Reyes said her father mainly worked in Arizona picking cotton and, at times, lettuce.

While he would come to work for a period of time in the United States, the Guaxaca native would return home when there was no work.

At times, Reyes would be on the waiting list, sometimes for months at a time, and he would run out of money, his daughter said.

An opportunity to come United States

Jose Raygoza's history with the bracero program is also documented in the exhibit. He was enlisted in the program for nearly three years.

The 75-year-old Upland resident said he still remembers the day he signed up for the program: Aug. 17, 1957.

Raygoza was 20 years old and living with his family in a small ranch in Jalisco, Mexico.

The trip to the U.S. was his first time being far away from home and he admits it was a "struggle."

"It was an opportunity to come United States," Raygoza said. "I wanted to see the U.S., it was very exciting."

Raygoza also welcomed the change from working on the railroads.

His first assignment was working in "Cucamonga" picking oranges, grapes and lemons. He was there for 18 months and then had to go back home.

On his second assignment, Raygoza was sent to work in what today is considered Santa Clarita, but was transferred back to the Inland Empire to work in the fields.

After he was done with that assignment, Raygoza did not return to the program. He ended up marrying his wife, Alice, and stayed in the Inland Empire.

Raygoza's story was not unusual.

At the time of the program, many of the workers met American women - most of them Mexican-Americans - and married them, said Matthew Garcia, a professor at Arizona State University.

Great pride in their service

More than five years ago, Garcia led an effort to gather as many oral histories as possible from bracero workers. The stories led to the "Bittersweet Harvest" exhibit.

Garcia, a Pomona native, gathered the interviews with a group of student volunteers. Initially, they had trouble with the interviews, and had a poor turnout in Los Angeles, he said.

But then Garcia was advised that he visit the Imperial Valley.

After getting in touch with a local activist, Garcia set up a time to record some oral histories.

When the group arrived, there were 150 braceros who had been waiting in line for nearly two hours

For two weeks, they worked 12-hour days recording the histories, Garcia said.

Interviews were also conducted in such areas as Ventura County and San Joaquin Valley as well as as far as Chicago.

In all, the group collected 600 interviews.

What they heard were stories of invasive body inspections on the braceros before they could begin their work.

Some workers complained of hard labor and experiencing back pain.

"But most men took great pride in their service," Garcia said.

His inspiration for the project came from discussions at the time of renewing a guest worker program in the U.S.

Garcia said he wanted to shed light on the experience from the workers' perspective.

Most Americans, he said, are not aware of an agreement between the U.S. and Mexican governments to have the program.

The U.S. needed the program because many growers argued that World War II brought labor shortages, Garcia said.

From 1942 to 1964, 4.6 million contracts were signed, with many people returning several times on different contracts, Garcia said.

At that time, Mexican-Americans were the ones who primarily worked in the fields. What the new program did was replace those workers with temporary work, he said.

While there is the perception that the program lowered wages because Mexican workers were willing to take jobs, it wasn't always the case, Garcia said.

Through interviews and photographs, there were cases in Oregon, Idaho and other Northwest states that showed that braceros actually protested their pay. In some cases, they were able to have wages increased, he said.

It did cause some racial hostility. A bracero was killed by Mexican-Americans in the 1960s on Holt Boulevard, Garcia said.

The divide created areas near the fields known as vice districts where temporary workers spent most of their free time, Claremont native Daniel Martinez said.

Martinez, Garcia's uncle, grew up in Claremont and picked alongside braceros.

Garcia credits Martinez for his interest in the guest-worker program. His uncle was one of the first people to interview braceros about their experience. He conducted the interviews for his master's degree thesis.

"I was very upset in the way (they were) were being portrayed," he said. "We were not nice to them."

Martinez often translated for the temporary workers when they went shopping or to the movies because many did not speak English.

On their free time, braceros often played soccer or attended church, he said.

Now that the program is part of the Smithsonian, the exhibit allows for the opportunity of more oral histories to be conducted.

Garcia said they are still in need of help not only conducting interviews but transcribing them.

"There's a lot of work to be done. This is just the beginning," Garcia said.