Program commemorated in the U.S.
Plaque installed in Socorro, Texas, showcases the back breaking contributions from bracero workers
Sebastian Corral still remembers having his hands checked for calluses 73 years ago as a would-be agricultural worker at the Rio Vista Bracero Reception Center in Socorro, Tex.
“If your hands were smooth, they wouldn’t hire you,” Corral said in Spanish.
Corral, who was 18 years old at the time, was applying for the largest foreign worker program in U.S. history, established in 1942 to allow Mexican citizens to work in the United States under short-term labor contracts.
The Mexican Farm Labor Program, which began as a way to address labor shortages during World War II, brought millions of workers to the United States until it ended in 1964, historians say.
In addition to having their hands checked, braceros, as they were called, were stripped naked and sprayed with the insecticide DDT, including inside their ears. Their mouths were inspected and their chests X-rayed, and blood tests were conducted to check for sexually transmitted infections and other diseases.
It was a process that left Corral feeling “completely humiliated,” he said.
Last year, Rio Vista, a collection of 21 buildings where braceros were processed in South Texas, was designated a national historic landmark.
And last week, the city of Socorro and the National Park Service dedicated plaques honoring the center.
“This property possesses national significance in commemorating the history of the United States of America,” the plaque reads. It is the first national landmark to have plaques posted in English and Spanish.
Historians and activists say they hope that the recognition will bring more attention to an important but often overlooked part of Latino history, said Sehila Mota Casper, executive director of Latinos in Heritage Conservation.
“This program is so significant because so many of us can trace our roots to this,” Mota Casper said.
“Rio Vista is a sacred site. It was our point of entry. It’s the place that we can go to to honor the beginning of our story here in America.”
The National Park Service designated the Rio Vista center as one of 16 new historic landmarks in 2023.
“It’s important that the places we deem nationally significant represent the historical and natural diversity of the American experience,” Chuck Sams, director of the National Park Service, said in a statement at the time of the designation.
Mexican workers chosen for the program were sent across the country but mostly worked along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the National Park Service. The term “braceros” came from the Spanish word for arms, “brazos.”
While the agreement between the United States and Mexico establishing the program included rules for how the braceros would be treated, they weren’t always enforced, said Mireya Loza, an associate professor of history at Georgetown University.
Employers were supposed to provide free housing and medical treatment but often didn’t comply, Loza said.
She added, “These men were being bound by contracts that rendered them particularly vulnerable to high levels of exploitation and poor living conditions.”
Elements of the screening process, including spraying workers with an insecticide, were invasive and unnecessary, Loza said.
Braceros “were seen as potential carriers of all sorts of illnesses that [the government] didn’t want local American communities to be exposed to,” she said.
The plaque commemorating the processing center is the first step in what Socorro officials hope will be a $30 million renovation of Rio Vista, which could eventually include a museum, community center and library, said Victor Reta, the city’s director of recreation.
“The national historic landmark designation of Rio Vista highlights the pivotal and often overlooked contribution of the bracero program to United States agriculture,” Reta said.
While many Mexican Americans can trace their roots to the bracero program, some don’t realize it, said Yolanda Chávez Leyva, an associate professor of history at the University of Texas at El Paso.
The university has collected the oral histories of more than 600 workers who participated in the program, Chávez Leyva said.
Some of the workers were proud to have been part of the program, while others said they hid the details from their families, she said.
“They all talk about the suffering they experienced on both sides of the border,” Chávez Leyva said.
Corral was paid $4 a day to pick cotton from sunup to sundown in Las Cruces, N.M., which he would send back home to his family in Mexico. After work, he returned to a room made for four people but which housed 10 men, he said.
“They did whatever they wanted to us,” Corral, now 91, said.
Corral joined the program in 1951 and worked in various locations until it ended in 1964.
Blanca McCreary, one of Corral’s 14 grandchildren, said she gets angry whenever she hears about her grandfather’s time as a bracero, particularly the screening process, which she describes as “inhumane.”
“I also can’t help but feel a sense of pride and gratitude for my grandfather, because if he hadn’t made that sacrifice, our family wouldn’t be here,” McCreary, who lives in Washington state, said.
“Rio Vista is a sacred site. It was our point of entry. It’s the place that we can go to to honor the beginning of our story here in America.”
Mota Casper, executive director of Latinos in Heritage Conservation