In Popular Culture
- Woody Guthrie's poem Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos), set to music by Martin Hoffman, commemorates the deaths of 28 braceros being repatriated to Mexico in January 1948. The song has been recorded by dozens of folk artists.
- Protest singer Phil Ochs's song "Bracero" focuses on the exploitation of the Mexican workers in the program.
- A minor character in the 1948 Mexican film Nosotros los pobres wants to become a bracero.
- The 1949 film Border Incident looks at the issue.
- Famed satirist Tom Lehrer wrote a song about Senator George Murphy in response to an infamous racist gaffe referring to Mexican labor which included the line: "After all, even in Egypt, the Pharaohs/Had to import, Hebrew Braceros".
Read more about this topic: Bracero Program
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Popular culture is seductive; high culture is imperious.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Both gossip and joking are intrinsically valuable activities. Both are essentially social activities that strengthen interpersonal bonds—we do not tell jokes and gossip to ourselves. As popular activities that evade social restrictions, they often refer to topics that are inaccessible to serious public discussion. Gossip and joking often appear together: when we gossip we usually tell jokes and when we are joking we often gossip as well.”
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“If you’re anxious for to shine in the high esthetic line as a man
of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant
them everywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your
complicated state of mind,
The meaning doesn’t matter if it’s only idle chatter of a
transcendental kind.”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)