Bracero Worker Card
In the Southwest, Mexican immigrants and many Mexican Americans encountered a caste system not unlike Jim Crow segregation. Most of the hardest, lowest-paying work in states such as Texas, Arizona, and California was performed by people of Mexican descent. Under a government program, braceros, or migrant Mexican workers, were allowed into the United States for a limited time to harvest a variety of fruit and vegetable crops. A worker card issued to one such bracero is pictured here. National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Behring Center.