TEXAS TOWN LOOKS TO TELL STORY OF MEXICAN GUEST WORKERS
Source: Associated Press
Mar 4, 10:13 AM EST
TEXAS TOWN LOOKS TO TELL STORY OF MEXICAN GUEST WORKERS
BY JAMIE STENGLE
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DALLAS (AP) -- A Texas border town is working to restore what is believed to be the only remaining site that once helped process the millions of Mexicans who came to the U.S. as temporary guest workers under a program that started during World War II.
The crumbling white adobe buildings at Rio Vista Farm in Socorro, a town along the Rio Grande about 620 miles west of Dallas, were the arrival point for "braceros" - Spanish for laborers - who came to the U.S. to work on farms and railroads as part of a program in the middle part of the 20th century. Local officials and preservationists hope to turn it into a site that will tell the story of the workers and a largely forgotten program that lasted for about 20 years.
"These men left their families, left their communities with the hope of economic opportunity and often worked incredibly hard and in very difficult kinds of conditions," said Peter Liebhold, curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
The effort to preserve the 102-year-old site as a sort of museum documenting a program that helped the U.S. get workers during World War II has gained new significance since President Donald Trump took office after promising to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and step up deportation efforts.
Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BRACERO_HISTORIC_SITE_TXOL-?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-03-04-10-13-42
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