Summary: Nativo López of Radio Hermandad interviews Professor Gil González. Thank you for listening to Radio Hermandad. Please follow us on Twitter: @RadioHermandadProduced by Sergio C. Muñoz at Intelatin / Radio Hermandad (c) 2014 Copyright - All Rights ReservedGilbert G. Gonzalez, professor emeritus at the University of California, Irvine, authored “Guest Workers or Colonized Labor? – Mexican Labor Migration to the United States” at a most opportune time. Radio Hermandad’s interview with Professor Gonzalez delved into the historical experience of guest-worker or bracero-type programs in the U.S. and compared this with what is proposed under the Obama Immigration Plan during 2013 and 2014. The country is in the throes of a raging debate around immigration reform, which ostensibly would include the legalization of the estimated 11 million undocumented migrants. Legalization today, however, does not look like the type that was approved in the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act under which 3 million individuals obtained legal status, and five years later U.S. citizenship. Today’s legalization proposals begin to look more and more like a massive contract-worker program under a different name. Gonzalez also shares his perspective about the trade policies of the U.S., particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement, popularly known as NAFTA, and argues that the massive migration from Mexico from 1994 forward had its origin in the ruination of the Mexican campesinos in rural Mexico. He addresses the causes of migration, not just the symptoms.
