Migrant Farm Workers

Since the Nineteenth Century, Mexican laborers immigrated to America in search of a better lifestyle. However, despite such pursuits, harsh work conditions and exiguous wages were a far cry from equality. 
"...It was common to see planes spraying pesticides on the field right next to us without any concern for our health. Runoff from the pesticides seeps into the irrigation canals, and the empty pesticide containers are dumped in ditches, contaminating the water and the environment. In the evenings, and on Sundays, people swim in these poisoned canals, and even drink water from them... The children often eat the tomatoes in the fields without washing them, and with dirty hands. All these factors have brought new illnesses such as cancer to our communities of origin. " 
~Rufino Dominguez Santos, migrant worker from Oaxaca, Mexico
  • “It was hard to work so long... My parents can't always find work. Usually there is work in the summer, so then I help my father every day in the fields. I have to pull up the grass around the strawberries, and I pick. I have to bend over. I bend over for a long time." -José Luis, farmworker child
  • “Johnnie was a five year old boy when he died after a painful two year battle against cancer. 'Pesticides are always in the fields and around the towns,' Johnnie's father told us. 'The children get the chemicals when they play outside, drink the water or when they hug you after you come home from working in fields that are sprayed.'" -Cesar Chavez
      ~Mouse over images to view stories of migrant farm workers~

Deprivation of Rights

Bracero Program

Following World War II, sudden increases in labor required instituting the Bracero Program in 1942. By forming a bond between Mexico and the United States, its establishment opened brief employment opportunities for low-class Mexican citizens. With nearly four million braceros brought to America, the country's agricultural branches flourished. Yet, exploitation and profiteering remained at large. "Farmers dehumanized the Mexican men and reduced them to a semi-captive labor force" (Gamboa). Their cruel neglect towards workers' rights heightened injury risk, provoking lethal infections. 
~Photographs and captions courtesy of Smithsonian~
"Prospective Braceros often were asked to show their calloused hands to prove that they were experienced farm laborers... and were fumigated with DDT before being allowed to enter the United States."
~Joan Mentzer, National Museum of American History