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MEChA hosts immigration injustice forum
Several speakers, including a member of the National Assembly of Ex-Braceros, discussed the rights of immigrants in the U.S.
By Ed Oser
News Reporter

March 02, 2006

13Speaking through a translator, Don Felipe Muñoz Pavón presented his personal history as a participant in a U.S. labor program during World War II .

“I humbly put myself at your service,” he said at an event in the Multicultural Center Tuesday.

The Chicano cultural student group MEChA hosted the event to facilitate discussion about the issue of immigration, said Jose Pena, MEChA’s recruitment and retention coordinator.

In 1944 Pavón left his native Mexico for Soledad, Calif., to work as a farm laborer as part of a federal program he said abused him and stole from the more than 3 million participants.

In 1942, the Mexican and U.S. governments allowed temporary Mexican labor to cross the border to offset the World War II labor shortage in what was called the Bracero Program. Pavón said he went into debt to pay his way to the hiring center, where he experienced “sorrow and embarrassment” as authorities stripped and de-loused the workers, and took blood transfusions for American soldiers. After the workers were trucked to their different locations, the bosses treated them like animals, Pavón said, giving them small amounts of bad food.

The workers signed a contract that stated 10 percent of their pay would be deferred to a Wells Fargo Bank savings fund to be reimbursed 62 years later. Pavón said he is still waiting.

“There needs to be a simple principle of reciprocity,” Pavón said.

Pavón is a member of the National Assembly of Ex-Braceros, a group dedicated to reclaiming the skimmed funds for all Bracero workers. The group started from five members and quickly grew to more than 5,000 members, he said. Presently there are about 10,000 members.

In closing, Pavón urged the attendees to find unity.

Guadalupe Quinn of the Mexican Solidarity Network also spoke.

“The situation of immigrant workers has not changed since the Bracero struggle,” she said.

Quinn said a recent legislation, the Sensenbrenner/King Bill signed by Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., is anti-immigrant, and there is still a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment in Lane County.

Quinn said Wells Fargo has refused to give information to the ex-Braceros, claiming it to be confidential. She suggested that the public send letters to Wells Fargo asking it to release its records, so the ex-Braceros can receive any owed money. Wells Fargo should have a list of the individuals that created and accessed the account, she said.

The Mexican government has offered to pay $3,000 to each ex-Bracero, but Quinn said ex-Braceros objected because they want to legitimately get the money they earned.

The ex-Braceros, she said, are “not looking for a handout.”

Macrina Cardenas also spoke of the injustices Bracero workers faced after the program ended.

In 1954, she said, the state of Texas initiated a program called Operation Wetback, designed to deport Mexican workers. The workers, Cardenas said, would cross the border illegally and find their old jobs.

Cardenas said she believes immigrants cannot be forced back with walls or security measures, and they deserve legal rights and benefits because they are human beings and a vital part of the economy.

“There’s nothing more permanent than a temporary worker,” she said.


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Contact the general assignment reporter at eoser@dailyemerald.com