Laboring and Living in Big Sky Country: The Experiences of Mexican Guest Workers in Montana during the Bracero Program 1942-1964

During the Second World War, agricultural labor shortages led to a series of policy agreements between the Mexican and U.S. governments, colloquially known as the Bracero Program. During its 22-year duration, the U.S. government issued 5 million employment contracts to Mexican citizens across 24 U.S. states. While much of the scholarship on the Bracero program focuses on the Southwest, this paper examines the experiences of Mexican guest workers in Montana, an underexplored, although significant region in Bracero history. This paper seeks to analyze the working experiences of Montana's Bracero guest workers and what those experiences reveal about broader trends in labor migration, cultural adaptation, and Montana's economic conditions. The paper examines Oral Histories from the Bracero History Archive, a memoir, and newspapers to construct a thematic narrative about the Braceros in Montana. The narrative uses secondary sources to provide context for migratory history before the Bracero program started. Montana had Mexican agricultural migrant workers in the early 1900s, but when the Great Depression hit the United States, increased xenophobia led to the repatriation of many Mexicans. However, the urgent need for agricultural workers during World War Ⅱ created a unique relationship between the Braceros and their Montanan employers. This history carries deep relevance today as anti-immigrant rhetoric, ongoing mass deportation, and other forms of state violence criminalize, dehumanize, and decontextualize Mexican work-related migration in the United States.