Dr. Mireya Loza, currently a Curator in the Division of Political History at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Former assistant professor in Latino/a Studies at University of Illinois, 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 this country 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 the real, diverse experiences of the workers themselves. Basing her work on an archive of more than 800 oral histories from the United States and Mexico, she captures the myriad ways these defiant workers responded to the intense discrimination and exploitation of an unjust system that still persists today.
Book-signing after the lecture. Admission is free and open to the public, but advance registration is required at http://www.hmh.org/RegisterEvent.aspx.
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