Overview
This is the link for the documentary: https://youtu.be/PcV2EOo-Xdcr
Citical Paper Assignment
All They Will Call You: The Bracero Program, Settler Colonialism, Trauma, and Healing El recordar es vivir (To remember is to live) Luis Miranda Cuevas, All They Will Call You, pg. 41 Here in los Estados (United States), one never sleeps. Jose Sanchez Valdivia, All They Will Call You, pg. 83 The crops are all in and the peaches are rottin’/The oranges are piled in yer creosote dumps/Yer flyin’ them back to the Mexican border/To pay all their money to wade back again/ Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye to Rosalita/Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria/You won’t have a name when you ride the big airplane/All they will call you will be...deportee Woody Guthrie, Martin Hoffman “Deportee” Prompt This paper assignment is partly academic and partly personal. The academic portion is based on Tim Hernandez’s book, All They Will Call You, and Gilbert Gonzalez’s documentary film, Harvest of Loneliness. Both these texts explore the Bracero Program from a humanistic perspective; that is, rather than narrate its history, what we learn from the book and film is how this “temporary” policy impacted Mexican farm workers and their families. In Hernandez’s book, the focus is on 28 Mexicans and 4 crew members who died in a plane crash on January 31, 1948. The Bracero Program had been established six years earlier, in 1942, as a short-term measure to bring Mexicans to work in the fields in the United States during World War II. Since so many men had been drafted, there were labor shortages and the United States and Mexico worked out an agreement to bring workers here on a temporary basis until the war ended. But after 1945, the Bracero Program continued for another nineteen years, until 1964. One year later, in 1965, the United Farm Workers (UFW) emerged, the first sustained and long-lasting union for farm workers in the United States. The word “bracero” is linked to the Spanish word “brazo” or arm. Mexican workers were desired because their arms literally picked crops that generated profits for agribusiness companies and kept people alive with their labor. Brazos, however, cannot be separated from cuerpos (bodies), espiritus (spirits), and familias (families). Every bracero came from someplace, they had parents, spouses, children, hobbies, personalities, and above all, names. After the horrific plane crash that occurred on January 31, 1948, newspaper articles never mentioned the names of the Mexican farm workers that had been killed. They were simply called “deportees” because they had been caught by Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agents and were being shipped or deported back to Mexico. But these men were more than just “deportees;” they were human beings who left behind families, lovers, and dreams.
2 Tim Hernandez learned about the plane crash from U.S. folk singer Woody Guthrie who wrote a song titled “Deportee” in 1948. “Deportee” has been recorded by many iconic singers including Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Joan Baez, and others. Hernandez became fascinated with learning more about these men—what were their names, where did they come from, who did they leave behind, what were their dreams and aspirations? So he started digging—doing research—placing newspaper ads, going to cemeteries, looking for archival materials, and conducting interviews with family members and other relevant people. He never relented, although he thought about giving up, and he eventually got some answers and produced this book that you are reading for this class. During our classes for this upcoming week, we will focus on a concept known as “settler colonialism.” Settler colonialism is based on land dispossession and elimination of native or Indigenous populations. Even before the 1948 plane crash, there were bones in Los Gatos Canyon, in the Diablo Mountain range near Coalinga, California. Hernandez (2014, pg. 20) includes this story from a long-time resident, “Long time ago, soldiers from the mission in San Juan Bautista massacred a group of Yokut Indians here too. Guess that was pretty common in those days. Gotta be careful where you step around here, never know what you’ll come across. The land keeps everything. And it remembers too.” There were approximately one hundred million Indigenous peoples living in the Americas when Columbus and other Spanish conquistadores arrived. They had established complex societies built around corn production (Dunbar Ortiz). Indigenous peoples migrated North and South and had always been on the move (they still are). There were no national boundaries or borders back then, but those were created over time, with the rise of nation-states. Spain conquered Mexico (defeating the Aztecs who ruled from 1325 to 1521) and maintained power until 1821 when the country became independent. California (Alta and Baja) was part of Spain and later Mexico, until 1848, when the United States took nearly one-half of Mexico during the U.S.-Mexico War (Zinn). The Californios were multi-racial—Indigenous, Spanish, African, European, Asian. In Mi Familia, we see the “Californio” as a proud man who didn’t recognize the United States government or the Catholic Church (two colonial and very powerful institutions). In California, more than ten thousand (10,000) Indigenous people were massacred and killed between 1846 and 1873. In 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a formal apology stating that what happened to Indigenous people in the state constituted “genocide.” Scholar Patrick Wolfe says, “the question of genocide is never far from discussions of setter colonialism.” Once Indigenous populations are exterminated (and tens of millions of Indigenous people were killed between 1492 when Columbus arrived and 1900), then land can be “discovered” and “settled.” The new settlers don’t only exterminate and disappear actual people, they dispose or throw away their cultural, linguistic, and spiritual traditions—genocide is systematic and widespread and it continues—it is a process, not an event. It is ongoing. For those who remain, incidentally, they were often forced to change their names to assimilate and fit into mainstream society (and at times, no one even bothered to record their names as in the case of the 1948 plane crash, the cemetery archives call them “Mexican nationals”). The Bracero Program thus occurred within the context of settler colonialism and racialized capitalism. In the film, Harvest of Loneliness, many people liken the Bracero Program to slavery
3 and the slave markets from many centuries ago, when enslaved Africans were put on display and sold. Mexicans endured degrading conditions, being stripped and doused with dangerous chemicals. Once they had done those things, they entered the United States as braceros/brazos, their names were unimportant and even in death, their names were never recorded. Their lives didn’t matter because after all, they were only braceros or “deportees,” but Hernadez and Gonzalez tell their stories and this assignment is about telling those stories. But this assignment isn’t only about telling their stories—it is about you telling your story. Just like I did last week, with my lecture called “I Change Myself, I Change the World,” where I shared about my Grandma Armbruster, stepmother (who recently passed away) and my nephew Nicholas, I imagine you all have stories to share, about loved ones who might have passed away, but also stories about loved ones who are still here, people who inspired, loved, and supported you. People who nurtured and believed in you. These folks could be your parents, siblings, grandparents and so on—but they could also include teachers, counselors, and other influential role models and mentors. Could you share in this assignment who those people are—tell us their story and what they would call you? In other words, many years from now (decades and decades), in the future, you will pass on and when that happens, what do you hope they will call you? You have a name, but who are you and most importantly, who or what shaped you? In this book and film, we learn the stories of these farm workers who came to the United States from 1942-1964, we learn their names and who loved them and what they hoped to do with their lives. Can you narrate two of these stories in this paper? And can you narrate your story as well? That’s what this paper is all about—telling stories, narrating not only trauma and pain, but also love, joy, and healing. We tell stories to heal. As the first epigraph says, “To remember is to live.” Stories enable us to re/member, so often we have been dis/membered, quite literally at times. When we put ourselves back together, we start to heal. As Anzaldúa says in her iconic article on conocimiento, arrébatos are traumatic events, which are often disorienting and scary, but also can be transformative. In Cherrie Moraga’s words, “breakdowns can spark breakthroughs.” So often we forget traumatic events, personal and political. They are just too painful, but what might happen if we remembered these folks who died in the 1948 plane crash? What might happen if we honored their labor, if we honored the labor of essential workers who kept working during the Covid-19 pandemic, if we honored the labor of campus workers and so on? What might happen if we simply learned their names and stories and saw them as human beings rather than as threats or the frightening “other?” What if we heard their stories and realized that they were us? Wouldn’t we mourn their loss and then maybe even fight for the living, those still doing all that labor that keeps us alive? Wouldn’t that be some breakthrough? The Assignment • Pick out two stories from Tim Hernandez’s book, All They Will Call You that moved, inspired, touched, or upset you. Choose one person who died in the plane crash and one other person from the text. Tell us a little about these people, like who were they, where they migrated from, what their dreams were and so on. Provide key details about why these people’s stories touched, moved, or inspired you. (25 points)
4 • Pick out one story from Gilbert Gonzalez’s documentary film, Harvest of Loneliness, that moved, inspired, touched, or upset you. Provide specific details regarding why this person’s story impacted you in this manner. (25 points) • Shifting gears, talk about your own story now. Write about a person who really loved, nurtured, and supported you who might have passed away. You can also talk about a person who may still be alive who really positively impacted your life. You might include a picture of this person in your paper and mention them during class on October 17. What will they call you? (25 points) • Finally, step back for a moment and reflect on the questions from the last paragraph on the prompt. What happens when we learn the names of the people who died in the 1948 plane crash and who worked in the fields during the Bracero Program? What should we call them? Could the simple act of saying their names and learning their stories bring about healing and social change? Could saying presente undermine settler colonialism or is that going too far? (25 points) Key Details • Papers submitted after the deadline will be deducted ten points per day that they are late. Please submit in PDF format. • Papers should include a title page. Include a title for your paper, your TA’s name, day and time of your section, your name, and date. This is a separate page from the content of your paper. • Papers should be 4-5 pages long. Double space pages and include page numbers. Use 1” margins and 12” Times New Roman Font. • Include a works cited page. This page should be included separately after your final page of your paper. You should cite Hernandez, Gonzalez, and at least two other sources from our class (you can include lecture or section material as a source).