(Im)migrant Farmworker Families as Transformational Resisters: Educational Engagement Across Borders

• In Event: Bridging Home, Community, and School: Latino Parent Aspirations for Higher Education

Abstract

This paper uses Latino Critical Theory (Solorzano &Yosso, 2001) and political economy theory (Mitchell, 2003) as frameworks to examine Solorzano and Delgado Bernal’s (2001) concept of transformational resistance as applied to the educational engagement of Mexican (im)migrant farmworking families. These frameworks positions migrant parents as individuals with agency and the capacity to resist and transform structures, contributing positively to the education of their children, and challenging deficit notions of parental involvement that posit migrant farmworker families as disengaged and indifferent to their children’s educational progress. In this paper, I utilize a qualitative methodological approach and case study design (Yin, 2003) relying on oral history and in-depth interviews, participant observations, and historical archives of farmworker families (N=20) in the California’s San Joaquin Valley. Findings reveal that most parents in this study engage in both internal and external forms of transformational resistance when their life narratives and practices of educational engagement are analyzed from a socio-historical perspective.

Author

• Pedro E. Nava, Mills College