While the Bracero Program created opportunities for the Mexican laborers, it was also a program that exploited them.
PROS:
- Some braceros used the program as a way to go back to school
- Ability to get jobs in order to send money back to their families in Mexico
- For the lucky ones, they received the opportunity to gain residency once program ended and this eventually led to a path towards citizenship
CONS
- The U.S. Department of Labor officer in charge of the program, Lee G. Williams, had described it as a system of “legalized slavery“
- Humiliating health screenings in which the braceros were stripped, disinfected for lice, and then examined like cattle
- Braceros were fumigated with DDT, a dangerous insecticide that is now banned
- They were exploited and discriminated against
- Backbreaking labor using tools that were eventually outlawed (ex: short handle hoe)
braceros in america 