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On September 12, 2023, Monterey County Supervisor Luis A. Alejo and Supervisor Chris Lopez formally recognized Dr. Ignacio Ornelas Rodriguez’s efforts to educate the public about the Bracero Program. During the ceremony in Monterey County, former bracero workers were also formally recognized for their contributions to the agricultural industry and economy of the United States from the early years of the U.S. involvement in World War II. 

Ornelas Rodriguez noted,

The Bracero Program was a series of laws that allowed the United States to recruit temporary guest workers (braceros, lit. “individuals who work with their arms”) from Mexico. As the United States entered World War II, its agriculture and railroad industries witnessed a shortage of laborers due to the U.S. military draft and the forced removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast of the United States. The United States and Mexico entered into legal agreements that would ultimately be known as the Bracero Program, which operated from 1942 to 1964. Braceros worked throughout the United States, but the largest concentration of braceros was employed in California. There were an estimated 4.5 million contracts signed by braceros over the 22-year period. Today a large proportion of the Mexican American population can trace its heritage to former braceros.

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KSBW 8 reporter Brisa Colón (photo above, courtesy Ignacio Ornelas Rodriguez) reported that “History was made Tuesday, in Monterey County. It was the first time bracero workers were recognized with a dedicated week to honor their contributions. Never before have the workers been recognized at this level by the county for their contributions to the agricultural industry and economy in the United States.” 

As part of the ceremony, there was also an acknowledgement of the 1963 bus crash that occurred on Highway 101 in Chualar, an areas of Salinas Valley, California. The bus collided with a train and claimed the lives of 32 braceros and injured many other braceros and farm laborers. It is still the single deadliest crash in California history and one of the worst in the nation. In 2013, Ornelas Rodriguez was instrumental in the naming of a portion of Highway 101 as the Bracero Memorial Highway in honor of the braceros who lost their lives. 

Ornelas Rodriguez also focused his PhD dissertation on the Bracero Program and currently works as a lecturer at the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford (CCSRE) and trains and collaborates with educators to implement the ethnic studies curriculum in the San Jose Unified School District. He continues to conduct research and share the history and legacy of the Bracero Program through his teaching and public outreach through the Bracero Legacy Project he founded at Stanford. 

I feel a strong emotional connection to the Bracero Program, as I grew up and worked with braceros from the 1950s to 1964. I wish that there were a way for me to reunite with the braceros with whom I worked. 

Fortunately, during the ceremony, 91�Թ� had the honor—through Ornelas Rodriguez—of offering each bracero in attendance a certificate from 91�Թ� as a very modest acknowledgement of their hard work. Former bracero Josafat Arias, depicted above (photo courtesy Ignacio Ornelas Rodriguez), noted, “I accept this certificate on behalf of the over one million braceros whose lives continue to impact the Salinas area, California, and beyond.” 

After the ceremony, Ornelas Rodriguez, whose grandfather was a bracero, shared that events like the one in Monterey County are important not only because of the recognition offered to the former braceros but also because they empower young descendants of former braceros to do well academically. “School-age descendants are given the chance to reflect on the bracero journey, consider how far descendants of former braceros have come, and appreciate the endless possibilities that lie ahead of them.” 

For more information about the Bracero Legacy Project, visit .

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How does a community college instructor begin to tackle a lack of global awareness exhibited by her students? She spends an afternoon at Stanford with leading faculty and experts, as well as other community college faculty, to discuss issues of importance to the global community.

The Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (91�Թ�) and are offering exciting professional development opportunities to help community college instructors internationalize courses by incorporating recent area studies research and materials. The Education Partnership for Internationalizing Curriculum (EPIC) is funded by the National Resource Center Program of the U.S. Department of Education under Title VI.

Held on Friday, March 6, 2015 at Stanford, the first EPIC community college workshop focused on Global Food Security. Twenty community college instructors attended from 16 community colleges, with disciplines ranging from English composition to math, economics, nutrition, sociology, anthropology, biology and political science. EPIC and 91�Թ� organizers chose food security as the topic of their first workshop because it combined interdisciplinary appeal with international content.

At the half-day workshop featuring lectures by , an agricultural economist at Stanford, participants learned how every individual’s access to an adequate supply of high-quality food—that is, the individual’s food security is affected by very complex processes of production, distribution, and consumption. And how, despite decades of progress in agricultural technology, economic development, and poverty relief, food security continues to elude hundreds of millions of people around the world. 

Some topics covered and highlights from Dr. Falcon’s lectures include:

• Two world problems: the need to double food output this century without destroying the environment; and providing economic access to the billion plus people who are food insecure, not because there is a general lack of food, but because they are poor.
• Supply and demand issues: the importance of the green revolution’s significant impact on the supply of grains.
• The GMO debate: there are legitimate controversies and important arguments along with irrational extremes, and there is an important discussion to be had in the middle.
• The importance of development strategies in poor countries to reach the poorest half.
• Imports and exports: an international orientation on the part of a nation-state is generally good; often the worst thing is to close an economy, particularly in a badly governed nation.
• Redistributive land reform: it is not done usually in an evolutionary way, but usually revolutionary and the results are varied.
• The second half of his Dr. Falcon’s presentation was an in depth analysis of Indonesia, the world’s 4th most populous country, and the focus of his work for 30 years. Some of the insights from his experience include:
• Good advice often starts with the word “Don’t.” It’s easy to write a catalogue of the things that would be nice. In a good year you can do two or three things. Policy advice turns out to be finding a sequence of good things that should be done to improve various aspects of food systems.
• There are good folks in bad governments and there are bad folks in good governments. You can sometimes do good things even within corrupt governments.
• Most of what food policy is about is adjudicating the tension between producers, who want high prices, and consumers, who want low prices. It involves improving storage and roads and keeping consumer prices down while still benefiting producers.

The final part of the workshop, led by 91�Թ� Curriculum Writer , discussed how instructors can incorporate more international content into their curriculum. All attendees were given online access to a copy of the curriculum unit developed by 91�Թ�, Feeding the Poorest Billion: Food Security in the 21st Century, and a copy of the book, The Evolving Sphere of Food Security, edited by Rosamond Naylor. 

Through group activities, participants then collaboratively explored pedagogical practices for incorporating the material into their particular courses. Some of the ideas shared included:

• A creative fictional short story writing assignment demonstrating the connection between agriculture and health
• “Make a Meal” food security card game incorporating math and nutrition
• Having students share about the cities and countries they come from followed by a multicultural potluck for community building in the classroom
• Having students survey their families

As the workshop concluded, an English instructor with 40 years’ experience expressed her concern about students’ lack of global awareness, even basic geography, and Edman answered that this is the reason we have Title VI funding.

The next EPIC workshop for community college instructors, to be held on Friday, May 8, will be focused on Global Health. More information on this and other Global Studies community engagement activities is available at .