immigration
... promised of a better pay and a different future. Those were the years when The United States, under the direction of President Franklin Roosevelt, implemented the “Bracero” program from 1942-1962. The program was developed by the great necessity of labor in the United States, especially in the Agriculture sector, during and after World War II. More than five million Mexican temporarily migrated to work legally in The United States, including my father and grandfather. According to my father, the expectations were very high, including a new life, a better life. But reality bites. First of all, they instantly found themselves at a slave-like working environment. They worked from four in the morning until seven in the evening, seven days a week. Living conditions reflected those of a 1930’s Alabama state jail-like environment. Very cruel working conditions and poorly adequate dormitories reflected the careless environment lived during this period. “Salaries were decent compared with the ones back in Mexico; But after deducting taxes, saving fund, and living expenses, all you got left was just a few dollars” says my father. The saving fund was never collected by any of the five million “Bracero” workers. After almost forty years, it was recently submitted to litigation in Mexican and American courts. According to my father, they were lucky compared to other patrons in Texas, and some other Southern states. The stories of killings and mutilations of Mexican citizens by the KKK did spread rapidly. Abuses were conducted under the intentionally blind eye of the Patrons. The returning immigrants, if they ever did, got back with just enough money to reach home. My father was lucky. He never drink, smoke, or have fun during the days off they occasionally had. He got out with enough money to marry my mother and purchase some land in my hometown in Mexico. In the seventies and early eighties my father returned to the US once a year for a few months to work the farms in Arizona. In the mid eighties, he finally decided to immigrate permanently to The United States when President Reagan declared Amnesty to 4 million illegal immigrants. Amnesty was granted under the basis, again, that immigrant labor was a necessity for this country. I decided to stay in Mexico to finish my already in progress University degree. I tried to immigrate as soon as I finished my degree, but it took me 10 very long years to do it. During this period I lived under the stress of Proposition 187. I saw how, in the early nineties, the illegal immigrants were blamed for the weak economy. It appears that every time The United States had economic problems, the most vulnerable are blamed for it. The ones who got no voice, the lowest of the low, the illegal immigrants were the chosen escaped goat. The Rodney King riots in the 90’s. All TV channels showed the African American and Hispanics looting the stores, stealing merchandise. TV made it look like that was who we all are. I remember that no TV channel showed that the first volunteers to clean up the mess and pacify the situation were Hispanics. Most of African Americans and Hispanics protested pacifically. None of that was showed on TV. The government response was to literarily send an army of soldiers and immigration officers to get Hispanics left and right just by racial profiling. The civil rights were overlooked. Police arrived to a commercial area in my neighborhood, lifting everybody on the street accusing them...