Former braceros seek payments from Mexican government

Quyen Lovrich/KPCC

A group of Mexican ex-braceros are calling on the Mexican government to release millions of dollars in funding earmarked for the workers.

A small group of former Mexican braceros and their relatives demonstrated quietly Thursday outside the Mexican Consulate near downtown Los Angeles. They want Mexico’s government to pay them money promised decades ago.

The bracero program was a deal between the United States and Mexico that started during World War II. To address a labor shortage, tens of thousands of Mexican men like Juan Javier Jimenez traveled north of the border to work on farms or railroads.

"I worked in Salinas, picking lettuce." said Jimenez, now 73-years-old and living in Los Angeles.

He also worked as a bracero in Arizona from 1956 to 1959. The Mexican government put 10 percent of the braceros’ wages into savings accounts for later use. Some braceros received their savings, but Jimenez and about 35,000 others are still waiting. Some have died.

The soft-spoken Jimenez said he’s gotten the runaround for years. He called on the Mexican government to publish regulations that provide for payments of about $4,000 each.

Immigrant rights activist Juan Jose Gutierrez, director of Vamos Unidos, plans to meet with the acting Mexican consul general next week to share the ex-braceros concerns.

"For the Mexican government to be treating these individuals as though they’re not deserving of their compensation — and they’re actually receiving sort of like charity, like if they were beggars — when this is the money they earned and it was taken unjustly from them. They deserve to get it," said Gutierrez.

"We’re not here to step on the Mexican government. We’re here to urge them to do the right thing," he said.