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Podcast: New Books in Latino Studies
Episode: Mireya Loza, “Defiant Braceros: How Migrant Workers Fought for Racial, Sexual, and Political Freedom” (UNC Press, 2016)
Description: Mireya Loza’s Defiant Braceros How Migrant Workers Fought for Racial, Sexual, and Political Freedom (University of North Carolina Press, 2016) sheds new light on the private lives of migrant men who participated in the Bracero Program (1942-1964), a binational agreement between the United States and Mexico that allowed hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers to enter the U.S. on temporary work permits. While this program and the issue of temporary workers has long been politicized on both sides of the border, Loza argues that the prevailing romanticized image of braceros as a family-oriented, productive, legal workforce has obscured th...