The Bracero Monument, unveiled in October 2019, was created by artist Dan Medina as part of a streetscape and pedestrian improvement project that also highlights Native American, African American and immigrant cultures from many L.A. communities.
A bronze migrant worker holds el cortito, a short-handled hoe that required field workers to be bent over for their 10- to 12-hour shifts. To the left of the worker, his wife holds their son, clutching a toy Ford truck in one arm while stretching out the other arm in search of his father. To the right, there’s a pile of workers’ tools and other symbols depicting how migrants were exploited.
Braceros were Mexican nationals who temporarily migrated to the U.S. to help fill labor shortages during and after World War II. As part of an agreement between the U.S. and Mexico, they worked on farms and fields, mines and railroads. Some claim that more than 4.5 million Mexican nationals participated in the bracero program from 1942 until 1964 but others maintain the number is more like 1-2 million, as the same people returned multiple times.
A cross at the monument commemorates those who died on the job, Medina, the artist, said, including 24 braceros who were killed when an open-bed truck flipped over. A barbed wire represents the last thing workers saw when they went to bed and the first thing they saw when they woke up. A spray can represents the chemicals they were sprayed with to “fumigate them” when they crossed the border, he said.
