The braceros came to the United States by filling a job in agriculture that few wanted to do.
Members of the History Student Association (HSA) raised money for a statue of a bracero at an event in the University Student Union yesterday featuring a film screening, book presentation, music and singing.
The event aimed to help inform visitors of what the Bracero Program is, what the braceros have done and what they have been through.
“A lot of people our age don’t know what a bracero is and the effects the program had,” said Liliana Montalvo, senior history major and one of the heads of the HSA. “It’s there to aid in educating people and to remember these men who were pretty much forgotten in history.”
An event like this has not happened at Cal State Long Beach until now. The documentary entitled “A Harvest of Loneliness,” shown during the event, was screened last semester during Ethnic Studies Week on campus.
The Braceros Association was looking for help in collecting pennies last semester when the HSA volunteered to help. Along with the HSA, other organizations helped with the event in the USU, including the Chicano studies department and the College of Liberal Arts.
The organization is collecting pennies and other copper items like keys. The pennies will go toward the construction of the statue by being melted down and used in its construction.
“By contributing pennies, you become part of the statue,” Montalvo, said. “So, you’re acknowledging, accepting and commemorating the braceros and their histories.”
The Daily 49er reported that the departments of romance, German, and Russian languages helped collect pennies, keys and copper items last semester to help the braceros.
The statue is planned to be placed on Olvera Street in the heart of Los Angeles, with a base of about three feet and the statue reaching a height of about six feet.
Each article of clothing the statue wears represents different states of Mexico.
For example, the sombrero style comes from the state of Zacatecas and the huaraches (sandals) come from Michoacan. According to Baldomero Capiz, president of the Binational Union of Organization for former braceros, the statue was meant to pay homage to the former braceros of various states in Mexico.
The penny drive is an ongoing effort from different organizations to raise the necessary funds in order to create the statue.
The Bracero Program consisted of half a million workers brought from Mexico to America by the American government to work in agriculture and railroads from the 1940s to the 1960s.
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