Commentary: Former bracero doesn't want the program to return. 'People will be treated like slaves'

"The United States had been kind and cruel to his farming family. His uncles had regaled him with tales of the easy money available for legal seasonal workers - known as braceros - which allowed them to buy land and livestock back home. His father, however, was one of a million-plus Mexican men deported in 1955 during Operation Wetback, an Eisenhower administration policy of mass removal in the name of national security and taking back jobs for Americans."

"He boarded a train with his uncles and cousins bound for Chihuahua, where a Mexican health official checked everyone's hands at a recruiting office to make sure they were calloused enough for the hard work ahead. The Alvarados then crossed into a processing center near El Paso. There, American health inspectors typically forced aspiring braceros to strip naked before subjecting them to blood tests, X-rays, rectal exams and a final dusting of their bodies and clothes with DDT."

In 1961, 21-year-old Manuel Alvarado left La Cañada, Zacatecas, for the United States to work as a bracero. His family experienced both benefits and harms from U.S. labor ties: uncles used bracero wages to buy land and livestock, while his father was deported during 1955's Operation Wetback. Recruits underwent hand inspections to ensure calloused hands, crossed into a processing center near El Paso, and faced invasive American health screenings including nudity, blood tests, X-rays, rectal exams and their clothing dusted with DDT. Alvarado worked multiple summers in the U.S. and later expressed no regrets.

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