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Braceros Excluded From List: Mexican Government Won't Pay Local Men From Special Fund

Posted on: Friday, 2 June 2006, 00:00 CDT

By Claudia Mel, The Monterey County Herald, Calif.

May 23--Salinas Valley braceros have learned that they are not registered in the distribution list of likely recipients of a Mexican fund created to reimburse them for money deducted from their paychecks almost half a century ago.

The Mexican government announced in December the list of those eligible to begin receiving the $3,500 checks, almost three years after the deadline for an initial registration.

But even though none of the Salinas-area braceros were on that list, they hoped their names would be in a more comprehensive registry of thousands that was gathered later. Braceros on the registry could receive checks from a second fund that's expected to be announced later this year.

It turns out, none of them seem to be on that list either.

Baldomero Capiz, binational coordinator of Los Angeles-based Comite de Braceros, told a group of about 150 braceros Sunday that their names don't seem to be in Mexico's registry kept at the Interior Ministry.

"The evidence tells us that no names are in the list," Capiz said Monday. "That's why we're going to investigate with the Ministry of Interior if these people were registered or not."

Former braceros received the news with a mix of disappointment and resignation.

"We feel bad," said Jose Rubio, a 66-year-old Salinas resident who came to work as a bracero from 1958 to 1964. "We need to do things right, otherwise we're just going around in circles."

Mexican Vice Consul Jose Loreto said braceros needed to bring the essential documents in person to the Ministry of Interior so they could be properly registered.

But thousands of former braceros living in Northern California were unable to travel to Mexico, so they sent their documents with a representative from Alianza Braceroproa, one of the groups organizing the braceros.

The group had secured assurances from the Ministry of Interior that those documents would be accepted even if the braceros didn't come in person to sign up, said Jose Sandoval, one of the coordinators with Braceroproa.

"Here in Northern California nobody was moving, and during the last week many people registered, but they couldn't go to Mexico," Sandoval said.

"Since we had that arrangement between Ventura Gutierrez and the government, that's how many of us turned in packages."

"I'm angry that we are not in the list," said Ignacio Gomez, a former bracero who's helped organize the groups' efforts for over five years. "I came along with my compatriots to work in this country, and I know how they felt then, and I know how they feel now."

Braceros have been lobbying the governments of the U.S. and Mexico to have their savings returned, thousands of dollars that were deducted from their paychecks when they worked in the United States and were supposed to be deposited in a pension fund.

None of the workers ever saw a penny of the money, and many began organizing to demand that it be returned.

Last year, the Mexican government announced it would set aside $30 million to be distributed among the former braceros as long as their names were on the registry. There are about 1,000 in the Salinas area, and each was supposed to receive about $3,500.

Juan Manuel Moran, whose father came under the program in 1952, said he's probably already spent a lot more than the promised refund, after so many trips and so much effort invested.

"I've told my father, I've spent more than what you're going to get," he said. But he continues to be involved, in hopes that local braceros are eventually entered in Mexico's registry.

In the meantime, bracero leaders in Salinas have split, and now there are two groups trying to organize the older workers. The most recently formed group met Sunday with Capiz, and the older group is scheduled to meet May 31 at Los Arcos de Alisal.

The division is only likely to hurt the collective effort, Moran said.

"This is so wrong," he said. "It's already happened before, and when the group left the Citizenship Project, they left behind a bunch of papers, we lost track of many of the braceros. Now the group is left and some are here and some are there. This shouldn't be happening."

herald.com.

Claudia Melendez Salinas can be reached at 753-6755 or cmelendez@monterey

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Monterey County Herald, Calif.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Monterey County Herald (Monterey, Calif.)

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