Contracting Freedom: Race, Empire, and U.S. Guestworker Programs

Contracting Freedom explores the origins of twentieth-century U.S. guestworker programs from Mexico and the Caribbean, highlighting their connection to the history of enslaved labor, Japanese American incarceration, the New Deal, the civil rights movement, and Caribbean decolonization. It reveals how these programs were seen as a way to protect migrant workers' welfare and treatment, and how their conceptions of liberalism continue to shape political understandings of the immigration debate. The book also highlights contract workers' emerging visions of social justice that challenged this reproduction of race and empire, giving freedom new meanings.

Format: Hardback
Length: 296 pages
Publication date: 10 May 2022
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Contracting Freedom is a groundbreaking relational study that delves into the origins of twentieth-century U.S. guestworker programs from Mexico and the Caribbean, shedding light on their shared historical roots. By examining these government-sponsored initiatives as the untapped consequence of a complex tapestry of events, including the history of enslaved labor, Japanese American incarceration, the New Deal, the long civil rights movement, and Caribbean decolonization, the book offers a fresh perspective on their development. During World War II, U.S. lawmakers and activists hailed guestworker agreements with Mexico and the Caribbean as symbols of anti-imperialism and worker freedom. Drawing inspiration from the New Deal's conception of racial liberalism, these officials and labor advocates pushed for the implementation of state-sponsored labor contracts across the hemisphere, aimed at safeguarding the welfare and treatment of migrant workers in the postwar world. Their vision of liberalism emphasized the value of formal labor contracts, bilateral agreements between nation-states, state power, and equal rights, which they regarded as advancements over older labor arrangements forged under colonialism and slavery.

Eighty years later, the conceptions of guestworker programs continue to shape political understandings of the immigration debate. These programs are often seen as a solution to counter the deportation regime and as a response to increasingly stringent racist measures to close U.S. borders to migrants. Maria Quintana's compelling history takes the focus on guestworker programs to the realm of political conflict, revealing how fierce debates over the bracero program and Caribbean contract labor programs have extended and legitimized U.S. racial and imperial domination into the present era. It also uncovers the emerging visions of social justice that challenged this reproduction, highlighting the complex and multifaceted nature of these programs and their enduring impact on the lives of workers and their communities.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780812253887