Defiant Braceros : How Migrant Workers Fought for Racial, Sexual, and Political Freedom

In this book, Mireya Loza sheds new light on the private lives of migrantmen who participated in the Bracero Program (1942–1964), a binationalagreement between the United States and Mexico that allowed hundredsof thousands of Mexican workers to enter this country on temporary workpermits. While this program and the issue of temporary workers has longbeen politicized on both sides of the border, Loza argues that the prevailingromanticized image of braceros as a family-oriented, productive, legal workforcehas obscured the real, diverse experiences of the workers themselves.Focusing on underexplored aspects of workers’ lives—such as their transnationalunion-organizing efforts, the sexual economies of both hetero andqueer workers, and the ethno-racial boundaries among Mexican indigenousbraceros—Loza reveals how these men defied perceived political, sexual, andracial norms.

Basing her work on an archive of more than 800 oral histories from theUnited States and Mexico, Loza is the first scholar to carefully differentiatebetween the experiences of mestizo guest workers and the many Mixtec,Zapotec, Purhepecha, and Mayan laborers. In doing so, she captures themyriad ways these defiant workers responded to the intense discriminationand exploitation of an unjust system that still persists today.