Lyrianne Gonzalez

I focus on the Latin American, Latinx, and Caribbean experience in the U.S. by investigating the lasting racial impacts of agricultural guestworker programs, specifically the Bracero and British West Indies Programs of the mid-twentieth century. Through examining the consequences of importing guestworkers for temporary labor rather than settlement, my dissertation explores how guestworker programs create ethnic narratives that shape perceptions and opportunities for guestworkers, their descendants, and ethnic communities in the U.S. Exploring how descendants are shaped by and respond to these legacies—through career paths, activism, and memorialization efforts—adds an essential layer to studying American identity formation. By highlighting the clandestine migration of women who accompanied their guestworker husbands, the dissertation also reveals how women challenged gender restrictions and engaged in these labor systems despite official exclusion–broadening our understanding of guestworker programs and enriching U.S. labor history by emphasizing family migration and women's hidden labor. With hundreds of thousands of guestworker descendants in the U.S., these programs are undeniably central to understanding how Latinx and Caribbean communities have shaped the U.S. My research expands scholarship on U.S. guestworker programs by uncovering the untold stories of guestworkers' descendants in the U.S., revealing the various programs' racial, ethnic, and gendered legacies that continue to shape the U.S.