Deborah Cohen, Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico
This book, as I have mentioned, grabbed my attention because it told stories—the author literally sat with men in a barber shop to listen to them talk about their experiences as braceros. The obvious connections between the braceros program and the current demand for cheap, expendable labor in California agriculture aside, this book resonated for the current discussions over how the migrant workers were described. The United States government sang the praises of the braceros workers in the same terms it used to sing the praises of the enslaved before the Civil War (and afterward in rewrites of the history such as Gone with the Wind). The government said that the workers were hard working and docile, the line the commercial growers wanted public to justify why they needed the braceros: the domestic agricultural workers were too difficult, had too many demands, had unions. The government, tucked safely in the growers’ pocket, repeated many of the myths the growers wanted the public to believe, whether framing themselves as small family businesses who earn their money through hard work rather than the government subsidies the fatten themselves with, to making themselves to be the cutting edge of innovation, industry, and modernity to explain why the work, disappearing for domestic workers, was too challenging for the less-than-modern Mexican workers, presumably sent to America by Mexico to learn modern agriculture. The construction and reinforcement of race and Mexicans, who shift from docile workers to thieves and violent criminals in the American imagination, repeats the American story of immigration. What Cohen does that is new is give voice and agency to the braceros, explaining how their government saw them, how American growers saw them, how the U.S. border patrol saw them, and how their friends and family saw them. The corruption in the process in Mexico that restricted who was eligible to be a bracero, and the social indebtedness it incurred, was a story I had not heard before. The idea that the Mexican government framed itself as the patriarch caring for its citizens and then, at the same time, allowed for the corruption of the process while also failing to protect them from U.S. growers’ and the U.S. government’s exploitation of them echoes stories of governments in Latin America framing itself as the protector. However, in this instance, we go to the human level and hear from the men what they thought of their treatment and why they endured it, and whether, ultimately, it helped them improve their position.
I think this book and both y'alls comments here also calls into question how capital is global while the worker is not. There are real and imagined borders for the worker while capital can go wherever it chooses even to outer space. While the workers may have felt pride for their contribution to society and their families the reality is that this program was simply a more liberal form of wage slavery than that one receives when incarcerated. I think the issues highlighted in this book will also get worse as both the climate and capital continue to be allowed to proceed without grassroots intercession
I'm also enjoying the way this book is written -- not only Cohen's more informal writing style, but also they way she did much of the research in uncovering personal narratives. It's important to weigh these men's personal feelings about and experiences with the larger transnational story.
I agree that the best part of this book was the transnational subjectivity of the Bracero workers, opening the discussion to how workers themselves took agency in programs that have been discussed as monolithically exploitative. They did not just experience what has been often referred to the "immigrant condition" but they also understood that they were never fully American, fully Mexican, and maybe not even a hyphenated identity.
I thought this was a fascinating study on the Bracero workers as transnational subjects, and not just exploited workers who had no agency under grueling conditions in the United States. It is not surprising to me that the former Braceros were proud of their involvement in the program. Their labor fed both American and Mexican families and they understood the value of their labor that went beyond remuneration. The cultural and political transformations the Bracero workers undertook had a reciprocal effect on the Mexican and American communities they were attached to. Remittances kept certain communities afloat, supposedly keeping 750,000 people from destitution, even though they were ultimately not enough to change the outlook of the local job market. In the United States, Braceros were marginalized for their race, nationality, and their willingness to participate in the agricultural sector for the wages that were being offered. Their marginalization extended into Mexico, as the Mexican state and Mexican elites wanted to take credit for the wealth they generated for American farmers with their labor, even though they were partly responsible for the need to migrate in the first place.
Also, what I find very disappointing about the Bracero story, that also extends to the stories of so many migrant workers, is that there is a trend of nations extending a hand to nationals abroad because of their economic importance, and yet the right of movement for workers only gets worse over time.
Well, in the U.S., the right of transnational workers to fair labor also seems to get worse over time. The president has *doubled* the number of H-2B visas, and those go to blue collar workers outside of agriculture--almost exclusively in service industry positions where domestic workers are routinely taken advantage of and, as BRACEROS showed, guest workers have even fewer rights or people willing to enforce them. As with the Bracero program, these visas are being used to undercut the domestic labor market by exploiting immigrants who have to accept terrible working conditions because the low pay is still more than they would make in their sending countries. It seems like the name of the program has changed but the sentiment behind it and the government's duplicity in using it to solidify "otherness" while undermining domestic labor (and labor unions) continues.
One thing I think it important to bring out of this reading is the culture that was created as a result of the Bracero Program. For how many generations was the idea of obtaining work associated with migrating to the US? That such a program of labor, one which acts as a form of exploitation, not the same as but quite similar to slavery, is not surprising. However, what is surprising is the insistence and incentives created to bring hundreds of thousands of workers to the US from LA without understanding the cultural and economic implications of such a program, or perhaps more cynically stated, not caring. While it is not definitive that these consequences are unknown to the powers that be of today, the environment for migrants in the US today does highlight the prevalence of ignorance to such labor issues and history's. Additionally, with the advent of trade deals such as NAFTA and the ending of the Bracero program the US has not only done nothing to compensate workers left without game-full employment for decades, they have in fact exacerbated the issues and made matters worse for people living beyond the imaginary line we call the US Mexican border. Meanwhile the farmers who lobbied for subsidies and cheap labor continue to enjoy socialism for the rich! While we have discussed and analyzed many other reasons for migration to, from, and around LA the material reality of this once government sponsored program and its effects upon workers from LA highlights the imperialistic and irresponsible nature of US foreign relations within the Western hemisphere. That and the addition of an organization like the OAS should allow us to coherently perceive the reality behind US relations with the region as well as the denial of responsibility to those currently attempting to cross the border as REFUGEES! Without sounding too hyperbolic I think it could be said that such a program having such a short lifespan and no program to reorganize this labor force lends ample evidence to the inherently racist principles of US relations in LA. Not that the Mexican government was any better in exploiting the situation for profit and greed, but I am not Mexican. Just sayin...
As I wrote about below, one of the most interesting (and exploitative parts) of these guestworker programs compared to family-centered immigration is how it outsources the costs of raising children and caring for the elderly to the countries supplying the guest labor from the wealthy country importing that labor to the struggling country supplying that labor. I really wish Cohen’s analysis of the power structures that undergirded the Braceros program was a bit more effective, and a critical piece of this would be writing more effectively about the cultural/economic/social costs of these programs back in Mexico.
Jason, I agree with you that the Mexican government was as irresponsible and equal part in the exploitation of the braceros program. The Mexican government couldn't had seriously thought that braceros were going to be treated fairly without some form of Mexican officials mediation and given US's long history of labor exploitation. Once complaints were brought to Mexican officials, they did nothing to ensure the dignity of that workforce.
So Jason, do you refute the author's revision of past histories which depicted the braceros as victims? This is not to say exploitation should be downplayed but how do you talk about the exploitation alongside the agency of the work? An analogy I may make is that for every exploitative action there is a reaction by the workers. That reaction is not always in the form of confrontation though, and so it may be overlooked. I think there is a large distance between this relationship and slavery and a major part of that distance is defined by the avenues of agency available to the workers as opposed to the avenues open to slaves (I am trying to avoid denying anyone agency in this claim while recognizing that the forms of agency my be circumscribed differently).
For one of my undergrad classes I had to watch a video about migrant workers from Turkey who traveled to Germany for work in the 1950s. that video show the more beneficial side of the work however did mention mistreatment of the workers by officials. Many stories that are promoted are similar to that of Ramon Avitia who was able to create a small business to provide for his family after working in the US. Later in that chapter however we see the common villain in most of our readings With imperialism rearing its ugly head by pressuring The Mexican government to allow border towns “undocumented workers” so the US can tap these workers as a cheap resource. However unlike before the consequences went global with both the United States and Soviet Union pointing fingers at each other saying the other was inhumane in ethical practice. these Tales were an interesting read because of how muddled the situation got. the perception of Braceros was initially positive, but was heavily racist in the selection process. As economic conditions changed in the United States perception turn to this racist image of the Braceros which some politicians today claim of our southern neighbor. These Braceros however did push Mexico into a global spotlight.
Cohen's book focuses not just on labor as a resource, but on the laborers themselves. This is also another book about autonomy and modernity, but in a more personal sense. The men who participated in the bracero program felt they had a stake in its success and, for the most part, did not emphasize the negative aspects of their experiences. Cohen also argues that the U.S. created the bracero program in order to modernize Mexico, and she focused on the particular region of Mexico that seemed most "ready" for modernization. This also provided a good narrative for the U.S. to use to distract from their need for Mexican labor. This is another example of the more powerful nation setting the standard for what it means to be modern, and it was interesting to see the Mexican government's stated reasons for joining this scheme were similar.
Hello Katie, Your post sums up this weeks reading. I would like to emphasize "ready" for modernization. The Mexican government sent people who it classified as white to work, however the United States classified them differently. The United States actions promoted racial hierarchies in economic status, with everyone below Americans. White Mexicans would receive opportunities to economic growth.
It was fascinating to read Cohen’s book in the context of the book I read for my U.S. Immigration History class last week, which was titled “No Man’s Land: Jamaican Guestworkers in America and the Global History of Deportable Labor” by Cindy Hahamovitch. Both Cohen and Hahamovitch published in 2011, and they’re both making arguments about guest workers (which is what Braceros are from a U.S. perspective, of course, although I’m currently at the start of Chapter 7 and I have yet to see Cohen make reference to that term). Both books rely on similar sources, including significant interviews of former Braceros/guestworkers in the small communities to which they returned. Because Hahamovitch tries to make both a micro argument about Jamaican guestworkers in particular and a (less effective) macro argument about guestworkers generally, she gives some attention to Braceros, even to the point of writing about the DiGiorgio strike.
That said, reading these books together (or as far as I’ve read Braceros so far, which is through Chapter 6), highlighted some of the issues I’m having with Cohen’s book. I absolutely love Cohen’s marshaling of sources (especially the interviews/stories), but I’m finding her narrative/theoretically framework to be less than compelling. I believe that I understand the arguments she’s making about agency, but I think she leaves out some critical components of the analysis that Hahamovitch makes so effectively: in particular, Hahomovitch builds far more of her argument around the social costs of guestworker labor in economic terms. Central to Hahamovitch’s argument about the power dynamics is the deportability of guestworker labor — Cohen certainly mentions this at various points, but seems to somewhat miss the degree to which the deportability of the Braceros was an essential component of the usefulness of the program from the growers’ perspective as that deportability was the essential element that ensured the growers’ control (yes, Braceros were less deportable than Jamaicans, as they had only a land rather than an ocean border to cross, but then I want to see some better arguments about the relationships between the Braceros and the undocumented Mexican workers in the U.S.). Similarly, and I will see if Cohen goes there more effectively in the last two chapters, Hahamovitch makes a far more compelling argument about the exploitative way in which guestworker programs use the most economically productive years of workers’ lives but export the social costs of those programs (i.e., the costs of raising the guestworkers’ children, sending them to school, providing healthcare back in the home country, caring for the workers in old age, etc. are exported entirely to the sending countries despite their huge disparities in wealth relative to the countries that import labor, like the U.S.). Both Hahamovitch and Cohen, however, make interesting arguments about the creation of national and racial identities from the process of being abroad.
That said, Cohen’s arguments about gendering are interesting, although I really want more (maybe this comes in the chapters I will read this afternoon) about how this gendering plays out upon the Braceros’ return home, and in the context of the feminist movement in Latin America more generally.
Cohen's book illustrates how both US and Mexican officials participated in the oppression and exploitation of the braceros. One would think that the Mexican government would have looked beyond U.S.'s sophisms of bi-national collaboration, and know that that workforce was going to be mistreated. They, as Mexican officials, had experienced throughout their history that their whiteness, in the U.S. racial scheme, was highly questionable. That's why, as I was reading, I saw no point (again, as a reader but understanding Mexico's intend) of selecting Durango as the place for Mexico's "modernization." The selection process braceros endured in the U.S. had similarities with the slave market of the antebellum South. But since the braceros were sending their remittances back home, Mexican officials ignored all the reported abuses because at the end of the day, it was not about becoming "modern" but how to obtain economic gains.
One last note that kind of detours from the theme of the book. It caught my attention how the braceros felt that in the absence of chiles and tortillas in their diet, they lost a sense of who they were. Very similar to Earle's article "If You Eat Their Food," when Europeans felt that they needed to consume European goods so they didn't become Indigenous.
What caught my attention regarding Cohen’s writing is the subjects and the subject that she chose to write about. The Mexican labors (Braceros) experiences in Cohen’s stories tells of the harshness of being a laborer. Not only did they work in demeaning jobs, the work conditions and the mistreatment from American employers but also from the Mexican government that should have been involve to protect them. To be exploited by your own government and fellow countrymen must have been very difficult for the Braceros to deal with especially when they were trying to work an honest day wage in order to provide for their families.
Cohen took special care when unpacking the stories from many Braceros. She concentrated on the very details of her stories. One great example is how when a Bracero would be called forward or inspection before boarding bus to the destination, the government official or the American employer would oversee every inch of the laborers body. The hands looking for callus, the build of the body, and the arms. This was very similar to how slave masters would inspect the physique of the prospective slaves before purchasing.
Cohen was very detail but in her version of events she included a sympathetic, human emotion that grabs the readers into the book.
I agree, detailing the extent and the forms in which these laborers were exploited and degraded is useful when trying to unpack the vileness of this program to the reader. It puts things into perspective.
From Jenn: Deborah Cohen’s book on the bracero program between the United States and Mexico draws out the conflicts between braceros, growers, and domestic farm workers. Her book takes a deep dive into the conditions faced by each group. By exploring the conflicts and conditions Cohen tries to show the transnationality of the different groups. While I agree with her statement that “people, place, and nation” don’t necessarily fall into neat categories, I am not sure that I understand from her book, why that it so important. Some of the conflicts and problems delineated in this book are very familiar, such as how braceros and domestic farm workers were not able to build a broad-based coalition based on class rather than race or nation. Cohen’s argument that migrants did not simply accept their fate or the boxes they were put in restores agency and provides a more complete view of migration as a phenomenon. The exposition of how the program ultimately failed to live up to its promises really underscored the unequal relationship between Mexico and the United States, no matter how much Mexico would proselytize otherwise. Mexico’s failure to uphold their end ultimately compromised the claims they could make on collectively and nation. I appreciate Cohen’s analysis of the return migration, particularly the stories of the guards who wanted a bribe and migrant’s assertion that they were compratriota’s. The lack of professionalization of the police and armed forces, I felt was a thread Cohen could have pulled on a little bit harder.
I have a particular interest in the idea of the transnational and this book underlines many of the positive elements of transnational persons and relationships while also demonstrating the struggle in their construction. Having reviewed the evidence for agency, intentionality, and pride the bracero's had for their work I am ready to accept the author's contention against earlier scholarship in arguing that they were more than victims. I may also be accused of holding to a particular mutation of modernization theory which this transnational history reinforces (it would be quite the tangent to explain what my particular opinions on this subject are). I do find the author to be slightly off the mark in one aspect of their conclusion: the idea that it is not being wholly of one nation or the other which makes transnational persons a subject of nationalist scorn. In mentioning the flags displayed during the 2006 protests I was drawn to the idea of Italian flags on Columbus Day and Irish flags on St. Patrick's day and the wide number of white hyphenated Americans who are considered fully assimilated despite demonstrating at least some level of transnational loyalty. This highlights for me the fact that the author downplayed race in order to focus on the idea of the nation-state fiction. I entirely agree with the author's claims about the fictitious nature of an ideal nation-state but I feel that there is more at play in the relationship being discussed. On the other hand I do admire these labor migrants as a vanguard of transnational identity creation at the level of the popular classes, as opposed to multi-national business elites, diplomats, and NGO organizations. It is an example that all of humanity can eventual transcend national identity in favor of human identity.
I think that the book pushes a fresh narrative onto Mexican labor and migration into the US that most people were not aware of, at least I wasn’t. The fact that the US would cosign and encourage this kind of exploitative labor force is shocking, specially when considering the sort of talking points being used today about immigrants, particular Mexican immigrants. In addition, the sort of excuses made by the us at this time are ones used today. Particularly that the idea behind the Braceros program was to reform and modernize Mexico. -Alexandra V
Deborah Cohen, Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico
ReplyDeleteThis book, as I have mentioned, grabbed my attention because it told stories—the author literally sat with men in a barber shop to listen to them talk about their experiences as braceros. The obvious connections between the braceros program and the current demand for cheap, expendable labor in California agriculture aside, this book resonated for the current discussions over how the migrant workers were described. The United States government sang the praises of the braceros workers in the same terms it used to sing the praises of the enslaved before the Civil War (and afterward in rewrites of the history such as Gone with the Wind). The government said that the workers were hard working and docile, the line the commercial growers wanted public to justify why they needed the braceros: the domestic agricultural workers were too difficult, had too many demands, had unions. The government, tucked safely in the growers’ pocket, repeated many of the myths the growers wanted the public to believe, whether framing themselves as small family businesses who earn their money through hard work rather than the government subsidies the fatten themselves with, to making themselves to be the cutting edge of innovation, industry, and modernity to explain why the work, disappearing for domestic workers, was too challenging for the less-than-modern Mexican workers, presumably sent to America by Mexico to learn modern agriculture.
The construction and reinforcement of race and Mexicans, who shift from docile workers to thieves and violent criminals in the American imagination, repeats the American story of immigration. What Cohen does that is new is give voice and agency to the braceros, explaining how their government saw them, how American growers saw them, how the U.S. border patrol saw them, and how their friends and family saw them. The corruption in the process in Mexico that restricted who was eligible to be a bracero, and the social indebtedness it incurred, was a story I had not heard before. The idea that the Mexican government framed itself as the patriarch caring for its citizens and then, at the same time, allowed for the corruption of the process while also failing to protect them from U.S. growers’ and the U.S. government’s exploitation of them echoes stories of governments in Latin America framing itself as the protector. However, in this instance, we go to the human level and hear from the men what they thought of their treatment and why they endured it, and whether, ultimately, it helped them improve their position.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI think this book and both y'alls comments here also calls into question how capital is global while the worker is not. There are real and imagined borders for the worker while capital can go wherever it chooses even to outer space. While the workers may have felt pride for their contribution to society and their families the reality is that this program was simply a more liberal form of wage slavery than that one receives when incarcerated. I think the issues highlighted in this book will also get worse as both the climate and capital continue to be allowed to proceed without grassroots intercession
DeleteI'm also enjoying the way this book is written -- not only Cohen's more informal writing style, but also they way she did much of the research in uncovering personal narratives. It's important to weigh these men's personal feelings about and experiences with the larger transnational story.
DeleteSorry, I meant to hit reply on this earlier.
DeleteI agree that the best part of this book was the transnational subjectivity of the Bracero workers, opening the discussion to how workers themselves took agency in programs that have been discussed as monolithically exploitative. They did not just experience what has been often referred to the "immigrant condition" but they also understood that they were never fully American, fully Mexican, and maybe not even a hyphenated identity.
I thought this was a fascinating study on the Bracero workers as transnational subjects, and not just exploited workers who had no agency under grueling conditions in the United States. It is not surprising to me that the former Braceros were proud of their involvement in the program. Their labor fed both American and Mexican families and they understood the value of their labor that went beyond remuneration. The cultural and political transformations the Bracero workers undertook had a reciprocal effect on the Mexican and American communities they were attached to. Remittances kept certain communities afloat, supposedly keeping 750,000 people from destitution, even though they were ultimately not enough to change the outlook of the local job market. In the United States, Braceros were marginalized for their race, nationality, and their willingness to participate in the agricultural sector for the wages that were being offered. Their marginalization extended into Mexico, as the Mexican state and Mexican elites wanted to take credit for the wealth they generated for American farmers with their labor, even though they were partly responsible for the need to migrate in the first place.
ReplyDeleteAlso, what I find very disappointing about the Bracero story, that also extends to the stories of so many migrant workers, is that there is a trend of nations extending a hand to nationals abroad because of their economic importance, and yet the right of movement for workers only gets worse over time.
Well, in the U.S., the right of transnational workers to fair labor also seems to get worse over time. The president has *doubled* the number of H-2B visas, and those go to blue collar workers outside of agriculture--almost exclusively in service industry positions where domestic workers are routinely taken advantage of and, as BRACEROS showed, guest workers have even fewer rights or people willing to enforce them. As with the Bracero program, these visas are being used to undercut the domestic labor market by exploiting immigrants who have to accept terrible working conditions because the low pay is still more than they would make in their sending countries. It seems like the name of the program has changed but the sentiment behind it and the government's duplicity in using it to solidify "otherness" while undermining domestic labor (and labor unions) continues.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I think it important to bring out of this reading is the culture that was created as a result of the Bracero Program. For how many generations was the idea of obtaining work associated with migrating to the US? That such a program of labor, one which acts as a form of exploitation, not the same as but quite similar to slavery, is not surprising. However, what is surprising is the insistence and incentives created to bring hundreds of thousands of workers to the US from LA without understanding the cultural and economic implications of such a program, or perhaps more cynically stated, not caring. While it is not definitive that these consequences are unknown to the powers that be of today, the environment for migrants in the US today does highlight the prevalence of ignorance to such labor issues and history's. Additionally, with the advent of trade deals such as NAFTA and the ending of the Bracero program the US has not only done nothing to compensate workers left without game-full employment for decades, they have in fact exacerbated the issues and made matters worse for people living beyond the imaginary line we call the US Mexican border. Meanwhile the farmers who lobbied for subsidies and cheap labor continue to enjoy socialism for the rich! While we have discussed and analyzed many other reasons for migration to, from, and around LA the material reality of this once government sponsored program and its effects upon workers from LA highlights the imperialistic and irresponsible nature of US foreign relations within the Western hemisphere. That and the addition of an organization like the OAS should allow us to coherently perceive the reality behind US relations with the region as well as the denial of responsibility to those currently attempting to cross the border as REFUGEES! Without sounding too hyperbolic I think it could be said that such a program having such a short lifespan and no program to reorganize this labor force lends ample evidence to the inherently racist principles of US relations in LA. Not that the Mexican government was any better in exploiting the situation for profit and greed, but I am not Mexican. Just sayin...
ReplyDeleteAs I wrote about below, one of the most interesting (and exploitative parts) of these guestworker programs compared to family-centered immigration is how it outsources the costs of raising children and caring for the elderly to the countries supplying the guest labor from the wealthy country importing that labor to the struggling country supplying that labor. I really wish Cohen’s analysis of the power structures that undergirded the Braceros program was a bit more effective, and a critical piece of this would be writing more effectively about the cultural/economic/social costs of these programs back in Mexico.
DeleteJason, I agree with you that the Mexican government was as irresponsible and equal part in the exploitation of the braceros program. The Mexican government couldn't had seriously thought that braceros were going to be treated fairly without some form of Mexican officials mediation and given US's long history of labor exploitation. Once complaints were brought to Mexican officials, they did nothing to ensure the dignity of that workforce.
DeleteSo Jason, do you refute the author's revision of past histories which depicted the braceros as victims? This is not to say exploitation should be downplayed but how do you talk about the exploitation alongside the agency of the work? An analogy I may make is that for every exploitative action there is a reaction by the workers. That reaction is not always in the form of confrontation though, and so it may be overlooked. I think there is a large distance between this relationship and slavery and a major part of that distance is defined by the avenues of agency available to the workers as opposed to the avenues open to slaves (I am trying to avoid denying anyone agency in this claim while recognizing that the forms of agency my be circumscribed differently).
DeleteFor one of my undergrad classes I had to watch a video about migrant workers from Turkey who traveled to Germany for work in the 1950s. that video show the more beneficial side of the work however did mention mistreatment of the workers by officials. Many stories that are promoted are similar to that of Ramon Avitia who was able to create a small business to provide for his family after working in the US. Later in that chapter however we see the common villain in most of our readings With imperialism rearing its ugly head by pressuring The Mexican government to allow border towns “undocumented workers” so the US can tap these workers as a cheap resource. However unlike before the consequences went global with both the United States and Soviet Union pointing fingers at each other saying the other was inhumane in ethical practice. these Tales were an interesting read because of how muddled the situation got. the perception of Braceros was initially positive, but was heavily racist in the selection process. As economic conditions changed in the United States perception turn to this racist image of the Braceros which some politicians today claim of our southern neighbor. These Braceros however did push Mexico into a global spotlight.
ReplyDeleteCohen's book focuses not just on labor as a resource, but on the laborers themselves. This is also another book about autonomy and modernity, but in a more personal sense. The men who participated in the bracero program felt they had a stake in its success and, for the most part, did not emphasize the negative aspects of their experiences. Cohen also argues that the U.S. created the bracero program in order to modernize Mexico, and she focused on the particular region of Mexico that seemed most "ready" for modernization. This also provided a good narrative for the U.S. to use to distract from their need for Mexican labor. This is another example of the more powerful nation setting the standard for what it means to be modern, and it was interesting to see the Mexican government's stated reasons for joining this scheme were similar.
ReplyDeleteHello Katie,
DeleteYour post sums up this weeks reading. I would like to emphasize "ready" for modernization. The Mexican government sent people who it classified as white to work, however the United States classified them differently. The United States actions promoted racial hierarchies in economic status, with everyone below Americans. White Mexicans would receive opportunities to economic growth.
It was fascinating to read Cohen’s book in the context of the book I read for my U.S. Immigration History class last week, which was titled “No Man’s Land: Jamaican Guestworkers in America and the Global History of Deportable Labor” by Cindy Hahamovitch. Both Cohen and Hahamovitch published in 2011, and they’re both making arguments about guest workers (which is what Braceros are from a U.S. perspective, of course, although I’m currently at the start of Chapter 7 and I have yet to see Cohen make reference to that term). Both books rely on similar sources, including significant interviews of former Braceros/guestworkers in the small communities to which they returned. Because Hahamovitch tries to make both a micro argument about Jamaican guestworkers in particular and a (less effective) macro argument about guestworkers generally, she gives some attention to Braceros, even to the point of writing about the DiGiorgio strike.
ReplyDeleteThat said, reading these books together (or as far as I’ve read Braceros so far, which is through Chapter 6), highlighted some of the issues I’m having with Cohen’s book. I absolutely love Cohen’s marshaling of sources (especially the interviews/stories), but I’m finding her narrative/theoretically framework to be less than compelling. I believe that I understand the arguments she’s making about agency, but I think she leaves out some critical components of the analysis that Hahamovitch makes so effectively: in particular, Hahomovitch builds far more of her argument around the social costs of guestworker labor in economic terms. Central to Hahamovitch’s argument about the power dynamics is the deportability of guestworker labor — Cohen certainly mentions this at various points, but seems to somewhat miss the degree to which the deportability of the Braceros was an essential component of the usefulness of the program from the growers’ perspective as that deportability was the essential element that ensured the growers’ control (yes, Braceros were less deportable than Jamaicans, as they had only a land rather than an ocean border to cross, but then I want to see some better arguments about the relationships between the Braceros and the undocumented Mexican workers in the U.S.). Similarly, and I will see if Cohen goes there more effectively in the last two chapters, Hahamovitch makes a far more compelling argument about the exploitative way in which guestworker programs use the most economically productive years of workers’ lives but export the social costs of those programs (i.e., the costs of raising the guestworkers’ children, sending them to school, providing healthcare back in the home country, caring for the workers in old age, etc. are exported entirely to the sending countries despite their huge disparities in wealth relative to the countries that import labor, like the U.S.). Both Hahamovitch and Cohen, however, make interesting arguments about the creation of national and racial identities from the process of being abroad.
That said, Cohen’s arguments about gendering are interesting, although I really want more (maybe this comes in the chapters I will read this afternoon) about how this gendering plays out upon the Braceros’ return home, and in the context of the feminist movement in Latin America more generally.
Cohen's book illustrates how both US and Mexican officials participated in the oppression and exploitation of the braceros. One would think that the Mexican government would have looked beyond U.S.'s sophisms of bi-national collaboration, and know that that workforce was going to be mistreated. They, as Mexican officials, had experienced throughout their history that their whiteness, in the U.S. racial scheme, was highly questionable. That's why, as I was reading, I saw no point (again, as a reader but understanding Mexico's intend) of selecting Durango as the place for Mexico's "modernization." The selection process braceros endured in the U.S. had similarities with the slave market of the antebellum South. But since the braceros were sending their remittances back home, Mexican officials ignored all the reported abuses because at the end of the day, it was not about becoming "modern" but how to obtain economic gains.
ReplyDeleteOne last note that kind of detours from the theme of the book. It caught my attention how the braceros felt that in the absence of chiles and tortillas in their diet, they lost a sense of who they were. Very similar to Earle's article "If You Eat Their Food," when Europeans felt that they needed to consume European goods so they didn't become Indigenous.
What caught my attention regarding Cohen’s writing is the subjects and the subject that she chose to write about. The Mexican labors (Braceros) experiences in Cohen’s stories tells of the harshness of being a laborer. Not only did they work in demeaning jobs, the work conditions and the mistreatment from American employers but also from the Mexican government that should have been involve to protect them. To be exploited by your own government and fellow countrymen must have been very difficult for the Braceros to deal with especially when they were trying to work an honest day wage in order to provide for their families.
ReplyDeleteCohen took special care when unpacking the stories from many Braceros. She concentrated on the very details of her stories. One great example is how when a Bracero would be called forward or inspection before boarding bus to the destination, the government official or the American employer would oversee every inch of the laborers body. The hands looking for callus, the build of the body, and the arms. This was very similar to how slave masters would inspect the physique of the prospective slaves before purchasing.
Cohen was very detail but in her version of events she included a sympathetic, human emotion that grabs the readers into the book.
I agree, detailing the extent and the forms in which these laborers were exploited and degraded is useful when trying to unpack the vileness of this program to the reader. It puts things into perspective.
DeleteFrom Jenn: Deborah Cohen’s book on the bracero program between the United States and Mexico draws out the conflicts between braceros, growers, and domestic farm workers. Her book takes a deep dive into the conditions faced by each group. By exploring the conflicts and conditions Cohen tries to show the transnationality of the different groups. While I agree with her statement that “people, place, and nation” don’t necessarily fall into neat categories, I am not sure that I understand from her book, why that it so important. Some of the conflicts and problems delineated in this book are very familiar, such as how braceros and domestic farm workers were not able to build a broad-based coalition based on class rather than race or nation. Cohen’s argument that migrants did not simply accept their fate or the boxes they were put in restores agency and provides a more complete view of migration as a phenomenon. The exposition of how the program ultimately failed to live up to its promises really underscored the unequal relationship between Mexico and the United States, no matter how much Mexico would proselytize otherwise. Mexico’s failure to uphold their end ultimately compromised the claims they could make on collectively and nation. I appreciate Cohen’s analysis of the return migration, particularly the stories of the guards who wanted a bribe and migrant’s assertion that they were compratriota’s. The lack of professionalization of the police and armed forces, I felt was a thread Cohen could have pulled on a little bit harder.
ReplyDeleteI have a particular interest in the idea of the transnational and this book underlines many of the positive elements of transnational persons and relationships while also demonstrating the struggle in their construction. Having reviewed the evidence for agency, intentionality, and pride the bracero's had for their work I am ready to accept the author's contention against earlier scholarship in arguing that they were more than victims. I may also be accused of holding to a particular mutation of modernization theory which this transnational history reinforces (it would be quite the tangent to explain what my particular opinions on this subject are). I do find the author to be slightly off the mark in one aspect of their conclusion: the idea that it is not being wholly of one nation or the other which makes transnational persons a subject of nationalist scorn. In mentioning the flags displayed during the 2006 protests I was drawn to the idea of Italian flags on Columbus Day and Irish flags on St. Patrick's day and the wide number of white hyphenated Americans who are considered fully assimilated despite demonstrating at least some level of transnational loyalty. This highlights for me the fact that the author downplayed race in order to focus on the idea of the nation-state fiction. I entirely agree with the author's claims about the fictitious nature of an ideal nation-state but I feel that there is more at play in the relationship being discussed. On the other hand I do admire these labor migrants as a vanguard of transnational identity creation at the level of the popular classes, as opposed to multi-national business elites, diplomats, and NGO organizations. It is an example that all of humanity can eventual transcend national identity in favor of human identity.
ReplyDeleteI think that the book pushes a fresh narrative onto Mexican labor and migration into the US that most people were not aware of, at least I wasn’t. The fact that the US would cosign and encourage this kind of exploitative labor force is shocking, specially when considering the sort of talking points being used today about immigrants, particular Mexican immigrants. In addition, the sort of excuses made by the us at this time are ones used today. Particularly that the idea behind the Braceros program was to reform and modernize Mexico.
ReplyDelete-Alexandra V