NOT FOR SALE

( 2011 - present )

The Bracero Program ran from 1942 to 1964, bringing farm and railroad workers into the United States from Mexico. The first braceros came in September of 1942 for the sugar beet harvest. For most of the program, an average of 200,000 people came per year.

Workers lived in squalid conditions and dealt with rampant discrimination, leading to the founding of the National Farm Workers Association.

“The Bracero Program must also be considered through a human lens that transcends national borders. There is no doubt that it was devastating for the families of those who departed to work in the United States.”

Elisabeth W. Mandeel, The Bracero Program 1942-1964, in the American International Journal of Contemporary Research.

"La tierra ha dado su cosecha; Dios, nuestro Dios, nos bendice. Dios nos bendecirá, y todos los confines de la tierra lo temerán."

Psalms 67‬:‭ 6‬-‭7‬

This work began in 2011, while completing graduate work in journalism. The journalism program insisted that objectivity prohibited reciprocity, and this didn’t sit well with me.

Sometime after the program, I ran into my professor at a bar. Expecting that the story was one-dimensional, he asked if I’d “sold” the family’s story yet. Knowing that their story is not mine to tell, I told him, they are “not for sale.”