WWII Meeting of Presidents Camacho and Roosevelt

While the presidents toasted cooperation, Texas growers were pulling away from the farmworker agreement the plaque praises. The Mexican Farm Labor Program Agreement of August 1942 guaranteed thirty cents an hour and humane treatment. Texas farmers refused to join for its first five years, lobbied in Washington in 1943 through the American Farm Bureau Federation to weaken its terms, and hired workers directly from Mexico instead, many without papers. They joined fully only in the 1950s. Between 1942 and 1964 more than 4.5 million braceros entered the United States.

What the plaque says

WWII Meeting of Presidents Camacho and Roosevelt Upon his inauguration in 1933, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt pledged a "Good Neighbor" policy toward Latin American nations based on mutual cooperation and respect. This proved valuable during World War II when several of these countries, including Mexico, joined the U.S. to declare war against the Axis Powers. Mexico and the U.S. enjoyed a good relationship during the war, highlighted by thousands of Mexican nationals serving in the U.S. Armed Forces and creation of the Bracero program, which brought laborers from Mexico to perform agricultural work in the U.S. In April 1943, President Roosevelt took a 16-day train trip to inspect twelve military installations and four war production plants. The highlight was a reciprocal visit with Mexico's President Manuel Ávila Camacho, the first face-to-face meeting between leaders of the adjoining countries in 34 years. They met in Monterrey on April 20 with a contingent including First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico George Messersmith and State Department officials. Thousands of cheering residents welcomed the American delegation, and events included a seven-course banquet and review of troops. The following day the train crossed the border at Laredo and continued to Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, where cadets from Mexico were among those receiving flight training. The group was escorted to the administration building (later CNATRA headquarters) and lunch at the cadet mess hall. Eleanor Roosevelt met with waves, and President Camacho greeted cadets from Mexico and their ground crews. The culmination of the visit was dozens of planes in a flyover and dive-bombing exhibition. (2021)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mirador de la Flor — 7.0 mi
  Corpus Christi's bayfront memorial to Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, the Tejano singer from this city, killed in 1995 at twenty-three, visited by about thirty thousand people a year.
• Art Museum of South Texas — 7.8 mi
  Philip Johnson's 1972 museum on the Corpus Christi bayfront, joined in 2006 by Ricardo Legorreta's Miller Wing, holding more than 2,000 works mostly from Texas and the Americas.
• USS Lexington Museum on the Bay — 8.0 mi
  An Essex-class carrier of 1943 moored off North Beach, the Blue Ghost that Tokyo Rose kept reporting sunk, and the Navy's training carrier for nearly three decades after.
• Texas State Aquarium — 8.0 mi
  A nonprofit aquarium on the tip of Corpus Christi Beach built around the Gulf and the Caribbean, with the largest coastal wildlife rescue center in Texas behind the exhibits.

More markers nearby

• Ward Island — steps away
• Karankawa People — 1.0 mi
• Rabbi Sidney A. Wolf — 2.9 mi
• General W.W. Sterling — 3.0 mi