Defiant Braceros

“An essential purchase for any serious collection on labor, social, and migration history, and should be included within any course or curriculum related to gender studies, human rights, oral testimonies, public history, or Latino/a studies.”—American Historical Review

“Commands the attention of scholars interested in migrant labor, Latinx and indigenous identity formations, borderlands, and historical memory.”—Western Historical Quarterly

“An exceptional addition to the historical literature on braceros. . . . A highly accessible and necessary work for anyone wanting to understand the long, complicated history of Mexican laborers in the United States.” —Arkansas Historical Quarterly

“Deploys deep historical and ethnographic detail to show how braceros defied their social invisibility." —Reviews in American History

“Provides valuable insight into Mexican race relations and their impact on American agricultural labor practices.” —North Carolina Historical Review

“This book offers an excellent example of a qualitative research project for methods courses. Highly recommended.”—CHOICE

“An accessible, original, and deeply researched analysis of the Bracero Program, written by the most accomplished oral historian of braceros in the United States and Mexico. Loza builds upon, and goes well beyond, recent studies, advancing a portrayal of braceros as 'deviants' who pushed against expectations and challenged the governmental logic surrounding the program from the 1940s into the early twenty-first century. This is the best book written on the topic.” —Stephen Pitti, Yale University

“Defiant Braceros is unique in that it both signals original arguments concerning the diversity of the bracero population and demonstrates how the effort over the last twenty years to create the ‘ideal bracero’ has sanitized and shaped the public memory of the program and its workers. In examining the ‘deviant’ nature of this diversity, Loza brings the braceros into full view where one can see that these workers were often defiant in the face of intense discrimination and exploitation as transnational workers without a country looking out for their well-being and security.” —George Sanchez, University of Southern California