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Speaker 1: Happy Saturday, everybody. In a couple of weeks, we're going

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Speaker 1: to be doing an episode on the Delano grape strike,

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Speaker 1: which took place shortly after the end of the Brissero

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Speaker 1: program in the United States. We covered the Brissero program

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Speaker 1: on the show back on August, and rather than trying

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Speaker 1: to go back over all of that same context in

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Speaker 1: the Delano Grape Strike episode, we thought we would go

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Speaker 1: ahead and just put this classic back into people's feeds.

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Speaker 1: This episode also talks about a mass deportation effort that

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Speaker 1: overlapped the Briscero program, and that mass deportation effort was

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Speaker 1: named after a racist slur. I wrote this episode back

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Speaker 1: in If I were writing it today, I probably would

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Speaker 1: have approached that differently. So we just wanted to note

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Speaker 1: up front that there are multiple references to the program,

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Speaker 1: including its full name, over the course of this episode.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and Welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Tree C. D. Wilson, and I'm Holly fry So. Today,

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of people think concerns about immigration

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Speaker 1: are a recent phenomenon. I mean definitely in the United States,

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Speaker 1: which is where we live and can talk about from experience.

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Speaker 1: But I'm maybe in other nations too, but definitely in

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Speaker 1: the US, right, people don't think of this is a

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Speaker 1: thing that's been around for a long time. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think there's an availing thought that uh, you know there

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Speaker 1: colonists came and that was the big immigration thing, and

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Speaker 1: then there was this big gap and now we're all

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Speaker 1: arguing and worried about it again. Yeah, it's been like

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Speaker 1: the last I don't know, thirty or forty years. So

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Speaker 1: in a in a way, in a way, it definitely

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Speaker 1: is a new concern for people because for about a

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years to the nation was founded, there

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Speaker 1: weren't really any immigration laws, right. If you could get here,

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Speaker 1: you got to live here. That was basically how it

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Speaker 1: worked until, um, you know, the nineteenth century. So back

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Speaker 1: in the late seventeen hundreds, the country didn't really seem

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Speaker 1: to care about about immigration. But to look at another way,

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Speaker 1: it is not a new concern at all, because the

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Speaker 1: United States started passing immigration laws and a lot of

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Speaker 1: them were targeted at immigrants from specific countries in the

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixties. So this is both a really new idea

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Speaker 1: given the whole history of the United States as a nation, uh,

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Speaker 1: and a really old one, given that it's been around

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Speaker 1: for more than a hundred and fifty years. So that

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Speaker 1: whole division between like legal and illegal immigration is simultaneously

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Speaker 1: new and old. And today's story or today's story is

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Speaker 1: part of that centuries long history. Because for parts of

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Speaker 1: the twentieth century, the United States and Mexico had agreements

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Speaker 1: in place that we're allowing and even encouraging Mexican nationals

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Speaker 1: to enter the United States to do agricultural work and

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Speaker 1: other labor, mostly in the American Southwest. And one specific

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Speaker 1: program called the Brissero program was launched during World War

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Speaker 1: Two to address a labor shortage um as American men

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Speaker 1: were needed for the war effort. But an unintended side

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Speaker 1: effect of this program that was about legally coming to

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Speaker 1: the United States to work, was this huge increase in

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Speaker 1: the number of people who were crossing the border from

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Speaker 1: Mexico illegally. And these illegal entries reached a point that

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Speaker 1: the government implemented another program which I'm gonna make it

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Speaker 1: clear this is not an acceptable word to use today,

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Speaker 1: but it is literally what the program was named. It

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Speaker 1: was called Operation Wetback to deport Mexican nationals and huge groups.

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Speaker 1: So the intertwined stories of these two government programs is

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Speaker 1: what we are going to talk about today. And before

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Speaker 1: nineteen ten, there was simply not a lot of regulation

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Speaker 1: of the United State It's border with Mexico. People pretty

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Speaker 1: much crossed back and forth as they pleased. And as

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Speaker 1: agricultural industry started to really grow in the Southwest, these

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Speaker 1: industries started to really rely on this readily available and

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Speaker 1: seasonal workforce that was coming in from Mexico in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenties. This also became true of other industries in

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Speaker 1: the American West and Southwest as well, including railroads and mining.

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Speaker 1: But today we're talking mostly about agriculture, so using Mexican

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Speaker 1: nationals as a source of labor basically came with some benefits.

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Speaker 1: Agricultural work in a lot of places is highly seasonal,

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Speaker 1: and for the most part, migrant workers who were US

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Speaker 1: citizens were traveling as families. They would spend the year

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Speaker 1: moving from place to place as a family, for the

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Speaker 1: most part, spending a lot more time looking for work

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Speaker 1: than actually working. And when there was work, it was

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Speaker 1: usually work that the whole family did, including the children,

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Speaker 1: and an effort to try to make enough money to

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Speaker 1: last them for the rest of the year, so that

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Speaker 1: it's not an ideal situations been a lot of ways.

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Speaker 1: Mexican workers, on the other hand, tended to be young

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Speaker 1: men traveling in groups with other young men. A group

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Speaker 1: of young men was overall a lot more efficient than

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Speaker 1: a family with children, and on the more exploitive side

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Speaker 1: of things, many were willing to accept lower wages than

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Speaker 1: what was considered standard among Americans. Because of a limited

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Speaker 1: proficiency with the English language, Mexican nationals were often unaware

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Speaker 1: of laws or standards that could protect them in their work,

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Speaker 1: and as a result, there were a lot of growers

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Speaker 1: and farmers in the American West and Southwest who were

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Speaker 1: willing to overlook the issue of whether a person had

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Speaker 1: come into the United States legally or not in order

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Speaker 1: to get cheap, easy to exploit labor. By the early

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, though, an increasing number of people were starting

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Speaker 1: to think of this basically open border in the way

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Speaker 1: it affected the labor pool is a big problem. Large

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Speaker 1: farms were driving down their own costs by employing large

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Speaker 1: numbers of Mexican migrant workers at a really low rate

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Speaker 1: of pay, and small farms considered themselves to be at

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Speaker 1: a big financial disadvantage. As a result, labor organizations started

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Speaker 1: tacitly excluding Mexican workers when they formed unions, and also

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Speaker 1: started using their political clout to lobby the government for

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Speaker 1: more enforcement along the border and to put a stop

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Speaker 1: to immigration from Mexico. In nineteen twenty four, the United

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Speaker 1: States formally established the Border Patrol as part of the

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Speaker 1: Labor Appropriation Act. As the US government started taking steps

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Speaker 1: to secure the Mexican border and curtail illegal immigration in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, local communities and states began taking steps

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Speaker 1: to regulate their own Mexican population as well, as we've

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Speaker 1: discussed in our podcasts on Mendoes Versus Westminster and Macario Garcia.

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Speaker 1: Much of the Southwest and West approached its Hispanic and

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Speaker 1: Latino population in much the same way most of the

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Speaker 1: rest of the nation did. Its lack population through segregation,

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Speaker 1: which was reinforced either through laws or through social customs.

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Speaker 1: In places with large Mexican and Mexican American populations, discrimination

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Speaker 1: was widespread and socially accepted by much of the Anglo

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Speaker 1: community during the Great Depression, which lasted roughly a decade

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Speaker 1: beginning in nine nine, and the Dust Bowl, which was

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Speaker 1: a devastating period of drought and dust storms that struck

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Speaker 1: much of the Southwest and Great Plains. During the same time,

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Speaker 1: life was pretty hard for pretty much everybody in the region,

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Speaker 1: but it was especially hard for people of Mexican descent.

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Speaker 1: The Anglo community was increasingly hostile towards Mexican migrants, viewing

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Speaker 1: them as unnecessary competition for incredibly scarce jobs. The industries

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Speaker 1: that had been relying so heavily on Mexican labor for

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Speaker 1: so long increasingly tried to exclude Mexicans from their workforce

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Speaker 1: during the Great Depression. Prior to the Great Depression, the

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Speaker 1: United States in Mexico had been working together to find

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Speaker 1: ways to send Mexican nationals who were in the US

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Speaker 1: illegally back to Mexico. During the Great Depression, those efforts increased.

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Speaker 1: President Herbert Hoover ordered the Department of Labor to work

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Speaker 1: out a deportation program. The Mexican government tried to identify

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Speaker 1: its citizens who were in the United States and in

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Speaker 1: many cases paid for their return to Mexico. Also, due

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Speaker 1: to the Great Depression, Mexico was facing its own labor shortage,

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Speaker 1: so part of the reason it paid to repatriot its

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Speaker 1: citizens was to try to fill that labor shortage. Between

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Speaker 1: nineteen and nine thirty five, about eighty five thousand Mexicans

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Speaker 1: voluntarily returned to Mexico and another four hundred thousand word

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Speaker 1: deported or repatriated, depending on how you want to look

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Speaker 1: at it. Most of the ones who tried to return

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Speaker 1: to the United States during the right Depression were turned

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Speaker 1: away at the border, which at this point was a

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Speaker 1: lot more secure than it had been earlier than the

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenties. However, things shifted dramatically once again during World

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Speaker 1: War Two. The draft applied to all men residing in

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Speaker 1: the United States, whether they were citizens or not. Roughly

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Speaker 1: seven hundred and fifty thousand Hispanic men saw some sort

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Speaker 1: of active service in the war, and with so many

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Speaker 1: men serving in the war, the job market changed dramatically

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Speaker 1: in the United States. Many men who had held agricultural

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Speaker 1: jobs went to serve in the war, and then other

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Speaker 1: men and women moved out of agriculture and into higher

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Speaker 1: paying manufacturing jobs that were either opened up as part

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Speaker 1: of the war effort or because the people who had

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Speaker 1: been doing those jobs joined the armed forces that were

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Speaker 1: also disrupted trade with Europe, which cut off the United

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Speaker 1: States sources of many goods and meant that basically America

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Speaker 1: had to make them for ourselves. The overall effect of

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Speaker 1: all this on the labor pool for agricultural work was,

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Speaker 1: as you might suspect, enormous, and it led the US

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Speaker 1: to work out a program specifically to recruit Mexican workers.

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Speaker 1: And we're going to talk more about that after we

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Speaker 1: pause and think one of the sponsors that keeps our

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Speaker 1: show going to return to the Bricero program. This huge

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Speaker 1: shift in the workforce during World War Two had immediate

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Speaker 1: and detrimental effects on agriculture. Soon after the war began,

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Speaker 1: the Southwest's cotton and vegetable growers were petitioning Congress to

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Speaker 1: hire temporary workers to help them build a labor shortfall

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Speaker 1: that basically meant they couldn't harvest what they needed to harvest.

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Speaker 1: The key here was that this workforce would be temporary.

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Speaker 1: In the words of a report from President Harry S.

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Speaker 1: Truman's Commission on Migratory Labor later on in nine quote,

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Speaker 1: the demand for migratory labor is thus essentially twofold to

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Speaker 1: be ready to go to work when needed, to be

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Speaker 1: gone when not needed. So the United States, leaning on

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Speaker 1: Frank Lynda Roosevelt's good neighbor policy, started trying to work

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Speaker 1: out a bilateral agreement with Mexico that would allow Mexican

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Speaker 1: nationals to enter the United States to work and then

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Speaker 1: return home when they were done. At first, Mexico was

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Speaker 1: reluctant to do this for a number of reasons. Mexican

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Speaker 1: citizens who had previously immigrated to do exactly these types

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Speaker 1: of work had faced discrimination and exploitive treatment in the

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Speaker 1: United States. Many had been forced out of their jobs

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Speaker 1: and stranded during the Great Depression. So basically, Mexico remembered

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Speaker 1: all of that and just didn't have a lot of

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Speaker 1: confidence that its citizens would be treated fairly if they

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Speaker 1: went back to the United States to work. So Mexico

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Speaker 1: insisted that any agreement spell out protections for its citizens,

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Speaker 1: one that would protect Mexican laborers while in the United

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Speaker 1: States and would protect Mexico's own industries from suffering due

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Speaker 1: to a lack of workers. Mexico did, however, see some

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Speaker 1: potential benefits to allowing its citizens to work in the

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Speaker 1: United States. It was hoped that anyone who entered the

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Speaker 1: program would return home with money that would be injected

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Speaker 1: into the Mexican economy. Running parallel with that was the

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Speaker 1: idea that Mexico's workers would learn new techniques relating to

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Speaker 1: agriculture and then bring those new techniques back to Mexico.

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Speaker 1: The result of this negotiation between Mexico and the United

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Speaker 1: States was the Brissero program, which was launched in nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty two by executive order and then formalized by a

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Speaker 1: bilateral agreement on April nine. It would later be amended

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Speaker 1: by Public Law seventy eight and nineteen fifty one. The

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Speaker 1: basic terms of the Brossero program would be that this

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Speaker 1: would be non military work. It was not acceptable to

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Speaker 1: recruit Mexican nationals to work in agriculture and then put

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Speaker 1: them into the military service. Mexican nationals would be protected

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Speaker 1: from discrimination. Employers would pay transportation and living expenses, as

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Speaker 1: well as a fair wage. Workers would get medical and

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Speaker 1: sanitary services at no cost to them. People enrolling in

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Speaker 1: the Broscero program would sign a Spanish language contract and

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Speaker 1: be paid a fair wage that would not be less

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Speaker 1: than what was standard for Anglo workers in the area,

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Speaker 1: and workers under the age of fourteen were not allowed.

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Speaker 1: There were also protections if there was a shortage of work,

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Speaker 1: guaranteeing a subsistence level pay. If someone contracted with a

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Speaker 1: Mexican national but turned out not to have work for

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Speaker 1: them to do, a percentage of the broscero's pay was

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Speaker 1: also to be saved and returned to them once they

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Speaker 1: returned to Mexico. The criteria for the workers themselves were

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Speaker 1: that they had to be young, healthy men who had

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Speaker 1: agricultural experience but did not own land of their own.

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Speaker 1: They also needed to have a letter from local authorities

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Speaker 1: saying that their labor wasn't needed where they actually lived,

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Speaker 1: and that was to try to diminish the impact on Mexicans.

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Speaker 1: Mexico's own labor force. Applicants would go to collection points

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Speaker 1: in Mexico, be fingerprinted, be sprayed down with DDT, and

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Speaker 1: then be taken to the United States. In spite of

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Speaker 1: concerns that Mexican nationals would take jobs away from Americans.

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Speaker 1: At first, this seemed like a mutually beneficial agreement. The

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Speaker 1: United States would get the farm labor it needed and

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Speaker 1: Mexico would get new, modernized farming techniques, an injection of

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Speaker 1: cash into its economy and jobs for citizens who needed them. However,

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Speaker 1: things took a turn for the worst pretty much immediately.

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Speaker 1: Most of the work to be done was known as

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Speaker 1: stoop labor. This was cultivation work that was done using

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Speaker 1: a short handled hoe stooped over rose into the in

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Speaker 1: the fields. This was grueling and like it could have

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Speaker 1: been done with a long handled hoe instead of a

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Speaker 1: short handled hoe that required you to literally stoop over,

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Speaker 1: But for some reason people thought a long handled who

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Speaker 1: was damaging to the crops. Today, the short handled hoe

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Speaker 1: is regarded as an occupational hazard and in many states

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Speaker 1: it is banned as unsafe. There were also way more

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Speaker 1: interested Mexican nationals than there were jobs, and soon officials

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Speaker 1: processing applications were accepting bribes to move people ahead of

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Speaker 1: the line. Recruitment efforts became prone to corruption. People who

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Speaker 1: didn't meet these qualifications for one reason or another also

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Speaker 1: started using the constant traffic back and forth across the

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Speaker 1: border to make the crossing themselves illegally, and as was

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Speaker 1: the case before, there were still plenty of growers who

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Speaker 1: were willing to hire these people for almost no money.

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Speaker 1: Unscrupulous growers also figured out that a lot of the

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Speaker 1: Mexican nationals who were actually part of the Broscero program

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Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of proficiency in English and weren't

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Speaker 1: aware of the pay and protections they were legally entitled

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Speaker 1: to under the terms of this program. This definitely was

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Speaker 1: not universal. In various parts of the United States, broscero's

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Speaker 1: organized themselves and went on strike to protest low wages

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Speaker 1: and poor treatment that we're specifically outlawed in the Briscero

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Speaker 1: programs terms. Many growers flouted the rules of the program

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Speaker 1: and hired people who had crossed illegally to get around

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Speaker 1: having to worry about all of this. Mexico eventually refused

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Speaker 1: to send workers to the entire state of Texas because

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Speaker 1: of flagrant hiring of unauthorized workers as well as other abuses.

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Speaker 1: So soon illegal border crossings were rampant and the employment

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Speaker 1: of people who had entered illegally was widespread. Wages started

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Speaker 1: to drop for basically everyone because there were so many

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Speaker 1: low wage workers who had become part of the economy

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Speaker 1: in the Southwest that minimum standard housing and medical care

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Speaker 1: that was supposed to be part of this program also

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Speaker 1: didn't materialize, and a lot of people who actually were

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Speaker 1: part of it wound up tightly packed together in barracks

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Speaker 1: on canvas cots, where respiratory diseases and other illnesses spread

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Speaker 1: like wildfire. Over the twenty two year life of this program,

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Speaker 1: four point five million Mexican nationals legally came to the

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Speaker 1: United States to work, some of them returning to the

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Speaker 1: US repeatedly under new contracts, but far more entered illegally

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Speaker 1: outside the bounds of the program. There was actually a

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Speaker 1: six thousand percent increase in illegal immigration between nineteen forty

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Speaker 1: four and nineteen fifty four. Support for the program, which

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Speaker 1: had never been universal, started to wane after World War

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Speaker 1: Two was over and Americans who had survived the war

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Speaker 1: started to return home and to try to reclaim their

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Speaker 1: old jobs. The official wartime program ended on December thirty

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Speaker 1: one of nineteen forty seven, although the program continued to

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Speaker 1: be extended for peacetime purposes for quite a while after that,

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Speaker 1: and eventually Mexico, fed up with what it saw as

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Speaker 1: the United States refusal to enforce the terms of their

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Speaker 1: bilateral agreement, stopped participating by just declining to send any

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Speaker 1: more workers through official channels. According to the Texas State

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Speaker 1: Historical Association's handbook, of Texas. The US retaliated against Mexico's

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Speaker 1: non participation in nineteen fifty one by allowing thousands of

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Speaker 1: people to enter the US illegally, arresting them and then,

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Speaker 1: rather than deporting them, turning them over to the Texas

300
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Speaker 1: Employment Commission to be put to work. By the nineteen sixties,

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Speaker 1: the Broscero program was officially on the way out. Labor

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Speaker 1: organizations had become a lot more influential in policy and

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Speaker 1: had started advocating very vocally for jobs in the United

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Speaker 1: States to be filled by Americans and not by Mexicans.

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Speaker 1: At the same time, increasing mechanization in the agriculture industry

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Speaker 1: meant that a lot of the physical labor that had

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Speaker 1: required this huge labor pool was disappearing. The need for

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Speaker 1: physical labor became a lot smaller. The Brassero program needed

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Speaker 1: to be reauthorized periodically, and there were increasingly contentious debates

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Speaker 1: whenever it came up for renewal. Its re authorizations in

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one and nineteen sixty three in particular, were

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Speaker 1: extremely hotly debated. It There was a lot of pressure

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Speaker 1: to end the program after a bus accident killed thirty

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Speaker 1: two migrant workers in nineteen sixty three. The Burcero program

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Speaker 1: eventually expired the following year in nineteen sixty four. With

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Speaker 1: the abolition of the program. One of the things that

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Speaker 1: proponents had often said about it turned out apparently to

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Speaker 1: be true. A lot of people who were in favor

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Speaker 1: of the program insisted that American workers did not want

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Speaker 1: to do this work, which is why it needed to

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Speaker 1: be open to Mexican nationals. After the abolition of the program,

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Speaker 1: there were about five hundred and nineteen thousand unemployed people

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Speaker 1: in California, which should have been plenty to cover the

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00:19:37,400 --> 00:19:40,440
Speaker 1: seventy thousand people who were needed to do stoop labor

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Speaker 1: in the agricultural industry. But the nature, the nature of

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Speaker 1: the work and the wages that were that were offered

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Speaker 1: meant that a lot of these jobs went unfilled and

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Speaker 1: tons of fruits and vegetables rotted in the fields. So

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Speaker 1: there was a lot of argument that this should have

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Speaker 1: been like a gradual phase out rather than just an

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Speaker 1: abrupt abolition. As we said at the top of the show.

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Speaker 1: Running parallel to all of this was a mass deportation

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Speaker 1: program focused on Mexican nationals called the horrible name Operation

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Speaker 1: Went Back and We're going to talk about that after

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Speaker 1: we pause once again and take a break in here

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Speaker 1: from one of our fantastic sponsors, to get back to

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Speaker 1: Operation Went Back as an example of how the United

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Speaker 1: States thinking on immigration shifted. In the nineteen thirties and forties,

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Speaker 1: President Franklin D. Roosevelt combined two other government agencies to

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Speaker 1: form the Immigration and Naturalization Service in three This agency

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00:20:45,200 --> 00:20:49,080
Speaker 1: was originally part of the Department of Labor. In ninety

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00:20:49,240 --> 00:20:51,679
Speaker 1: that changed, the I n S and the Border Patrol

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00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:53,920
Speaker 1: that fell under it moved from the Department of Labor

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Speaker 1: to the Department of Justice. With that the I n

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00:20:56,520 --> 00:20:58,600
Speaker 1: S and the Border Patrol were no longer about work.

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Speaker 1: They were about lawing for sman And as we said,

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Speaker 1: Operation Went Back was a mass deportation effort that came

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Speaker 1: along after the I and S moved to the Department

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Speaker 1: of Justice. It's often portrayed as a swift, decisive effort

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Speaker 1: to deport people who had entered the US illegally, but

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Speaker 1: it was really part of a decades long effort that ran,

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Speaker 1: as we said, parallel to most of the Burscero program.

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Speaker 1: In the nineteen forties, for example, special Mexican deportation parties

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Speaker 1: were established to try to apprehend and deport Mexican migrant

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Speaker 1: workers in there was an attempt to reinforce targeted portions

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Speaker 1: of the border with chain link fencing. In the nineteen

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Speaker 1: forties and nineteen fifties, some border patrol agents ran an

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Speaker 1: unsanctioned quote little barber shop, basically clippers that they carried

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00:21:45,200 --> 00:21:48,400
Speaker 1: with them to cut the hair of repeat immigration offenders,

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Speaker 1: sometimes in intentionally humiliating ways. In terms of the more

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Speaker 1: above board efforts to control immigration, a lot of them

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00:21:57,040 --> 00:22:00,240
Speaker 1: really were across national The United States why it to

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Speaker 1: keep illegal immigration from driving down wages and causing housing

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Speaker 1: and social issues within its own borders, and Mexico wanted

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Speaker 1: to have enough workers to meet its own labor needs

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Speaker 1: and also protected citizens from exploitation and discrimination while they

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Speaker 1: were in the United States. In nineteen fifty one, a

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Speaker 1: report on Mexican migrant workers in the US pinned all

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Speaker 1: sorts of social and economic ills on illegal immigration and

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00:22:24,880 --> 00:22:29,119
Speaker 1: characterized the situation as an invasion. Soon, the US was

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Speaker 1: diverting more and more of the border patrol and i

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Speaker 1: n s to the Mexican border, more than doubling the

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Speaker 1: number of agents that were stationed there. In between nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty three and nineteen fifty three, there were a lot

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Speaker 1: more people apprehended in illegal border crossings. The number rose

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Speaker 1: from eleven thousand, seven hundred and fifteen in nineteen forty

377
00:22:48,119 --> 00:22:51,639
Speaker 1: three to eight hundred and eighty five thousand, five hundred

378
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Speaker 1: eighty seven in nineteen fifty three, with Mexicans making up

379
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Speaker 1: more and more of those apprehended. At the same time, though,

380
00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:03,520
Speaker 1: the United States didn't actually increase the immigration and Naturalization

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Speaker 1: services budgets, so even though there were more agents on

382
00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:08,800
Speaker 1: the Mexican border, there were fewer agents overall, with the

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Speaker 1: forces numbers dropping a third between nineteen two and nineteen

384
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Speaker 1: fifty one. When Dwight D. Eisenhower took office as president

385
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Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty three, it's estimated that three million Mexican

386
00:23:20,160 --> 00:23:23,879
Speaker 1: nationals in the US had entered the country illegally, but

387
00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:27,520
Speaker 1: previous efforts to deport them had increasingly stalled out because

388
00:23:27,560 --> 00:23:30,680
Speaker 1: so many farms and ranches were dependent on this illicit

389
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Speaker 1: labor pool. In the words of Walt Edwards, who served

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Speaker 1: in the Border Patrol from nineteen fifty one to nineteen

391
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Speaker 1: sixty four, quote, when we caught illegal aliens on farms

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Speaker 1: and ranches. The farmer or rancher would often call and complain,

393
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Speaker 1: and depending on how politically connected they were, there would

394
00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 1: be political intervention. Yeah that political intervention was basically getting

395
00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:56,159
Speaker 1: their workers out of jail and turning away from the

396
00:23:56,200 --> 00:23:58,040
Speaker 1: fact that they were not supposed to be in the

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Speaker 1: United States. In nineteen fifty four, Eisenhower appointed General Joseph Swing,

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Speaker 1: also known as Jumping Joe, as the Commissioner of the

399
00:24:06,880 --> 00:24:11,720
Speaker 1: Immigration and Naturalization Service. Swing started transferring immigration officials who

400
00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:14,000
Speaker 1: had spent a long time in the Southwest to other

401
00:24:14,080 --> 00:24:16,320
Speaker 1: parts of the country with the hope of breaking all

402
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:20,080
Speaker 1: those social and political ties to all the local farmers, ranchers,

403
00:24:20,119 --> 00:24:22,359
Speaker 1: and political big wigs that was leading the Service to

404
00:24:22,520 --> 00:24:29,080
Speaker 1: not actually enforce immigration. Then, on June nine, four, Swing

405
00:24:29,119 --> 00:24:33,159
Speaker 1: announced the commencement of Operation Wetback. One arm of the

406
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:36,680
Speaker 1: operation was meant to physically apprehend and remove people who

407
00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:40,480
Speaker 1: had illegally immigrated into the United States. The other was

408
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:43,560
Speaker 1: meant to publicize this effort to make sure people who

409
00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:46,320
Speaker 1: weren't in the country legally knew about it and see

410
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:49,480
Speaker 1: the deportation force as a threat. A lot of this

411
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:54,120
Speaker 1: publicity deliberately exaggerated the size and aggressiveness of the deportation

412
00:24:54,200 --> 00:24:57,000
Speaker 1: force in the hope of scaring people into leaving the

413
00:24:57,040 --> 00:25:03,680
Speaker 1: country voluntarily. On June seventy four, immigration officials started the

414
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:07,560
Speaker 1: actual sweeps to apprehend and deport people who had illegally immigrated.

415
00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:11,680
Speaker 1: About seven hundred and fifty immigration agents moved north through

416
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Speaker 1: California and Arizona. They started in those two states because

417
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:18,520
Speaker 1: the entrenched resistance to deportation was lower there, so they're

418
00:25:18,520 --> 00:25:20,959
Speaker 1: hoping to kind of get a good foothold before moving

419
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:24,080
Speaker 1: on to places where it was more contentious. They had

420
00:25:24,119 --> 00:25:26,920
Speaker 1: a goal of apprehending a thousand people who had entered

421
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 1: the country illegally every day. By the end of July,

422
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:34,080
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people had been arrested in California and Arizona,

423
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:37,200
Speaker 1: and an estimated four d eighty eight thousand had fled

424
00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:40,600
Speaker 1: the United States on their own. And as Tracy had said,

425
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:43,560
Speaker 1: it started in California and Arizona, but from there it

426
00:25:43,640 --> 00:25:48,440
Speaker 1: moved into Utah, Nevada, Texas, and Idaho, and immigration officials

427
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:51,080
Speaker 1: put the people that were apprehended in these sweeps onto

428
00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:54,760
Speaker 1: trains and buses bound for Mexico, far enough south that

429
00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:57,720
Speaker 1: they simply couldn't turn around and re enter the United States.

430
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:02,240
Speaker 1: Two ships were also you for this purpose, The Emancipation

431
00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 1: and the Mercurio, carried people from Port Isabel in Texas

432
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:11,360
Speaker 1: about five hundred miles to Vera Cruz in Mexico. At

433
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:14,359
Speaker 1: the time, the i n S claimed that it deported

434
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:18,159
Speaker 1: one point three million people during Operation Went Back, but

435
00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 1: those numbers have not really held up to historical scrutiny.

436
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:23,960
Speaker 1: It was definitely lower than that, and it might have

437
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:27,800
Speaker 1: been as low as three hundred thousand. These efforts actually

438
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:30,760
Speaker 1: disrupted some of the agriculture industry in the states that

439
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:34,520
Speaker 1: were targeted by deporting their workforces. Like we said, a

440
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:37,200
Speaker 1: lot of the agriculture industry in the Southwest and West

441
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:41,240
Speaker 1: had become highly dependent on this illegal labor. The government

442
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:43,680
Speaker 1: tried to reassure people that they could get new labor

443
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:46,440
Speaker 1: through the Buscero program, which was still in effect at

444
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:49,520
Speaker 1: this point. In addition to the immediate impact that it

445
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:52,280
Speaker 1: had on the agriculture industry, there were other problems with

446
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:55,960
Speaker 1: Project White Back as well. Aside from its name, which

447
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:57,960
Speaker 1: I'm going to say again is a racial slur. We

448
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:02,000
Speaker 1: would not normally say on this show. Everyone of Mexican

449
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 1: descent was suspect, whether they had entered the country illegally

450
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 1: or not, and a lot of the lawful residents, some

451
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 1: of them American citizens, were deported in error. Families were

452
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:13,600
Speaker 1: broken up when some members were caught up in a

453
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:17,119
Speaker 1: sweep and others weren't. Children were left with anyone, without

454
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 1: anyone to look after them when their parents were arrested

455
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:24,360
Speaker 1: and deported. Mexican American communities were disrupted when their populations

456
00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 1: were basically decimated, and then that would basically leave whoever

457
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:31,920
Speaker 1: was left without the basic life amenities that they needed,

458
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:34,879
Speaker 1: and the problems did not end north of the border.

459
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 1: People who were dropped off in Mexico were often left

460
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:41,760
Speaker 1: in completely unfamiliar territory where they had no friends or family,

461
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:46,399
Speaker 1: without any food, without water, and with no money. Eighty

462
00:27:46,480 --> 00:27:49,679
Speaker 1: eight people from just one roundup died of heat stroke

463
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 1: after being left in remote territory without food or water.

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00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 1: Conditions on the Emancipation and the Mercurio were also appalling,

465
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 1: incredibly overcrowded and dismal. On one voyage, a riot broke

466
00:28:02,560 --> 00:28:05,240
Speaker 1: out and the use of ships was eventually stopped after

467
00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:10,240
Speaker 1: seven people drowned during one voyage Apart from all of that,

468
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:12,240
Speaker 1: that ten percent of their pay that was supposed to

469
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:15,720
Speaker 1: be withheld for legitimate participants of the Burscero program and

470
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:18,480
Speaker 1: then returned to them when they returned to Mexico. A

471
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 1: lot of people never saw it. A settlement was in

472
00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:23,160
Speaker 1: the works in two thousand and eight to restore this

473
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:26,320
Speaker 1: pay to the former workers and their descendants, but as

474
00:28:26,359 --> 00:28:29,960
Speaker 1: of there were still marches and protests going on to

475
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 1: have this money restored because it had never actually happened.

476
00:28:35,240 --> 00:28:37,640
Speaker 1: So that is the basics of like this long kind

477
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 1: of convoluted, intertwined effort to both recruit and deport Mexican

478
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 1: nationals in the United States. Uh. I know for sure

479
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 1: that there are folks in the world whose mindset is, well,

480
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:57,520
Speaker 1: they're illegally in here, it serves them, right. I personally

481
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:01,840
Speaker 1: think that if you are traveling hundreds of miles away

482
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:05,959
Speaker 1: from your family to do physically grueling, stoop labor for

483
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:10,560
Speaker 1: little money, like, imagine what your life is like to

484
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 1: lead you to that decision, right, Like, what other option

485
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:26,760
Speaker 1: might you have? Have? Empathy? That's what I'm saying. Thanks

486
00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:29,479
Speaker 1: so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since this

487
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:31,560
Speaker 1: episode is out of the archive, if you heard an

488
00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:33,800
Speaker 1: email address or a Facebook U r L or something

489
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:36,280
Speaker 1: similar over the course of the show, that could be

490
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:41,160
Speaker 1: obsolete now. Our current email address is History podcast at

491
00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:44,680
Speaker 1: i heart radio dot com. Our old health stuff works

492
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:47,800
Speaker 1: email address no longer works, and you can find us

493
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 1: all over social media at missed in History. And you

494
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 1: can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts,

495
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 1: the I heart Radio app, and wherever else you listen

496
00:29:57,440 --> 00:30:03,160
Speaker 1: to podcasts. M Stuff You miss in History Class is

497
00:30:03,200 --> 00:30:06,400
Speaker 1: a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from

498
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 1: I heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts,

499
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:12,880
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H