Agricultural Personnel Management Program
University of California

11/17/99 News Report -- The Orange County Register

World War II-era documents obtained recently from a California bank offer
the first hard evidence that savings funds deducted from the pay of Mexican
farm workers were deposited into Mexican banks.

Most of the farm workers, known as braceros, never received the savings
that were automatically deducted from their paychecks. For years the
braceros have petitioned the Mexican government and, more recently, the
Mexican bank, Banrural, to acknowledge the existence of these funds.
Farm-worker activists estimate the sum to be between $150 million and $3
billion, including interest.

The documents prove that a California bank, Wells Fargo, received the
savings and held them for transfer to Banco Nacional de Mexico, Mexico's
government bank. Evidence tracking the money's flow from the United States
to Mexico had been scant.

"Those documents are really a big piece of information. The Mexican
authorities can longer ignore the facts, and this confirms what has been
known all along," said Juan Jose Gutierrez, who in the early 1980s
petitioned the Mexican government to return the savings to the braceros. He
is executive director of One Stop Immigration, an immigration resource
center.

Antonio Macias Rivera, 78, of Santa Ana, was one of about 5 million farm
and railroad workers sent as part of a wartime deal to the United States
from Mexico to fill a labor shortage during and after World War II.

The documents move the braceros one step closer to receiving the lost
funds, Macias said. In recent months, the braceros have renewed their
efforts to recoup these funds.

"It gives me great pleasure to see that this history of mistreating the
farm worker is coming to an end," Macias, who worked in California and
other states between 1944 and 1963, said in Spanish. "I am one of those
that agrees that something needs to be done about (these funds)."

No records show where the funds went after Wells Fargo transferred the
money to Banco Nacional de Mexico.

But farm-worker activists say the salary deductions, 10 percent of a
worker's paycheck, were deposited into the Banco Nacional de Credito
Agricola, which merged in 1976 to become Banrural.

The money was withheld as an incentive for the workers to return to Mexico
once their U.S. contracts expired, said Ventura Gutierrez Mendez, head of
Coachella-based Union Sin Fronteras, a farm workers' rights group. He had
heard reports that Wells Fargo possibly was involved in the program.

Until now, old paychecks showing the deductions and workers' recollections
were the only proof he had of the program.

Banrural has stated repeatedly that bank officials have not found records
that prove the deposits were made.

"At the time that (Banrural) was created, the funds didn't exist, but
Banrural is ready and willing to accept individual claims," said Hermes
Castro Ojeda, a Banrural spokesman.

Officials from Banrural's legal department declined to comment on the
specific documents, obtained from Wells Fargo Bank's corporate archives in
San Francisco on a request from The Orange County Register.

Castro, however, noted that Mexican banking laws are strict and that, had
the savings account existed, the funds should have been transferred to
Banrural.

"I don't know what happened with the funds. They could have been cashed out
or could have had another destiny," Castro said.

On Nov. 1, Banrural began accepting claims from braceros who think they
qualify for the savings funds. The bank has placed the onus on the workers
to provide original contracts or documents, such as pay stubs, that prove
the deductions were made.

Ten claims have been filed so far in the 13 locations throughout Mexico,
Castro said, stressing that these are preliminary figures.

The Wells Fargo documents are dated from 1944 and 1945 and are part of a
report filed by Emil Leunberger, then-vice president for the bank's foreign
department, after he returned from two trips to Mexico to visit with
officials from the Banco Nacional de Mexico, a bank that holds federal
reserves.

In a 1944 report, Leunberger wrote: "Mr. (Rodrigo) Gomez, (Banco Nacional
de Mexico manager) expressed satisfaction with the banking relations they
have with us, and seemed particularly pleased with the arrangement whereby
we act as depository for the salary deductions of Mexican railway and farm
workers in this country, which have passed through their account with us."

In an April 1945 report, Leunberger wrote: "Mr. (Carlos H.) Palmer,
(foreign department chief) is in charge of the arrangements whereby the
salary deductions of Mexican farm and railroad laborers are deposited with
us for credit of the Banco de Mexico, Mexico City."

Wells Fargo's Los Angeles spokeswoman, Kathleen Shilkret, said researchers
have not located documents that detail how much, how often or how the money
was transferred to Banco Nacional de Mexico. It is unknown whether Wells
Fargo received a fee for the transactions and from whom the bank received
the savings funds, she said.

"We'd certainly be pleased if our research would be able to turn up what
was necessary for the braceros to receive the money that's due to them,"
Shilkret said.

Wells Fargo legal-affairs officials say the bank is not liable for the lost
money, "because we were just a funnel from one party to another," Shilkret
said.

It is believed that only those braceros who worked between 1942 and 1949
qualify for the savings reimbursements because in 1949 the two governments
signed an agreement ending the program.

Ventura Gutierrez of Union Sin Fronteras thinks the U.S. Farm Security
Administration withheld the money from the braceros, but records from the
now-defunct agency have not been found, according to Department of Labor
spokesman Al Belsky.

Juan Jose Gutierrez, of the Los Angeles-based One Stop Immigration,
believes both Banrural and the Mexican government should be held
responsible for compensating the braceros.

"If (Banrural) lost the records, then they're responsible for that," said
Juan Jose Gutierrez. "Records like that don't get easily misplaced or lost,
and I'm sure they're somewhere in their archives because it was a
significant fund.

"The Mexican government has got to assume responsibility for that and go
back and do some soul searching and estimate a formula to compensate the
Mexican farm workers," he continued. "There's no ifs, ands or buts."