No. 18
Septiembre - Diciembre
2007

This article deals with the lack of educational opportunities for the great majority of Latin Americans who migrate to the United States. This migratory flow represents the largest contingency of migrants in Latin America. This article reflects upon the great challenges Latin American migration poses noting that schools need to offer alternatives to youth for personal and community development. A diverse educational offering is also needed to attend the diversity of migrants. It is considered important to strengthen of the non-formal educational mode as well as to revise the pertinence of concepts related to intercultural and bilingual education. Finally, the diverse conditions and situations of the migrants must be considered a part of the context and field of educational intervention in order to transform realities.

This article presents the general background of the evolution of the characteristics and of migratory patterns in the population of Latin America. Some outstanding traits and the perceptions they invoke that have caught the attention of specialists in the last few years are explored; the particularities that migration adopts are explored as well as the underlying problems. A central point concerns the need to do research and to form specialists in the vast field of migration faced with the complex nature of the phenomenon and the profound consequences that it brings to the multiple actors involved. The article attempts to show the multidimensional character of migration and the way in which it challenges the production of knowledge and the need to educate many sectors. Also, it emphasizes the fact that it is necessary to encourage sufficient knowledge of migration and its consequences in order to facilitate adequate decision making that is respectful of human rights.

Irma M. Olmedo
“Today We March,
Tomorrow we Vote”
The Role of Teachers in Demonstrations in Favor of Immigrants

This article examines educational dimensions of recent immigrant rights’ mobilizations in the United States by exploring the activities of teachers to address the controversies in their classrooms. Teachers in Chicago schools were interviewed about the projects, activities, and lessons they undertook in relation to immigration and the immigrant rights mobilizations of 2006. A typology of teachers was developed based on the rationales they provided for organizing classroom projects to address these issues. The typology included the following: teacher as curriculum developer, as anthropologist/ethnographer, as citizenship educator, as psychologist and as socio/political activist. A holistic/integrated orientation that characterized instruction in one school is described to demonstrate what is possible when teachers collaborate with other teachers led by supportive administrators to address controversial issues in the classroom while engaging students in their communities.

Hugo Ángeles Cruz
The Situation of Guatemalan Agricultural Workers along the Southern Border of Mexico

In order to develop civic and ethical Along the southern border of Mexico there are different international migratory flows of workers who arrive to work in the area or with the intention of crossing Mexico to enter the United Status. Among the more traditional flows of workers who come as temporary or seasonal labor, there is this a group of Guatemalan agricultural workers who, since the end of the nineteenth century, have been working in the state of Chiapas in activities related to the growth and harvesting of agricultural products, an activity that has allowed for the economic development of some regions such as Soconusco. An important percentage of this migration is composed of family groups, in which women, boys, girls and teenagers play a significant part. This migrant population suffers precarious work conditions and lacks access to education and health care. However, to date no existing programs attend to the needs of this group in spite of the fact that binational governmental commissions have been formed to deal with this problem.

Victoria Quiroz Becerra
Collective Action as a Process of Learning and Integration. The Mexican Associations in New York

This essay examines the work of associations of Mexicans in New York in order to understand the role they play in the learning process and in the integration of the Mexican community in the life of the city. The associations provide basic services that serve as tools for the integration of Mexicans into the daily life of New York. Also, they carry out cultural activities through which the Mexican community creates spaces and gains visibility in the city of the skyscrapers. Finally, the associations are key pieces in the civic insertion of the Mexican community in New York. This reflection is based on field work in course carried out in the Mexican community of New York.

The author reflects on his experience as an educator of youth and adults in the city of Sao Paulo. He examines the experience of having lived all his life in this metropolis while most of his students are from rural communities. This article considers the displacement of working students as transit among diverse cultural modes. He suggests that a prolonged experience of sharing with migrant students can generate in the educator an experience of defamiliarization with the city and forms of knowledge until then familiar to him. On discussing some modalities of the relationship between scholastic knowledge and popular culture, the author proposes that a transformation in the perspective of the educator on the world in which he lives comes from scholastic situations equally transforming from the perspective of the migrant students: circumstances which encourage the unification of experiences and knowledge in a general commitment to culture.

 

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