Processing

Overview

The U.S. Department of Labor managed the Bracero Program through the Foreign Labor Division of the Farm Placement Service. The report below shows the number of applicants to the program and the number of workers contracted and re-contracted in 1962. Workers were intially selected at Migratory Stations in Mexico, and then transported to Reception Centers located in border towns where a second round of processing and selection took place. Once contracted, workers were subjected to invasive medical inspections and treatments including fumigation with the pesticide DDT before being issued identification documents and sent to labor camps.

Questions

  • Where are workers coming from in Mexico, and where are they going in the United States?
  • What is happening in the photograph below?

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Document showing tabulations and values of bracero workers contracted to work in the United States or rejected from participating in the Bracero Program.

Color photograph of men lining up at a bracero Migration Station, opening their luggage to be sprayed with the pesticide DDT by a government employee wearing protective gear.

Summary of Activities Concerning the implementation of the Bracero Program January 1, 1952 - December 31, 1952 Links to an external site., Henry Pope Anderson Papers, larc.ms.0422, Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University.

Person Wearing Protective Gear Fumigates Men and Their Hand Luggage Using a Handheld Pesticide Applicator at a Processing Center for Bracero Workers Links to an external site., Henry Pope Anderson Papers, larc.ms.0422, Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University.