and disadvantages. Product

62 Ibid.

159
distribution delays placed them at a disadvantage with competing businesses’ immediate
access to bottled, canned, and dry goods. Nevertheless, special immigrant female and
male relatives labored under these conditions because they did not have any other choice.
Legal formalization of their roles and labor in this town’s business community exposed
special immigrant female relatives to augmented discrimination and strict gender norms.
Their management’s success was contingent on their flexibility and resourcefulness.
Working class special immigrant families invested their earnings and remittances
on business fees, remodeling of homes into business spaces, and purchasing merchandise,
often leaving them with very little left over to purchase and integrate U.S. manufactured
or inspired services. Instead, special immigrant families used their talents and existing
knowledge of working class families’ sensibilities to overcome discrimination, town
competition, and secure special immigrant moral eligibility. They specialized in the
preparation and sale of large portions of popular meat entrees and stews, while using a
family oriented sales model to establish and nurture a strong town following. They
transformed their spacious kitchens into food stands to sell entrees and stews by the pot.
Customers came prepared with pots in hand, and purchased customized portions of either
birria (spicy meat entrée) or pozole (hominy and pork stew). Selling stew and this entrée
in accordance with families’ own estimate of what they could afford appealed to
financially strapped families. Too poor to purchase large portions of birria, birrierias
accommodated families’ purchase of cups of caldo de birria (entrée stew) to pour over
their home cooked beans to add flavor and sustenance to their meals. Vending entrees
and stews by the pot and the cup allowed them to cater to struggling town families

160
without drawing attention to their financial need. The accessibility and normalization of a
variety of portion sizes earned them the loyalty of working class families.

Maria
Magallanes explained,
“We had to learn to accommodate the entire town. We were at a
disadvantage because consuming our products was risky. We had been
labeled families with special immigrant contracts. It was necessary for our
services and prices were within our customers’ reach to cope with the
situation, this way people would grow to trust us.”
63

Magallanes explained that her sales model accommodated families under terms that
would compel them to overlook her special immigrant status.
64
Their accommodation of
struggling families’ needs diminished town resentment against special immigrant families
managing these businesses. Signs made out of aluminum, cardboard, and wood were
critical to special immigrant families’ business management.
65
Special immigrant female
business owners and managers displayed signs outside of their booths, stands, and
storefronts to advertise in plain view their price scale and policies to avoid on the spot
negotiation and challenge customer miscommunication. Town discrimination already
placed them at a disadvantage. They could not afford losing clientele to allegations of
fraud or miscalculation of balances owed. Straightforward information allowed women to
conduct business transactions without losing customers or friends. Yadira Nuñez used
signs to “preventing a bad misunderstanding and a reputation to charge prices that were
to my advantage. It was difficult to charge the few friends we had left. Everyone
distrusted us. It was important to manage our business with the information at hand to

63 Ibid.
64 Oral History of Ernesto and Raul Magallanes. Bracero Oral History Project, National Museum of
American History, Smithsonian Institution.
65 ‘El Rotulo Viene a Todo Galope,’ El San Martinense, November 18, 1946.

161
avoid losing a client and a good friendship. Women with special immigrants were closely
monitored.”
66
She could not muster the nerve to charge friends for services rendered
without having price charts in place.
Special immigrant female business owners and managers aggressively pursued
building a clientele among women working similarly arduous schedules. Operating under
production schedules compatible with other female employment and errand schedules
nurtured strong female clientele. Making pre-packaged hand-made tortillas, loaves of
bread, chiles (peppers), and other staple products available in accordance with women’s
work schedules appealed to female customers working long hours cleaning homes,
harvesting crops, and vending outside of their homes. Product schedules coincided with
their commutes to and from work and times set aside for errands and meals. Careful
attention to hours of operation facilitated earning a profit using sound judgment.
67
Susana
Kanellos explained that “you would not venture out unaccompanied at night nor run your
shop after eight o’clock in the evening . . . Honorable women did not run businesses or
errands into evening hours.”
68
They could not afford to work evenings, casting doubt on
their honorability and sexual virtue. This would ruin their public reputation and diminish
their female clientele. It was their responsibility to nurture a healthy public reputation by
managing their businesses in accordance with town employment culture.
Special immigrant female beauty salon and dress shop owners used individually
personalized customer service and group rates to survive in an economy that reduced a

66 Oral History of Yadira Nuñez conducted on March 1, 2003 by Ana Rosas.
67 Oral History of Sonia Kanellos. Bracero Oral History Project, National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution.
68 Ibid.

162
trendy wardrobe and haircut to unaffordable luxuries. Consistent with other special
immigrant female business owners and managers, those invested in apparel and beauty
services traveled to Guadalajara, Jalisco, the closest large city, accompanied by their
older male relatives, to purchase stylish apparel and beauty equipment, guides, and
magazines. Displaying and using finished products to attract customers proved
ineffective. Instead, dress shop owners sold patrones (hand-made cardboard apparel
patterns), thread, cloth, and sewed customers’ pre-measured and cut apparel for a service
charge. Beauty salon owners sold beauty products, offered family hair cut packages, and
discount prices on select days of the week to attract customers. They sold products and
services that allowed customers to make their own clothing, and lowered their prices to
affordable family rates to expand their services to avoid losing their businesses and
jeopardizing their special immigrant male relatives’ moral eligibility.
69

Using business models that did not underestimate the importance of town and
family sensibilities was foundational to special immigrant female business owners and
managers’ success and securing male relatives’ moral eligibility. Having placed town
families’ businesses at risk after their coerced business survey participation, they satisfied
town families’ needs at an affordable price. This entailed abiding by strict gender norms
and maximizing their talents and resources to define their services clearly and calculate
reasonable service and product rates accurately. Every aspect of their business ownership
and management required careful planning. The town’s distrust and resentment did not
give them room for mistakes, conditions that motivated town families to finally accept

69 Sergio Altamira Files. Record Group 60-B, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo Jalisco, Mexico.

163
special immigrant contract labor rather than continue to uphold an alienating town
economy.
In November 1952, special immigrant female business owners and managers’
resourcefulness did not convince town officials of their eligibility to manage their
investments responsibly without legally sanctioned supervision. They feared intense town
competition and resentment would bankrupt these families and disqualify their relatives
from special immigration. Determined to protect special immigrant remittances and their
families’ investment in this town’s business sector, they passed business ordinance 4318
mandating local and surrounding town apparel, building supplies, dry goods, food, store
equipment, and other product distributors to stock female business owner and manager
orders only when undersigned by an older female and male relative.
70
Town officials
justified this mandate as a direly needed precaution against special immigrant female
business owners and managers’ overspending. Without concrete evidence of
overspending practices by female owner and managers, officials were committed to
formally reassert the dependence of female businesses on older family relatives to placate
town anxiety centering on the legal formalization of women’s roles in this town’s
economy. This mandate intensified public scrutiny of women’s management. It bound
them to earning the approval by older relatives of their business expenditures, often
diminishing their decision making power, questioning their ability to meet the rigors of
special immigration, and complicating their negotiation of an already alienating
economy.

70 Government Correspondence. Record Group 23, Series 20, Folder 18, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.

164
Special immigrant families without business investments faced a different
challenge. Their moral eligibility was contingent on the purchase and maintenance of
property in the form of land or home ownership. Town officials estimated that after
completing one special immigrant contract cycle not every special immigrant earned
enough to invest in building or repairing their family home, purchasing land, or
establishing businesses or trades. An estimated 345 special immigrant families invested
in agricultural day labor and sharecropping spent their earnings and remittances on
purchasing land, building and repairing their family homes, and financing annual
property tax and utility fees.
71
Having very little left over to finance their families’ basic
educational, nutritional, or medical needs, the female relatives and children of special
immigration labored in unskilled trades to finance these expenditures throughout their
family separation. Town officials used their punctual payment of annual property tax and
utility fees to confirm the moral eligibility of their immigrant male relatives.
Financing this special immigrant family arrangement required female relatives to
work long hours for poor wages harvesting crops, packaging plants, and cooking in
restaurants in place of immigrant men. Nevertheless, their immigrant male relatives’
special immigrant status exposed them to bitter alienation. Fellow female workers
worried that town officials would conduct special immigrant employment surveys, and
introduce a series of alienating employment policies to manage special immigrant female
relatives and further speed up their already physically demanding labor. Widespread
anxiety motivated employers and workers to either female employees of special

71 Ibid.

165
immigrant families corner to quit or conform to far more exploitative employment
conditions than those used to manage fellow workers. Employers required them to work
longer hours without work breaks, and settle for earning fifteen instead of the eighteen
pesos. Fellow workers and town families monitored their commute to and from work
closely, intensifying their alienation. Claudia Solis walked to and from work, and ate her
lunch alongside a group of special immigrant female workers, without ever
acknowledging or interacting individually with men.
72
Interacting with men that were not
relatives cast doubt on their morality and sexual virtue, questioning their motivation for
working outside of their homes. Speculations that tarnished their public reputation could
lead employers to fire women suspected of immorality out of fear of becoming publicly
associated with immoral conduct. Posing a public threat to family values would diminish
the clientele and consumer confidence in their businesses. Securing their immigrant
relatives’ special immigrant status as unskilled poorly paid laborers did not significantly
improve female relatives’ quality of life.
Conclusion
Despite enhanced employment conditions, special immigrants and their families
could not afford to forfeit their U.S. earning potential. This town’s farmers and merchants
had transformed special immigrant status into a central organizing feature of town
settlement, using special immigration to bolster their earnings and overcome their anxiety
concerning special immigrant entrepreneurship. According to town merchants’ records,
Benjamin Hernandez, Lucas Lujan, Jaime Hurtado, and Manolo Uribe, four of the largest

72 Ibid.

166
food product distributors and grocery and meat market owners, offered bracero,
undocumented immigrant, and other families credit plans under higher interest rate fees
than special immigrants’ families.
73
Special immigrants’ families paid a flat monthly
interest rate fee of eight pesos compared to the fifteen pesos paid by other town families
to purchase food and other products through their store credit plans. Farmers adopted a
similar policy. Special immigrants’ families paid a monthly interest rate flat fee of nine
pesos and other town families paid fifteen pesos when purchasing dairy, meat, and other
products using their credit plan.
Town farmers, food product distributors, and merchants justified these credit plan
terms by alleging that special immigrant men’s earning potential guaranteed punctual
payment of their credit plan balance versus other immigrant and non-immigrant men who
were not benefiting from extended contract cycles. They considered their failure to
acquire special immigrant status a reflection of their poor work ethic, transforming them
into unreliable credit applicants deserving of higher monthly interest rate fees. Without
collateral and weary of losing access to any sort of credit plan, families did not appeal
such policies. Instead, they used these credit plans sparingly to weather extremely
difficult family situations. Distributors, farmers, and merchants doubled their profits and
cemented family commitment to preserving special immigrant status. Like other town
families, they feared being vulnerable and unable to finance another increase in
distributor, farmer, and merchant credit plan terms.

73 Town and Public Life Files. Record Group 23, Series 20, Folder 34, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.

167
Special immigration also transformed the town’s educational system. School
administrators allowed special immigrant parents to enroll their children without paying
the first semester’s installment of their children’s tuition in advance. They were certain
that they would earn enough to finance their children’s tuition upon completing their
extended contract labor. Bracero, undocumented immigrant, and other town families did
not benefit from the same enrollment conditions. They were required to pay their
children’s entire tuition in advance. School administrators feared that their much shorter
contract labor and poorly paid domestic unskilled labor would not be enough to finance
their children’s education. Weary of investing their energy and time without the
assurance of punctual payment of school tuition, school administrators did not enroll
bracero, undocumented immigrant, and other town families’ children unable to finance
tuition fees under these conditions. This policy denied an estimated 2,561 students an
education annually.
Even so, after paying an entire academic year’s tuition in advance, students were
not educated fairly. Rebeca Mendez, bracero daughter explained that she worked hard to
be “disciplined and punctual in her homework, attire, and behavior.”
74
Desperate to blend
in with special immigrants’ children to benefit from the undivided attention of teachers,
she worked hard to excel in school. However, school administrators and teachers were
often indifferent toward bracero, undocumented immigrant, and other town families’
children. Doubtful that their parents could afford to finance their annual tuition
throughout the duration of their education, school administrators and teachers placed

74 Oral History of Rebecca Mendez conducted on March 3, 2003 by Ana Rosas.

168
excessive demands on their school performance without providing adequate instruction.
Their parents’ failure to achieve or secure special immigrant status placed them at a
disadvantage. Special immigrants’ children were educated as long-term investments, and
benefited from far more commitment from teachers and higher educational standards.
Nevertheless, bracero, undocumented immigrant, and other town families continued to
finance their children’s annual tuition in their efforts to provide their children with an
educational platform aimed at improving their quality of life. Mario Castillo explained,
“He may not have been special, but had been a responsible parent.”
75
Such differences in
teaching reinforced the commitment by special immigrant parents to preserving this
status irrespective of its demands. They were unwilling to jeopardize their children’s
education. Special immigration seeped into every aspect of town settlement. The
incentive to acquire and preserve this status prevailed throughout the town. The
insecurity of a competitive town economy motivated this town’s business community,
school administrators, and resentful town families to take advantage of special
immigration in ways that continued to place excessive demands on unskilled working
class women and men’s flexibility and labor. An extended contract labor translated into
intense scrutiny, responsibility, resentment, and very little consideration for their
independent parental and marriage concerns. In their effort to cater and manage others,
special immigrant men and their families postponed living together. Reduced monthly
interest rate fees and other forms of preferential treatment were compelling incentives,
but consistently contingent on arduous employment conditions and difficult family

75 Record Group 23, Series 19, Folder 23, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

169
arrangements. A series of unrealistic expectations plagued special immigration and
settlement plans. Expected to contribute to unfair solutions to international immigration
issues under intense scrutiny, their immigration provides a window into how desirable
temporary contract laborers and undesirable unskilled female laborers emerged as
important sources for discrimination and control.
In August 1959, the U.S. government terminated special immigration. I.N.S. and
Program contractors agreed that managing this workforce and other immigrant men and
their families was no longer feasible. It had become “extremely challenging to manage
this workforce and enforce difference.”
76
An estimated 45,396 special immigrant men and
their families had labored in bracero labor camps throughout the United States or in
Mexican rural towns and villages in support of an extended contract cycle.
77
Confident
that year-round remittances would be conducive to healthier long-term settlement, they
participated in managing fellow contract laborers as “an undesirable race of Mexicans,”
only to eventually realize that this was the only way of surviving in bracero labor camp
and Mexican rural town and village business cultures without jeopardizing their families’
interests. Like other Mexican immigrant working class families, special immigrants and
their families’ labor became integral to managing Mexican immigration in Mexico and
the United States.
78

Although special immigration was comprised of a few carefully selected contract
laborers, this does not reduce their employment is important relationship to post World

76 Ibid.
77 Ibid.
78 Town Life Files. Record Group 23, Series 19, Folder 60, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco,
Mexico.

170
War II Mexican immigration and race. Unable to manage Mexican immigration at its
borders, the Mexican and U.S. governments aggressively pursued enforcing the
temporariness of contract labor in labor camps throughout the United States without
exhausting its resources and by taking advantage of Mexican immigrant families’
sensibilities and needs. The U.S. government and its residents did not accept braceros and
undocumented Mexican immigrants as legitimate citizens, and without an “effective
contract to achieve their idealized management of Mexican immigrant laborers in place,
both governments agreed to use special immigrants and special immigrant moral
eligibility to manage and prevent bracero settlement simultaneously.”
79

79 Town Life Files. Record Group 23, Series 20, Folder 3, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco,
Mexico.

171
CHAPTER 3:
FEMALE HEADS OF HOUSEHOLDS AND INTERNAL MIGRATION:
THE EFFECTS OF IMMIGRANT ABANDONMENT

On August 18, 1945, Victoria Hernandez dusted, swept, and mopped Elena
Ramirez’s home. Eighty years old, Ramirez was too frail and her grandchildren too
young to clean their renovated home. Ramirez instructed Victoria on how to clean each
room, and bathe and dress her grandchildren. They needed to be ready by noon.
Determined to prove herself a trustworthy employee, Hernandez followed her
instructions carefully.
1
Hernandez realized that Ramirez and her grandchildren were
preparing to celebrate a special occasion, but did not give it too much thought. She was
preoccupied with how to justify cleaning Ramirez’s home to her other employers. The
Ramirez family, most especially, Ramirez’s daughter and grandchildren’s mother,
Francisca Duarte Ramirez was scorned throughout San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco.
Victoria feared that working for this family would get her fired.
Town residents had ostracized Francisca after her husband, Jorge Duarte, joined
the Bracero Program. His failure to send remittances and return home transformed her
life. She became an abandoned female head of household. She first attempted cooking
and selling tamales door to door to clothe, educate, and feed their children but this was
unsuccessful. After having sold the last of their cattle and leaving their children behind
under Elena’s care, she followed her husband’s footsteps. She migrated to the Bracero
Program selection center of Empalme, Sonora in pursuit of employment. She had heard
of this selection center’s high demand for migrant female labor.

1 Town and Public Life Records. Record Group 123, Series 15, Folder 8, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo,
Jalisco, Mexico.

172
Town residents opposed her migration. Unlike her mother, they did not look past
the fact that she was a married woman with children who had not waited nor consulted
with her husband before migrating. They were unprepared to accept and understand
abandoned, neglected, and widowed Mexican women’s transition into being heads of
households through unaccompanied and unsupervised internal migration. The fact that
this transition included unaccompanied and unsupervised internal migration to
predominantly male Program selection centers accounted for town intolerance.
2
Mexican
women working in Empalme, Sonora shared a long history of catering to cruzadores-
Mexican men who dined, drank, gambled, and enjoyed women’s company in this town’s
downtown district and marketplace before boarding connecting trains to their final
destinations. Town residents were certain that Francisca worked alongside other women
as an entertainer, host, prostitute, or vendor in this town’s sex trade. Unaccompanied and
unsupervised migration and employment in this selection center town cast doubt on her
honor, morality, sexual virtue, and commitment to family.
The attitude was different towards Mexican men, whose temporary stint in
Program selection center towns was accepted. Traveling and undergoing physical
examinations to document and prove their eligibility for a Program contract in selection
center towns were seen as worthy endeavors for male heads of households. Purchasing
food and merchandise from women, and at times sex, when waiting to undergo Program
selection was not questioned, but understood as inevitable. Their migration and

2 From this point forward, I will use “Program” to refer to the Bracero Program.

173
temporary stay in selection center towns became part of their circuitous path into
employed heads of households undergoing a “respectable and worthy migration.”
3

Denied these considerations, women were suppose to strictly abide by their
families’ supervision, administer remittances responsibly, and work from their homes.
Conforming to living and working by their families’ side in trades that did not expose
them to working with strange men was consistent with proper household management. It
was up to their male relatives to provide for their families, through unaccompanied and
unsupervised internal migration and immigration to the United States. Even though
domestic unskilled employment opportunities were poorly paid and scarce, it was
unacceptable for women to undertake unskilled, unaccompanied, and unsupervised
internal migration to finance their families’ welfare.
4

Women were discouraged from transitioning into independent household
management through unaccompanied and unsupervised internal migration because it
challenged restrictively gendered bracero family household values. Their independence,
mobility, and labor implied that migrant women were living and working under
dishonorable conditions without their families’ guidance and support. Town residents
believed that Francisca should have been patient and worked harder. Less than a year’s
absence was not enough to assume that Jorge had abandoned her. They asserted that their
daughters and other female relatives raised children with their family’s emotional and

3 Avila Camacho, Manuel. Discursos a la Nacion. Box 10, Folder 12, Ernesto Galarza Papers, Special
Collections, Stanford University.
4 Ibid.

174
financial support, and without having to migrate. Her unaccompanied and unsupervised
migration was characterized “an uncalculated risk.”
5

Her decision alienated much of her own family. Banned from family and
neighborhood gatherings, and blamed for her “reckless conduct,” her mother struggled to
support Francisca’s decision to labor in the selection center town to support their
children.
6
Nonetheless, town residents speculated that her husband would not reconcile
with a woman who left her children behind to cater to cruzadores (border crossers) and
prospective braceros. Her independence and employment cast doubt on her commitment
to marriage and family. The Mexican government and town residents insisted that
braceros were entitled to emigrate and return to patient and supportive families. Male
immigration to the United States did not cast doubt on their commitment to family and
marriage.
7

Although condemned widely, silence shrouded Francisca’s actual migration
status. Town residents did not discuss her or other women’s unaccompanied and
unskilled migration. They were certain she had become a mujer de paso (transient
woman), and the town awaited Jorge’s return anxiously. Confident that he would
properly care and provide for their children, town residents believed that “one parent was
better than none.”
8

5 Victoria Hernandez Deposition. Box 15, Folder 8, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
6 Ibid.
7 Avila Camacho, Manuel. Discursos a la Nacion. Box 10, Folder 12, Ernesto Galarza Papers, Stanford
University.
8 Victoria Hernandez Deposition. Box 15, Folder 8, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

175
Hernandez could not concentrate. Other women had refused to clean the Ramirez
family’s home, but she could not afford to decline. She also could not depend on the
Bracero Program. Her husband had passed away, and cleaning homes did not provide
enough for her children. Becoming a single head of household had not been a choice for
her. She explained that town residents were unwilling and unprepared to discuss “the
difficulties of a woman who had to be a mother and father.”
9

After hours of cleaning, Hernandez realized that Francisca had asserted her head
of household obligations responsibly. With her remittances, Elena had renovated the
family home and helped her grandchildren excel as healthy and well-dressed honor
students. Hernandez was committed to learning from these women’s experience. She
explained, “it was difficult to support yourself and an entire family on one wage.”
10

She had put away the broom and mop when she discovered Francisca, Elena, and
their children hugging at the door. Unaware, she had helped them prepare for a family
reunion. Hernandez felt out of place, but stood by patiently. She desperately wanted to
meet Francisca without raising the suspicion of town residents. Meeting with Francisca
under different circumstances would certainly ruin her public reputation. She would be
treated as a mujer de paso. Despite managing their transition into family separation
responsibly, townsfolk continued to ostracize the Ramirez family and those who accepted
their friendship.
After this family had broken their embrace, Hernandez collected her wages and
asked to return the following weekend. Hernandez could not take her eyes off Francisca.

9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.

176
She wore her hair pulled back, wearing a neatly ironed blouse, skirt, and sandals, and
carried a bulky tote bag, but this did not diminish the dark circles under her eyes, nor the
bruises and cuts covering her arms, hands, legs, and feet. Francisca looked older than her
years and worn.
Francisca’s transition had written an unspoken story on her face and body. Shortly
after their embrace, she left to catch the last bus heading back to Empalme. Her
marketplace employer had provided her with only a two-day leave. This was enough to
share only a bit of time with her family, since it took her a day and a half to return to
Empalme. Her ability to finance her family’s welfare was contingent on their long-term
family separation and her unskilled migrant labor. She had not earned enough to resettle
by her family’s side, and town residents would not accommodate her return. Hernandez
would have to learn how to live and work as a migrant single female head of household
on her own.
By October 13, 1957, fifteen years after the Program’s inception, the Mexican and
U.S. governments’ management of contract labor no longer prioritized rehabilitating
braceros into skilled agricultural laborers. Both governments now centered their attention
on satisfying U.S. labor demands without exhausting their resources or attracting
negative public attention. This preference would continue to neglect Mexican children,
women, and other relatives’ left behind, keeping them locked into extended unprofitable
family separations. By this time, it was clear that those left behind had often not benefited
from their male relatives’ immigration. Abandonment and extended family separations
without adequate emotional and financial support from braceros had cornered

177
unaccompanied unskilled female heads of household into unsupervised migrant labor to
Program selection center towns under disreputable and exploitative conditions. They
could not afford to depend on bracero or undocumented Mexican immigrant relatives to
finance their families’ welfare. Rehabilitating themselves and their families out of
contract labor had become elusive. They settled instead for full time employment.
This chapter explores Mexican women’s gendered transition into migrant female
heads of household through unaccompanied and unsupervised migration and settlement at
Empalme, Sonora, one of the largest Program selection centers, housing an estimated
258,937 Mexican female migrants in search of employment by the Program’s end.
11
The
ideal of a self-sufficient Mexican family supported by a comforting family and
responsible bracero had largely become unfeasible. Like Francisca and Jorge, Mexican
women and men negotiated the gap between the ideal and reality, as well as personal
roles and obligations throughout their intersecting yet distinct migrations under gendered
terms. Explaining how Mexican town intolerance and this Program’s management of
Mexican immigration influenced the eventual support of the migrant labor of female
heads of household reveals how Mexican women and men eventually re-conceptualized
their family roles to continue accommodating Mexican immigration to the United States
under gendered terms. Their continued need for U.S. wages would eventually motivate
older and younger generations of Mexican women and men to accommodate to the
permanency of transnational family arrangements. Moving into regularized contract labor

11 Hurtado, Gonzalo. El Manejo de Empalme y El Program Agricola entre Mexico y Los Estados Unidos.
Empalme, Sonora: Impresora Publica, 1942.

178
required transitioning into a series of immigrant and migrant family arrangements.
Discretionary return and special immigration were no longer viable options.
Historians of the World War II and post World War II Mexican American and
immigrant experience have yet to consider how migrant bracero female relatives
negotiated bracero family separation in Mexico. Their gendered transition has been
implicitly addressed in analyses of the U.S. government’s discourse on undocumented
Mexican immigrant women’s activity in bracero agricultural labor camps, which
characterized them as prone to “prostitution and illegal immigration, because of their
criminal nature.”
12
This chapter will interrogate the transnational and gendered
implications of the U.S. government’s racialization of Mexican immigrant women as
their transition into unsupervised and eventually undocumented immigrant labor
displaced a discourse on the rehabilitative potential of contract labor.
By historicizing Mexican women’s gendered transition into predominantly male
environments, this chapter also expands our understanding of how the migration of
Mexican female heads of household differed from or correlated with the struggles of
Mexican American women managing these patterns of migration. It demonstrates how
Mexican immigration management encompassed and became contingent on Mexican
American women’s labor, elaborating on Naomi H. Quinonez’ and Vicki L. Ruiz’s
interpretation of Mexican American and immigrant women “gaining new skills and

12 Ngai, Mae. Impossible Subjects. Princeton: New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 2004.

179
confidence to manage and negotiate their personal, social, and economic circumstances”
within an overwhelmingly dehumanizing, environment.
13

Women Moving Towards Migration
In August 1942, the Program was framed as a “circuitous, temporary, and
profitable migration.” This Program’s conditions, however, did not account nor protect
families. Impoverished female heads of household left behind were expected to
accommodate their immigrant male relatives’ absence by cooking and selling food,
washing and ironing clothing, cleaning homes, sewing large and poorly paid orders of
embroidery, and harvesting crops. With their earnings and bracero relatives’ remittances,
they were expected to provide for their families.
The Mexican government oversimplified the Program. It did not account for
Mexican women left behind, and seemed indifferent to their financial obligations
throughout their bracero relatives’ participation. The Mexican government did not
address how the Program’s terms of employment were partly responsible for Mexican
women transitioning into heads of household through unskilled and unsupervised
migration. It failed to acknowledge that this Program irresponsibly separated families,
and that male and female heads of household left behind were in desperate need of
employment opportunities that would help finance their families’ needs during their
bracero relatives’ migration. Instead, the Mexican government assured braceros that it
had protected their families’ interests by negotiating fair wages and longer terms of

13 Ruiz, Vicki L. From Out of the Shadows. New York: NY, Oxford Univerrsity Press, 2000. ; Quinonez,
Naomi H. “Mexican American Rosie the Riveter” in Mexican Americans and World War II. Austin: TX,
University of Texas Press, 2005, 266.

180
employment, ignoring how abandonment and negligence had transformed unskilled
Mexican women into primary breadwinners in Program selection centers and towns
throughout Mexico.
14

By March 1944, braceros’ failure to write, send remittances, and return upon their
contract’s expiration confronted their female relatives with the reality that the Program
had not prevented them from losing what little they had, growing deeper in debt, or
keeping their children from starving. Unskilled employment opportunities for women had
increasingly grown poorly paid and scarce. Women were unwilling to pay other women
for products and services they could do on their own. Bracero female relatives between
the ages of 20 and 34 were cornered by head of household roles and obligations to
migrate to Program selection centers in search of employment.
15
A 1943 San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco census indicates that bracero female relatives were, on average,
responsible for three children and two adults each. Bracero relatives’ abandonment,
negligence, local unemployment, and family obligations prompted an estimated 12,229
unaccompanied married and single women from this town to migrate to Program
selection centers to transition into migrant female heads of household.
16
Poorly paid and
highly competitive unskilled employment opportunities did not allow these women to
continue to live and work with their families by their side.
Some women did not migrate, and depended on their parents, in-laws, and
extended families to supplement their earnings. Family members felt partly responsible

14 Avila Camacho, Manuel. La Familia Mexicana y El Programa Braceril. Box 30, Folder 20, Ernesto
Galarza Papers, Stanford University.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.

181
for their female relatives, especially during long term family separation and bracero
negligence. They pooled their resources to prevent their migration, and opposed children
growing up without either parent. They also sought to shield women from working
exhausting and unsupervised long shifts catering to men in a predominantly male
environment. They feared for their safety, honor, and reputation, and its implication on
their own reputation and livelihood.
Town residents seemed especially intolerant of married women asserting this role
and migrating without an older family member and children by their side. They refused to
consider that this decision was a desperate attempt to provide for their children’s
nutritional and educational needs. It became a heated topic of discussion among families
confronting similar situations. They did not acknowledge the Mexican government and
bracero relatives’ roles in creating the necessity for Mexican female migration, but rather
cast it as an individual woman’s failure.
Mexican families suspected that Program selection centers did not offer
respectable employment opportunities for women. They were certain that unskilled
migrant Mexican female heads of household worked in the entertainment industry,
service sector, or sex trade. Unaccompanied and vulnerable, Mexican women would
work as cooks, entertainers, vendors, waitresses, and prostitutes in the midst of thousands
of men awaiting Program selection. Regardless of their trade, town residents and women
themselves were certain that they would be treated as and work like prostitutes. Town
residents assumed that unskilled migrant women “would work alongside women who
worked in this trade, and cater to men accustomed to dealing and paying for such

182
services.”
17
Families did not make distinctions between and among unskilled female
migrant heads of household, as unaccompanied and unsupervised female migration was
associated with this center’s sex trade. Families warned that their migration would not
make it easier to provide for their children, nor allow them to ever return. Nonetheless,
they failed to propose viable alternatives, much like the failure of the Mexican
government.
Mexican women’s decision to migrate became critical to public perceptions of
who they would be. Their peers considered their decision to migrate on their own and to
venues catering to Mexican men as “an escape into a far worse predicament.”
18
Their
decision to migrate appeared far more neglectful than that of their bracero relatives.
Braceros had migrated with the support of the Mexican government, and under the
promise of “advancement and return.”
19
Female migrant heads of household migrated to
venues that did not protect women against physical and sexual exploitation, but exposed
them to work among, if not as, prostitutes. Migrant women were not treated as mothers,
daughters, or wives, but as expendable immoral women. Working among similarly
displaced women irreparably ruined migrant women’s public reputations. Upon her
return from living and working in Empalme’s selection center cooking and vending food
for seven months, Gloria Garza filed a complaint in San Martin de Hidalgo’s business
bureau for being denied admission at several town eateries, as well as employment

17 Mejia, Aurora. La Familia Mexicana y Las Mujeres Que Se Van. Mexico, D.F. : Publicaciones
Gubernamentales Casa, Mexico, 1945.
18 Oral History of Rosario Mendoza. Bracero Oral Life History Project, National Museum of American
History, Smithsonian Institution.
19 Ibid.

183
cleaning homes. She claimed that business owners and residents “excluded and ignored
her, they did not even accept her money on account of working in this selection center.”
20

Her decision to leave her family behind to work under these terms overshadowed her
motivation and previous family and employment history. She had saved enough to
finance her children’s tuition, renovate their home, and finance her grandmother’s
medical care, but was still considered and treated as “among the worst and most
undesirable elements of society.”
21

After working at these sites and under these terms, Mexican migrant women’s
peers did not welcome them into their homes. Even acknowledged responsible female
migrant heads of household did not earn community residents’ acceptance or respect. The
fact that they had migrated to work on their own and among displaced Mexican women
and strange men cast doubt on their sexual virtue, as well as their commitment to family
values. Families feared that they would negatively influence female relatives
transitioning into bracero family living and work arrangements. Migrant female heads of
household embodied the undesirable gendered costs of the Bracero Program.
Teresa Ramirez, abandoned bracero wife and mother of four daughters, migrated
and worked selling blankets, pillows, and shoes to prospective braceros awaiting Program
selection for eight months. Upon returning to San Martin de Hidalgo with enough to
finance six months’ worth of living expenses, she assumed that town residents would be
receptive and supportive of her because she had sent remittances throughout her

20 Deposition of Gloria Garza. Box 3, Folder 1, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo Municipal Archives.
21 Mejia, Aurora. La Familia Mexicana y Las Mujeres Que Se Van. Mexico, D.F.: Publicaciones
Gubernamentales Casa Mexico, 1945.

184
migration and returned to continue to care and support her family. After a three year
absence, her husband had not returned. Instead, her former friends and peers avoided her.
Her family was not invited to neighborhood gatherings, and she washed and ironed
clothes for comparably lower rates than other women employed in this trade, as this was
the only way families would hire her. Such alienation and low wages compelled her to
return to Empalme. Town families did not accept her as “a mother, neighbor, employee,
or client. Their rejection was unbearable. Working at this selection center had come at a
high price.”
22
Additionally, these women’s assertion of new roles for Mexican female
migrant heads of household reverberated among their families. Parents, grandparents, in-
laws, brothers, and sisters’ acceptance of migrant females infuriated critics. Entire
families were ostracized, viewed as partly responsible for their female relatives’
migration, condemned for accepting the remittances sent by migrant women.
Married bracero female relatives were expected to consult and defer to their
husbands’ instructions upon their departure with regards to their living and work
arrangements during their absence. Changes to these arrangements would then be
negotiated with their parents, in-laws, or other relatives. Mexican women’s migration was
considered disrespectful to bracero relatives, most especially their husbands. Upon their
return, braceros would not want to continue married to a woman of questionable sexual
virtue, it was assumed.

22 Residents and letter writers would refer to Empalme, Sonora, Mexico’s selection center and town as “las
contractaciones” (contracting centers). Deposition of Teresa Ramirez, Box 9, Folder 5, Archivo San Martin
de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

185
Divorce and Family Estrangement
Between December 1942 and October 1948, an estimated 12,994 returning
braceros filed a divorce. According to the Mexican state of Jalisco’s marriage license
bureau and family authority records, braceros filed for divorce on account of their wives’
abandonment, reckless endangerment of children, and immoral conduct throughout their
migration. Sergio Acosta, a former bracero, explained that his wife, Maria Ruelas Acosta,
had left their children under his mother’s care, so that she could “live, work, and act
worst than a man at a Program selection center.” He did not assert responsibility for
Maria’s migration, and insisted that he should not be obliged to reconcile or live with
“una mujer de paso” (transient woman). She had betrayed his trust, and irresponsibly
cared for their children. Raul Mendoza echoed Acosta’s sentiment. He divorced his wife,
Jimena Torres Mendoza, because upon his return, their children were under the care of
her grandparents, and she had migrated and had not returned from working in a Program
selection center. He felt “betrayed and embarrassed for having sacrificed himself for a
woman without sound judgment or morals.” Wives’ responses to such petitions and
claims were not documented. Mexican government officials recording, processing, and
settling these cases claimed that such omissions were due to the fact that these men’s
wives were nowhere to be found or had not assisted these proceedings. Nevertheless,
these records appear reflective of returning braceros’ disapproval and deep

186
disappointment when learning of their wives’ unaccompanied and unsupervised
migration to Program selection centers.
23

There existed a strong sense of shame associated with Mexican women’s
migration to selection centers. It implied neither that braceros nor their entire family
could provide for themselves or their female relatives. Mexican women and men of
various generations worked hard to avoid employment that cast doubt on their ability to
work together and protect their reputation. They opposed women taking on living and
work arrangements that did not conform to their expectations of family unity. Pooling
their resources and living among parents, grandparents, in-laws, cousins, uncles, or aunts
to avoid public shame, exploitation, and further family disintegration was in sync with
braceros’ expectations. Those who filed for divorce considered their wives’ migration a
poor reflection of their marriage and themselves. Their deep sense of shame prompted 82
percent of returning braceros to file for divorce.
24

Mexican officials of course, had promoted the Program as an ideal employment
opportunity, appealing to Mexican men as heads of household. Among experienced
agricultural laborers, they claimed that becoming a responsible Mexican male
breadwinner and head of household required Program participation. Officials guaranteed
that after working three to nine months in the United States, Mexican men would return
“well trained and paid breadwinners.” These officials did not address nor prepare
braceros or their families for temporary family separation, but assumed that their

23 Public Proceeding Records. Boxes M-MU, Folders 59-100, Archivo Historico de Guadalajara, Jalisco,
Mexico.
24 Suarez, Veronica. La Desintegracion Familiar Mexicana y La Imigracion. Mexico, D.F.:Mexico,
Publicaciones Gubernamentales Para El Concilio de Derechos Familiares, 1949.

187
earnings, remittances, and savings would finance their individual and family expenses
throughout their migration and upon their return.
Agustin Altamirano and Benjamin Orozco, Mexican social scientists and staunch
Program advocates, traveled and met with Mexican rural town and village municipal
officials, and requested that they recruit male constituents already raising families of their
own. They claimed that it was in the Mexican governments’ best interest to recruit
experienced agricultural laborers with families. They were considered “most likely to
accept their employment in the United States as a temporary stint of hard labor, and settle
for timely payment of U.S. wages and prompt return.”
25
Family obligations would
motivate them to comply with government sanctioned departure and return schedules.
They doubted that either single Mexican men or those who failed to express their
commitment to family would comply with this Program’s pre-designated return. These
officials speculated that they did not have obligations or relationships that would force
them to return. By skipping out or continuing to work illegally in the United States after
their contract’s expiration, they would undermine the Program and, in turn, Mexican and
U.S. government relations. These officials advised other local officials to frame Program
recruitment as an opportunity replete with promising long term results. Altamirano and
Orozco supported President Avila Camacho’s claims that this Program provided the only
alternative to Mexican unemployment and low wages.
By August, 1947, Mexican rural towns and villages, like San Martin de Hidalgo
had grown distrustful of the Program’s promise, but dependent on its wages. Agricultural

25 Altamirano, Agustin and Benjamin Orozco. Discursos Para El Pueblo y La Nacion. Box 45, Folders 6-
19, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

188
and unskilled employment opportunities were still scarce in Mexico. Wages failed to
improve. Mexican men working in agriculture, bricklaying, carpentry, construction, and
arts and crafts earned two to three pesos a day on average, less than what braceros earned
after working an hour harvesting crops in the United States.
26
Financial need compelled
an estimated 172,000 Mexican men throughout Mexico to renew their contract five
consecutive years.
27
Although wages earned in the United States were ten times higher
than those earned in Mexico, this would prove insufficient to finance their families’ year
round standard of living. In the best of circumstances, Mexican men would return,
finance their family’s nutritional needs, and save enough to finance bribes that would
allow them to renew their contracts. Upon answering a national census survey, 83 percent
of bracero families expressed that the Program had not met their family’s expectations.
28

Braceros lived and worked for increasingly longer periods of time away from their
families, not earning enough to regularly send remittances or finance family expenses.
They settled for temporary stints of contract labor. Mexican men had not become
successful breadwinners and heads of household, but dependent on the Program for six to
eleven month contract cycles.
San Martin de Hidalgo’s government officials grew concerned. Mexican women
left behind were no longer committed to working and living as part of and dependent on
an extended family arrangement or on neglectful braceros. Mexican women’s assertion
and transition into head of household roles through migration had significantly increased.

26 Ochoa, Tomas. El Censo del Trabajador Mexicano en Mexico. Jalisco: Mexico, Impresora
Gubernamental Jalisco, 1950.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.

189
By August 25, 1947, an estimated 8,375 unaccompanied single and married San Martin
de Hidalgo female heads of household migrated to Mexican cities and towns, as well as
to Program selection centers and towns in search of employment. Program administrators
took notice, and in collaboration with local authorities demanded that Mexican women
avoid migration and resettlement, most especially to selection centers and towns. Crime
among migrant men blamed on migrant women’s resettlement in these male
environments was said to interfere with Program selection. They asserted that selection
centers and towns exclusively built to efficiently manage the selection of Mexico’s most
eligible men could not accommodate female resettlement, and they punctuated their
demands by emphasizing that respectable and responsible daughters, mothers, and wives
did not leave their communities to work among a throng of men.
29

Arnoldo Fernandez, San Martin de Hidalgo’s president, spoke against Mexican
women’s migration to Program selection centers and towns. He was alarmed by an
increase in crimes committed against the town’s elderly. Gangs comprised of teenage
boys who dropped out of school or were too young to join the Program were breaking
into, attacking, and stealing from older women and men’s homes. Fernandez condemned
Mexican mothers who left their children behind, casting their migration as an act of
betrayal to their family, town, and country. He claimed that these women had left their
children huerfanos (orphans), and that this was unfair to their children, to the town, or to
the nation’s future. Older relatives should not be obligated to raise migrant women’s
adolescent children. Married and single female heads of household were encouraged to

29 Altamirano, Agustin and Benjamin Orozco. Discursos Para El Pueblo y La Nacion. Box 45, Folders 6-
19, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

190
remain financially dependent on their bracero relatives and extended families, raise their
children, and patiently wait for their men’s return. Fernandez ended his tirade by
emphasizing that respectable women did not independently migrate in search of the very
worst type of employment opportunities, entrust others to raise their children, endanger
older relatives’ safety, nor betray bracero relatives’ trust and the nation’s interests for
material gain.
30

According to Fernandez, braceros’ wages would eventually allow mothers,
fathers, daughters, sons, and grandparents to comfortably live and work together on a
year round basis. Male migration was accepted as a purposeful migration and one of
sacrifice. It was Mexican women’s responsibility as mothers, daughters, and wives to
ease their bracero relatives’ transition into family life upon their return. Mexican
government officials and other bracero families firmly believed that braceros deserved to
return to a family nurtured by honorable and responsible women.
Despite such gendered expectations, Fernandez failed to develop employment
opportunities and resources that would keep Mexican women home. Oversimplifying
bracero migration as a profitable circuitous journey did not account for how female
relatives would transition into demanding new obligations to their children and families
without a living wage nor a family’s emotional and financial support. Bracero female
relatives were entrusted to single handedly feed, clothe, educate, and care for their
children and older relatives without government support. Such negligence compelled
them to defy gendered expectations. This gap between government and community

30 Fernandez, Arnoldo. Discursos Para el Bien del Pueblo y la Nacion. Jalisco:Mexico, Impresora Jalisco
1948.

191
expectations and support fueled a deep sense of displacement among Mexican female
heads of household.
Mexican migrant women felt betrayed by Fernandez, bracero relatives, and their
supporters. They considered these popular assessments of their circumstances unfair.
Juana Martinez Chacon, Rebeca Tirado Fonseca, and Karina Murillo Gonzalez, were
among 289 bracero female relatives who drafted and signed a petition against such
flawed characterizations of their obligations. They asserted that they were “one step away
from working at Program selection centers and towns themselves.” The Mexican
government “had not considered their needs and obligations as mothers, daughters,
wives, and poorly paid workers.”
31
Through this letter, they report that “women were
being forced act on their own accord.”
32
Although they did not go as far as associating
themselves directly with migrant women, they did assert their dissatisfaction with the
framing of Mexican women’s plight by the Mexican government and local community.
Mexican heads of households insisted that some women migrated only after living
and working by and for their families had become impossible. Consecutive contract
renewal was common among braceros, and each contract cycle had become increasingly
difficult to endure and finance. Bracero relatives were growing disconnected from their
emotional and financial obligations in Mexico, and the Mexican government had not
provided information, resources, or financial support to Mexican female heads of
household who had to provide nine to twelve months of living expenses for an average
sized family of four children and two adults. Instead of vilifying Mexican female heads

31 Public Life Files. Box JM, Folder 90, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
32 Ibid.

192
of household, Mexican women asserted that government officials had to prepare families
to confront the challenges of long term family separation.
A failure to acknowledge that braceros did not earn enough to regularly send
sufficient remittances, and that their female relatives left behind were not always part of
extended families with the resources to help support additional relatives and their
children also resonated as unfair among Mexican families with migrant female heads of
households. Without consistent emotional and financial support, Mexican women
pursued full time employment opportunities in selection center and towns. It was not a
matter of choice but a priority that required defying the national and local governments,
as well as community’s gendered expectations of female head of household roles. This
tension did not allow families confronting similar circumstances to come together and
challenge government and bracero negligence or establish local support networks. Such
intolerance and tension encouraged abandoned and neglected Mexican women left behind
to assert independent head of household roles as an obligation to themselves and their
family.
Even after receiving bracero relatives’ remittances, other Mexican female heads
of households migrated and resettled in Program selection centers and towns.
Remittances were often enclosed in letters replete with strict instructions. Bracero
relatives did not trust female relatives to administer remittances on their own out of fear
that they would spend a large portion of these funds on frivolous expenditures or pay
high prices for poor quality products. Therefore, women often felt that sporadic
remittances did not make family management easier. They could not depend or

193
administer remittances at their discretion. Even without instructions, some women did
not administer remittances. Claudia Martinez Jimenez and Sofia Kino Urriaga, former
bracero wives, remembered that they would not administer their husbands’ remittances at
all. They would not cash nor deposit money orders out of fear that they would misspend
their husbands’ hard earned money. After leading separate lives for months, they were
not sure whether their husbands would approve or understand their expenditures, and
they did not feel entitled to administer funds they had not earned.
33
Women left behind
felt deeply misunderstood and disenfranchised, fearing bracero relatives’ perception of
them and their potential actions upon their return. Remittances were not always a viable
solution or source of comfort for women left behind.
Despite the resentment of Mexican women toward braceros, in some ways they
understood actions by braceros that led to their emotional and financial displacement and
negligence. Josefina Mendez Villanueva, Nadia Moreno Cervantes, and Ana Fonseca
Gomez, former migrant heads of household, explained to local government officials that
they understood their bracero relatives’ neglect upon appealing the discriminatory
treatment at a local eatery. It had become difficult for migrant women and men to return
without “having had achieved much but with much responsibility on their shoulders.
They understood that they were just as vulnerable. Neither government was meeting their
needs.”
34

33 Claudia Martinez Jimenez and Sofia Kino Urriaga Depositions. Box 89, Folder 22, Archivo San Martin
de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
34 Box 66, Folder 2, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

194
After an average of four contract renewals, Mexican men had not significantly
improved their family’s standard of living. Preparing and enduring this migration proved
increasingly taxing for Mexican women and men. They became similarly disconnected
and disillusioned at their inability to meet gendered expectations of successful household
management. Women understood braceros’ negligence of their family obligations.
Undertaking head of household roles on their own, these women understood the difficulty
facing braceros in a different country without a support network and under the pressure of
earning and saving enough for a year’s worth of expenses in Mexico and the United
States. They resented abandonment, but realized the strength of the temptation to
abandon family obligations in Mexico. Such understanding and escalating financial
obligations inspired Mexican women’s transition into becoming heads of household
through migration. They accepted their responsibility to provide for themselves, children,
and other relatives without relying on men just as disillusioned as themselves.
By August 22, 1948, an estimated 194,568 Mexican men had not returned upon
their contracts’ expiration.
35
They illegally lived and worked in the United States.
Undocumented Mexican immigration prompted the Mexican government to resume
public discussions centering on long term bracero family separation. Although local
president Fernandez realized that families left behind had a reason to grow alarmed, he
continued to assert that braceros’ negligence did not justify Mexican women’s migration.
He instructed Mexican women to continue to patiently wait and work, assuring them that
braceros would eventually return with enough wages to make up for their long term

35 Fernandez, Arnoldo. Discursos Para el Bien del Pueblo y la Nacion. Jalisco: Mexico. Impresora Jalisco,
1948.

195
absence. By urging families to endure in their hometowns, and blaming Mexican migrant
women for the disintegration of Mexican families, local officials continued to excuse
bracero negligence, vilify migrant women, and avoid an in-depth discussion of how the
Mexican government could help bracero families overcome the Program’s failure.
By September 13, 1948, San Martin de Hidalgo’s female residents between the
ages of 19 and 43 reported cooking and selling food, managing family businesses,
washing, ironing, and sewing clothes, and cleaning homes to support themselves and
their families throughout their bracero relatives’ absence. Only 120 out of 15,000 women
interviewed had completed a high school or college degree.
36
Raised to maintain clean
homes, cook meals on shoestring budgets, raise livestock, and harvest crops alongside
their families did not require a high school education. Additionally, women were not
allowed to run errands or walk about town unaccompanied. Deferring to their parents as
adolescents and then consulting with their husbands upon marrying, infantilized women
throughout their childhood, adolescence, and adult marriage, and did not adequately
prepare them for transitioning into heads of household on their own or through migration.
Rural Mexican women like Victoria Hernandez, who opened this chapter as a
housecleaner, experienced her transition into a single head of household in San Martin de
Hidalgo as difficult. At twenty-three years old, Hernandez was considered too old, poor,
disreputable, and uneducated to enroll in middle school and therefore, become eligible for
vocational training and well paid skilled employment opportunities. Upon dying, her
husband had left a few cattle, which she sold to finance his burial and feed their

36 Ibid.

196
daughters. She worked long hours selling corn bread door to door seven days a week, but
community residents did not answer their doors nor hire her to clean their homes.
Unaccompanied and unsupervised migration to the nearest Program selection center
became her only alternative.
37

Victoria was doubly marginalized. An underemployed widow with two daughters
and without bracero ties, her struggle was outside the Mexican government’s framing of
the bracero family experience. Even so, her decision to migrate was also condemned
throughout San Martin de Hidalgo. Mexican families were unprepared to accept
unaccompanied Mexican women’s migration and resettlement at Program selection
centers and towns under any circumstances. Families did not look past the fact that
regardless of their circumstances, unaccompanied migrant women worked in locations
inundated with thousands of men and in close proximity to prostitution. Regardless of her
exemplary employment and family history prior to migration or her husband’s death,
families did not make distinctions.
Conversely, Program selection centers and towns were selectively tolerant of
Mexican migrant women. The Mexican and U.S. governments did not accommodate
Mexican migrant women’s reproductive roles and responsibilities. These governments
ignored whether Mexican migrant women or those already working at selection centers
earned fair wages. Instead, they financed and executed a series of measures and a
campaign to manage and curb their migration and interaction. They did not protect
migrant women or men. These selection centers were designed to manage Mexican men’s

37 Victoria Hernandez Deposition. Box 15, Folder 8, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

197
transition into eligible Mexican immigrant contract laborers, and the Mexican and U.S.
governments were determined to discourage Mexican women from migrating at all.
Constructing a Bracero Selection Center at Empalme Sonora
On August 6, 1942, upon the Bracero Program’s inception, the Mexican
government haphazardly managed Program selection centers in Baja California, Mexico,
Districto Federal, and Veracruz to meet U.S. war labor shortages. The Mexican
government accepted and was changed to implement the U.S. government’s request that
prospective braceros undergo chemical baths, chest x-rays, psychological profiling, and
serological tests for venereal disease at the hands of the U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service (I.N.S.), the U.S. Employment Service (USES), and Mexican and
U.S. Public Health Service (MPHS and USPHS) officials. The Mexican government
enforced this selection process to ensure that “the healthiest and most qualified of
Mexico’s men” were issued medical certificates verifying that “they had been properly
bathed, examined, fingerprinted, photographed, vaccinated, x-rayed, and deemed
psychologically fit to work in the United States.”
38
After having passed this selection
process, Prospective braceros were allowed by Mexican government officials to board
trains bound for agricultural labor camps throughout the U.S. Southwest and Pacific
Northwest to undergo yet another series of selection procedures at the hands of U.S.
agricultural grower association representatives. If they passed this selection process, these
men were issued a contract to temporarily plant and harvest cotton, fruits, and vegetables
in the United States.

38 U.S. Senate Committee on Labor Department Hearings. June 30, 1953, 164.

198
Once Mexican government officials realized that the Program was in high
demand, it tactfully re-conceptualized the management of this process and these sites. It
realized that successful management of Program selection, and more urgently, migration
within Mexico had become an important international issue. Their successful
development of an efficient model for Program management within Mexico’s borders
would persuade the U.S. government to finance the construction of selection centers
throughout Mexico’s interior, and therefore, expand recruitment and participation without
jeopardizing Mexico’s interests. Selection centers throughout Mexico’s interior would
recruit unemployed Mexican men, as well as keep ineligible Mexican men closer to their
hometowns. Instead of overcrowded areas close to the United States-Mexico border, the
Mexican government considered Empalme, Sonora the perfect location for developing a
model for Program selection and management, “a perfect example for building borders
within borders.”
39

Mexican government officials elevated the status of Empalme as the perfect
location and community for the efficient management of Mexican migration to and from
the United States, but lost sight of how this campaign would resonate among Mexican
local municipal authorities and Mexican women and men desperate for wages. The
Mexican government capitalized on Empalme’s longstanding international role and
history to develop an efficient model for managing Mexican immigration to the United
States. Since March 11, 1932, Empalme had been hailed as the Mexican crossroads to the
United States. Its railroad system facilitated commerce and transportation from Mexico’s

39 Altamirano, Agustin and Benjamin Orozco. Discursos Para El Pueblo y La Nacion. Box 45, Folders 6-
15, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

199
interior to the United States-Mexico border. Since its inception, it catered to cruzadores,
Mexican men traveling to and from this town’s train station, as they made their way to
their final destination. Community businesses and residents were used to working in bars,
banks, marketplaces, theatres, and makeshift eateries catering to large groups of Mexican
men. Mexican government officials assumed that since the town was equipped with a
transportation system and its residents were receptive to facilitating the selection and
migration of thousands of Mexican men, Mexican women’s migration and resettlement
would not be a problem.
40

On July 23, 1944, Empalme’s Program selection center opened its doors, but it
could not inspect an estimated 28,149 Mexican men who had traveled and crowded into
the town to await Program selection.
41
Mexican government officials were alarmed by
how quickly news of this selection center’s promise had reached Mexican men from as
far away as Oaxaca. They realized that, despite its long history of cruzadores, this town’s
residents were unprepared to cater to thousands of Mexican men. One week after its
opening, the Mexican government cancelled this center’s operation to re-conceptualize its
management.
42

Mexico’s most well respected border officials traveled to this center to discuss
how to expand the Mexican government’s management of the selection center to include
the town. The Mexican government was not interested in ensuring that migrant women
and men became successful heads of household or transitioned into healthier long term

40 Ibid.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid.

200
family arrangements through their migration and resettlement in this selection center’s
vicinity, but it was invested in managing where, how, and in what trades resident and
migrant women and men interacted and worked in relationship to this selection center.
The Mexican government was committed to projecting some semblance of order and
efficiency within and outside of the selection center itself.
43

The influx of Mexican women and men infuriated Empalme residents. Thousands
of residents wrote and signed petitions opposing the construction of Program inspection
facilities in close proximity to marketplaces and homes. Exposure to thousands of
Mexican men and dehumanizing inspection procedures proved undesirable to them.
Residents prided themselves on a long history of responsibly accommodating
“cruzadores,” but protested that prospective braceros were not travelers. They cautioned
that Mexican migrant women and men were impoverished and unfairly treated, and upon
growing desperate, would assault and steal from residents. Their migration would lower
their quality of life.
44

Residents also feared the presence and management for U.S. personnel. They did
not want to be managed or cast as prospective braceros or migrants, and opposed living
and working under alienating conditions. Outspoken opponents were certain that the
Mexican government would not protect their rights as residents, and that rejected
Mexican migrant men and women would temporarily or permanently settle and compete
for employment opportunities. The Mexican government’s indifference and an

43 Ibid.
44 Government Correspondence. Box 13, Folder 6, Archivo Historico del Gobierno del Estado de Sonora,
Mexico.

201
oversupply of cheap labor would compel residents to become braceros themselves. They
asserted, “we are residents and deserve to live as such and not by or like mistreated
men.”
45

The Mexican government ignored town residents’ protest, but continued to
develop a strategic mapping and distribution of local labor and prospective braceros. This
included management of this town’s business owners, migrant women, prospective
braceros, residents, and workers’ activities and trades. They prioritized managing their
interaction, so that it would not interfere with Program selection and migration.
The Mexican government emphasized the importance of a Program contract to
enforce order among prospective braceros. Passing this Program’s selection process was
critical to obtaining a contract, and Mexican men without contracts would be deported.
Mexican migrant men were expected to automatically conform to selection center
protocol and management, but also the government decided to expend much energy and
resources toward enforcing compliance with regulations among migrants and residents. It
did so by prioritizing the ways in which migrant and resident women and men would
interact with prospective braceros. Migrant female heads of household were, in fact,
conceptualized as part of the backdrop of Program management.
Mexican government officials agreed to divide the interior of Empalme’s
selection center facilities into “distinct purposeful areas” and its surrounding forty-mile
radius into sectors.
46
This decision did not include developing and enforcing codes

45 Ibid.
46 Hurtado, Gonzalo. El Manejo del Crimen y La Sexualidad en Empalme y El Program Agricola entre
Mexico y Los Estados Unidos.

202
protecting migrant and resident rights to human dignity, equal opportunity, or fair wages.
Instead, the Mexican government implemented policies that monitored where they
worked and how they interacted with one another, determining to “rid this selection
process of disorder.”
47

Mexican government officials built an official waiting area adjacent to the
Program selection center’s inspection facility. This area housed a maximum of 7,000
prospective braceros registered in municipal recruitment rosters who awaited Program
inspection with letters of recommendation in hand.
48
It was important to house these men
separately to determine how many prospective braceros were available to fill U.S. labor
quotas. Men would line up and assemble in hometown groups. They waited as long as six
to ten hours before being individually inspected. By grouping prospective braceros into
hometown groups, they hoped to enforce a sense of order among those awaiting
inspection. By placing prospective braceros in this waiting area, Mexican government
officials did not have to expend additional resources to ensure that they did not disturb
the surrounding community, since these men could wait for hours at a time.
49

The selection center’s facilities were divided into large rooms accommodating
time-saving implementation of medical, psychological, and physical examinations.
Prospective braceros were denied their privacy. As many as forty men were crowded into
large rooms, asked to undress, and comply with English speaking U.S. physicians’
instructions and procedures. Upon successfully passing these examinations, their clothes

47 Ibid.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid.

203
would be returned, and they would dress and stand in another line. Then each would be
showered with disinfectant toxic chemicals, and escorted to a lunch area. There they were
served a warm meal, provided with a few minutes to eat, and transported to the town’s
train station. They would then assemble and board trains heading for the United States.
Men who had not passed or complied with these procedures were escorted outside of
these facilities and denied a contract. Mexican and U.S. government officials tightly
managed facility interiors. Rejected Mexican men were quickly placed out of their
jurisdiction, but were expected to abide by a series of regulations or face criminal
prosecution.
50

A sense of compliance and order among migrants and residents was enforced
outside of selection center facilities through a series of measures that carved specific
sectors for migrant and resident women and men. The Mexican government relied on
town marketplaces to accommodate prospective braceros’ needs, as they waited to enter
and undergo selection in this center. Mexican women lawfully sold blankets, clothing,
food, and drinks in designated areas outside of selection center facilities. Prospective
braceros waited for as long as two to three weeks before being escorted into the selection
center facilities, and those without proper documentation could paid a series of bribes and
wait for as long as three to four weeks. Mexican government officials realized that these
men needed nourishment throughout their stay, but were unwilling to provide for it prior
to their entry into this selection center facilities.
51

50 Ibid.
51 Ibid.

204
For those willing to provide these services, unskilled employment opportunities
were abundant but extremely competitive. Mexican men were banned from vending in
this pre-designated area, commonly known as la linea (the line), but they were allowed to
enter these areas to help their female relatives or friends set up or store their makeshift
stands, equipment, and merchandise. The Mexican government did not allow men who
were not prospective braceros from loitering or vending in this area. They feared that
they would run gambling, drinking, and sex trades among prospective braceros waiting
outside this selection center facilities.
52

Closely monitoring this area’s selection center facilities also required resident and
migrant Mexican female vendors to register in this town’s employment office.
Registration consisted of a registration and lot rental fee and an application detailing
family and employment history. Married women were preferred. The Mexican
government insisted that married women were most likely to abide by the selection
center’s ban on drinking, gambling, and prostitution. Their commitment to family would
compel them to protect their sexual virtue and honor as they respectfully catered to
prospective braceros. Upon obtaining permission and assigned a lot, Mexican women
were provided with a copy of this area’s rules. Among them, women had to wear clean
clothes to work everyday, and not bring or work with their children by their side. Their
male relatives were only allowed to accompany their female relatives when setting up or
storing their stand. The Mexican government opposed visible semblances of family
among thousands of men, while the U.S. government preferred clear distinctions between

52 Ibid.

205
female employees and prospective braceros. Therefore, families were stripped of their
rights to work as families.
53

Older and newly built marketplaces were similarly administered. For years, local
and transient Mexican men had enjoyed these enclosed and open air markets, but the
selection center’s start transformed this sector’s management and purpose. This sector
was located only two blocks away from the selection center facilities, and was therefore
revamped to provide affordable meals away from the groups of men awaiting Program
inspection. After registering in the town’s employment office, migrant and resident
Mexican women and men were assigned lots to sell food and merchandise. Only men
were allowed to prepare and sell alcoholic beverages. Women were restricted to vending
blankets, clothing, food, non-alcoholic beverages, and other merchandise. Security guards
prevented the escalation of brawls among and between prospective braceros, other
customers, and vendors, and to arrest vendors in violation of the sector’s laws. Protecting
vendors against assault or theft did not appear to be a priority. Instead, security personnel
were ordered to arrest drunk or violent prospective braceros.
54
Violation of Program
selection center marketplace rules would result in their arrest and forfeiture of their
permission to work in the sector.
Mexican women and men living within a forty-mile radius from selection center
facilities were required to complete registration forms detailing their employment and
family history. They did not pay a fee, but agreed to comply with the Mexican
government’s management of the town. Officials incorporated residents into their

53 Ibid.
54 Ibid.

206
management of this town to instill a sense of accountability among residents working
outside of the selection centers’ line and marketplace sectors. Mexican government
officials explained that this registration would encourage residents to avoid criminal
activity at a time when the town was catering to thousands of financially desperate
Mexican men.
Prospective braceros were also prosecuted for criminal acts. If they attacked,
assaulted, raped, or stole from vendors or residents, they would be prosecuted and
transported to their hometowns to serve their sentence.
55
Such prosecution would
automatically make them ineligible for a Program contract, and ban them from the
selection center. The Mexican government enforced a strict sense of order among these
men outside and within the selection center facilities’ gates.
The Mexican government adopted a different approach to managing Empalme’s
“black” sector. Mexican women and men working in this sector entertained Mexican men
in bars, brothels, hotels, pool halls, and taverns. Mexican government officials required
business owners to pay a registration fee and sign an agreement similar to that signed by
residents. Women working as prostitutes were also registered. Unlike resident and vendor
agreements, these women and men agreed not to enter or solicit trade within forty miles
of the Program selection center facilities. The Mexican government did not allow
“delinquents and those without permission to work or jeopardize Mexican women and
men’s efforts to earn an honest living.” Mexican government officials decided that they
did not have the resources nor the local support to prosecute the myriad of crimes

55 Ibid.

207
associated with this sector’s trade, and found it far more feasible to restrict these trades to
this sector, located approximately two miles away from the selection center facilities.
56

Town residents and migrant women felt alienated by these priorities and
restrictions. It undermined their ability to work as respectable members of families. They
had relationships and responsibilities that were contingent on gainful employment and
perceptions of honor and respect. The regulations implemented by Mexican government
officials required migrant and resident women and men to disclose family and
employment histories to complete strangers in public offices. Additionally, Mexican
women and men were discouraged by the deterioration of their work conditions.
Displaced migrant women and men had made it far more competitive for locals to earn a
livable wage. Mexican women and men working the line and marketplaces worked
longer shifts under increasingly alienating terms for low wages.
The Mexican government overlooked such decline in residents’ quality of living.
Instead, it continued to frame its management of the town’s selection center facilities,
sectors, and community as a safety measure in protection of local and national interests.
The influx of thousands of Mexican women and men desperate for employment was
managed as a registered and well monitored distribution of labor and inspection of
Mexican men. Mexican government officials did not however, pursue managing Mexican
men’s migration after failing to pass the selection center’s inspection procedures.
By August 18, 1947, Mexican women and men’s migration and resettlement in
this town had significantly increased. An estimated 22,788 Mexican men and 4,367

56 Ibid.

208
women migrated to this selection center and town on a bi-weekly basis.
57
An
indeterminate number of migrant women and an estimated 13,712 men that had not
passed selection procedures pursued employment in the town’s various sectors.
58
This
resettlement re-ignited the Mexican government’s determination to manage the
distribution of Mexican migration and resettlement according to Program goals. It did not
protect the interests of long time residents nor newly arrived migrants. Alienated
residents did not conform to such management without expressing their dissent.
Dissent Over Working Conditions and Gendered Living in the Sectors
On March 16, 1948, Cristina Rodriguez, a fourteen-year resident and line vendor,
filed a complaint detailing her frustration with employment office and security personnel.
Employment office personnel proved condescending and required employment permit
renewal applicants to wait in line for six to eight hours to provide personal information
they had already provided the year before upon completing their original employment
application. Their employment and family history were consistently under investigation.
Rodriguez blamed her alienation on recently arrived migrant women and men. Prior to
their arrival, she had not worried about fulfilling gendered eligibility requirements to
work longer shifts in areas inundated with thousands of Mexican men. The distribution of
women and men in distinct sectors without protections against sexual harassment and low
wages made it increasingly difficult to abide by the Mexican government’s terms. She
urged the Mexican government to launch a campaign against Mexican migrant women’s
settlement, and asserted “that she was tired of competing with so many newly arrived

57 Ibid.
58 Ibid.

209
women without earning much and under much government and disrespectful bracero’
harassment.”
59
Their entry and resettlement had transformed her into a “contratada in
Mexico” (contract laborer).
60

Cristina also accused the Mexican government of stripping women and men of
their citizenship. She angrily protested that the migrant, resident, and prospective
braceros were treated like “poor criminals without morals and scruples.” Suspicion of
merchant, vendor, or resident violation of the Program’s rules automatically banned them
from employment sectors. They were not allowed to defend themselves or appeal such
charges. A long history of responsible employment and citizenship was not considered
when handling accusations of criminal activity.
Such management also strained her marriage. Her husband was ashamed of her.
He and their children helped Cristina prepare, set up, and store her merchandise, but were
not allowed to help her cater to thousands of men in a fast paced, poorly paid, and
competitive vending environment. Confronting men who were disrespectful and
financially desperate proved challenging. Her husband’s inability to earn enough to
enable her to quit and leave this town was emasculating. He could not protect his wife
from such harassment and pace. Both worked in separate venues to support and educate
their children in a local economy transformed by the influx of migrant women and men.
Working in this sector had become increasingly demanding.
Two years after the opening of Program’s selection center facilities, security
guards were removed from this sector, and vendors’ claims of harassment were rarely

59 Government Correspondence. Box 35, Folder 77, Archivo Historico del Estado de Sonora, Mexico.
60 Ibid.

210
prosecuted. Unlike migrant and resident women and men, prospective braceros were not
aggressively prosecuted. Between August 1946 and August 1947, selection center records
reveal that an estimated 920 braceros had been banned from these sectors in comparison
to 8,893 Mexican women and men registered as bartenders, cooks, merchants, and
vendors for altercations in violation of sector regulations.
61
Despite this sector’s close
proximity to the selection center facilities, the Mexican government’s terms of
employment did not include enforcing orderly and respectful conduct toward migrant or
resident women.
Jacqueline Mejia’s letter of complaint illustrates how long time residents
reorganized their lives to accommodate the resettlement of Mexican migrant women and
men. To earn a livable wage, Mexican women and men maintained arduous work
schedules. Accompanied or on their own, women would travel and set up their assigned
lots by 5:00 a.m. to coincide with Program selection center’s hours of operation. Failure
to set up by this time would result in fines. Women and men were responsible for
managing their trade in accordance with selection center priorities. Mejia opposed
working under terms that objectified her as part of this selection center’s personnel and
backdrop. She protested that “The dangers confronted when working among men without
family support is tiring and dangerous. Anyone can disrespect and pay me what they
want. I am tired of working and being mistreated like a contracted worker without a
wage.”
62
Although the Mexican government did not finance her business expenditures
and rental fees nor pay her an hourly wage, she was required to cook, vend, and have

61 Hurtado, Gonzalo. El Crimen en Empalme y El Program Agricola entre Mexico y Los Estados Unidos.
62 Personnel Correspondence. Box 35, Folder 77, Archivo Historico del Estado de Sonora, Mexico.

211
large orders of food ready for prospective braceros in accordance with selection center
demands. The Mexican government justified such management as integral toward
satisfying U.S. Program selection center requests. Well fed prospective braceros would
patiently await their inspection. Mexican and U.S. government officials did not consider
how such employment conditions overburdened Mexicans themselves. Like Mejia, they
had to abide by this Program’s selection centers’ vision of Mexican women’s labor.
Mejia’s letter also reveals how Mexican women had to project and inspire order
and respect. It was not enough to cater to prospective braceros sixteen hours a day.
Mexican women had to “look clean and honorable.”
63
Selection center personnel fined
“dirty or scantily clad” business managers, cooks, merchants, and vendors working in the
line and marketplaces close to this selection center facilities. They feared that Mexican
women’s “poor or provocative” appearance and demeanor would give rise to sexual
attacks and prostitution.
64
The Mexican government justified such measures by
explaining that creating an environment that was completely different from the outlying
black sector would inspire orderly and respectful conduct in these sectors. It claimed that
it did not have the resources or personnel to protect Mexican women from prospective
braceros’ sexual harassment. A “projection of cleanliness and respectability” would
compel prospective braceros to conceptualize these sectors as respectable business
environments.
65

63 Hurtado, Gonzalo. El Crimen en Empalme y El Program Agricola entre Mexico y Los Estados Unidos.
64 Ibid.
65 Ibid.

212
Such measures compelled Mexican women and men to develop their own
gendered hierarchies of belonging within the selection centers’ sectors and outside the
Mexican and U.S. government’s reach. Long time residents worked together to protect
their successful transition into heads of household in this selection town by taking
advantaging of migrant women trying to do the same. Established and long time resident
women and men hired migrant women to work their lots either early mornings or late
evenings for poor wages. Desperate migrant women juggled six to nine of these
assignments to provide for themselves and the families they left behind in their
hometowns.
66

Migrant women settled for these employment opportunities because they could
not finance their own lot rental fees. Upon registering and obtaining an employment
permit, they worked in the line and marketplace sectors at hours that coincided with
fellow resident women’s family obligations and preferences. Migrant women were
employed to work when fellow vendors left to care for their families or did not want to
cater to impatient prospective braceros. These were usually evening shifts. Migrant
women conformed to such employment conditions out of a deep sense of obligation to
their families.
Maribel Alvarez’s detailed account of her employment in this selection center
town reveals how her gendered sense of belonging was contingent on resident Mexican
women’s needs. A group of five vendors pooled their resources, and hired her to tend and
clean their business lots and homes. Alvarez’s belonging and employment was contingent

66 Ibid.

213
on whether her labor facilitated their undertaking of family obligations without drawing
the Mexican government’s attention. Overburdened resident Mexican women would get
home too tired to cook, clean, wash, and care for their families. They depended on
Maribel to meet their family and selection center obligations by taking advantage of her
status. As Maribel explained to her relatives “she had to be very accommodating and
overlook much. She had to work all types of jobs at all hours of the day for a reasonable
wage. I settle for eating a bowl of beans and a few tortillas, but it is worth it. I am sending
you a few pesos, so that you can get back on your feet. In our hometown I can’t do this,
working among our people.”
67

Securing a lawful living arrangement was also critical to migrant women’s
transition into successful heads of household. It consisted of belonging to respectable
barrios (neighborhoods). Josefina Valencia’s housing application confirms that this was
a gendered process with strong ties to the Program’s selection center management.
Migrant women usually shared apartments with one another in buildings designated for
married and single migrant women’s occupancy. The Mexican government, building
managers, and barrio residents opposed the proliferation of prostitution. To avoid the
emergence of prostitution, migrant women had to provide proof of employment, as well
as complete extensive applications detailing their employment and family history.
Married women were preferred and usually grouped to “guide” single women. Their
migration was assumed to be driven by family obligations. Single women had to offset
suspicions of prostitution by providing proof of full time employment. Building managers

67 Town Correspondence Files. Box 89, Folder 52, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

214
had to file their applications in this town’s hall of records to ensure accountability. The
Mexican government was committed to restricting town settlement to lawfully employed
migrant women.
68

Teresa Mendoza’ letter of complaint confirms that migrant women resented such
gendered policies. Mexican migrant men were not required to provide such
documentation to rent apartments. The Mexican government had cast them as temporary
migrants. Mexican government officials’ correspondence illustrates that they did not
support Mexican men’s settlement, because this would “complicate a barely manageable
situation.”
69
It would blur the difference between residents and prospective braceros, and
“ruin their projection of order.”
70
These officials opposed the settlement of unemployed
Mexican migrant men, but accommodated migrant women. Although, Teresa was
unaware of these discussions, she resented becoming a “full time managed employee to
make up for the Mexican government’s continued negligence or Program sanctioned
family separation.”
71

Her opposition was muted by the plight of resident and migrant women working
in this selection center town’s black sector. In Mendoza’s words, “The Mexican
government’s indifference to their terms of employment and living arrangements exposed
women to the worst kind of emotional and physical abuse.”
72
It was safer to live and work
in the line and marketplace sectors, since drinking, gambling, prostitution, and other

68 Hurtado, Gonzalo. El Crimen en Empalme y El Program Agricola entre Mexico y Los Estados Unidos.
69 Hurtado, Gonzalo. El Crimen en Empalme y El Program Agricola entre Mexico y Los Estados Unidos.
70 Ibid.
71 Town Correspondence Files.Box 45, Folder 36, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
72 Ibid.

215
forms of entertainment were restricted to the black sector, and criminal activity was
rarely prosecuted. Women and men working in the black sector were not managed as
employees, but as a “necessary evil.”
73
Mexican Program selection center officials
assured U.S. personnel that financing the criminalization of these trades would prevent its
proliferation in sectors closest to selection center facilities.
To ease the U.S. government’s anxiety, the Mexican government aggressively
monitored “black sector elements” in the marketplace sector. On April 8, 1948,
marketplace restaurant owners’ lawful incorporation of female and male entertainers to
increase their profits, prompted selection center officials to increase their surveillance.
On June 20, 1949, Gloria Mendoza and Benito Hurtado, a young female and male duo
singer act, were banned and jailed from the selection center town’s marketplace sector
when singing songs capturing Mexican women’s plight in the black sector. After a few
weeks of performing in front of large crowds of prospective braceros, they were arrested
and apprehended after Mendoza was caught “scantily clad and drunk” before going
onstage. U.S. and Mexican selection center officials reported that such conduct and
performance were intolerable.
74
It set a poor example, and inspired the “passions of
prospective braceros.”
75

Confining a “necessary evil” to this town’s black sector was also the impetus
behind cautionary letters written by Mexican migrant women working as prostitutes in
this sector to provide for their families in their hometowns. Alejandra Arellano, a twenty

73 Public Life Files. Box 100. Folder 2. Archivo Historico de Sonora, Mexico.
74 Ibid.
75 Ibid.

216
five year old mother of three had migrated to this selection center town from San Martin
de Hidalgo in pursuit of a successful transition into head of household duties by working
in this selection center’s marketplace sector. After four months of working in the black
sector, she cautioned her younger sister, Claudia Martinez, to avoid migrating to Program
selection centers. She explained that Mexican migrant women were suspect and cornered
into exploitative and highly monitored employment and living arrangements or
prostitution. She warned, “Do not migrate to this selection center. You are bound to
regret it and then you do not know what to do. As a newly arrived woman, you are not
entitled to a healthy livelihood, any man approaches and demands intercourse. It is really
humiliating and becomes a necessity.”
76

Arellano’s transition into living and working in this town’s black sector had
begun in the town’s marketplace sector. She wandered the streets without success.
Nobody would hire her on account of her frail condition. Unemployed women were not
allowed to loiter. “Their presence and interaction had to be lawful and purposeful.”
77
Her
desperation and hometown family obligations cornered her to enter and work in the black
sector. Impoverished migrant women who did not secure lawful employment in the line
or marketplace sectors were left with few choices.
Her “nightmare” began after accepting to work as a waitress in a bar.
78
After
receiving her first week’s wages, she was pressured into prostitution. Earning twice as
much wages than her waitress job would facilitate leaving this trade and possibly

76 Town Correspondence Files. Box 56, Folder 11, Archivo Historico del Estado de Sonora, Mexico.
77 Ibid.
78 Town Correspondence Files. Box 56, Folder 11 Archivo Historico del Estado de Sonora, Mexico.

217
relocating with her entire family to a town without any immediate ties to the Program.
After a few weeks in the sex trade, she had already been beaten and robbed twice. Such
abuse had dashed her hopes of ever reuniting with her family. She felt ashamed and
disillusioned, and settled for sending remittances and this cautionary letter to her family.
She assured Martinez that migrant women had few alternatives. Government
officials, merchants, vendors, and pimps facilitated restrictive and exploitative
transitions. She ended her letter by assuring her sister that if her remittances prevented
Martinez’s migration, her migration and sacrifice had been worthwhile. Unfortunately,
Martinez did not receive Arellano’s letter. On her way to the town’s post office, she was
assaulted and fatally beaten. This letter was filed with a police report, as well as a note
explaining that money found in her purse were used to pay her medical treatment. She
was hospitalized for two days before passing. It can be assumed that police and medical
personnel did not inform Martinez and the rest of Arellano’s family.
Arellano’s narrative details her arrival, alienation, and employment. It elaborates
on Mexican migrant women’s circuitous transition in selection centers and towns. By
fleshing out migrant women’s employment opportunities, she defines the gendered costs
of migration. Her narrative corroborates and elaborates on town residents’ concerns and
objections to this transition, but also draws attention to government negligence on a
national level. Abandoned and neglected migrant female heads of households and their
families began an honest conversation about Mexico’s internal borders.
Patrolling Female Sexuality and Gender Violations

218
Cautionary letters, however, would not have their desired effect. Abandoned and
neglected bracero female relatives and widows continued to migrate to Program selection
centers in pursuit of transitioning into migrant female heads of household. By October
13, 1950, an estimated 95,122 Mexican women from the state of Jalisco had migrated to
Program selection centers and towns throughout Mexico.
79
Victoria Hernandez was
among them. She could not support her daughters and mother working in San Martin de
Hidalgo. After working five years in Empalme’s selection center’s marketplace sector,
she did not write her family cautionary letters, but settled with her daughters by her side
in this selection center town.
After five years vending and cleaning resident vendors’ homes and lots, she and
three other migrant female vendors had saved enough to rent a lot in the marketplace
sector. Working longer shifts in this marketplace sector at her discretion maximized her
earning potential, but not enough to continue financing two households’ expenditures.
Working with her daughters by her side had become necessary for emotional and
financial reasons.
Her daughters were emotionally alienated throughout her migration. Upon
receiving remittances, they would write appreciative letters accounting for their
expenditures, as well as conveying their sadness. Elementary school teachers, fellow
students, and neighbors would tease and deny them their friendship. They were
ostracized, because of her migration. Their grandmother was also marginalized. Female
migrants’ responsible management of their migration did not persuade community

79 Madrigal, Victor. El Censo de la Mujer Mexicana. Guadalajara, Jalisco: Mexico, 1940-1950.

219
residents to respect and befriend their families left behind. Her daughters were dismissed
as future reckless migrants. Community residents insisted that remittances and a
grandparent’s care would not prevent their eventual migration pa’ el rumbo de las
contractados (to selection centers and towns).
80

Hernandez was committed to ending her daughters’ ostracism. Living and
working with her daughters by her side in this selection center town would prove a
difficult transition, but she believed that it would eventually facilitate a desirable family
transition. Negotiating tight management alongside similarly marginalized women would
inspire her daughters to pursue aggressively an education, and in turn, a well paid skilled
trade. Hernandez prioritized raising her children, so that her daughters’ would learn to
value her sacrifice, as well as make sacrifices of their own to transition out of this
selection center’s sector. She did not want them to have an excuse but an incentive to
avoid unskilled migration.
They began their transition by sharing a room in a five story apartment building
with two other migrant vendors, attending school with other vendors’ children, and
helping Victoria set up and store merchandise. They worked cleaning other vendors’
homes on weekends to help their mother pay for their tuition and send remittances to
their grandmother, who had been too sick to accompany them. Although they missed
their grandmother and hometown life, they preferred living and working by their
mother’s side. Their teachers, fellow students, and neighbors were supportive. Resident
and migrant women and men confronted similar challenges and, for the most part,

80 Victoria Hernandez Deposition. Box 15, Folder 8, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

220
cooperated to avoid drawing the selection center’s attention. Their children and now her
daughters aspired to transition out of this selection center town.
However an overhaul of Program management forced thousands of Mexican
resident and migrant women to reconsider living and working in this selection center
town. On October 20, 1954, Hernandez and her daughters were approached by Carmen
Razo, a female selection center official, upon setting up their stand. Razo handed
Hernandez a handkerchief, and demanded that she immediately wipe “the disgusting
streams of sweat coursing her forehead” and hand over her medical certificate and
license.
81
Hernandez did not have much more than five years’ worth of marketplace rent
receipts. Razo reiterated that a medical certificate and license were required to work
lawfully in these selection centers’ line, marketplace and black sectors. She explained
that she had exactly one week to appear before Program selection center officials to pay
licensing fees and undergo medical examinations. Only after payment of these fees and
passing these examinations were women issued a medical certificate and license.
Otherwise they would be fined and banned from the selection center’s sectors.
82

Hernandez insisted that Razo was mistaken. She asserted that she did not deserve
to undergo medical examinations, because she did not work in the black sector. She
furiously pleaded, that “no, no, no como ellas, investiguele mas señorita!” (no, no, not
like them, investigate some more, Miss!), explaining that since her arrival, she had
steered clear of “the heavily made up and skimpily clad women of the black sector.”
83

81 Ibid.
82 Ibid.
83 Ibid.

221
She claimed that she had fastened her breasts and hips with bendas (pieces of elastic
cloth) for years to hide her figure and offset prospective braceros’ stares. Razo ignored
her pleas, and approached the next vendor.
By December 3, 1954, an estimated 28,865 Mexican women were summoned to
appear before selection center officials.
84
It became a governmental priority and Mexican
women’s obligation to prove that they were not infected or with venereal disease. Long
time residents and recently arrived migrant women were medically examined to
determine their eligibility to cater to prospective braceros within a forty mile radius of
Empalme’s selection center facilities. Efficient Program selection and migration
management required employment and surveillance of “healthy Mexican women.”
85

Protecting Mexico’s most eligible men from sexually transmitted diseases became a
priority, and inspired a series of well coordinated migrations to and away from this
selection center and town. The alienation and plight of Mexican migrant female heads of
household would finally draw local, national, and international concern.
Long time residents and migrant women and men were used to documenting their
employment and family histories to provide lawfully for their families, but undergoing
medical examinations alongside entertainers, prostitutes, and other black sector
employees was humiliating. Examining women under suspicion of irresponsible sexual
promiscuity inspired a series of reactions. Mexican women working the line and
marketplace sectors opposed becoming “sexual elements worthy of suspicion and

84 Ibid.
85 Ibid.

222
examination.”
86
They opposed being treated like “sex workers.”
87
They retorted that they
had already abided by strict employment terms for years to prove that their interaction
with prospective braceros and other men did not include sexual intercourse in exchange
for money. The Program’s vision of order had finally taken its toll. Women and
eventually entire families would resist transitioning into female heads of household
according to the Mexican and U.S. governments’ vision of “efficient” Program selection
and migration.
88

The Mexican and U.S. governments’ expansion of Program selection center and
town management to include documentation of women’s interaction had its roots in
Mexican men’s failure to conform to Program management on a national scale. By
August 19, 1951, the Program’s selection process had lost its validity. Mexican men
continued traveling in droves in pursuit of contracts to selection centers and towns, but
news of expensive, dehumanizing, and failed waiting periods and inspection procedures
in selection centers discouraged Mexican men from abiding by the Program’s terms.
Additionally, U.S. growers did not have a penchant for Mexican men’s medical history.
They often preferred hiring “unfit droves of transient Mexican men” than the “most
eligible of Mexico’s men.”
89
This resulted in an increase in undocumented migration to
the United States. Clearly, Bracero Program officials on both sides of the border had not
developed a successful model for managing Mexican migration to and from the United

86 Public Inquiry Correspondence Files, Box 9, Folder 2, Archivo General de Guadalajara, Jalisco,
Mexico.
87 Ibid.
88 Ibid.
89 U.S. Senate Committee on Labor Department Hearings, April 6, 1954, 38.

223
States. Indeed, one result of the expansion of undocumented migration to the United
States was a noticeable rise in incidences of venereal disease. By January 18, 1954,
undocumented Mexican immigration to the United States had significantly increased.
Eight hundred and twenty five U.S. grower associations alone employed an estimated
3,000 undocumented Mexican men on a monthly basis.
90
Mexican and U.S. government
Program officials estimated that approximately 113,000 undocumented Mexican men
entered the United States every year.
91
Program selection and management had failed.
Mexican men’s financial needs and U.S. growers’ violations of the Bracero Program had
undermined the Program’s management.
On June 13, 1954, U.S. Program officials attempted to revitalize this Program’s
management, and placate unemployed U.S. domestic agricultural laborers’ protest.
Undocumented Mexican men were seen as displacing and lowered U.S. domestic
agricultural laborers’ wages. The U.S. government launched Operation Wetback to assert
management of the United States-Mexico border and the validity of the Bracero Program.
It did not prosecute U.S. growers, but employed an estimated 750 border patrol
investigators and officers; 300 buses, cars, and jeeps; 7 airplanes; and other equipment to
apprehend, interrogate, and deport an estimated 285,000 undocumented Mexican
immigrants in the United States.
92
Such show of force did not end undocumented

90 U.S. Senate Committee on Labor Department Hearings. Feburary 7, 1954, 77.
91 Immigration Profiles. Folder 29, Box 88, Archivo Historico del Estado de Sonora, Mexico.
92 Ibid.

224
Mexican immigration. Months after this operation, U.S. Program officials reported the
apprehension of 111,304 undocumented Mexican immigrants in the United States.
93

“Operation Wetback” and an outbreak of venereal disease resonated throughout
Mexico, as the Mexican and U.S. governments had to confront managing the interaction
between Mexican women and prospective braceros in Program selection centers and
towns. Mexican newspapers reported that selection center towns were inundated with
Mexican women and men. They reported that, unlike previous migrations, migrant
women and prospective braceros did not patiently await selection. On September 2, 1954,
an estimated 8,300 inspected prospective braceros had been denied a contract after testing
positive for venereal disease in Empalme’s selection center.
94
This was significantly
higher than in previous years. It was reported that throughout this Program selection
center’s history, among 13,000 inspected prospective braceros, 20 to 25 men tested
positive for venereal disease on a monthly basis.
95

Such statistics cast doubt on the Mexican and U.S. governments’ management of
Mexican women. Their management of the distribution and surveillance of Program
selection center facilities and town sectors had not prevented this outbreak of sexually
transmitted diseases. Selection center officials blamed Mexican women for the outbreak
of venereal disease among prospective braceros. Selection center officials explained that

93 Ibid.
94 Ibid.
95 “Problemas en Empalme ,”El Heraldo (Empalme, Sonora), October 12, 1954.; “La Sifilis Brota en
Empalme,” El Excelsior (Empalme, Sonora), October 11,1954.; “Invade el Sifilis ,” El Excelsior
(Empalme, Sonora), October 12, 1954.; “Los Braceros Sufren de Sifilis,”El Nacional (Empalme, Sonora).;

225
Mexican men testing positive for venereal disease had tested negative for the disease
upon initial inspection in their hometowns.
96
Hence, on October 2, 1954, Mexican and U.S. Program selection center officials
launched a campaign of their own. They pressured Mexican women to endure
humiliating inspection procedures. The U.S. government’s demand for eligible Mexican
men trumped Mexican female rights to human dignity. Mexican selection center officials
like Carmen Razo summoned, medically examined, and registered Mexican women like
Victoria Hernandez, in an attempt to manage their presumed sexual interaction with
prospective braceros on a bi-monthly basis.
97
Regardless of their employment and family
histories, women were examined and registered. Their eligibility to work within a 40 mile
radius of prospective braceros rested on their “sexual health.”
98
The Mexican
government assured the U.S. government that this campaign would deter Mexican
women closest to selection center facilities from sexually interacting and contaminating
prospective braceros. It would instill accountability among Mexican women and facilitate
their identification, treatment, and potential expulsion.
The Mexican government assured the U.S. government that it had considerable
experience managing venereal disease. It made reference to its implementation of El
Reglamento of 1926 and 1944, when officials managed the spread of sexually transmitted
disease in the nation’s capital by mandating the testing of Mexican female prostitutes for

“Se Marchan Las Mujeres?,”El Heraldo (Empalme, Sonora), October 20, 1954.; “Las Mujeres Dan
Marcha,” El Excelsior (Empalme, Sonora), October 18,1954.; “La Mujer Mexicana Se Va ,” El Excelsior
(Empalme, Sonora), October 18, 1954.; “Las Mujeres Rompen Camino,”El Nacional (Empalme, Sonora),
October 19, 1954.
97 Personnel Correspondence Files. Folders 2-3, Box 13. Archivo Historico del Estado de Sonora, Mexico.
98 Hurtado, Gonzalo. El Crimen en Empalme y El Program Agricola entre Mexico y Los Estados Unidos.
Box 120, Folder 4, Archivo Historico del Estado de Sonora, Mexico.

226
venereal disease every three to four months.
99
The U.S. government’s insistence that the
Mexican government manage this as an international issue, and criminalize this trade to
assert a semblance of order would prove disastrous.
This campaign did not trouble Mexican families nationwide. They continued to
ignore how this Program’s management deprived Mexican migrant and other women of
their dignity and humanity. Their vilification, forced medical examinations, and poverty
drove women to migrate illegally to the United States. Newspaper stories reporting high
apprehension rates of Mexican women who had worked in this selection center town
alarmed Mexican and U.S. government authorities, as well as families throughout Mexico
and the United States. An estimated 9,225 Mexican women had been arrested when
traveling to the United States-Mexico border from this selection center town.
100
U.S. and
Mexican selection center officials responded by interrogating apprehended Mexican
women on their family’s whereabouts. They assumed that holding their families’
accountable would deter Mexican women. Such measures reveal the Mexican
government’s misunderstanding of this female migration within Mexico and attempted
immigration to the United States. Most women did not know their bracero and
undocumented immigrant male relatives’ whereabouts and had migrated to this selection
center town in search of employment. Then, having little recourse, they immigrated
north.

99 Bliss, Rebecca. Prostitution and the Politics of Gender, pg. 205, Pennsylvania: PA, University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2003.
100 Immigration Profiles. Folder 19, Box101, Archivo Historico del Estado de Sonora, Mexico.

227
Despite U.S. government warnings, the Mexican government did not
conceptualize nor manage this campaign as an international issue. The Mexican
government feared an outbreak of venereal disease in the United States, but did not
satisfactorily pursue curbing Mexican female undocumented immigration to the United
States. Therefore, the U.S. government expanded its own management of Mexican
women in Empalme. It recruited fifty Mexican American women to administer and
maintain accurate and thorough records of Mexican women apprehended and interacting
with prospective braceros. Officials were confident that their allegiance to the United
States would facilitate responsible management of what had become a national security
issue. The U.S. government did not welcome Mexican women, because they feared that
they would facilitate undocumented Mexican family reunification and settlement north of
the border, and perhaps spread venereal disease in the United States.
Employing Mexican American Women
The U.S. government aggressively recruited Mexican American women by
guaranteeing safe and purposeful employment. Unlike the Mexican government, the U.S.
government was committed to protecting female employees’ rights. It informed
applicants and their families that they “would be working with impoverished and disease
ridden Mexican women and men in a border environment.”
101
It did not glamorize this
opportunity, but asserted its importance to the U.S. nation’s security, and explained that
female personnel fluent in Spanish were critical to thorough examinations and
dissemination of information among Mexican women on the perils of undocumented

101 Program Selection Personnel Files. Box 70, Folder 18, Archivo Historico del Estado de Sonora,
Mexico.

228
immigration. U.S. government officials facilitated a discourse on the gendered costs of
undocumented immigration in the United States. Discouraging alienated and
impoverished Mexican women from pursuing undocumented resettlement in the United
States became the cornerstone of their conceptualization of Program selection and
migration management. The Mexican government accommodated this new U.S policy.
After all, the U.S. government was interested in recruiting only the most eligible of
Mexico’s men.
Hundreds of Mexican Americans applied for these positions. Each provided
letters of recommendation written by current and former employers, educators, and
relatives. These letters confirmed their allegiance to the United States, as well as previous
experience as educators, nurses, and secretaries. According to their résumés, they had
dedicated themselves to training and working for the U.S. Consulate. Most applicants had
previously worked in U.S. Consulate offices in North, Central, and South America. 89
percent of applicants and 92 percent of those hired were single. Working along the
United States-Mexico border provided an employment opportunity compatible with their
long history of employment and travel abroad.
Nonetheless, such employment opportunities strained the applicants’ family
relationships. Unlike Mexican families who were intolerant of Mexican women’s
unaccompanied and unsupervised migration, Mexican American parents in the United
States worried about their highly educated and trained daughters’ alienation on account of
their failure to marry. Their purposeful employment would lift their spirits or create much

229
needed distance between their daughters and parents. These Mexican American families
were far more tolerant of their daughters’ independent transitions.
Margarita Hernandez, a twenty four year old applicant, requested the U.S.
government’s special consideration. She claimed that her family and friends “found her
prospects in life discouraging, and protect[ing] national security would redeem her.”

102
After completing an undergraduate education, she had worked as a Consulate secretary
in three different countries. Her unwillingness to settle and start a family of her own in
the United States was “tearing her family apart.”
103
Hernandez explained that
administering an international campaign in protection of U.S. interests would provide her
“with an opportunity to help disenfranchised Mexican women understand their plight, as
well as reveal the value of an education and training among family friends.”
104
She
anticipated that her successful participation in this campaign would help them look past
marriage, as the only vehicle for “self-fulfillment.”
105

Applicants’ parents wrote letters of support detailing similar situations. Edward
Sandoval supported his daughter’s application, because he believed that “distinguished
service in this campaign would allow her to continue to lead a purposeful life.”
106

Twenty-eight years old, Angie Sandoval had completed a college education, vocational
training, worked for the Consulate, and earned several awards for her distinguished
service in nursing, but was ostracized by family and friends. Her failure to marry and

102 Record Group 42. Box 52, Folder 16, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
Maryland.
103 Ibid.
104 Ibid.
105 Ibid.
106 Personnel Files. Box 52, Folder 16, Record Group 42, National Archives and Records Administration,
College Park Maryland.

230
unaccompanied travel and service throughout Central and South America had cast doubt
on her sexual virtue and honorability. Unsupervised travel and employment among
women and men for extended periods of time had made her “an undesirable wife.”
107

Sandoval wanted his daughter to continue living a purposeful life. Administering an
international campaign “benefiting impoverished Mexican women” would reinforce a
sense of self-worth at a difficult time in his daughter’s life. He claimed that “a purposeful
migration would greatly benefit his daughter’s spirit.”
108

Most of these Mexican American applicants were not as privileged as relatively
well educated Protestant white women who led comfortable middle class lives. Despite
their educational background, they had not achieved what Elaine Tyler May described as
“the postwar American dream.”
109
They did not live in a “model home, had not married a
male breadwinner, and were not full time homemakers adorned with a wide array of
consumer goods.”
110
They had not derived “personal fulfillment through professionalized
homemaking, meaningful child bearing, and satisfying sexuality.”
111
Instead and often
with the support of their families, they achieved and nurtured self-fulfillment through
their employment, service, and travel. Although applicants and their families
misunderstood Mexican women’s struggles, they also sought to assert a sense of self-
fulfillment and redemption that defied gendered family and community expectations.

107 Ibid.
108 Ibid.
109 May, Elaine Tyler. Homeward Bound. Minneapolis: Minesota, University of Temple Press, 2002,xviii.
110 May, Elaine Tyler. Homeward Bound. Minneapolis: Minesota, University of Temple Press, 2002,11.
111 May, Elaine Tyler. Homeward Bound. Minneapolis: Minesota, University of Temple Press, 2002,104.

231
The U.S. government prioritized “employing the best qualified applicants of
Mexican heritage.”
112
It found it too “dangerous to employ English speaking Protestant
white women to register and administer medical examinations in a tense male border
environment.”
113
Regardless of Mexican American female applicants’ motivation and
qualifications, they were considered the most adept to administer this campaign based on
linguistic ability and cultural familiarity on account of their race and ethnicity. The U.S.
government explained to U.S. personnel already working in this selection center and
town that the Mexican government would be receptive to “women who spoke the same
language and understood their customs.”
114
Prospective braceros and Mexican women
would not attack or harass Mexican American women out of a “sense of admiration and
respect for a well educated woman of Mexican heritage.”
115
They were certain that
Mexican government authorities and citizens would treat them as “exemplary
representatives of their race.”
116

Nonetheless, the U.S. government carefully managed Mexican American female
personnel’s migration, employment, and leisure activities. Women were housed in well
guarded apartment buildings, and chaperoned when leaving, entering, and walking about
the selection center and town. They dedicated themselves to the registration and
examination of Mexican women and writing thorough reports detailing Mexican
women’s response to their advice that they pursue lawful employment in this selection

112 Program Selection Personnel Files. Box 70, Folder 18, Archivo Historico del Estado de Sonora,
Mexico.
113 Ibid.
114 Ibid.
115 Ibid.
116 Ibid.

232
center town or elsewhere in Mexico. Mexican selection center personnel resented
Mexican American women’s condescension, or used this as an excuse to request the
incorporation of 50 Mexican female secretaries and nurses to complement Mexican
American women’s efforts.
117

Mexican government officials claimed that Mexican women would prove far
more effective in encouraging Mexican women to live and work lawfully within
Mexico’s borders, because they were leading purposeful lives themselves. Although both
governments were invested in disseminating this discourse, they did not define under
what terms Mexican women would achieve healthy and productive lives as heads of
household. Neither government acknowledged that poverty was at the heart of Mexican
women’s migration to this selection center and town, as well as undocumented
immigration to the United States. Mexican American selection center officials
characterized Mexicana reaction by detailing whether each woman had “patiently
listened” or “responded with hostility.”
118
Most Mexican women were characterized as
having “patiently listened.”
119

Cooperation between Mexican American and Mexican selection center personnel
was not commonplace. Competition between selection center personnel resulted in
competing proposals envisioning the implementation of a dehumanizing recruitment
campaigns targeting Mexican women specifically, as well as prospective braceros.
Mexican American personnel were avid supporters of employment opportunities that

117 Ibid.
118 Ibid.
119 Ibid.

233
continued to cast Mexican women as temporary workers. They encouraged the U.S.
government to consider developing “wet maid” employment opportunities. Claiming that
Mexican women living and working in selection center towns were underpaid,
undernourished, and would prove “excellent temporary housekeepers in the United
States.”
120
U.S. middle class families would provide these women with well paid
honorable employment. This would allow Mexican women “to transition into gainfully
employed migrant female heads of household.”
121

Upon reviewing their support of this temporary employment program for Mexican
women, the U.S. government admonished Mexican American female personnel for
“overstepping their boundaries.”
122
It cautioned that they had been strictly employed to
register, administer medical examinations, and discourage Mexican women from legally
and illegally entering the United States. Their failure to comply with such employment
terms would result in their termination. They were denied a voice to facilitate a transition
that was in sync with their perceptions of Mexican women’s needs and qualifications, a
perception that did not include reuniting with their families by their side. Mexican
women were consistently stripped of their rights to care and parent their children and
families.
Instead, Mexican female selection center personnel successfully implemented
their proposal for efficient Program selection management at the expense of Mexican
women working in the town. They proposed and wrote Lo Que Todo Bracero No Debe

120 Ibid.
121 Ibid.
122 Ibid.

234
Ignorar

(What Every Bracero Cannot Ignore). The Mexican and U.S. governments
approved and funded the publication and dissemination of this pamphlet. Selection center
officials instructed braceros not to ignore that:
“Syphilis constitutes a grave danger; it causes a great loss in work hours
and money to those who suffer this disease, as a matter of fact more than
any other disease. But it can be easily prevented, provided you take a few
easy precautions, such as: do not judge by physical appearance whether a
woman is sick or not. As a multitude of women of healthy appearance
seeking medical attention, and despite their healthy appearance are
infected with the disease.”
123

The management of Mexican women and men’s interaction in this selection center town
was confined to a presentation and discussion of this pamphlet and medical examinations
for venereal disease upon undergoing Program selection. Women were arrested and
expelled from this selection center town when engaging in unlawful sexual activity in the
line and marketplace sectors. Their interaction in the black sector was not monitored.
This campaign blurred differences between Mexican women working the line,
marketplace, and black sector, and validated selection center personnel’s condescension.
Mexican staff officials intensified the vilification of Mexican female vendors, merchants,
entertainers, and prostitutes. They were not considered struggling members of families,
but “sexual deviants.”
124
Long lines of exhausted women awaiting inspection alienated
prospective braceros and the women themselves. Prospective braceros took advantage of
this campaign. By avoiding or paying half of what they had paid female vendors and
other workers for food, merchandise, and other services.

123 Enfermeria de la Republica Mexicana, Lo Que Todo Bracero No Debe Ignorar, Empalme: Sonora,
Publicaciones de la Secretaria de la Salud, 1955.
124 Ibid.

235
Mexican newspapers spoke out against Mexican women’s alienation. A week
after this pamphlet’s publication, they featured stories detailing Mexican women’s
humiliation. Interviews with line, marketplace, and black sector workers like Margarita
Gutierrez

illustrated that women worked longer shifts for lower wages.
125
Editorials
showcased how lawfully working in these sectors had transformed these women into
“Program selection center props.” The Mexican government’s management of their
interaction with prospective braceros and movement within and from this selection center
town denied these women their “dignity, livelihood, and voice.” They were not entitled to
appeal interrogation, registration, and medical examinations that cast them as prostitutes
and undocumented immigrants within Mexico’s borders.
The blurring of differences among and between Mexican women working in
different selection center sectors also resulted in violence. Fights broke out between
women working in the selection center town’s line, marketplace, and black sectors. After
arguing with each other over whether they deserved to register and undergo such
examinations, they physically attacked one another. Selection center officials separated
women into groups to avoid the escalation of violence, but Mexican newspapers reported
that such measures did not prevent the fatal assault of twenty women in a two week
period. They reported that women were “tired of so much aggression.”
126
Despite a
decline in business trade and continued humiliation, the Mexican and U.S. governments

125 “La Probreza Asota a Las Mujer Mexicana de Empalme,”El Heraldo (Empalme, Sonora), January,13
1956.; “Las Mujeres Tienen Hambre ,” El Excelsior (Empalme, Sonora), January 12,1955.; “La Mujer
Mexicana Sufre ,” El Excelsior (Empalme, Sonora), October 18, 1954.; “La Mujer Mexicana Tiene Frio y
Hambre,” El Nacional (Empalme, Sonora), January 18, 1954.
126 Ibid.

236
continued to summon, interrogate, and examine women on a bi-monthly basis. These
governments did not protect women who were trying to desperately meet their head of
household emotional and financial obligations.
Conclusion
By March 18, 1957, this campaign had not deterred Mexican women from
migrating and resettling into this selection center town. The Program continued to recruit
Mexico’s most eligible men and undocumented Mexican immigration had not declined.
Bracero and undocumented Mexican immigrant men continued to abandon and neglect
Mexican female relatives throughout Mexico. Transitioning into migrant female heads of
household through migration and resettlement in selection center towns had not
dissipated, and Mexican women’s undocumented immigration to the United States had
significantly increased. According to Mexican and U.S. government reports, an estimated
88,450 Mexican women illegally entered the United States through Empalme.
127
Mexican
newspapers and Program selection center officials blamed management by the Mexican
and U.S. governments, claiming that it had become impossible for Mexican women to
transition and meet their head of household obligations in either their hometowns or
selection center towns.
The Mexican and U.S. governments had not developed a perfect model for
managing Mexican immigration to and from the United States or bracero family
adaptation. Undocumented Mexican immigration had expanded to include men
throughout Mexico’s interior and women in selection center towns. The Mexican and

127 Program Selection Personnel Files. Box 70, Folder 18, Archivo Historico del Estado de Sonora,
Mexico.

237
U.S. governments’ conceptualization and management of Mexican migrant women and
men had not deterred them from sidestepping Program selection or violating its
employment terms. U.S. agricultural growers continued to illegally employ and exploit
undocumented Mexican men, and eventually, Mexican women. Mexican women and
men continued to confront alienation, displacement, and family separation without
earning enough to live and work by their families’ side in Mexico or the United States.
By December 2, 1957, Mexican families throughout San Martin de Hidalgo and
the Mexican state of Jalisco worked together to develop, fund, and manage the migration
and training of young single Mexican women. The dissemination of information
concerning the plight of migrant Mexican women, such as the stories of Victoria, Elena,
and hundreds of other local women’s arrests at the United States-Mexico border,
motivated Mexican parents to financially support their daughters’ supervised migration to
academies, high schools, and vocational training to prevent their future migration to
Program selection center towns and the United States. They accepted that most likely
their daughters would marry Mexican men who would have to work as Program contract
laborers or undocumented immigrant workers in the United States. They wanted their
daughters to confront the emotional and financial demands of future family separation by
exerting skilled trades under their protection and in surrounding towns.
128

As an example, Javier and Refugio Villareal mobilized family support of young
women’s migration to educational programs as concerned parents.
129
They envisioned that

128 Hernandez, Esteban, El Progreso de un Pueblo y un Programa Laboral. Box 105, Folder 20, Archivo
San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco.
129 Ibid.

238
accreditation in nursing, teaching, and administrative trades would protect their
daughters, a future generation of female heads of households to confront family
separation with dignity. Unskilled employment opportunities were still scarce and
earning wages comparable to those paid in the United States remained out of reach
among Mexican men. Therefore, these parents were prepared to accept their daughters’
marriages to contract and undocumented Mexican immigrant men, but were still
intolerant of their female relatives’ migration to selection centers. The vilification of
Mexican female heads of household in Program selection center towns had mobilized
nationwide concern for Mexican women’s future as heads of household in Mexico.
These families did not challenge the Bracero Program’s existence. Their financial
dependence on immigrant male migrant remittances discouraged family opposition to the
Program’s terms and conditions. Instead, families with a history of confronting bracero
family separation mobilized and used remittances to finance their young female relatives’
training in skilled trades, so that they would be able to accommodate immigration to the
United States’ with its demands on Mexican female heads of families in Mexico.
Educating Mexican women to conform strategically to the gendered demands of Mexican
immigration to the United States became a national concern and priority.
Mexican women’s assertion and transition into heads of household reveals the
intersections of local, national, and international discourses on the gendered management
of temporary Mexican immigration to the United States. It reveals how Mexican women
were required to excel as independent female heads of household, but not given the
proper conditions for success. The Mexican and U.S. governments’ commitment to the

239
reification of the U.S.-Mexico border severely limited their life opportunities. Their
concerns receded into the shadows. They were either denied well-paid employment
opportunities, an opportunity to live and work by their families’ side, or forced into
entering trades that required permanent family separation and resettlement under
conditions that deprived them of their humanity and dignity. The ubiquitousness of the
U.S.-Mexico re-shaped every aspect of their lives.

240
CHAPTER 4:
“INTEGRAL DEVELOPMENT FOR FAMILIES” AND THE TRANSFORMATION
OF RURAL WORKING CLASS WOMEN

In January 1951, Mario Ramirez harvested crops, made bricks, and raised
livestock for a weekly wage of twenty pesos, the equivalent of three hours’ worth of
bracero wages. After working as a bracero for nine consecutive years, his father, Arturo
Ramirez, had not earned enough to finance Mario’s transition out of poorly paid unskilled
employment sectors in Mexico. The Mexican economy and higher Program eligibility
standards restricted him and an estimated 18,451 unskilled working class bracero sons to
San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco poorly paid unskilled jobs.
1
Braceros could not afford to
rehabilitate their families from racially infused second-class educational programming
and unskilled jobs. Changes in the Mexican and US governments’ management of
Mexican immigration to the United States placed exorbitant demands on their family’s
labor and earnings, leaving very little left over to improve the educational and
employment opportunities for a younger generation.
Mario and his mother, Amparo Ramirez were among an estimated 12,784 of the
town’s rural working class bracero families who worked hard to rehabilitate their families
through responsible remittance management.
2
Nevertheless, their bracero relatives’
investment in local business, property, and trades and escalating Program loan interest
fees derailed their efforts. Adults, adolescents, and children worked sixteen hour shifts
administering shops and stores; cleaning businesses and homes; cooking and vending
food; planting and harvesting crops; raising livestock; embroidering, washing, ironing,

1 Series 81. Folder 2. San Martin de Hidalgo Municipal Archives. San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
2 Interview of Amparo Ruiz. Series 81, Folder 2, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

241
mending, and sewing children, women, and men’s apparel; and undertaking household
chores; to finance their bracero relatives’ loan agreement fees and investments.
3
After
pooling their earnings and remittances, an estimated 95 percent of a typical five-member
working class family earned 200 pesos a month to finance their nutritional needs and
Program loan agreement interest rate fees.
4
They had very little left over to finance their
transition out of bracero, special, or undocumented immigrant labor, and exploitative
domestic unskilled jobs.
The shift in Program eligibility motivated an estimated 93 percent of this town’s
braceros to spend their earnings and remittances to finance annual property and business
fees, amounting to an estimated annual average of 1,000 pesos, roughly the equivalent of
three months’ worth of bracero wages.
5
Such fees did not leave much left over to
liquidate Program loan agreements or finance their families’ long awaited rehabilitation
out of exploitative unskilled employment. Instead, 98 percent of braceros renewed or
increased their Program loan agreements at interest rates that had increased from a
monthly fee of eight to sixty pesos a month for Program loan agreements exceeding 500
pesos.
6
This left an estimated 15,953 rural working class bracero families in a cycle of
endless escalating debt and contract renewal.
7
Their estimate of the future of Program
eligibility standards motivated braceros to continue to labor as contract or undocumented
immigrant laborers in the United States to earn enough to finance escalating annual

3 Government Correspondence Files. Series 81. Folder 3. Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.

242
property and business fees. Securing contract renewal became a priority among
immigrant families of varying employment and legal statuses.
By March 1951, braceros’ anxiety had reached its height. Town officials
emphasized that U.S. government authorities administering this Program were placing a
higher premium on confirming prospective braceros’ work ethic and integrity to
determine their Program moral eligibility. Renewed interest in Program eligibility further
deteriorated bracero families’ quality of life. Contract renewal already restricted bracero
families to long distance family relationships. Living and working together for a couple
of months resulted in family estrangement and tension, as their temporary return did not
make up for six to nine month contract cycles of family separation. Moreover, middle
class lenders continued to take advantage of Program loan agreements to prolong bracero
families’ enrollment in exploitative CDP curriculum and employment in poorly paid
unskilled employment sectors. Irrespective of whether individual braceros had agreed to
Program loan agreement terms with or without their family’s support, their entire family
was financially accountable.
On April 1951, Mario participated in this town’s largest Program recruitment
campaign targeting an estimated 4,211 single working class men between the ages of 18
and 19.
8
They were among the only legally of age working class men eligible for Program
participation, and were convinced that becoming a bracero had become necessary for
family survival. Coupled with their postponement of marriage and bracero relatives’
earnings, investments, and remittances, Mario and other young men envisioned

8 Government Correspondence Files. Series 81, Folder 6. Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

243
supplementing their families’ earnings to achieve their long awaited desired
rehabilitation. He anticipated liquidating his family’s Program loan agreement, financing
his siblings’ transition out of CDP curriculum, and purchasing eyeglasses and a sewing
machine to improve his mother’s employment conditions. Without consulting his father,
Mario joined the Program, determined to earn enough to invest in improving his families’
quality of life. Experiencing first hand the Bracero Program’s demands on families, he
did not intend to settle for rehabilitation that was restricted to increasingly longer periods
of family separation and exploitative unskilled labor.
His mother understood his intentions, but feared his participation would
negatively impact their family’s quality of life. His labor was critical to their family
accommodation of his father’s uninterrupted contract renewal and liquidation of annual
property tax and utility fees. She was unprepared to confront the possibility that he would
forget or underestimate the demands of six to eleven months of CDP curriculum,
Program loan agreement interest rate fees, and unskilled poorly paid labor. Nonetheless,
she did not stand in his way, reconciling to the fact that he was legally of age and entitled
to immigrate and invest in business, land, or property. He had spent his childhood and
adolescence accommodating his father’s bracero labor, and now his savings went toward
his Program recruitment fees to avoid increasing their family’s Program loan agreement
debt. Even so she was unprepared emotionally and financially to accommodate his
Program participation.
His family’s emotional and financial vulnerability motivated Mario to keep his
promise to his family. He sent his mother forty dollars on a biweekly basis to administer

244
at her discretion, confident that his father would continue to pay their annual business and
property tax and utility fees. Keeping his promise did not diminish his mother’s anxiety.
Throughout his contract labor, she and the rest of their family worked longer shifts
harvesting crops, fulfilling CDP curriculum, and sewing larger orders of children and
women’s apparel. This way, irrespective of whether Mario and her husband opted to
invest in contract renewal, she made inroads toward liquidating their Program loan
agreement and taking steps toward achieving their desired rehabilitation out of CDP
curriculum. She was convinced that without liquidating this loan agreement they would
not transition out of the Program’s exploitative uninterrupted family separation. Amparo,
her children, and their parents were determined to improve their accommodation of their
family’s Program participation.
On November 1951, Mario reunited with his family. After completing his
contract, he returned with a sewing machine for his mother, $270 dollars to liquidate half
of their remaining Program loan agreement balance, and $95 dollars to finance his two
siblings’ enrollment into local schools. His bracero wages transformed the prevention of
his siblings’ transition into unskilled poorly paid employment sectors into his top priority.
He envisioned taking advantage of bracero wages and his father’s support to finance
transforming his siblings into skilled laborers. He was confident that contract renewal
would finance their education, significant improvements in their mother and
grandparents’ employment conditions, as well as his purchase of land, construction of a
home, and investment in a family trade. Like his father, he anticipated investing in

245
contract renewal to advance what he had outlined as his desired family and individual
rehabilitation.
A month later, his plans changed dramatically. His bracero father’s assessment of
the changing shape of Program moral eligibility standards had become a reality. San
Martin de Hidalgo’s president, Bernardo Hernandez, announced drastic changes in
Program eligibility requirements. Prospective braceros were required to apply
successfully for either head of household or dependent bracero status before obtaining
local government issued confirmation of their Program eligibility. In accordance with
special immigration moral standards, Program eligibility was now contingent on bracero
household members’ investment and plans for return and Mexican settlement. US
personnel administering this Program were committed to contracting married Mexican
immigrant men between the ages of 18 and 50 with emotional and financial incentives to
return and settle back into Mexican rural town economies.
Once again, national Mexican government officials entrusted Mexican rural town
presidents to recruit this town’s most eligible men. Only this time, financial investment in
Mexican settlement determined bracero eligibility. These incentives for return superseded
an exemplary employment history or physical fitness. Such change in Program
recruitment was not motivated exclusively by the Mexican government’s vision of
rehabilitation, since shortly after the conclusion of the 1951 Program contract cycle, the
Mexican and U.S. governments signed Public Law 78. Under the supervision of the U.S.
Immigration and Naturalization Service (I.N.S.), Department of Labor (DOL), and
Manpower Commission (MC), this law held U.S. growers accountable for the contracting

246
of eligible braceros and administration of Program contract conditions.
9
This change in
eligibility requirements would lead to major transformations in gendered assumptions in
family life in rural Mexico.
Using archival methods this chapter historicizes the transformation of the Bracero
Program in Mexico from a national rehabilitation effort to a local rural working class
women’s issue during the 1950s. The Mexican government’s enforcement of stricter
Program eligibility standards and establishment of Desarrollo Integral Familiar (DIF), or
“Integral Development for Families” marked a shift in the Program’s internal
management of Mexican immigration to the United States. The public acknowledgement
by the Mexican government of the critical importance of rural working class women’s
labor, parenting, and income management was intended to remedy the Program’s failure
to improve the lines of rural working class families However, the failure of the
government to invest in strengthening rural town economies, education, and healthcare
continued to hold rural working class women and men unfairly accountable for dramatic
shifts in Program management. Rural working class women’s participation or familiarity
with DIF and unhealthy extended immigrant family arrangements would motivate
thousands of rural working class families to appropriate local discourses that transformed
immigration into a women’s issue to propose supervised skilled migration to vocational
and other institutes as formative to a a family’s transition into marriage and family
relationships plagued by Public Law 78 and Operation Wetback.

9 Government Correspondence Files. Series 82. Folder 100. Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco,
Mexico.

247
By focusing on DIF, Public Law 78, and Operation Wetback’s influence on the
changing shape of managing rural working class women’s accommodation of the
Program’s demands into a critical local women’s issue in the 1950s, this chapter reveals
these measures’ gendered and transnational contours. Overwhelmingly characterized as
watershed measures created to improve government management of Mexican
immigration along the US-Mexico border and agricultural labor camps throughout the
United States, historians have been blind to their impact on Mexican understandings of
womanhood and its relationship to immigration. Restrictive immigration policies
demanded that rural working class women participate in DIF workshops, supervise
skilled migration, and engaged in skilled employment that facilitated their immigrant
relatives’ compliance with restrictive Bracero Program conditions. Raising awareness and
receptiveness to investing in women’s education was a gradual process inhabited by these
measures. Disillusioned and exhausted rural working class families were not as
convinced that this was a suitable approach toward rehabilitating women and their
families, igniting a series of varied reactions.
Previous analyses of Public Law 78 and Operation Wetback’s inability to prevent
undocumented Mexican immigration to the United States has overshadowed the larger
implications of the discourses that fueled such restrictive immigration policies and the
struggles that ensued among Mexican rural working class families. Historians’ rendition
of how these measures’ failed to curb undocumented Mexican immigrant settlement in
the U.S. has displaced our understanding of the negotiation of undocumented immigrant
settlement patterns by Mexican rural towns that translated into longer family

248
separations.
10
As Mexican immigrant families emerged from Public Law 78 and
Operation Wetback’s grip, they appropriated an idealization of extended immigrant
family formation to achieve their own sense of dignity, progress, and family.
By focusing on the transnational complexity and interplay of discourses shaping
rural working class families’ DIF participation and negotiation of Operation Wetback’s
demands, this chapter also provides insight into local Mexican gender politics influencing
extended immigrant families’ negotiation of a continuum of expectations anchored in
idealizations of the Mexican family, immigrant labor, family matriarch, and immigrant
wives of the future. The negotiation of extended immigrant families illustrates how rural
working class women helping fellow women confront Public Law 78 was integral to
elevating each stage of becoming a skilled female laborer while financing immigrant
men’s fulfillment of Program eligibility components. At its core, this chapter will enrich
our understanding of a shift from widespread indifference to women’s labor to local
support of an education and skilled employment that did not challenge but became widely
accepted as critical to the changing landscape of Program eligibility components and
status categories.
Finally, by focusing on the importance of managing rural working class
accommodation to the changing shape of Mexican immigration, this chapter enriches
historical interpretations that have demonstrated persuasively that children, women, and
men of Mexican descent were intimidated into second-class citizenship irrespective of

10 Calavita, Kitty. Inside the State. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Gamboa, Erasmo.
World War II Mexican Workers. Seattle: Washington State University Press, 2001. Garcia y Griego.
Mexican Workers in the United States. In Between Two Worlds. Edited by David G. Gutierrez. Delaware:
Jaguar Books: 1999.

249
their legal status in Mexico and the United States. It demonstrates that the intensity with
which prospective immigrant families pursued Program eligibility illuminates that indeed
there were protections associated with legality. Being similarly discriminated against did
not discount the importance of legal entitlement to at least partial payment of bracero
wages to finance Program eligibility components that helped sustain their vulnerable
investments in Mexico and extended immigrant family arrangements. The urgency to
secure Program eligibility confirms that the importance of legality should not be
underestimated or overshadowed by the fact that irrespective of legal status, Mexican
immigrants were routinely discriminated against. Irrespective of such harassment legal
access to U.S. wages translated differently among struggling extended rural working
class immigrant families in Mexico.
Public Law 78 and the Attempt to Control Undocumented Immigration
According to Public Law 78, the U.S. government was no longer responsible for
determining Mexican immigrant men’s eligibility, bracero employment assignments, or
enforcing contract compliance. It was up to the Mexican government to work with each
U.S. commission, department, and service administering the Bracero Program to develop
a workable process to determine Program eligibility and compliance that conformed to
U.S. government standards. By delegating the Program’s administration to local Mexican
government officials and U.S. personnel familiar with the intricacies of the Program’s
management, the U.S. government sought to curb undocumented Mexican immigration
and settlement in the United States. This law transformed Program conditions, while it
facilitated US grower Program violations.

250
U.S. government reports of a growing surplus of undocumented Mexican
immigrant labor along the U.S.-Mexico border emboldened the U.S. government to
recommend changes in Program eligibility that centered on Mexican immigrant men’s
incentive for return. It could no longer rely strictly on special immigrant camp managers
to curb U.S. resident anxiety concerning Mexican immigrant settlement in the United
States. The reported surplus gave the U.S. government the upper hand in Program
negotiations, and motivated newly appointed U.S. Program personnel to demand the
Mexican government’s recruitment of braceros with established plans for return and
Mexican settlement. The failure of Mexican rural towns to enforce these standards would
result in the termination of their contract quotas, and devastate town economies which
had become increasingly dependent on bracero recruitment fees, earnings, and
remittances. U.S. Program personnel believed that bracero investment in family
relationships and local Mexican property or business interests minimized the risk of
Program violations and undocumented immigrant settlement in the United States. This
transformed bracero investment in local Mexican economies into a definitive component
toward determining their Program eligibility. The U.S. government was not interested in
managing the entry of undocumented Mexican immigrant labor. Instead, by contracting
Mexican immigrant men with investments in Mexican settlement, it sought to discourage
an estimated 220,000 braceros from undocumented immigrant settlement once in the
United States.
11
It speculated that contractors and I.N.S. would successfully deport
undocumented Mexican immigrant agricultural laborers after they had facilitated

11 Record Group 88, Folder 10, Box 2, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park,
Maryland.

251
satisfying U.S. grower labor demands. The agricultural industry needed bracero and
undocumented agricultural laborers to lower wages and keep their profits high under an
efficient model that instilled the temporariness of contract labor. It speculated that
enforcement of return through intensification of bracero hometown financial pressures
would keep Mexican immigrant laborers vulnerable, yet prevent their undocumented
immigrant settlement.
With such incentives already in place, U.S. Program personnel estimated that
braceros would work hard throughout their contract cycle to finance hometown
investments, avoiding skipping out to labor as an undocumented immigrant worker after
their contract’s expiration in order to remain eligible for contract renewal. Satisfying
labor quotas without losing their administrative power, U.S. Program personnel placed a
high premium on contracting Mexican immigrant men who were most likely to comply
with this Program’s departure and return schedules. The Program goals further weakened
bracero families’ quality of life by not taking into account how such an approach would
further postpone their desired rehabilitation, extend family separation, and increase their
Program loan commitments.
Program eligibility standards were incompatible with Public Law 78. This law
entitled U.S. growers’ to pay braceros $0.45 cents an hour, an hourly wage that was far
below the minimum hourly wage of $0.75 cents paid to U.S. domestic workers
performing the same agricultural labor.
12
This wage scale tripled U.S. growers’ profits,
and transformed securing Program eligibility into an overwhelming prospect for potential

12 Ibid.

252
braceros. It did not guarantee braceros full time employment throughout the duration of
their contract or competitive wages reflective of the rising cost of living in both Mexico
and the United States, making Program eligibility and participation difficult to finance.
Coupled with the Mexican government’s failure to create well paid domestic unskilled
employment opportunities the law reduced efforts to finance partial payment of
investments in the local Mexican economy at the expense of bracero families’ quality of
life.
To enforce Public Law 78, Juan Romero, the national Mexican government’s
Program administrator, instructed Hernandez and other Mexican rural town presidents to
develop and administer Program eligibility processes that satisfied U.S. Program
personnel’s eligibility standards.
13
Mexican and US Program personnel and local
government officials’ enforcement of this change in Program eligibility reaffirmed San
Martin de Hidalgo and other rural towns’ status as legitimate borderlands, emerging as
government sanctioned locations for the documentation, investment, and assessment of
eligible unskilled working class Mexican immigrant men. Coupled with their ties to
family, Program eligibility transformed these locations into important circuits of bracero
documentation and investment, as well as influential spaces in the transnational
management of working class bracero families’ immigration and labor. This process
impacted the town’s local economy and redefined children, women, and men’s struggle
out of second class citizenship in Mexico and into dehumanized labor in the United
States.

13 Ibid.

253
Hernandez’s development of a viable Program recruitment campaign centered on
the formal documentation, assessment, and feasibility of Program eligibility through
contracts between prospective bracero families and other town residents. This change in
Program eligibility marked a turning point in Program recruitment and participation.
Formal documentation of prospective working class braceros’ investments in Mexican
local economies did not resonate as established plans for return and settlement among
bracero families and town residents. Rather, it translated into a formal and public
acknowledgement of the heightened financial pressures transforming pursuit of Program
eligibility and participation. Satisfying U.S. Program personnel’s recruitment quotas for
eligible Mexican immigrant men required local Mexican government officials to strike a
delicate balance between intensifying financial pressures to enforce return migration and
making Program eligibility accessible without devastating local government financial
resources. This process would reveal gendered expectations across borders and
generations, as well as complex dissonance between the idealization and reality of a
desirable bracero workforce in Mexico and the United States.
The financial incompatibility of Public Law 78 and Program eligibility compelled
Hernandez to financially pressure an estimated 1,345 individual and 4,211 groups of
Mexican immigrant male relatives to pursue Program eligibility participation.
14

Convinced that an individual bracero’s wages under Public Law 78 without US
government protection against contract violations would not be enough to finance
Program participation, Hernandez administered Program eligibility selectively.

14 Government Correspondence. Series 82. Folder 124. Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo Jalisco, Mexico

254
Consistent with an estimated 2,598 Mexican rural and urban village presidents’
recruitment efforts, he increased annual business and property fees to create incentives to
compel anxious immigrant men to continue to pursue contract labor.
15
Pressuring mostly
rural working class bracero families to pursue Program eligibility to prevent losing their
stake in business, home and land ownership, and trade resonated as compelling incentives
toward achieving Program participation and contract renewal.
In accordance with what emerged as a national Program recruitment trend,
Hernandez tripled annual property tax and utility fees to an estimated 1,300 pesos, the
equivalent of $425 roughly four months’ worth of bracero wages, and doubled business
license and tax fees to 300 pesos, the equivalent of $110 or roughly a month’s worth of
bracero wages.
16
Without a Program contract, unskilled working class families needed to
work at least an estimated uninterrupted 21 months managing their family business or in
local poorly paid employment sectors to earn enough to finance these fees. This simply
was not a viable alternative. Local business and trade profits and unskilled employment
were financially unreliable and incompatible with annual fee payment schedules. Failure
or late payment of these annual fees would result in eviction and property loss. This
increase in annual fees increased the value of Program eligibility and participation toward
preserving unskilled working class families’ interests.
Undocumented agricultural laborer’s conditions also informed bracero families’
pursuit of Program eligibility and participation. Financing exorbitant increases in local
annual expenditures as an undocumented Mexican immigrant agricultural laborer in the

15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.

255
U.S. was not a feasible alternative to contract labor or local poorly paid unskilled
employment. Experienced braceros were aware that alienation, detection, and
exploitation of the undocumented were no longer restricted to the U.S.-Mexico border. It
had now seeped into U.S. agricultural labor camps, neighborhoods, roads, and town
centers. U.S. growers threatened undocumented agricultural laborers with deportation to
encourage them to abandon work sites without their due wages after having worked long
shifts for days at a time. U.S. domestic agricultural laborers and residents adopted a
similar course of action, threatening to report undocumented agricultural laborers taking
shelter in backroads or fields hidden from public view to local police authorities.
Increasing unemployment and the deterioration of U.S. domestic agricultural laborers’
employment conditions heightened intolerance against undocumented Mexican
immigrants in and outside U.S. agricultural labor camps. Blamed routinely for reducing
agricultural labor to dehumanized labor, undocumented Mexican laborers were
vulnerable to exploitation, rejection, and deportation, obstacles that threatened to stifle
their U.S. earning potential. Working as an undocumented Mexican immigrant
agricultural laborer entailed moving from town to town in search of employment,
avoiding unpaid exploitation, and earning an estimated $0.30 cents an hour, less than half
of the hourly wage paid to U.S. domestic agricultural laborers. Pursuing Bracero
Program eligibility and participation had become necessary for most.
In May 1952, with these compelling incentives in place, Hernandez invested
heavily in the establishment of a feasible Program eligibility documentation and
assessment process. This town could not afford to lose allotted Program contracts.

256
Bracero remittances and payment of annual business and property license, tax, and utility
fees accounted for 89 percent of this town’s annual budget.
17
Unlike previous Program
recruitment campaigns, Hernandez recruited specifically groups of eligible working class
Mexican immigrant men comprised of experienced working class braceros with stakes in
town business or property and their less experienced yet similarly invested, dependent
sons, brothers, cousins, and in laws of legal age. Weary of U.S. growers’ abuse of their
unsupervised Program administrative power, he reasoned that two U.S. wage earners
working together to earn and pool their wages would make up for contract violations,
making payment of their annual fees feasible. Rather than oppose Public Law 78 or work
toward creating and improving local employment opportunities, Hernandez placed the
responsibility of financing added financial requirements on individual and groups of
Mexican immigrant male relatives. He believed firmly that Public Law 78 demanded the
cooperation of extremely eligible and resourceful bracero to satisfy recruitment quotas
without jeopardizing local economic interests.
Mexican rural town presidents’ enforcement of Public Law 78 centered on
prospective braceros satisfying three formal Program eligibility components and falling
into two status categories. Groups of experienced working class braceros and their sons,
brothers, cousins, and in laws were encouraged to apply for either head or dependent
bracero household status. On a national scale, an estimated 96 percent of working class
head of household and dependent bracero status applicants were part of father-son

17 Government Correspondence.Series 83. Folder 140. Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

257
groups.
18
The remaining 4 percent were comprised of groups of siblings and in laws.
19

Bracero head of household applicants were between 27 and 53 years of age, married,
homeowners, primary investors in family trades, parents to an estimated four children,
and had completed at least seven Program contracts.
20
Dependent bracero applicants were
between 18 and 20 years of age, married, itinerant day laborers, secondary investors in
family trades, completed CDP curriculum, parents to one child, and had not completed a
Program contract.
21
Group applicants submitted their applications together for town
government consideration.
Their Program eligibility was contingent on satisfying three eligibility
components before acquiring an official government issued letter attesting to their
individual Program eligibility. Without it, they were ineligible to undergo required
registration, interviews, and physical examination and cleansing procedures at the hands
of U.S. Program personnel. To satisfy each component, applicants were required to
provide confirmation of their individual financial investment in a local business,
property, or trade, an exemplary employment history, and prove marital status.
Applicants provided contracts specifying the terms of their business, property, and trade
investments; receipts of financial contribution toward payment of annual business,
property, and trade license, tax, and utility fees; letters from a family member, U.S.
grower, employer, or instructor describing exemplary completion of Program contracts,
CDP curriculum, or local employment contracts; and proof of marriage. Town

18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid.

258
governments enforced each component strictly to determine head of household bracero
applicant eligibility, but exceptions became critical toward recruiting dependent bracero
applicants.
Because of the potential loss of their businesses, homes, and trades, head of
household bracero applicants were most committed and prepared to achieve Program
eligibility. After being married for an average 16 years, they easily provided copies of
their marriage certificate and receipts confirming their financial contribution toward
payment of annual property tax and utility fees to account for their investment in local
settlement.
22
Their respective wives made and maintained records of such payments.
After witnessing the administration of local special immigrant family surveys requiring
similar documentation, they recorded their expenditures carefully, making Program
eligibility requirements accessible. Applicants also provided receipts of their financial
contributions toward the purchase of business or trade equipment and supplies; payment
of annual business license renewal and tax fees; and labor performed during their return
from Program contract cycles to document their investment in family business and trade.
They used Program identification cards documenting their dates of departure and return
to confirm their responsible completion of Program contract cycles and employment
history. Coupled with their certificate of marriage, financing their relatives’ participation
in the local itinerant labor transit system or the purchase of a parcel of land to plant and
harvest fruits and vegetables was used to further confirm their commitment to marriage.
These records earned 98 percent of this town’s estimated 1,538 individual and 4,211

22 Government Correspondence Files.Series 83. Folder 149. Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco,
Mexico.

259
group bracero head of household applicants, as well as 4,211 dependent bracero
applicants, their Program eligibility.
23

Local Mexican officials applied Program eligibility components selectively when
determining dependent braceros’ eligibility, placing an emphasis on their loyalty to
family. Recruited to supplement bracero relatives’ earning potential and purchasing
power, their previous history and willingness to labor in support of their struggling
bracero relatives emerged as a critical component toward protecting their bracero
relatives’ investments and contract renewal. They speculated that without access to
dependent braceros’ contract labor and wages, bracero heads of households risked losing
their business, property, or trade investments and becoming ineligible for contract
renewal, a turn of events that town governments could not afford. This would diminish
their pool of eligible applicants, jeopardize satisfying their allotted recruitment quotas,
and devastate their town economies.
Town demand for dependent braceros’ labor compelled local officials to overlook
their shortcomings. Confident that their partial dependence on their bracero relatives’
earnings made bracero sons, in-laws, and other relatives the most vulnerable of bracero
applicants, they accepted bracero group head of household applicants’ investment in this
town’s economy to satisfy their dependent braceros’ investment eligibility requirements.
Dependent bracero applicants’ labor and wages had been critical to financing their
bracero relatives’ immigration, investments, and families’ welfare, leaving little left over
for them to launch their own businesses or purchase property. According to the town’s

23 Government Correspondence. Series 83, Folder 153. Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

260
Program recruitment records, out of an estimated 4,211 dependent bracero applicants, an
estimated 97 percent did not own business, property, or trade. Instead, an estimated 88
percent worked as poorly paid brick makers, customer service representatives, food
vendors, construction workers, and sharecroppers; 10 percent as itinerant day laborers;
and 12 percent alongside their families running family owned businesses and trades to
finance their basic needs.
24
Throughout their childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood,
dependent bracero applicants and their families had pooled their earnings to restrict their
dependence on bracero relatives’ remittances to financing annual fees or Program loan
agreements. It had been their only viable alternative to homelessness and unemployment.
Additionally, they had yet to benefit from U.S. wages. Either legally not of age or unable
to afford Program recruitment and participation fees, an estimated 97 percent of
dependent bracero applicants had yet to participate in the Program or immigrate to the
United States.
25
In light of these circumstances, this town government authorized
dependent bracero applicants without investments of their own in the town’s economy to
continue to labor in support of their families’ interests.
Enforcing this group contract also entailed convincing rural working class
families to prolong their dependent status under conditions that had become increasingly
difficult to sustain. Working as a dependent bracero to supplement the earning potential
of formally designated bracero heads of household translated legally to forfeiting their
right to administer their wages at their discretion. Group contracts stipulated that
financing bracero heads of households investment in Mexican business, property, or trade

24 Government Correspondence. Series 83. Folder 155. Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
25 Ibid.

261
and contract renewal preceded dependent braceros’ plans for rehabilitation. The Mexican
government assumed that bracero group members would divide left over wages fairly.
Dependent braceros settled for contributing financially to the preservation of their
extended immigrant family home, business, or trade, and financing other inroads that
advanced their desired rehabilitation from second-class citizenship was not a legal
priority.
Additionally, the strict enforcement of the dependent bracero marriage component
devastated families unprepared to welcome another member into their extended
immigrant family arrangements. They worried about accommodating their daughters-in-
law into cramped homes, and financing their basic needs on an already reduced budget.
Nonetheless, they had no other choice, because town officials made no exceptions.
Dependent braceros failure to marry would disqualify them automatically. Town officials
feared that single dependent braceros would violate Public Law 78. Throughout the
Program’s trajectory, an estimated 78 percent of this town’s unmarried braceros had
violated their contracts by skipping out and working as undocumented immigrant
laborers after their contract’s expiration.
26
This town’s government was committed to
curbing this trend. Postponing marriage until they had secured an independent living
arrangement was no longer feasible among prospective dependent braceros. They and
their respective wives would have to adjust to an extended immigrant family
arrangement.

26 Government Correspondence Files. Series 83. Folder 156. Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco,
Mexico.

262
Dependent braceros’ extended immigrant family obligations devalued their
marriage proposals among prospective brides and their families. Their lawful
immigration did not automatically earn them the parental approval of prospective brides.
Parents feared that their daughters were marrying without guarantees of ever transitioning
out of extended immigrant family arrangements. The legal obligation of prospective
dependent bracero husbands to labor in support of their extended immigrant families did
not afford these couples a transition into fair employment conditions and, family
arrangements of their own design. Under the best of circumstances, dependent bracero
wives would labor alongside and in support of receptive extended immigrant families.
Working class families had previously approved of their daughters marrying
immigrant men at increasingly younger ages, confident that these relationships would
provide them with the financial support that they could no longer afford. Nonetheless,
nine years of bracero and undocumented immigrant labor, CDP curriculum, and Public
Law 78 cast doubt on this approach. Not much had improved. The Program’s emotional
and financial pressures had not eased the demands placed on children, women, and men.
However, the intensification of Program eligibility standards did not diminish the
importance of marriage to women’s transition into adulthood. Despite parental and
prospective brides’ concern, prospective dependent braceros and their families took
advantage of gender norms that expected women to marry between 16 and 25 years of
age irrespective of their suitors’ family situation and immigration status to convince
families to allow their daughters to marry on short notice. Town officials had provided
them with a one month window to marry and prepare their group Program applications.

263
To help them prepare their applications, town officials accelerated the
formalization of dependent bracero marriages. It collaborated with the town’s clergy and
courts to reduce marriage counseling to one two hour family meeting, instructed court
and other authorized personnel to prioritize processing the documentation of dependent
bracero marriage licenses, and published announcements of upcoming nuptials soon after
marriage proposals were accepted. In short, town government officials recruited
dependent braceros aggressively.
Looking Beyond Marriage through DIF Workshops
To understand Public Law 78’s implications, it is important to focus on the
reemergence of the importance of communication between rural working class immigrant
families and Mexican government representatives. This implies re-conceptualizing our
interpretation of the Program’s changing shape to include the appropriation of
international, national, and local discourses on immigration by government
representatives and rural working class immigrant families to survive in economies that
were overwhelmingly dependent on a combination of unskilled domestic and immigrant
labor. Public Law 78 transformed once idealized and highly sought after Program
participation into a heavily managed transition to a series of extended immigrant family
arrangements that conformed to governmental designs and gender norms. The Mexican
government had learned that the intensification of Program eligibility standards and
exploitative immigrant family arrangements were not always conducive to long term
healthy family arrangements or a stable economy. Therefore, the Mexican government
continued to expound and appropriate national and local discourses on immigration in

264
protection of its interests under the guise of rehabilitating rural working class children
and women left behind.
The Mexican government’s negligence of the Bracero Program’s negative impact
on rural working class families resulted in discourse appropriations that questioned
children and women’s dependence on immigrant male relatives’ remittances, exploitative
immigrant family arrangements, unskilled and unsupervised internal migration, and
undocumented immigration to survive emotionally and financially. National coverage
and intergovernmental cooperation centering on strengthening Program management
captured the nation’s undivided attention, but it did not remedy an increase in child and
female mortality among rural working class families as a result of dehydration,
exhaustion, malnutrition, and disease. Unwilling to finance the creation of educational
and employment opportunities conducive to building a healthier quality of life in
Mexican rural towns nationwide, the Mexican government transformed child and female
mortality into a local rural working class women’s issue.
Eight years into the Program, the Mexican government’s census of 1950 revealed
that throughout Mexican rural towns and villages participating in the Bracero Program
child and female mortality rates were alarmingly high.
27
In San Martin de Hidalgo, out of
an estimated 50,898 rural working class families, two out of every four children between
the ages of three months and sixteen years of age died from a combination of disease,
exhaustion, and malnutrition.
28
An equally high mortality rate prevailed among rural

27 Public Town Life Inquiry Files. Series 90. Folder 1, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
28 Ibid.

265
working class women between 17 and 38 years of age.
29
Two out of every three women
died during childbirth or from a combination of disease, dehydration, exhaustion, fatigue,
and malnutrition.
30
Discrepancies in census record categories rendered rural working
class immigrant men’s mortality inconclusive. Since the Mexican revolution, Mexican
rural town and villages had not experienced such sharp increases in child and female
mortality, capturing the Mexican government’s attention.
The Mexican government could not afford to neglect what had become a national
immigration issue. Each of the 2,394 rural towns and villages participating in the
Program exhibited high rates of child and female mortality.
31
An estimated 68 percent of
4,986,971 rural working class families surveyed nationwide had one male relative
working as a bracero, special, or undocumented immigrant laborer in the United States.
32

Their immigrant laborer earnings and remittances protected an estimated 89 percent of
these families from homelessness, as immigrant relatives financed most of their families’
home repair, tax, and utility fees.
33
With very little left over, 43 percent financed other
basic needs through bi-monthly remittances.
34
Hence, an estimated 95 percent of rural
working class families surveyed reported working an average 17 hours performing
household chores and poorly paid unskilled labor to finance one daily meal, Program loan
agreement fees, and other basic needs to accommodate their male relatives’

29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
31 Public Town Life Inquiry Files, Series 90, Folder 4, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.

266
immigration.
35
The Bracero Program exacerbated child and women’s exploitation and
quadrupled mortality rates among a traditionally vulnerable population.
This became a national immigration issue the Mexican government could not
afford to entrust to Mexican rural town governments. Mexican rural town governments
had selectively reported on the demands of sustaining the Program on their infrastructure
and population. After eight years of Program participation, their failure to request
national governmental funding, Program reform, and other resources to accommodate
struggling rural working class families revealed their inexperience at providing these
families basic services. Additionally, entrusting overburdened town and village
governments to remedy this increase in child and female mortality would attract
undesirable public attention, and fuel Mexican border state resident opposition to the
Bracero Program.
Ignoring this issue altogether was also not an option. The Mexican government
could not afford to neglect mortality rates that confirmed the severity of the Bracero
Program’s negative impact on a population sector promoted nationally as benefiting most
from this Program.
36
Rural town and village men comprised 91 percent of this Program’s
workforce.
37
Consistent with its Program management, the Mexican government did not
invest in creating fair and profitable employment opportunities benefiting rural town
residents.

35 Ibid.
36 Series 50. Folders 7-10. San Martin de Hidalgo Municipal Archives. San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco,
Mexico.
37 Ibid.

267
After carefully reviewing extensive reports on the magnitude of the Program’s
fatal consequences and before negotiating Public Law 78, the Mexican government
approved the establishment of Desarrollo Integral Familiar (DIF) or Integral
Development for Families, a national family organization providing government outreach
to rural working class women.
38
Without much publicity it approved and financed the
establishment of DIF chapters in Mexican rural towns and villages exhibiting high rates
of child and female mortality. Similar to its national campaign targeting middle class
women’s purchasing power to prevent skilled middle class men’s immigration, it
financed DIF to educate rural working class women on financing a healthy childhood and
womanhood to curb disease, exhaustion, fatigue, and malnutrition and mortality rates.
Seeking to educate those most affected without overwhelming national and local
government resources, or encourage the added pressure of national public outrage at a
critical moment in Program negotiations of Public Law 78, the Mexican government
transformed this national immigration issue into a rural working class woman’s issue.
It was far more inexpensive to isolate and hold women responsible for the
Program’s negative impact on their families than investigate and improve national and
local Mexican governments’ management of this Program’s conditions and its effects on
children and women. Launching campaigns that did not address or incorporate the reality
of the Program’s demands on children, women, and men unfairly recast national
immigration issues into women’s issues. Restricting its campaigns to educating women
on the management of their income did not provide helpful alternatives, reforms, or

38 Ibid.

268
resources to improve their families’ standard of living. With very little governmental
support and under much scrutiny, women were educated to labor in support of Program
participation under increasingly unhealthier conditions.
The Mexican government was confident that DIF workshops focusing on
improving struggling rural working class families’ labor, income, and resource
management would improve their family’s health and accommodation of the Program’s
changing shape. It firmly believed that securing bracero investment in the Mexican
economy and educating rural working class women on their assumed discretionary
income and resource management would bolster the nation’s economy and health. This
approach underestimated the intensity of the Program’s demands and rural working class
children and women’s exposure to fatal combinations of disease, family separation, labor
exploitation, and poverty.
DIF’s appropriation of governmental concern and discourse in San Martin de
Hidalgo alerted rural working class women and prospective dependent bracero brides to
redefine their transition into adulthood to improve their negotiation of the Program’s
consequences and demands, an approach that often derailed dependent bracero marriage
proposals. Confident that pursuing a vocational education and other forms of training
beyond CDP curriculum would make skilled employment accessible and improve their
earning potential, rural working class women participating in DIF workshops began to set
their sights on transitioning into adulthood by achieving security through education and
skilled employment and not marriage and immigration. Their participation in DIF
workshops and Public Law 78 solidified rural working class women’s commitment to

269
work with struggling families to redefine and achieve a sense of security transcending the
limitations of extended family arrangements. They were convinced that women’s
preparedness into adulthood, marriage, and Program participation had to move beyond
excelling in CDP curriculum and laboring in exploitative unskilled trades. Erica Alvarez
explained,
“I had to educate myself to improve my employment situation. I could not
marry or take charge of a family without dignified and stable employment
or a fair wage. I could not depend on the government or an immigrant
husband. Immigration was not conducive to stability. I had to get ahead on
my own.”
39

Examining closely the interference of this approach with government sanctioned family
transition into Public Law 78 is at the crux of this chapter.
On August 1951, exactly seven months after rural working class town women
attended their first DIF workshop, Mario Ramirez and other returning braceros and
immigrant men quickly confronted the impact of DIF. At his father’s request, Ramirez
abandoned his initial plans for family rehabilitation, and did not finance improving his
mother, siblings, and grandparents’ situation. Instead, he agreed to use his bracero
earnings to finance his Program recruitment fees and marriage. Out of loyalty to his
family, he agreed to apply for a group bracero contract with his father. He had planned to
postpone marriage until he earned enough to build his own home. Under Public Law 78,
his prospects had changed. He would continue to labor in support of his family by
postponing indefinitely his aspirations. His poor earning potential restricted him to
concentrating on establishing a fair and flexible extended family arrangement.

39 Ibid.

270
Ramirez had carefully prepared before proposing marriage to Erica Alvarez. He
framed their marriage as part of a larger family struggle to sustain some semblance of
stability without underestimating the Program’s restrictions on their relationship.
Adopting a realistic approach to marriage was his top priority. He proposed financing
their wedding and purchasing furniture to furnish a room of their own. His poor earning
potential would require Alvarez to sew clothing by his mother’s side or labor in a
respectable employment sector to finance her basic needs. Accepting to labor in support
of their extended immigrant family interests was at the heart of his marriage proposal.
After his own family approved his proposal, he proposed to Alvarez. She did not
wait for her parents to answer on her behalf. Without consulting them, she refused to
marry him. She explained, “I am not prepared to marry a bracero. I cannot commit myself
to you or your family.”
40
She asserted that the Program’s instability required her to
become a skilled laborer before marriage. It was imperative that she “become a woman
with a career to be able to manage his absence and offer him her unconditional emotional
and economic support and loyalty during his contract. I needed to educate myself. After
finishing and being able to exert a career, I would become engaged.”
41
She warned that it
was unfair and irresponsible to marry. Ramirez’s obligations to a demanding extended
immigrant family arrangement made it impossible for him to support her education and
skilled employment unconditionally.

40 Oral History of Erica Alvarez. Bracero Oral History Project, National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution.
41 Ibid.

271
Her own exposure to the Program’s demands also influenced her decision. Her
bracero father, Martin Alvarez, had completed seven consecutive contract cycles which
had bound her to a Program loan agreement, CDP curriculum, and poorly paid unskilled
labor. Throughout her childhood and adolescence she completed CDP coursework and
service learning requirements and worked by her mother, Linda Alvarez, cooking and
selling tamales from their damp unfurnished home. As a child and adolescent, working
like an adult had not been enough to finance a quality education or liquidate their
Program loan agreement. Her childhood had been riddled with malnutrition and disease.
She refused to marry and raise a family of her own under similar conditions.
Her participation in DIF workshops further solidified her resolve to become an
educated skilled worker entitled to less exploitative employment conditions before
marrying and forming part of an extended immigrant family. DIF did not encourage her
to question her desire to eventually marry, but encouraged her resistance to do so as an
over-dependent unskilled laborer. After learning more from DIF personnel and other
skilled female laborers’ experiences, she was convinced that skilled employment would
allow her to comfortably finance her extended family obligations and larger goal of
transitioning into a more independent and comfortable family arrangement, irrespective
of her future husband’s immigration status. DIF workshops informed her pursuit of
securing conditions that went beyond what Ramirez could immediately provide. She was
convinced that a receptive extended immigrant family and shelter were not enough to
thrive in this town’s economy.

272
Her approach disappointed her father. He pleaded with her to reconsider
Ramirez’s proposal, insisting that “she had lost her mind-refusing to marry without his
approval.”
42
Her refusal to marry in order to pursue an education and skilled employment
without his consultation pained him. He lamented that, coupled with years of demanding
Program contract cycles, DIF workshops and Public Law 78, he had no other choice than
to accept her decision. His inability to liquidate his Program loan agreement, property
fees, and the uncertainty of Public Law 78 and contract renewal pressured him to accept
her prioritization of an education and skilled employment. Unable to prevent her entry
into a new extended immigrant family arrangement or provide financial support, he did
not force her to marry. At heart he understood her anxiety, rationale, and decision,
explaining that
“the economic pressure to protect relatives’ interests at whatever cost required
women as much as women to focus on their individual growth. Women did not
easily commit themselves to forming and raising families of their own.
Governmental demands-everything having to do with immigration, contracting
had accelerated their economic and family demands. Young women and men
alike feared commitment more than ever before. There was no way for them to
forge a household of their own. It was difficult as a parent to accept one’s
daughter speaking up for herself as a result of the pressure the had endured and
feared continuing to negotiate, because as men we had very few options outside of
the Program or becoming a “wetback.” As a father, I was heartbroken and
ashamed. In this situation, I could not do anything. I did not have anything to
offer, so that my daughter would accept his marriage proposal and begin a family
of her own without having to depend on her in laws. They also did not have much
to offer. With all the obligations one already had to deal with to be eligible to join
the Program-we had all been left extremely vulnerable-shaken up-without very
much. Marriage was mandatory but laws had made it unfeasible. I did not
understand much concerning DIF.”
43

42 Ibid.
43 Oral History of Erica Alvarez. Bracero Oral History Project, National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution.

273
Despite his anxiety concerning the long-term consequences of his Program participation
and its relationship to his daughter’s unconventional approach to adulthood and marriage,
he understood that she was right to look beyond marriage in preparing to confront the
Program and the demands of an extended family arrangement. Public Law 78 investment,
marriage, and dependent status components did not protect the interests of a young
generation of women and men. It continued to deny them their independence and healthy
quality of living, and demanded that an older generation accept their difficult decisions.
San Martin de Hidalgo’s DIF chapter was among the 195 chapters established
throughout the Mexican countryside appropriating the Mexican government’s discourse
of the advantages of educating rural working class women into a healthier quality of
life.
44
It inspired Alvarez and other rural working class women to pursue an education
and skilled employment that often interfered with Public Law 78. Educating these women
to postpone marriage until becoming a “woman with a credential or degree and an
employment contract” did not conform strictly to the Mexican government’s Program
management.
45
Instead, it elevated the importance of bringing rural working class
daughters, mothers, and other married and single women together to address an entirely
different, yet relevant issue: the right of a younger generation of women to a formative
education outside of marriage to excel in a restrictively gendered and racially infused
economy. Irrespective of their education and employment, rural working class women
learned that negotiating second-class citizenship and Program demands required them to

44 Town Public Life Files. Series 94. Folder 18. Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
45 Oral History of Erica Alvarez. Bracero Oral History Project, National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution.

274
coordinate efforts that took advantage of immigration discourses and available resources
to avoid poorly paid unskilled labor and transition out of extended family arrangements.
Alvarez explained,
“I wanted to have a job that when upon learning from my husband or
another person that he had been denied a contract, had been deported, or
had had a bad season and had to find a job without a contract, or simply
that he was not going to return until he saved enough money-my wish was
to receive such news-unlike my mother be ready to negotiate this situation
without feeling that I or our children would not have something to eat the
next day. I did not want to live with the same vulnerability and insecurity.
I believed that with an education and well paid employment my marriage,
begin a family of my own would finally be feasible.”
46

Alvarez was among an estimated 223 of San Martin de Hidalgo’s rural working class
women between 16 and 20 years of age who refused to marry in order to pursue a
vocational education and other forms of training and skilled employment.
47
Nonetheless,
their informed transition into vocational education and skilled employment was gradual.
DIF worked hard to earn their receptiveness to pursue improved employment conditions
in preparation for achieving their overarching mandate of improving their family’s access
to a quality education, nutritious diets, and healthcare. DIF did not question the Bracero
Program, Public Law 78, or marriage, but aggressively pursued educating rural working
class women to accommodate such obligations under healthier conditions and terms. This
organization’s personnel did not encourage rural working class women to oppose the
negligent Program management of the Mexican government nor support disinvestment in
their respective town economies and educational and healthcare system.

46 Ibid.
47 Ibid.

275
Recruiting DIF Personnel from the Rural Working Class
The negative implications of widespread knowledge of the instability of the
government’s Program management discouraged the Mexican government from
financing a campaign framing rural working class children and women’s plight as an
urgent international immigration issue. Instead, it targeted those most affected without
using newspaper coverage, radio broadcasts, or other channels of information, but instead
“rehabilitated” rural working class women under the organizational framework of
Desarrollo Integral Familiar (DIF) or Integral Family Development to “educate an
irreparably inferior race of children and women.”
48
The Mexican government centered its
attention on employing women to staff DIF organization chapters nationwide to educate
rural working class women on their labor and income management with an emphasis on
bracero remittances. Consistent with CDP curriculum, the Mexican government
instructed female personnel to avoid jeopardizing national government interests by
framing Program participation as a critical resource toward financing improvements in
rural working class childcare and female health, continuing to overlook this Program’s
limitations and unrelenting pressures on rural working class women and children. It
continued to demand rural working class women’s flexibility and labor without providing
adequate resources or support.
The Mexican government spent the equivalent of $3,700,000 million dollars to
establish 2,397 DIF organizations throughout Mexican rural towns and villages
experiencing high female and child mortality rates to educate rural working class women

48 Ibid.

276
on the importance of investing financially on their and their children’s welfare.
49
The
national government assumed that these women had access to an income and resources
that made adequate increase in child and female mortality possible. Although an
estimated 98 percent of targeted rural towns and villages participated in the Program, this
campaign did not encompass the Program’s negative impact on rural working class
women and children’s health. Instructing DIF to educate rural working class women on
the benefits of financing the basic components of quality childcare transformed this
campaign into an issue to be solved by rural working class women.
The Mexican government assured rural town and village governments that DIF
would not fuel working class anxiety concerning the Program. This organization was
restricted to developing inexpensive local strategies to educate rural working class,
women irrespective of their male relatives’ immigration status, to manage their income
and labor efficiently to finance a healthier quality of life for their children and
themselves. DIF was prohibited from discussing the financial burden of Program loan
agreements, annual business, property, and trade fees, and family separation in its
workshops. Instead, focusing on women’s alleged mismanagement of their income, labor,
and resources would prevent drawing undesirable attention to governmental negligence
toward rural working class families.
However, intergovernmental memorandum reveals that the Mexican
government’s commitment to educating rural working class women on their income and
resource management continued to be a national immigration issue. Educating women on

49 Ibid.

277
their income management stemmed from their interest in managing bracero remittances
to include improving their family’s health. The Mexican government cautioned rural
town governments that their failure to cooperate with DIF would jeopardize a well-
organized campaign to address a national immigration issue without draining local
resources. Confident that maximizing on families’ tendency to assume individual
responsibility for their limitations and strengths would motivate them to enroll in
accessible and inexpensive DIF workshops, governments’ accommodated DIF personnel.
The Mexican government did not provide DIF with curriculum or a standard
approach to educate rural working class women. It instructed DIF personnel to observe,
survey, and assess rural working class families to develop workshops focusing on how
that particular rural town’s women and their children could work together to improve
their income, labor, remittance, and resource management to improve their health. It did
not allot any funds toward developing an in-depth national DIF discourse or workshops.
It centered its attention on recruiting recent rural working class female teaching and
vocational institute graduates to establish and head DIF chapters throughout Mexican
rural towns and villages. It believed that female personnel with backgrounds similar to
those of its target community could earn DIF the trust and participation of overworked
rural working class women. The rural working class backgrounds of DIF personnel
would motivate them to avoid an alienating and condescending approach to educating
similarly impoverished working class women. Unlike CDP and other town middle class
organizations, the Mexican government expected DIF personnel to educate targeted rural
working class women to manage their limited resources efficiently without taking

278
advantage of their economic vulnerability. The Mexican government calculated that their
first-hand experience in negotiating similar family concerns would discourage them from
implementing a government-sponsored campaign that would attract undesirable attention
to their pursuit of improving rural working class families’ health.
By concentrating on the strengths of entrusting educated rural working class
women to establish and operate DIF organizations, the Mexican government overlooked
how their similar backgrounds would influence their efforts in ways that did not conform
strictly to government protocol. Confident that their salaries would motivate DIF
personnel to restrict themselves to educating women on the importance of financing a
healthy nutritious diet and childcare, national officials assumed that finances alone would
prevent them from violating their instructions. DIF personnel positions were among the
best paid skilled employment opportunities available to recent rural working class
teaching institute female graduates. They earned an estimated 140 pesos on a bi-weekly
basis, and were provided with free housing and travel to their assigned rural town or
village.
50
Their earnings were at least five times higher than that of unskilled female
laborers. Even so, it was difficult for the Mexican government to enforce its DIF vision
and restrictions nationwide.
Coupled with its failure to develop a curriculum and standards for evaluating the
efficiency of DIF chapters’ approach, Mexican government officials also neglected
designing and implementing a national operations model to monitor their activity and
progress nationwide. A poor national consensus on this campaign’s intricacies laid the

50 Ibid.

279
foundations for DIF efforts that while on the surface conformed to a national vision,
actually defied Mexican government protocol. In San Martin de Hidalgo, DIF
concentrated its efforts on educating rural working class women on child labor,
education, immigration, female solidarity, and the strengths and limitations of unskilled
and skilled domestic and immigrant employment sectors, all components and
relationships associated directly with the Program’s negative impact.
The interpretation of adequate childcare, labor and resource management by San
Martin de Hidalgo’s DIF personnel centered on nurturing the receptiveness of rural
working class children and women to the formative role of education beyond CDP
curriculum. They did not restrict themselves to educating rural working class women on
financing and preparing nutritious diets, managing their labor, remittances, and resources
and avoiding fatal parenting and work schedules. By elevating the importance of an
education, this town’s DIF encouraged rural working class women to work together to
provide their children with an education that laid the academic foundations to transition
into healthier adulthood that was not strictly contingent on their immigrant male
relatives’ earning potential and immigration status. Ultimately, their campaign was
initially compatible with the Mexican government’s larger objective of holding women
accountable for children’s health, without placing additional demands on national
Mexican government resources and Program management.
Adela Jimenez, a resident of the surrounding town of Tepeguaje, Jalisco, was
among the twenty women hired to establish San Martin de Hidalgo’s DIF chapter. Since
the age of five, she had harvested crops and sewed large orders of embroidery by her

280
mother’s side to finance her bracero father’s labor. By the age of eight, her
responsibilities included walking two hours to school alongside a group of fellow female
students, helping her mother with household chores, and cleaning the homes of affluent
families five days a week to finance her school tuition.
After six consecutive bracero contract cycles, her father, Agustin Jimenez, was
convinced that neither domestic unskilled employment opportunities or marrying and
depending on an immigrant spouse were conducive to a healthy standard of living. He
explained,
“It did not matter how much a man or woman worked, without a trade,
credential, degree, or education, it was difficult to get ahead and form a
healthy household. They would live separated, working in difficult jobs
for half of what those with degrees earned and always under the pressure
to satisfy another requirement to cross and work on the other side, far from
their families. It was difficult to take care of and be responsible for so
many immigration requirement and family obligations without a job or
stable wage. I did not want the same thing for my daughter. Even though
she was a woman, I wanted her to learn and to exert a degree with which
she could get ahead and meet her obligations as a member of an immigrant
family. I did not want her to suffer too much or to be pitied.”
51

After years of increasingly demanding bracero labor and contract renewal, her father
helped Adela finance her education. Convinced that she needed to transition into a skilled
employment sector, he sought to make up for scarce government support of women’s
transition into skilled employment by writing and sending her supportive letters with
money enclosed to finance her school supplies and uniform. Her mother lent her support
by working with other parents to coordinate supervised commutes to school, as well as
tutoring groups, so that she worked with other young women when completing difficult

51 Ibid.

281
homework assignments. Their decision to encourage, finance, and support Adela’s
pursuit of an education was uncommon among rural working class families in the region.
It required much sacrifice, labor, and money.
Her enrollment in the town’s teaching institute requirements more than her
parents’ modest efforts, so Adela spent her extra time working as a tutor, cleaning homes,
and making tortillas to finance her tuition, daily commute to the institute, and teaching
materials. Pooling their family labor and resources remained consistently critical
throughout her education. Jimenez explained,
“My family did the impossible so that I could benefit from an education
and obtain well paid, dignified, and stable employment. They wanted me
to work in favor of educating other-most especially women. After
graduating, they were confident that becoming part of DIF, I was going to
educate other young women confronting the same difficult situation as
working class women with bracero parents and husbands. Our sacrifice
had been worthwhile, because I was going to be working in favor of
families facing the same challenge.”

Becoming part of DIF resonated as a well-paid leadership position. Educating
women similarly struggling with immigration was compatible with their vision of
community oriented skilled employment. Even so, they feared town residents’ reaction,
as they speculated that this organization’s government affiliation would make it difficult
to appeal and work with town officials and rural working class children and women. Very
few rural working class women completed the necessary educational credentials and
other requirements to transition into skilled employment sectors and provide outreach.
Rural working class had only known middle class women with such credentials who had
always adopted a condescending and exploitative approach. Additionally by August

282
1950, only an estimated 429 out of 102,789 young rural working class women in the state
of Jalisco’s central region had successfully completed a vocational or other form of
secondary education.
52

Nonetheless, San Martin de Hidalgo’s Catholic clergy tried to offset DIF
personnel’s anxiety by restricting themselves to welcoming them to their assigned town
facilities, a well-furnished two-story building. In favor of facilitating mandates that were
compatible with their interests, the town’s clergy was especially cooperative, allowing
DIF to invite women to their workshops at the end of church services. Shifts in Program
eligibility left town clergy with no other choice. They dedicated most of their energy to
comforting immigrant working class families mourning the death of exhausted,
malnourished, and disease-ridden children and women, encouraging them to pray for
their immigrant relatives’ safety and prompt return. Advising these families not to lose
faith in their immigrant relatives’ labor, they requested that they “be patient, responsible,
and flexible in family matters. Even after experiencing their relatives’ death, it was
important not to misjudge, but to pray for their immigrant relatives’ welfare and return.
The dead and their immigrant relatives needed their prayers.”
53
Moreover, because DIF
was entrusted to improve these families’ health and quality of life without drawing
unwanted attention to this Program’s negative impact, the town’s clergy was receptive to
the organization’s efforts. They anticipated that it would expand rural working class
immigrant families’ support network and resources.

52 Public Life Town Files. Series 94, Folder 30. Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
53 Ibid.

283
The town’s government lent its support by welcoming DIF personnel to their
assigned town housing, a poorly furnished hotel used previously to host visiting
surrounding town government officials and other visitors. It was not permitted to review
DIF personnel’s applications or workshop curriculum, nor obliged to provide them with
additional resources. The national government discouraged local officials from
interacting and monitoring DIF closely. It feared that their interaction would alienate
working class town families. Local government indifference to immigrant working class
families’ concerns would tarnish DIF personnel’s image and reduce it to
“a government organization unfamiliar or interested in the Mexican
family’s welfare. Interacting with government officials that have not
worked to improve the Mexican family’s health would cast doubt on their
intentions before being their efforts. The trust that could have been
established would be lost. The intentions of their organization and the
national Mexican government should not be diminished because of a lack
of a trust. Our nation’s health is at stake.”
54

This town’s government followed national instructions accordingly, keeping its distance
by restricting their efforts to providing the organization with town housing.
Overburdened with Program eligibility standards that threatened to destabilize their town
economy, they did not want to jeopardize this organization’s potential positive impact on
struggling immigrant working class families.
Despite DIF’s appeal and their unfamiliarity with this organization’s approach
and resources, town officials speculated that DIF would prove ineffective and short lived.
They speculated that “a group of women without resources would not be able to achieve
much in a town with so many families barely having enough time to care for their

54 Town Public Life Files. Series 94, Folder 45. Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

284
children let alone assist a series of workshops that did not offer concrete alternatives for a
better future.”
55
In their estimation, DIF was unprepared to finance a high quality
education and healthcare system or create well-paid domestic employment opportunities.
Solving working class families’ problems and improving their health was out of their
reach. Reducing DIF to a poorly funded temporary organization further compelled this
town’s government to keep its distance. It could not afford to provide additional
resources, or jeopardize its relationship with national government officials, since that
would deprive the town of Program contracts.
Like Jimenez, the other nineteen women employed to establish and run the town’s
DIF chapter were between 20 and 36 years of age and recently graduated from teaching
and vocational institutes.
56
Seven of these women were bracero daughters, and interested
in educating rural working class families similar to their families.
57
Despite the town’s
clergy and local governments’ strict enforcement of national instructions, the Jimenez
family, and other DIF personnel looked past their initial concerns regarding rural working
class women’s receptiveness only after having reviewed carefully their mandates’ terms.
They were reassured to learn that there were ways of underplaying the government’s
assumption that rural working class women’s income and remittance management were
solely to blame for their situation. Confident that taking advantage of this campaign’s
survey and application for additional resource components would allow them to develop

55 Town Public Life Files. Series 94, Folder 31. Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
56 Ibid.
57 Ibid.

285
a campaign that was accessible and compatible with the needs of rural working class
families, they accepted the tasks of forming the DIF organization and chapter.
Contracted for two years to educate rural working class women, the Mexican
government instructed DIF personnel to survey participating rural working class women
on their family composition, income, living arrangements, medical history, and parental
concerns. It estimated that surveying rural working class women on their family’s diet,
education, health, immigration history, occupations, sources of income, and concerns
would help DIF personnel identify local factors overlooked in their national assessment
of rural working class mortality, as well as inform their approach and scope of their
workshops. After administering this survey, DIF personnel were entitled to use this
information to write applications for equipment, materials, and other supplies to develop
efficient local campaigns compatible with national priorities. The Mexican government
did not guarantee to fund these requests, but agreed to review each application carefully
to determine their eligibility for additional resources. This survey and application
resonated among DIF personnel as viable sources toward developing an adequate local
campaign compatible with the vision of educating rural working class women into a
healthier quality of life.
The outreach model of the DIF marked a turning point in the town’s internal
management of rural working class women’s labor and parenting. DIF personnel’s
assessment of the government’s misunderstanding of the Program demands on rural
working class children and women compelled them to avoid making promises when
introducing themselves to town residents. Instead, they expressed their interest in

286
working to improve their quality of life using available resources and support networks.
DIF publicly announced,
“We are women like you. We are used to working hard for our families’
welfare. Our goal is to learn and interact with you to develop alternatives
that will improve your children’s welfare. We believe that with your help
we can improve their future. Please help us with our workshops. Your
efforts are important and valued. You-your labor is important for our
country’s future.”
58

DIF personnel were committed to bringing rural working class children and women
together to learn from each other without making unreasonable demands on their health,
labor, and time. They were not interested in replicating CDP and other Program
management efforts that exploited or isolated struggling children and women. Its interests
lay in strengthening existing women’s support networks to improve their quality of life
through education and skilled employment.
Integrating Rural Women as Workshop Collaborators
On May 19, 1950, after this town’s Sunday church service, the DIF introduced
itself and invited families in attendance to its workshops.
59
It emphasized that children
and women were strongly encouraged but not obliged to attend, using portable
chalkboards to advertise their workshop schedules. This approach resonated with rural
working class women. It was the first time that older and younger working class women
had been cordially invited to an event without drawing attention to their alleged
inferiority and class status to develop strategies to help each other improve their health.
Weary of offending and discouraging children and women from attending, DIF steered

58 Ibid.
59 Ibid.

287
clear of mentioning remittance management, and advertised their workshops under broad
terms to appeal to the rural working class irrespective of their relationship to
immigration. They reassured women, “our organization commits itself to working with
children and young women willing to learn with and from others. It is our priority to lend
our support and labor to women and children committed to learning and improving their
health and livelihood” stressing that their workshops would provide them with the time to
determine how to strengthen their ability to help each other.
60
Confident that using the
operative language of “learning from and with rural working class children and women”
would keep the town middle class from attending and interfering with their workshops.
61

On June 3, 1950, the DIF hosted their first workshop in their designated
workspace. According to their workshop rosters, 220 out of an estimated 7,300 women
invited attended.
62
Despite their approach, most rural working class women were still
skeptical of this organization’s intentions. It was consistently dismissed as another
organization committed to learning more about their earning potential to implement
stricter control over intimate aspects of their family management. Work schedules also
contributed to the apparent apathy, since arduous shifts to complete household chores and
undertake poorly paid unskilled employment made it difficult to attend DIF workshops
led by women who were assumed to be inexperienced and inconsiderate of the conditions
shaping their family situations. Additionally, DIF did not advertise immigration or the

60 Ibid.
61 Ibid.
62 Ibid.

288
Bracero Program’s impact as a relevant component to helping women help each other, so
most of this town’s rural working class was certain that DIF would not be of much help.
The warnings of the relatives of rural working class women also discouraged
them from attending the organization’s workshops. Fearful of establishing a public record
of utilizing outreach, they advised their female relatives to avoid government outreach of
any sort. Immigrant relatives were convinced that it would reflect poorly on their
families, confirming their inability to administer their own labor, U.S. wages, and
remittances responsibly, potentially making them ineligible for contract renewal. After
years of contract labor, CDP curriculum, and the looming change in Program
management, immigrant relatives doubted that either government would approve of the
utilization of public outreach.
The negative consequences of previous town government surveys also informed
families’ decision to steer clear of DIF workshops. They were certain that providing
information on their family would “once again, bring the border and government into
their households.” Estela Espinoza elaborated, “We did not trust anyone. We were
disrespected. Everyone forgot that we were confronting unfair situations with very little
money and much pressure. Usually, they used whatever excuse to justify imposing an
endless set of requirements and fees. Even though they claimed their background was
similar to ours we did not trust them.”
63
DIF was broadly associated with previous town
efforts that used their authority and information on the earning potential of these families
to enforce an increase in contract renewal requirements. Rosario Gavino explained, “DIF

63 Series 95. Folder 9. San Martin de Hidalgo Municipal Archives. San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco,
Mexico.

289
was initially feared. We did not trust this organization, because we had already worked
with other groups without improving our situations and adding to the endless list of
requirements. We could not handle another set of requirements.”
64
Instead of becoming
disillusioned by rural working class women’s distrust, DIF personnel visited them in their
place of employment to invite them to participate, asserting their respect and
understanding for the demands on their energy and time. They encouraged women to
work with them as fellow women confronting similar circumstances. Aurora Martinez
explained,
“we explained that our intentions were to familiarize ourselves with their
situation and work hard together, so that their families enjoyed a better
healthier future with our help and that of other women confronting the
same situation with very little. We felt that it was our obligation to
convince these families at whatever cost to take advantage of the
opportunity to develop and execute a reasonable plan so that they and their
children would be better prepared for the challenge of overcoming the
Program’s demands. Although, this was not our assigned task, only with
the truth by our side and fair terms would we be able to get close and help
these women and their children. If we want results we could continue to
evade the Program or immigration.”
65

DIF personnel worked hard to convey their familiarity with the quandaries faced by rural
working class children and women, determined to appeal to as many women as possible
to develop strong networks. In addition to waiting to help large numbers of women, DIF
personnel also feared that their failure would result in their termination.
Learning more from women who attended their second workshop reenergized
their spirits. These women explained that they had attended to learn more about this
organization to decide whether their participation was compatible with their interests.

64 Ibid.
65 Ibid.

290
Indeed, they had been entrusted by fellow women to attend and obtain information on
this organization. Sofia Cardenas explained,
“I did not have anything to fear. My relative had lost hope in the Program.
It did not matter to them whether I sought public outreach. I did not fear
jeopardizing their Program eligibility. I was among the few women that
dared attend and learn more about DIF and spread the word concerning its
advantages. I had to take careful note of their requirements and terms to
help others determine whether they would participate or not.”
66

The consistent contextualization of their participation in relationship to immigration and
fellow struggling women solidified DIF personnel’s resolve to assist by strengthening
their interaction with women of varying ages and relationships to the Program. They
believed that making inroads in rural working class women’s education required
maximizing on the experience and knowledge of several generations of rural working
class women.
Instead of strictly relying on participating women to encourage fellow women to
participate in their workshops, DIF interviewed rural working class women in attendance
to determine workshop topics and incentives. They used these interviews to learn more
about their concerns, as well as whom they considered exemplary women, a question
rarely posed to these working class women.
After concluding their interviews with women in attendance and obtaining the
names and address of exemplary rural working class town women, DIF personnel
adjourned their second workshop. Women in attendance recommended that when visiting
and interviewing women singled out as exemplary, DIF personnel mention who had
recommended them. They insisted that irrespective of their approach and intentions, these

66 Town Public Life Files. Series 95. Folder 12, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

291
women would not let them in their homes or answer these questions without references.
After following their instructions carefully and expressing their interest in learning from
them to benefit other rural working class women, recommended women welcomed DIF
personnel into their homes and answered their questions. These women were receptive
and shared their experiences to advance what they consistently identified as the larger
challenge to improving rural working class women’s health and quality of life:
convincing women to aggressively labor to entitle a younger generation of women to a
formative education in order to excel in skilled employment before marriage. Women
interviewed insisted that DIF educate fellow women to prioritize parenting their
daughters into a healthier employment situation to protect them against an unhealthy
overdependence on immigrant men’s contract renewal, remittances, and return. Teresa
Madrigal shared with DIF
“It is important to educate fellow women that they as much as their
daughters are obligated to prepare themselves to excel in well paid and
stable employment opportunities, as mothers or future mothers they could
not continue to work arduously without right to employment that would
help them confront the Program’s demands like family separation, poorly
paid employment, illness, and emotional exhaustion. They had to educate
their daughters to excel in other employment opportunities, so that they
could fulfill their obligations as mothers and wives without experiencing
so much poverty and physical exhaustion. Many women were very ill and
were dying as a result of working so much without ever having enough to
finance helping their immigrant relatives manage small businesses,
children, loans, and large families. Earning very little in poorly paid
sectors and without a trade could not continue to shape these women and
their daughters’ future-they only have enough to barely feed their children.
They have to take advantage of available resources to intervene in such a
way where women begin to prioritize investing in themselves and their
daughters-although, the Program makes it practically impossible-it
demands it. Women cannot continue in the same situation.”
67

67 Ibid.

292
Exemplary women’s recommendations concerning fellow rural working class women’s
needs solidified the resolve of DIF personnel to center their efforts on educating women
to improve their family’s employment conditions through education and skilled
employment. Both groups of women agreed that women needed to improve their
negotiation of the Program’s increasingly unreasonable demands on their labor by
excelling as well paid skilled employees.
DIF personnel and exemplary rural working class women reached a consensus
and learned from each other in large part because their experiences and goals were
similar. Rural working class women had recommended women working as accountants,
administrative secretaries, nurses, pharmacists, and teachers. They were among the 213
working class women comprising this town’s skilled female workforce.
68
Like Adela
Jimenez, they and their families had labored arduously in support of their education and
skilled employment. Their exemplary work ethic, free services and participation in
neighborhood fundraisers, and comfortable negotiation of the Program’s demands on
their labor transformed them into exemplary and widely celebrated women. They earned
an estimated 130-150 pesos on a bi-weekly basis, the equivalent of a month and a half’s
worth of unskilled women’s wages, making their payment of Program loan agreement
balances and fees and financing of basic nutritional needs and other expenditures
feasible.
69
Additionally, their employment contracts and skills protected them against
competing for lesser wages with women in desperate need of unskilled labor. Even as

68 Ibid.
69 Ibid.

293
they consistently married immigrant men and endured strained relationships, they were
not as vulnerable to disease, exploitation, and malnutrition.
The compatibility of exemplary women and DIF personnel was also influenced by
their mutual interest in increasing the number of rural working class women working in
skilled employment sectors to diminish the alienation and exhaustion they experienced as
former rural working class women in predominantly middle class female employment
sectors. These women anticipated that increasing rural working class women’s
participation in skilled employment sectors would improve a culture that expected
working class female laborers to work twice as hard to keep their jobs. An increase in
skilled rural working class women would also facilitate assisting more women after work
hours. Their own support network would expand to include women confronting similar
demands, and provide them with much needed emotional and professional support.
Marisol Arreola shared with DIF personnel,
“If more women opted for and excelled in a career or trade everything
would change. Even we would benefit from an increase in capable and
trained women ready to help women with all sorts of health, education,
and family issues. It would be motivational to have colleagues who would
understand what we have been through to undertake our current line of
work and at the same time would be willing to meet their family
obligations by helping others confronting similar situations. There would
be more support for us to feel comfortable doing what we are doing. We
would have the security and support of working among women who
understood our sacrifices and obligations. It would result in a healthier
way of working and rendering our services.”
70

Discussing the advantages of an increase in rural working class female skilled laborers
reveals the isolation and exhaustion of rural working class female labor irrespective of

70 Ibid.

294
their employment status. Their similar experiences, concerns, and vision compelled DIF
to pursue much more than familiarizing itself with working class skilled women’s
experiences and recommendations. It motivated them to incorporate them and their
supportive female relatives into their workshops, as they embodied the kind of
relationship and collaboration they wanted fellow rural working class women to emulate.
Expanding their efforts to include an older generation of exceptionally supportive
rural working class female parents allowed DIF personnel to learn from women who, like
their own mothers, had prioritized parenting their daughters into an education and skilled
employment. Angelica Ortega was among the few recommended older female parents
who had worked three shifts to finance her husband’s contract renewal and daughters’
education. Coupled with the labor of her daughter, Maria Elena Ortega, they had
successfully worked together to achieve her placement in this town’s public health
services’ nursing staff. Both had experienced much alienation throughout her daughter’s
education. They walked together to the surrounding town’s vocational institute, and
refused several marriage proposals in favor of her education. Town residents and her own
husband questioned Angelica’s parenting, doubtful that Maria Elena’s education would
make up for her failure to marry. They cautioned that postponing marriage to pursue
academic and professional interests would eventually prove an unworkable endeavor.
Nonetheless, Angelica and Maria Elena persevered, pooling their earnings and resources
to complete her education and secure employment in a well paid employment sector.
Shortly thereafter, she exceeded town expectations by marrying an undocumented

295
immigrant. Angelica did not interfere, confident that she was prepared to confront the
demands of adulthood, marriage, and immigration.
Their alienation throughout her daughter’s education motivated them to help other
rural working class women similarly pursuing vocational and other forms of education
without much support. Angelica organized large community meals to feed struggling
rural working class female students and their children, as they juggled simultaneously
working long hours in unskilled employment sectors and studying for vocational institute
examinations. Her daughter adopted a similar approach. She would provide struggling
rural working class women and their children free physical examinations, and helped
them negotiate reduced rates on their medical prescriptions. This would allow them to
benefit from direly needed medical treatment at a time when disease, exhaustion, and
malnutrition plagued rural working children and women. Only after helping other women
improve their negotiation of employment, education, parental, marriage, and
immigration’s exigencies were they valued and esteemed by other rural working class
women. DIF invited both women to assist in the development of their workshop
curriculum, as they helped others transition into challenging family arrangements.
By integrating rural working class skilled women and their supportive female
relatives into their organization’s efforts, DIF anticipated incorporating their experiences
and insights into their workshops to fuel the receptiveness of rural working class women
to their and their daughters’ pursuit of an education and skilled employment. DIF
anticipated that by integrating these women as much more than participants but as
colleagues, they would also earn their fellow participants’ trust and create a support

296
network of their own. The Mexican government mandated that by their DIF contract’s
expiration, each chapter’s personnel leave chapters headed and staffed with trained town
women in place to continue to assist rural working class women parent healthy children.
Fulfilling this mandate would determine their efficiency and future recommendation into
other government sponsored skilled employment opportunities.
This town’s DIF personnel were confident that conducting these interviews had
proven an efficient model toward improving their recruitment and strengthening their
workshops. Interviews took on the form of personal conversations. Rural working class
women were not obliged to sign release forms or pay fees. Their candid discussions of
their concerns and experiences facilitated this organization’s assessment of rural working
class women’s sensibilities, support networks, and resources, as well as produced the
kind of workshops they needed to facilitate. These interviews confirmed that often
women were unreceptive to an education for skilled employment because they were
unfamiliar with how to help themselves or their daughters finance and pursue an
education. Overwhelmingly, these women and their daughters considered an education
and skilled employment financially unfeasible, and an unworthy long term investment.
The Bracero Program’s pressures and their immigrant relatives’ demands on their labor
crowded out their exploration of alternative employment opportunities outside of
marriage and unskilled local, migrant, and immigrant labor. Consequently, DIF agreed to
center its workshops on developing support networks among women for women
excelling in marketable year round skilled employment sectors. Helping women prepare
to become and excel as administrative assistants, accountants, beauticians, educators,

297
nurses, pharmacists, and tailors to earn a fair wage, as well as help cater to similarly
struggling rural working class families, became integral to this organization’s efforts.
Although, these were tasks traditionally performed by skilled middle class women and
did not radically challenge gender norms, rural working class women’s inroads in these
sectors would mark a break in this town’s labor culture. It would allow educated and
skilled laborers to create and participate in a stronger support network that would make a
healthier quality of life accessible.
Obtaining Government Support and Sharing Critical Information
After assessing the needs of a cross spectrum of rural working class women, DIF
personnel wrote a proposal in request of government funding to operate a two-year
resource distribution campaign benefiting an estimated 3,500 rural working class children
and women.
71
By securing food rations, cloth and sewing machines, and subscriptions to
publications that addressed the state of immigration in Mexico and the United States, DIF
sought to create and provide women with incentives to attend their workshops. It justified
its request by alerting the Mexican government that targeted women needed these
resources to adopt a healthier approach to parenting and remittance management.
This DIF chapter’s approach marks a break in our understanding of Mexican
internal immigration management, because it demonstrates women’s attempt to transcend
government management to protect women’s interests in relationship to the Program’s
demands on their labor. Although it did not encourage rural working class women to defy
restrictive gender norms, the DIF was committed to motivating them to excel as laborers

71 Ibid.

298
for family and nation. It considered excelling as skilled laborers integral to multiple
generations of women responsible for turning long-term parenting into a healthier quality
of life. Previously, the letters of immigrant relatives tried to instill among rural working
class women the importance of re-conceptualizing themselves as wives, parents, and
laborers worthy of fair employment conditions. Now it was up to the DIF to instill this
approach.
During its third workshop, DIF personnel shared their proposal for government
funding of their resource distribution campaign with the 1,893 women in attendance.
72

They encouraged women in attendance to conceptualize their participation as part of a
large effort to efficiently administer government resources to improve their long-term
quality of life. It was their responsibility to take advantage of these resources to
strengthen their health and support networks in pursuit of an education and skilled
employment. If the Mexican government approved their proposal, DIF personnel planned
to distribute rations of beans, bread, eggs, rice, and milk to help rural working class
women improve their children’s diets. Although this organization stressed that these
rations would not be enough to feed an entire family when distributed on a monthly basis,
they indicated that it was necessary to do anything to improve children and women’s
nutrition to preserve government support.
DIF personnel also informed women in attendance that they had requested sewing
equipment, cloth, and other materials and supplies, so that workshop participants could
make direly needed clothing for themselves and their children. Nurturing a healthy self-

72 Ibid.

299
esteem by providing access to new clothing was critical to encouraging women to assert
their and their children’s right to an education. This organization was determined to instill
in these children and women a healthy self-image. It did not want them to accept that
their lives were contingent on contract renewal or remittances. Irrespective of the
immigration and employment status of their immigrant relatives, they had to act in
protection of their interests. Women in attendance supported this measure. They and their
children were tired of wearing the same worn clothing. It was devastating to their self-
image, and inspired feelings of incompetence and inadequacy when interacting with town
residents or in other public situations. Carmela Hernandez expressed her enthusiasm for
this measure,
“Having access to a sewing workshop would be of much help. It has been
a year since I made my children new clothes. It has affected much. They
do not feel good around other children. Although, we are all very poor, it
makes them feel ashamed. I try to instill in them that they should not feel
less than others, but it is difficult. It would be of much help to have these
services readily available. We could sew direly needed clothes
immediately without have to worry about how we are going to pay for
it.”
73

With new clothing, DIF personnel and women in attendance were confident that
transitioning into a healthier quality of life would begin to take shape.
DIF justified its request for national publications centering on the changing shape
of immigration policy as an attempt to learn more about the increasing demands placed
on rural working class children and women’s labor. By developing a transnational
understanding of immigration through several sources of information, it sought to keep
itself and participating women informed of the immigration management of the Mexican

73 Ibid.

300
government to avoid jeopardizing their interests and those of their immigrant relatives.
Since this chapter’s inception in San Martin de Hidalgo, the Mexican government had not
provided them with information concerning the Bracero Program’s future. They could not
afford to overlook the Program’s demands, and adequately adjusting their efforts to avoid
violating Program terms continued to be a shared priority among DIF personnel and
workshop participants. Conforming to government mandates and immigration policy
continued to inform the organization’s approach, as it was committed to protecting the
interests and employment options of children and women of San Martin de Hidalgo.
Before submitting their proposal, DIF asked workshop participants to answer a
survey on their employment and medical history, household status, and parental concerns.
Without this information, the Mexican government would not review their proposal.
Women in attendance agreed to participate without revealing their personal contact
information. To ensure wide participation and accurate records, DIF settled for collecting
and reporting information on rural working class children and women’s educational
attainment and employment conditions. This would help them demonstrate that, indeed,
these families were in desperate need of government assistance and requested resources.
After recording the survey’s results, this organization informed the Mexican government
that 97 percent of women were unskilled poorly paid laborers and 89 percent of children
worked in the place of adults harvesting crops and completing other tasks to barely
finance one family meal a day.
74
By describing their poor health and self-esteem, this
organization supported its request for food rations and clothing production equipment and

74 Ibid.

301
supplies. It worked hard to convince the Mexican government that improving the health
of these families required much more than their labor and remittance management.
This organization’s approach resonated with workshop participants. Their
proposal would provide them with items and products that had become increasingly
unaffordable to them. Women rarely had enough to invest in making or purchasing
clothing, food rations, or obtaining information on immigration beyond what their
relatives shared. DIF willingness to submit a proposal on their behalf without demanding
that they sign a contract or pay a fee earned them the collaboration of workshop
participants. DIF personnel’s interest in creating incentives without exploiting or
jeopardizing the position of rural working class women encouraged them to envision
themselves as part of an organized support network.
In March 1950, the Mexican government approved this organization’s proposal
for a resource distribution campaign. After distributing food rations, and organizing their
clothing workshop, however, DIF personnel were aware that what most unskilled
immigrant families were unprepared to successfully pursue academic degrees or
vocational credentials. The next goal would have to be part of a larger part agenda to get
an older generation of women to instinctively support such training despite the short-term
financial hardship. Academic and vocational institutes often seemed out of Mexican
women’s reach. They required supervised and structured migration to academic
institutions and trade schools, short-term family separation, and timely payment of tuition
fees. Often women had not completed educational pre-requisites or their respective
families were unprepared to support such training emotionally and financially.

302
Nonetheless, they were confident that their shared assessment of working poor women’s
needs would compel women and their families to collaborate with one another in pursuit
of academic credentials as a matter of necessity.
Although the daughters of rural working class women’ understood the logic
behind pursuing an education and skilled employment, they feared such pursuit’s
consequences on their families’ standard of living. Rural working class female children
were convinced that excelling as future unskilled or skilled laborers required much family
sacrifice. Carolina Gutierrez explained,
“Although the ladies form DIF and our mothers and sisters assured us that
learning something that would help us fend for ourselves was worth the
sacrifice concerning our employment situation, I felt everything was the
same. In every situation, as a poor woman and member of a family
comprised of immigrant men, we would always have much against us,
many obstacles, but even so, they would reiterate that we would
experience obstacles everywhere we went. They would advise me not to
forget that married, single, or among our family, and with or without an
education, we were still poor and as part of the struggling poor, woman or
man, we did not have a choice but to learn to work in such a way where
we would earn more under dignified terms. It was our obligation to learn
with our parents’ approval and support. . . .even if this was a draining
process.”
75

After realizing that marrying without fair employment terms in place was also an
undesirable prospect, rural working class women’s daughters were far more receptive to
negotiating the demands of pursuing the long-term advantages of becoming a skilled
laborer.
Maria Elena Suarez also remembered that discussing the importance of a skilled
trade among DIF workshop participants was important for her mother communicating

75 Ibid.

303
with her father to finally discuss what would be better for her long term prospects. Suarez
explained that throughout her youth, she felt that she was compelled to labor to help her
immigrant relatives by complying with CDP curriculum and working long hours in
unskilled labor to finance her family’s living expenses. The fact that DIF’s approach
offered her mother enough information regarding the financial, academic, and emotional
requirements, as well as the worsening immigration situation, to feel was made that it was
her obligation to hold this conversation. Suarez remembers,
“For my mother information was important, as well as the intensity of the
uncertainty under which we lived influenced her support of my education.
Marriage did not offer much stability. It was best to discuss openly how
we were going to get ahead, because we had to work just as hard if not
harder than men, as poor women that had been our story, but with the
changes taking place everyone had to consider carefully whether they
were going to invest their energy in training for a better job that would
make it easier to be a mother, daughter, or a woman that would be able to
support their partner. The fact that this organization was talking about
women and change was its most important contribution. That was my
impression as a woman who ever since I was a child had worked very
hard.”
76

In their monthly lesson plans submitted for government review and approval, DIF
staff showcased their instruction among children on how to help their parents prepare
food, as well as make their clothing. Andrea Sandoval, DIF staff member recorded in her
work log that it was encouraging to work with children and their mothers in ways that
children felt they had the individual attention of their mother or other female relatives.
They would work together to cut, sew, and distribute the materials needed to make
children’s clothing, as well as collaborate with other families in ways that actually helped
satisfy their immediate needs. DIF felt that this activity did not change the course of the

76 Ibid.

304
lives of children or their parents, but provided them with a time to come together on a
project that was meant to fulfill one of their basic needs. Claudia Lopez remembers that
as a child these workshops were helpful in finally allowing her mother to parent her
differently. It made it possible
“For her to feel bad, but enthusiastic about making clothes, since she did
not need to spend a fortune. She was able to make us new clothes,
different from the mended clothing we were forced to wear for years at a
time. What’s more, DIF received supplies that were in style, so we finally
wore the latest colors and trends. They never made us feel that they knew
more than us or our mothers. It was as if our collaboration inspired much
hope among them-that we could come and work together in our best
interest.”
77

Other staff members’ journals reflect that during these workshops everyone shared ideas
with one another, and workshops became conversations toward helping each other
provide for their children. This was the only forum that had encouraged women and
children to work together to participate in activities that were helpful to children who felt
that they had been shortchanged of their childhood on account of the sacrifices associated
with immigrant labor in Mexico and the United States. Esperanza Ramirez reported,
“Mothers and daughters worked patiently. Everyone was pleased with spending time
together and discussing our hardships without underestimating or humiliating each
other.”
78

Such realization did not diminish the fact that some women felt that they never
had any real sense of options. Growing up as part of families who were negotiating an
economy that required family separation, they realized that discussions and their potential

77 Town Public Life Files. Series 95, Folder 38, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
78 Ibid.

305
were consistently around their labor: how they could improve their labor or become
workers that could avoid family separation and exploitation associated with the ostracism
of migrant and undocumented entry? They realized that the critical issue had now
become what kind of worker they would become to accommodate a marriage and
extended family arrangement dependent on immigration, not how to prevent having to
confront a marriage plagued by family separation. Young women took comfort in the DIF
focus on preparedness.
DIF, CDP, families, and suitors all took an active interest in focusing their
discussions on working class immigrant women as laborers. Training among young men
for skilled trades should also have been an option, so they would not have to undertake
immigration. However, encouraging men to undertake vocational training was a
discussion that did not take place. It was assumed that since the government had not
targeted working class men as family members in need of an education, then the DIF
could not afford to suggest this approach. Notions around male physical mobility implied
that men had more employment options.
Instead, DIF personnel would read national newspaper coverage on the Program’s
management, write reports, and gather images to provide female workshop participants
with summaries of immigration’s impact on their male relatives’ earning potential.
Children between 5 and 14 years of age were dismissed to the designated recreation area,
so that parents and older female siblings could learn more about the prevalence of
deportation without alarming their younger brothers and sisters. DIF personnel prioritized
sharing these accounts, because these immigrant relatives of these women were finding it

306
increasingly difficult to remain contract laborers without resorting to undocumented
immigration. The actual newsclippings about deportation were kept in binders that were
made accessible to women when their workshops ended. Candelaria Rios explained, “the
fact that we felt with the ease to engage, present, and develop discussions using
government information and loved ones’ letters confirming that as women we had to
work hard to prepare ourselves to confront an increasingly difficult situation was
comforting and helpful.”
79

Others explained that sharing these letters placed them on equal terms with
national newspaper coverage and validated their individual concerns and experience. DIF
allowed women to share their individual concerns without undermining a letters’ content.
Workshop participants did not take for granted DIF’s genuine commitment to taking
advantage of available information to motivate them to work closely and in support of
one another. Eugenia Almazan explained,
“All the women would respectfully pay attention. They would coordinate
sharing each others’ letters and integrating loved ones who were
experiencing an especially difficult time in the United States in prayer
circles hosted in each others’ homes. DIF workshops helped each of us
communicate and help each other. In our two-hour workshops we
discussed all sorts of issues without offending or humiliating anyone’s
experience or needs. Even though we led busy lives, these workshops did
not overwhelm us.”
80

Other times it fueled women’s anxiety and interest in their daughter’s education. Marisa
Camacho shared that

79 Ibid.
80 Ibid.

307
“One did not feel alone after learning that other women were receiving
similar news, that their relatives were not making enough or were being
exploited-they were getting deported without getting paid. These were
situations that most workshop participants were facing, and this allowed
us to have serious conversations about saving and paying off our loans by
excelling in a skilled trade. I remember I used to attend, because DIF
addressed and seriously engaged in helping us pursue an education to
improve our children, most especially our daughters’ opportunities and
welfare. It became a goal-marrying only after completing an education.
They insisted that after financing their basic needs and expressing our
affection, it was important provide them with an education to make sure
that they worked in well paying jobs. But they never made us feel less
than or ignorant, they simply tried to facilitate conversations and efforts
that would compel us to reflect on immigration in such a way where no
one was an authority on the issue, so that we realized that we were each
being affected and it was in our best interest to break the silence, share,
and talk.”
81

These conversations around the likelihood of deportation convinced poor working
women that remittances were the best kind of support their relatives were going to
provide. Working as an undocumented immigrant worker had become extremely
unprofitable and intensified women’s need to pursue an education and enter into skilled
employment sectors to finance extended periods of family separation. Strengthening their
solidarity by sharing their concerns and strategies improved their negotiation and
planning for undocumented immigration. It helped these women establish an informative
familiarity with conditions that ashamed immigrant male relatives did not discuss in their
letters or upon their return.
Despite the fact that undocumented female immigration was also on the rise and
covered widely, DIF did not use it to intimidate women to consider skilled employment.
Isabel Arreola read newspaper coverage on undocumented immigration, but urged

81 Ibid.

308
members to avoid drawing attention to the plight of undocumented immigrant women,
claiming that some women might have relatives who had not been able to avoid this kind
of labor. Reminding them that they were committed to avoiding tension or fueling
misperceptions associated with a woman’s decision to undertake undocumented
immigration, Arreola justified her recommendation by explaining that,
“Women should not attack other women. It is our responsibility to avoid
that women feel obligated to separate from their families and settle for a
life in which employment opportunities’ demands were similar to those of
braceros and other immigrant men. Among working class women with
immigrant relatives it was far more productive to establish understanding
concerning the uncertainty and disgrace of internal migration and the
pressures and disorientation of so many family obligation to avoid their
internal migration to undignified employment sectors to raise awareness
on the larger issue of helping women overcome the challenge of raising a
family under such a difficult situation. We do not need to humiliate each
other, deny information, resource, and support.”
82

DIF was committed to not drawing attention to the plight of migrant and undocumented
immigrant women. Their notes reflect that instead they opted to make this information
reachable by having these articles available in their reading area or discussing their
situation to stress the urgency of women’s education as a serious local issue.
Transnational understandings of immigration among working class families
encompassed informing a younger generation of women, as well as encouraging them to
begin to gather information on their own. Young women between the ages of 15 and 17
years of age felt that being part of discussions around the technicalities of immigration
was instructive.
83
It demonstrated that there were thousands of families affected by the
departure of their immigrant relatives, and instilled a sense that each community had a

82 Ibid.
83 Ibid.

309
connection to the Program and interconnected along a much larger circuitous journey.
Learning about immigration was much more than a process; it was critical to fueling
interest in an education and skilled employment among multiple generations of rural
working class women.
Pushing Vocational Education
Transitioning out of CDP curriculum and into vocational and other forms of
education required careful planning. DIF began its efforts by teaching young girls
between the ages of 14 and 16 years to prepare for potential vocational training in Math
and reading courses that expanded their understanding of Geometry and Algebra, as well
as learning the components to writing essays and lesson plans. Those who were interested
in nursing were provided with first aid lessons, as well as anatomy workshops. DIF did
not want these women to feel at a disadvantage because they were completely unfamiliar
with the subject matter taught.
The older female relatives of these young girls also lent their support, quizzing
them on these subjects. They found themselves confronting similar circumstances as their
mothers around expectations of marraige without having completed an education or
securing skilled employment. Carolina Esparza participated as a concerned sibling and
parent, as she needed the materials and access to the sewing machines to make her
children clothing, and would learn how to feed her children on vegetables she grew in her
own garden from DIF recipes. Although this was helpful, she explained that nothing
made her feel more useful than being a part of discussions that raised awareness for the

310
future of her sister and other young women.
84
Her attendance, chores, and lessons were
meant to encourage her to take the kind of discussions DIF facilitated seriously.
After educating workshop participants on the changing shape of immigration in
the United States, DIF invited rural working class women already excelling in skilled
employment sectors to share their experience with workshop participants. Confident that
their testimonios (testimonials) would solidify women and young girls’ resolve to pursue
an education, this organization invited four women to reflect on their family history and
its relationship to immigration. They were encouraged to share the advantages and
demands of confronting immigration’s consequences as skilled female laborers. Their
testimonials would demonstrate that acquiring an education and entering a skilled
employment sector was demanding but critical to protecting their families’ interests.
Although women were often familiar with these women’s histories, they had not had an
opportunity to ask them questions regarding the decisions they had made throughout their
lives as wives, parents, and skilled laborers. This workshop would provide struggling
rural working class women and young girls an opportunity to learn more from an older
generation’s experience and assessment of women’s obligation to themselves and
families.
During this organization’s last four months, DIF personnel hosted testimonio
workshops on a monthly basis. It would prove to be its most effective tools toward
encouraging an older and younger generation of women to work together in preparation
for the pursuit of a vocational education and other training programs. As these workshops

84 Ibid.

311
inspired multiple generations’ acknowledgement of immigration’s longstanding demand
on their flexibility and labor, it also helped them collectively finance and manage their
supervised migration to vocational institutes in surrounding towns to achieve skilled
employment. Additionally, these workshops were the first time in which the public
rendition of the life histories of skilled working class women were worthy of careful
consideration on similar terms to that of male repatriates. These women embodied the
successful negotiation of an ongoing struggle to adjust to immigration, and their
experiences resonated as worthy of rural working class women’s emulation.
Identifying rural working class skilled women’s experience as worthy of careful
reflection also marked a dramatic shift in this town’s treatment of them and their function
in the internal immigration management for this town. By borrowing a model for
prospective bracero parents to circulate direly needed information through repatriates’
testimonials, DIF personnel welcomed, celebrated, and studied an older generation of
women’s insights and labor to develop plans to facilitate women and young girls’
supervised migration to surrounding town educational institutes. Like male repatriates,
these women were forthcoming in their narratives, looking past previous family and town
alienation to welcome the opportunity to break the silence on this worthwhile issue. Their
message was clear: it was the obligation of younger generations of rural working class
women and girls to take advantage of these workshops to improve their quality of life, as
they had done with a much older generation of women and men’s help.

312
Ignacia Rios Torres’ testimonio culminated this series.
85
Her lived experience
illustrates the importance of parental support toward pursuing an education and skilled
employment. As an estranged immigrant wife, she had relied on their support to
coordinate her migration and advancement into skilled employment. DIF personnel were
confident that her example and ingenuity would resonate and nurture workshop
participants’ commitment to work together. They were confident that learning more about
her sacrifices would motivate families to consider the importance of learning to rely on
each other to coordinate financing vocational institute fees, long commutes to the
institutes, and excelling in coursework.
Rios Torres shared that in August 1942, after a four-month courtship and
graduating high school, she married Ramon Rios. Seventeen years old, she was anxious
over her transition into household management and marriage. She wondered whether she
would supplement Ramon’s wages by working alongside her parents harvesting crops
and raising livestock or enroll in vocational training to enter into well-paid skilled
employment. She did not know how flexible he would be. San Martin de Hidalgo’s
educational system did not include vocational training. It required relocation.
Two weeks into their marriage, Ramon opted for their long-term separation. Upon
learning of the Bracero Program, he convinced her that working in the United States
temporarily and earning U.S. wages would finance their purchase of land, construction
materials, and farm equipment to build their own home, harvest crops, and raise
livestock. Their separation would bolster his earning potential, facilitating his transition

85 Ibid.

313
into marriage and settlement. He left her with her parents without specifying when he
would return, transforming her life. She asserts, “on my own but with my parents’
support I assumed, defined, and fulfilled our obligation.”
86
Her transition entailed
negotiating a long distance marriage, head of household obligations, and making inroads
into skilled employment to achieve some semblance of financial security.
Shortly after his departure, Ignacia learned that she was pregnant. Uncertain of his
return, she continued to rely on her parents, Manuel and Rebeca Torres. Eight months
pregnant, she was physically unable to harvest crops, and cooked and sold large orders of
tamales to finance her pregnancy. After working mornings, afternoons, and evenings
preparing well-fried and seasoned beef and pork fillings, cornmeal, and spreading it over
corn husk leaves, she barely earned enough to finance her own nutritional needs.
Harvesting crops, raising livestock, nor cooking and selling tamales were enough to raise
their infant son, Carlos, or set the material foundations for their settlement.
After eleven months of contract labor, Ramon finally returned, but did not settle.
He explained that raising their son required contract renewal. They could not afford to
forgo US wages. He renewed his contract immediately, and returned to the United States.
Ignacia was convinced that their separation was long term, as he had not expressed an
interest in settlement. A few weeks after his departure, she learned she was once again,
pregnant. Pursuing skilled employment became necessary. She could not afford to
accommodate his uninterrupted immigration.

86 Ibid.

314
In September 1945, single middle class town women between the ages of 17 and
29 pursued academic degrees and vocational credentials. Enrollment in surrounding town
vocational institutes increased from 125 to 500.
87
Most female applicants wrote in their
applications that they had applied because they were committed to accommodate the
absence of thousands of immigrant men responsibly, asserting that they were among the
most qualified to pursue teaching and other service credentials because of their
educational and family background. Middle class parents were able to finance their
daughters living nearby these vocational institutes under the supervision of relatives. This
way they avoided long commutes to these institutes on their own, as well as, public
skepticism on their interaction during their commute to town.
With a child in tow and another on the way, Ignacia wrote a different kind of
application, asserting that she needed to complete an education and achieve skilled
employment to finance her dependent children’s care. Vocational institute applications
helped admission committee’s determine a student’s overall purpose and support
networks. It was her obligation to prove that her children would be cared for adequately,
and not distract her from her studies. Vocational institutes were strict on who they
trained, as they did not want their reputation to deteriorate. Hence, she stressed to
workshop participants that these were issues that she and her family wrestled with, and
they settled on pursuing a structured and supervised migration and transition into skilled
employment and settlement. She could not depend on Ramon. Her parents’ flexibility
and support made her transition into vocational training a family endeavor.

87 Ibid.

315
In January 1946, her application was approved after she secured the support of her
parents and the vocational institute’s clergy, as they sponsored her education and
migration by facilitating an affordable living arrangement. With her mother and children
by her side and under the auspices of the church, she moved to a church owned cottage to
pursue a teaching credential. After convincing vocational institute administrators of her
commitment to family, motherhood, and a long distance marriage, she enrolled in the
Instituto Vocacional San Angel, a vocational institute located in Sayula, a rural town
located ninety miles south of Guadalajara, Jalisco. As her mother cleaned, cooked, and
cared for her children, she was able to attend and complete demanding coursework and
related activities. An older generation’s labor was critical to a younger generation’s
success. Her father also provided financial support toward payment of her tuition fees,
and visited occasionally to deliver Ramon’s letters and remittances personally. Ignacia’s
head of household management, migration, and pursuit of an education was contingent on
her parents’ support, and strengthened her resolve.
By September 1949, upon earning her teaching credential, her mother passed
away. Her passing and her father’s poor health obliged her to return to town to teach
second grade. Her father continued to support her education by caring for her children, so
she could teach early mornings and late afternoons. After two months of teaching, she
learned that her teaching credential restricted her to elementary school teaching.
Applying for better-paid middle school teaching positions required another year of
coursework.

316
As the primary breadwinner, she was compelled to eventually pursue such
credential a to achieve a feasible long term transition. Without her mother, father, or
children by her side, she did not dare pursue such a credential. It was not offered in town
and required a five-hour weekly commute to surrounding vocational institutes. Hence,
she developed and relied on a different support network to pursue this training. Ramon
returned several times thereafter, but under similar terms. He financed a few months’
expenses, but refused to settle down, confident that another stint in the United States as a
bracero or undocumented worker would bolster his potential for long term settlement.
Their strained marriage and family obligations motivated her development of
support networks compatible with her professional responsibilities, goals and family
obligations. Working with women engaged or married to braceros, or with women
confronting similar financial straits, Ignacia facilitated her own accreditation. This
process entailed becoming a responsible educator and parent in relationship to other
women’s needs in town.
As an educator, she earned and nurtured community support by planning and
implementing lesson plans and community wide events to learn more about her students
and their families. She devoted herself fully to her family and work, as students, parents,
teachers, her father and children helped organize and host these events.
88
They
coordinated and participated in neighborhood cleaning campaigns, as well as school clean
up drives. They would also set up chairs, cook, and sell food and other goods, distribute
flyers, and participate in academic, athletic, and talent competitions to celebrate student

88 Ibid.

317
achievement and progress. Her interaction with students’ parents under terms that did not
draw attention to their long-term family separation earned her their support and trust.
Moreover, her organization of fundraising efforts in support of students’ needs allowed
her to carve a niche that was compatible with responsible professional development,
community building, and networking. Such efforts inspired them to treat and think of her
as a parent who understood, and also working hard to raise children of her own under
similar circumstances. Ignacia explained, “I focused on creating a stable environment,
and was not inclined to humiliate nor discriminate students with backgrounds similar to
my own and that of my children.” Her efforts were anchored in an inclusive approach
toward service and teaching.
In October 1950, with the help of other women who also desperately wanted to
earn their middle school credential enrolled at Ameca’s Institituto Vocacional (Ameca’s
Vocational Instititute), a public vocational institute specializing in teaching. Five women
enrolled in Friday and the other five women in Saturday course offerings. They took
turns caring and cooking for each other’s children, while they attended course lectures
and workshops. Ignacia’s father played an important role in this collaboration. He would
drive them to and from this institute. This prevented public misunderstandings of their
five hour trips to and from Ameca. In addition to driving Ignacia and her friends, before
Ignacia began her coursework, her father purchased a sevillana (shawl worn over their
head and shoulders) to wear when traveling in groups. Even at this time, wearing
sevillanas commanded respect when interacting or walking in groups about town or
posing for pictures in public settings. As young single or married women with children,

318
they had to physically assert a posture of respect by wearing these articles of clothing.
Her father cautioned that she could never be too careful. He cautioned that “even though
she was accompanied she bore much responsibility.”
In May 1953, they had achieved accreditation. This allowed them to work
mornings in San Martin de Hidalgo’s elementary school and afternoons in its middle
schools teaching different academic subjects to supplement their wages. With the help of
her family and friends, Ignacia managed to secure well-paid employment to finance her
family’s needs. Collaborating with women similarly confronting family separation
allowed her to achieve a feasible approach to long-term family stability and settlement.
Unfortunately, her marriage did not improve. Ramon would continue to return
and migrate under the promise of eventual settlement. Discouraged from using
contraceptives, his return would also result in unplanned pregnancies. She hoped that her
transition into skilled employment would persuade him to settle down, but he continued
to pursue contract renewal or undocumented immigrant employment opportunities.
Nonetheless, she did not give up, writing letters and enclosing pictures of their
children to persuade him to return and help raise their children. But Ramon asserted that
he was already a responsible parent, because he was working hard to send remittances
and finance his return. He would enclose pictures in which he posed with friends to
demonstrate that he lived among similarly accountable breadwinners and heads of
household. This was of little comfort to her and their children. For over thirty years, they
led separate lives.

319
Her testimony convinced ten rural working class women to join this
organization’s ranks and satisfactorily distributed goods and the sharing of equipment.
The Mexican government, for its part, considered their lesson plans and administration of
funds efficient and were confident that working poor families were better prepared to
raise children with the skills and information obtained through their workshops. In their
last official organizational celebration, women shared a decree in which they encouraged
women to continue to gather and come to each others’ assistance. It was important that
they express their willingness to help one another, and point towards finding ways of
taking advantage of their solidarity based on learning more from each other, which is
why they concluded with Ignacia’s testimony. They encouraged all generations to not
underestimate the strength, support, and example that lay in their midst, and they hoped
they would continue or begin to pursue becoming skilled employees.
Ignacia’s testimony culminated this Program’s efforts, as it exemplified how even
at the earlier stages of the Bracero Program, preparedness through education had been
important. As a married woman who had endured the hardships of a long distance
relationship and still managed to become a skilled worker, her sharing of her lived
experience was meant to instill the sentiment among young women that if she could do it,
then those who were married could too. DIF wanted to make clear that asserting their
rights and aggressively pursuing their vocational training with family support were
foundational toward beginning this new phase of their lives. Rios had benefited greatly
from strong unconditional family support and her own determination. According to
meeting minutes, this organization ended this workshop by advocating that women not

320
grow deterred by their financial situation, but motivated by it. Pursuing an education
would make it more possible to transition into a healthier way of making a living and
negotiating a long distance marriage.
Shifting Gender Roles and the End of DIF Programming
It is important to note that families sponsored conversations around sexuality with
regards to how older and younger women alike should prioritize managing how they
interact with others in public intelligently, most especially men and young boys. An older
generation of participants would echo DIF staff’s advice that women restrict their
conversations and interaction with men to formal affairs, such as business transactions,
greetings, and group conversations centered on their fundraising efforts. They advised
young women and girls to discuss the prospect of vocational training with their respective
male relatives as a matter of necessity, and to point to their efforts and the kind of
resources they had been able to obtain on account of their skilled labor status. DIF did
not want to cause internal arguments within families, but encourage discussions that
centered on what their young daughters should have access to given the fact that
immigration patterns were not allowing their female relatives’ lives to improve. They
encouraged women to adopt the approach they had previously used when trying to
encourage their male relatives to accept and support their migration.
DIF’s workshops facilitated women’s ability to assert their preparedness by
having opened bank accounts to finance their living expenses after negotiating reduced
year round quotas. They would also show that they were proficient enough to apply, as
they had tried their best to take advantage of CDP curriculum, as well as activities and

321
lessons taught by DIF. Their fundraising success earned enough for 140 female students
to open bank accounts to convince their male parents that they had accounted for the
additional financial burden, as well as influence a shift toward making a different kind of
education accessible to their younger siblings. They intended to earn their families’
support by proving that their sacrifice would directly and unquestionably benefit local
families.
DIF considered their work a success, if women began to prioritize becoming
informed about immigration, skilled with regards to their employment, and resourceful
with regards to what was immediately accessible to them, as well as emotionally
supportive of one another. It had to approach their parents with the notion that
preparedness would help them weather changes that financially and socially had already
become permanent features of community life. They were preparing to become workers
and family members that needed to migrate and invest in different employment
opportunities to achieve and contribute to some family security.
DIF had to constantly assert to both public officials and women that it was
interested in encouraging women to get more information and skills to be better prepared
to undertake marriages. It would encourage them to help themselves and each other, so
that immigration would not continue to have a paralyzing effect on their lives. They had
to constantly assert that they were invested in encouraging women to take themselves
seriously as laborers, family members, and citizens. This goal needed to become a family
wide endeavor, even if their male relatives and government officials did not treat them as
such.

322
By September 1952, DIF had successfully helped 140 working-class single and
married women enroll in three of the largest and most affordable vocational institutes in
Ameca, Sayula, and Tlaquepaque, Jalisco. Each was an estimated 35-45 minutes away by
bus trip from town.
89
Their applications reveal that they had secured parental and other
family relatives’ support to commuting in groups to these vocational institutes, as well as
taking advantage of a program DIF had helped them put together. To help finance their
education, admitted students would work as volunteers on weekends to finance their
tuition fees, and rent their books instead of purchasing them for a fraction of the cost.
Their immigrant relatives agreed to finance the creation of a stop in the local bus
transit line to accommodate their commute. This was among the first group of women to
take advantage of two provisions that had been in place since September 1950 that
benefited working class women who wanted to pursue skilled work under the assistance
of vocational institutes. Erica was among those women who took advantage of these
provisions, and worked six months cleaning homes to enroll in Fall 1952 after refusing
Ramirez’s marriage proposal.
DIF did not include such activity in their application for renewal of their contract,
as their careful planning did not become active until well after the Mexican government’s
deadline for consideration of DIF contract renewal. Moreover, DIF doubted that their
intervention with regards to facilitating young women’s entry into skilled employment
would resonate among government authorities as part of its ongoing mission.

89 Town Public Inquiry Files. Series 95. Folder 56. Archvo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

323
Preparedness to undertake these roles through skilled employment was not the kind of
intervention the local government had in mind.
This attitude was consistent with the Mexican government’s own failure to invest
in helping young girls and women. The enrollment of working poor women in vocational
training was not something the government was prepared to endorse and finance. DIF
worked hard to allow women to be employed in ways that would make them feel useful
as wage earners, service providers, and laborers outside of their household. In addressing
how immigration was critical in women’s lives, working poor women’s labor and
sacrifice would continue to be an important component of their development. It meant
encouraging women to forge solidarities among each other to trust, one another in what
was an unconventional, demanding, and still uncertain process. These were processes that
were facilitated by their ability to work together to finance the rental of their books,
purchase of uniforms, and contribute toward their families’ earnings. DIF could disclose
to government officials the importance of having encouraged families to work toward this
goal, since it did not immediately address child poverty and was not specified in their
labor contract.
In January 1954, an estimated 375 DIF organizations throughout Jalisco had been
denied contract renewal on account of a lack of funds towards specific projects.
90
The
Mexican government considered two years of working with working class women and
children enough to educate and inspire an approach to remittances that prioritized taking
care of their educational and health needs. 84 percent of these programs reported having

90 Ibid.

324
worked extensively with women on how to care and educate their children, while an
estimated 14 percent had dedicated their efforts to helping families obtain access to much
needed resources. The other two percent were unsuccessful on account of
“mismanagement,” and two months into their organizational work their contract has been
terminated. San Martin de Hidalgo’s DIF was lumped under the 14 percent that was
targeting and helping entire families take advantage of their support and resources in
ways that improved their families’ standard of living.
91

Out of the 140 town’s young women who enrolled in this program, an estimated
92 women earned their vocational training degree or license in accounting, administrative
secretarial work, nursing, pharmaceutical science, tailor, and teaching.
92
According to
local town records, these women went on to be employed in local and surrounding banks,
elementary schools, hospitals, pharmacy stores, and businesses earning an average 45 to
65 pesos a week, which was four times as much as what they had earned as unskilled
workers. Yet, this amount was still not enough to finance their outstanding immigrant
male relatives’ loan agreement and year round expenses on their own.
93
Those whom I
interviewed remember that things had finally changed in that they were getting paid
enough to financially support their families doing jobs they felt made them feel useful
and that required schedules that were far more feasible caring for their families. This
town’s labor department record indicate that businesses and services would be open at
8:30 a.m. and close at 5:30 p.m. with a one and a half hour break at 2:00 p.m. These

91 Ibid.
92 Ibid.
93 Ibid.

325
women remember that their work was unending because they were accountable and
helpful to fellow community residents, often transforming their extended or own homes’
living rooms into consultorios (offices).
Young women donated their apuntes (journal entries) in support of an application
to extend DIF for another two years. Although young adolescent girls still did not flow
into vocational training, they asserted that it was up to them to begin to change how they
prepared to become adults. Marisela Islas expressed,
“Please grant us an additional two years of DIF. This organization has
helped my mother, sisters, and me to together understand our
responsibilities concerning preparing ourselves for the future. DIF has
supported our efforts to begin to visualize how as women we can
overcome the challenges that lie ahead under the understanding that it is
up to us to help each other prepare for the changes and demands of
confronting a Program that affects all of our lives.”
94

Others like Adela Polanco explained that DIF workshops
“Successfully brought mother and daughter together to reflect and discuss
how to take advantage of our youth for our community’s wellbeing. Their
workshops gave way to conversations in which our mothers expressed
their feeling without worrying over Program requirements. It became our
time and space to discuss our immigrant relatives’ welfare, as well as our
own, most especially how to lead productive and better lives. Please
renew DIF’s contracts, an emerging and younger generation of women
also deserves and needs their support.”
95

According to young women writing in support of DIF, these workshops
compelled mothers and daughters to consider different approaches toward their
adolescence before marriage. It brought families together to consider the formative
potential of this stage, and the fact that immigration was changing for the worst. The

94 Ibid.
95 Ibid.

326
reality that the majority of women were expected to remain behind and labor to finance
family arrangements centered on immigration became conceptualized under different
terms. Women began to understand that becoming a woman implied confronting the
emotional, physical, and family sacrifices that would continue to be there, and it was up
to them to negotiate how they wanted to manage such a situation.
Given the changes in immigration policy, families felt that it was their
responsibility to make this transition possible. Among those with whom it had worked,
DIF did instill a sense of entitlement to begin to discuss the importance of prioritizing a
young generation of women’s concerns with employment conditions through vocational
training. Although, DIF technically was able to help only 140 of its estimated 3,595
workshop participants enroll, this organization’s efforts, coupled with the onset of
Operation Wetback in June 1954, marked a turning point in how families discussed
women’s roles, as well as their larger contextualization of what was needed for skilled
employment opportunities to be finally accessible among young single and married
women. This did not mean that women’s experience improved, however.
These results reveal DIF’s immediate effects in having helped these women
prepare to undertake the difficult process to train and become skilled workers, and
improve their wages. Nonetheless, if we pay attention to how working poor families
negotiated idealizations of the extended Mexican immigrant family, it becomes clear that
entire working poor families considered it necessary for the national and local
governments to facilitate a young generation of women becoming skilled workers. When
the dramatic shift of Operation Wetback began to be felt throughout town, there was

327
increased support for families advocating for this sort of preparedness, as well as the
centrality of women’s uninterrupted well-paid employment outside of the household.
Families began to center their efforts on making sure that their female relatives were
pursuing vocational training, as they attempted to secure another layer of security to
financially and socially survive. They realized that a new situation needed to take shape
for women to achieve conditions that would allow them to better negotiate the Program’s
terms.
Mobilization in Response to “Operation Wetback”
By January 1954, three years after DIF’s contract ended, Mexican immigrant men
were struggling to meet employment terms that were compatible with Program eligibility
requirements. They realized that the demands of immigration now required men to
become invested in both countries to continue to earn enough to meet expenses that were
no longer Program eligibility, but considered normal expenses for which their families
were accountable. As men’s mobility in the United States could no longer linked to
follow a pattern in which they could afford to physically return without violating their
contracts, families had to reconsider how to secure other services.
Families began to launch proposals of their own that DIF had employed to make
this education accessible. They began to use CDP documentation and service learning
components to their advantage by making inroads toward improving their children’s
livelihood. As local government noticed the panic settling throughout town once again,
they began to address how families were to confront the new challenges of immigration
to the United States. Although their response was not reflective of a reconsideration of

328
women’s roles among working class men, it was reflective of the lasting lessons of DIF
workshops. The economic turmoil that Operation Wetback inflicted on working class
families had taken form in such a way where a younger generation of men were not able
to return and make up for the shortcomings of an older generation of immigrants. It was
no longer feasible to entrust either generation of immigrant men with the economic
security of families, who had become extended families. The former strength of sending
remittances had been greatly diminished.
Town records indicate that among families with four adult family members and
earning the equivalent of $5,000 a year, remittances (included property purchase) were
down by 67 percent. The loss of property on account of failure to pay property taxes was
at its highest among the working class at 42 percent from previous rates of 11 percent,
and this was what most immigrant male relatives invested in.
96
Now relatives were busy
financing living arrangements that were far more expensive to maintain that kept them
from investing, as well as developing a preference for trying to achieve some stability as
an undocumented immigrant worker in the United States. What marked the transition
towards the prevalence of undocumented immigrant labor was the fact that now it was
considered as the only way to earn U.S. wages while working as a contract laborer since
meeting Program eligibility requirements as part of local rural town culture was no longer
feasible. The sudden instability of not knowing whether deportation was actually going to
be enforced resulted in a different form of eligibility toward working as a contract
laborer.

96 Ibid.

329
At the heart of this transition was financing a stability that required women to also
develop a sense of security through training and skilled employment. This suddenly
became a local issue. It mobilized families to reconsider how women accommodated
Mexican immigrant men’s pursuit of security that no longer required keeping their
properties and expenses paid for. Although the logic was still the same, this kind of
security would allow them to eventually settle and rehabilitate the entire family. They
realized that with a combination of unskilled young men and women’s skilled labor, they
would learn to extend their waiting for this prospect.
It was up to working class families to expand on strategies earlier facilitated by
DIF to help women become skilled workers to help develop different relationships to
immigration that were compatible with family’s gender norms and financial needs.
Instead of appealing for local and national government support, they asked their families
to work extremely hard to save and obtain better employment opportunities. Now
immigrant relatives clamored for expanding women’s roles, especially among a younger
generation of women “become educated or learn a trade that they could undertake on
their own.”
97

This would reenergize DIFs earlier efforts, transforming them into a local issue
under a different guise, as now parents and immigrants themselves began to reconsider
the continuum of opportunities available to working poor women outside of the demands
of their immediate labor. This reconsideration was still motivated by what these men’s
immigration required of women. They mobilized around facilitating young girls and

97 Ibid.

330
women’s entry into vocational institutes, and ultimately, skilled employment. They could
not afford to solely rely on immigrant male relatives’ labor and remittances to finance
their basic living expenses. It was once again up to women to expand their abilities to
become a skilled worker and support their immigrant male relatives through a different
pursuit of security. Families continued to ignore women’s concerns with regards to
ending Mexican immigrant men’s single migration to the United States under
employment conditions that did not accommodate their identity and obligations to family.
The fact was that the brunt of labor continued to be women’s responsibility in
communities that had not changed to make it feasible for poor working women to avoid
becoming over-dependent on marriage to immigrant male laborers, remittances, CDP
curriculum, or employment opportunities as day laborers for consistently lower wages.
These efforts failed to problematize the fact that it was women’s responsibility to prepare
themselves, and accept living and working to accommodate men’s immigration. It was
once again their responsibility, but this time it centered on entering a different workforce.
The aftermath of Operation Wetback motivated these families to propose,
advocate, prepare, and partially finance their young female relatives’ transition into
skilled employment with the support of their immigrant relatives, so that they could be a
part of a workforce that could go on to forge independent household arrangements.
Working poor women stressed that approaches toward assuming this role were difficult.
This option required much tolerance on their part to being underestimated as students and
efficient skilled workers.

331
Vocational training was another process that confronted women with the reality
that the terms under which they enrolled continued to relegate them to unfair conditions
of instruction. Working poor women had to negotiate the fact that their transition into
skilled employment included an extension of CDP conditions and terms. Being a
vocational institute student implied learning to focus on its long term benefits, just as
CDP service learning requirements required placing their compliance in the larger
contextualization of their immigrant relatives’ ability to continue to immigrate.
Accommodating their immigrant male relatives continued to be at the heart of their
acceleration in an education.
Moreover, with the onset of Operation Wetback, the decline in investment in
town, and the untimely payment of fees, local government officials felt compelled to
once again, address families. Adjusting to undocumented immigration finally cornered
local government authorities to address families with regards to their needs as families.
The current president had to address the entire town, as he realized that there were no
longer distinctions between contract and undocumented immigrant laborers or older and
younger immigrants, and security was hard to achieve. Unlike DIF, however, working
class families generally speaking were better prepared to achieve security with or without
marriage to an immigrant and access to remittances.
Entire families began to respond, as they publicly acknowledged that the Program
was not enough, and immigrant labor was not providing them with any type of security.
They began to react to a deterioration of immigrant labor, and to turn to those left behind.
Families themselves began setting the foundations for a quality of life and living

332
arrangement that was not contingent on but compatible with contract and undocumented
immigrant labor. Nonetheless, this shift in conceptualizing where women fit was
cornering families to strive for a living and work arrangement that provided a younger
generation with some security without having to resort to immigrant labor. Families were
coming to terms with settlement arrangements that were not restricted to immigrant male
relatives’ return and remittances.
In August 1954, younger men, who had recently married under the impression
that this would make it feasible for them to achieve Program eligibility, used their
immigrant sons, yet were worried over their concept of what security actually implied
and required. Javier and Carmen Legaspi were among thousands of heads of working
class Mexican immigrant families who resisted an idealization of the Mexican immigrant
family that required daughters and daughters in law to depend on unskilled labor and
sporadic remittances under increasingly unfeasible terms to financially survive.
With the onset of Operation Wetback, young men were working fourteen hour
shifts for 24 pesos a week, older men in town were earning 18 pesos a week, and this was
usually on tasks that had required family help.
98
Those with businesses of their own
reported earnings of an estimated 35 pesos a week, women unskilled laborers earned 12
pesos, and annual property taxes were frozen and postponed to the following year.
99

Skilled employment wage scales stayed consisted, and ranged from an estimated 40-65
pesos among women to 55-90 among men.
100
The local government had more problems

98 Ibid.
99 Ibid.
100 Ibid.

333
than it could handle, and during that fiscal year, it did postponed payment of property
taxes until July 1955, and instead required working class families to pay their business
licensing fees and utility payment in full. As heads of families confronting having to
make many more expenses on lower payment, they struggled to conform to local
idealizations of the extended Mexican immigrant family that included working class
young girls and women pursuing vocational training and skilled training. Families
learned that their pay scale was the only thing in that community that had not changed,
and that it was best that they improve and become eligible for that wage scale.
Eight months after joining the Bracero Program, Javier and Carmen’s son, Arturo
Legaspi, had not written or returned. Families began to work toward conceptualizing
skilled employment as the only alternative toward working and surviving together as a
family. Like thousands of parents who had not heard from their sons, Javier and Carmen
were certain that Arturo had violated his contract and become an undocumented Mexican
immigrant. Javier remembers, ‘the months did not add up-upon not returning or
receiving letters-one pretty much knew,” speculating that upon learning that his ten
month contract had been reduced to three months, Arturo had skipped his contract and
continued to work as an undocumented immigrant worker. Javier had become too
exhausted and tired to continue to negotiate moving from labor camp to labor camp in
search of employment. Working poor families were experimenting with a different
partnership to finance living as an extended family in hopes of liquidating debt and
supporting themselves and families in Mexico. Like many of his generation between the
ages of 57 and 65 years of age, Javier had returned to work in trades that would

334
supplement his other immigrant relatives’ remittances or manage trades they had left
behind others had become estranged by continuing to work in Mexico or the United
States and away from their families,. Immigrant men did not want to grow dependent on
their sons, but wanted to help them eventually become independent by working as a
family to expand efforts that were partly supported by their younger and physically able
immigrants in their place. This way of working had allowed working class men to begin
businesses that were dependent on an older immigrant men’s labor who did not or could
not immigrate and younger relatives’ remittances. Even this approach was not enough,
because it actually required female labor, as most men could not afford to stay behind or
worked in surrounding towns to make up for the times when their immigrant relatives
could not send anything.
As Operation Wetback resulted in shorter Program contracts, I.N.S.
Commissioner Joseph Swing proposed enforcement of deportation campaigns that moved
from the United States-Mexico border to agricultural labor camps throughout the United
States, which placed different demands on older and younger generations of men and in
turn, young women. Additionally, surviving on three months’ earnings or accepting lower
wages and financing moving from labor camp to labor camp were not enough to raise a
family or finance contract renewal because employment opportunities and wages had not
improved in Mexico. Such conditions made it difficult for Javier and Carmen as unskilled
heads of an extended immigrant family to finance their son’s failure to return or send
remittances. Collaborating with their financially vulnerable sixteen year-old wife
daughter-in-law and wife of Arturo, Mariana Rodriguez, life had become extremely

335
challenging and compelled them and thousand of other local families to adopt a different
approach to Mexican immigrant family life.
Immigration was selectively a national issue. The Mexican government no longer
cared for children’s health, but issued warnings that this Program could no longer be seen
as paving the way for the future among the inexperienced. It was now considered an
experience that would benefit those with previous experience or who could afford to
work shorter contracts. At the national level the Mexican government remained divided,
with some advocating for only experienced immigrants to attempt securing a contract and
avoiding undocumented immigrant labor entirely, and others encouraging the middle
class to administer their purchasing power wisely. It was important that they consider
each others’ resources as part of a family project, and value their male wage earners’
ability to provide and have money left over to indulge their families. Men were expected
to provide their families with support, as well as nurture their ability to improve their
quality of life through housing fixtures. Additionally, women were advised to work hard,
so that their marriage was pleasing and fulfilled their relatives’ needs with regards to a
clean home, disciplined children, and the maintainance of very specific budget. Women
were central among the urban Mexican middle class, as well but as partners in helping
men build on what they had. This arrangement was meant to nurture healthy levels of
productivity, as well as inspire these men to continue to work hard. Unlike rural working
class families, their responsibility rested in becoming responsible consumer and
supportive caretakers, parents, and wives. References in this discourse with regards to
immigration were absent.

336
The working poor although never publicly addressed on the national level were
assumed to negotiate the implications of Operation Wetback on their own. The
government did not tackle the subject of diminishing local expectations, as fewer men
were able to return or finance their own absence. The government’s indifference to
addressing how to confront the fact that the Bracero Program was devastating families is
reflective of the fact that if caught facing deportation with only the clothes on their backs.
The government considered family entirely at fault for not following their
recommendation to avoid immigrating without a contract. Government indifference,
working class family’s growing concern, and the undertaking of the first cohort of DIF
students motivated Javier and Carmen to reconsider the terms of their extended
immigrant family arrangement. As they soon realized that pooling their resources,
sharing a cramped two-bedroom home, planting and harvesting crops, and cooking and
selling dinner to finance their extended immigrant family’s nutritional needs was not
enough. Relying on unskilled labor and wages was not feasible. Their oldest daughter
Esther and Mariana were hard workers, but their CDP and middle school education
confined them to poorly paid unskilled underemployment and an overdependence on
Javier and Carmen’s wages and Arturo’s sporadic remittances.
Javier and Carmen were certain that this unhealthy overdependence could only be
overcome with “academic credentials and degrees.” Javier and Carmen appealed to
similarly conflicted families: “they are women-without a labor contract or an education-
they need credentials to confront an uncertain future, they need an education.”
101
They

101 Ibid.

337
were convinced that vocational training and skilled employment would better prepare
their daughter and daughter in law to confront the emotional and financial demands of
bracero and undocumented Mexican immigrant family separation, a belief that inspired
their commitment to the funding and management of an education initiative benefiting
Esther, Mariana, and other local young dependent Mexican women. This vision was
consistent with DIF efforts to rehabilitate women.
Despite the Mexican government’s indifference, the gravity of Operation
Wetback’s aftermath on local Mexican families motivated local officials to initiate a
discussion on how to prevent Mexican immigrant family disintegration. San Martin de
Hidalgo’s president, Arnoldo Fernandez, urged Mexican immigrant families to live and
work as members of extended immigrant families to overcome Operation Wetback’s
emotional and financial costs, especially their immigrant male relatives’ indefinite
absence. He encouraged family patriarchs, often employed males like Javier, to welcome
daughters in law, grandchildren, and older relatives dependent on estranged bracero and
undocumented immigrant male relatives into their homes. On average, this entailed
accommodating five adults and six children into an already cramped two-bedroom home.
Fernandez insisted that Mexican family values required family patriarchs to house
emotionally and financially vulnerable relatives.
Extended immigrant family matriarchs, especially older female relatives like
Carmen, were encouraged to teach their daughters and increasingly younger daughters-
in-law to cook nutritious meals on shoestring budgets, cut and sew their own clothing,
and care, discipline, and educate their children. Perfecting such skills would ensure their

338
emotional and financial survival throughout their immigrant male relatives’ absence.
Fernandez stressed that extended immigrant family matriarchs’ resilience throughout the
Mexican revolution, the Great Depression, and the first stages of the Bracero Program
rendered them the most qualified to transform their daughters, daughters-in-law, and
other female relatives into “disciplined, frugal, patient, and resilient immigrant wives of
the future.” The idealized educational value of matriarchs’ lived experience was used to
advocate for an older model of working as extended immigrant families by teaching and
practicing skills that would not allow women to make inroads as marketable employees
and service providers, a purpose that familes realized needed to be at the heart of
women’s education at this time. They realized that it was more than an issue of the
exigencies of this time, since it replaced the development of supplemental educational
and employment opportunities and networks that DIF had tried to facilitate. At the local
level, Mexican government officials did not want to associate their efforts directly with
DIF. Instead, extended immigrant family matriarchs were entrusted to single-handedly
educate “inexperienced” daughters and daughters-in-law and, in turn, protect a younger
generation of Mexican women against Operation Wetback’s emotional and economic
uncertainty.
Such recommendations were made in town hall meetings in which all families
were invited urging extended immigrant families to carefully administer remittances.
Fernandez warned that their immigrant male relatives’ employment conditions required
saving as much as possible to finance the expansion of their homes and trades, cautioning
that the intense surveillance and deportation of their undocumented immigrant male

339
relatives had no end in sight. He bolstered such claims by encouraging families to open
and invest in government sponsored savings accounts imperative to their families’
financial future. Fernandez assumed that already large and financially strapped families
had enough money left over to invest in a savings account after financing their daughters-
in-law, grandchildren, and other relatives’ educational, nutritional, and medical needs.
Fernandez assured residents that matriarchal and patriarchal vigilance would not
only protect their family from homelessness and starvation, but prevent their pursuit of
unskilled and unaccompanied migration to Mexican border towns and undocumented
entry into the United States. These migrations were gaining momentum on a national
scale, as increasingly larger groups of poorly paid, underemployed, and unskilled
Mexican women without extended immigrant families desperately searched for
employment opportunities to financially cope with Operation Wetback and their male
relatives’ estrangement. They had become undesirable undocumented Mexican
immigrant women. Their migration interfered with the Mexican and U.S. governments’
management of Operation Wetback, and jeopardized their ability to raise families or
eventually reunite with their immigrant male relatives.
This approach was resented by the older generation of parents and grandparents,
as hundreds of San Martin de Hidalgo extended immigrant family matriarchs and
patriarchs, like Javier and Carmen, disapproved of Fernandez’s failure to propose
innovative alternatives to overcoming a younger generation’s overdependence on an
older generation, contract, and undocumented immigrant labor. Such local government
preparedness did not fit the model that these families felt they needed or had in mind.

340
These families believed that Fernandez’s recommendations were obsolete. Young
Mexican women could not afford to remain trapped in unskilled employment and cycles
of overdependence on immigrant labor. Moreover, his approach was not new. Prior to
Operation Wetback, according to this town’s 1950 census, an estimated 29,718 married
and single Mexican women between the ages of sixteen and twenty five already
depended on extended immigrant family arrangements.
102
Mexican and Mexican
immigrant families shared a long history of living under such terms, but found current
conditions unfeasible for their future, as they too felt that they could not finance such
responsibilities. Extended immigrant families were convinced that restricting themselves
to pooling their resources, living in cramped homes, and maximizing on sporadic
remittances and DIF rations were not enough for a younger generation of Mexican
women to eventually transition out of over dependence on immigration. An older
generation of matriarchs and patriarchs and a younger generation of Mexican women
found little comfort in Fernandez’s recommendation that immigrant mothers of the future
follow in an older generation’s footsteps under increasingly unreasonable terms.
Although extended immigrant family matriarchs and patriarchs did not consider a
younger generation of Mexican women’s continued overdependence the foundation for a
promising future, they were receptive to Fernandez’s willingness to finally address this
issue on specific public and local terms, and more specifically, to elevate and value
extended Mexican immigrant families. Previously, local government officials opposed
such family arrangements. Immigrant families realized that living and working as an

102 Town Public Life Files. Series 100, Folder 27, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

341
extended family had proven invaluable, but that it had become necessary to re-
conceptualize their relationships’ conditions to carefully craft, fund, and manage a local
education that would adequately prepare young female relatives to overcome an
overdependence on an older generation’s labor, government funded family outreach, and
sporadic remittances. They realized that it was in their daughters, daughters-in-law, and
extended immigrant families’ best interest to propose their structured and supervised
migration to surrounding towns’ vocational institutes to train and excel in administrative
careers, nursing, teaching, and other skilled trades. A change in immigration policy, and
more importantly men’s flexibility, encouraged extended immigrant families to believe
that a quality education and skilled employment would provide a young generation of
Mexican women and immigrant wives of the future with the credentials and networks
that would nurture a dignified emotional and financial self-reliance and secure year round
employment-that would eventually allow them to accommodate immigrant male
relatives’ absence on healthier terms.
An Education Initiative for Women
Working class families tactfully appropriated Fernandez’s idealization of
extended immigrant family formation, as well as female bonds of solidarity, that
flourished into undocumented immigrant families to launch family projects compatible
with their vision of a younger generation’s future. They were convinced that immigrant
male relatives’ estrangement and sporadic remittances, and especially, braceros
increasingly becoming undocumented immigrant male laborers, would continue to be a
part of this younger generation’s future.

342
This local initiative would provide government funded and sponsored vocational
training in skilled trades to eligible young Mexican women between the ages of 17 and
25 who had completed a middle school education. Preference would be given to female
members of extended immigrant families, and transportation from town to their assigned
vocational institute would also be provided. Each selected student’s family was
responsible for financing their living expenses and school supplies, as well as securing a
suitable living arrangement. Students’ grades and evaluations would determine their
continued enrollment and successful completion of their degree and credential. The fact
that this became a community wide issue that was supported by desperate families
elevated this process from a calculated risk among DIF and workshop participant to a
necessary educational opportunity a structured and supervised migration like the Bracero
Program, separating young Mexican women from their families on very specific terms.
Its goal was earning a degree and credential to improve their earning potential and re-
define family membership under dignified and healthier conditions, certainly a welcome
and noted difference. Families’ exposure with those already undertaking this transition
through DIF’s embodiment of this vision of working poor women’s most tactful
transition made working for their extended immigrant families resonate as a feasible
project.
Providing a younger generation with dignified and profitable training and skilled
employment opportunities was also fueled by these families’ desire to provide their
children and other relatives with marketable skills. After all, Fernandez and previous
town presidents’ failure to develop educational programs or expand skilled employment

343
sectors had already cornered thousands of Mexican men to pursue contract and
increasingly undocumented unskilled immigrant labor in the United States, an approach
that was similarly confining young Mexican women to a poor education and unskilled
poorly paid underemployment. Making young working class women’s pursuit of an
education into a local issue was plausible, because this town had yet to develop its own
vocational institutes. Hence, women interested in skilled employment opportunities had
to finance their own education in surrounding towns, an education and migration out of
most extended immigrant families’ reach that, without community wide support, was also
out of reach.
With former DIF local staff members working with families to set the parameters,
the families’ proposal gained momentum after they discussed the advantages of financing
and managing the education of their younger female relatives for the entire local
community among agricultural laborers, merchants, cooks, domestics, and other town
residents. Older unskilled and skilled women and men believed that a younger
generation should not conform to being “rounded up like cattle and then exploited for
miserable wages.”
103
An overdependence on bracero or undocumented immigrant labor or
working under similar employment conditions in Mexico on account of a poor education
was not the future an older and younger generation of women and men envisioned for
their neighbors, friends, relatives, and families. Emboldened by their lived experience,
groups of unskilled and skilled Mexican female and male employees expressed their
support by endorsing the need for the government to help finance this process. Avoiding

103 Ibid.

344
unskilled day, migrant, contract, and undocumented immigrant labor in Mexico and the
United States became a widely shared local priority. They also firmly believed that this
young generation would return skilled and determined to improve extended immigrant
family life through extensive and informed community service.
By April 1955, thousands of extended immigrant family matriarchs and patriarchs
and local citizens considered a younger generation of Mexican women’s pursuit of a
vocational education a worthwhile investment, and like Javier and Carmen, were
confident that degrees and credentials would finally allow a younger generation to
demand honorable and profitable employment conditions, as well as develop campaigns
and projects that would allow entire town families to thrive. Families were far more bold
than DIF, possibly because the situation was dramatically deteriorating or because their
jobs were not in jeopardy, as that of the DIF staff, so that these families proceeded to
conceptualize and emphasize their education initiative’s compatibility with Fernandez’s
idealized family formation. This was largely on account of extended immigrant families’
decision to censor criticism of Fernandez’s idealization of extended immigrant family
formation and life, the existing educational system, and the emotional and financial costs
of contract and undocumented immigrant labor in their proposal. Instead, extended
immigrant family matriarchs and patriarchs publicly conceded that the Mexican family
needed to continue to grow as a community of interrelated extended immigrant families,
emphasizing that Operation Wetback and shorter Bracero Program contracts required that
they maximize on their experience and labor under different terms to continue to educate
and protect the interests of immigrant wives of the future, and therefore the extended

345
Mexican immigrant family. These families elaborated that such sacrifices must include a
structured and supervised migration to educate a younger generation into skilled
protectors of the extended Mexican immigrant family, a transition that would nurture
family advancement and unity while simultaneously curbing Mexican women’s entry into
undocumented unskilled immigrant labor. This goal was rapidly becoming a national
priority and was compatible with Fernandez and other surrounding town’s local officials’
idealization of extended immigrant family life.
Earning such support also entailed emulating DIFs model of maximizing on their
brainstorming meetings with fellow extended immigrant family matriarchs and patriarchs
and vocational institute administrators by injecting tactfully their insights when
presenting their proposal before local government officials. Extended immigrant family
representatives, Javier and Carmen, explained that such measures elevated the validity of
their proposal, asserting that their documentation of an older, resilient, and experienced
generation of matriarchs, patriarchs, and professionals’ recommendations transformed
their education initiative into a worthy endeavor and investment. An approach previously
celebrated by Fernandez and employed strategically by extended immigrant family
representatives, they emphasized that fellow matriarchs, patriarchs, and a cohort of
professionals would not approve of an education initiative that would jeopardize young
Mexican women’s stability and long term prosperity. Instead, they interjected tactfully
that these experienced women and men approved of an education initiative that
encouraged San Martin de Hidalgo and surrounding towns’ local government officials to

346
finance young women’s feasible enrollment in adequately staffed vocational training
institutes.
This older generation and vocational institute instructors recommended that
extended immigrant families entrust their female relatives’ protection and safety to highly
recommended and sympathetic host families, bolstering their claims that this was an
adequate network to house, feed, and chaperone their young female relatives throughout
their migration and education. They ended their itemization of the key components of
their proposed education initiative by highlighting an older generation and professionals’
final recommendation that admitted young female students train in fields and skilled
trades of their choice on grounds that students’ commitment and advancement would be
contingent on their interest in their chosen field. These included accounting,
administrative management, nursing, optometry, teaching, and other skilled trades.
Excellent grades and evaluations and punctual payment of their tuition fees would
determine their eligibility. Vocational institutes had benefited greatly from the service of
students already trying to earn their degrees and credentials under special arrangements.
Once having justified the relationship between extended immigrant family
matriarchs, patriarchs, and vocational instructors as the key components of this proposed
initiative, extended immigrant families also selectively appropriated the ideal of
immigrant wives of the future and their relationship to Mexican immigration to the
United States by stressing that a young generation of skilled women would breathe new
life into San Martin de Hidalgo and other surrounding towns’ economy and poor
educational and medical infrastructure. Schools would be adequately staffed and

347
expanded, their own sensibilities would compel them to develop and administer
educational programs that would allow working poor families to finance their education
under terms similar to their own educational opportunities. This series of purposeful
services and trades would occupy vacant and deteriorated business lots, and a skilled
community of sympathetic young women would help fellow extended immigrant families
overcome the emotional and financial demands of long term immigrant family separation,
as well as supplement immigrant male relatives’ remittances. Vocational training and
skilled employment would transform these women into a network of resourceful and
trained women prepared to emotionally and financially nurture healthy family
relationships. It would not be an affront to local ideals of Mexican family life.
Extended immigrant families also aggressively pursued bracero and
undocumented immigrant male relatives’ emotional and financial support of this
initiative. When communication was finally reestablished, these families would forward
their immigrant male relatives letters detailing this initiatives’ parameters and incentives.
Fathers like, Ricardo Perez would write his immigrant son, “son, please help us give your
wife and sister the opportunity to get ahead by helping us finance their training to work as
nurses. We need your help with the expenses. After registering and satisfying their
training requirements, they will be able to earn fair wages. They need to travel to and
from Tlaquepaque every six days, and with everything that has happened we need your
help.”
104
Perez, like others who wrote for financial support, did not ask for immigrant
male relatives’ approval, but in taking the lead in explaining and justifying their female

104 Ibid.

348
relatives need for a vocational education, they were asserting that it was not a question of
whether it was necessary, but a matter of necessity that required that each family member
contribute to making it possible. They asked that they send remittances to help finance
their female relatives’ participation, as well as assuring them that such migration would
eventually significantly improve their ability to accommodate their absence and eventual
return, speculating that their female relatives’ credentials and skilled employment would
transform their remittances into supplemental income and hard earned savings.
Extended immigrant families realized that even sporadic remittances were
preferable to a family replete with poorly paid or unemployed male relatives, as there
were no other profitable local alternatives. Additionally, their immigrant relatives’
remittances were critical to their financing of this education initiative. Extended
immigrant families proposed using sporadic remittances to finance student living
expenses. For the most part these families were convinced that immigrant male relatives
were doing their best to overcome alienating employment conditions in Mexico and the
United States, and took comfort in attempting to maximize on their labor to continue to
accommodate their absence under healthier terms.
After meeting and reviewing their proposal, Fernandez obtained national
government support for this education initiative. He was advised to administer it as pilot
project, and should problems arise, to terminate it immediately. Mexican government
officials at the local and national level agreed that it should not receive national or
international publicity, and it remained an efficiently managed local initiative to curb
undocumented Mexican immigrant women’s entry into the United States. Extended

349
immigrant families were unaware that local and national Mexican government officials
supported their request for local government support of working poor women’s
vocational training as a border management measure. Fernandez had worked to ratify and
fund this education initiative on such grounds, as well as out of an escalating need to
appease thousands of extended immigrant families’ hostility, as they realized that DIF
efforts and Operation Wetback’s aftermath were converging to solidify an entire
community’s resolve to transform working poor young women into skilled workers.
The implementation of this local education initiative resulted in San Martin de
Hidalgo’s admission and enrollment of 3,200 young Mexican women in vocational
institutes in the local surrounding towns of Sayula and Tlaquepaque. Town officials and
participating surrounding towns were responsible for regulating tuition fees to a far more
affordable rate for eligible working class women, and accommodating bus services to
include Saturday and Sunday schedules that would facilitate young Mexican women’s
commute to and from their hometown and vocational institutes, since extended immigrant
female relatives were required to return to their families on weekends. In trying to
preserve family relationships, local officials and vocational institutes used a model
patterned after DIF’s strategies. Government officials insisted that this would nurture
healthier long distance extended family relationships, relationships they could not afford
to jeopardize.
Vocational institute administrators were entrusted with the selection of eligible
applicants. Local officials entrusted a committee of ten female and four male vocational
institute instructors to evaluate each applicant’s educational background and family

350
profile to determine an extended immigrant family’s eligibility. Fernandez advised this
committee to give preference to applicants with at least two bracero or undocumented
immigrant male relatives, speculating that sporadic remittances would ensure students’
punctual payment of their tuition, supplies, uniforms, living and transportation expenses,
and, in turn, completion of their credentials. Additionally, they recommended giving
preference to younger applicants, claiming that they were most receptive to constructive
criticism and discipline. These officials concurred that although facilitating their
vocational training had been largely approved as a local measure to prevent the
undocumented immigration of the “neediest of young Mexican women,” they were
responsible for enrolling financially eligible and flexible young women, a worthy cohort
of young women. They claimed that they needed skilled and sympathetic women to
expand town services and trades, and willing to work hard for working poor families.
Working poor families intuited that their proposal was meant to benefit eligible
extended immigrant families’ female relatives, but also understood that their eligibility
rested on a committee’s conceptualization of worthiness and promise. Since they were
children, working poor families and young women had been racialized as inferior and
unable to excel in opportunities outside of unskilled employment, and they were certain
that they would have to work hard to prepare an application that would allow them to
enroll. Therefore, Javier and Carmen helped their eligible daughter and daughter in law
carefully prepare their applications. They enlisted the services of a professional
photographer to take a photograph of their daughter, Esther, so that a professional portrait
showcasing her clean demeanor and youthful physical appearance was a part of her

351
application. Javier and Carmen were certain that a carefully taken photograph and written
application would improve Esther’s odds for admission, making time and money spent on
this document a worthwhile investment. Esther remembers that she felt flattered by so
much attention, and handwrote her application three times before settling on a final draft.
She explained that this process was an important family affair “that could change our
lives’ path, it all depended on this application, I dedicated myself fully to its
preparation.”
105

Preparing an application also required the mobilization of thousands of extended
immigrant families and their respective support networks, most especially sympathetic
extended families in surrounding towns. Before families applied for admission, they had
to secure the support of a host family. Fernandez insisted that families secure a living
arrangement compatible with Mexican family values before their female relatives’
application could be reviewed. This often entailed enlisting the services of extended
immigrant families similarly dependent on poorly paid unskilled labor to host, house and
chaperone their female relatives. Local church officials consistently referred trustworthy
host families, or extended family relatives facilitated such cross town support. Host
families were reasonable in their conditions and terms. Often they charged an estimated
15 pesos a month, which was very little rent, and settled for a monthly fee of 35 pesos
that would finance a young woman’s nutritional needs.
106
These families were required to
enforce strict curfews and chaperonage to protect these young women’s virtue and
honorability, monitoring their commute to and from their assigned vocational institute or

105 Town Public Life Files. Series 100, Folder 21, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
106 Ibid.

352
when running errands throughout town. Careful attention was paid to this requirement
because ensuring the protection of these students’ honorability was a priority. They were
considered the future protectors of the extended Mexican immigrant family.
In fleshing out extended immigrant family support, government ratification, and
this education initiative’s structure and incentives, I do not mean to replicate an
idealization of the extended immigrant family’s struggle. After interviewing former
students, it is clear that negotiating, earning, and financing admission and strictly abiding
by this education initiative’s conditions were only a few of the sacrifices of these young
women and their families. Once admitted, working poor young women, like the cohort of
similarly impoverished women confronting the challenges of immigration, maintained
careful documentation of their completed coursework, restricted their travel to their daily
commute to their assigned vocational institute, wrote extensive reports documenting their
educational progress and interactions with their host family for vocational institutes’
review, as well as planned their return to their family carefully, explaining that they had
to develop service oriented support networks to fulfill these requirements successfully.
Throughout their vocational training in the field of teaching, and most especially during
their supervised fieldwork, they formed part of several service oriented organizations
benefiting their students and their parents to earn their attendance, participation, and
support, as they facilitated projects used to determine their continued enrollment and
completion of their credential. This effort required long service hours helping students’
parents fundraise to purchase school supplies for their children, as well as a healthy

353
nutritious diet, essential components toward building a healthy disposition to their
instruction.
Additionally, working poor female students were required to maintain a healthy
public profile in San Martin de Hidalgo. They would please their parents and fulfill
Fernandez’s request for public updates of their progress by writing stories for the local
town newspaper. Every three weeks a student’s story of progress was featured in the
community life section. Pictures showcasing their training and leisure activities were
printed and widely circulated throughout town. Facilitating working poor women’s
vocational training had become much more than a pilot program. Fernandez used such
publicity to motivate all families to invest in their female relatives’ education. These
stories were meant to inform, as well as exemplify a healthy approach to extended
immigrant family life. These images were meant to instill a sense of accountability and
confidence in women’s education.
Esther asserts that the attention and pressure to complete their coursework and
eventually their degrees and credentials were often overwhelming. She resented being
denied her anonymity and restricted to activities associated with her education, and, in
turn, finally understood some of the pressures faced by her immigrant male relatives,
explaining that she genuinely felt like a public investment responsible for her family’s
advancement and surrounding town’s livelihood. This burden was once thrust on an
older generation of extended immigrant family matriarchs and patriarchs’ shoulders and
consistently placed on immigrant male laborers.

354
Margarita Lopez was among the working poor female students who had married
at the age of sixteen, and pursued vocational training after her husband Guillermo Lopez
became an undocumented immigrant laborer. She claimed that financial need greatly
influenced her decision, as her husband sent remittances on a bi-monthly basis that were
not enough to supplement her wages, as she worked at a tortilla shop to provide for
herself and help her in-laws finance her living expenses. She remembers that upon
undertaking such employment it became clear that what DIF had motioned to a few years
back was accurate. Only when she began asserting the emotional and financial demands
of a long distance marriage did she understand why DIF had made such a transition less
of a matter of choice, but an obligation. Although had already begun this process had
made it possible for families to eventually consider this approach worthy of consideration
and local government support, their desperation compelled them to try to support
working poor women in this endeavor.
Working poor students like Rosa Tovar explained that women confronted low
expectations and intense supervision throughout their training. Like the previous group
of working poor women, Tovar shared that it did not matter that the entire town had been
supportive throughout the process. Classroom interaction was still contingent on
instructors’ belief that working poor women were inferior and needed to be taught in
separate classrooms, as well as to work among the most impoverished families when
completing their fieldwork. Other women interviewed explained that their instructors
would be extremely critical of their potential and commitment to excelling in their chosen
field, so, they would be very demanding. Working poor women expressed that while DIF

355
had encouraged them to discuss their needs, but according to former students’ instructors
insisted that they advance and complete their education not because or with their
financial and emotional needs in mind, but despite these needs. They were expected to
excel like other students without the demands of being accountable to two families and,
at times, children. Before beginning and upon ending their school day, working poor
women were expected to help their host families with household chores and meal
preparation, as well as return on weekends to families and children who also desperately
needed their labor toward preparing for their weeks’ worth of work. Maria Herrera
explains that “as women we did not have a choice. It was our obligation to work hard,
only this time we were allowed to do under different terms. Nonetheless, it was always
for the sake or to facilitate and finance our relatives’ immigration.”
107

By August 1960, 960 young Mexican women successfully completed their
vocational education and secured placement in skilled employment in San Martin de
Hidalgo and other surrounding towns they heightening their exposure. Like their
extended immigrant families’ matriarchs, their lived experience, education, and labor
became idealized as the template for protectors of extended immigrant family life.
Fernandez and other local officials idealized Mexican young women’s accreditation and
gainful employment as a worthy investment among extended immigrant families. Instead
of advocating for the expansion of educational and employment opportunities benefiting
a cross spectrum of displaced and financially vulnerable older women and men and
returning immigrant male and female relatives, they continued to place the burden of

107 Ibid.

356
improved employment conditions and family advancement on working poor women and
their extended families. These officials explained that a skilled and gainfully employed
wife and an industrious immigrant provider were the perfect combination toward raising
healthy and productive families. This young generation of skilled women, like their
extended immigrant family matriarchs and patriarchs before them, were cast as the most
qualified family members and providers to protect and raise immigrant families. Their
education, employment, earnings, and management of remittances were characterized as
essential tools for raising families of the future. The women embodied the ideal
immigrant wife, as they were encouraged to marry returning bracero and undocumented
immigrant men, and, in turn, lay the foundations for a permanent transition out of an
extended immigrant family arrangement. Local Mexican government officials firmly
believed that two incomes would finally facilitate individual family households to
flourish, a discourse and recommendation that did not restrict skilled Mexican women in
dependence, but continued to showcase their potential as homemakers and not as
educated and productive citizens, employees, and community activists. Their functions as
accommodating homemakers, wives, and immigrant relatives continued to take center
stage. They became transformed into “the matriarchs of the future.”
108
Their actual
concerns, point of view, and needs were overshadowed by their educational achievement
and its relationship to the demands of immigrant labor.
Nonetheless, students interviewed remember that their education had proven a
wise family investment. They explained that, with their degrees and credentials, they

108 Ibid.

357
mobilized and helped an older and younger generation of women, children, and men
learn and live under healthier terms. Their skilled training and networks did not restrict
them to Fernandez’s networks, policies, and goals nor immigrant relatives’ remittances.
They exerted a flexibility that allowed them to selectively appropriate and transcend
discourses on their place in Mexican society and resources to often successfully expand
and protect their families’ interests, as their extended immigrant families had done to
protect theirs. They assert that this skill was an older generation and DIF’s greatest
inheritance, and made confronting the challenges of Mexican immigrant family
separation feasible. In their honor, women collaborated with fellow colleagues and other
women who worked as pharmacists, dentists, and nurses to coordinate fundraising efforts
and significantly reduced payment plans for direly needed health services among
extended immigrant families. Explaining that she continued to depend on an older
generation’s labor under different terms, upon marrying a bracero, Jorge Sanchez, Maria
Herrera’s mother and father would often take care of her children, so that she could work
longer shifts in support of such efforts. Her mother remembers that she did not mind
being displaced in local discourses, if it meant helping her daughter focused on local
ideals to help other families. She derived great pride, when years later, she teased her
recently arrived immigrant relatives, “yes, they are women, and look at what they have
achieved” upon their return.
109

109 Series 100. Folder 22. San Martin de Hidalgo Municipal Archives. San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco,
Mexico.

358
Conclusion
Working poor women and families who had not enrolled in vocational training or
who had become undocumented immigrants continued to be widely ignored or asked to
rely on extended immigrant families. At the national level, initiatives meant to protect or
make it possible for women to negotiate the demands of Operation Wetback were not
available. Instead, if out of their desperation, women were driven into undocumented
immigration, they were considered an international problem. Preventing their departure
through improved wage scales, and creation of unskilled employment opportunities was
not pursued by the Mexican government. If women had not taken advantage of the
opportunity for vocational training or adapted to unskilled employment, this approach to
a formative stage in women’s lives was not available everywhere. This situation points to
the fact that at the local level women were always considered laborers to help facilitate
and finance immigration. Their needs as women, parents, caretakers, and workers with
regards to improved employment conditions were never a priority at a local and national
scale outside of the efforts of DIF. Even so, with the onset of Operation Wetback,
working poor women had to focus on striving to earn the most wages possible. This was
the full extent of the kind of intervention the Mexican government was willing to offer.
By August 1961, the majority of women between the ages of sixteen and twenty
five had not earned degrees or credentials, according to town records. Instead, they
worked as day laborers in the fields, customer service representatives, cleaning homes,
and in other trades as part of the staff. The majority had not been able to finance their
vocational training, and often pursued and became undocumented immigrant workers

359
themselves when other employment opportunities were unavailable. Having run out of
options, with their family situation growing worse, these women took it upon themselves
to help finance undocumented immigration. Giving up on their right to live with their
family, these women became a kind of worker for which there was much silence. This
was a problem that neither the local nor national government was willing to address or
remedy.
This meant that female day laborers in agriculture and other unskilled trades, as
well as undocumented immigrant women, were invisible and often contingent on what
women themselves were willing and able to do for one another. Even when those
interested in addressing and making this a women’s issue still did not consider women’s
actual vision a situation that had been consistent throughout the first two phases of the
Bracero Program’s impact on local Mexican women. Those who had benefited from
vocational training often expressed feeling obligated to help other working poor women
in any way possible, but because of the lack of resources, they were unable to prove
helpful to working poor women who confronted family shortcomings and emergencies.
Just as they had benefited from different levels of concern and projections as to who they
needed to become, they felt obligated to express and act on their concern for other
women confronting similar problems. Becoming a skilled worker also implied asserting a
different public role.
In addition to encouraging skilled women in Mexico to take a visibly active
interest in helping unskilled women in publicly visible ways, skilled women asserted that
the larger cause was still exploited underpaid women and men struggling to raise families

360
in an increasingly demanding relationship with immigration. Understanding that working
poor women and men were confronting a desperate state of need, skilled women worked
to provide other working poor women with the kind of neighborhood networks that
would expand on the immediate and limited services they had been trained to provide.
Building and nurturing a sense of belonging was a part of their larger and most feasible
goal. They were determined to prevent an increase in undocumented immigrant women,
as they realized that it would leave the very children them were confronting difficult
situation confronting a far more difficult situation. It motivated them to try to build larger
networks that were contingent on female solidarity irrespective of employment and
family status.
Nonetheless, these efforts were not enough to keep working women from
pursuing undocumented entry into the United States. Skilled women’s efforts to help
similarly struggling women and their families through neighborhood networks were not
enough to prevent undocumented entry of immigrant women. In addition, unskilled and
skilled women’s immediate needs with regards to accommodating immigration took
many forms, but it did not result in ways that questioned their gender roles. They always
felt that abiding by strict gender roles was not entirely their fault, but having to do so
under the most difficult of circumstances was their responsibility. Despite a change in
their employment status, women lived bound by local, national, and international notions
of what women should and should not be doing to live up to and adhere to others’
projections of who they needed them to become to make ends meet in ways that were
compatible with local, national, and international gender norms.

361
CHAPTER 5:
“OPERATION WETBACK,” FAMILY DIVISIONS, AND
NEW SETTLEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES

In October 1954, Fernanda Morales and Juan Jose Rodriguez decided to marry.
They had met packing fruits and vegetables for Bernard Shaw and Sons, Incorporated, a
modest Tulare, California packing plant. Both nineteen years old, they had dropped out of
school to labor in support of their families. Although they had much in common, they
feared their parents’ disapproval. The U.S. government’s renewed interest in curbing
undocumented Mexican immigrant settlement fueled their anxiety. She was a U.S.
citizen, and Rodriguez a recently arrived undocumented Mexican immigrant, a difference
neither they nor their parents could afford to overlook. They all feared the indignity of
illegality.
1

A few months before deciding to marry, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS) apprehended and interrogated U.S. citizen Morales and her parents, as they
celebrated her father’s birthday, to determine their immigration status. They had been the
victims of Operation Wetback, a national campaign authorizing the deployment of 300
jeeps, 200 airplanes, and 30 helicopters to detect, interrogate, and deport undocumented
immigrants. Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants faced the brunt of this
operation.
2
Curbing undocumented Mexican immigrant settlement had become a national
priority, as an estimated 1,089,000 undocumented Mexican immigrants and countless
others had gone undetected, displacing an estimated 351,921 domestic agricultural

1 Oral History of Fernanda Morales conducted on June 10, 2002 by Ana Rosas.
2 Folder 18. Box 17. Record Group 84. National Archives and Records Administration, College Park,
Maryland.

362
laborers.
3
The U.S. government responded by launching this internal operation in
agricultural labor camps and Mexican American neighborhoods throughout the United
States.
This operation unsettled this couple and their families. The Morales family was
already familiar with this operation’s might, and feared Rodriguez’s deportation. Their
families’ overdependence on poorly paid unskilled agricultural labor had already denied
them an education. This operation promised to make matters worse by keeping them
apart. Ethnic tension further complicated their situation. Her parents and other U.S.
domestic agricultural laborers resented braceros and undocumented Mexican immigrants.
In June 1954, Operation Wetback crystalized ethnic tension in labor camps and
Mexican American neighborhoods. Leading up to this operation, the intensification of
bracero and undocumented Mexican immigrant settlement increased the alienation and
deterioration of employment conditions among Mexican American, bracero, and
undocumented Mexican immigrant agricultural laborers. They accepted planting and
harvesting crops for an estimated $0.50 cents an hour.
4
This was 45 percent less than
wages paid in other unskilled employment sectors.
5
A surplus of bracero and
undocumented immigrant labor had yet to depress these sectors’ wages. Lower wages
and underemployment pushed an estimated 229,000 Mexican American girls and boys to
drop out of school and work as agricultural laborers to compensate for their parents’

3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.

363
decline in wages.
6
Similarly, an estimated 179,000 Mexican immigrant young men
worked as braceros and an uncalculated number as undocumented immigrant agricultural
laborers in support of their families.
7
The recruitment and incorporation of bracero and
undocumented immigrant labor had diminished Mexican Americans’ earning potential
and standard of living.
This operation fueled existing labor competition and ethnic tension between and
among Mexican American, bracero, and undocumented Mexican immigrant agricultural
laborers. The massive influx of undocumented Mexican immigrant settlement had
expanded border surveillance to include sites of Mexican American and Mexican
immigrant interaction, and made securing a Bracero Program contract extremely
competitive and expensive. Unintentionally, increased undocumented Mexican
immigrant settlement and worsened Mexican Americans’ plight, aggravating ethnic
anxiety and resentment. This turn of events, coupled with Rodriguez’s family ties to
Mexico, would earn them Morales’ parents’ disapproval.
Meeting with Father Joseph Murray of Saint Joseph Catholic Church renewed
their spirits.
8
He advised them to apply for U.S. permanent resident status through
marriage. Marrying a U.S. citizen made Rodriguez eligible to apply for U.S. permanent
resident status. This provision allowed “industrious, exemplary, and morally eligible”
women and men married to U.S. citizens to live and work legally in the United States.

6 United States Farm Employment Service Agency. National Agricultural Annual Report, 1954.
Sacramento: Farm Employment Service Agency Publications, 23-25.
7 Mexican Government.Mexican Farm Labor Program National Report, 1954. Mexico, D.F.:
Publicaciones de Empleos Agriculturales, 1954, 44.
8 Oral History of Fernanda Morales.

364
This immigration provision was not widely advertised and extremely competitive.
Murray reiterated that the prospect of legality would offset her family’s anxiety, and earn
them their approval. Three hundred couples in Tulare County had married and begun this
process, and an estimated 9,800 couples had applied nationwide.
9

This application process required married couples to document their marriage for
a minimum of seven consecutive years.
10
They were required to submit an application
form, marriage license, and records of their employment, family, and financial history, as
well as letters of support from two sponsoring U.S. citizens attesting to the legitimacy of
their eligibility and documentation. After obtaining an application, they approached her
parents, Elena and Fernando Morales. Upon introducing himself, and asking for her hand
in marriage, her parents were devastated. Despite their reservations concerning his
immigration status, their public courtship and ending their relationship abruptly would
cast doubt on her honorability and virtue. They had no other choice than to approve of
their marriage. Failure to do so would ostracize them from family and friends. They
would be dismissed as “irresponsible parents,” and Morales a “libertina (loose woman).”
The prospect of U.S. permanent resident status through marriage was comforting, yet
compelled them to conduct an inquiry of their own.
11

Becoming a U.S. permanent resident through marriage required Rodriguez to
prove “uninterrupted employment, lawful conduct, and moral integrity” leading up to and

9

U.S. government. United States Immigration and Naturalization Service’s Annual Legalization Records
for the Pacific Coast Branch Region. San Francisco: California, Immigration and Naturalization Service
Publications, 1955, 20.
10 U.S. government. United States Immigration and Naturalization Services Annual Publications. San
Francisco: California, Immigration and Naturalization Services, 1953, 11.
11

Oral History of Fernanda Morales.

365
throughout their marriage for a minimum of seven consecutive years.
12
These eligibility
requirements and sponsoring their application by signing letters attesting to the
legitimacy of this documentation compelled her parents to investigate Rodriguez’s
eligibility before agreeing to support his application for permanent resident status. Afraid
of jeopardizing their interests and support networks, they wanted to make certain that
their support of this union and application was a reasonable risk. The Tulare Mercury
and Tulare Sun featured bracero and undocumented Mexican immigrant men illegally
remarrying in the United States.
13
They left wives and children in Mexico, and similarly
abandoned their Mexican American families when their relationships or employment
conditions deteriorated. Such accounts solidified the Morales family’s resolve to
investigate Rodriguez’s eligibility to marry and pursue successfully legalization through
marriage. This inquiry became a family-led transnational search for Rodriguez’s history.
Undocumented Mexican immigrant status revealed little concerning his intentions,
obligations, and relationships in Mexico.
The Mexican and U.S. governments did not maintain in-depth records of
undocumented Mexican immigration to the United States. It was applicants and their
sponsors’ responsibility to prove their eligibility for legalization through marriage.
Providing fraudulent records and letters of support disqualified applicants and resulted in

12

U.S. government, United States Immigration and Naturalization Services Annual Legalization Records
for the Pacific Coast Region. San Francisco: California, Immigration and Naturalization Services 1953, 12.
13 “Hundreds Unable to Marry,” Tulare Mercury, (July 12, 1954); AHundreds Need to be Investigated,@
Tulare Mercury, (July 13, 1954); “Family Investigations Advised,” Tulare Mercury, (July 13, 1954);
“Illegal Marriages Abound,” Tulare Mercury, (July 13,1954); “Beware: Illegal Marriages Between Two
Countries,” Tulare Mercury, (July 15, 1954); “Marriage Licenses Illegal,” Tulare Mercury (July 16, 1954);
“Illegality Becomes Commonplace,” Tulare Sun, (July 22, 1954); “Marriages Need Further Investigation,”
Tulare Sun (July 23, 1954); “Licenses Revoked,” Tulare Sun, (July 24, 1954); “Unable to Marry?,” Tulare
Sun, (July 25, 1954); “Illegal Laborer Not Allowed to Marry Afterall,” Tulare Sun, (July 26, 1954);

366
severe penalties. Applicants and sponsors submitting fraudulent documents were subject
to deportation. The U.S. government and immigration authorities held their sponsors
solely responsible for investigating and documenting an applicant’s employment, family,
and financial eligibility before agreeing to sponsor their application. I.N.S. limited their
efforts to determining an applicant’s eligibility and prosecuting fraudulent applicants
after seven consecutive years of documentation and marriage. It was in applicants and
sponsors’ best interest to investigate the transnational implications and coordinate
accordingly their pursuit of legalization. Their citizenship was at stake. Determining their
eligibility to pursue legalization through marriage before marrying was critical, and
rested on the shoulders of applicants, their sponsors, and families in Mexico. Morales’
father explained,
“My daughter’s marriage and son-in-law’s legalization was an enormous
responsibility and difficult process. We were already familiar with the
inhumane and finality of the border patrol’s interrogation. They did not
change their minds easily and doubted our legality. At that time, one was
aware that Juan would most likely be denied legalization. The immigration
authority made all sorts of questions, searched our homes, even us when
they interrogated us to determine whether we were “wetbacks” before
Fernando and Juan’s decision to marry. We were distrustful of authorities.
We doubted that they would evaluate his application, marriage, and our
letters fairly or with some flexibility. Any error-was sure to get him
deported. The legalization of Mexicans was undesirable, so we were
certain that they would use any excuse to deny him residency and deport
him and our family. We had no other choice than to distrust Juan, and
investigate whether it was worthwhile to risk our family to support their
marriage and application. We had to investigate Juan’s history through his
family to support him. This process did not end with approving of their
marriage. It was an enormous undertaking. We could not risk supporting
marriage to a man with responsibilities that would not allow him to
acclimate and adapt to a difficult life in the United States. It was the least
they could do.
14

14 Oral History of Fernando Morales.

367
Operation Wetback elevated the importance of legalization through
marriage and confronted Mexican American and Mexican families in the United
States and Mexico with the transnational complexity of undocumented immigrant
settlement in the United States. It compelled anxious and concerned Mexican
American families and estranged Mexican families to investigate immigrant
relatives’ histories and intentions in protection of their interest.
The Morales family would be among an estimated 29,781 families who, for the
first time, publicly acknowledged that their prospective undocumented immigrant sons-
in-law had identities of their own and longstanding family relationships.
15
By
investigating their family histories, they were coming to terms with the transnational and
human consequences of internal border management, as Operation Wetback fueled
Mexican American families’ support of these couples legalization through marriage.
Opposition to undocumented Mexican immigration, legalization, and settlement would
make it difficult for these couples to assert their Americanness, and expose them to the
indignities and complexity of assuming a transnational identity in the United States.
Historians have yet to consider the transnational implications of the tightening of
the U.S.-Mexico border. Reducing Operation Wetback to an internal border management
measure that heightened the deportation of undocumented Mexican immigrants
obfuscates its domestic and transnational resonance. This operation not only heightened
tension between Mexican American, bracero, and undocumented Mexican immigrant
agricultural laborers, but also forced them to get to know one another under different

15 Folder 19, Record Group 84, National Archives and Record Administration. College Park, Maryland.

368
terms.
16
Using archival methods, this chapter investigates the implications of
undocumented immigrant marriage, settlement, and legalization in the United States, and
the tightening of the U.S.-Mexico border and the impact of undocumented immigrant
settlement on struggling Mexican rural town families left behind. These are only two
dimensions in the continuum of Mexican family adaptation to undocumented immigrant
relatives’ abandonment, estrangement, and settlement. Nonetheless, these Mexican
American and Mexican family adaptations reveal the exigencies of establishing and
preserving relationships, legality, and surviving financially in U.S. and Mexican society
at a time when Mexican immigrant men’s commitment to family was in doubt.
Focusing on the the U.S. agricultural town of Tulare, California and the Mexican
rural town of San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco illuminates the negotiation by
undocumented Mexican immigrant men, Mexican American women and their families,
and estranged Mexican families’ left behind of Operation Wetback’s unintentional
consequences. By focusing on these town families’ adaptations, I will explore how
undocumented Mexican immigrant settlement confronted families with the indignities
and costs of illegality, often inspiring a flexibility that continued to confine families on
both sides of the border to poorly paid unskilled labor. Despite their many sacrifices and
confronting the complexity of their transnational identities, transitioning into first class
citizenship in Mexico and the United States through legal U.S. permanent settlement,
industrious entrepreneurship, and undocumented immigrant labor continued to be out of

16

Garcia, Matt.

A World of their Own. Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2003; Gutierrez, David G. Wall
and Mirrors. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.; Ngai, Mae. Impossible Subjects (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2004.

369
Mexican immigrant women and men’s reach. It was not enough to protect them and
future generations from the indignities of illegality and second class citizenship.
Documentation to Marry and Settle Permanently in the U.S.
By November 1954, an estimated 8,618 Mexican American Tulare families
investigated their undocumented Mexican immigrant prospective sons-in-law eligibility
to marry and legalize.
17
This inquiry became a charged transnational search for family.
These couples conducted their inquiry by writing and sending publicly notarized letters
signed by the prospective groom, bride, and parents requesting information on the
groom’s employment and family history to their family in Mexico. Receipt of these
inquiry letters devastated families throughout Mexican rural towns and villages.
Operation Wetback had intensified and overwhelmed these families with the demands of
an increase in women’s internal migration and undocumented immigration to the United
States. Learning of their immigrant relatives’ pursuit of U.S. permanent settlement
through marriage shocked and demoralized their dependent struggling families. Their
immigrant relatives’ decision to marry and permanently settle in the United States was
incompatible with their family obligations in Mexico. It was difficult for their families to
read, accept, and answer these inquiries in support of their marriage and pursuit of
permanent settlement. Yolanda Martinez shared,

17

U.S. Government. United States Immigration and Naturalization Services Annual Publications of
Legalization Records for the Pacific Coast Branch Region. San Francisco: California, Immigration and
Naturalization Services, 1956, 30-33.

370
“Upon receiving the notarized letter and signed by my brother, his fiancé,
and his in-laws I froze. One was aware that it might be in his best interest.
News of raids and deportation of thousands of sons, husbands, and
grandparents had been difficult to accept and finance. The expenditures
made with their earnings, the expense of once more returning and entering
the United States as a “wetback,” the need to settle because crossing the
U.S.-Mexico border had become difficult with so much surveillance and
deportation-everything had become difficult to manage. One understood
that he may not have had a choice but to marry to achieve stability over
there. In town there had yet to be unskilled employment that paid better
wages than those of the United States. Now with marriage and an
application to legalize, everything we had begun and planned was going to
fall apart. Our other sister Pati and I were going to miss our brother and
remittances. We were studying in Tlaquepaque to become nurses in large
part because of his support. We had participated in DIF (Integral Family
Development) workshops, finished high school, and had just enrolled in
this institute-all with our brother’s help. He had entered as a bracero and
then continued working as a “wetback” to be able to send us money to
help us advance and finish our studies. We understood that he was entitled
to live his life, forge a family of his own, but nonetheless it was still sad
and alarming news for us. Immediately we began working extra hours and
even Sundays to earn a portion of what he used to send us. Married and
overwhelmed with so many requirements and for seven years-it was best
to reconcile that we could no longer depend on him. The situation
demanded it. The coming and going and hope that soon enough it would
be possible for his to settle and return to Mexico was out of reach. We had
no other choice than to accept and support his decision, like he had
supported us, as painful as it was.”
18

Their immigrant relatives’ decision to marry and pursue legalization irrespective
of their application’s outcome automatically separated them from their families for an
additional seven years, and required their families’ accommodation of their permanent
separation without remittances. Operation Wetback had diminished immigrant relatives’
earning potential, and financing their own household and family would make it far more
difficult for them to contribute financially to their families of origin. The tightening of the
U.S.-Mexico border throughout the United States compelled families to accept their

18 Public Town Life Inquiry Files. Series 102, Folder 37, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

371
immigrant relatives’ decision to settle and begin a family of their own in the United
States.
Immigrant relatives’ legalization through marriage alienated extended immigrant
families throughout Mexican rural towns and villages. In San Martin de Hidalgo, an
estimated 138 families received such letters of inquiry.
19
Unlike Mexican American
families, they were not deliberating whether it was feasible to accept and support their
immigrant relatives into their families and networks, but whether they would write in
support of their permanent family separation. An estimated 95 percent of immigrant men
in question were often single and valued wage earners.
20
Often the youngest and formerly
dependent on other immigrant relatives, they sent an estimated 48 percent of their
earnings to their families.
21
Their marriage and legalization entailed transitioning into
adulthood without their families’ consultation and support. Nonetheless, they looked past
the formal and inquisitive tone of these letters because they were convinced that neither
marriage nor their application for legalization protected their sons, their brides, or future
children from discrimination and deportation. Carlos Suarez’s immediate reaction was to
try to offset his wife’s anxiety by assuring her
“in time with the young woman’s parents’ help, everything would itself
out. Even though they were going to struggle and suffer, it was
worthwhile to pursue legalization and settle in the United States. After two
years of coming and going, he had helped them finance their home and
avoid starvation, but he had not been able to afford land or a home. The
obligation to earn enough to pay his undocumented entry into the United
States, expense of temporary living in safe places-that would not expose
him to raids and deportation, sending remittances to help us, and save a bit

19 Town Correspondence Files. Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
20 Town Correspondence Files. Series 102, Folder 37, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.
21 Town Correspondence Files. Series 102, Folder 46, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

372
to when he returned invest and finance his return to the United States was
difficult. He was entitled to try to improve his life, he could not always
provide for them. Nonetheless, she was right to fear that with family
obligations of his deportation, his sponsoring family backtracking on their
support of his application, or failure to find employment, he was certainly
not going to be able to manage and there would be more lives at stake. I
understood my wife’s anxiety, but it was my obligation to give my son and
wife the courage to confront what may come. As difficult as the situation
was, it was my obligation to respect and support his decision. We had to
quickly reply and attest to his eligibility.”
22

They worried that their inexperienced immigrant relatives had opted to marry and pursue
legalization without carefully considering its consequences, but could not afford to
jeopardize their only opportunity to achieve some stability. Despite their concern, they
could not look past the demands and pressures of Operation Wetback on their immigrant
relatives’ quality of life.
Their immigrant relatives were not necessarily marrying and pursuing
legalization to sever their family ties, but to settle and avoid an “ir y venir” (departure
and return to) Mexico that was no longer affordable or profitable. This way of living and
working was no longer a desirable way of transitioning into a stable and healthier quality
of life. It was necessary to pursue living and working in the United States in ways that
would facilitate their transition into permanent legal settlement. This was a sharp
departure from their initial plans to earn enough to invest and settle in Mexico. An
estimated 98 percent of applicants explained that leading up to their marriage they had
entered the United States as undocumented immigrants to finance their families’ and
eventually their own permanent settlement in Mexico by investing and eventually

22 Town Correspondence Files. Series 102, Folder 49, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

373
operating a business of their own or purchasing land in Mexico.
23

They were committed
to achieving profitable and lawful stability wherever possible. Their decision to marry
and legalize confirmed their willingness to pursue responsibly doing so in the United
States. Even if it required indefinitely postponing financing their families’ transition into
a healthier quality of life, they were confident that achieving permanent resident status
and employment would eventually make it possible to contribute financially to their
welfare. Financing their marriage and learning to interact in social and employment
networks that would allow them to become Mexican American but did not replace
financially contributing to their Mexican families’ welfare.
Immigrant men also wrote and sent separate letters to their families to offset their
anxiety. Martin Gutierrez explained,
“I have not forgotten my obligation to you. It is necessary that you
understand and support that my ability to continue to help you requires
that I settle in the United States. It is not an ideal situation. I have much
to do. Seven years is a long time, but I have to try. I love my fiancé, I
know you would like her, and please excuse her family. They just want
the best for her. We are all interested in working to achieve an
employment situation that will allow me to undertake the demands of
working in the United States without so much fear. It is difficult to work
and live under the fear of deportation. I will find a way to help with some
of your expenses and education. Please do not lose faith. I need your
prayers and support. I think of you.”
24

They wrote these letters to express how the severity of their situation compelled them to
make difficult decisions, as well as to renew their commitment to improving their quality
of life in the future. Gutierrez and others insisted,

23 Ibid.
24 Ibid.

374
“it is our obligation to legalize and confront a situation that requires emotional,
employment, and financial stability. It is unfeasible to finance and take advantage
of an entry and departure without a contract. It is draining and unprofitable. It is
for more than a couple of weeks or months at a time are a good investment for the
entire family in the Untied States and Mexico.”
25

Concerned immigrant relatives emphasized that their decision was influenced by
their commitment to continuing to labor to satisfy their family obligations in Mexico and
the United States. Without legalization, they doubted that they would be able to continue
to labor and contribute financially to their welfare. They often enclosed money in their
letters to reassure their families that although their support would not be the same, they
were committed to assisting them financially within terms that were within reach,
explaining that financing their marriage, supporting their wives, and saving enough to
purchase a home were top priorities. Nonetheless, they stressed the importance of
nurturing healthy lines of communication. They would be mindful of sending money in
accordance with property, business, and other annual fee payment due dates. Often
immigrant relatives limited their support to the financing of expensive annual
expenditures that would protect them from homelessness and expulsion from school.
They expressed their commitment to helping them ensure their survival.
Receipt of the Morales’ family’s formal letter of inquiry concerning their
youngest son, to provide Rodriguez’s employment and family history, devastated his
family. Nonetheless, they considered the Morales families’ rationale, request, and
instructions consistent with the severe suspicion and discrimination they had experienced
at the hands of middle class town organizations, and were certain that his undocumented

25 Ibid.

375
immigrant status intensified his exposure to such interrogation and fueled his decision to
legalize. Additionally, the Morales family’s inquiry was consistent with Bracero Program
recruitment. This was not the first time the Rodriguez family, and thousands of other
extended immigrant working class families, had made information similar to that
requested by the Morales family available to avoid the negative implications of legally or
illegally working in the United States to make ends meet in Mexico. These families were
used to providing documentation confirming their prospective immigrant relatives’
character to prove that they were “responsible, work oriented, and morally eligible men
to participate in the Bracero Program.”
26
Now, they grappled with whether, they would
provide similar information in support of their immigrant relatives’ permanent settlement
in the United States under terms that continued to place the veracity of their claims under
question. The Morales and other families requested that they publicly notarize their
letters attesting to their immigrant relatives’ eligibility to marry and pursue legalization.
Instead, they and other families were alarmed by their immigrant relatives’ failure
to define their plans concerning their family relationships and interest in Mexico. Unlike
other immigrant men, Rodriguez and others often did not enclose or write an additional
letter detailing their marriage and settlement’s implications on their extended immigrant
family arrangements and relationships. Their decision to marry and settle in the United
States irrespective of the outcome of their application for legalization implied that they
had decided to labor in support of an extended immigrant family arrangement that no
longer included them in consultation.. Feelings of betrayal often surfaced, as they not

26

Mexican Government. Mexican Farm Labor Program National Report, 1953. Mexico, D.F.:
Publicaciones de Empleos Agriculturales,1953, 89.

376
only depended on their financial support to pay for expensive property taxes and
educational fees, but also labored long hours to accommodate and finance their relative’s
undocumented immigration. They too had sacrificed much to facilitate the transition into
undocumented immigrant labor, and did not resent their decision, but the failure to
consult and explain the long-term implications of his settlement on their extended
immigrant family arrangement left them frustrated. This was a frustration experienced by
thousands of extended immigrant families. An estimated 92 percent of these extended
immigrant families were comprised of two older adults between the ages of 57 and 68,
three middle age adults between the ages of 32 and 56, seven young adults 19 and 32, and
six children between 0 and 18 years of age.
27
Each had plans to advance with each other’s
help, and labor in support of financing property, business, and other annual fees. Like
Juan, their failure to write separate letters or clarify changes to their relationship and
financial support devastated extended immigrant families. Maribel Espinoza was
heartbroken to learn that her brother,
“Without consulting or proposing a plan in which he defined our place and
the role of the demands and a series of requirements in his and our lives
was devastating. It took us several hours to understand his situation and
make a decision. It was a painful situation. We did not underand why we
were informed of such a drastic change after there was no turning back.
We understood that we were not entitled to oppose, but had worked so
hard to save enough to finance his entry into the United States, we had
begun a business and an education under the understanding that all adults
were going to cooperate so that everyone would fare well. We could not
trust him. We did not count on having to do without his emotional and
financial support. He had failed us. After a few days, we realized that
maybe this was in his and our best interest. It was disconcerting to learn
from a third party that our brother was marrying and legalizing.”
28

27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.

377
The Rodriguez, Espinoza, and other families did not necessarily oppose their marriage
and settlement, but resented their relatives’ failure to consult or define its implications on
their plans. Accepting the taks of writing supportive letters on behalf of their relatives
was difficult, but after careful consideration, they wrote, notarized, and sent these letters.
There were very few local employment opportunities comparable to employment in the
United States. Unskilled Mexican men laboring in agriculture, construction,
manufacturing, service oriented sectors, transportation, and ranching earned an estimated
40 pesos a week, or roughly the equivalent of five hours’ worth of the worst
undocumented immigrant wages.
29
The incentive to begin a family of their own and
expand their support network in pursuit of legalization and relationships that would
facilitate their settlement into steady, if undocumented U.S. wages was preferable to
competing for increasing lower wages in a struggling Mexican rural town economy.

Resolving Relationships with Families of Origin in Mexico
Nonetheless, their failure to consult with families who for years had
accommodated employment conditions and family separation to finance their permanent
settlement created much ambivalence among families. Most of these extended immigrant
families relied on their undocumented and bracero relatives to finance annual property,
business, and education fees amounting to at least an estimated 1,500 pesos per year, an
amount that could only be paid with the financial assistance of their immigrant relatives.
30

An estimated 91 percent of applicants for legalization evealed that they financed the bulk

29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.

378
of, if not their entire families’ annual expenses and fees.
31
They would send as much as
$40 dollars a month to their families under the understanding that they would finance at
least 85 percent if of their annual property, and business fees, and expenses associated
with education.
32
Therefore, learning of such an important decision from Mexican
American families who did not express a willingness to learn more about their
prospective son in law or their families was devastating, implying that their family
relationship was no longer important. They feared that the very same economic pressures
and restrictive immigration policies that had compelled them to temporarily separate now
required that they accept the loss of a valued wage earner and member of their family.
After overcoming their initial shock and disillusionment, families desperately wanted to
write letters requesting similar information, and more urgently, their immigrant relatives’
plans concerning their obligations to their families in Mexico.
Others wrote letters asserting that their decision to marry and pursue permanent
settlement and legalization in the United States was informed by their need to transcend a
dependent family member status. The demands of securing stable employment required
them to settle with a support network and employment situation that would facilitate their
assertion of a head of household role. They did not idealize the pressures nor the life long
obligation of their decision, but the tightening of the border, immigration raids
throughout labor camps in the United States, and poorly paid unskilled employment in
Mexico left them no other choice that to learn to become part of a Mexican American
family and American society. Their odds of escaping detection, deportation, and the

31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.

379
“back and forth” migration had not been high enough for them to resettle in Mexico.
Annual town expenditures continued to increase, and crossing the border illegally and
avoiding detection had become increasingly difficult. The pursuit of permanent access to
exploitative, yet better-paid employment resonated as their only viable alternative. This
was true, even if it meant extending their separation for an at least an additional seven
years, Pablo Tovar informed his family,
“need to think of the future. I cannot continue hiding or feeling trapped, I
need another type of family help and support. I am old enough to marry,
and I am not married out of convenience. I love my girlfriend, and want
to fulfill my obligation to her and to you. I cannot do so without settling.
If they grant me legalization all the better, but even if this is not the case, I
cannot continue returning to town. It is difficult to cross, find employment
and reliable shelter, and friends to go from one place to another. I dare to
make such a difficult decision under the understanding that although I will
struggle, it is necessary to be able to have a family and home of my own.
I will not abandon you. I will continue to work to send you some money.
Please do not forget me. I remember you often.”
33

Tovar and others stressed to their families that their decision to marry and legalize
was part of a larger transition into a head of household role. They did not seek to
establish distance or assume obligations that would make it difficult to return or be a
dependent family member. They requested their families’ accommodation of their U.S.
settlement to achieve the larger goal of transitioning into a head of household role under
conditions that would make it easier to immediately undertake the challenge of laboring
in a new environment.
Mexican immigrant men’s families understood the larger implications of their
decision. They looked past the fact that their prospective Mexican American in-laws

33 Oral History of Pablo Tovar conducted on July 13, 2002 by Ana Rosas.

380
required them to notarize publicly their assessment of their relatives’ eligibility to marry
and pursue legalization, as well as their failure to express an interest in forming part of a
transnational extended immigrant family. Carmen Amezcua explained,
“their letter was handwritten, it was not a document written by a
government office, nonetheless the distrust, coldness were palpable. We
feared for our son’s future, what would await him, if before marrying, his
future in-laws felt entitled to interrogate us. I was disillusioned by the
whole process. It was difficult for me to understand that maybe the threat
of deportation made settling and forming part of a family even if quite
upset and arrogant was for the best. I could not do anything for him.
What’s more I felt bad that because I had not been able to do anything for
him, he had had to immigrate, adjust to being a “wetback,” return to help
us and continue to struggle, to ultimately settle to earn another family’s
acceptance, a family who was unfamiliar with his struggle and in another
country that like Mexico did not give the Mexican family its rightful
place. It was difficult to receive, write, and support his decision,
regardless of explanations concerning its advantages. As a mother it was
difficult for me to accept such decision. Our in-law were not satisfied, I
doubted that they would support him, as the law required. Nonetheless,
we supported him. He was legally of age. We did not have a choice.”
34

Unsettled by their prospective in-laws’ interrogation and instructions, yet
respectful of their immigrant relatives’ decision, they replied to these letters. They
anticipated that this process would allow their relatives to achieve the stability to provide
families of their own with a healthier standard of living. The reply of Rodriguez’s father
was consistent with that written by other unconditionally supportive parents, Agustin
Rodriguez wrote the Morales family,
“My son Juan Jose Rodriguez has worked hard to help every member of
our family. He has never married or accumulated debt. He has worked in
agriculture, restaurants and stores tending to customers, and building
homes by his brothers’ side. He has always been responsible concerning
family and financial matters. I give my word that he has the best of
intentions towards your daughter. He would not waste the opportunity to

34 Ibid.

381
work legally and responsibly to make sure that your daughter did not have
to do without. Please help him achieve legalization. Please do not hesitate
to write me, if you need more information. Juan Jose is worthy of my
support. Welcome to our family.”
35

His father emphasized that Juan Jose was worthy of his and the Morales’ family’s
support because he had been a devoted and hard working son. He confirmed that he was
not married, did not have outstanding debt, and had been supportive of their family by
laboring by their side. Confident that Morales was a humble and honest young woman, he
added an additional note in which he asserted that Juan Jose’s decision to separate
permanently from his parents, brothers, and sisters was reflective of his genuine affection
for their daughter. He concluded this note by expressing their sincere apology for not
enclosing money to defray their wedding expenses and INS application fees, emphasizing
that “even though we have not had the pleasure of meeting you, please do not doubt our
word. We have faith that our son will not disappoint you He deserve an opportunity to
undertake dignified employment and to raise a family of his own without fearing
deportation. Please help him.”
36

The Ramirez family further expressed their support by signing this letter before a
public notary, as the Morales family had requested, in a timely manner. They understood
that this was an important first piece in their son’s application for permanent resident
status. The Rodriguez family agreed to set their concerns aside in support of their son’s
decision to pursue marriage and legalization. They feared that it was the least they could
and the beginning of another arduous transition into an undocumented existence amongst

35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.

382
an ambivalent Mexican American family and a struggling Mexican family. Cognizant
that his marriage, settlement, and legalization required much flexibility from both
families and their son, they tried their best to facilitate his transition into permanent
profitable U.S. settlement, a hard sought after family goal.
Juan Jose’s mother, Esmeralda Ramirez Rodriguez, conceptualized Juan’s
situation differently. She centered her efforts on adopting a flexible approach in support
of what she anticipated would prove an arduous process. She did not concentrate on his
decision’s impact on their welfare or future implications of the prospect of legalization,
but on her letter’s potential to facilitate his transition. She explained that among
concerned parents their son’s legalization through marriage resonated as their final
opportunity toward providing their son with a chance to settle into healthier conditions,
an opportunity that neither the Mexican government nor they as parents had not been able
to provide. Cognizant that his decision to marry, in-laws letters of inquiry, and their reply
were only the beginning of a longer and demanding settlement process, they looked past
their permanent separation to encourage their prospective in-laws to assist her son to
confront the difficult challenge of fitting into a Mexican American family and society
overwhelmed by doubt and fear.
Operation Wetback, legalization through marrriage’s requirements, and the reality
of family obligations in Mexico transformed proving their eligibility to assert an
Americanness compatible with governmental requirements into an arduous struggle for
applicants and their families on both sides of the border. Parents anticipated that by
adopting a flexible approach and encouraging their in-laws to do the same would protect

383
their sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren to avoid family separation and poverty.
Rodriguez explained,
“I desperately wanted the questions to end, the speculation, and the
coming and going that each time demanded much more from each of us,
especially from mothers and women. I did not want my future daughter in
law to worry the same. I prayed, anxiously read letters he sent, and tried
to make the most of his remittances, so that everyone could pay for their
tuition, property taxes so that his father could work the land. One worried
very much over whether he had found someone that would give him a
helping hand or good friends with whom to work and avoid deportation.
So news that he was marrying and a woman from the United States that
most likely was used to living well and with her family in the midst, and
legalization requirements to satisfy-really-like they doubted our son-we
doubted them, but I entrusted myself to God and told my daughter to help
me write a letter to encourage them to support my son. My husband had
done his part, answering their questions, but I felt it was my obligation to
explain that my son was worth much and that they needed to support him
to complete this very difficult process like another member of their family.
I reiterated that my son would not disappoint them or their daughter. For
two years he had sent us money without asking us what we spent it on. He
just helped us without complaining. He was very responsible and would
not accept their support without being fully aware that he would have to
work hard. I was confident that if he managed to achieve settlement either
as a “wetback’ or with papers, he would not forget about us. Despite the
fact that everything had begun with many questions, it was my
responsibility as a mother to try to improve things. It was important that
both families be flexible and not be offended by these letters. We all had
to be flexible.”
37

The Morales family’s distrust inspired Rodriguez mother’s reaction. Their
inquiry foreshadowed that the documentation of and the process of becoming part
of the Morales family was at the core of Jose’s pursuit of legalization through
marriage, explaining that this letter’s official tone, request of public notarization,
and immediate reply pending detrimental consequences implied much distrust of
Juan Jose’s intentions and trustworthiness. Such attitude motivated her to express

37 Ibid.

384
her unconditional support, and to encourage the Morales family to give Juan the
benefit of the doubt. She believed firmly that it was the least she could do.
Other family letters were also reflective of consideration and understanding for
concerned Mexican American families. Writing letters in which they expressed
understanding their doubt, as well as concern for their daughter’s virtue, they looked past
their own anxiety by diligently following their instructions and promptly replying to the
inquiry. These families began their letters by sharing that they had daughters of their
own, and understood their concern and instructions. Ramon Validivia expressed,
“I understand the seriousness of the situation. I have daughters and
understand your concern and questions. We too want our daughters to be
respected, given their rightful place, and marry well. Please help our son.
You have my word that he will do everything possible, so that your
daughter is well and honor your support of his legalization. Count on us
for anything that you may need. We agree and are willing to support you
so that your daughter is well and they forge a healthy and promising
household.”
38

Receipt of inquiry letters and replies averaged two to three weeks. Martin
Buenaventura lamented not being able to do much more for his son than reply to their
inquiry. He explained, “I lament not being able to do more, but I give you my word that
my son deserves your support. He is honorable, flexible, and hardworking. He will not
disappoint you, he deserve legalization.”
39
Entrusting his in-laws to guide and help his
son through a difficult transition, he claimed that their family would do the same in
support of their daughter-in-law. The lack of economic opportunities had reduced their
relationship to writing supportive letters. Often parents also enclosed copies of

38 Ibid.
39 Oral History of Martin Buenaventura, Bracero Oral History Project, Smithsonian Institution, National
Museum of American History.

385
certificates of completion of elementary and middle school to confirm that they had led
respectable lives. They expected their prompt attention and reply would bode well for
their sons.
Supportive parents also used these letters as an opportunity to express their
concern and establish healthier lines of communication. These letters often marked the
first time they had heard from their relatives after having learned of “Operation
Wetback.” They derived a sense of comfort from learning of their plans to marry and
settle in the United States. Lucia Rodriguez wrote in her letter,
“please continue to write and keep us informed. We love our son very
much and want the best for him and you. Thank you for supporting him in
a difficult situation. It is regrettable that we do not know each other
personally to do much more for our son. We hope that through letters we
will get to know each other to establish a good relationship. We are
wiling to continue to do everything possible for our son to continue
working hard and if possible achieve legalization. We want the best for
your daughter and our son. They deserve to be happy.”
40

Drawing attention away from their disappointment, and asserting their first hand
experience of family separation, compelled them to support their immigrant male
relatives’ decision to pursue a standard of living in a country where it was more likely
that he, his wife, and their children would not have to live and work in different countries
to make ends meet. They requested that they continue to write, and, in turn, support this
young couple in their attempt to forge a healthy marriage. Desperate to make a positive,
lasting impression so that their family ties would resonate, families were forthcoming and
extremely supportive in their letters. They were willing to work hard to eventually be
treated once again as part of their extended immigrant family.

40 Ibid.

386
After having received and replied to Mexican American families’ inquiry,
families explained that their immigrant relatives’ marriage and pursuit of legalization
resonated as an attempt to assert an Americanness that their undocumented immigrant
status and Mexican American families’ anxiety was bound to make a demanding process.
Their immigration was no longer reduced to entry and departure. They speculated that the
intense scrutiny and pressure of working in the United States under the expectation of
legalization, remittances, and learning to become part of two families in two different
countries compelled immigrant relatives to pursue settlement where gainful employment
was most feasible. Families understood that their immigrant male relatives worried about
earning and saving enough to support themselves, their respective wives, and send
remittances occasionally. Documenting, developing, and learning how to negotiate a new
relationship with an often resentful extended family without losing sight of their
transnational ties would be a major undertaking.
Facing Abandonment and Estrangement
Operation Wetback inspired a different reaction among town families who had
not heard and from their bracero and undocumented immigrant relatives for months.
Learning of immigrant town men’s decision to marry and pursue settlement and
legalization in the United States prompted other immigrant men’s families to organize
inquiries of their own. Exhausted by the rigors of immigration— family separation,
poorly paid unskilled labor, supervised skilled internal migration to educational institutes,
debt, and upcoming annual property and business fees— bracero and undocumented
Mexican immigrant families, most especially wives desperate to learn of their immigrant

387
relatives intentions, collaborated to inquire after their whereabouts and plans. They
believed that years of support entitled them to ask questions of their own. Bracero and
undocumented immigrant families determined to investigate their immigrant male
relatives’ whereabouts, plans, and commitment with regards to family obligations in
Mexico and the United States. They began to question their investments and relationships
in the United States irrespective of whether they had received such a letter of inquiry.
Married women desired assurances that their husbands had not remarried. A different
conversation around immigration ensued in the privacy of their homes, as they struggled
to define how to conduct this inquiry without tarnishing their immigrant relatives’
reputation. Many feared that their inquiry would confirm the vulnerability of their
marriage and immigrant relatives’ recklessness. Mexican immigrant men’s adaptation to
the tightening of the U.S.-Mexico border to include labor camps and surrounding
neighborhoods became a charged, urgent, and challenging transnational family matter.
Their potential pursuit of U.S. settlement by their immigrant relatives without
their consultation implied that they were no longer interested in being supportive of their
family obligations and ties in Mexico. Even as these inquiries were becoming
normalized, there was much at stake concerning public scrutiny of the negotiation of their
immigrant relatives’ prolonged absence. They had to be very tactful in articulating their
concern, and opted to work together alongside other families facing the prospect of
permanent separation to frame their concern as a shared public one for families writ
large. Individual family inquiries stood to single out or reflect poorly on an individual
family’s ability to undertake this challenge. Being “one of those families” required

388
coming to terms with the possibility of permanent family separation without any
assurance of their immigrant relatives’ support. Nonetheless, their immigrant relatives’
failure to return and the prospect of marriage and legalization in the United States had
transformed their lower working class families into “one of those families.” It implied
family disunity, similar to the pattern of unskilled unaccompanied internal migration to
border towns, so unauthorized permanent settlement was considered a similar grievance.
By February 1955, an estimated 845 of this town’s braceros had violated their
contracts.
41
They had not returned, but remained living and working in the United States
after their contract’s expiration. Additionally, their failure to forward a sketch of their
return or a forwarding address for more than nine months cast doubt on the promise of
their return. News of the deportation of more than 1,290,000 men throughout the first
year of “Operation Wetback” coupled with Mexican American letters of inquiry
intensified estranged town families’ concern. Rather than frame their immigrant relatives’
estrangement as an individual shortcoming, families framed their concern as
overwhelmingly a national Bracero Program management issue.
42
The rigors of working
fifteen hours to support themselves, their children, and extended families to
accommodate their immigrant relatives’ immigration without ever learning whether they
had been contracted or entered the United States illegally, and whether they intended to
return, fueled their entitlement to demand questions concerning their immigrant relatives’

41 Mexican Government. Inventario Anual de Actividad Bracera en los Estados Unidos, San Martin de
Hidalgo, Jalisco. Jalisco: San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco Publicaciones Agrarias, 1956, 19.
42 Ibid.

389
whereabouts. They became convinced that it was their right to draw attention to their
concerns. Ester Sanchez explained,
“as embarrassing as it was, we were not easy women, nor desperate
women, but the situation was difficult. We needed information, to know
whether they had been contracted, working as “wetbacks,” if there was a
way for the government to help us reach our immigrant relatives. Since we
could not demand that they create dignified and well paying jobs, we did
not have any other choice than to demand information. The economic and
labor demands had reached a point where we had to do something, address
the Mexican government. Deportation, a dearth in well paying
employment opportunities to return to, and not knowing anything whether
our relatives had been contracted or were “wetbacks” was draining. We
could not remain silent. It was preferable to know if they were really
working and experienced difficulty keeping in touch, or whether they had
intentions to start anew in the United States. We had to do something to
remedy our uncertainty and endure this situation.”
43

Overworked and overwhelmed with worry, Mexican immigrant men’s families were
committed to investigating their immigrant relatives’ whereabouts to redefine their family
obligations and relationships. They refused to continue to labor without drawing attention
to their anxiety and consequences of the Program and its relationship to the costs of
“Operation Wetback.” They wanted to be equipped with adequate information to
intelligently confront the challenges of potential abandonment and estrangement. After
years of hard work and few improvements on their quality of life, they could not afford to
continue to labor without answers.
Despite local and national concern, there were immigrant families who considered
investigating their immigrant relatives’ whereabouts out of reach. Worried that such an
inquiry would confirm and establish a record of their immigrant relatives’ violation of
their contract or undocumented immigrant entry into the United States, they did not

43 Public Town Inquiry Files. Series 102, Folder 54, Archivo San Martin de Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico.

390
participate in this effort. Their immigrant relatives had cautioned that they should avoid
government authorities, and trust them that they would write or return upon earning
enough money. Any petitions filed in search of their whereabouts would potentially
endanger their prospects in the United States.
Immersed in layers of public scrutiny, bracero and undocumented Mexican
immigrant families negotiated this challenge with often very little emotional and financial
support from their immigrant relatives. Previously, this process had entailed
understanding and complying with acceptable expectations of family relations and social
interaction reflective of leading what were deemed