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C onn ect i ng C u ltu r es T hrough F am i ly and F ood

into the United States as guest workers, and many stayed. Thirty states participated in the Bracero program, but by far the largest number of workers went to California, Arizona, and Texas. The Mexican government hailed the program as “a noble adventure for our youth,” but in truth it tended to be the poorest and most vulner- able workers who became braceros. The vast majority were employed in the agricultural sector, but not all: During World War II, about 100,000

Americanization Through Homemaking

In the early 20th century, Mexicans were widely considered to be “good” immigrants as op- posed to what many people thought of as “bad” immigrants flooding in from southern Europe. But although Mexican immigrants may have been preferred over certain other groups, that’s not to say that Mexican culture was respected. Programs sprang up across the Southwest to try and “Americanize” newcomers as quickly as possible. Food and diet were considered to be a

key component of this undertaking. To these “do-gooders,” creating good Americans meant eliminating as much Mexican food from their diets as possible. For example, in a 1929 pamphlet called “Americanization Through Homemaking,” author Pearl Idelia Ellis lists the types of foods she thinks Mexican immigrants should be eating, including peanut butter soup, boiled spinach, and orange sherbet. She also asserts, incorrectly, that eating tor- tillas at lunch makes students “lazy” and prone to “take food from the lunch boxes of more fortunate children.”

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