At the beginning of World War II, the United States and Mexico
launched the bracero program, a series of labor agreements that
brought Mexican men to work temporarily in U.S. agricultural
fields. In
Braceros, Deborah Cohen asks why these migrants
provoked so much concern and anxiety in the United States and what
the Mexican government expected to gain in participating in the
program. Cohen creatively links the often-unconnected themes of
exploitation, development, the rise of consumer cultures, and
gendered class and race formation to show why those with
connections beyond the nation have historically provoked suspicion,
anxiety, and retaliatory political policies.