Some want to restart the Bracero Program. A former bracero says it would make farmworkers suffer

The Trump administration admitted this month that its immigration crackdown is hitting farms hard — and risking food shortages and higher prices.

The warning came buried in a filing to the Federal Registrar, saying the speed and scale of efforts to enforce immigration laws will lead to “significant labor market effects in the agricultural sector, which has long been pushed to depend on a workforce with a high proportion of illegal aliens.”

Well, there was a point at which the farming industry wasn’t so dependent on illegal workers. In the 1940s and '50s, the Bracero Program allowed millions of Mexican men to come to the U.S. legally to work on farms and railroads. But the program ended in the 1960s amid concerns about exploitation — and helped spur farmworkers to unionize under the late Cesar Chavez.

Now, as farmers are worried about letting crops rot in the fields, there’s talk of bringing back the Bracero Program, or something like it. And Gustavo Arellano says that’s an idea that could open a door to abuse. Arellano is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

Full conversation

LAUREN GILGER: So I outlined some of the history of the Bracero Program there. You have family who are part of it, right?

GUSTAVO ARELLANO: Oh, yeah. My grandpa from my dad’s side. He was a bracero. And hundreds, if not thousands of men from where my family, both my mom and my dad are from in Mexico, in Jerez, Zacatecas, went there from the ’40s through the ’60s. And some of the people you know about and other people, like, I’m just finding out, which — It just speaks to how deep, deeply rooted this program was all across rural Mexico during that time.

Gustavo Arellano

GILGER: Yeah. OK, so you wrote a column recently about a family friend of yours who was part of this program. Tell us about him.

ARELLANO: Yeah. Manuel Alvarado. Comes from a little village, a rancho called La Cañada in Jerez, and a good friend with my dad. I’ve known him my entire life. But again, until recently, I asked my dad, like, “Hey, do you know any braceros?” “Oh, yeah. Let me call some people.”

And all of a sudden, Manuel pops up, 85 years old. I went to his house in Anaheim, and he told me about the three years that he was able to be a bracero from ... 1961 through 1964. Because the program ended in ’64.

GILGER: Yeah. OK, so tell us about his experience, his memories of this. He really seems to remember it like the back of his hand.

ARELLANO: Oh my God. Like, he knew how much they were paying him. From Colorado, near La Junta, down to Dell City, Texas, out in Sacramento and Stockton.

He remembered the crops and cotton in Texas, melons up in Colorado, which he says were by far the hardest thing to pick, because melons have, like, these little hairs that we — when you go to the supermarket, they don’t have the hair anymore. Tomatoes in Stockton and all of that.

And also he remembered the people who were nice to him. Americans, Japanese Americans, even the Border Patrol was very polite when they’d go and ask for papers. And he said the meanest people to him by far were Mexican American contractors. The people who are basically yelling at them and calling them nasty words, forcing them to pick faster and harder.

GILGER: Right, right. It’s interesting because he talks about this almost with a fondness, of being a bracero. He says that the program helped a lot of people like him.

But then you asked him about the possibility that it could be brought back today in some form or another. And he said immediately, like, not a good idea. Why?

ARELLANO: Oh, yeah. I asked him, did you regret being part of this? He’s like, nope, no regret. I made my money. It helped other people more than it helped me, but it definitely helped me. And then I said, well, "OK, if it was so helpful for people like yourself, do you think it would be good?"

And he said, no, it makes absolutely no sense. No. 1, when you are bracero, because you already signed a contract, you have no rights whatsoever. So you’re lucky if you get a good boss, and most likely you’re not going to get a good boss. ...

What happened was the program ended in 1964. Then he came to this country without papers, eventually became an American citizen through Reagan’s amnesty. And so he’s looking at all these undocumented people right now who are being subjected to these raids.

And he said, it makes no sense to get rid of millions of people and then bring back millions of people under a legal contract. Why don’t you just legalize them? They’re already here. They already know the work. To bring people up and train them, It’s just a giant waste of time and resources. And he’s the one who said they’d be treated like slaves.

People thought it was me. I’m like, “No, this is the bracero who said himself.”

GILGER: Right, right, right. I thought that was really interesting, that quote. And you asked him about the possibility of Americans replacing these workers, being hired to do these kind of farmworker jobs today to fill that need, which is becoming more and more clear — food rotting in the fields. What did he have to say about that idea?

ARELLANO: He just doesn’t see it. Look, I understand Americans of European descent, especially in rural areas like Nebraska, South Dakota and other places — and even in Arizona for that matter, in the smaller towns like Safford — they’re used to it. They can do that. But the problem is you would need millions of people to do so.

He says that the American mentality — we’re talking about the suburban, what we consider now to be the American mentality — is just not cut out for it. ... And this is something that I have been arguing for. I mean, I’ve been a reporter for 25 years, and I keep telling this: Americans will not do the job that laborers do right now at those wages. Not even close.

But you go and try to pick strawberries at $100,000 a year, I guarantee you, most people would not cut it. My managing editor, Hector Becerra, about seven years ago, he tried to pick strawberries for two days out here in Southern California because his dad was a strawberry picker. He quit after like five hours. It was just way too hard. Way too hard.

And Manuel, he was very poignant in this, though, because my dad was kind of joking about it like, “Oh yeah, those Americans, they don’t want to suffer.” And Manuel’s like, “Yeah, they shouldn’t suffer. No one should suffer in doing these jobs.”

But the way American capitalism is, especially with our food market, it’s all built on exploitation. There’s just no way around it.

GILGER: That was the most poignant part of this piece that you wrote. And I wanted to ask you about that lastly here. This idea that he says it’s not that they want easy work, right? It’s that they don’t want to suffer.

Is that what he thinks it sounds like people are willing to do today? And only some people, it sounds like, are willing to do that: suffer.

ARELLANO: Well, look, undocumented people, when they’re fleeing situations like what’s happening in their home country, they will definitely do that. But you would assume people who have been here multiple generations, the whole idea of the American dream is that you’re always improving your lot in life with each passing generation. Who wants to go from blue collar jobs or white collar jobs in the tech sector — again in suburbia — to go out in the fields and be crouched ... eight hours a day, six days a week to do that?

In many ways that seems like not what the United States should be, but it’s always been part of this country. And I personally think, I wrote a column years ago saying that high school students, at least in California that are out in the suburbs, they should spend the summer picking crops just so they know how the other half lives.

I guarantee you it would change so many hearts and minds once you start breaking your back over it.