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1 I Rosa Navarra is a thirty-eight-year-old mother of two who grew up in a farmworker household. Rosa has reason to celebrate. She has achieved her long-term goals of completing an associate’s degree and getting a good job in border security . She hopes her sons will find an easier path than hers to financial stability. Farm labor framed the first twenty-five years of Rosa’s life. She remembers helping her parents in the fields as a young child. Her first job was in farm labor and she continued in that work until she was in her mid-twenties. She resolved early on to get the education that would provide her with a better life, but these plans were initially derailed by a pregnancy. She attributes her eventual achievement to her own determination and the support of her family. She says, “So I got pregnant, and I knew it was going to be hard. But I always told myself in the back of my mind and in my heart—I will finish. I will at least get my associate’s of science. Someday I will do it. Whether it’s with the kids or not, I’m going to do it. And I thank the Lord that I did something, you know.” For a number of years Rosa worked and took classes at the local community college. When she was out of work, she attended school and received welfare. She frequently worked the graveyard shift to minimize her time away from her boys. She has relied heavily on her father and brothers to step in and care for sons. She explains their assistance in these terms: “We’re real united as a family, so it is cool.” Rosa’s achievement is impressive. Neither of her parents, a U.S.-born father and a Mexico-born mother, ever attended school; both speak mainly Spanish . Her father and two brothers continue in farm work. Rosa relishes her own accomplishments, but fears that if her sons are not careful, they might yet end up in farm labor. INTRODUCTION For me, my goal for my kids is that you don’t have to suffer like Mom suffered. And you have to be better than Mom because it’s getting harder. And you don’t have to go to the fields—unless you become a bum and then that’s where you’re going to end up. But God forbid. You play it smart, stay out of trouble. —Rosa Navarra, second-generation Mexican American 2 Daughters and Granddaughters of Farmworkers In contrast to Rosa Navarra, Claudia Gomez and her family, husband Manuel and five children, are currently experiencing hard times. The couple had been hopeful about their economic situation when Manuel moved from field labor to construction work a few years ago, but he has had a disabling accident and Claudia is currently unemployed. In better days, when Manuel did construction by day, she worked at night. As she says, “I don’t want to leave my children with no one.” Now Claudia is especially frustrated because her husband, who cannot work, will not take much responsibility for housework at home. She states, “He won’t make breakfast, not clean, no nothing. He says,‘That’s not a man’s job, that a girl’s job.’” Claudia, a thirty-year-old second-generation Mexican American, tries to be realistic about her job prospects. She believes that her lack of education and family size work against her. She says,“When I apply for jobs, I haven’t tried to apply for the good-paying jobs, more than the minimum [wage]. I don’t have my high school diploma. I didn’t go to college. And then, on top of that, I have to say that I am a mother of five children. If I were hiring, I would say, why would I hire this person? I would hire the gal that is out of college, or no kids, no nothing, you know what I mean?” Claudia’s current circumstances are related, at least in part, to what she calls a difficult home life as a child. Her immigrant farmworker parents, adjusting as they were to a new environment, did not understand the importance of education in their new setting. They did not encourage her to do well in school, and, in fact, impeded her educational progress. Claudia explains that when she had homework to do, her parents would turn off the...

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