The Bracero Program 

The Bracero Program was a “guest worker” system run by the U.S from 1942-1964, during which time more than four million Mexican Workers were contracted to work the agricultural fields of the U.S. The agricultural industry made its choice in favor of governmentally administered migration of Mexicans. During this time artists captured the inhumane treatment of Mexican laborers who were contracted to work for U.S agribusiness even as other Mexican laborers were being deported. Under pressure from organized labor, the farmworkers movement of Mexican and Filipino immigrants, Congress voted to end the abuses of the government-run labor contracting system, terminating the Bracero Program in 1964. This action was a crucial step towards the building of a farmworkers’ union in the United States, a union of largely immigrant workers. This is important in the overall discussion about the Chicano Art movement because, to many of the artists that we’ll mention, the Bracero Program made the treatment of Mexican migrant workers publicly visible and acted as a catalyst, driving many to oppose the kind of treatment that these workers suffered. Many of the artists were sons and daughters of migrant workers through the Bracero Program, and the use of art through protest was a critical development in the beginnings of Chicano Art.