Those darn Mexicans

 

Sharon and I read a lot of books. Typically, she will read more than 100 per year. Since I am still working most days of the week, I usually average about one a week. My total for last year was 61.

The vast majority of those books are fiction, rather than non-fiction or biographies. Although I have met people who considering reading fiction a waste of time, there are MANY advantages to reading them, and I’ve listed them in the link shown below:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2018/09/fiction-or-non-fiction.html

One of our favorite authors is J.A. Jance, who has written more than 60 books – and we have read most of them.

I just finished reading her latest book, “Missing and Endangered”, which is a real page turner. It took me a little more than a day to burn through 365 pages. (Barrack Obama’s latest book is 706 pages, and that took me more than a week to finish).

One of the FACTS that J.A. Jance mentioned on page 145 was the bracero program – which I had never heard of before, although (in retrospect) I was familiar with the concept.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracero_program

During WWII, American farm families sent more than 1.8 million young men and women into the armed forces. At a time when the nation faced an unprecedented demand for food, farmers faced a shortage of farm workers, gas, and new farm equipment and parts. Despite the shortage of labor, more production was expected. Each day, eight million soldiers had to be fed in the U.S. military alone, as well as millions of civilians in Great Britain and Russia.

https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe40s/life_01.html

Farm labor was so short, in fact, that farmers (like my uncle Clem) were exempt from military service, but even that was not enough.

Despite the fact that Mexico had declared was on the Axis Powers in May of 1942, the country agreed to send agricultural workers to the United State.

 The Bracero Program grew out of a series of bi-lateral agreements between Mexico and the United States that allowed millions of Mexican men to come to the United States to work on, short-term, primarily agricultural labor contracts. From 1942 to 1964, 4.6 million contracts were signed, with many individuals returning several times on different contracts, making it the largest U.S. contract labor program. An examination of the images, stories, documents and artifacts of the Bracero Program contributes to our understanding of the lives of migrant workers in Mexico and the United States, as well as our knowledge of, immigration, citizenship, nationalism, agriculture, labor practices, race relations, gender, sexuality, the family, visual culture, and the Cold War era.

https://www.labor.ucla.edu/what-we-do/research-tools/the-bracero-program/

From 1942 to 1947, the program only a small number of workers were admitted. From 1948 until 1964 (the year the program ended) the number admitted averaged 200,000 a year. In 1951, President Truman signed a new agreement (Public Law 78) that made the United States government, not the growers, the guarantors of the labor contract. During the negotiations on the new contract, the Mexican government wanted sanctions on employers who employed illegal immigrants.

Although the new contract did not contain sanctions on employers, Congress, in 1952, approved a bill that made harboring an illegal immigrant a felony.

By that time, the number of illegal immigrants from Mexico had increased dramatically, so Congress passed “Operation Wetback” in 1954. Between 1954 and 1962, when the program ended) 3.8 million immigrants were sent back to Mexico.

Working conditions for farm workers, both legal and illegal, were far from ideal, which led to numerous strikes between 1943 and 1946, and it also led to the creation of the United Farm Workers Union, led (in part) by Cesar Chavez in 1962.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Farm_Workers 

Joe Biden is a strong advocate of unions. As a result, he has a bust of Cesar Chavez behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-01-20/joe-biden-cesar-chavez-bust-oval-office-desk

 

For much of our country’s history, immigrants have been a thorny issue, and the link below goes into more details:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2014/10/those-darn-immigrants.html

When Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2015, he said this about immigrants from Mexico:

"They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us,” he continued. “They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/400196-trump-says-calling-mexican-immigrants-rapists-was-peanuts-in

Trump has pushed for stricter immigration policies since the start of his campaign, including building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. In August of 2018, he threatened a government shutdown unless Congress passes funding for the border wall. In December of 2018, he did exactly that, and the shutdown lasted for 35 days – and NO ADDITIONAL FUNDING for the wall was approved. 

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/paulmcleod/trump-government-shutdown-end-wall-money

Like many of Trump’s “facts”, Trump’s assertion that illegal immigrants cause more crime is simply NOT TRUE.

https://www.factcheck.org/2018/06/is-illegal-immigration-linked-to-more-or-less-crime/

 There are still far too many people in this country who do not like immigrants from Mexico, and they’re never going to change their minds. For the rest of us, though, we need to remember that we live in the UNITED States of America, and that we need to respect the cultures of ALL the people that live within our borders.

Adios.