This is the definitive history of the pioneers who left Mexico and went to the United States as guest workers in the mid-twentieth century. The Bracero Program that brought them was vitally important to the development of labor in America and the modern state in Mexico. Despite that, until this book there was no in-depth, national-level study of why and how people chose to join the northward stream of essential workers. Now there is, and Alberto García's meticulously researched, lucid, and evocative exposition of the politics of migration will be unmissable for anyone interested in the critical human journey of millions of the hopeful, the entrepreneurial, and the desperate.--Paul Gillingham, author of Cuauhtémoc's Bones: Forging National Identity in Modern Mexico This is a must-read for anyone interested in the Bracero Program, as García skillfully unearths underutilized sources to reframe the program in ways that show the interplay among federal, state, and local power. By placing the reader in Mexico in the decades prior to the program, García sheds light on the social and political world braceros inhabited and provides readers with a fresh new take. No other book explores the Mexican context of the program with such deep archival research, paying attention to themes and topics that are sorely lacking in the literature on braceros.--Mireya Loza, author of Defiant Braceros: How Migrant Workers Fought for Racial, Sexual, and Political Freedom Clearly written and exhaustively researched, Abandoning Their Beloved Land is a fascinating exploration of the power dynamics that shaped Mexican migration during the Bracero Program. Through his analysis of the politics of migration in a region long riven by religious conflict and deep tensions over landownership, García offers an essential contribution to the field of Mexican migration history.--Julia G. Young, author of Mexican Exodus: Emigrants, Exiles, and Refugees of the Cristero War