Bracero: Remaking the California Agricultural Landscape, 1942-1964

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The geographical landscape is a critical component of regional political economies. The shape, structure, and meaning of the landscape are both inputs to and results of the circulation and interaction of capital and labor on the land. The existing landscape structures the ways that capital and labor interact; just as crucially, the interaction of capital and labor reshapes the landscape. When the nature of capital-labor relations changes, it is expected that the landscape -- and therefore the structure of the regional political economy -- will likewise change. This research focuses on the California agricultural landscape during the "bracero" period, 1942-1964. During this era, "guest workers" (braceros) were contracted through the federal government to work for set periods of time in certain US industries. Agriculture was the largest employer of bracero labor; in agriculture, bracero labor was frequently, substantially, but unevenly, supplemented by undocumented migrant labor from Mexico. California was the largest employer of bracero and undocumented labor. The bracero system marked a significant transformation of labor relations in agriculture California, which previously had relied on far less systematized labor market dynamics. Previous research in California has shown that the agricultural landscape -- the foundation of California's agricultural predominance -- was produced through on-going and complex struggles between capital and labor, as mediated by various government agencies. This research will examine the hypothesis that the bracero system significantly altered the form, meaning, and function of the California landscape and therefore of the California agricultural political economy. The investigator will examine archival sources, government documents, congressional hearings and other investigations, company records, and other sources to conduct a systematic, scale-sensitive, and historical analysis of the relations of landscape production (form), the modes of representation of the landscape (meaning), and the specific effects that morphology and representation have in a political economic system (the landscape's function). In doing so, the project will show how bracero labor shaped the landscape in agricultural California and how the landscape shaped bracero labor.This project will provide new insights into the historical geography of the bracero program and California's agricultural political economy in the World War II and post-war eras. The research will contribute significantly to our understanding of the economic geography of California agriculture by focusing on a crucial historical period that is understudied. In doing so, the project will further develop landscape theory and shed light on the value of landscape for understanding regional social, political and economic change in its complexity. In addition, the research will develop valuable data about the nature of "guest worker" programs when they are once again at the top of national policy agendas. Finally, the project will provide significant educational opportunities for a graduate assistant and form the basis of new teaching foci for the PI at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.