The Bracero Program Essay

The main reason Chinese immigrants came to America after Civil War was for work. As a

Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinos were all brought in to work, but their low standard of living and attempts to organize caused race riots by the white labor force and subsequent removal of foreign workers from the agricultural industry. The need for cheap labor therefore remained. To fill this void, many Mexican workers were brought in;so many that the white worker could not even live in southern California anymore because the wages were so low. Eventually the Mexican worker population grew so massive that they too began to organize, causing the growers to take action against them with "vigilante terrorism and savagery unbelievable in a civilized state" (pg 54). Eventually Mexican labor was withdrawn as well.

Hispanics have been immigrating to America since the beginning of the Spanish Colonial era. Up until the 1920’s Mexican Americans have boomed in rural places in america. The 1920’s was meeting the beginning of a renaissance, a better promised life for both native americans as well as immigrants. Businesses were booming, wages were higher, and the industry was creating a bright future for America. However, Mexican Americans continued to face hardships as well as few successes leading up to the 1920’s. Whether these were Native born Americans with a Hispanic background or newly immigrated Mexicans, Mexican Americans faced the hardship of poverty, discrimination, segregation, and struggles during the 1920’s.

Farmers in Texas, such as Nelson, had a strong influence on the level of protection that the government provides the cotton industry. The Bracero program, authorized by Congress in 1942, benefited Nelson’s ranch and other cotton farmers by allowing Mexican labor to enter the U.S. to work for short periods of time. “Disasters happen to cotton but not to people,” (Rivoli, 2014) due to the level of protection provided by the U.S. government to cotton farmers. In 2001, Nelson lost his entire cotton crop to a hailstorm, but government crop insurance ensured Nelson’s farm would survive until the next year.

Because of a lot of growth in the industry created needs for workers. by 1870 15% of the population was foreign born

In 1931, the California legislature barred any company doing business with the state from hiring “alien” workers on public jobs, forcing the removal of Mexicans from construction work, highway repair, school maintenance, and jobs in government buildings (Sanchez 211). At the same time, officials in Los Angeles

Mexican ranchers known as Tejanos fought to keep their land after the Mexican American War. Some examples of Mexicans farmers in the towns of Camargo and Reynosa owned about thirty-six thousand head of cattle, horses and sheep. Trade between those towns along the Nueces River and the countryside was very successful. Across the towns of Brownsville, McAllen and Edinburg after Texas became a state, Anglo merchants marry prominent Mexican land-grant families to gain control of acres of land. Subsequently, to make a contribution to the trade between

The first wave begins in the 19th century. There is evidence shows that the first Chinese immigrant in Los Angeles comes from the Northern California because of the Gold Rush and the railroads construction. In the book, The Los Angeles Plaza: Sacred and Contested Space, William David Estrada writes, “The rise of the Chinese community of Los Angeles was an outgrowth of larger developments in the United States during the nineteenth century… the Chinese of Los Angeles came to fill an important sector of the economy as entrepreneurs” (p.72.) Estrada also claims that the early work areas that the first Chinese immigrants related. At first, most Chinese work at restaurants, laundries, farms, wholesale stores and casinos. Because of cheap labor, most Chinese can easily find the low-skilled work

Immigrants from China arrived in the West looking for jobs in the building of railroads.

“Push factors like Chinese facing military and political chaos, harsh economic conditions, collapsing of the feudal system, a lack of business spirit due to the ineffectiveness of trade regulations, high taxes, lack of private investments and the dream of prosperity in America lcontributed to Chinese immigration. From 1840-1900, a significant influx of Chinese immigrants came to Hawaii and United States. However, they immigrated to other countries, including Australia, Canada, Africa, South

The Bracero Program was a temporary contract labor program initiated in 1942 by the United States and Mexico. Designed originally to bring a experienced Mexican agricultural laborers to harvest sugar beets in Stockton, California, but soon spread to most of the United States and to the railroad industry. Although the railroad program ended in 1945, after World War II the agricultural program continued until 1964. Originally, the program was designed to protect the illegal migrant workers against the exploitation by American farmers. However, it was criticized and was viewed as a failure from the humanitarian point of view.

Around the late 1870's the country was beginning to worry about the constant immigration of aliens into the Untied States. This frightened Americans. Widespread worry infected the country. The biggest fear was that America would lose its identity and be run over by the ideas of these immigrants and the nations they came from. One of the largest groups of immigrants into the United States was the Chinese, California

After the first wave of Chinese immigrants arrived in the United States in the early 1840s during the California Gold Rush, many Chinese people continued to travel across the Pacific, escaping poor conditions in China with hopes and ambitions for a better life in America. Many more Chinese immigrants began arriving into the 1860s on the Pacific coast for work in other areas such as the railroad industry. The immigrants noticed an increasing demand for their labor because of their readiness to work for low wages. Many of those who arrived did not plan to stay long, and therefore there was no push for their naturalization. The immigrants left a country with thousands of years of a “decaying feudal system,” corruption, a growing

The UFW during Chavez's tenure was committed to restricting immigration. Chavez and Dolores Huerta, cofounder and president of the UFW, fought the Bracero Program that existed from 1942 to 1964. Their opposition stemmed from their belief that the program undermined U.S. workers and exploited the migrant workers. Since the Bracero Program ensured a constant supply of cheap immigrant labor for growers, immigrants could not protest any infringement of their rights, lest they be fired and replaced. Their efforts contributed to Congress ending the Bracero Program in 1964. In 1973, the UFW was one of the first labor unions to oppose proposed employer sanctions that would have prohibited hiring illegal immigrants. Later during the 1980s, while Chavez

China is one of the oldest countries in the world. Most of the Chinese immigrants were motivated to come to America due to the California gold rush .They sold many of items in order to afford a ticket to the New World, this included livestock, and property. The immigrants started arriving around 1850. Many of the Chinese did not have intentions of staying in America, those people were called sojourners (Huot 221). The Chinese were not accepted throughout the nation. One of the most popular reasons for rejection was because