“A Typical ‘Wetback’ Village:” How the Bracero Program Outsourced Labor Social Reproduction to Mexico

Alina Méndez specializes in Mexican American history with a focus on migration, labor, and relational racial formation. She received her PhD in History from the University of California at San Diego in 2017. Dr. Méndez is currently revising her dissertation into a book manuscript tentatively titled Cheap for Whom? Migration, Farm Labor, and Social Reproduction in the Imperial Valley-Mexicali Borderlands, 1942-1969. Her research has received support from the Ford Foundation, the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, the Fulbright Program, the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States, and the Archie Green Fund for Labor Culture and History. Dr. Méndez is an adjunct instructor at Grossmont College where she teaches courses in Chicana/o Studies.