Abstract

This article places Anthony Mann’s Border Incident (1949)—probably the only Hollywood film to represent the Bracero Program—within the genre of the police procedural, a genre that typically depicted government forces in an idealized, positive light. This study argues that Mann’s film helped to stabilize the public image of the Bracero Program by presenting a historically inaccurate view of the U.S. government’s supposedly benevolent efforts to protect migrants and regulate undocumented migration. The article contends that the U.S. government actually reduced its direct control over the Bracero Program in this period, allowed abuses in the program to go unchecked, and encouraged undocumented migration through the adoption of various policies.

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