Tuesday, August 4, 1942. Bracero's

In a move with enormous long term consequences, the Bracero Program was initiated on this day in 1942 with the U.S. execution of the Mexican Farm Labor Act.

Bracero's, a term meaning manual laborers.

The act, designed to relieve wartime labor shortages, particularly in the agricultural sector, allowed controlled, and actually relatively small, numbers of Mexican agricultural workers into the country.  It was designed to make up for wartime shortages, and it accordingly exempted the laborers from conscription, which aliens in the U.S. were otherwise subject to.  It also provided for a basic minimum living wage and housing conditions.

Long term, it helped acclimate the American agricultural section to the concept of migrant labor, which was already there to some extent.  Following the war, the numbers of Americans employed in the type of labor that bracero's occupied decreased greatly and even during the war the program was expanded to include railroad workers, something Hispanic Americans were already employed in to a significant degree.  

It would not be true that the correlation of the shift of the American seasonal agricultural sector to Mexican migrant labor was 100% due to the Bracero program by any means, but it was a factor in it.  Other factors included Americans becoming used to higher wages in other types of jobs due to the Second World War and moving for higher wages, something that also had a permanent impact on the agricultural sector.

The German 4th Panzer Army crossed the Aksay River in the drive on Stalingrad.  Soviet general Yermenko flew to the city in a C-47, where he was met by Commissar Nikita Khrushchev.

The British accused Mahatma Gandi and the Indian National Congress Party of working towards appeasement of the Japanese following a raid on the party's headquarters and seizure of papers there.

Sarah Sundin reports:

Today in World War II History—August 4, 1942: First P-38 aerial combat and victory in the Pacific. Movie premiere of musical Holiday Inn[SS1] , starring Bing Crosby & Fred Astaire.

Holiday Inn is a well known film, but I've never seen it.

She also reports that the first trainload of Belgian Jews arrived at Auschwitz as the European tragedy expanded.