The Bracero program & Mexican farm workers in the U.S. (part 2 of 2)

The bracero program was continued in one form or another long past the end of World War II.  It ended in 1964 due to fears that the Mexican workers were taking jobs from native born citizens of the United States.  In addition, a serious car accident involving a bus loaded with braceros in which many were killed helped convince the Mexican government that the program needed to be ended.

At the outset of the bracero program, Texas (a major user of Mexicans as farm laborers) was unwilling to join it.  This was because its farmers wanted to pay lower wages and be less careful about the conditions under which the workers lived.  The workers entered the state illegally, and thus were particularly vulnerable.  The farmers insultingly called them “wet backs,” since many of them had to swim the Rio Grande in order to enter Texas, and employed them by the thousands.

The Rio Grande Valley.  Map courtesy of University of Texas at Austin.

In 1946, however, the government of Mexico withdrew all its workers from Texas due to serious abuses and at that point, the state entered the bracero program.

There are many sites on the internet which talk about the bracero program and farm laborers from Mexico.  The Smithsonian recently organized an exhibition about it, which can be found on-line and which I like very much.  The exhibition includes some great posters with especially fine photographs, plus text in both English and Spanish.  You can find the posters at: http://www.sites.si.edu/bracero/Bracero%20Posters.pdf, and learn more about the traveling exhibit at http://www.sites.si.edu/bracero/.  

Another one of the wonderful Smithsonian posters (with photo: Leonard Nadal).

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We are in the process of creating a documentary, Strong Roots, Bright Flowers:  Arts of Mexican Immigrants and Chicanos, which talks about the bracero and other farm labor programs as they are related to the creation of música norteña/TexMex music.  You can see a trailer from it on YouTube - go to this LINK; or sign up for our monthly newsletter here LINK where we can keep you up to date.

Cotton, hot sun, and "gitanos" in southern Spain - (part 1 of 2)

The mid-afternoon sun was high in the sky, and she guessed that the temperature was well above 45° (our 100°).  Her straw hat at least protected her face, but she longed to lie in the shade next to a cool stream.

She could hear her oldest brother in the row next to hers, as he sang.  He was a lot farther up his row.  He worked fast.

She wore work gloves because otherwise, the cotton bowls scratched her hands, but the gloves made her pick the cotton more slowly and made her hands sweat.  Her parents, in the two rows on the other side, and the other adults didn't use gloves because they needed to get the harvest in.  If they didn´t, they'd lose their job.

Half the field away, there was another group of 12 working on their rows.  With the two groups working from sun up to sun down,  the cotton should all be harvested in 3-4 days.  If nothing went wrong.

Last year, she's put her hands in a bees´ nest and even though she ran fast, she got a lot of stings.  That really slowed things down.  She had to stop work for the next few days and her mother took off the first afternoon, to tend to her.

She didn't understand why no one in the other group ever sang.  In her group, all of them family, there was always someone singing...singing to  help pass the time and forget about the aching backs and sore hands while they worked;  the young men from the men's and boy's cortijo (sleeping shed) singing at night to their girlfriends in her cortijo;  the old women and men getting together outside at night after work, singing the old songs just for the sheer pleasure of listening them.

When she asked her mom why no one in the other group sang, all her mother would say is that "We are gitanos (Spanish Gypsies).  They are not."

She wished the field were smaller, but she knew that when they finished with this cotton, the neighboring estate owner would want them to work there.  And after all the cotton was gone, it would be nearly time for the olives.  Then the grapes.  The adults started in mid-spring, pruning the grapes.  The fava beans came next, and everyone worked on those.  Then, the garbanzos, cotton, olives, and the grape harvest.   The grape harvest was the big one, the really important one.  Without the grapes, they might not have enough to make it through the year.

A field of fava beans in Andalucia, southern Spain.

She knew that because her mom and dad told her when she complained about how hard it was to spend months and months harvesting crops.  They told her she needed to get used to it, because when she was 14 or 15, if she wasn´t already married and probably even if she was, she would have to work harder, like the other adults.

In the winter, when there was no work in the fields, they lived in town.  Her dad told her the town was called Jerez de la Frontera, and that it was part of a big country called Spain.  He told her that there were other countries in the world, but they didn´t matter because they were far away.

Her two oldest uncles didn´t live in town, though.  They lived in little shacks made of tin out by the river.  She liked to go visit them sometimes but was glad she didn´t live in a shack.  In her family´s rooms, when it rained, the water didn´t leak in and in the winter, the cold air didn´t come in around the cracks.

Even though in her family´s rooms, they had to bring water up from the well in the courtyard to have something to drink and for her mom to wash up.  In the summer, one corner of the courtyard smelled really bad because that was where the outhouse was.  She didn´t much like going to the outhouse in the summer, it was so stinky, but you had to get used to it.

[We'll conclude this with part 2, which we'll publish on Nov. 1, 2014.]
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We are working on a documentary about flamenco and its connection to the gitano community.  Go HERE to see the web site and a trailer, and HERE to sign up for our newsletter so you can keep up with the progress on our work.

The Bracero program & Mexican farm workers in the U.S. (part 1 of 2)

It’s fall, time for good fruit, good vegetables…and time for people to harvest them – thousands of people.  It’s also a good time to think back on the bracero program, along with other “programs” that brought farm laborers into the United States from Mexico.  Of course, not all farm laborers in the United States have come from Mexico, but in the past 50 years, the great majority did. 

Back to the bracero program:  it was originally intended to be Mexico’s way of contributing to the World War II effort.  The United States experienced a major labor shortage due to the war, and negotiated a treaty with Mexico to supply that labor.  The workers were to be temporary, and would not be allowed to apply for permanent residency or citizenship.  They also were to be confined primarily to farm labor.  This was the original bracero program.  

Poster from the Smithsonian's exhibition about braceros.

The program provided farmers in the United States (especially owners of very large farms) with labor, allowing for continued large-scale production of food.   In addition, it gave Mexicans, who at that time were passing through an economic downturn and anxious for jobs, what was theoretically to be decent work under decent conditions for decent pay.

While some owners of these large farms indeed provided what they were supposed to, others provided the workers with poor conditions, or failed to pay them all they were owed, or engaged in other abuses.  In addition, as they first entered the United States, the workers were subject to practices such as being sprayed with DDT at the border.  (At that time, the full extent of the harm of DDT was not known.)

Center portion of another of the Smithsonian posters.

The work was very hard, in many cases made especially difficult because they were required to use something known as the “short-handled hoe,” a tool which required the laborer to bend over all day while working in the fields.  Long-handled hoes existed which would not have required this, but the farm owners considered these to be bad for the plants.  (Apparently, the plants were more important than the workers, many of whom experienced severe back problems because of using the short-handled hoe.)

NOTE:  photos in the posters are by Leonard Nadal.

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We are working on a documentary, Strong Roots, Bright Flowers:  Arts of Mexican Immigrants and Chicanos, which will tell more about farm laborers from Mexico.  To keep up with our work, sign up for our newsletter at this LINK.

 

Shortz Film Festival

I have traveled to Berlin to attend a festival screening one of my documentaries.  I have traveled to Athens to attend a screening of one of my videos.  I have traveled to various cities in Spain and this spring, will travel to France for the same reason.

But I have never travelled in the United States, outside of the Bay Area, to any film festival where my work was showing.  That's why I decided to go to the Shortz Film Festival to enjoy the festival and attend the screening of my short, The Blacksmith., which is a tone poem...no story line, just images and the like in praise of a traditional art form.

Filmmaker (made Tough Case), Jasmine (festival organizing team), and me.

                                                 

That, plus I really liked the organizers' enthusiasm and the way the festival was presented.  And I liked the logo - a pair of bright yellow boxer shorts with red polka dots.  Very cool.

Finally, the festival was outside of the Bay Area but not too far away:  Chico, California.  Very do-able.

I'm glad I went.  Some of the shorts were very, very good.  I especially liked four:  one filmed in China ("Cold Spring" by Shiyan Feng), an animation done by a young Swiss filmmaker ("La Fille aux Feuilles" of Marina Rosset), one from Chico, itself ("The Mugging" - can't remember the filmmaker's name) and a German one ("Call her Lotte" of Annekathrin Wetzel).

In addition, the parties were nice, there were interesting people there, the festival itself was in a nice venue (the El Rey Theater), and Chico is a nice place...with a huge, beautiful park near the center of town.

The El Rey Theater.