many do not they knew what was spraying them, but its use was so widespread that it is calledRon “The dust”.
The photograph that opens this note is especially prominent by historians in United States and some describe the captured scene as “An atrocious moment”.
In it a masked official fumigates the face of a young Mexican naked with the pesticide DDT at a processing center in Hidalgo, Texas, while others wait in line behind while holding their belongings.
It was taken by New Yorker Leonard Nadel a 1956 while documenting the Bracero program, Under which at least 4 millions of Mexicans they emigrated temporarily to United States to work between 1942 and 1964.
The scheme was initially established to compensate for the absence of American workers due to military recruitment during the Second World War.
DDT was used until the mid-60s in immigrants to prevent the spread of malaria and typhus and its use was later banned in the United States in 1972.
Today it is classified by the government of that country and international authorities as a “probable carcinogen human “.
but this one he was not the only one pesticide used to “disinfect” a Mexican immigrants on the border between Mexico and the United States for decades.
Years before the implementation of the Bracero program, another insecticide was used in visitor reception centers and would serve as example to officials of the Nazism in Germany.
Zyklon B.
David Dorado Romo, historian and chronicler of El Pas and Ciudad Juárez, came across an article in a 1937 German scientific journal that left him stunned.
The writing included two photographs of “Stripping Cameras” in El Pas, Texas.
Its author, the German chemist Gerhard Peters, Highlighted the images to illustrate “the effectiveness of Zyklon B (a cyanide-based pesticide) as an agent to kill unwanted pests,” Romo writes in his book Ringside Seat aa Revolution (“Front row seat to a revolution”).
“Peters became the chief operating officer of Degesch, one of two firms that acquired the patent for the Zyklon B in 1940 to mass-produce it,” he describes.
During World War II, the Nazis used gas in concentrated doses to kill millions of Jews.
Although in El Paso it was not used for the same purpose, it was already being used since 1929 by border officials to fumigate the clothes and shoes of Mexican immigrants on the Santa Fe International Bridge, which connects that city with Ciudad Juárez.
Inspections had formally begun in 1917, the historian goes on to say, when U.S. authorities began imposing restrictions on border crossings in sectors such as The Step.
The mayor of the city at the time, Tom Lea, referred to Mexicans as “Poor dirty chickens” that “they will certainly carry and spread typhus.”
But between 1915 and 1917, fewer than 10 residents of the Pas had died of epidemic typhus, Romo noted in his book.
However, Mexicans considered “second-class” underwent extensive medical examinations that included hot showers and reviews of naked migrants. To those who found lice, “they shaved their heads and shaved their whole bodies,” Rom told BBC World.
In 1917 alone, at least 120,000 people were examined in the center of the Pas.
Romo and other historians speak of a context in which eugenic ideas gained strength and manifested themselves through discriminatory and racist notions.
“You don’t have to compare pears to apples, but the Holocaust was not an isolated event and the U.S.-Mexico border served as a center of experimentation important of these ideas, ”Romo warns.
“Do you know what shame is?”
When the Bracero program began in 1942, the use of different chemicals such as kerosene in border inspection centers was already widespread.
Although the U.S. government praised Mexicans who were listed as “Soldiers of production” and from the earth at that time, over the years hundreds of testimonies of workers emerged who pointed out their experiences as shameful and humiliating.
Historian Mireia Loza recalls in a conversation with BBC World that the image of the worker sprayed with DDT on her face was the one that most affected the former participants in the program she spoke to.
“Many said they felt the effects of DDT in their eyes, which they had allergic reactions on the skin and they understood that it was not a human treatment, ”says the Georgetown University professor.
The academic began her research by interviewing dozens of bracers for a project called Bracero History Archive (Historical Archive of the Braceros), promoted by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
“Many of these workers said they felt something ugly because it was the first time they were naked publicly and in front of several people. For them it was a shock tremendous to be there and for the doctors to make them open their pompoms, their mouths; they were reviewing everything, ”he describes.
Workers were generally inspected at U.S.-administered headquarters within Mexico and at border cities such as Hidalgo, Texas.
In addition to the fumigations, they were vaccinated against smallpox, had blood and X-ray tests, and had their hands checked for calluses that showed they had experience in the field.
José Silva, A farmer from Michoacán who started working at the age of 6, described in 2005 with some anger the experience he had while working as a laborer during an interview available in the Bracero Archive:
“On the one hand it was a good program (…) I had no problem, I helped myself financially. What I didn’t like was that we were fumigated. I felt ashamed. Do you know what shame is? Everyone formed like that, without clothes, and we went out like that walking and there at the door was the man with the fumigator.“.
Víctor Martínez Alemany, A native of Tlaquiltenango, Morelos, enlisted in the program in 1956 and worked in California:
“They passed us, encuerados, in front of all the girls, we no longer covered ourselves here but encuerados to pass where they were going to fumigate to us, well fumigated even so … We were ashamed because we had to happen like with 20 women (…) They were all secretaries, and with their hands behind their backs, nothing to cover up, nothing … I wanted to get hooked (…) to do something … “.
“Injustices and abuses”
Through the Bracero Archive, the U.S. government, through the National Museum of History and various academic institutions, recognizes that workers were subjected to a series of “injustices and abuses.”
“Many faced poor housing, discrimination and even breach of contract they were swindled to receive their salaries, ”the website states.
Despite these investigations, no president or high-ranking official nationwide in the United States has offered public apologies or reparations for the negative effects triggered by the program, says historian Mireia Loza.
Nor is there a thorough investigation on the impact of pesticides, including DDT, on the health of millions of braziers that were fumigated.
Although the program culminated almost six decades ago, there is still a living generation to explain it.
Carlos Marentes, a peasant rights activist in El Paso, also collected hundreds of testimonies and allegations of labor abuse, and the fumigations stood out among the workers ’bitterest memories.
“Of course there was a fear that they would carry contagious diseases, but that led to one stigmatization“He told BBC Mundo.
For Marentes, the Bracero program was a clear example of the “contradiction in immigration policy” in the United States.
“On the one hand we know we need them (immigrants) to do everything we can’t or don’t want to do, but on the other hand they’ve put in our heads that we need to be afraid of them,” he sentences.
read too “Look, world, how they treat us,” he accuses migrant
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