Viewfinder; Los Braceros; Utep IV - Rio Vista B-Roll

OK I have one son named me good granddaughter named at least son and a grandson named Joaquin and they all did and some don't know what is your standard for living. He stays at home with the kids. So I called him up and I said What are you doing. Changing diapers. What else are you doing rearranging furniture and then my wife comes home and says you don't do anything all day. Yeah it's a real role reversal it's totally reversed. It's hilarious. She's a customer service rep for Time Warner. OK so I'm going to start with the easiest and probably the only real question I'll ask you that's formal in your name and the spelling of your name. OK my name is still none the Chavis Leyva. And you want me to spell the whole they sure look it's y o l in the middle name a child this age with an accent be easy unless the name is Leyva and I land I can tell you. Some sort of official title for assistant professor of history

at the University of Texas at a bustle. And you give us your permission to use your interview and likeness on camera. Yes I do. OK thank you very much. Start a little bit with your personal history which is how did you become interested in the history of the Borderlands. Well I became interested in the history of the Borderlands because I grew up on the border and as a child as an adolescent even as a college student I didn't like history and I didn't do well in history how I was tell my students I got Cs and Ds they hated history because I didn't at all see the relevance of history to my own life. Yet there was this whole historical teaching that I was receiving at home from my parents and my older aunts and uncles. They really talked about these huge historical events the Depression and World War Two. The Mexican Revolution but I never connected those to history in the classroom. When I turned 30 after having received a business degree and been a social worker for a

decade I decided to change my life and I thought well history makes total sense to me now because I understand what history is and I wanted to be able to teach a history. Both that was relevant to me and to the history of my family and also to teach in the place where that history would be understood and needed so that bus was a perfect place to study and to teach for me this is a very important place when it comes to the prestigious program what can you give us a little bit of background about the bursitis program and how again you became so interested in teaching about it. This is one of the things that is fascinating to me and it's been critical to the formation of the border and to the nation of both nations actually Mexico and the United States is the constant movement of people from one side of the border to the other side back and forth. And what I said a program is not only an important part of that movement across the border in the 20th century. It really helped

create the patterns of migration that that we're still debating today still discussing today. So that that migration of labor to me is is critical to understanding the history of both nations. You know a lot of people think though that you're right that the going back and forth between two countries is relatively new but it's been going on for almost a hundred years. Well I would be saying that it's actually been going on for thousands of years because I tried to look at history in a more continental way and also look at the historical patterns that precede the nation state. So there's been migration between what is now Mexico and what is now the United States for thousands and thousands of years. Corn was brought here from southern central Mexico 5000 years ago to that to this location. So that migration is is very old. Can you give us in the course of studying extensively about the Braceros program and about teaching about it. If people are watching this program that we're doing for

public television what would you want them to walk away with when they hear they hear about the history of the restaurant program the few things that you really would like them to remember. What I would really like people to remember if they remember nothing else about the but US federal program is the contribution of about not just the four million but us adults who came to the United States to work in agriculture primarily but also industry railroad. So I would like them too to remember and acknowledge the contribution of that labor. But also the sacrifices of the families back in Mexico who allowed off and the main wage earner to leave the women who were left back home to raise families to try to make a living. The whole family made a sacrifice to come here for a lot of people do it I guess it paid off for them in some way shape or form despite the difficulties of having to leave their families.

Right the fact that four million workers would leave their homes and crossed into the United States for the but I said a program really points to the lack of opportunity in Mexico at that time. And but I said a program did you know it's a very mixed bag because it did provide opportunity obviously and people did want to participate in it and often there were actually thousands of men at the border waiting to be processed into the but I said a program at any time. So it did provide that kind of economic opportunity that wasn't present in Mexico but it was also at a high cost and the working conditions were not good living conditions were horrible at times. At times they would not be paid. And then of course the big controversy over the 10 percent of their wages that was kept aside for for sapience for when they would return in the millions of dollars that had just disappeared. Look the status is right now that money you know that there are people we talk to a man we're going to

just you know he was in Stockton and he's one of the people who's involved in an actual lawsuit a class action lawsuit that's going on. Have you been keeping abreast of what's going on with that or can you explain a little bit more about what that's all about because you talk to us in Spanish. Right. Well what happened was that all the rest of the program lasted from 1042 to 1964 and there were periods of time when 10 percent of what I said was paychecks would be held back. And the idea was to hold it back until they returned to Mexico at which point they would be given that 10 percent. So it was kind of an in forced savings program but millions of dollars that were held back just disappeared so the but US adults have been working along with their advocates for years now to try to get that money back and there was a settlement recently so that some but us adults and their families are getting a portion of the money back that a lot of it seems to have just evaporated. Right. Yeah and you know we're trying I'm trying to make things so that they're not dated

so if something happens the next couple. Right now I have to keep it as generic right. Let's talk a little bit too about the proposed guest worker program that the Bush administration is trying to push I KNOW IT'S MY LAST thing I heard about it was that it has been stalled right now but are you familiar with it with the tenets of the guest worker program where the president's guest worker program and he talked about it during the State of the Union Address is very vague. You can't really find out anything specific about it and that's when I knew you were going to ask me about it I thought well what can I say about it it's so vaguely put right now. You know he devoted less than 100 words to it in the state of the Union and it's such a controversial idea so I wouldn't even call it a program right now because it's not even that well formulated yet. It's just his idea of having a guest worker program is so controversial. I don't imagine he would have an easy time gaining support from the Latinos and

immigration advocates oppose it because of the abuses of the previous But I said a program unions oppose it because they feel it's bringing competition to US workers. Social conservatives oppose it because they don't want any more Mexicans in the United States. So it's going to be a tough row for him. Did he want to support it even as an idea. Some people support us. Some immigrant rights activists support the idea of a guest worker program. If it has human rights if it has working conditions if it has all of that in place and that those conditions would be enforced which is one of the problems with that but I said the program that the contracts were really enforced. It's always a problem. Yeah. Yes so you had people living in converted chicken coops

and it was a part of the original idea. I mean it. Right. And that seems to happen a lot when there's any kind of negotiation between Mexico and the United States. The Mexican government of course always wants to ensure that the workers that are coming over here are going to be protected. But they don't ever have quite that power to enforce that protection. And that's what happened quite often with the. But I said a program to the point where there's a various times between 1042 in 1864 where there was no contract in place because the negotiation between the two countries just broke down. My dad the one. Who knows that we haven't touched on it you think is really important about the best program the history of the program as it went through the years and the personal stories that you now because another thing I'd like to say but the put us in a program is that many families in the United States today and I guess and I know certainly many families here in the

area trace trace their families first migration to the United States through the program. So when I talk to my students I have lots of grandchildren. But I said to us so a little bit us at a program really also. Was a big step in the migration of families here afterwards even though that's not the intention of the program. Even though you weren't interested in history initially. Do you try to infuse a lot of history with your students especially since they do have that familial connection here on the border. I do and it's because I didn't like history and because I couldn't figure out what was the point of history that I really work at. Trying to connect history to not just to my students at the university but we also do community history projects because I'm also the public historian. So I do a lot of community history projects with my students. We go out to high schools we do museums for a day we do oral histories with elders in the community and the students are really able to see how this

kind of history impacted their family and that's how I know that there's so many grandchildren about us adults here because so we have the high school kids go out and talk to their families. How did we get here. Who were grandparents where did they come from the best that a program comes up over and over and over again four million people. Right and that's a lot of people that's a lot of people that a lot of descendants. You're from your own words. Yeah I really do think they do. My my teaching assistant carries around sometimes a photo of her grandfather and he was a breast that worked on the railroads and so there really is an understanding of history here.

Sometimes I have students who say my grandfather was a bit etc. but they don't know what a but I said it was exactly but they know that word so when they hear about the program then they really understand the history of their family more. And I can appreciate some of the sacrifices that salute me. Yeah. Yes. So it comes from the Spanish word arms because what the United States wanted was working arms. So it's men with arms literally from Brussels from Brussels who is trying to herd too that some people who are from middle class families in Mexico who had never done any manual labor would rest their hands when they were coming across the border to be accepted into the program. Right because that's one of the things that recruiters looked for was calloused hands because they wanted men who had experience in manual labor who had experience in agricultural labor. So they look for the signs of someone who had worked right. Right.

You know that's a great that's a great question. And if so has been critical to all the migrations of people between and back and forth between Mexico and the United States at Busta has always been until very recently the major port of entry for Mexicans coming into the United States and this was also a major port of entry for a bit less it was coming into the United States that would be shooting at the processing center. Oh that's great that's great. And I should be good because I understand sort of in a state of arrested decay like it did maybe 40 50 years ago. Yeah it's of an amazing looking place and quit made a bustle so important was that the railroads from Mexico on the railroads from the United States met here so it brought people from from both countries to this place. It's a transportation hub from which everyone came they came you know and then they left for right. Right exactly. I think they should do or actually walk in and

let them pass. Yeah. When he started this story gets right. Yes. And I don't have you reaching again. There was something about you Mexicans. I. Know. You can put it. And I have you hold it down again. Just go ahead and. Yeah OK.

Oh. On.

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Yeah. Hard again. Do you think the big guys fault that will let you so you're using the word here. The dormitory at a processing center or a dormitory. These.

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