[Vision2020] Long Live the Braceros!

[Nick Gier]

Good Morning Visionaries:

Crabtree: It seems to me that your notion of the Gospel with regard 
to illegal aliens is flawed. Do you believe that should a thief break 
into your home it's your obligation to give him a hot meal and pay to 
have the hand he cut breaking your window stitched up? Maybe some 
dental care for him and his family while he's there? Heck as long as 
he's sitting on your sofa why not arrange for a little in state 
tuition at the local diploma mill and offer to pay expenses not 
covered by grants.

Crabtree should be smart enough to tell the difference between a 
thief breaking into a home, and homeowners inviting them into their 
homes, yards, businesses, orchards, and fields and paying them slave 
wages.  Crabtree admits that he reads at most only two paragraphs of 
my posts, so I'll re-post a relevant part of my column "Long Live the 
Braceros" with the entire column following.

There is an argument by analogy against immigrants that is making its 
rounds on the internet.  I will offer an edited version and then give 
my critique.

Let's say I break into your house.  Let's say that when you discover 
me in your house, you insist that I leave.  But I say, "I've made all 
the beds and washed the dishes and did the laundry and swept the 
floors; I've done all the things you don't like to do.

"I'm hard-working and honest. Not only must you let me stay, you must 
add me to your family's insurance plan and provide other benefits to 
me and to my family. If you try to call the police or force me out, I 
will call my friends who will picket your house carrying signs that 
proclaim my right to be here."

           The main problem with this analogy is that, although they 
cross the border illegally, these people are warmly invited into 
American homes and employers gladly hire them without checking their 
papers. The last thing they are doing is calling the police. These 
Americans are breaking the law just as much as their workers 
are.  Some growers have admitted that they could mechanize much of 
their harvest, but they say it's cheaper to hire immigrant labor.

LONG LIVE THE BRACEROS:
ESSENTIAL GUEST WORKERS NOT FELONS

By Nick Gier

In 1958 I got my first job picking pears in my hometown of Medford, 
Oregon. With 10,000 acres of orchards, Medford is called the Pear 
Capital of the World. When I was growing up there was an annual Pear 
Blossom Festival, and I would march with my accordion band alongside 
a float decorated with pear blossoms. Later I thought that this 
probably looked as amazing as the cello playing Woody Allen 
"marching" with his school band in his film "Take the Money and Run."

Except for a few migrant families from the South, I was the only 
white kid in the orchards. Most of my peers thought I was crazy 
taking on such demeaning work.  My crew boss thought that I was 
saving money for a "jalopy," and he was mystified when I told him 
that I was saving for college.

   Most of the pickers were Mexicans hired on the Bracero Program.  I 
was paid 12 cents a box and one day I picked 150 boxes, not bad 
earnings for a 14-year-old 48 years ago.  I was not sure how much the 
Mexicans were being paid, but at least they were legal. I was not 
because I lied about my age to get the job. I will also get my social 
security from that job; but, even after fighting in the courts, the 
Braceros were denied the benefits from the deductions from their wages.

The Bracero Program was started in 1942 because of the severe labor 
shortages during the war.  More than 4 million Mexicans crossed the 
border legally, and they helped transform America's orchards and 
fields into the most productive farms in the world.  The program 
ended in 1964, but the demand for this labor was higher than ever, 
and millions more began to cross the border illegally.

Insert material above.

Testifying at a recent Senate hearing, New York City Mayor Michael 
Bloomberg stated that his city's economy would collapse if the 
estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants were deported.  He also 
predicted that this would happen to the national economy as well.

The Republicans who wish to criminalize these workers' existence are 
the largest recipients of campaign money from employers who rather 
would pay illegal workers less and provide no benefits. The original 
Braceros worked and lived under miserable conditions and suffered 
brutal discrimination, and, sadly, those conditions have not improved 
much since the 1940s.

Larry Kudlow, writing for the conservative journal National Review 
(4/4/06), praises the Bracero Program and urges Congress to expand 
the ridiculously low unskilled H-2B quota from 140,000 to the 
millions of visas that are needed for our service and agricultural economy.

Kudlow also reminds Americans that "illegals have [paid] $7 billion 
to Social Security and $1.5 billion to Medicare. They are 
contributing to our wealth, not reducing it."  He also adds that 
"only 10 percent of illegal Mexicans have sent a child to an American 
public school and just 5 percent have received food stamps or 
unemployment benefits."

It's high time to recognize the contributions of these hard working 
people, face the economic facts, and stop the fear mongering that has 
demonized a group of people who have enhanced an already great nation 
of immigrants.



"Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to 
human affairs."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

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