jornaleros, part two
02.06.05 // 10:29 p.m.

Part II. Part I.

Back in September after the Community Activites Committee completed the hearings of 50-something community service projects in four nights, deliberated, and allocated funds to the projects each committee member chose about six projects that we'd be a liaison for. Once the academic year got underway and the projects started going out to site, recruiting volunteers and spending the money we had allocated we were supposed to get in touch with them and find out the project's schedules. I didn't do any of my visits in the fall quarter, so this quarter I had to catch up.

Yesterday morning I woke up earlier than I do on Saturdays and headed to the West LA Job Center, a satellite of IDEPSCA the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California. What I found both impressed and motivated me, but it also reaffirmed something I already knew: our culture values education.

I chose to be the liaison between CAC and el Proyecto de Jornaleros for three main reasons:

  1. I'm interested in popular education and Freireian pedagogy.
  2. My interests in day laborers sparked by Juan.
  3. It's a CPO project so I know that students have a critical understanding of the issues and don't have the "Peace Corps mentality."

Once a week the volunteers go to two different job centers in West LA and Downtown LA. They devote their Saturday mornings to teaching ESL classes to jornaleros. They prepare the curriculum diligently during the week with the input of all volunteers as well as the input of the jornaleros based on what topics they would like to learn more about. Some of the topics include culture, the war in Iraq, music, work, and the Mexican-American war.

Once at the site, the coordinators split up the jornaleros -- almost always all men -- into three groups based on ability, beginning, intermediate and advanced and begin the day's lesson in a manner in line with popular education principals. The directors are trained in this method at IDEPSCA and it shows in the way they organize the volunteers and facilitate the class.

I observed the advanced group. There were 4 men. All could read and spoke a great deal of English. The fourth year Latina student majoring in International Development Studies and Portuguese led the group with the help of a first time volunteer.

She emphasized that the whole group would be teaching each other. She and the other volunteer obviously did know more, but each jornalero would contribute to the group. Rather than treat the students as empty vessels to be filled with knowledge, she let them show what they had learned. Each jornalero corrected the others. She problem posed and ensured that everyone was participating. And it worked. The men were all fully engaged, no one was bored or disinterested. They learned more English too. They learned that the 'qu' sound in English is not pronounced with a 'k' sound like in Spanish (ie que) but a 'kw' sound. They added new words to their vocabulary, words that would be important as they negotiated with potential employers or tried to fill out a job application.

The jornaleros gained from the classes, but you could also tell that the 9 volunteers gained a lot too. The project directors gain leadership skills and the volunteers get to hone teaching/facilitating skills and in some cases improve their Spanish language skills. For some, it might spark an interest in working with labor organizations and helping to unionize workers. For others, it might be the jumping board into teaching. And still for others, it might help them recognize the importance of immigration reform.

I was thoroughly impressed with the way the volunteers ran the classes, engaged the students/jornaleros, and how efficient their methods were. It wasn't perfect, but these students aren't experts in teaching English as a second language.

I left the Job Center feeling empowered. I hope the jornaleros felt that way too. I could only wish that there were Job Centers back when Juan was around. I'm sure he would have been in the advanced group, cracking jokes and helping to improve his peers' English skills.

Reflection
My experience at the Job Center made me reflect on a few things. If cultural deficit models state that Mexicans do not value education, that it is something in our culture that leads to our low educational attainment and poverty rates, then how would an adherent of such a theory explain the jornaleros at the Job Center? How could he tell me that Mexicans do not value education or don't want to learn English when I just witnessed more than two dozen young to middle aged men sacrifice hours they could be working to learn English? These men weren't just trying to be literate and functional in English, they also wanted to gain a critical understanding of issues occurring in this country and abroad.

What about the students who started this project? Did they get this idealism from the their professors? Probably not. I have a sense that they came to UCLA with a sense of wanting to serve, give back, and that their coursework in Chicana/o Studies, Latin American Studies, or International Development Studies (as well as other social sciences) further cemented their desire to work to facilitate the empowerment of those men and women who "are living in the shadows."

Finally, does a large research university in a diverse urban setting have the responsibility to fund projects like this? I say yes. Service to the community is part of the three-fold mission of most institutions of higher education. Of course they educate, but they also do research and provide service the community.

Comments: 2 comments [this feature no longer works]

Me siento: sad that the Eagles lost
Escuchando: "twilight" by elliott smith

M�s reciente:
Searches - 09.16.05
the big move - 07.29.05
mother and daughter: a comparative analysis - 07.28.05
jardineros y dom�sticas - 07.27.05
tough question - 07.25.05

antes // despu�s


star star star