Bracero’s Historic Lessons Tour Presents: Lessons for Immigration Policy, the Bracero Guestworker Program1

Sunday October 29^th 2006, 6:00PM. 

FLOC Headquarters, 1221 South Broadway St., Toledo, OH.

The Bracero Historic Lessons Tour will present Lessons for Immigration Policy: The Bracero Guestworker Program at FLOC headquarters, Sunday October 29^th starting at 6:00PM.

Established during World War II, braceros were migrant workers recognized under a U.S. guestworker program, to assist the United States which was engaged in World War II.  But with few rights, many faced lives of indentured servitude with contracts dependant upon specific employers.  Vulnerable and unable to negotiate their basic human rights, Bracero’s were easily exploited. 

Included in these contracts were provisions established through the U.S. government, which temporarily withheld 10 percent of workers’ wages—the provision was an attempt to assure the braceros prompt return to México once work and the war was completed.  However, it’s been some fifty years and most braceros have yet to see any return of their money. Therefore, they have begun to organize and demand repayment.

Speakers in the tour will include an ex-bracero from Tlaxcala, México—a region were nearly 10,000 have organized—and a representative from the México Solidarity Network. 

The President of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), Baldemar Velásquez, and the FLOC Workers’ Center are hosting the event.