From Peasent To Worker: Migration, Masculinity, and The Making of The Mexican Workers in The US

International Labor and Working-Class, Inc.
From Peasant to Worker: Migration, Masculinity, and the Making of Mexican Workers in the US Author(s): Deborah Cohen Source: International Labor and Working-Class History, No. 69, Working-Class Subjectivities and Sexualities (Spring, 2006), pp. 81-103 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of International Labor and Working-Class, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27673023 . Accessed: 05/11/2013 18:12
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From
Peasant
toWorker:
theMaking
ofMexican Workers
Deborah
University
Migration,
Masculinity,
and
in theUS1
Cohen
St. Louis
of Missouri
Abstract This work article examines Mexican migration of US-Mexico the during the Bracero Program, men to that brought Mexican agreements to 1964. Juxtaposing Mexican states' and US to the US
unofficial
name
for the series
in US fields from 1942 agricultural to of their journeys, the article shows for the understandings Program migrants' goals even as it simultaneously how this migration disrupted men's subjectivities, provided to resecure and claims in crucial way. the mechanisms gender and class subjectivities ultimately, actor, is what was forged in the wake and classed. of this migration: a new historical transnationally gendered
Revealed,
kind of
When
conditions and the disproportionate benefits that labor US state and growers.3 Thus, I expected former the migration brought migrants' horrendous work
accounts to be ones of racism and abuse.4 However, in living rooms, kitchens, to see worlds
I began doing oral histories with Mexican migrants who had engaged in agricultural labor in theUS as part of theBracero Program, I was surprised at their recollections. My knowledge of their migration had come from literature on this program of regulated labor that, from 1942 to 1964, brought nearly twomillion men towork in theUnited States.2 That scholarship foregrounded
barbershops, and on street corners, they talked to me with pride about their
experiences themselves in the US. as victims; In contrast rather, men to scholarly refused portrayals, own were actors in their making they
and the United States. and the resulting social configurations of Mexico to I here take listened closely migrant's stories, seriously theirportrayals Having of journeys and stated reasons formigrating. I show how thismigration dis rupted and provided themechanisms to resecure gender and class subjectivities and claims in crucial way, ultimately forginga new kind of historical actor, trans
nationally gendered and classed. To address the relationship between migration and the reshaping of gen dered and classed subjectivities, this article first lays out the Program particulars as, in part, a project of class formation. It then explores themultiple disruptions men in terms of theirown senses that migration to theUnited States brought for of self (subjectivity). JuxtaposingMexican and US states' goals for theProgram tomen's understandings of their journeys gets to the heart of the impact of this regulated migration on migrants' subjectivities.5 Specifically, the article reveals
how, because local of work regimes, discrimination, experienced and complexity assault on of interactions subjectiv residents, migrants a dramatic their
with
ities as rural folk and (proto) patriarchs; in other words, an assault on their
International Labor and Working-Class History No. 69, 2006, pp. 81-103 2006 International Labor and Working-Class ?
History,
Inc.
82
ILWCH, 69, Spring 2006
gendered and classed positions. Building on the gender scholarship, which con
tends that
always made at the intersections of multiple social categories, I argue that the class transformation of (male) peasants into capitalized yeoman farmers6 Mexican state ironically brought a differentbut equally gendered sought by the class transformation, of locally-identified rural folk, feminized as "docile" and
"backward" workers and by US agentive growers and the Mexican state, into transnational masculine citizen-subjects.
subjectivities
("women's"
or
otherwise)
are
not
singular,
but
rather,
That Mexico would see picking cotton and sugar beets as the road to capi talization and attendant class transformation might immediately strike the
reader $0.30 as to $1.00 disingenuous an hour, and even ludicrous. on when After men all, how could earnings of depending migrated, ever enable the capi
talization of a workforce desperate to feed families in a countrywhose relative poverty and geopolitical weakness forced it tomake deals with its dominant,
much richer
goal within its greater historical context. As I detail elsewhere,7 these men were an important part of Mexico's contribution to the Second World War and symbols of its overarching support for the ideal of freedom; and this ability to contribute a substantial labor forcehelped positionMexico as amoderni
zing democracy and, theory thus, was, as the United States' future economic hemispheric worldview partner. at that Modernization in fact, the dominant
neighbor?
To make
sense
of Mexico's
optimism,
we must
put
this
historical moment;8
Mexican states?and
itwas
the overarching lens through which

themselves?measured
the US
and
by the Program as well as those actually gained. While theMexican state did gain substantially from the remittances thatmen sent back?by the 1950s they had grown to the third largest source of hard currency, after tourism and oil?
making
the migrants
the benefits
offered
capitalization was to take place at the family level, by withholding ten percent of US wages. This locally-available capital would then fuel the transformation of peasants into small, independent, and capitalized farmers, the idealized revolu Mexican state, in tionarybulwark ofMexico's agricultural system. Sought by the
other words, was a class transformation
capital
available
to the state was
not
an
explicit
Program
goal;
rather,
agricultural knowledge and accrued capital?the manifestation of the distinctly

masculine ideals of
grounded
in the southward
transfer
of
While
Program,
theMexican
so, too, did
independence
and
know-how.
and US
states, and growers had expectations for the

The men who came (or tried to come) saw
something in it for families and themselves; and theymade a choice, albeit from a narrow set of options, and voted with their feet; they kept on coming.
exposure
the migrants.
Despite
impact that this exposure

in a great and the article
to heavy
doses
of
the Mexican
state's
rationale9
and
the
(might have) had, we must not see migrants as

exchange, how but Relying braceros?as and rather, on an as actors with their of were what for migration. their understanding migrants to get
victims passive own motivations men as actors,
diplomatic examines
goals within
Program attempted
called?maneuvered
circumstances
they needed from the Program: tomaintain families and thus resecure claims
From
Peasant
toWorker:
Migration,
Masculinity
83
to proper patriarchal masculinity jeopardized by their inability to do so. Thus, it men's journey?the US siteswhere men lived and worked, explores one point in and the relationships engendered there?and shows not only how this claim to being proper patriarchs was furtherput at risk in the act ofmigrating, but also the ways inwhich men attempted to recoup this claim through asserting their belonging to a particular class (workers) and the rights due them as part of
this class.
On The Southern Side: Mexico's Expectations for theProgram In 1942, not long after entering the Second World War, the United States approached Mexico about establishing a formal program to bring Mexican families to work in US agricultural fields; it was pushed by growers up in arms about projected shortages of cheap labor and lost harvests. Despite
Mexico's initial reluctance,
heading north, lured by an expanding US economy.11 The program that emerged from these international negotiations reflected the (initial and short-lived) leverage Mexico wielded from this refusal. Very generally, it stipulated wage levels, and provided migrants with transportation to and
from the United States, braceros and were medical not and workers' to be used Furthermore, US allowed insurance. compensation as strikebreakers or to
ultimately
it agreed,10
as
people
were
already
influence local salaries, and were initiallypaid a wage higher than that offered
domestic men to be workers. worked able Whether under both compensated pay on an hourly average or piecework among success here are: regimes?the wage. out-migration, for our important Mexico purposes laborer
basis?and them was
to earn
this mandated
In exchange fully mandated
for agreeing certain
to this regulated Most
conditions.
first, that migrants be men (not the families that theUS wanted), with previous agricultural experience and no current employment;12 and secondly, thatpart of braceros' wages was to be withheld, returned only after theyhad arrived back in
Mexico. purchase Returning with capital and a particular local knowledge and thus base, men were agricul to farm machinery, mechanize farming, transform
ture into a productive industry; this capitalization would make itpossible for the meet its foodstuff needs, a goal stillnot realized in 1942.Made clear in country to on these conditions is itsprimary goal for the Program: the Mexico's insistence
transformation
institutionsat the center of that goal: the patriarchal familyas the unit and site of production. Yet this transformationdid not occur, in large part because the very men that theMexican government sent to theUnited States did not begin as
peasants or even rural
of peasants
into yeoman
farmers,
and
gendered
assumptions
and
ence and of the fewwho did have such experience, only a handful returned to farming;14nor could they access the capital that they accrued.15 Without this capital, rural men who did return found it nearly impossible to capitalize
small, often by collectively owned, farms, hindering the class transformation envisioned the government.
folk;13 more
than
half
had
no
prior
agricultural
experi
84
Also evident in this reading is the gendered ideology buttressing and imbricated in the Program: the patriarchal family and the role of its husband father-breadwinner in its maintenance and (ideological and physical) (re)production: the larger logic in play, which undergirded this all-male migration and which, as we will see,migrants would pick up on, was the inability of poor men tomeet the patriarchal duty of family support.And the government instituted into the Program a mechanism to assure family support and make it easier to lure men back to (families in) Mexico: withholding ten percent of
men's lous earnings. spending In so mandating, and from gamblers, this money prostitutes, was and locked conmen; away from men's made frivo itwas available
to men, and, through them and their increased productivity, their families and the men is all themore interesting,given nation. The ideology of thesemen as family that, for at least the early phase of theProgram, a full seventy percent of aspiring
braceros were under
were assumed to be patriarchs unable to fulfillthe requirements of theirposition,

in reality, many were
twenty-one
and
single.16
In other
words, in their
although future
migrants
Not
Mexico's
that
surprisingly, this gender(ed) ideology got little resistance from northern counterpart, for it dovetailed nicely with the characteristics
and their US state representatives desired for manual laborers.
proto-patriarchs
being
schooled
role.
Taking this logic one step further,growers advocated

to men, to migrate as the former were considered
growers
for families, as opposed

desirable workforce:
a more
Not only were they,as opposed to singlemen, lessmobile and less likely to leave worksites, despite bad conditions; growers also knew thatmen would employ a time-worn strategy for family survival: they would put wives and children to
work?for an even
been organized around families, and children were visible in US migrant camps. Lastly, those advocating themigration of families accepted the biological "fact" that men needed sex. Allowing men to bring their own women to the US lessened the threat, itwas argued, thatmigrants would hook up with (more local women or that local prostitution would flourish. While desirable) Mexico might have agreed with this assessment, it still nixed familymigration. Bent on making thismigration temporary and institutionalizing the return of
lower wage.
Moreover,
agriculture
in the US
had
historically
agricultural knowledge and capital, Mexico envisioned that familymigration would likely make migration permanent; in other words, theywould immigrate. In the end, however, the gendered logic and policies supported by both governments took their toll both on the men who came and families left
behind: was seen because as was this mass and with movement not of husbands, cost of fathers, and future patriarchs repro never migration Mexico, immigration, the appropriate living. Thus, site of family were growers
duction
its lower
forced to compensate this temporary flexible labor enough to reproduce the family within the United States.17 While Mexico's goal of turning peasants the Program transcended its unfulfilledmission. As we will see, they became
the lens through and which redirected. other transformations and changes were understood, contained, into yeoman farmers was never realized, the gendered ideologies that anchored
From
Peasant
toWorker:
Migration,
Masculinity
85
Mexico's
broader context
seemingly quixotic goals for the Program make

of domestic transformations the country was
sense within the

undergoing, in
particular, the formation of a state dedicated to broadening the constituency it recognized and served.Working to consolidate its hold on government, the new state sought to establish itself as theRevolution's (1910-1917) legitimate heir, while simultaneously addressing the needs of the large mobilized over whelmingly poor rural constituency that had brought about the social and state transformation. Yet although it moved toward industrializing the
economy and
remember meet
always
that Mexico
constrained
addressing
was
the rampant a
economic
needs
of
a fledgling revolutionary state, with options

lack of resources. Thus, the state's ability to
its citizenry,
we
must
those goals (still long off) was made contingent upon distributing the of pain meeting them in a seemingly equitable way, while offering some interim reward by acknowledging this pain. What it offered themajority of its
citizenry excluded was from social vast The numbers recognition.18 the national and thus from community of the people state's focus formerly were
already
by
symbolically incorporated through the construction of a new ideal social citizen, one racialized as mestizo (as opposed to prerevolutionary Spanish)
and
braceros, and to the wider Mexican

as a reward. The clash between
gendered
male.
This
was
the vision
communicated
domestic public, and held up by the state

and US racialized constituency and
to aspiring
and
chosen
a Mexican
vision of the national became the context for braceros' US marginalization and the site inwhich they sought to demand US recognition and a valuing of
their labor.
Disruptions and the Migration Experience

Mexico's Program desired peasant-to-yeoman-farmer itwas also undercut structures; families and their communities, transition by the men was not only thwarted had themselves: by a
particular reading of why they soughtmigrate, what their experiences brought

them, their and who
migrants
ences, a reading not independent frombut which drew upon the interpretations provided by the state and thewider gendered ideologies in play. In this section I examine men's experiences in theUnited States, specifically, those that took place in bars, barracks, and fields. My analysis of these largely homosocial them, on the patriarchal claims used implicitly by the state and explicitly by themen themselves to legitimize migration. Migrants' understandings of this assault and of their overall journeys were crucial in reshaping their goals for
transformation. As men attempted to recuperate a masculinity and patriarchal spaces shows a radical assault on the configuration of men's worlds and, with
they
were
for these
experi
migration and attendant subjectivities, and ultimately brought about a class
position threatened and made suspect by the spaces in which they lived and worked?together with their lack of legitimate access to women's bodies (in was a critical solidarity, the form of sexual and domestic labor)?established
which braceros then mobilized to assert their claims to rights as workers.
86 The Barracks: A New Domestic Space
By the time men arrived at worksites in the United States, they had already passed a village-level inspection, forwhich they had rounded up copies of their
birth certificate, evidence
ommendations from local elites or governmental officials as to their respectability and moral fiber; and a second more in-depth screening and medical exam (for tuberculosis and syphilis) at the border. This world of migrants was largely a world ofmen. By day itcomprised backbreaking labor; long hours infields drag ging and filling sacks of fruit,cotton, or vegetables. By night some men (often upward of several thousand) called military-style barracks home, others shared small shacks with as few as five to sevenmigrants. A few residences had individual
bathrooms facilities, and many shower with stalls; most men, "I however, lived only cold water. used bathroom large collective one former in a barracks," migrant
of military
service
and
past
agricultural
work,
and
rec
me. "Each man had a bed and a small place forhis clothes and things ... Some told Men complained of "lack of facili nights you'd see clothes hanging up to dry."19
ties
crowding, dirty bed covers, no sheets, lack of recreation facilities, isolation from others, frozen pipes inwinter, lack of good drinking water and nearness together all day; we cooked together, we drank together, we slept together," he toldme during an interview. "We spent all our time together."21 In recalling
their migrant same these surroundings, sex environments. former "I braceros lived with often many painted other a men, benign of picture in a barracks," of passing trains."20 Another bracero summed up the situation: "We worked
for washing,
poor
ventilation
in summer,
drafts
and
leaks
in winter,
over
Alvaro
Garc?a stated. "I remember lying in bed at night," he announced, "right before the lightswent out, and listening.Men would be talking to one there awhile ... [and] had gotten paid and bought radios, you'd hear lots of
all different ... a circus kinds, from different radio stations, some Mexican, some of music."22 you could hear every word that someone said. After we had been
another,
music, American
The differences between Mexico

ones marked by new sleeping
and theUS
and kinds
to which braceros referred,

of music, extended to rou
tines around eating and food eaten. When I spoke with thesemen accustomed to a diet of tortillas and beans, they halfheartedly complained about the food and the "lack of tortillas."They did not like (at least initially) the "queso amarillo"
yellow cheese, their name for American cheese, which accompanied the sand or
arrangements
wich they described as "some sort ofmeat and pan Bimbo,"23 white bread ? la Wonder Bread. Many, if not most, longed forMexican food: "beans, chiles, and tortillas." "No Mexican, in those days, ate [a meal] without chiles and Braceros considered "American food bland. You Americanos don't like spicy food," a man indicated. "We [Mexicans] need chiles but [in the US] we ate
tortas, you whom know, a sanveech, was considered with meat and [corn] tortillas."24 "It's who we are," another former migrant elaborated.25
Yet not only what men ate but who cooked specified difference.Men,
cooking the domain of wives and mothers, often
queso
amarillo.26
for
found
From
Peasant
toWorker:
Migration,
Masculinity
87
themselves preparing their own food. "Where I went we had to cook our own
meals," said Federico
every week, on Sunday, that being our day off and when the truckwent into
town, turn much some to go. money. saw of the men ... went grocery shopping of English times ... This one ... We no ... we time it was my have read. ... I had And we only done no one could it a couple speak looked but... them before ... didn't one had could
Garciniego.
"We
had
to shop,
too."
He
continued:
"So
very well... rice, tortillas So we with
Anyway,... we Then buy So them the
the usual bought these cans of what meat week, wasn't we
stuff: beans,
tortillas okay it was
like meat... on again. tortillas, We
figured, beans,
we'll
... The
great, bought
man?he had been there for a while and he could read some English?he asked us ifwe knew what we had bought. We said, 'no, not exactly,' but that itwas
some bad, sort of meat. but we didn't So buy told he us ... We had been eating dog food ... It wasn't it any more."27
following
ate
that meat...
okay. until one
The supposedly benign description of radios blaring at night and of men eating bland meals together belies the profound shiftbetween these same-sex US living spaces and homes inMexico. Domestic arrangements inMexico were organized around natal and extended families, heterosexual family units
from which all
economic and social responsibilities and privileges. The labor of a proper man (one considered fully adult) provided for his family, in return for which he was charged with controlling the labor and sexuality of his wife and children. Ultimately, men's inability tomaintain families, a fate towhich most poor and working-class men inMexico constantly fell victim, threatened their claim to this status; and migration, with itsprospect of a job and greater economic secu rity, opened up the potential, imagined and real, for recouping this claim. In the end, itmattered little thatmost braceros were not (yet) heads of households; rather, the point was to induct these young overwhelmingly single men into a gender logic that would prepare them for the role theywould assume upon
return. Thus, the formerly mundane acts of eating sans chiles, beans, or tortillas,
family
members?men,
women,
and
children?derived
their
and shopping and preparing food took on new significance in the United States. Men began to recognize themselves as different from those from the US, as foreign and out of place, in ways made all the more palpable in still being created north of the border contrasted markedly to the notion of being these senses instead Mexican, or Americano, with which men leftMexico;
became racially-segregated farming communities. The senses of self and collective
set within an explicitly transnational logic and context. While some migrants lack of chiles and tortillas?were claimed that these inconveniences?the
more than made
representative
of new
gender
subjectivities
and
threats
to old
ones,
differences from and attacks on a particular Mexican form of life, fromwhich men as family patriarchs claimed their agentive position, began to symbolize a
more
up
for by
"the
idea"
of "serving
the cause
of
...
democracy,"28
that theywould attempt to reclaim in other ways and sites.
general
assault
on
their
status
as
authoritative
(male)
subjects,
status
88
But how should we understand thisprocess of identityformationunderway, given that, for those residing outside ofMexico City (themajority of braceros)
Mexican-ness was
Revolution
sense of
only
in formation?
(1910-1917),
attempted to cohere the population behind a particular

at the time the Bracero Program occurred this
Although
the government
had,
since
the
the Mexican
nation,
nation-building project was not fully realized; and many people?in particular, rural folk, the poor, and those not living in Mexico City?were more partial to
local ously and regional for identities. them, In this respect, the Bracero men Mexican; Program as left the country only tenu as an in exercise functioned
nation building.29 Thus, the national project only partially completed south of the border was being accomplished in theUnited States through its suturing to a specifically gendered transnational proletarian subjectivity. How did contrasts between men's living conditions in theUS and those in Mexico figure into thisprocess? Although most migrants had, in Mexico, lived in
physical because conditions often not too dissimilar from their bracero
dences north of the border these living conditions took on significance explicitly
this new social
quarters,
at resi
from which their claims and rights as (proto)patriarchs were derived. Thus, became
As I owners cooking and
organization
undermined
the heteronormative
logic and
the points at which they would

on some for farms, local men did arranged women to offer
washing
clothes
subverted
men's
claims
as
rally another logic to their defense.

their this own service at while laundry, at an economical others, rate.
patriarchs
found,
Andr?s
Morales
There,
indicated
local ...
that: "I
only went
were clothes. We
once,
had
to pick
to pay
cotton
in
Mississippi... once to come much better
a week
to wash
women?they our
all Black
women
They ... And it was in the begin
...
used
... But it was hard work and after ning Iwashed my own clothes working all day, I a woman to I want do it. So had African wash my didn't [local American]
clothes ... It was worth it."30
than doing
it ourselves
... Since
I wanted
to save money,
man's remarks we see the gendered framework that implicitly Thus, in this legitimated his migration. On the one hand, not paying for laundry service
demonstrated the prioritization title as household
saving money
reclaim his
he could send more

patriarch.
of family
needs
over
to his family and, thus, more

the other, his claim to proper
this migrant's
own,
for in
quickly
mascu
On
was in part undone by doing thewomen's work thatwashing clothes sup linity posedly was; this could be righted only when he had access towomen's labor and reestablished the proper gendered boundaries of domestic responsibilities.
Thus, this
life easier, and saving it, making life harder, and undermining the gendered division of domestic responsibility?was framed as one over rights to the title as proper patriarch; yet it brought about a refashioned gender subjectivity, recognized as Mexican for its production in not a strictlydomestic context,
but rather, a transnational of how men one. resolved the tensions between acting on patriarchal Regardless
ongoing
struggle?between
spending
money
and
making
bracero
rightsor refusing them forhis family's benefit, the same-sex environment of the
From
Peasant
toWorker:
Migration,
Masculinity about themselves in suspicions their as
89
barracks beings, next
provoked and
anxiety:
for men,
erly gendered agents and nationally recognized subjects. As we will see in the
section, or
for the surrounding
community, to
about
properly gendered as prop the men claims
social rituals of drinking and socializing, often with women other than their
wives girlfriends.
migrants
sought
recuperate
patriarchal
through
The Bar: Space of Seduction for Cash

Migrants recognized claims their lack of legitimate proper access to women's evident bodies and, thus, bar their precarious to being in sex-segregated
racks and the domestic tasks theywere forced to do. And they looked beyond the barracks to recoup it, often through social rituals around drinking.
Whether ing, done married both or single, long-term and migrants or new arrivals, the act of drink way even to escape meet the in the barracks at bars, could became a common
patriarchs,
drudgery,monotony, and isolation of theirphysical labor and surroundings. The

bar became a space in which men socialize and women.
Migrants used the acts of drinking with friends, of spending money as they saw fit, and of meeting and talking with women to distinguish between
others?those selves, Yet expectations, to adventure whom they refused these the norms rituals as of proper masculinity?and men, a them gendering, reaffirmed through properly gendered
as I suggested earlier, built around the heterosexual family.

there was another side to proper masculinity, actually otherwise in this case, and to social family maintenance, rituals, like drinking, afforded for meeting men seen
gender the
right as deleterious
to the family. Thus, men's descriptions of these social rituals indicate an inherent tension: between a moral argument against drinking and socializing with women
other than wives, and one in which these were the reward
patriarch. In my discussions with formermigrants, they vividly described their social activities.Although they "didn't drink verymuch," the general consensus
was "every But that "everyone, almost night, men went some everyone Fridays, to the bar men, did." Samuel Carrillo we weren't explained working a I drank all their how, on little. Saturday too, when ... I went it seems,
of being
a proper
Saturday morning, never I was drunk."31
sometimes, spent nearly
Other
leisure
time "with friends at the bar. But mostly, I didn't. It wasn't that I didn't want to, I did. But I had a family to support and I couldn't spend my week's wages in just one night. I had young children," Alejandro Medina told me, "I
couldn't drink
In the above quote, Alejandro hints at both the right to socialize with friends after a week of hard work and the limits of that right.As a husband and father of young children, he had a family to support; yet he did not deny his right as proper patriarch to participate in these social rituals, only that it was inherently limited.Other migrants, too, supported this distinctly gendered
limit. As another man told me, "some men?married men, too?met women
very much
...
I behaved
myself."32
en el norte [in the North]. They had girlfriends, theywent out with them on
90
theweekends, theybought them things, they spent lots ofmoney. I didn't do that much, I had a familyand theyneeded me to help with los biles [thebills]. I drank with my friends,but not very often; instead I saved my money ...We needed the
money... "Si," not We another have chimed this house because of the money at the bar I made ... in California."33 married. [In in, "I went drinking I wasn't
Mexico]
I lived with my parents and I still sent some money home, although
as I could have, as other men did. But I wasn't married, I didn't ...
as much
have a family?I had a girlfriend,but I didn't have a family ... I came for the
money but I came for an adventure, too. And I wanted to see
a girlfriendwhen I was inTexas, but I didn't marry her. I came back tomy girl ... Some men friend [in stayed. They left theirwives and Mexico], I didn't stay ... women families and stayed [in theUS]."34 [They] found other
Here we see men's attempts to assuage once an domestic arrangements, understood brought anxiety as a threat about by their to heterosexual
things
I had
homosocial
respectability (detailed in the previous section). As one formermigrant said,

"there was was respect on. The for money. reason was I didn't firm: make come for an adventure or to see what told me going money .. ."35 Another man
how he "met a woman when I was working in theUS and she became my girl friend. I had a wife [in Mexico] and my daughter was young then, but I found a her parents, she had my daughter; a man needs a woman. I had a girlfriendbut in the end, I came back here, tomy wife and family."36In theUnited States many
braceros the companionship explored one man, Alvaro that way," Garc?a, of women. told me. "Lots. "I met lots knew of we'd women come They girlfriend. After all, a man needs a woman. My wife, she had her friends, she had
[to the bar] on Saturday nights and they'd be there. They likedMexicans, they told me so over and over. They liked that we were hard workers; they liked thatwe dressed well and had money. They used to come around the bars that
went The to ... They really liked the Mexicans."37 two ways to resolving the threat emanating above explanations show
we
from homosocial (and thus gender disrupting) domestic arrangements: either men went to the bars and exercised their male privilege in an attempt to recoup a masculinity implicitly threatened by life in an unsanctioned domestic sphere: they refused to participate in these social rituals because of their need to send money home to families.As many men with whom I spoke confirmed, they drank and went to bars. "But, I wasn't married, I still sent money back men lived up to their responsibilities as (hard-working) men, they could justify their activities and still claim the title as proper man and refuse the
specter of its destabilizing opposite?the drunk, carouser, womanizer, and to my parents, so it was okay."38 Thus, the critical caveat: as long as these (re)secure their claim as proper men; or they asserted a moral argument to
spendthrift?who might reside in a sexually unregulated space. The tension of the bar is hinted at in the words of Alvaro Garc?a. Ifwe statement, we can begin to understand analyze his "they liked theMexicans" women men most met and a bit about the "relation the kind of these frequently one as no While such to me, the relationships that ships" theyhad.39 actually stated
From
Peasant
toWorker:
Migration, were
Masculinity most ones in which men
91
Alvaro
Garc?a
raved
about
directly or indirectly,for socializing and sex. Yet

these presents actions as relationships and based on love not and favors were given for sex but
likely
in descriptions men portrayed

attraction, and romantic ones in which possibilities.
exchanged
cash,
heterosexual for love
Thus, a visible tension emerges: the men understood and justified their
in terms of proper gender conventions. How?not if?men engaged
with drinking functioned as a marker separating proper man from the improper. A migrant could claim the label of proper man and patriarch if he maintained his Mexico, regardless of how he spent his money. Yet themigrants' claim family in on being a proper patriarch was always only partial. In Mexico itwas partial
because these men could not live
they could not support their families. In the United

domestic arrangements threatened their heterosexuality
up
to a
crucial
foundation
States in contrast, their

and their absence
of patriarchy:
from Mexico brought loss of control of the sexuality of wife and children. Still, ifwe analyze Alvaro Garc?a's words carefully, he portrayed the relationships that he and his migrant comrades had with women in theUS as proper relationships. His words convey the idea that theywere based on love
and attraction, that in which
love. In portraying as proper ones the very relationships that flourished in a

world
presents
and
money
were
given
not
for
sex
but
for
(re)secured for themselves the label of proper man.

drinking, spending money, and having sexual
stripped
braceros
of
sanctioned
access
to women's
In doing so, we see how

and relationships
bodies,
men
encounters
were both potentially at odds with being a good worker, husband, and man, and the very entitlement for being so. As long as men's physical labor enabled them to support families back inMexico?the very lack of which that their extracurricular activi brought them to theUS in the firstplace?and ties did not jeopardize thisability, thenmen could wear the all-important label of
proper relations between ianization money,"41 commodified. patriarch. between the former that these Thus, and braceros' and native romantic/sexual local male interactions, residents which to "strained relations Mexican in respect the process they came sexual
women,"40 were social
encapsulated while
of proletar to ones, "make were
migrants all their
undergoing: relationships,
in the end,
including
We might see this process throughwhich braceros reclaimed their proper masculinity as generative of other subjectivities, ones integrating different
forms of connection?local, national, racial, and class-based?that
through these particular experiences in theUnited States. These emergent sub Mexican version of citizenship,with its lateral jectivities drew upon a specifically as well as hierarchical affective ties; theMexican state propagated this con ception of citizenship through not only educational practices, public festivals, and mass political meetings, but also, as I analyze elsewhere, in the highly ritua
lized
emerged
vities and their impact on braceros' reading of journeys to theUnited States, I now turn to the field?the space of work?its links to the barracks and the
bar, and the creation of a workers' solidarity.
procedures
used
to select
braceros.42
To
explore
these
emergent
subjecti
92 Generating Solidarity: theField, theBarracks, theBar

Like and braceros' predominantly regimes male of living and leisure, work,
too, was and
highly
structured mentor
world, other.
one which
necessitated
ing and friendships. "We helped each other," one bracero toldme.43 But they
also
engendered
had worked with a group of several men, part of "the Golden

Not "We thing another were gang the could fastest Ochoa beat at us."44 "You those too, bet," crates voiced another a himself filling Perdomo, ... There's
competed
with
each
One
man,
now
over
seventy,
recalled
how
he
Shears Gang.
former bracero. to "as every
knack as
.. ,"45 Ignacio
remembered
a cham
pion.
braceros
[When we had competitions]

brought new arrivals
I beat out thirtypeople."46 Long-time

of competition beets them. and rivalry, orient
ing them to the structuresofwork. "When I went (north) the firsttime," recalled
one day former ... I took "I didn't to pick how know bracero, ... to started sack and my pick of ... he easier.' men And [the the men took me it was ... who had and done ... I remember hard the first so I It was work,
into this setting
watched
Finally, Mexican? much other
the others and tried to imitate them. That helped, but not thatmuch.
one this me friends. for a 'Like then Another ... The long time?he was aside ... We showed to be how how. And 'It's this,' he said. later ... I showed man "remem
ber [ed] receiving a costal [sack] the first day I worked.

trying to fill it as quickly as I could ... But I was slow
technique]
got ... That's
it worked."47
I carried it around,
experienced
workers, it seemed, worked much faster than I. They were filling their costales much faster ... I worked several days like thatbefore I got to be friendly faster,
with someone. He, he was norte?o como yo
He had cut the [official] bottom of his costal how the experienced workers did it. to He it said all the and restitched it, easy empty. making experienced pickers did it this way. I tried it and it took less time ... I could empty [it] ... much
faster ... I earned more
[a northerner,
like I], he
showed
me
The
often Mexican," attack
supportive yet competitive relationships fostered in the fields were

in particular Herrera identities: told me local, flatly, regional, "we or national. from each "We were Mauricio learned other."49
money
... We
learned
from
each
other."48
anchored
And new arrivals benefited from the subjectivities, ones simultaneously under
and
While often newcomers and local or regional (as opposed to national) identities. "couldn't [read] the contract" and "used to throw [it]away,"50 long timeworkers knew what it said. "I could read the contract... We talkfed] about the clauses Veteran migrants frequently had valuable knowledge and experiences, often previously organizing to demand better food or pressuring a grower to comply with officialpay scale. Ram?n Avitia recounted a storyof his food com
plaints. "One time," he said, among ourselves in the camp,"51 thus orienting recent arrivals to its provisions.
in the process
of
reformation
vis-?-vis
prior
claims
as
patriarchs
rible, the taste, plus, no tortillas or chiles. I had been going [to the US]
so we,
"a group
of us, we
didn't
like
the food?it
was
hor
for a
threa
while,
tened el due?o
especially
those with
some
[the boss]. We
told him thatwe weren't going towork if the food
experience,
we
got
together
and
From
Peasant
toWorker:
Migration, so we
Masculinity left, about The work ten of us ... We didn't want
93
didn't
but we did, for the food ...We

was better. That's important... former food."52 Another
improve.
It didn't,
to leave
found other jobs,without contracts, but the food

was okay, el due?o, that, a ... he some once too, but when he not the in explaining So told imagine have we el went,
"The food was bad ... We

and and cook leaving, cheese], ... talked ... The eggs, to food the got out. lots
bracero, ...
only ate tortas [sandwiches], jam?n y queso

eggs He ... I got boss that group El had of men boss heard talked of other to
[ham
the
of
together men
foreman. better
Male
of walking
I wouldn't
left, but
would
have."53
relationships flourished out of living,working, eating, and drinking

and onto of long-time newcomers. growers' of workers workers This passed of for knowledge information growers trouble," and a gained helped code their through to mediate foremen word for transfer
side-by-side, experiences the often power traded
strong names
associations, who
"caused
attempting to improve working or living conditions or stop the rampant "dis

counting" and helping worker of wages. them newcomers shortcuts, information, sharing showing a more often exercised money, returning migrants aware of the particular of class, race, becoming practices In earn shared other During information aspects one about also more Garc?a
and nationality in theUnited States.

taught not Migrants newcomers only about
solidarity,
work;
long-time lives, often
migrants about Alvaro
of braceros' long
"recreational"
activities.
of our
conversations,
recounted how, after receiving his firstpaycheck, he and some friends hooked up with "this man who had been [working] awhile. He said he knew exactly
what needed we needed. clothes, Now you I figured know, things ... that he'd ... But do be you taking know us into town. We he took all us? where
Sure, he took us into town, but instead of taking us to buy clothes, we went to
a bar ... We went to this bar where
could drink as much as he wanted even ifhe didn't have themoney

drank, After we drank a lot.
everyone
knew
him.
He
had
credit,
he
... We
all
fun, but I didn't do it too much, once

that, bracero so did some others."54 living generated In analyzing how migrants'
I spent
almost
my
whole
in awhile. He
paycheck
did it every weekend.

we ones can begin to see both
that night...
It was
with their positions as non-white agricultural migrants in the United States and with the ways they had been led to think about themselves inMexico.
These migrants, and who in the US were "[separated bosses ... from "isolated their from American worked communities," under demanding "confronted with "known family new and foods friends," not to
experiences
and working conditions, new subjectivities,
in tension
taste," of men,
were husbands, sons, and brothers inMexico.

units women, children, and often, older
There
relatives.
they lived in families,

They socialized with
to exploit
them,"55
friends; theyhad sex with their wives; they courted girlfriendsunder the proprie member derived his/her responsibilities taryeyes of the community.Each family
and freedoms, to very much its other age and gender and the compatible, community's as a part of that unit Ideally, and in relation members customs. they
94
worked outside the house and leftdomestic chores to theirwomen folk, a line they did not cross. However, work in theUnited States was all about crossing lines, physical
and of imaginary. this staunchly between In the US, entrenched "men's" and migrants "women's" could not maintain between spaces. Food even "women's" needed the appearance and to be "men's" prepared, demarcation
work,
soiled pants washed and ripped shirts sewn.56 Yet women, for the most part and definitelywithout being paid, were not available to do "their" work. So
men were forced to engage in what was seen as women's work. And
strong feelings about

wash our clothes,"
these supposed
told me, "we
gendered
had
transgressions. "We had to

we had to shop for our
they had
food, we even had to repair torn clothes. I didn't like itmuch;

to, but I had to do work," we did it. I wanted he said, "[only] to eat."57 to work Another again ... man agreed: and from a day's in a word, housework."58 ... patting
they
to cook,
I didn't want
"We arrived tortil
meat? las,preparing supper, preparing friedbeans for the next day, cooking the
everything else ... we cooked, washed, "didn't ironed, know and how did all the Someone commented that he to cook"
flipping
before he migrated, but that he had

taught for my me I still remember ... It's not how ... family As so hard eloquently
learned. "Some of the other workers

in a while, women up I'll prepare complain, something but "All it's not day we
so once Nowadays
so hard."59
one man
summed
worked in the fields; all day we picked. From lemons to tomatoes, we dragged
our costales cooked doing men's viously and we Then [sacks] picked. we we our clothes, washed dinner; work' we all day, divide every work, between evening did women's we went to our we went barracks to bed work'... into relief work. and we cleaned, we did words and ... After We did
their experiences:
'men's work,
'women's bring
too."60These "women's"
the pre Men's
work, in their eyes, was physically taxing and it demanded physical strength: men lugged around heavy sacks of fruits or vegetables; they got dirty, their
bodies and ached, callused and hands.61 they earned money. Men's work gave them men's worn
unbridgeable
"men's"
Yet herein lies the inherent conflict: while these workers engaged in a "men's work" not unlike that they had done in Mexico, they had still crossed
an official border. North of the border, these same callused "men's" hands,
which theMexican state required for bracero selection, also did the work of women. The words of the men bespeak both a pride and shame of having
done the
[women's work] isn't so hard,"62 men repeatedly told me, especially when in this phrase is the talking about cooking and washing clothes. Embedded pride of self-sufficiencyand of being able to do something not previously tackled. Still, these words contain another emotion: the shame of being forced
to cross a
formerly
untouchable:
tasks
defined
as
"women's
work."
"It
same men discounted the difficulty of women's responsibilities and which, when done by them, threatened their position as proper patriarchs. Ultimately, the very inability of these men to be adequate providers for their
previously
uncrossed
line.
This
was
communicated
as
these
From
Peasant
toWorker:
Migration,
Masculinity
95
families required them to cross a physical border, a border that relegated them to the homosocial arena of the barracks and the fields. These segregated arenas, in turn,denied them legitimate access to female bodies. And in doing so, their
hold on proper
this time in theUnited States.
masculinity
and
position
as
patriarch
was
again
made
tenuous,
Recuperating Proper Masculinity Faced with the continual possibility of denial of the rights and privileges as
proper so? How patriarchs, could braceros men forced sought into to overcome same-sex living this threat. But, how that to do violated environments
the norms of proper adult Mexican

These men, I suggest, their claim could never In Mexico, to masculinity
masculinity recuperate thatmasculinity?

fully meet was made the requirements an tenuous by for masculinity. inability to main
tain families,while in theUnited States, living arrangements built not around familial domestic ties but around same-sex work relationships called it intoques
tion, even as this distorted domestic
lar Mexican (re)secure

labeled as
identity produced in the fields. How, then, could these men these rights and privileges, despite taking on tasks that they
"women's work?" In other words, what might enable braceros to
space
supported
the formation
of a particu
transcend this complicated gender predicament? And

to and attempts at transcendence connected
how were approaches

solidarity emerging
to the workers'
and relied upon in the fields? Stymied in the recuperation of proper masculinity by thispredicament, men used what they had at their disposal: their subjectivity as workers, one built on the homosocial space of the barracks and created in the
fields Mexican In vis-?-vis white and Mexican American bosses and foremen, their and other migrants. the many accounts of clashes between workers and foremen and
bosses, we
ends.63
see how braceros mobilized

example, when thirty-five-year
a worker subjectivity to their own

old Francisco Hern?ndez Cano
For
was approached by a local newspaper reporter in 1956, he was on his way to "get ... fair pay and treatment" for himself and the to Washington in [California's Imperial] Mexican "nationals [with whom he worked] valley." His coworkers, he told the reporter, "had passed the hat to get [his] bus fare," and he was off to talk to the Mexican Ambassador, whom he hoped would resolve "complaints?of pay deductions for tools, blankets, and
insurance, "ambition growers. in one "do not of bad ... food and
lations of the work contract. While

to come the every contract said They As year "Under week obey I can
housing,
of days
wasted
he acknowledged
eighteen, Cano. out so much But,
waiting
for work"
-all
vio
his and most men's

he still lambasted dollars, growers a man thirty-five lamented, sometimes
to work make
in California,'" even he
sometimes," the contract.
Hernandez take
gets only five or ten dollars for his week's work. Some men get only a few
cents for the whole week." the newspaper article
money
Cano?and
the "million other Mexicans
...
[who] came north to work
suggested,
"Hern?ndez
[this
96
their contracts year]?wanted no job."64 These men, then, the ones enforced." In Mexico, made this

they "had no land and
who
had
not peasants -as

see terms appealed themselves of wages: to their as
the newspaper
such. Rather, as workers. While the amount rights
article said, they held no land. Nor did they

they described that a man And, their could economic make elsewhere, situation in a week. They bra dis or in
long
trek northward,
were
of money
like workers
they wanted allowed to settle
the agreements ceros to elect putes, negotiate growers
enforced. one
the specific to represent to meet workers
of their own refused
agreement provisions them as they attempted these faced worker an irresolvable
generally braceros.
with
representatives dilemma.
with
Thus,
Although they did frequently engage in slow-downs, work stoppages, and other forms of worker solidarity, the contract explicitly forbid braceros from striking or honoring local strikes of other workers by refusing to cross their picket lines; and their representative was not allowed to renegotiate any
issues, growers, such and as salary, agent spelled out in denied the bracero braceros contract. their best In other words, for resol their foremen, avenue
this irresolvable obstacle, the most powerful ving disagreements. Given to that most braceros had was their feet: they left. According weapon arrival of the first round of braceros in 1942, fifteen percent of the men had deserted.65 Hern?ndez Cano and the other Imperial Valley braceros, by con
trast, to use version refused Immigration and Naturalization Service statistics, "within one month" of the
that transcended national ties, asserting their rightsas workers. And

the power of national of the Mexican identity, the braceros' to do Ambassador, so. claim to their worker-based and thus a claim
to skip
out
on
the contract;
they attempted
a class-based
strategy
they sought
to a particular over the
course of the Program, increasingly supported by (some) US, and, to a lesser

extent, Mexican, union officials. The need to unionize braceros was made
Interestingly,
rights was,
evident in an extremely bitter 1946 California strike at DiGiorgio Farms. While DiGiorgio's domestic farmworkers held out for over two years in the face of major financial hardship and with support from around the country, were brought down precisely because braceros (and their undocu their efforts mented brethren) were available, and because US and Mexican state officials, long in the pockets of large California growers, were willing to ignore the was too late to agree upon stipulations thatdemanded thatbraceros issue until it
not influence the outcome such (misuse of any strike. "The ... willingness growers of government an invincible union again agents weapon organizers be undercut to condone against took union steps of braceros) gave
In the aftermath of the strike, US organizers."66 never to insure that unionized farmworkers would
by theirnonunion brothers and sisters.First, although theUS government never

agreed Bracero work to the idea, Program agreement. some farm organizers team, in 1950, advocated for a union presence was scholar on the a negotiation Second, asserting that the Program activist and essentially Ernesto
farmworker
Galarza
organized
local braceros
in central California
into a specifically
From
Peasant
toWorker:
Migration,
Masculinity
97
bracero union. And

organizers in Mexico.
third,Galarza
Together
established connections with local union

seekers of a union that transcended
these
national territorybegan
under union cessful, the prior contract and,
to informworkers coming to the US

them short-lived still and
of their rights
bracero unsuc arriving largely this
to arrival. While organizers
organize concomitantly, were these measures and braceros themselves
into Galarza's
union
claimed
labor force was a force of workers, with all the rights due workers in theUS. Growers actively denied braceros these rights by portraying farmwork?and those who did it?as part of a long-established paternalistic relationship,67 even as they gained exorbitantly from the flexibility that a formal,wage-based relationship permitted.68
Migrants interrelated the mechanisms gained reasons. that little First, in this bracero-as-worker while some Mexican allowed strategy, consular contract for two main actively and used officials
contracts
to resolve
especially in California and Texas,69 places with the longest history of abuse
of Mexican and Mexican American workers?often had more
disputes,
many? from a
good working relationship with growers than from supporting braceros and
usually
to gain
disposal of consular officials were

themselves. Not only was
they
chose
the more
lucrative
limited to those outlined

filing a grievance
option.
And
second,
the remedies
at the
in the Bracero
men fre
Agreements
quently did not know the procedures for doing so. On the occasions when men did submit complaints against growers to local consular officials,a principal threatened to use?to (though not the only) remedy these officials used?or
diffuse the situation was the removal and
discouraged,
neither of which migrants wanted.

honor to letter back of down to either
Instead of putting pressure on growers to

pressured back, you workers are sent
subsequent
repatriation
of braceros,
back in a hurry," recalled one former bracero. "They give you the notice in your bundle and [you're gone]."70 In the face of this explicit threat,men not exercised the options of workers: they either ready to return to Mexico backed down or skipped out on the contract in search of a better job. In the end, something was definitely going on in barracks, bars, and fields.
the morning, or maybe at noon, or when you get back from work. You tie up
the agreement, consular officials instead or return home. "When you are sent
Finding littlehelp from officials charged with mediating disputes, men banded together to resolve problems, be it for better food or living or working con
ditions; foremen in the process, bosses. Yet they came class to see themselves was as workers not vis-?-vis and this transformation occurring
in
Mexico
itwas
but outside the territoryof the nation, in a transnational context. And

happening bodies. vis-?-vis US and Mexican national
in a distorted domestic
female only Created men to used by
sphere, with its strange food and general

then reclaim was their and particular positions each other worker as subjectivity, but Thus, patriarchs,
categories,
and
grounded one
lack of
not made the
also
vis-?-vis
non-Mexican
Mexican
peasants
state had predicted and expected a class transformation that turned

into yeoman farmers and drew upon national formations of the
employers
as Mexicans.
while
98
ILWCH, 69, Spring 2006 transnational
patriarchal family, the Bracero Program resulted in a gendered

proletarianization.
Conclusion
I end with two snapshots frommy fieldwork in Mexico; the first about cutting hair, and the second about cooking. Together they show how migrants continue to negotiate their subjectivities vis-?-vis the gendered and classed categories of
both nations. Snapshot #1: During one conversation with Alvaro Garc?a, as he, a village barber, and I
I found out how he learned his trade. "[When I migrated during the 1950s]
I went
sat around his barbershop in his village in northern Mexico. He continued: "A friend needed a haircut... One man toldmy friendwhere to go [in town],
but my friend didn't want to wait. ... Besides, turned it was
to a place
... far from
town,"
he
recounted
his
friends,
pay. So
foreman
I told him that I would

and cut his hair] It
try ... I borrowed

out okay ...
expensive,
about
an
hour's
a scissors [from the

after, someone
Soon
needed a haircut and he came tome. I cut his hair, and I did okay, better that time. Then men just kept asking me and I'd do it... That's how I ended up ... When I decided not to go cutting hair [to theUS] anymore, I opened up a
barbershop ... I've been
Snapshot #2: Recalling

I was struck by
cutting
hair
for more
than
the importance of learning to cook for former

that happened one morning as I sat
thirty years."
migrants,
a conversation
at the breakfast table where I lived. A woman in the family asked me if I wanted to learn how to make tamales. The young migrant to the US, in town for the Christmas holiday, chimed in that it was an elaborate and lengthyprocess, much different from how I was used to cooking. "You [in the US] have so many conveniences that cooking isn't difficult. I learned how to cook." Teasing me about my lack of domestic skills,he said: "I cook well. You women complain that it's so hard, but I think it's easy. I learned how to do it you cook here [in Mexico]?"
him more huevos rancheros, [in the US], it wasn't hard. You have
I asked my accuser, as I watched his wife serve

a Mexican style of eggs. His wife then weighed
it easy
compared
to men's
work."
"Do
into the discussion: "Sometimes he does," she assured me. "[Sometimes] on Sundays he makes breakfast for all of us." The man shot me a triumphant
smile, work?but even as once his wife continued: he'll make "He doesn't cook everyday?that's my in a while something."
What do these stories reveal about the lessons of the Bracero Program, especially as they relate to changes in the subjectivities of the braceros them selves and those goals set out by theMexican government? One implicit goal,
if we remember, was
who would then be entrusted to produce sufficient food for the nation. Alvaro, our barber, returned to his village, but he did not return to agriculture full-time. In fact, no former bracero I met during my fieldwork had again
worked solely in small scale agriculture. Rather, some men, such as Alvaro,
the metamorphosis
of peasants
into
yeoman
farmers,
From
Peasant
toWorker:
Migration,
Masculinity
99
opened shops and used farming to supplement their income (often employing others to farm their land); others followed the internal migration stream to Mexico's growing cities; and still others (maybe themajority) refused to give up the benefits that migration to the United States brought. They instead moved from stoop labor to US factories or small businesses, before handing
the migration and female. workers baton This to children, in tandem with nephews, of migrants cousins, into and national grandchildren?male and transnational of land transformation
occurred
in lands of large agribusinesses, changes not unlike those happening earlier in the United States and of which US agribusiness was the main beneficiary. Thus, although theMexican government publicly promoted the conversion of peasants into yeoman farmers, shifts in the countryside that had already occurred made the state's desired class transformation highly unlikely, if not impossible. The second incident implicitlycontrasts the gender subjectivities produced through migration experiences against thosewith which men left: theywere men who did not engage in cooking. In refusing to accord difficultyto the knowledge thatwomen possessed, the responsibilities thatwives had, and the tasks he, as migrant, had learned to do, we see the power of a subjectivity fromwhich men draw reward: by refusing to cook, despite a newfound skill, this young married man refused to relinquish the privileges he has as patriarch. This suggests the flexibility and resiliency of subjectivities under attack, and the com
the post-Revolution
reconsolidation
plexity and profundity of the class transformation accelerated by the Bracero Program and multiplied by currentmigration.71 Yet these class transformations happening during the Program were not Mexican or US context. Rather, theywere due to part and parcel of a strictly logics and changes occurring in the United States and in relation toMexico. Braceros, like themen whose stories I have just told, juxtaposed experiences and social categories in both countries to hang onto privileges as patriarchs
and assert a new the creation The knowledge. of a transnational result, for both braceros and recent proletariat this whose subjectivity migrants, as worker was
was
grounded
national
in processes
boundaries.
and relationships within, outside, and against both

class transformation as multi-sited
affords a unique window

worker that was
Acknowledging
onto the production of a gender subjectivity as

Mexican and transnational. Braceros mobilized
theirposition as (proto)patriarchs and thus,as honorable heterosexual men with understood their liaisons with women inbars, theirdecision to pay?or
the ways laundry that service, for these or men, the need to cook was their own food, and we raced see masculinity a classed (future) families to advocate for themselves as workers. In examining how men
simultaneously
not?for
made
the complex
both in the United States and against Mexican social norms and practices. Men positioned themselves vis-?-vis categories of citizen-subject in both
countries
category,
national category. Thus, theybecame transnational subjects. Only in recognizing and taking seriously the interconnectedness of these processes and sites of
through
reasserting
their
claim
as proper
patriarch,
seemly
strictly
100
contestation can we understand why former braceros

sought to migrate, how
they understood
Bracero Program
theirmigration, and the profound and lasting impact of the

and changes that itwrought.
NOTES
1. Research for this article, conducted from 1990-1993; 1995-1996; and 1997, was funded the Hewlett the Wenner Gren Foundation, by: the Institute for the Study of Man, E. Mellon of Chicago, and Mount the University the Andrew Foundation, Foundation, time was supported, in part, by theWilliam P. Clements Center for Holyoke College. Writing I would like to thank Vicky Hattam, Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University. and the anonymous reviewers for important feedback. I am also indebted to the Sue Cobble other members of the Learned Sisters Club, Lessie Jo Frazier and Laura Westhoff, for insightful critique and all-around support. All translations, unless otherwise noted, are the author's. 2. The oft-used, but mistaken in the figure for the number of men who participated is around 4.5 million. Rather, this is the number of contracts that were available; Program the number of men who came was almost 2 million. see Deborah 3. For an extensive bibliography, Race, Cohen, Bordering Modernities:
Masculinity, 4. This them before, one example into a Social
and the Cultural Politics ofMexico-US Migration, unpublished manuscript. is reminiscent of growers' portrayals of description of men as passive (feminized) "dumb and and after the Bracero Program: dirty" was how itwas put. For during, of such depictions, see Henry P. Anderson, A Harvest of Loneliness: An Inquiry Problem (Berkeley, 1964), 63. 5. Here I refer to the Mexican of space limitations. and US states in aggregate because While these countries did have overarching visions of the Program that somewhat overlapped, in carrying out the policies, there were many different actors involved, with differing agendas to carry out those agendas. The differences and abilities in their positions vis-?-vis the their competing priorities, and levels of corruption, depended on, among others: Program, location within the United States and Mexico; individual doing the prior local relationships; consulates were job; and historical point in the Program. For example, while the Mexican responsible for advocating for braceros working in the United States and settling the disputes consul forArkansas that arose, the positions each consul took varied dramatically?the press to resolve the conflicts and scrutinized the results very carefully, ured local US representatives the consular officials in California tended not to fight formigrants. Many consuls undoubtedly recognized the benefits that connections to local growers brought. As another example, within the agreement the Farm Placement Service, the agency charged with monitoring locally, some inspectors pushed hard to improve men's living and working conditions and respect the inter national agreement, even as the head of the Service in California Edward Hayes actively
in Chicago in 1997; several months 1995-1996; migrant community (1990-1993; fault line to examine 2003, 2004). Bordering Modernities interrogates the modern-premodern set up as Mexico's the lives of men whom in the Bracero agents of modernity Program Mexico, While denied that position in the United States, south of the border they were to be Mexican
or big industrialized farms. I paint a complex picture of theMexican 7. In Bordering Modernities, and US states' posi tions, as well as the relationship between local and national state actors, migrants, growers and communities involved in the Program by combining textual sources, oral interviews, and anthro of Labor, Agriculture, Public Health, pological fieldwork. Specifically, I used the Departments the presidential Archivo and State papers (the US National Archives); archives at Mexico's from the Mexican de la Naci?n; General documents Foreign Relations Ministry (Acervo of the Secretar?a de Relaciones and Hist?rico and the Oficina de Contrataciones Exteriores), I those concerning education de la Secretar?a de Educaci?n P?blica). (the Archivo Hist?rico also examined numerous Mexican and US-based newspapers; papers of union and civil rights and a and did fieldwork in two Mexican villages, the city of Durango, activists/organizations,
stymied the agreement's enforcement. farmers would own the means of production 6. Capitalized yeoman (the farm) and of agricultural science, (such as tractors, combines), wield knowledge up-to-date equipment to subsistence farming, agricultural wage and operate as a small business, as opposed labor,
From
Peasant
toWorker:
Migration,
Masculinity
101
the protagonists whose labor, skills, and knowledge, upon their return, would make Mexico modern. Lest the reader think that only Mexico's modernity was in question, braceros' presence in the US fueled the debate about ours, as well. In tracing out the state level relations between these two (often contentious) neighbors, as well as the interactions that braceros had with each and theUS, Bordering Modernities state and with communities in shows the critical pur Mexico chase that the ability to claim to be modern had forMexico-US relations, and the citizens and government of each country, and how braceros fit into this larger historical struggle over modernity. 8. For a more nuanced position on the 1940s as a bridge decade between the prominence of Introduction, and Theory, see Bordering Modernities, Eugenics and the full rise ofModernization Studies Association "1940s: A 'Bridge' Decade," paper presented at the 2006 Latin American conference; March 14,2006. Due to space constraints, letme just say that Eugenics held that non in the march to progress, white societies/peoples were not only "behind" white peoples/societies In other accomplished. they could never achieve what industrialized white societies/people Modernization words, biology mattered. This contrasted in one crucial way from Theory: although "behind" others, all, regardless of where it too located certain societies/people they were at least theoretically, eventually reap modernity's rewards?industrialization, hygiene, health, consumer products. Thus, biology did not fully determine economic prosperity. While different, both do similar work: they confer the status and rewards of being or becoming modern on particular countries and peoples within countries. 9. This exposure happened through the state publicity about the Program, recruitment selection and induction process. For more on these, and the highly-celebratory mechanisms, located, could, democracy, see Bordering Modernities, 10. When Ambassador chapter 2. toMexico
a formal approach to advocated George Messersmith of Foreign Relations Jaime Torres Bodet dismissed migration (1942), Undersecretary Mexico's the Mexico Messersmith's he acknowledged offer. While unemployment problem, of its agricul of the 1940s, he asserted, was gearing up for industrialization and modernization tural sector. Voicing broad opinion, he claimed the county would soon need the men. to participate. During decision 11. Two events weighed heavily in the Mexico's the First to recruit laborers, who had suffered World War, agents for US growers had gone toMexico under
those who had and many had returned without money; conditions of deprivation after the US economy collapsed with the onset of the Great stayed were "repatriated" not wanting a repeat of either, exercised its diplomatic influence to Mexico, Depression. shape aspects of the program. 12. These conditions show the Mexican with not disrupting government's preoccupation its industrialization efforts and with targeting this Program toward agricultural expansion and and the workers it did not recognize as modern. development, 13. As Mexican officials found during an early Program study, "approximately forty-five ... lined up to be recruited percent of those (men) who [already] had work (that) had de la Revoluci?n nothing to do with agricultural activities." Blanca Torres Ram?rez, Historia en la Segunda Guerra, Vol. 19 (Mexico City, 1979), 253. This pattern was con Mexicana, M?xico
firmed in another investigation in 1950, finding a slightly higher percentage of migrants having in the activities. Lyle Saunders and Olen E. Leonard, The Wetback engaged in nonagricultural inNelson G Copp, Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas (Austin, 1951). Quoted '"Wetbacks' and and American Braceros: Mexican Migrant Laborers Immigration Policy, 1930-1960." (Ph.D. Guillermo Mart?nez Dom?nguez diss., Boston University, V, 95. Moreover, 1963), Appendix found that those chosen during the early stage were, in order of importance, workers, artisans, two and four pesos Mexicanos and peasants, and earned on average between daily. "Los en los Estados Unidos," inRevista de Econom?a, May 31, 1947. braceros mexicanos 14. Guillermo Mart?nez Dom?nguez, "Los braceros: Experiences que debe aprovecharse," de Sociolog?a Revista Mexicana 10 (1948), 177-95. 15. Surviving braceros and their descendents have filed lawsuits inUS courts, held protests outside the US embassy, and invaded the hacienda of themother ofMexican president Vicente Fox in an attempt to resolve the issue. For more information, see Stephen Pitti, "Bracero a paper presented at the "Repairing of Mexican Contract Labor," Justice: The Legacies
of Slavery, Genocide, the Legacies and Caste" October the Past: Confronting Conference, 27-29, 2005 at Yale University. "Los braceros mexicanos" Revista de Econom?a, 16. Guillermo Mart?nez Dom?nguez, to have changed seemed 31, 1947. By the late 1950s, the dynamics May (at least in
102 ILWCH, 69, Spring 2006

1000 braceros working found that about two there, Henry Anderson Sampling California). thirds were married, with over half having four or more children. Almost forty-five percent were between twenty-one and thirty years old, over half with either no schooling or only one 62. year; thus a majority were functionally illiterate. A Harvest of Loneliness, 17. While US farmworkers could never demand a living wage (union campaigns were not for former farmworkers successful long-term), a farm worker shortage and other opportunities
could have shifted the balance of power. By cutting off the supply of workers at the border, bringing farm laborers under other labor laws, and supporting union organizing, agricultural an increase in agricultural wages does not generally wages would have likely risen. Moreover, translate into a visible purchase price increase. on social I term social visibility?see 18. For more Bordering recognition-what and Social Visibility: in the State Spectacle Modernities, chapter 2, and "Masculinity Latina de America of the Mexican Estudios Construction Nation," y Interdisciplinarios el Caribe 16:1, 2005. I inter the names of the people 19. Samuel Carrillo, San Andr?s; January 1996. While to protect their identity, both viewed and their places of residence have been changed state of Durango. San Andr?s and Santa Ang?lica refer to small villages located in theMexican Press: Sept 26,1945, 4; inErnesto Galarza 20. "The World fromWashington," Worldover Papers; Box 17: Folder 9: Braceros (conditions), correspondence, Stanford University. Special Collections; 21. Ram?n Avitia, Santa Ang?lica; November 1995. 22. Alvaro Garc?a, Santa Ang?lica; November 1995. Santa Ang?lica; 23. An?bal B??ales, January 1996. 24. B??ales; Santa Ang?lica; January 1996. 1995. 25. Garc?a, Santa Ang?lica; December reports, statements, 1945 (1);
San Andr?s; October 1995. 26. Andr?s Morales, 1995. 27. Federico Garciniega, San Andr?s; November Torres Ram?rez, Historia de la in Blanca 28. Tiempo, January 15, 1943: 33. Quoted 256. Revoluci?n Mexicana, 29. This nation-building project is evidenced through rituals engaged in during the bracero selection process and other points along the way. See Bordering Modernities. 30. Morales, 1995. San Andr?s; October 31. Samuel Carrillo, San Andr?s; January 1996. 1995 32. Alejandro San Andr?s; November Medina,
33. Paco Zerme?o, San Andr?s; November 1995. 1995. 34. F?lix Avalos, Santa Ang?lica; October "El Mexicano, Nom?s que Le Pongan Para Que El Agarre, Historia 35. Claudia Quesada, in Jorge Durand, Oral de Don Carlos Quezada," ed., Rostros y rastros, Entrevistas a trabaja dores migrantes en Estados Unidos. (San Luis Potos?, 2002), 27. Santa Ang?lica; 36. B??ales, February 1996. October 37. Garc?a, Santa Ang?lica; 1995. October 1995. 38. Garc?a, Santa Ang?lica; men did not meet and marry US women; is not to say that Mexican 39. This they of financial support and wives and children without a means frequently did, abandoning to find these men and pressure them government pushing their wives to involve the Mexican Consulares to make y Asuntos papers, (see the Protecci?n good on their commitments Secretar?a de Relaciones 1960 to 1964, housed at the Oficina de Contrataciones, especially Exteriores archive inMexico given the highly-male world these men lived in City). However, I suspect that and how they described both that world and their interactions with women, most "relationships" were based on financial remuneration.
on migratory for the CIO"; Jan 3, 1947; in labor in the Americans 40. "Memorandum Ernesto Galarza reports, statements, 1945 (2); Papers; Box 17; Folder 10: Correspondence, Stanford University. Special Collections, 27. "El Mexicano, Nom?s que Le Pongan Para Que El Agarre," 41. Claudia Quesada, 42. See chapter 2, Bordering Modernities. 1995. 43. Mauricio Herrera, San Andr?s; September directed 44. Seasonal Farm Laborers Program: Sad Recollections, 26 minutes; Motor Films, Mexico, 2002; translation by director. 45. Seasonal Farm Laborers Program.
by Jorge Luis Vazquez;
From
Peasant
toWorker:
Migration,
Masculinity
103
America's Future (New York, 1986), like themigrants I spoke with, discussed issues of migrants' double day, 22. 57. Avalos, Santa Ang?lica; November 1995. in the Promised Land, 22. 58. James D. Cockcroft, Outlaws 59. Avitia, Santa Ang?lica; January 1996. 60. Garcia, Santa Ang?lica; October 1995. 61. B??ales, Santa Ang?lica; 1995. In the process of selecting braceros, September Mexican officials scrutinized their hands for evidence of hard labor, work which themen them selves saw as making hands men's hands. Bordering Modernities, Chapter 2. 62. This same phrase is used by today's migrants in talking about household chores. how 63. The Protecci?n y Asuntos braceros tried to overcome stymied by local US officials. Consulares problems about papers are littered with correspondence with bosses and foremen, and how they were
46. Seasonal Farm Laborers Programs. 47. Mauricio San Andr?s; 1995. Herrera, September 48. Herrera, San Andr?s; 1995. September 49. Herrera, San Andr?s; 1995, something I heard from other men. September 50. Ignacio Ochoa interviewed for Seasonal Farm Laborers Sad Perdomo, Program: Recollections. 51. Ernesto Galarza, on a report regarding compliance Strangers in Our Fields; Based with the contractual, legal, and civil rights of Mexican agricultural contract labor in the United States, made possible through a grant-in-aid from the Fund for the Republic. (Washington, DC, 1956), 66. 52. Avitia, Santa Ang?lica; March 1996. 53. Garcia, Santa Ang?lica; December 1995. 54. Garcia, Santa Ang?lica; 1995. September 55. "Imported Mexican War Emergency Workers A Community and the Community"; Service Bulletin of the American of International Federation institutes, NY, NY; July 1945. Ernest Galarza papers; Box 17; Folder 9: Braceros (conditions), correspondence, reports, state Stanford University. ments, 1945 (1). Special Collections, in thePromised Land: Mexican 56. James D. Cockcroft, Outlaws Immigrant Workers and
64. Ernesto Galarza health care and 18; folder 4: Braceros papers; Box (conditions), Stanford University. insurance, 1952-1956. Special Collections, 65. Mae M. Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and theMaking ofModern America (Princeton, NJ, 2003), 146. 66. Ronald Mize, identities and collective memory: "Workplace living and remembering the effects of the Bracero total institution," in Donna R. Gabaccia and Colin Wayne Leach, eds., Immigrant Life in the US, Multi-disciplinary perspectives. (London, 2003), 74. 67. Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects; Neil Foley, White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture (Berkeley, 1999). 68. We can deduce as much from the near exclusive use of braceros in various markets: about ninety-five percent of all those harvesting tomatoes, ninety percent for lettuce, and "Labor in the California Citrus eighty percent for citrus crops. See Paul Garland Williamson of California, in Gilbert thesis, University Industry," (MA Berkeley, 1947), 55; quoted or Colonized Guest Workers Labor? Mexican Labor Migration To The United Gonz?lez, States. (New York, 2005), 53. Page numbers for this refer to a prepublication copy in author's possession.
Gonz?lez the melon says that braceros dominated crop in Arizona (ninety-five and cotton in New Mexico percent), Michigan's pickle cucumbers (seventy-five percent), (ninety percent). 69. Labor Management Decisions 3:1 (1993), 1. 70. Galarza, Strangers in Our Fields, 66. 71. For an examination of patriarchy's see my similar fortitude in current migration, The Long Arm and Betrayal: of Patriarchy in a article, "Sex, Loyalty, unpublished US-Mexico Transnational Social World."

From Peasent To Worker: Migration, Masculinity, and The Making of The Mexican Workers in The US

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International Labor and Working-Class, Inc.

for the series

ILWCH, 69, Spring 2006

the overarching lens through which

to the state was

agricultural knowledge and accrued capital?the manifestation of the distinctly

states, and growers had expectations for the

impact that this exposure

(might have) had, we must not see migrants as

victims passive own motivations men as actors,

basis?and them was

In exchange fully mandated

for agreeing certain

to this regulated Most

ILWCH, 69, Spring 2006

were assumed to be patriarchs unable to fulfillthe requirements of theirposition,

Taking this logic one step further,growers advocated

for families, as opposed

seemingly quixotic goals for the Program make

sense within the

a fledgling revolutionary state, with options

braceros, and to the wider Mexican

domestic public, and held up by the state

Disruptions and the Migration Experience

particular reading of why they soughtmigrate, what their experiences brought

migration and attendant subjectivities, and ultimately brought about a class

86 The Barracks: A New Domestic Space

ILWCH, 69, Spring 2006

The differences between Mexico

to which braceros referred,

very well... rice, tortillas So we with

Anyway,... we Then buy So them the

the usual bought these cans of what meat week, wasn't we

tortillas okay it was

like meat... on again. tortillas, We

okay. until one

that theywould attempt to reclaim in other ways and sites.

ILWCH, 69, Spring 2006

attempted to cohere the population behind a particular

the points at which they would

rally another logic to their defense.

Mississippi... once to come much better

They ... And it was in the begin

he could send more

to his family and, thus, more

Masculinity about themselves in suspicions their as

barracks beings, next

for the surrounding

properly gendered as prop the men claims

The Bar: Space of Seduction for Cash

drudgery,monotony, and isolation of theirphysical labor and surroundings. The

as I suggested earlier, built around the heterosexual family.

Saturday morning, never I was drunk."31

sometimes, spent nearly

ILWCH, 69, Spring 2006

respectability (detailed in the previous section). As one formermigrant said,

Masculinity most ones in which men

directly or indirectly,for socializing and sex. Yet

in descriptions men portrayed

heterosexual for love

they could not support their families. In the United

States in contrast, their

love. In portraying as proper ones the very relationships that flourished in a