Immigrant farm workers from Mexico once had a clear path to work in the U.S. from the 1940s to the 1960s

Braceros congregating at Rio Vista 
(Library of Congress photo via Offrange)

A look back at American history reveals a significantly different perspective on Mexican immigrants coming to the United States to fill labor shortages. Beginning in the 1940s and stretching into the mid-1960s, the U.S. recruited thousands of Mexican immigrants to work on U.S. farms.

In Texas, the National Historic Landmark "Socorro’s Rio Vista Farm" operated as the "Rio Vista Bracero Reception Center," which was a designated point of entry for thousands of Mexican workers who entered the U.S. as "part of a temporary labor program," reports Marianne Dhenin for Offrange. "The arriving Mexican workers were known as braceros from the Spanish word for arm, brazo, roughly translating to 'one who swings his arms.'"

Mexican farm worker recruits were able to enter the U.S. by signing up for the Bracero Program. "The program was designed to recruit skilled agricultural laborers from Mexico to mitigate labor shortages in the United States resulting from American farm workers enlisting during World War II and, later, the Korean War," Dhenin explains. During World War II, the U.S. government incarcerated thousands of American Japanese farm workers, which increased the need for Mexican labor.

Workers who wanted to join the Bracero Program "applied at intake stations across Mexico," Dhenin writes. These men "made significant sacrifices in pursuit of economic opportunities in the U.S. Many hoped that higher wages across the border would allow them to provide for those they left behind."

Becoming a Bracero wasn't as easy as just signing up. Applicants were required to undergo extensive medical and psychological testing in Mexico before "being invited to make the trip northward through Mexico and across the border," Dhenin reports. Braceros were often transported into the U.S. in cargo trains "without seats, windows, or water stops along the way."

During the 1950s and early 1960s, the "barracks on Socorro’s Rio Vista Farm served as dormitories, offices, and a mess hall to house and process the more than 80,000 braceros who passed through each year," Dhenin explains. "It was one of five long-term bracero reception centers in California, Arizona, and Texas. . . . Over the lifespan of the Bracero Program, more than 4.6 million contracts were issued." A total of 30 states participated in the Bracero program.