Mexicanness as a Commodity
The Braceros and Imperialist Labor Extraction
Braceros Are Friends Not Food
The ‘Mexican’ in the American imagination is not a person,1 it is a volume knob. It is a dial that the Capitalist State turns up when the harvest is ready, and turns down when the profit margin shrinks. They are not citizens or neighbors, they are a Commodity Function. This case is made well in this article, so for the 1 year anniversary of its publication, I thought I’d give my take.
There is 1 specific piece that sticks out to me in it.
The construction of ‘Mexican’ into a one-dimensional ‘commodity function and utility’ devalued nearly everything that held meaning for Mexicans—the individual self, family, culture, and political experience.
To give context, the article talks about the Bracero Program during World War 2 and how Mexicans were at times seen as a productive force in America and at others seen as a waste of resources. America has a recurring problem, it needs cheap labor, but only for a little while.
Braceros or Day Laborers were Mexicans (not Chicanos) who came to America as part of the Bracero Program, the largest guest work program in US history. The US used immigrant labor to work in agricultural roles during the Second World War to counteract a labor shortage. Interestingly enough, the Braceros even had legal protections you would not expect for that time such as:
A minimum wage
Adequate living conditions
Draft protections
And inclusion in white only spaces
At this point Mexicanness2 was defined as “hard worker” or “good neighbor.” However, the war ended and the economy slowed meaning that the Braceros needed to leave to open up room for American Labor. Quickly the definition of Mexicanness was changed to “illegal alien” or “criminal” with Operation Wetback. The military was employed to track, round up, and deport all the excess labor and the public was atomized against the Bracero to achieve this end. Suddenly people they were forced to share their coveted white only spaces with were now being presented as something trashy or lesser.
The Industrial Reserve Army of Labor
Karl Marx argued that capitalism requires an Industrial Reserve Army of Labor to function.
But if a surplus labouring population is a necessary product of accumulation or of the development of wealth on a capitalist basis, this surplus population becomes, conversely, the lever of capitalistic accumulation, nay, a condition of existence of the capitalist mode of production. It forms a disposable industrial reserve army, that belongs to capital quite as absolutely as if the latter had bred it at its own cost…The industrial reserve army, during the periods of stagnation and average prosperity, weighs down the active labour-army; during the periods of over-production and paroxysm, it holds its pretensions in check…If its accumulation, on the one hand, increases the demand for labour, it increases on the other the supply of labourers by the “setting free” of them, whilst at the same time the pressure of the unemployed compels those that are employed to furnish more labour, and therefore makes the supply of labour, to a certain extent, independent of the supply of labourers.
Essentially a certain number of people must be unemployed at all times in order to instill fear of poverty in the average worker, making them much easier to discipline. Historically, Mexicans have made a perfect choice to fill that role, a labor force that is present enough to work but absent enough to be deported the moment profit margins shrink.
This is not just “racism,” it is Imperialist Labor Extraction. During times of economic boom Mexicans are needed so rhetoric softens. Mexicans are allowed to come either with or without documentation, but then when the economy slows to a bust the excess labor needs to be removed so rhetoric hardens and deportations begin. Following this format the Mexican becomes essentially a volume knob of the labor market that can be turned up or down. It’s not an accident this format is still being followed today.
The reason rhetoric towards Mexicans is hardening in the modern world is because we are in an economic downturn. Thus the excess labor we have accumulated needs to be bled off to maintain the contradictions of Capitalism. The problem is, this labor is not possible to replace because U.S. workers will NOT take agricultural jobs.3 Essentially the agriculture industry is dependent on an undocumented labor force because the work is grueling and often requires less than minimum wage pay to be profitable. But, this creates a power dynamic where deportation is threatened to these immigrant workers to keep wages and benefits low and/or non-existent.
Essentially, we have created a Dialectic of the Disposable Body, the U.S. relies on Mexican labor as a resource but simultaneously, both due to racism and to keep labor costs low, Mexicanness is constructed to be inherently vulnerable but paradoxically, also robust. Think of a bee hive, individually the bees are pretty worthless and not a real distinct threat to anyone nor are they an inherently productive force. As a conglomeration of labor they create complex structures and surplus amounts of delicious honey, particularly in captivity in which in return for the oversight of the beekeeper in helping get rid of bad honeycomb and help in proliferation, the beekeeper keeps the excess.
Should something happen to a bee nothing bad really happens to the hive. The bee is just another drone that's easily replaceable. Because of the existence of such a network you need not worry about any one bee because you have a force of other disposable bodies behind it. This is why it's easy to conceive, for the average racist or indifferent white person, of a world in which this immigrant labor force is fine working without the benefit of healthcare like Medicare even in a medical system where necessary medical treatment can and will ruin you forever. You are vulnerable on every level whether it be healthcare, wages, or citizenship status, which you have only as long as the bee keeper needs you. But, the volume knob can always be turned back up when needed.
How to Turn a Person into a Thing
This dehumanization and creation of a “One-Dimensional” image of Mexicans in the United States is not a bug caused by an implicit or unconscious racism, instead it is a feature meant to keep Mexicans replaceable. György Lukács spoke of Reification or the process where social relations between people are seen as relations between things. The self, family, and culture of Mexicans and Chicanos are devalued in the minds of white America so that these arrangements do not seem absurd.
In order to create a system so cruel you need to strip Mexicans down to just another garden tool to be used as needed and then discarded. Mexicanness is very useful when we want to benefit but other than that it gets in the way. Mexicans are treated as a commodity not as people and that is why Mexicans are so disposable to the state.
In Conclusion
Mexicanness is constructed not out of preconceived notions, but instead out of material necessity from the Capitalist in order to create this accessible but disposable army of labor. The current phenomenon of mass deportations and anti-latino hatred is not a feature of ideology, the ideology is pushed on the public to warrant the expulsion of excess labor. This is why we are seeing the ICE deportations happening now. It isn't simply a feature of racism, instead the racism is created to explain the labor market which must be corrected via bleeding off excess labor due to the contradictions of Capitalism.
Throughout this article I will be differentiating between Chicanos and Mexicans, Mexican refers to people who immigrated from Mexico and do not have an established way of life in the States. For instance, the Braceros, who were brought in temporarily, are Mexicans, whereas the child of a Day Laborer born in the states, regardless of documentation status, is a Chicano.
When I say Mexicanness I am referring to the constructed identity of ethnically Mexican workers in America as defined or perceived by the Capitalist class. This is distinct from Chicano identity as it exists in the mind of people that are not us based on their preconceived notion of us.
“Many studies point to a surplus of agricultural workers. Yet, our sample of Fiscal Year (FY) 1996 H-2A certifications indicates that neither the SESAs’ efforts nor recruiting efforts required of employers resulted in significant numbers of U.S. workers being placed in agricultural jobs for which foreign H-2A laborers had been requested. Only 2 percent (252 of 10,134) of the agricultural job openings for which growers had requested foreign workers were filled by domestic workers.” Consolidation of Labor’s Enforcement Responsibilities for the H-2A Program Could Better Protect U.S. Agricultural Workers.