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December 1, 2008
Decades later, Mexican guest workers in the Inland area struggle for
proof
Inland residents who worked in the 1940s as Mexican guest workers in the
United States are scrambling to find six-decade-old documents to take
advantage of a Mexican government promise to pay back some of the money
the workers say was robbed from them.
About 4.6 million braceros -- as the guest workers were called -- worked
in the United States from 1942 to 1964 under an agreement between the
U.S. and Mexican governments. Thousands worked in Inland citrus groves
and other sites.
Mexico deducted 10 percent of the workers' wages between 1942 and 1946
and was supposed to place the money in state-owned banks in Mexico as a
savings fund, ex-braceros and their attorneys say.
Yet almost no worker received the money, attorneys say.
After years of pressure, the Mexican government in 2005 agreed to pay
38,000 pesos, about $2,900, to braceros as long as they applied for the
money in Mexico. But many braceros now live in the United States, and,
to settle a 2001 lawsuit, the Mexican government last month allowed
workers to apply at Mexican consulates in the United States.
The Mexican government denies wrongdoing.
About 300 braceros have applied for the money at the Mexican consulate
in San Bernardino since the settlement was announced Oct. 23, said
Federico Bass, spokesman for the consulate. The application deadline is
Jan. 5.
On a recent afternoon, several widows and daughters of braceros were in
a San Bernardino office of the nonprofit Librería del Pueblo, waiting
for help in filling out forms to submit to the consulate. The settlement
allows surviving spouses and children of braceros to claim the money.
Consuela Villalpando, 46, was there waiting for a friend who was
planning to file the forms. Villalpando's father worked as a bracero,
but Villalpando said she does not expect her father to apply under the
settlement. He doesn't believe the Mexican government will actually pay,
she said.
"They have an agreement but they never keep their word," Villalpando
said. "They say the same words all the time, but it's never resolved."
Villalpando said her father, José Villalpando, who is now in Mexico, has
previously asked government officials about the money he believes he is
owed but "he never gets an answer."
José Villalpando is one of many braceros who continue to distrust the
Mexican government despite the settlement, said Paul Lopez, an associate
professor of Chicano studies and sociology at Cal State Chico and author
of a forthcoming book on braceros.
The government dragged its feet for years on payments and the $2,900 it
agreed to pay is far less than it owes the braceros, taking into account
interest payments and inflation, Lopez said.
"It's a cheap way to settle the lost wages for that period," Lopez said.
Matthew Piers, a Chicago lawyer who filed the 2001 lawsuit on behalf of
braceros and helped reach the settlement, said he too was unhappy with
the agreement. But he said it was the best attorneys could get out of
the Mexican government.
The lawsuit was difficult because of the challenges in suing a sovereign
government in U.S. courts and because evidence in the case was six
decades old, he said.
"We wanted to deliver something before the last braceros passed away,"
Piers said.
Piers also bemoaned the Mexican government's insistence that the
settlement only apply to braceros who worked from 1942 to 1946. Many
braceros are unable to prove they worked during that period.
Under pressure, the Mexican government announced a few days after the
settlement that it would pay braceros who worked after 1946 -- but only
if there is money left over in a fund set aside to pay the 1942-46
braceros, said Ricardo Alday, spokesman for the Mexican embassy in
Washington, D.C.
The priority must be with the earlier braceros because they had money
taken out of their checks, Joel Hernandez, legal adviser to the Mexican
foreign minister, said by phone from Mexico City.
Some Inland braceros insist money was also deducted in the 1950s and
1960s, but Lopez said there is only evidence of deductions through 1946.
Piers also assailed the Mexican government's requirement that that
braceros present original documents -- such as work contracts or
identification cards -- from the 1940s to be eligible for the 38,000
pesos.
Maximiliano Silva, 73, of Perris, said the Mexican house where he kept
the documents burned down many years ago. TODEC Legal Center in Perris,
a nonprofit agency that assists braceros, drafted a letter in which
Silva's former coworkers swore that they worked as braceros with Silva.
Luz Maria Ayala, executive director of TODEC, said it's unclear whether
the Mexican government will accept the letter. But she said it's unfair
for the Mexican government to require original documents that many
people long ago threw out, misplaced or lost.
Hernandez said the Mexican government needed proof that applicants'
claims for the money were legitimate.
Ayala said the battle for compensation has dragged on for so long that
some of the Inland braceros died before they could benefit. Of about
3,000 letters TODEC sent out to Inland braceros notifying them of the
agreement, about 200 came back, she said.
Other braceros have difficulty remembering the details of their time as
guest workers. Miguel Ayala is 96. He sat one afternoon at TODEC near a
framed copy of a 2002 newspaper photo in which he was at a Riverside
rally calling for justice for braceros.
The Moreno Valley man remembers that he started working as a bracero in
1942 but doesn't recall how many years he labored. He knows money was
taken out of his check, but he doesn't recall how much.
One of the things that is still clear in his mind is a trip many years
ago to a Mexican state-owned bank in Morelia to ask for the money that
the Mexican government had promised to set aside for him. His son,
Antonio Ayala Madrigal, said his father has spoken often about that
trip.
"They didn't give him anything," Ayala Madrigal said.
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