Who: New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum
What: “Bracero Memories” Exhibit
When: August 28, 2009
Where: New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum, 4100 Drippings Springs Rd.
Contact: (575) 522-4100

New “Bracero Memories” exhibit at the NMF&RH Museum

 A controversial labor program that brought millions of Mexicans across the border to work in U.S. fields is the subject of a new exhibit at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum.

“Bracero Memories,” opens in the museum’s Legacy Gallery on Aug. 28 and will be on display through Jan. 18, 2010.

Mainly through historic photographs, the exhibit tells the story of the Bracero Program, a temporary guest worker program for millions of Mexican laborers between 1942 and 1964. The program marked a significant chapter in American and Mexican cultural history and relations. After the U.S. entered World War II, there was an immediate need for labor to fill the jobs left by Americans who went off to fight. The practices of that time are relevant to current debates about illegal immigration, farm labor issues, and proposed guest worker programs.

“This is a significant part of the history of New Mexico and the Southwest,” said David Lundy, the museum’s exhibits curator. “It’s a topic we’re excited about sharing.”

The traveling exhibit was produced by the University of Texas-El Paso Institute of Oral History and the UTEP Centennial Museum. The Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum has supplemented the exhibit with historic photographs from New Mexico, as well as a replica of living quarters that includes several objects from the museum’s collections.

“To give museum visitors a better feel for what it was like for the Bracero workers, we’ve created a vignette … a replica of the living quarters from the late 1940s, early 1950s,” Lundy said. “The employers had to provide room and board for the workers.”

A reception is scheduled for 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Sept. 10. Filmmaker Patrick Mullins will show his award-winning 2008 documentary “Bracero Stories” at 7 p.m. “Bracero Stories” draws on interviews and photographs collected by the Smithsonian Institution’s and the University of Texas-El Paso Institute of Oral History’s Bracero Oral History Project to recount first-hand experiences of workers and program administrators to see the workers behind the official policies and programs. Admission is a suggested donation of $2.

The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Regular admission is $5 for adults, $3 for senior citizens and $2 for children ages 5 to 17. Children 4 and under are admitted free.

For more information, please call (575) 522-4100.

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