Operation Wetback Speech
Cold War/Operation Wetback Era
Back then it had been said by many worried citizens that hundreds of communists must have been entering the country per day.
Braceros
Braceros are Mexican laborers that were allowed into the U.S. for a limited amount of time as seasonal agricultural workers.
Attention Grabber
Has anyone here ever been called a slur pertaining to your race, nationality, or ethnicity, whether it be playfully amongst friends, or with actual harmful intent?
Acknowledging Show of Hands
I expected as much from a group that is this diverse.
Transition to the Background Information
I think we can all agree that the fact that there were SO MANY Mexican immigrants in the U.S. at the time, is not that big of a shocker. Considering the fact that we are still very prevalent in the U.S. in today's day and age.
Belle Glade
In Belle Glade alone we have many individuals from Mexico and other Latin American countries that come in as seasonal agricultural workers.
Introduction to the Bracero Program
Moreover, the most prominent reason for the vast amount of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. was the Bracero Program. This program was initiated on August 4, 1942 and ended in 1947.
Introduction
My name is Jasmine Calderon and the slur that I will be addressing for a while, due to its usage in the name of a notorious American program, is "Wetback".
Transition to the Conclusion
Once this program backfired... Operation Wetback began.
President Trump and Citation
President Trump, according to "Operation Wetback Revisited", an article published on The New Republic, has made allegations that resembled those made during the Cold War/Operation Wetback Era.
Conclusion
Seeing as that our President has praised Eisenhower for Operation Wetback in the past, and has addressed illegal immigration as signature issue during his presidency, I figured that this was a topic you should all know about. I hope you all learned something from this speech. Thank you!
Trump
Similarly, President Trump has repeatedly made statements , such as that many terrorists, dangerous individuals, and bad hombres have been illegally crossing the Southern Border.
American Citizens
Some of the 1.1 million deportees were actually American citizens who had been wrongfully captured due to racial profiling.
The Bracero Program
The Bracero Program was a series of laws and agreements between the U.S. and Mexican government that allowed for Mexicans to come to the U.S. to work.
Operation Wetback 2
The program caused around 1.1 million immigrants to be removed from the U.S. through military-style tactics, such as roadblocks and raids, which were implemented by the U.S. Border Patrol and the Mexican government.
Reason for the Bracero Program
The reason the Bracero Program came to be is that there was a labor shortage in agriculture due to American workers being drafted into WWII. They needed substitutes. Preferably some that would work for very little pay. And that is where Mexicans came into the equation!
Wetback
The slur originated in the 1920s and is used to describe illegal immigrants, mostly Mexicans, who have crossed El Rio Grande, the river that is a part of the U.S. and Mexican Border, in order to reach the United States.
Means of deportation
They were deported by means of trains, cargo ships, planes, and trucks.
Concern
This should concern Mexican-Americans such as myself who may have to deal with this kind of profiling.
Trucks
U.S. officers would drive trucks filled with Mexican immigrants to Mexico, and once they reached Mexican territory, they would switch with Mexican officers who would take them so far into the country, that it would discourage them from coming back to the U.S.
Operation Wetback
Was a program that took place during President Eisenhower's time in office. The initiative was created by Joseph Swing, the Director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, with some help from the Mexican government. The program was implemented in May of 1954 by Herbert Brownell, the U.S. Attorney General.
