http://www.boston.com/news/world/latina ... ay?mode=PF

By Elizabeth Fullerton | May 3, 2004

TLAXCALA, Mexico (Reuters) - President Bush raised Mexican hopes with a proposal in January for a new guest worker program but it brought back bad memories to thousands of Mexican laborers who say they were exploited under a similar plan in the 1940s and 1960s.

Hundreds of thousands of men went north across the border to earn money picking fruit and vegetables under a plan begun in World War II while many American workers were fighting overseas.

The former laborers, known as "braceros" from the Spanish "brazo" for arm, are now causing a headache for President Vicente Fox by clamoring for money they say they are owed from those days.

Earlier this year, a group of former guest workers -- many now grandfathers -- stormed Fox's ranch on horseback to press their demands.

In the tiny central state of Tlaxcala, where the skyline is dominated by Spanish colonial churches and the dormant La Malinche volcano, migration is a growing trend among the young.

Between 1942 and 1964, more than 5,000 men from Tlaxcala alone went to the United States to make their fortune but found the American dream lacking.

"We were humiliated and exploited. I risked a lot," said Pedro Grande, 72, an ex-guest worker from Tlaxcala.

On their arrival at U.S. labor centers, the workers were stripped naked, fumigated head to toe and given blood tests, the white-haired laborer said from the courtyard of his adobe home where turkeys strutted between the hanging laundry.

Work was grueling, often in extreme heat or cold. Guest workers say they spent 12-hour shifts hunched over in fields on little sleep, and food and pay was meager.

Today, Grande said he would discourage his grandchildren from following in his footsteps.

More than one million Mexicans try to slip across the border every year in search of jobs. Hundreds die of dehydration and exposure in the attempt.

In January, Bush proposed a plan to issue three-year renewable visas to migrant workers and allow millions of illegal immigrants living in the United States to apply for legal status for an initial three-year period if they could prove they had jobs.

LOST MONEY

Mexico's government says it is committed to resolving the guest worker problem but denies responsibility for the lost money.

The U.S. and Mexican governments were only involved in the original contract for the guest worker plan, valid from 1942 to 1946, that stipulated employers retain 10 percent of workers' wages in a savings fund to be reimbursed on their return to Mexico.

It was unclear if the fund's purpose was to enable workers to reinvest the money in Mexico's countryside or as an incentive for them to return home, said Jose Antonio Plaza, part of the Interior Ministry team handling the issue.

From 1946 to 1949, a modified contract still included a clause about the fund but it was exclusively between the employer and worker. Thereafter, it was dropped from bracero contracts.

"It could be that (employers) continued to discount the wages but they didn't give that money to anyone, nor transfer it to any bank," said Plaza.

Including interest, the laborers calculate they are owed billions of dollars but the exact figure is unclear and tracking it down 60 years on may be impossible.

Many of the workers have died, others have lost their original contracts and in many cases the paperwork showing what transfers were made have long been destroyed or discarded.

Plaza said a government solution might take the form of social benefits -- for example, as of this year braceros are eligible for free medical attention -- but financial handouts are unlikely.

That won't satisfy Tlaxcala's former guest workers.

"We are asking for justice, not alms. We gave the best years of our lives to them," said Everardo Martinez, 64, who first went to pick cotton in New Mexico in 1959, aged 18.

NOT ALL BAD

It was not all bad. Some of the braceros stayed on and made a life across the border.

With the fruits of his labors, Hermenegildo Vasquez, 74, built a two-storey concrete home in the village of Santa Cruz Guadalupe beneath La Malinche volcano.

He recognizes the benefits of his U.S. experience but says a new U.S. guest worker plan must be more humane by including social security, decent lodging and access to medicine.

"They have to treat people who go with respect, as humans. We are all worthy," said Vasquez.

The former guest workers hope Bush's proposal will bring their grievances to the spotlight and put pressure on Mexico's government to redress them.

But analysts are skeptical Bush's proposal will ever go through after a lukewarm reception from the U.S. Congress and opposition from the Republican Party.

Gordon Hanson, director for the center of U.S.-Mexican studies at the University of California at San Diego, said immigration remained a divisive issue.

"I don't see the political space for reaching any sort of accommodation. Certainly not before the (November U.S. presidential) elections," he said.