EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14/CBS4) — A little-known labor agreement between the United States and Mexico helped reshape communities across the country during some of the nation’s most turbulent years.
The Bracero Program, highlighted in the “Amazing America” project segment “The Bracero Soldiers of the fields,” was created as the United States faced economic and social upheaval stemming from the Great Depression and World War II.
With labor shortages affecting key industries, the U.S. sought a source of inexpensive labor to meet manpower needs in agriculture and railway maintenance.
A treaty establishing the Bracero Program was signed in 1942 between the United States and Mexico to alleviate the shortage of labor.
The term “bracero,” meaning “one who works with his arms,” referred to Mexican workers—many of them rural peasants—who were allowed to enter the United States on a temporary basis.
The program ran from 1942 to 1964.
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