The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 23 (2012)

Transnational Labor Activism against
Migrant Labor: The Post–World War II
U.S.-Mexican Labor Alliance for Border Control

Tasuku TODAYAMA*INTRODUCTIONThe United States and Mexico are gradually becoming an economically uniﬁed region, with labor unions in both countries struggling toestablish alliances across the border, especially around the issue of
migration.1 Such efforts are not a new phenomenon. For example, theextension of the Bracero Program of contract farmworkers from Mexico
after World War II,2 along with an inﬂux of unauthorized immigrants,
prompted the American Federation of Labor to organize domestic farmlabor, which led to the establishment of the National Farm Labor Union
in 1946.3 The NFLU criticized the Bracero Program and called forstricter border control and penalties for employers of “illegal” migrants.
These were Mexican nationals who were working in the United States
without having gone through the formal procedures established by thebinational Bracero Program or the migration laws of the United States
and/or Mexico. Although this seems to be a typically exclusionist andrestrictionist position that is often held by U.S. labor, interestingly the
NFLU sought an alliance with the Mexican government and Mexican
labor unions to achieve its goals. From the late 1940s until the 1950s,*Graduate student, University of Tokyo

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the NFLU/AFL (AFL-CIO after 1955) and Mexican unions formed analliance to curb undocumented Mexican migration while seeking toestablish effective protection for both Mexican and U.S. workers. What
made such an alliance possible? How did the transnational cooperation
between Mexican and U.S. unions relate to the migration and border control policies of both countries?
Drawing on diplomatic records from Mexico and the United States,
as well as archival sources relating to labor history, I examine the formation of transnational labor cooperation during this period and its political context. I suggest that the government of a receiving country is not
the sole actor in deﬁning who “illegal” migrants are, since Mexican and
U.S. labor unions, actors other than the U.S. government, saw undocumented or “illegal” migration as a problem.
There are only a limited number of studies on the activities of the
NFLU and/or binational cooperation between U.S. and Mexican labor
unions in the post–World War II period. For example, a 2004 article by
Gigi Peterson on the alliance between U.S. unions and Mexican leftist
unions examines binational labor cooperation during the war and promotion of the Good Neighbor Policy, along with efforts to curb racism
toward Mexican Americans and Mexicans in the United States, but shebarely discusses postwar activities. Zaragoza Vargas focuses on organizing drives aimed at Mexican and Mexican American workers by leftist labor during the 1930s and 1940s and points out that in the late 1930s
the Confederación de Trabajadores de México (CTM, Confederation of
Mexican Workers) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)
cooperated to organize Mexican workers in the United States.4 Althoughthese studies offer a good analysis of the transnational character of theleftist labor groups during the 1930s to 1940s, they do not direct sufﬁcient attention to the more conservative AFL-afﬁliated unions such as
the NFLU.
As for studies of the NFLU’s international activities, Ernesto Galarza,a Mexican American labor leader who was deeply involved in the NFLU
from the late 1940s to the early 1960s, offers detailed accounts of theunion’s organizing efforts, but he gives only a passing reference to thecooperation with Mexican labor.5 Harvey A. Levenstein and Juan
Gómez-Quiñones focus mainly on the U.S. unions’ initiatives and argue
that the AFL and CIO called on Mexican unions for aid because theyfailed to secure enough support within the United States to launch aneffective campaign against undocumented immigration.6 Mae M. Ngai

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makes a similar argument but situates the NFLU’s activities in a historyof immigration restriction and control in the United States. She shows
how labor unions, including the NFLU, shaped their opposition to theimmigration of Mexican workers into the United States in line with theirunderstandings of and commitments to nation-state boundaries.7 Thesestudies, however, have some limitations. Except for Ngai’s work, they
do not sufﬁciently describe relations between the immigration policies
of both countries’ governments and the policies maintained by bothcountries’ unions.
In the ﬁrst and second sections of this article I examine the impact of
the Bracero Program on U.S. and Mexican unions and their reactions to
the program, centering on the birth and growth of the NFLU. In the third
section, the main topic is the development of postwar U.S.-Mexican
labor cooperation on migration issues, especially the issue of undocumented migration. Finally, I focus on obstacles to the transnational labor
alliance that U.S. and Mexican unions faced in the 1950s, and then offer
an explanation for the demise of this alliance.
I.

THE WARTIME BRACERO PROGRAM AND LABOR UNIONS

According to the U.S.-Mexican labor agreement that went into effecton August 4, 1942, braceros were to be recruited in Mexico for work in
the United States for the duration of the harvest season and returned to
Mexico after the completion of the harvest. Both the Mexican and U.S.
governments assumed responsibility for the recruitment and transportation of braceros. The U.S. government covered the transportation andliving expenses under the wartime agreement.8 The agreement also provided many beneﬁts to the Mexican workers, such as minimum wage
and subsistence payments during unemployment,9 while U.S. agricultural workers were not covered by the National Labor Relations Act of1935 and a minimum wage was not guaranteed. Still, agricultural laboradvocates in the United States were not opposed to the contract labor
program during the war since they regarded the beneﬁts braceros received served as a model for similar guarantees they sought for domestic
workers. In fact, organized labor called for an extension of the NLRA toagricultural workers after World War II, citing the bracero guarantees as
its precedent.10
Another possible reason for U.S. labor’s support for the Bracero Program may have been the general wartime cooperation between U.S and166

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Mexican unions. During the war, the U.S. government became interested
in promoting Pan-American labor unity. Supported by the Ofﬁce ofInter-American Affairs, the AFL and the CIO were engaged in promoting interchanges of labor delegations between the United States and
Mexico to gain Mexican labor’s support for a pro-U.S. labor alliance in
Latin America.11 Since cooperation with Mexican labor was a major concern for the AFL and the CIO during the war, they supported the program as long as it was supported by Mexican unions and the governmentsof both countries. In Mexico, too, political and labor leaders were generally supportive of the program. Blatant racism that was directed against
Mexican and Mexican American residents in Texas offended some
Mexican union leaders, who argued against sending Mexican workers
to the United States.12 Nevertheless, opposition to the program per seremained relatively low-key, in part because of the Mexican government’s support for the program.
After World War II, the situation changed drastically. As an extensionof the program began to be discussed, agricultural workers in the UnitedStates expressed concern that the Bracero Program threatened them.
Moreover, a large number of undocumented immigrants from Mexico—derogatorily called “wetbacks”13—had begun to directly compete withdomestic farmworkers. These conditions prompted a new attempt toorganize U.S. farm labor.
II.

BRACEROS, “WETBACKS,” AND FARM LABOR UNIONIZATION

Between December 1945 and July 1946, Congress twice authorized
temporary extensions of the Bracero Program.14 These extensions wereoriginally proposed by the Department of Agriculture to enable braceros
to work in the United States following the expiration of their contracts,
since it would take time to complete repatriation due to the limited availability of transportation.15 The majority of policymakers in the UnitedStates supported extension of the wartime program. Some called for apermanent farm labor supply program, while many farmers and electedofﬁcials from the border region claimed that there was too much bureaucracy involved in the program and began a campaign for freer movementof Mexican workers.16
Among Mexican ofﬁcials, there were several different attitudes toward the Bracero Program. The Ministry of Labor and Social Provisions
criticized the emigration of Mexicans into the United States on theTRANSNATIONAL LABOR ACTIVISM AGAINST MIGRANT LABOR

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grounds that braceros were subject to poor working conditions there andreceived insufﬁcient wages.17 However, President Manuel Ávila Camacho
decided to continue the program in consideration of maintaining good
relations with the United States.18 Another reason that Mexico continued
the program was that the growing number of unauthorized migrants into
the United States threatened the ability of both countries’ to control the
U.S.-Mexican border. In an effort to prevent further unauthorized emigration, Mexico preferred to allow the movement of workers who wereauthorized by binational agreement.19
As the Bracero Program began to lose its temporary status and to become part of a long-term government-administered strategy to stabilize
the seasonal farm labor market, U.S. agricultural workers began to feelits adverse effects. In December 1945, the Southern Tenant Farmers
Union, which was based in Memphis, Tennessee, changed its name to
the National Farm Labor Union and rechartered itself to organize farmworkers outside the South.20 Henry L. Mitchell, the president of the
NFLU, approached William Green, the president of the AFL, to secure
funding from the AFL.21 In August 1946, the NFLU expanded its jurisdiction to all farmworkers throughout the United States and started
organizing drives on large farms specializing in cotton, fruits, and vegetables, crops that required a large number of workers to harvest.22
Immediately following its inception, the NFLU attempted to organize
Mexican American workers in California and Texas, employing
Spanish-speaking organizers. Ernesto Galarza, the son of a Mexican
immigrant family and who had received a PhD in economics and Latin
American affairs from Columbia University, led efforts to organize
Mexican Americans.23
The union demanded higher wages for farmworkers (not less than ﬁve
dollars per day) and advocated a legislative program “designed to raise
living standards for all types of farm people,” including an extension ofnational labor laws to cover farmworkers.24 The NFLU initially adopted
a strong anti-immigrant labor policy,25 and its leaders, especially Mitchell,became heavily involved in lobbying to strengthen border controls.
Nationality played an important role in separating potential union members from the unorganizable others. It should be noted that although the
NFLU advocated equal rights for all ethnic and racial groups, the union
sometimes claimed that domestic workers were “native white American
citizens” and emphasized their Americanness. At the same time, foreign
agricultural workers from Mexico, the West Indies, and the Philippines

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were depicted as something contrary to “freedom loving white farmers.”26 It is difﬁcult to surmise how Mexican Americans reacted to the
NFLU’s foreign-labor policy. Since many Mexican Americans believedthat immigrants from Mexico were the direct cause of their economic
and social problems because of competition for jobs, and because they
perceived “racial degradation” in being associated with braceros or “wetbacks,” the strong emphasis on citizenship and legal status allowed mostMexican Americans to draw a line between themselves and Mexican
immigrants.27 The NFLU generally refrained from using racist remarks
directed at Mexican workers, with whom many of its members shared acommon ethnoracial identity.
While pursuing domestic campaigns against the inﬂux of Mexican
workers, the NFLU also sought cooperation from Mexico to deal withthe problem. During World War II, some Mexican labor groups began
to engage issues of labor migration. In 1943 an organization called the
Alianza de Braceros Nacionales de México en los Estados Unidos deNorteamérica (National Alliance of Braceros in the United States) wasestablished in Mexico City by former braceros who had returned fromthe United States.28 The Alianza was afﬁliated with the Confederación
Proletaria Nacional (CPN, National Proletarian Confederation),29 andwas involved in organizing contracted braceros before their departurenorth. In a letter to President Miguel Alemán, José Hernández Serrano,
the leader of the Alianza, condemned unrestricted emigration as having
a detrimental effect on agricultural production in Mexico and called for
closer concern for braceros from the Mexican authorities.30
In June 1948, at an executive meeting of the Inter-American Confederation of Workers/Confederación Interamericana de Trabajadores(CIT), Seraﬁno Romualdi, an AFL representative in Latin America andthe secretary of international relations of the CIT, suggested that a conference of Mexican and U.S. union organizers be held to discuss migration issues.31 In October representatives from the NFLU and the CPN,
the Mexican afﬁliate of the CIT, met to create a permanent joint committee. They also agreed that all braceros who were afﬁliated with the
CPN and legally working in the United States would be treated as members of the NFLU so that they could not be used against U.S. labor as
strikebreakers.32 It should be noted that at the conference the NFLU did
not call for a total abandonment of the Bracero Program but stressed theneed to make amendments to the program to provide for Mexican and
U.S. labor representation in intergovernmental negotiations.33 This was

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the ﬁrst attempt by the NFLU to seek cooperation from its Mexican counterparts and set a precedent for following campaigns.
III.

THE “EL PASO INCIDENT” AND ITS IMPACT ON U.S.
AND MEXICAN LABOR

During 1947, Mexican and U.S. ofﬁcials discussed the extension of
the Bracero Program. After World War II, the United States and Mexico
began to deﬁne the Bracero Program not only as a labor importation
program but also as an approach to effectively control the transnational
ﬂow of workers. By allowing Mexicans to work in the United States
legally, both countries believed that they could decrease the unauthorized migration of Mexican workers. The agreement of March 1947 proposed a legalization procedure for undocumented workers, which would
allow them to be put under contract after being apprehended in the UnitedStates.34 At the same time, under this agreement and Public Law 40,
which was passed in Congress on April 28, 1947, the U.S. government
would no longer pay braceros’ transportation costs.35
The Mexican government believed that unauthorized emigration impeded its attempt to regulate the ﬂow of migration through the Bracero
Program.36 Although the Mexican government and the NFLU worked
separately, both pressured the United States to take action to stop unauthorized migration. In February 1948 Mexico and the United Statesagreed to renew the binational program. The new agreement stipulated
that the employer would cover the cost for each bracero’s lodging, food,and transport of personal belongings during the round-trip between theplace of contract in Mexico and place of employment in the UnitedStates.37 This reﬂected the attitude of many legislators who basicallysupported a foreign-labor program but wanted the employers of foreign
workers to bear the cost.38 Agricultural interest groups, however, suchas the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Grange,
began to argue that braceros were getting more expensive to hire while
agricultural interests were not reﬂected in the formulation and operationof the program.39
The new program did not decrease undocumented migration. The
income disparity between U.S. and Mexican workers increased evenmore after the peso was devalued in July 1948.40 The inﬂation following World War II diminished the real wages of workers in Mexico byroughly 30 to 40 percent.41 These factors prompted increased emigration

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from Mexico. In autumn 1948, so many Mexican potential farmworkers
were gathering along the border that they overwhelmed the capacity ofrecruitment centers in Mexican border cities such as Ciudad Juárez and
Méxicali. In mid-October, several thousand Mexican workers, boththose who had applied for a bracero employment and those without any
ofﬁcial contract, gathered along the U.S.-Mexican border near El Paso
and entered Texas without authorization. After crossing the border, they
were immediately sent to nearby cotton ﬁelds by waiting contractors.42
The El Paso Incident, as it became known, drew signiﬁcant attention
to the problem of unauthorized migration from Mexico. The Mexican
government unilaterally suspended the Bracero Program because theU.S. Border Patrol facilitated the illegal entry of Mexican farmworkers
into the United States. The entry of braceros into Texas without the consent of the Mexican government also violated the binational agreement,
since Mexico banned sending braceros to that state because of its historyof discrimination against Mexicans.43 Mexican labor leaders were generally critical of bracero emigration because they feared that braceros
would be subject to exploitation in the United States, but most of them
did not openly call for a permanent termination of the program. Somepointed out the need for studies on social problems that prompted therural population to emigrate as braceros.44
The AFL called for immediate repatriation of unauthorized entrants
from Mexico and for prosecution of the government employees and agricultural employers who conspired to bring the undocumented workers
into the United States in violation of U.S. immigration laws.45 Meanwhile, Mitchell sent an open letter to the Mexican press that pointed out
the detrimental effects of the Bracero Program on U.S. farmworkers.
This letter condemned the use of braceros as strikebreakers and the lackof proper action by both the U.S. and Mexico for violations of the agreement by U.S. farmers. However, the letter emphasized that the AFL did
not oppose the program per se and stated that what the AFL had been
opposing was the mistreatment of braceros. The letter also called for a
U.S.-Mexican alliance to solve the problems that affected farmworkers
in both countries.46 Judging from these statements, it seems that Mitchell
did not want to antagonize his Mexican allies and stressed that the AFL’s
opposition to the Bracero Program was not based on a xenophobic attitude toward Mexicans.
From 1949 to 1950, the NFLU continued negotiations with the Alianza.
The Alianza maintained that the termination of the binational program

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would not solve any problems and that Mexican workers had a right tolive and work in the United States, at least through a legal channel.47 The
NFLU pointed out that braceros had been used as strikebreakers on manyoccasions and that their presence in the United States had allowed growers to reduce wages for domestic farmworkers.48 However, it seems that
Mitchell and Galarza began to realize that preventing legally contracted
braceros from entering the United States would not be a practical solution
to labor problems. In a letter to Hernández Serrano, Galarza wrote (inSpanish, my translation): “I have been thinking that the only way to protect both braceros and U.S. farmworkers is to integrate them into theunion [NFLU] so that every farmworker on a particular farm would beworking under the same conditions and receiving the same wage.”49 He
also stressed that the economic interests of braceros should be represented by “an authentic labor organization, not by a [Mexican] consul orother bureaucratic agents.”50
The impact of the El Paso Incident was strong enough to make U.S.
and Mexican labor unions aware of the problems of undocumented
migration. After this incident, they began to clearly differentiate between“illegal migration” and recruitment of braceros under an international
agreement. The latter was deemed acceptable under strict enforcement,
if “an actual or clearly impending” shortage of U.S. workers existed. At
the same time, undocumented migration itself was regarded as a serious
issue, and U.S. union leaders continued to advocate strengthening theBorder Patrol while playing down their previous opposition to theBracero Program.51 Thus, there was ﬁnally a basis for international cooperation. Nevertheless, the newly created U.S.-Mexican alliance was not
as effective as was hoped.
IV.

THE EXTENSION OF THE BRACERO PROGRAM
AND THE U.S.-MEXICAN LABOR ALLIANCE

Despite the interruption caused by the El Paso Incident, the Bracero
Program achieved semipermanent status with the 1949 agreement andwas continued until 1964. The U.S. State Department and Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs feared that its termination would cause further
incidents on the border, and thus they began negotiations in early 1949
to reestablish the binational labor program.52 Delegations from bothcountries were especially concerned that some growers in the UnitedStates were hoping that abrogation of the ofﬁcial program would lead to172

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unlimited contracting of Mexican workers at the border, and that thiswould accelerate the inﬂux of undocumented workers.53 The new agreement that was signed in July 1949 included protective clauses forbraceros and permitted the Mexican government to establish a special
committee for the investigation of discriminatory acts.54 In exchange,
Mexico removed Texas from its “blacklist.”55 The new agreement alsobanned recruitment on the border, because Mexico did not want a large
number of immigrants assembling in the border towns.56 Mexico initiallyasked for legislation that would penalize employers of undocumented
workers. However the United States objected to this and suggested alegalization procedure for unauthorized workers that would ease the burden on the understaffed Border Patrol and avoid employer sanctions. The
rather prompt conclusion of the negotiation was due to the concern that
if a new agreement failed to materialize, U.S. farmers would resort tohiring undocumented workers. The U.S. Department of State also
wanted to establish a new agreement as soon as possible so that labor
unions such as the NFLU, which was calling for labor’s full participation in binational negotiations, could be kept away from the process.57
Since the binational agreement had to be renewed every two years, theUnited States and Mexico began discussions again in early 1951. This
time Mexico insisted that sanctions against employers of undocumented
workers should be included in the new agreement, but this proposal met
with strong opposition from growers and from Congress.58 What ﬁnallypassed in Congress was a watered-down version of the bill without meaningful employer sanctions.59 Neither the 1949 agreement nor the 1951
one had any effect on the continued inﬂux of unauthorized immigrants.
In fact, the number of apprehensions along the border soared from278,538 in 1949 to 485,215 in 1950, while only 107,000 braceros were
contracted in 1949 and 67,500 in 1950.60
To deal with these farm-labor problems, President Harry S. Truman
established a commission on migratory labor in June 1950. It held twelve
hearings throughout the United States at which the NFLU spoke on
several occasions. The report of the commission recommended that thefollowing steps be taken to stop undocumented immigration: a stronger
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) with a clearer statutory
authority and more funding; legislation to penalize those who are involved in the employment or transportation of illegal entrants; no more
contracting and legalization of illegal entrants; cooperation between the
U.S. and Mexican governments to halt undocumented migration by more

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rigid enforcement of Mexican migration laws and by preventing theconcentration of workers in border areas.61 These recommendations reﬂected organized labor’s position on the foreign-labor issues. However,backed by growers, many politicians from the Southwest opposed further restrictions on unauthorized immigration and employer sanctions.
For example, Senator Pat McCarran (D-Nevada), known for his restrictionist position toward legal immigration, showed tolerance for illegal
immigration. He criticized INS raids on farms and supported reductionsin appropriations for the Border Patrol.62
Although refraining from openly criticizing the program, the NFLU
argued that there was no shortage of domestic labor and that therefore
no foreign workers were needed.63 However, the union was careful tolimit its criticism to the U.S. farm interests and refrained from antagonizing the Mexican government or unions. For example, in an article thatappeared in the American Federationist, Galarza hailed the migration
and border control policy of the Alemán administration as an “effective
backstop” to corporate farmers’ drive for further importation of unauthorized workers and argued that Southern and Southwestern legislators
were falsely blaming the Mexican government for the inﬂux of undocumented Mexicans.64
In January 1951, Galarza went to Mexico City, where intergovernmental negotiations for the renewal of the bracero agreement was underway, to meet with U.S. and Mexican government ofﬁcials and to holdpublic meetings with representatives from Mexican unions and braceros
who had applied for employment in the United States.65 However, according to Galarza, the public meetings had to be cancelled due to intervention by the Mexican Interior Ministry, which was involved inadministration of the Bracero Program within Mexico and also had
control over internal security.66 It is hard to understand why the Interior
Ministry wanted to stop the meetings because there is a lack of Mexican
primary sources on this matter, but presumably the ministry did not wantlabor groups to intervene in government policy. Nevertheless, in February, the Alianza and the NFLU formally agreed on a pact that would
give a membership of the NFLU to Alianza members while working in
the United States. In March, the NFLU concluded a similar agreementwith the Unión de Trabajadores del Valle de Mexicali (Mexicali Valley
Workers Union), an afﬁliate of the much more powerful CTM.67
During the early 1950s, the AFL, along with the CIO, continued to
discuss the migration issues with the CTM.68 In August 1953, Mitchell

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and Fidel Velásquez, the president of the CTM, met in Mexico City. They
agreed that braceros in the United States should be unionized and called
for participation by Mexican and U.S. unions in the binational negotiations. Velásquez also agreed with Mitchell that control of migratory ﬂow
should be strengthened and that more vigilance along the border was
desirable. Like Hernández Serrano of the Alianza, Velásquez stressedthat authorized emigration of Mexican workers should be facilitatedrather than hampered, and he demanded an increase in opportunities forlegal employment with contracts that included more protections forbraceros. He explained that these measures would discourage undocumented emigration because Mexican workers would ﬁnd the legal route
more attractive.69 In short, Mexican unions wanted to have more braceros
working in the United States and under their control. In December thedelegates from Mexico and the United States agreed to set up a jointcommittee to seek improvements in the contracts of legally imported
workers and to call on their respective governments to include labor representatives in future negotiations on international agreements.70 The
U.S. unions decided to concentrate on demanding stricter patrolling of
the border on both sides and cooperating with the CTM in obtaining improvements in wages and working conditions for all properly contracted
farmworkers. Besides the fact that a penalty for employers of undocumented workers was unlikely to be approved in Congress, and thus lobbying for it in the United States was meaningless, the U.S. unions felt aneed to compromise with the CTM. Since the CTM’s position was essentially the same as that of the Mexican government, which accepted the
new agreement and needed the income generated from the remittances
sent home by braceros, the AFL was unable to continue its opposition to
the program per se.71
After the inception of the Joint U.S.-Mexican Trade Union Committee, union leaders from both countries continued to meet regularly until
1957. The committee proposed a binational system that would enable
Mexican union members to join U.S. unions while they were seeking
employment and/or were working in the United States. However, thisplan did not materialize because neither the CTM nor the CPN couldorganize braceros effectively, since they were not the primary farmworker organizers. Although both organizations had considerable membership in rural areas and small towns among workers in service andindustrial sectors, people who potentially might migrate as braceros,
farmworkers were generally organized by the Confederación Nacional

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de Campesinos (CNC, National Peasant Confederation). The CNC also
opposed undocumented migration, especially the uncontrolled exodusof the rural population from the border region, which would have an
adverse effect on Mexico’s efforts to develop the region.72 The CNC incorporated agricultural workers and sharecroppers. However, the bulkof its membership consisted of ejidatarios, small-scale farmers whose
land had been provided as part of the national land reform program
initiated after the Mexican Revolution.73 Although these three groups
shared their opposition to undocumented emigration and were alignedwith the ruling party, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI,
Institutional Revolutionary Party), jurisdictional issues prevented cooperation over the bracero issues within the Mexican labor movement.
Insufﬁcient commitment by the AFL’s leadership also hampered thebinational cooperation. The AFL did not provide sufﬁcient funds for the
NFLU’s organizing campaigns in the ﬁelds in the United States on theassumption that negotiations between U.S. and Mexican union ofﬁcials
could solve all migration problems.74 After 1955, the limited funds fromthe AFL-CIO reduced considerably the activities of the NFLU.
After several massive roundups of suspected “wetbacks” in 1954, thenumber of apprehensions of undocumented immigrants fell drastically,75
from 1,075,168 in 1954 to 242,608 in 1955. At the same time, the number of braceros rose signiﬁcantly during the latter half of the 1950s, from
309,033 in 1954 to 437,643 in 1959.76 This rapid increase in the numberof braceros rearoused opposition to foreign workers among U.S. labororganizers. The AFL-CIO began a major organizing drive in the late
1950s in California, where there was a large concentration of braceros
in fruit and vegetable production. The Agricultural Workers Organizing
Committee was founded in 1959 as the successor to the now dormant
NFLU, which was liquidated in August 1960.77 The AWOC’s leadership,
most of whom had no experience in farm-labor organizing, could not
develop any effective strategy to mobilize the majority of California’s
non-bracero farmworkers. Rather than organizing the rapidly increasing
Mexican American farmworkers, the AWOC chose to concentrate on
migrant Anglo workers.
The AWOC thought that halting the bracero trafﬁc was crucial for its
organizing effort, since braceros were often used as strikebreakers. The
union decided to provoke a diplomatic crisis by physically intimidating
braceros so that the Mexican government would demand the withdrawalof braceros from struck ﬁelds or perhaps even abrogate the agreement.

176

TASUKU TODAYAMAThis approach was tested in 1961 and resulted in the arrest of several
AWOC organizers.78 While the AWOC was afﬁliated with the AFL-CIO
and enjoyed its sponsorship, the union did not utilize the AFL-CIO’sconnection with its Mexican counterparts to unionize braceros. The
AWOC leadership also showed considerable indifference to Mexican
American workers’ conditions and demands. Consequently, many Mexican
American members left the AWOC and joined César Chávez’s emerging farmworker movement after 1962.79 The AWOC merged in 1966
with the National Farm Workers Association, an independent union that
Chávez had started several years earlier.80
CONCLUSION
The postwar transnational cooperation between U.S. and Mexican
unions did not yield much success. There were many factors that precluded this alliance from achieving desirable outcomes. First, for both
U.S. and Mexican labor leaders the unionization of farmworkers was nottheir top priority. The NFLU received insufﬁcient support from the AFLCIO in the late 1950s, although it had many experienced organizers such
as Galarza and Mitchell, while the AWOC suffered from lack of expertise in farm-labor organizing. Mexican unions also could not form a
uniﬁed front to deal with the migratory problems because of jurisdictional issues. Second, U.S. labor leaders did not consider undocumented
Mexican workers as potential members of their movement, although they
made up a large part of the farm-labor force by the 1950s. Their Mexican
counterparts also saw undocumented emigration as detrimental to theircause, but they were incapable of halting it. Third, the scope of this U.S.Mexican cooperation remained limited by the problem of nationalboundaries, as this alliance aimed at establishing stronger border controls and curbing undocumented migration. The unions did try to establish their own way of controlling the ﬂow of border-crossing workers
through binational unionization. However, both U.S. and Mexican
unions believed that stricter control of the border was the only way tocounter U.S. agricultural interests that used undocumented workers ascheap alternatives to U.S. workers and braceros. Thus labor’s idea of thenational border and the boundary between the “legal” and “illegal” did
not differ fundamentally from that of the government actors.
The postwar transnational cooperation between U.S. and Mexican
unions was still signiﬁcant in several ways. First, the NFLU was one of

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the few labor organizations in the 1950s to incorporate both U.S. andMexican citizens, at least those who were legally working in the UnitedStates. The repressive environment in the early Cold War years destroyed left-wing organizations such as La Asociación Nacional MéxicoAmericana (National Mexican-American Association), which consistedof progressive Mexican American trade unionists and incorporated
Mexican workers in its ranks.81 Although the NFLU maintained a determinately restrictionist policy toward undocumented migration, as an
AFL afﬁliate, it was one of the few groups that partially ﬁlled the void
left by left-wing labor or civil rights organizations from the pre–Cold
War era.82
It should be also noted that the farm labor movement in later years,
especially César Chávez’s United Farm Workers, followed the basicorganizing strategy that was developed by the NFLU and its Mexican
afﬁliates, at least until the early 1970s, incorporating both documented
Mexican workers and U.S. citizens while discouraging unauthorized
workers. Like Mitchell and Galarza in the 1950s, Chávez saw undocumented workers as a threat to his movement, supported sanctions against
the employers of undocumented immigrants in the early 1970s, andsought assistance from the CTM in the mid-1960s and 1970s to prevent
Mexican strikebreakers from crossing the border. Only in the mid-1970s
did the UFW begin to fully foster a class- and ethnic-based solidarity
with Mexican migrant workers and Mexican American or Chicanogroups, taking a more lenient attitude toward undocumented workers.83
It was only after the U.S. government greatly intensiﬁed its efforts tocontrol the U.S.-Mexican border in the late 1970s and 1980s that both
Mexican and U.S. labor began to seriously redeﬁne the boundary
between “legal” and “illegal” workers, advocating the legalization of
those who had been considered “illegal” and permitting their membership in U.S. unions.84

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NOTES
1Since the 1970s, labor unions in the Unites States have been recruiting and organizing Latin American immigrant workers. See, for example, Leon Fink, The Maya of
Morganton: Work and Community in the Nuevo New South (Chapel Hill: University ofNorth Carolina Press, 2003), chap.7.
2
Notes on terms: the term bracero comes from the Spanish word brazo (arm) andmeans a person who does manual labor. In this article the term signiﬁes a Mexican farmworker in the United States legally contracted under the terms of U.S.-Mexican agreements. A farmworker with U.S. citizenship is referred to as a U.S. or domestic worker.
A Mexican means a citizen of Mexico, while a U.S. citizen of Mexican descent is called
Mexican American.
3
The NFLU changed its name in May 1952 to the National Agricultural Workers
Union. For the purpose of clarity, it is referred to as the NFLU throughout this article.
4
Gigi Peterson, “‘A Dangerous Demagogue’: Containing the Inﬂuence of the Mexican
Labor-Left and Its United States Allies,” in American Labor and the Cold War:
Grassroots Politics and Postwar Political Culture, ed. Robert W. Cherny, William Issel,
and Kieran Walsh Taylor (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004),
245–76; Zaragosa Vargas, Labor Rights Are Civil Rights: Mexican American Workers
in Twentieth-Century America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), chaps.
4–6.
5
Ernesto Galarza, Merchants of Labor: The Mexican Bracero Story (Santa Barbara,
CA: McNally and Loftin, 1964); Ernesto Galarza, Farm Workers and Agri-business in
California, 1947–1950 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977).
6
Juan Gómez-Quiñones, Mexican American Labor, 1790–1990 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994), 160–62; Harvey A. Levenstein, Labor Organizations in the United States and Mexico: A History of Their Relations (Westport, CT:
Greenwood Publishing Company, 1971), chap. 13; Harvey A. Levenstein, “Sindicalismo
norteamericano, braceros y ‘espaldas mojadas,’ ” Historia Mexicana 28, no.2 (OctoberDecember 1978): 153–84.
7
Mae M. Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), chap. 4. For a similar discussion, see
Stephen J. Pitti, The Devil in Silicon Valley: Northern California, Race, and Mexican
Americans (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), chap. 6; Deborah Cohen,
Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United Statesand Mexico (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), chap. 6.
8
EAS 278, United States Statutes at Large (hereafter cited as USSL), 77th Cong., 2ndSess., 1942, 56, part 2 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1943), 1759–69.
9Ibid., 1767–68.
10
Richard B. Craig, The Bracero Program; Interest Groups and Foreign Policy(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971), 48.
11Ronald Radosh, American Labor and United States Foreign Policy (New York:
Random House, 1969), 356–60.
12
In August 1944 a group called Comité Mexicano contra el Racismo (Mexican
Committee against Racism) was established. It recommended tough antidiscrimination
measures to combat racism in the United States, especially in Texas. See Thomas A.
Guglielmo, “Fighting for Caucasian Rights: Mexicans, Mexican Americans, and theTransnational Struggle for Civil Rights in World War II Texas,” Journal of American
History 92, no. 4 (March 2006): 1212–37.

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179

13
The term originated with reference to Mexicans who clandestinely entered theUnited States by swimming or wading across the Rio Grande River, thus presumably
getting their backs wet.
14
Public Law 269, USSL, 79th Cong., 1st Sess., 1945, 59, part 1 (Washington, DC:
GPO, 1946), 632, 645; Public Law 521, USSL, 79th Cong., 2nd Sess., 1946, 60, part 1(Washington, DC: GPO, 1947), 600, 617.
15
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Mexico (Messersmith),
Washington, September 11, 1945 in Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter
cited as FRUS) 1945, vol. 9, 1149–51.
16
U.S. Congress, House Committee on Agriculture, Farm Labor Supply Program:
Hearings before the Committee on Agriculture on H. R. 1388, 80th Cong., 1st Sess.,
February 4–6, 1947; U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry,
Permanent Farm Labor Program: Hearings before the Committee on Agriculture andForestry on S. 1334, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., June 17–19, 1947.
17
The Ambassador in Mexico (Messersmith) to the Secretary of State, Mexico, DF,
February 16, 1946, FRUS 1946, vol. 11, 1022–23.
18
The Ambassador in Mexico (Messersmith) to the Secretary of State, Mexico, DF,
March 18, 1946, FRUS 1946, vol. 11, 1025–28.
19
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Mexico (Thurston), Washington,
DC, August 16, 1946, FRUS 1946, vol. 11, 1030–33; The Ambassador in Mexico(Thurston) to the Secretary of State, Mexico, DF, December 31, 1946, FRUS 1946, vol.
11, 1033–36; The Ambassador in Mexico (Thurston) to the Secretary of State, México,
DF, February 7, 1947, FRUS 1947, vol. 8, 823–26.
20“Convention Adopts New Program,” Farm Labor News 1, no.1 (January 1946): 1–2.
The Southern Tenant Farmers Union was established in 1934 in Tyronza, Arkansas, by
H. L. Mitchell and Clay East. The STFU merged in the late 1930s with the United Canary,
Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America, a CIO afﬁliate with an organizational base among farmworkers and food processing workers. However, the STFU
founders did not get along with the Communists within the UCAPAWA leadership, andtheir expensive dues were also unpopular with STFU members. The STFU soon secededfrom the UCAPAWA. Patrick H. Mooney and Theo J. Majka, Farmers’ and Farm
Workers’ Movements: Social Protest in American Agriculture (New York: Twayne,
1995), 80–89, 138–49.
21
J. Craig Jenkins, The Politics of Insurgency: The Farm Worker Movements in the
1960s (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 89–90.
22“A. F. of L. Calls for Farm Labor to Organize,” Farm Labor News 1, no.11 (November 1946), 1; H. L. Mitchell, “Farm Workers See the Light,” American Federationist
54, no. 1 (January 1947): 18–20.
23“New Local Organized in El Paso, Texas,” Farm Labor News 1, no. 10 (October1946): 1; “Education Director,” Farm Labor News 3, no. 4 (April 1948): 2; “Who Is
Who in the Union,” Agricultural Unionist 1, no. 3 (March 1953): 3.
24“Convention Adopts New Program.”
25“Ed O’Neal Wants Congress to Import Foreign Labor,” Farm Labor News 1, no.1
(January 1946): 1; “Government to Import Foreign Labor While Americans Have No
Jobs,” Farm Labor News 1, no. 2 (February 1946): 4; “Union Protests to British, Mexican
Governments,” Farm Labor News l, no. 8 (August 1946): 1.
26
For the racialized depiction of farmworkers by the NFLU, see U.S. Congress, House
Committee on Agriculture, Farm Labor Supply Program: Hearings before the Committee on Agriculture on H. R. 1388, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., February 4–6, 1947, 104–5;“California We Are Here,” Farm Labor News 2, no. 4 (April 1947): 1.

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Ngai, Impossible Subjects, 158–59.
José Hernández Serrano to Vicente Peralta, October 18, 1943, Ernesto Galarza
Papers, Stanford University Library, Stanford, California (hereafter cited as Galarza
Papers), box 19, folder 6; Ernesto Galarza to William Green, February 12, 1951, Southern Tennant Farmer Union Papers, Wirtz Labor Library, Washington, DC (hereafter
cited as STFU Papers), reel 35.
29
The CPN was established in 1942 by former CTM members. It merged with several
other unions to form the Confederación Revolucionaria de Obreros y Campesinos in1952 to form an alliance of non-CTM afﬁliates. However, like the CTM, the CROC was
closely allied with the Mexican government and should not be considered as an “independent” or “dissident” labor organization. Olga Pellicer de Brody and José Luis Reyna,
Historia de la revolución mexicana, 1952–1960, vol. 22, El afianzamiento de la estabilidad política (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1978), 73–82.
30
José Hernández Serrano to Miguel Alemán, August 2, 1948, Archivo General de laNación, Mexico City (hereafter cited as AGN), Exp. 545.3/98.
31
Ernesto Galarza to Dorothy Dowe, June 27,1948, STFU Papers, reel 32; Summary
Report: Conference of representatives of the Confederación Proletaria Nacional of
Mexico and the National Farm Labor Union (AFL) held at Laredo, Texas, October
16–18, 1948, Galarza Papers, box 23, folder 4.
32
Summary Report, 2–3.
33
Before the conference, the NFLU proposed to a U.S. State Department ofﬁcer thecreation of a “proper inter-national agency,” composed of representatives from governments, employers, and trade unions of both Mexico and the United States. Ernesto
Galarza to John Fishburn, September 20, 1948, STFU Papers, reel 33.
34
TIAS 1857, USSL, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 1947, 61, part 4 (Washington, DC: GPO,
1948), 4097–4105.
35
Public Law 40, USSL, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 1947, 61, part 1 (Washington, DC:
GPO, 1948), 55–56.
36
The Ambassador in Mexico (Thurston) to the Secretary of State, Mexico, August25, 1947, FRUS 1947, vol. 8, 828–29.
37
TIAS 1968, USSL, 80th Cong., 2nd Sess., 1948, 62, part 3 (Washington, DC: GPO,
1949), 3887–3903.
38
House, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., Congressional Record, vol. 93 (March 4, 1947), 1660.
It should be noted that after World War II there was considerable disagreement inCongress as to who should bear the cost of importing braceros, as well as dealing with
undocumented entrants from Mexico.
39
For arguments by representatives of grower groups, see U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Appropriations, Supplemental Hearing on Supplemental Federal Security
Appropriation Bill for 1949: Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee on
Appropriations on H. R. 6355, 80th Cong., 2nd Sess., May 21, 1948: U.S. Congress,
House Committee on Agriculture, Hearing on Farm Labor, Hearings before theCommittee on Agriculture on H.R. 6819, 80th Cong., 2nd Sess., June 11, 1948.
40
Before the devaluation one dollar traded for 4.85 pesos. After that devaluation, one
dollar was valued at 6.90 pesos. Hispanic World Report 1, no. 2 (December 15, 1948):
5.
41
Richard H. Hancock, The Role of the Bracero in the Economic and Cultural Dynamics of Mexico: A Case Study of Chihuahua (Stanford, CA: Hispanic American
Society, 1959), 30.
27
28

TRANSNATIONAL LABOR ACTIVISM AGAINST MIGRANT LABOR

181

42
For an account of this incident, see Juan Ramon García, Operation Wetback: The
Mass Deportation of Mexican Undocumented Workers in 1954 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980), 73–75.
43“U.S. to Investigate Mexican Charges of Illegal Entry of Mexican Workers,” Department of State Bulletin 19, no. 487 (October 31, 1948): 562.
44
“Opiniones de líderes obreros,” Excélsior (Mexico City), October 19, 1948, 9; “Lacuestión de los ‘braceros,’ ” La Opinión (Los Angeles), October 25, 1948, 3.
45“Plot to Lure Mexican Workers to U.S. Charged,” Los Angeles Times, October 26,
1948, 17.
46
“Sindicato Americano Nacional de Trabajadores Agrícolas (AFL),” Acción Social
9, nos. 104–5 (September-October 1948): 6, 24.
47
José Hernández Serrano to H. L. Mitchell, December 19, 1949, Galarza Papers, box
19, folder 6.
48
Ernesto Galarza to José Hernández Serrano, February 3, 1950, Galarza Papers, box
19, folder 6.
49
Ernesto Galarza to José Hernández Serrano, October 21, 1950, Galarza Papers, box
19, folder 6.
50
Ibid.
51
H. L. Mitchell, “Why Import Farm Workers,” American Federationist 56, no. 2(February 1949): 20–21; William Green, “Our Own Forgotten People: Migrant Workers
Denied a Square Deal,” American Federationist 57, no. 12 (December 1950): 20–22,
30.
52
The Ambassador in Mexico (Thurston) to the Secretary of State, Mexico, DF,
January 4, 1949, ﬁle 811.504 Mexico/1–449, RG 59, National Archives and Records
Administration, College Park, Maryland (hereafter cited as NA).
53
Memorandum: Conversación telefónica sostenida entre el Sr. de la Colina y el Lic.
Sánchez Gavito, December 6, 1948, Acervo Histórico de la Secretaría de Relaciones
Exteriores, Mexico City, Exp. III-2486–9.
54“Acuerdo sobre la contratación de trabajadores agrícolas mexicanos. Celebrado por
canje de notas fechadas en la Ciudad de México, el 1 de agosto de 1949,” Tratados ratificados y convenios ejecutivos celebrados por México, vol. 11, 1948, part 2: 1949
(Mexico City: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 1972), 305–24.
55
Robert E. Wilson to A. W. Motley, April 22, 1949, ﬁle 811.504 Mexico/4–2049,
RG 59, NA; Robert C. Goodwin to Paul J. Reveley, May 9, 1949, ﬁle 811.504
Mexico/5–949, RG 59, NA.
56
Horacio Terán, “Sintesis de los puntos básicos que contendrá el acuerdo internacional para la contratación de trabajadores agrícolas mexicanos que vayan a prestar sus
servicios a los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica,” February 3, 1949, Exp. 546.6/1–32,
AGN.
57
Department of State to American Embassy in Mexico, DF, June 9, 1949, RG 59, ﬁle811.504 Mexico/6–949, RG 59, NA.
58
Craig, Bracero Program, 72–77.
59
Public Law 78, USSL, 82nd Cong., 1st Sess., 1951, 65, (Washington, DC: GPO,
1952), 119–21.
60
Patricia Morales, Indocumentados mexicanos: Causas y razones de la migración
laboral, 2nd ed. (Mexico City: Editorial Grijalbo, 1989), 226–27.
61
Report of the President’s Commission on Migratory Labor. Migratory Labor in
American Agriculture (Washington, DC: GPO, 1951), 88.
62
Kitty Calavita, Inside the State: The Bracero Program, Immigration, and the INS(New York: Routledge, 1992), 35–36.

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63“AFL Hits Alien Workers,” New York Times, December 16, 1949, 3; “New Mexican
Deal Deceit and Fraud,” Farm Labor News 6, no. 6 (September 1951): 1–2.
64
Ernesto Galarza, “They Work for Pennies,” American Federationist 59, no. 4 (April
1952): 10–13, 29.
65
According to Galarza, Mitchell attempted to obtain an ofﬁcial invitation to the intergovernmental negotiations but was ignored and so he sent Galarza as an unofﬁcial observer. Galarza, Farm Workers and Agri-business in California, 154–55.
66
Galarza reports that Interior Ministry ofﬁcials picked up three Alianza organizers at
the meeting and threatened them with incarceration. Ernesto Galarza to H. L. Mitchell,January 30, 1951, Galarza Papers, box 24, folder 6; Ernesto Galarza to H. L. Mitchell,
February 4, 1951, Galarza Papers, box 24, folder 6. A similar incident involving the wifeof a CTM organizer occurred in April. Ernesto Galarza to George Rundquist, April 5,
1951, Galarza Papers, box 19, folder 6.
67
Bases para un pacto entre la Alianza de Braceros Nacionales de México en
Norteamérica y el Sindicato Americano Nacional de Trabajadores Agrícolas-AFL,
February 7, 1951, Galarza Papers, box 24, folder 6; Press Release by National Farm
Labor Union, March 13, 1951, Galarza Papers, box 19, folder 6.
68
In July 1951, for instance, the AFL sent a delegation to Mexico to meet with Mexican
labor leaders and one of the main topics was migration. J. L. Rhodes, Special Report on
Visitation to Mexico, August 9, 1951, Galarza Papers, box 19, folder 6.
69
Memorandum, August 3, 1953, George Meany Memorial Archives, Silver Spring,
Maryland, RG18–009, box 7, ﬁle 16.
70
H. L. Mitchell, “Unions of Two Countries Act on Wetback Inﬂux,” American Federationist 61, no. 1 (January 1954): 28–29; Seraﬁno Romualdi, “Hands across theBorder,” American Federationist 61, no. 6 (June 1954): 19–20; International Conferenceof Trade Unions of Mexico and the United States Convened by the ORIT, Mexico, DF,
December 14–16, 1953, Galarza Papers, box 21, folder 10.
71
Jerry R. Holleman to Paul C. Sparks, September 2, 1953, STFU Papers, reel 37.
72“La CNC contra la salida de brazos,” El Nacional (Mexico City), July 26, 1949, 1.
73
Rodney D. Anderson, “Mexico,” in Latin American Labor Organizations, ed.
Gerald Michael Greenﬁeld and Sheldon L. Maram (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,
1987), 538.
74
Ernesto Galarza to H. L. Mitchell, September 29, 1954, STFU Papers, reel 38.
75
For accounts of Operation Wetback, see García, Operation Wetback; Kelly Lytle
Hernández, “The Crimes and Consequences of Illegal Immigration: A Cross-Border
Examination of Operation Wetback, 1943 to 1954,” Western Historical Quarterly, no.
37 (Winter 2006): 421–44.
76
Morales, Indocumentados mexicanos, 226–27.
77
Galarza, Farm Workers and Agri-business in California, 352.
78
Jenkins, Politics of Insurgency, 125–27.
79
Norman Smith, the president of the AWOC and a former ally of Walter Reuther,
had no experience in farm-labor organizing. Galarza and Mitchell had little inﬂuence
within the union. Ibid., 114–20.
80
Ibid., 157–60.
81
Vargas, Labor Rights Are Civil Rights, 276–77. For a discussion of the ANMA’s
activities, see Ernesto Chávez, ¡Mi Raza Primero! (My People First!): Nationalism,
Identity, and Insurgency in the Chicano Movement in Los Angeles, 1966–1978 (Berkley:
University of California Press, 2002), 14–18.
82
For example, in the 1950s the Community Service Organization, a California-based
community organization, catered to both Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants

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183

regardless of their citizenship or legal status. David G. Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors:
Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity (Berkley: University of California Press, 1995), 168–77.
83
Richard Griswold del Castillo and Richard A. Garcia, César Chávez: A Triumph of
Spirit (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), chap.9.
84
For recent cases of U.S.-Mexican cooperation in organizing immigrant workers
regardless of nationality or legal status, see Ronald L. Mize and Alicia C. S. Swords,
Consuming Mexican Labor: From the Bracero Program to NAFTA (Toronto: Universityof Toronto Press, 2011), chaps. 3 and 4.