Manuel Márquez Flores

Biographical Synopsis of Interviewee: Manuel Márquez Flores was born in 1920; he spent his childhood with his seven siblings on the ranch where their father worked; he learned of the bracero program while he was helping his father work on the ranch; in 1959, he was hired as a bracero; he worked in the cotton and tomato fields of Las Cruces, New Mexico; he also worked in Pecos, Texas.

Summary of Interview: Mr. Márquez traveled to Chihuahua, Chihuahua, México, in order to begin the hiring process; he recalls that there were thousands of people from cities all over México waiting to be hired as braceros; because many of them did not have any money, they looked for food in trash cans; Mr. Márquez was hired as a bracero when he was twenty-seven years old; he also remembers that at Rio Vista, a processing center in Socorro, Texas, whenever a potential bracero was turned away due to illness, the rest of the braceros would collect money for that man so he could return home; the Bracero Program was not at all what he expected.

Parra-Mantilla, Myrna

Márquez Flores, Manuel

2003-03-30

Parra-Mantilla, Myrna, "Manuel Márquez Flores." Bracero History Archive, Item #21 (accessed January 07 2009, 3:18 pm)