Bittersweet Harvest

Begun in 1942 to address labor needs in agriculture and the railroads, the U.S. government’s bracero program became the largest guest worker program in U.S. history, with hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers providing manpower from World War II through 1964. Bittersweet Harvest, a new bilingual exhibition organized by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, examines the experiences of Bracero workers and their families, providing rich insight into Mexican-American life and historical background to today’s debates on immigration and guest worker programs.

Bittersweet Harvest

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