Recruiting Colonial Migrants for U.S. Farms: The Emergence of Puerto Rico’s Farm Labor Program (1940s-1950s)

• In Event: Looking at the Island from the Diaspora--Historical Perspectives on Migration and Puerto Rico

Abstract

This presentation outlines the initial history of Puerto Rico’s Farm Labor Program during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It describes the procedures for recruiting, transporting and supervising workers. In 1948, Puerto Rican technocrats of the Popular Democratic Party established the Bureau of Employment and Migration under the Department of Labor. The Bureau began the efforts of establishing the appropriate infrastructure and bureaucracy for the success of the Farm Labor Program. I argue that in order to understand Puerto Rico’s migrant farm labor one needs to examine the parallels with the Bracero and West Indian programs and the development of New Deal’s interventions in the labor market. The Farm Labor Program was the product of the efforts of the government of Puerto Rico to modernize and develop the country, but U.S. policies of labor migration also shaped its development.

Author

• Ismael García Colón, City University of New York/College of Staten Island